#estrellami-1

Wayne thinks about how he was when he was young. The lengths he’d gone to just to get a girl to smile at him, laugh. The things he’d put up with just to have a shot at getting in her pants. He knows there’s no way in hell he would’ve sat there and changed bandages. Especially not with the kinds of wounds Eddie has.

The first time Wayne saw them, it took every ounce of willpower he’d ever had not to vomit.

“It’s bad, huh?” Eddie asks, eyes wide. “Hand me the mirror, let me see!” Wayne, trying his best to play nursemaid (was there ever a person worse suited to that?) insists no, it isn’t all that bad. Not at all.

But he doesn’t give Eddie the mirror either. Of course, it doesn’t take too long before he can sit up and look at what had happened to him on his own, peeling off the bandages and seeing what a liar Wayne is.

Somehow the wounds look worse as they heal. They look red, inflamed. Wayne knows they’re driving Eddie crazy with the urge to scratch.

The only time Eddie gets out is for doctor appointments. They’ve got a wheelchair loaned from the hospital just for these trips. It’s not that Eddie can’t walk, more just that going any more than the length of the trailer takes everything he has.

Wayne asks about the itching, about the redness. One of the gashes above his left him looks like it’s got yellow pus, that’s bad right? But the doctor says no. Eddie’s wounds are healing well; they’re doing everything right.

Wayne thanks her. It’s too bad Steve isn’t allowed at these, because both he and Eddie know he’s the one doing everything right.

That evening, Eddie is resting when Steve pulls up. He smiles, and Wayne’s relieved he’s finally ditched that phony wow, it’s so great to see you smile of his as he bounds over. He’s heard too much to be won over by the Harrington charm, and every time Steve tried, Wayne only ever thought about all the fathers he’s flashed that smile at.

I promise, your daughter’s in safe hands with me, sir. Bullshit. Wayne doesn’t need that, has no patience for forced politeness. Besides, they’re way beyond all that these days.

Once you’ve teamed up with someone to wrestle an injured, swearing metal head out of his shirt to see just how bad the tear in the stitches is, you don’t need polite chitchat anymore.

Wayne’s on the porch smoking, a habit he’s trying to give up, if no other reason than it’ll give him more of a high ground in getting Eddie to quit.

“How’d it go at the doctor?” Steve asks.

“Good,” Wayne tells him. “She says you’re doing a good job.”

Steve’s taken aback for a moment but then looks happy enough to get the credit. He shrugs. “Well, you know, I’m just lucky I’ve got such a great patient,” he jokes.

Wayne laughs. They both know that if Wayne is the person worst suited to the role of caregiver, there’s no one worse suited to the role of care-receiver than Eddie.

Steve asks if Eddie’s asleep and heads inside. He hears the TV going after a while, and when he goes in to start dinner, Eddie’s asleep on the couch, curled up with his head on Steve’s shoulder. It’s pretty typical for him to sleep most of the day away when he’s gone to the doctor, and Wayne’s not even sure why Steve bothers to come over.

Although, come to think of it, Steve’s over almost every day now. Wayne can’t remember the last time a day passed without him hanging around. Sometimes he shows up in the morning, sometimes at night. He has a job of some kind, and sometimes Wayne thinks if it wasn’t for the job, Steve would be at their trailer 24/7.

Even with the job, it’s getting pretty close. He asks Steve about this, why he doesn’t just head home since Eddie’s probably going to be out for the rest of the night. Steve just shrugs, like the idea of leaving hadn’t occurred to him.

He’s got his arm over Eddie’s shoulders, is absently brushing Eddie’s messy hair over his ear. He’s looking at Eddie, completely zonked out, mouth open and drooling a little on Steve’s shoulder, and Wayne’s trying not to read too much into that look. If he didn’t know better, he would think that look answered his question. Why don’t you go home, Steve?

The look says the kid is already there. But it’s too soon for him to be looking at Eddie that way. They’re just kids. And this, whatever this is, it’s brand new. Have they even been on a date yet? Wayne knows they haven’t because he’s seen this entire relationship play out right in front of his face.

He knows he’s being an idiot now. First, he didn’t trust that Harrington was serious. Now he’s worried he’s too serious. Maybe he should just write it out, make some guidelines so Steve knows precisely what amount of serious Wayne would personally be comfortable with.

Probably he’s just going to have to get over it. It’s better this way, with Steve around, really. Because he really is a lot better with all this medical shit than Wayne. And it’s not just dressing the wounds and applying the salve. It’s how he is with Eddie, who could really win awards for being the worst goddamned patient.

He's been like this all his life. At five years old he’d gotten chickenpox and every now and again Wayne still has a nightmare about it. His mom had all but dumped him on Wayne’s doorstep, unable to handle the small monster that her normally sweet (if not rambunctious) kid has become.

Five-year-old Eddie is a terror. He’s itchy all over, and he won’t stop scratching. The scratching just hurts him, though, which makes him scream more. Wayne’s chasing him around with a bottle of some pink gunk his mom got, trying to explain to the brat that this will help.

But he won’t sit still, won’t let Wayne dab the stuff into his skin. And Wayne is a grown man facing down an overgrown infant and the infant is winning this fucking fight because when he cries it makes Wayne want to cry.

When Eddie hurts, Wayne can’t take it. He yells that scratching will make it better, Wayne doesn’t have it in him to get him to stop. He doesn’t want pink goo smeared on him; Wayne can’t force him. He wants to eat chocolate for dinner and dumps the rest of his food on the floor? Well, actually that did piss him off.

But he still got him the chocolate.

After Eddie became his responsibility full-time, he got a little better about being the bad guy. Setting rules, enforcing them. Mostly they have an easy understanding, a few lines Eddie knows not cross. And if does, there are consequences.

And he yells and shouts that Wayne isn’t his real dad, that he’s an asshole and Eddie’s running away the moment he can, and Wayne learns to nod and sip his beer and wait for it to blow over.

He knows what all that bullshit means. You don’t tell someone you hate them, that they’re ruining your life and you never want to see them again unless you know it’s safe to do it. That they’ll still be there, that they’ll always be there.

So he has learned to say no to Eddie over the years. But that’s regular Eddie. Sick Eddie is a whole other ballgame.

And this? This isn’t just Eddie with a cold, or Eddie who got dared to jump off his friend's roof and broke his arm. This is Eddie who almost died. This is Eddie trapped in their trailer for months, and that’s already after an extended hospital stay to get him over the worst of it.

The kid is miserable and pathetic and covered in stitches, and Wayne cannot make himself be the bad guy. It’s like he’s five years old all over again. He’s actually even scratching, too. The stitches are itchy as they heal and Wayne can’t help but feel like it’s 15 years earlier, and he’s chasing that screaming kid around the trailer with a bottle of calamine lotion.

Steve, on the other hand, takes none of his shit. One day Wayne comes back and finds Eddie, furious, arms crossed over his Megadeth t-shirt, sitting on the couch wearing oven mitts on both hands. Steve’s next to him on the couch, reading Wayne’s newspaper and looking smug.

It’s not like things are perfect between them. He heard squabbling sometimes from Eddie’s room, but Wayne never knows what it’s about. It’s not yelling or anything, so he can’t really hear what they’re saying. Sometimes he gets bits and pieces. He knows they had some fight about a girl, someone named Nancy.

From what he could piece together, Eddie thought Steve had feelings for her, and Steve thought Eddie was an idiot.

A few times, he’s been tempted to listen at the door, and figure out what they’re bickering about. But that’s a bad idea because the bickering usually ends in long stretches of silence, and Wayne doesn’t need any more information about those long stretches of silence, no sir.

There’s one day he doesn’t have to listen at the door, though, because they take the fight to him. Steve is storming out of Eddie’s room, telling him leave it alone, alright?

Which of course Eddie will not. Eddie limps after him, pulling Steve over to the couch, practically wrestling him down onto it while trying to take off Steve’s shirt. That’s what it looks like he’s doing, at least. But he figures that can't be what’s happening. Wayne clears his throat, as if maybe the two kids somehow forgot he was sitting right there drinking coffee.

Steve’s on the couch now, doing his best to shove Eddie off without actually shoving him. “Wayne, help me get Steve’s shirt,” Eddie snaps.

So alright, that is exactly what’s happening.

“Uh…” is all Wayne manages. He wonders if he’s gone wrong somewhere, and somehow Eddie has confused I’ve got no issue with you and Harrington dating with… whatever this is.

“Eddie, leave it,” Steve is practically growling. “I said it’s fine, I’ve for it under control—”

“Bullshit you do, dumbass—”

Ah, young love.

Eddie is practically on top of Steve now, and not even in a way that might make Wayne uncomfortable. He’s on his knees on the couch, yanking at Steve’s shirt.

“You better cut this shit out, Munson, you’re gonna tear your stitches!” Steve says, sounding very commanding for someone who is practically in a headlock.

“Then stop fighting me, man,” Eddie snaps. He’s obviously gambling on Steve being the mature one here. And Steve, knowing that Eddie has never been the person to blink first in a game of chicken, drops his arms to the side. “Good, Christ…”

Defeated, Harrington let’s Eddie pull his shirt over his head. Wayne wonders if he should start clearing his throat again. He glances at the door.

But then Eddie is saying he should get the bandages and that ointment they just got and Wayne finally sees what Eddie was getting at. He’s not the best caregiver, but he’s been dealing with Eddie’s wounds enough to know what they look like when an infections is starting.

Now it all makes sense. Why Steve knew exactly how to treat Eddie’s wounds, how to care for the stitches and reapply the bandages so perfectly. He can see the same careful bandages all along Steve’s chest, covering wounds he’d bet money look just like Eddie’s.

The wounds on his chest and at his sides are taken care of, covered and likely healing well. The wounds on the kid's back are another story.

Wayne doesn’t know what happened, but it looks like Harrington’s had big chunks of skin scraped off there. It almost looks like road rash. Eddie waves Wayne over, and they take a look.

“I said I’ve got it under control,” Steve mutters. But he’s not fighting anymore, just sitting there sideways on the couch, arms crossed over his bare chest.

“Oh, so you want to let these get super fucking infected?” Eddie asks. “is that the plan? Because I have an issue with it, Steve!”

Steve continues to protest. It’s not getting infected. It definitely is. It’s not that bad. It’s definitely going to be.

But now it’s Eddie’s turn to clean up Steve’s wounds, apply that ointment and bandage him back up. They give him his shirt back, and Steve’s still glaring, but it feels a little less angry and more put on now. He mutters thanks, and Wayne almost believes he means it.

The three of them stay up and watch some movies on TV. Eddie falls asleep pretty fast, which they’re both used to. During a commercial break, Wayne decides to make things awkward.

“You’re so good with Eddie’s wounds, don’t be stupid about yours,” Wayne says. He probably could’ve said it better, but he hopes Harrington sees the intention behind the clumsy sentiment.

Steve just sighs. “I don’t have anyone to help me,” he says quietly. “I can’t get to those on my own…” he tells Wayne they were healing, it was fine, and he’s having regular checkups just like Eddie. But between the last one and now, something started bleeding again, and he didn’t know what to do. He doesn't have anyone to help him.

Wayne just shakes his head. “You know that’s not true.”

Steve just looks at him for a moment, then looks at Eddie, lying sprawled across him on the couch.

“You’re pretty good at taking care of him,” Wayne goes on. “Give him a chance to take care of you sometimes.”

Neither of them really says much after that, and Wayne figures they don’t need to keep going on. There’s no point making polite chitchat; they’re beyond that now.

He doesn’t say the other thing either, because it’s the kind of thing that would feel patronizing if he says it out loud. He doesn’t know what Steve’s home life is like, but between those infected wounds on his back and just the amount of hours Steve spends with them every day, he can take a guess.

Wayne always thought that Eddie was too much like his mom, and it’s not like he can’t see how she’s in there.

Eddie hummed along to the cassette he had playing, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel in time with the music. It was one of his go-to tapes, a mix tape he’d put together himself, that mostly consisted of bootleg recordings from concerts and tours he’d never been to.  

There was a record shop in the town about an hour from Hawkins that had all kinds of cool shit like that, and Eddie had spent hours there combing through the LPs and cassettes, trying not to spend every cent he had all in one go.  

An Ozzy song started, and Eddie’s fingers paused on the steering wheel.  

…Pictures building in my head, nothing done and nothing said / talking to me with your eyes, what they say is no surprise / things are so much different now, but nothing lasts forever…  

Well, if that wasn’t fucking true. Nothing did last forever, especially nothing good.  

He thought it would be better this way, rip the band-aid off quickly.  

The longer something went on, the more he’d want it. The more it would hurt when it ended.  

That didn’t mean this didn’t fucking suck. That it hadn’t been a special kind of torture walking out on Steve like that yesterday.  

If Friday had been a surreal, insane alternate dimension where none of the usual rules applied, then Saturday had been some kind of perfect, weird little bubble.  

For a few hours, it seemed almost like it was real, like it was something he could have. Friday was a strange dream, a weird impossible world where the most popular guy in school kept smiling at him, fucking flirting with him. Telling him he loved his laugh and his smile, telling him people didn’t know how good he looked.  

Every time Steve had said something strange and ridiculous that made Eddie smile, the guy had just smiled back at him. Like that’s what he’d been after all along. All he wanted was to get another smile from him, get him to laugh again. And when he did? The look on Steve’s face was like he’d accomplished something big and important.  

That wasn’t the only look, either. Jesus, had anyone ever looked at him the way Steve had on Friday? The guy was out of his mind, so Eddie took it all with about a thousand grains of salt, but he couldn’t pretend it wasn’t flattering.  

Not just flattering, because it wasn’t just some guy acting all loopy, telling him he was hot. It was Steve Harrington.  

So fine, maybe it had been stupid. Maybe it was all his fault. He’d played with fire, flown too close to the damn sun, and now he was crashing and burning and mixing his fucking metaphors.  

But when Saturday rolled around, he had to know. It wouldn’t be the same, of course. Steve had been out of his mind on Friday. He’d known it would be different and that Steve would probably be embarrassed enough to die, if he could remember how he acted.  

But he had to know. And he wanted to make sure the guy was okay. It wasn’t just every day he walked by some passed-out jock lying face-first on the concrete. The panic he’d felt, turning Steve over, checking his fucking pulse… well, that was hard to shake.  

So he’d gone back to the hospital, and he’d kept him company and offered him a ride home, when it became apparent that Steve had just about no one else.  

It struck him as weird that he’d only planned to call a cab. Even if his parents were the worst, he must have had someone else he could call. What about all his asshole friends?  

He hadn’t been expecting the rest of it. Offering to stay so Steve wouldn’t be alone hadn’t been some ploy to get into the guy's pants. Steve was kind of fun to hang out with, so it wasn’t exactly a chore, and he really didn’t want to head into school Monday morning hearing Steve had fucking died over the weekend or some shit.  

He didn’t need that on his conscious.  

Eddie had stayed. And at first, it had been normal. Fun, not a big deal. They hung out, Eddie teased him about his movie collection (or lack thereof). They talked about school and their classes and why school and their classes sucked so hard.  

It was totally normal until it wasn’t. Until he’d looked up and caught Steve staring at him. It was the same look, the same expression from the day before.  

No one had ever looked at Eddie that way before. And Steve, well, he was still concussed, sure… but he was fine. Wasn’t acting weird, had gotten over the no-filter thing from the day before. He was normal now, just Steve again.  

But he was still staring at Eddie with that wide-eyed awed look. Staring at him like there was something to see. Something worth looking at.  

Kissing him had been stupid. But it hadn’t seemed stupid, at the time.  

Actually, at the time, it had felt fucking fantastic. He had heard rumours and whispers about Steve before, of course. Had seen groups of giggling girls watching him in the hallways, staring just on the off chance that Steve might turn around and grace them with a smile.  

He had assumed it was all bullshit. Sure, the guy was hot (no one could deny that), but he was, at the end of the day, just another brain-dead, self-obsessed jock joiner. There was nothing special about Steve Harrington, and the fact that people acted like he was some insane sex-god was laughable.  

Usually, Eddie hated being wrong. This time he’d been okay with it.  

Not that enough had happened to tell if Steve could live up to the sex-god thing, but based on the limited taste he’d gotten… well, he could imagine.  

Kissing Steve Harrington was like that rare instance where your friend spends days or weeks hyping something up to you, some album you had to listen to, some movie you had to watch. It was a masterpiece, they said. It would change your life.  

Most of the time, when that happened, you get around to watching the movie or playing the album, and it’s just okay. It’s good, sure. You probably would’ve liked it better if they hadn’t set the bar so high.  

But every now and then… something lived up to the hype. It was just as good as they said it would be, maybe even better. And you wish you could forget it so that you could go back to the first time you experienced it and have your life changed all over again.  

That was kissing Steve Harrington. For all the whispers and the rumours, the vapid giggling girls peering after Steve in the hallway… it was even better than the hype.  

Eddie wished he could forget it. He didn’t need the memory of stupid Steve Harrington and his stupid mouth, and his gorgeous fucking face. He didn’t need it because it hurt too much to know he couldn’t have it again.  

But it was better this way. Would’ve been worse if he’d let it go on, actually gotten to the part where he got Steve out of his clothes and figured out what it would be like to do more than just imagine.  

Maybe if it had just been that, just screwing around a bit and little else, it would’ve been fine. But Eddie knew it wouldn’t have been just that. Just making out with Steve had practically been more than that. The guy wanted to know about him. He wanted to hear about playing at the Hideout, and he’d laughed at all of Eddie’s best anecdotes.  

He even wanted to know about Hellfire Club and his friends. Eddie did his best to explain, and Steve asked questions and nodded along, but he could tell the guy thought he was insane.  

But he listened anyways.  

Eddie had even let Steve tell him about fucking sports. And to Steve’s credit, listening to him talk about it, he could almost see the appeal. Not quite, though.  

All of that was too much. More than the kissing, and the way he couldn’t stop himself from moving his hands over Steve’s body, feeling Steve shudder every time he touched him… it was the talking that got to him.  

It was too easy. Laughing with Steve, talking about stupid shit. It was comfortable. It was fun.   

Eddie knew how easy it would be to do it again. Talk to Steve, hang out with him a few more times. Kiss him… do more than kiss him.  

If it had just been a hook-up, Eddie might’ve been fine. But Steve Harrington wasn’t going to be just a hook-up. If he kissed him again, if they spent more time together… well, Eddie could see himself getting attached to the guy.  

More than attached. Worse than attached.  

And then would come the day when Steve stopped returning his calls, when he seemed less and less interested in whatever the hell was going on in Eddie’s life. Then one day, he’d get up to leave, button his jeans back up and say, “this has been fun, but I think we should call it quits. Prom's coming up, and I’m going with Becky Cheerleader. See ya, Munson.”  

And that would be that.  

It was too much. He’d gone through similar shit before, and it sucked. But this time, he couldn’t take it. Refused to put himself in that position.  

Not this time. Not with Steve. He wouldn’t survive it.  

So he had done it quick and gotten out of there. It had been hard, leaving Steve like that. He had looked so hurt and confused and— 

Eddie shut his eyes. He breathed out through his mouth. He didn’t need to think about it. He had done the right thing.  

Harrington had protested. He really thought that come Monday morning, he would still want Eddie in the same way. That he would keep wanting him, even after the bubble they’d been in that weekend burst and they saw each other at school.  

Eddie was pretty confident a week would be enough to bring Harrington back to his senses. Remind him of who he was and who Eddie was.  

This thing between them was never meant to be something more than it was. It was never going to work.  

And Eddie was sure that when Steve had woken up that morning, he’d headed out to school and come to the exact same conclusion.  

*** A few minutes before the start of second period, Eddie stood in front of his locker and waged an internal debate. He was here at school, sure. He’d promised himself he’d be going to class.  

And yet. Did he want to?  

Eddie put a hand in his locker, pulling his textbook out an inch. He pushed it back in, considering. Fuck class.  

He was about to close his locker when a voice made him jump.  

“Hey, Eddie.”  

“ Shitfuckinghell—”  

Eddie jumped back, slammed his locker closed and whirled around. Steve looked startled. “Shit, you okay?” he asked, concerned.  

Eddie could’ve strangled him. The fuck was Steve doing at his locker, giving him a heart attack and then acting all concerned about it? What was he even doing here, talking to Eddie in public instead of ignoring him for the rest of high school?  

The sick bastard was playing mind games with him.  

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Eddie huffed. He transferred his book bag to the other shoulder, glaring. “You want something?”  

“Not really,” Steve said, shrugging. He looked so casual, too. He was wearing a striped blue polo shirt, the kind that showed off his arms and his stupid jock muscles. It was a perfectly normal shirt and it fit him in a perfectly normal way. The kind of thing he absolutely wore all the time.  

But after this weekend, it somehow looked obscene.  

“You weren’t in class, I just wanted to see if you were alright,” Steve went on. He leaned back against the locker next to Eddie’s, crossed his arms. “You good?”  

Eddie stared at him, his brow furrowed. Steve continued to have a perfectly polite, very reasonable expression of casual inquiry on his face.  

“I’m not in class a lot,” Eddie said. Somehow this didn’t feel real. Even if he hadn’t spent half the week with his tongue down Steve’s throat and the other half trying to pretend he didn’t ever need to do that again, this would be weird. Steve standing there talking to him, casually wondering why he wasn’t in class.  

He didn’t think it was his imagination that people were staring.  

Steve nodded. “Yeah, math fucking blows,” he said. “And it’s like, when am I even going to use this? Trig and shit? How many jobs need you to be able to calculate the length of a hypotenuse?”  

“Um,” Eddie said. “Triangle measurer?” 

Steve grinned. “Guess I’ll have to cross that off my list of prospects.”  

Eddie laughed a little. It was easy, to let himself laugh. To let his shoulders relax a little, as he stood and talked to Steve.  

That, of course, was the problem. He needed to say something, tell Steve to cut this shit out, whatever it was. Did he want to be friends? Was this psychological warfare?  

Whatever it was, it needed to stop. But before Eddie could tell him this, the bell rang. Steve rolled his eyes, said he’d see him later, and walked off.  

Eddie stared after him, wondering what the fuck just happened.  

*** At lunch, Eddie discovered that he had been right to think people were staring. Him and Steve, talking in the hallway; it was something people noticed.  

They stood out.  

“So, was I having a stroke earlier or did I seriously see you talking to Steve Harrington before second period?”  

This was from Jeff, the moment Eddie sat down at their lunch table. The moment he sat down his tray, actually.  

Three pairs of eyes stared at him, and Eddie glared at them all.  

None of his friends knew he was into guys, but he’d like to think they wouldn’t really care if they did. He’d had an idea to tell them once or twice, mostly when he met someone he felt some kind of way about. But it never worked out, always ended bad.  

So it never seemed like anything worth talking about.  

Even if they had known, he didn’t think he would’ve had it in him to say anything about Steve. Not now.  

He decided to go with something that was more or less the truth. A highly abbreviated version of it, but factual.  

“Yeah, it’s a crazy story, we actually kind of hung out with this weekend, after—”  

His friends all spoke at the same time.  

Keith sputtered, “ What?”   

“Oh, so you’re having a stroke, too,” Jeff said.  

And from Gareth, “Bullshit.”  

Eddie looked at Gareth, ignoring the other two. “What’d you say?”  

Gareth, never one to back down from a challenge, leaned forward. “I said bullshit, man,” Gareth repeated, his eyes narrowed. “No way, you’re full of it.”  

“Fuck you, dude, the hell would I lie about that for?”  

“Uh, cry for attention? Cry for help?”  

“You’re fucking with us?” Jeff added. Keith nodded in support of this one.  

Gareth raised his eyebrows. “Take your pick, we got more.”  

“You know, screw all of you, okay? I don’t owe you shit. Believe what you want to believe,” Eddie huffed. Bastards were supposed to be his friends. Granted, if their positions were reversed, he would have absolutely called bullshit too, but that was beside the point.  

A terrible, evil Cheshire-cat grin grew on Gareth’s face. “Why don’t we just ask him?”  

Steve Harrington had entered the cafeteria, trailing behind a group of his jock friends. He had kind of a glum look on his face and wasn’t laughing and joking with the rest of the assholes.  

To Eddie’s utter horror, Gareth raised his arm straight up and yelled, “Hey Steve!”  

“Dude whatthefuck cut that out!” Eddie snapped, smacking him on the arm. Even Jeff and Keith looked horrified now. They wanted to tease Eddie, not get their asses kicked by the king of the jocks.  

Gareth shrugged him off. “Steve, dude, come here!”  

Eddie put his hands over his face. He couldn’t watch. But he also peaked out through two fingers, because he couldn’t not watch. It was like a grisly car accident. He couldn’t look away.  

Slowly, frowning, Steve turned. He caught sight of Gareth, waving at him from Eddie’s table. His face split in a grin.  

Then he waved off his friends, turned and headed to their table.  

Gareth froze, his arm still raised.  

“Eddie, why is he coming over here?”  

“Because you called him over, you fuck!” Eddie hissed.  

Gareth looked panicked. He pulled his arm back down and shuffled close to Keith. “Yeah, but I thought he’d, like, glare at us or flip us off or something. I didn’t think he’d actually fucking—”  

Keith elbowed Gareth to shut him up as Steve approached.  

Gareth panicked. “Eddie, what did you do? What did you do?”  

Eddie stared at his friend, resisting the urge to smack him. “ What did I do? What did I do? You—”  

“Hey, Steve!” Jeff said, as Steve set his lunch tray down across from Gareth. “What’s um… what’s up?”  

The rest of them stared up at Steve, frozen. Steve just grinned, as if he didn’t even realize how weird they were being. But he shot Eddie a subtle smirk, fully aware of the effect his just being here was having.  

Eddie’s chest felt like it had been caved in.  

“Hey, Jeff,” Steve greeted. “Cool if I sit with you guys?”  

Jeff, who seemed to have been shocked to death over Steve knowing his name, nodded mutely.  

“You guys know each other?” Eddie asked. The look on Jeff’s face said fuck no.   

“Sure,” Steve said. He took a sip of his lemonade, and licked his lips. Eddie wished he wouldn’t do things like that in public. It was indecent. “Mrs. Click’s history class. It was sophomores and juniors, so…”  

Jeff nodded as if to confirm this was a factual statement.  

“And it’s Gareth, right?” Steve went on. Gareth went rigid. “And Keith?”  

Keith managed to repeat Jeff’s stiff nod.  

“Eddie told me a lot about you guys, it’s great to meet you,” he said, flashing them a sincere smile. Eddie just stared at him. He had mentioned his friends on Saturday, that was true. But he’d never expected this.  

There was something very wrong about it. Steve Harrington at their table, talking to them. It was like the blending of two worlds that were never meant to meet. Steve was from an alternate dimension, and there was just no way he could belong in their weird world.  

Yet here he was, asking Jeff what he’d thought about Click’s class, if he’d understood any of the shit she’d always gone on about the first Olympics and how the Greeks performed naked or something.  

Jeff, to his credit, managed a laugh and called Mrs. Click a perv.  

“Wait wait wait,” Gareth said, obviously finding some courage in the fact that Steve had apparently not come over to wail on them. “Hold up, what is happening?” he looked at Steve. “You and Eddie seriously hung out this weekend?”  

Steve looked at Eddie and grinned. “Is that what he said?” Gareth nodded. “I mean, we did hang out, but I feel like that version kind of leaves out some important details, like how he basically saved my life.” 

Eddie stared down at his lunch tray, feeling everyone’s eyes on him once again.  

“Yeah, I basically got my skull cracked open during basketball practice on Friday, wound up flat on my ass,” Steve said. “But Billy Hargrove looked so fucking smug about it, so of course, I pretended I was totally fine.” 

Eddie snorted. “Of course,” he said. What was a traumatic brain injury in the face of showing up some mullet-wearing asshole?  

“Of course,” Steve agreed. “So, I said I was fine, played the rest of the practice and then uh…” he shrugged. “I remember getting changed… next thing I know, I’m outside the school, on the ground.” He looked at Eddie. “And this guy is shaking me awake, like ‘Steve, dude, what the fuck!?’”  

“Fuck off, I wasn’t shaking you,” Eddie retorted. “I thought you were concussed, I wouldn’t have shaken a concussed person!”  

“Right, sorry,” Steve said, holding up his hands in a show of mercy. He shot a smile at the others, rolling his eyes like can you believe this guy?  

“You know, I could’ve left you there,” Eddie said. “Could’ve said, ‘aw jeez, Harrington’s hemorrhaging internally, too bad!’ and just kept on walking.”  

“You could’ve,” Steve agreed. “But then we wouldn’t have gotten to hang out, and you’d miss out on how awesome I am.” 

Eddie laughed. “Yeah, right. You know this guy is the freaking worst concussion victim, right?” he told his friends. “I’m basically carrying him to my van—” 

“You were not carrying me—”  

“Carrying him to the van, and he’s like, ‘Wait I don’t want to take your car, your car is probably shit. I’ll drive, my car is much nicer—”  

Gareth laughed, and Steve shook his head, trying to look pissed off but unable to keep the grin off his face.  

“Okay, but was I wrong?” Steve interjected. “No offence, Munson, but your van’s kind of a junker.”  

“Yeah, man, you were wrong. You could barely walk straight, if I’d let you drive we’d both be dead, that’s insane—”  

The rest of lunch carried on like this. The story Steve told about his trip to the ER, and subsequent hospital stay and recovery at home, was more or less accurate. He obviously left out the part where he kept hitting on Eddie and where they’d spent all of Saturday with their mouths glued together but managed to hit on the rest of it.  

Somehow, the version he told seemed a lot funnier than how Eddie remembered it and also painted Eddie as some kind of hero (while also getting in shots about his driving and general bedside manner, which was a very fine tightrope to walk).  

Eddie found times to jump in and disagree with Steve’s version, sometimes to correct a fact he was purposefully misrepresenting (“the doctor said you couldn’t be alone, asshat, I didn’t just decide to invite myself over”) or downplay his own selflessness (“yeah I’m a real saint, not leaving your unconscious body to die behind the school was great of me.”)  

The weird thing was that, by the end of lunch, it didn’t even feel weird anymore. Steve, the stupid charming asshole, had basically won over his friends with his easy humour and affinity for self-deprecating jokes.  

Eddie still didn’t know what he was up to, but he couldn’t bring himself to tell Steve to stop. If he wanted to be friends… maybe it was okay.  

Tuesday went about the same as the day before. Steve didn’t sit with them again at lunch, but he didn’t get the same invite from Gareth again, either. But Steve chatted with him between classes, like he was making a point to seek Eddie out just to say hi.  

On Wednesday, Eddie realized Steve wasn’t sitting with the jocks at lunch anymore. It took him a few minutes to find him, casting his eyes around the cafeteria, until he spotted Steve at a table with a few people he didn’t really know.  

It was two girls and a guy. One of the girls had short, light brown hair and was talking very fast and animatedly with her hands. Steve was laughing at whatever she was saying, and Eddie felt a pang.  

The other girl was short and blonde, and the guy had dark hair and thick glasses.  

None of them looked like the kind of person Steve usually hung around with. They looked like losers, actually. He thought the girl with the short brown hair might’ve been in band.  

Hard to get dweebier than that.  

When school let out that day, Eddie caught up with Steve in the hallway to ask what was up.  

Steve was annoyingly smug about this, which he really should’ve anticipated.  

“You checking up on me, Munson?” Steve asked, grinning.  

“No,” Eddie said, too fast. “I just noticed those brain-dead assholes you usually hung around with seemed to be short a leader.”  

Steve laughed. “Yeah, I think they’ll be fine, Billy was gunning for that job long before I quit the team,” he said.  

This was delivered in a very casual way, like Steve hadn’t just confessed to something huge.  

“You what?”  

Steve shrugged. “Yeah, I quit. Monday, actually.” 

Eddie’s brow furrowed. “But you love basketball,” he said.  

“I do,” Steve agreed. “But ever since Billy joined, he’s kind of sucked the fun out of it. And at first, I didn’t want to give him the satisfaction of quitting, but… I mean, fuck that guy, right? I want to enjoy the rest of high school, not be looking over my shoulder for stray basketballs the whole time.”  

Eddie nodded. “Yeah, I mean… definitely fuck that guy,” he agreed. “Definitely better for your skull, too.”  

“Oh, definitely,” Steve said. He added, “So those guys are from drama club. Well, Peter and Margo are. Robin’s in band, but a couple of band members are helping out with the play, doing music.” He shrugged. “They’re pretty cool.”  

Eddie was aware he was staring, but he couldn’t make himself stop. There was no way that he was hearing this right. Steve Harrington quitting basketball was one thing, but quitting to join drama club? No way. Not fucking possible.  

“Dude,” Eddie said. “How hard did you hit your head?”  

Steve laughed. He grinned at Eddie, shaking his head. “Fuck off, I didn’t join drama club, alright?” he said. “I saw them struggling to carry some supplies and helped them out. They’re actually building some cool props and sets for the play this year, so yeah, I’m helping out with that. The play. None of them know what they’re doing with all those power tools, and neither do I, but it’s been fun figuring it out.”  

It still sounded insane, but the earnest smile on Steve’s face made him warm up to the idea. Maybe this wasn’t brain-trauma induced insanity. Maybe Steve was just trying to figure out how to be happy.  

“And not to brag or anything,” Steve went on. “But aside from me, no one can lift more than 60 pounds without passing out, so I’m basically their god.”  

Eddie laughed. “Oh yeah, that doesn’t sound like a brag at all.”   

By the time Friday afternoon rolled around, Eddie had almost forgotten all about how miserable he’d been when the week started. Maybe none of it was as dire as he'd thought it was.  

It was hard to believe that, and he still wasn’t quite sure it was true, but he felt a little better about things. Somehow against all the odds, Steve was his friend. And that was good. It was great. Steve was happy, and by Thursday, he’d even told him all traces of his headache were gone.  

So Eddie was happy. He gave Steve shit about being in drama club at every opportunity (despite Steve’s insistence that he was not in drama club, just helping build sets for the play), and Steve teased him about DnD, even though he still didn’t know enough about it for his jabs to make any sense.  

Being friends was good. Great, even.  

Eddie told himself this. He wasn’t quite sure it was true, but he kept saying it to himself. Maybe one day, it wouldn’t be a lie.  

Third period on Fridays was English, which would’ve been a class Eddie liked if they’d ever let him read a book he didn’t fucking hate. Not feeling like debating what the stupid green light means in The Great Gatsby, he elected to skip.  

He was walking by the gym when he happened to glance over. Through the glass on the doors, he saw something that stopped his feet in their tracks and his heart in his chest.  

Steve was lying on the ground again, flat on his back.  

Eddie yanked open the doors, his shoes squeaking wildly on the floor as he rushed over to Steve. This was it, the guy was actually dead this time. Why, what happened? He was fine, he had been fine. He was better, headache gone, he was fine.   

All of this went through his head faster than reality could catch up with him. Because in reality, Steve looked over the moment he heard Eddie stumble into the gym and said, “oh, hey Eddie,” all chilled out and casual like Eddie hadn’t been expecting to find his goddamned corpse. Again.  

“Dude, what the fuck—” Eddie stopped in front of Steve, heart still hammering away. Steve raised an eyebrow, letting his head rest back against the floor. “Are you okay?”  

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Steve said. He frowned. “Are you okay?”  

“No, you fucking asshole!” Eddie pulled his leg back as if to kick Steve, but just gave him a nudge with his foot. Steve swatted his shoe away. “I walked by, and I thought you were dead! I had a fucking heart attack. Again!”  

Steve tilted his chin up and grinned. “You were worried about me,” he said. He sounded so fucking smug, just like he had the first time. God, he was so cocky. Eddie could’ve killed him. “You care.”  

With a deep, long-suffering sigh, Eddie got down on the floor and lay next to Steve. “Yeah, man, you got me. I fucking care.”  

Steve grinned, a big self-satisfied smile. Eddie put a hand on his face and shoved him. Steve just chuckled, then turned his face back up to the ceiling. Eddie looked at him, waiting for Steve to tell him what the fuck he was doing lying in the middle of the basketball court, staring up at nothing. 

A quiet moment passed before Steve said, “Someone wrote something up there.” He pointed up to the ceiling. “The word LOST, see it? There’s something else, but I can’t fucking make it out. I’ve been all around the gym trying to see the rest of it, but it’s blocked by the rafters or the lights... not to mention, whoever wrote it had fucking shitty handwriting.” He scowled. 

Eddie sat up a little, propped himself up on his forearms. “Maybe whoever wrote it was rushing so they didn’t get caught,” he said, glaring. “Maybe they were afraid of falling off the goddamned ladder, too.”  

Steve’s head snapped toward him. “It was you?” He asked. Eddie nodded. “Why? How?”   

“Uh... I don’t know why. Felt like it?” Eddie said. “And I just used the really huge ladder the janitor uses to change the lights. He left it out one day, and I had some spray paint in my bag...” He shrugged.  

Steve was still staring at him. “Okay... well, what does it say?”  

Eddie sat up, scratching his head. He folded his legs up, sitting cross-legged by Steve. He didn’t know why this was making him self-conscious, but it was. He’d sort of figured no one would notice it. If he’d known people would, he would’ve written something more like go fuck yourself, jock.   

“It’s from Lord of the Rings,” Eddie mumbled. “From Fellowship. It says, ‘Not all those who wander are lost.’”  

Steve kept staring. There was a look on his face Eddie couldn’t name.  

Steve glanced away. “Not all those who wander are lost,” he repeated quietly. It was strange hearing that from Steve’s mouth. It was as if he’d suddenly started talking about hit points and character classes.  

Face turned back up to the ceiling, Steve was quiet for several long moments. Then he sighed and closed his eyes.  

“This is where I fell,” Steve murmured. “On Friday, the first time. When Billy brained him with the ball, I fell down just about here.” He drummed his fingers on the court floor and opened his eyes. “When I looked up, that was the first thing I saw.” He frowned. “I thought it was telling me I was lost. Or maybe that I had lost... it bothered me.” He paused, then grinned at Eddie, embarrassed. “That’s stupid, I know.”  

Eddie shook his head. “It’s not stupid.”  

“I mean, I was pretty out of it.”  

“Oh, is that so?” Eddie asked, amused that Steve felt the need to tell him of all people that. “News to me.”  

Steve rolled his eyes. “But it wasn’t saying that?” He asked. He sounded so serious, like the graffiti Eddie had scrawled on the ceiling back in 10th grade was somehow going to decide his life. “It’s actually the opposite?”  

Eddie looked at him, at the serious, earnest expression. He could’ve made a joke or teased him, could’ve been sarcastic. “It’s the opposite, yeah,” Eddie agreed. “The poem it’s from is about finding your way again after you’ve lost it.”  

Steve nodded. He liked that, Eddie could tell. There was a faint smile on his face, a content look. He sat up, keeping his legs stretched out in front of him. “Eddie,” he said. Eddie became aware of how close Steve’s face was to his now that they were both sitting up. He should move back, being this close to Steve felt dangerous.  

He didn’t move. “Yeah?”  

Steve smiled, then looked away again. “Uh, I don’t know if you remember what you said, before...” Steve said. He had a nonchalant tone in his voice, like this was all incidental, whatever he was about to say. “Or if you meant it... or maybe changed your mind since then but um...” Steve swallowed. His eyes darted back to Eddie’s just for a moment. “But it’s Friday.”  

What had he said exactly? He hadn’t really expected Steve to follow up on it. He’d figured a week was plenty of time for him to get back to reality.  

When Friday comes around, if you’re still interested, you know where to find me.  

And here Steve was, carefully avoiding looking in his direction. Reminding him it was Friday.  

“It is Friday,” Eddie agreed. He wasn’t sure what else he was supposed to say. Yes, he remembered, yes, he’d meant it. No, he hadn’t changed his mind. He’d just expected that Steve would.  

Still staring very determinedly off at the wall across from him, Steve went on, “If you just want to be friends, I get it. I mean, I’ve thought about it a lot this week, and I get why you wouldn’t want to start something with someone who... I mean, it’s all new to me.”  

Steve shifted around a bit, lifting one knee and resting his arm on it.  

“So I get it, really. But uh... I mean, I just thought I’d ask because you said... that.” He frowned, then let out a breath. Steve looked at Eddie and ran his fingers through his hair, brushing it back off his forehead. “And I can’t stop thinking about you.”  

Steve’s confession hung in the air between them. He could feel Steve watching him, waiting. Steve bit his lip, his chin pointed down. He looked almost shy.  

What the fuck was he supposed to say to that? There was no playing it cool or staying detached after something like that. Maybe with another guy, anyone else, he could’ve managed.  

Eddie groaned and hung his head. “Jesus, fuck…” he put his face in his hands and groaned again, more aggressively this time.  

“Uh… can I have a few more words than that?” Steve asked.  

“I mean, yeah,” Eddie grumbled, palms still against his face.  

Steve was quiet. Eddie finally took his hands away and found Steve fixing him with a slightly hesitant, confused look. 

“I genuinely don’t know which question you were answering,” Steve said. “Because I said ‘can I have a few more words…'” he looked at him miserably. “Please just help me out here, dude.”  

Eddie rubbed his brow. Fantastic, they hadn't even actually gotten together yet, and he was already messing it up. Had to be a fucking Eddie Munson record. His face felt hot, and he couldn’t quite kick the urge to turn around and run away. But he didn’t.  

Eddie shoved Steve's arm, because, frankly, he’d always been shit at emotions. “I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you either, you fucking asshole.”  

Steve blinked, taken aback. Then he grinned, finally getting the answer he'd been looking for. Waiting all week for, apparently. He leaned in a little, wearing a big goofy smile that kind of made him look like the human personification of goddamned sunshine.  

What had he gotten himself into? This was going to be bad.  

Steve glanced around and spoke in a low voice. “I kind of want to kiss you now,” he said, still smiling. “But uh, I figure we should go somewhere a little less public?”  

Eddie tilted his head to the side, as if debating the benefits of this, or weighing his interest in Steve’s proposal. As if it wasn't taking every ounce of self-control he had not to jump him right there and then.  

“Yeah, let’s get the fuck out of here,” Eddie said, jumping to his feet. Steve scrambled after him, that big bright smile still on his face.  

***  There was some debate about where they would go. Eddie thought his van was the obvious answer; it was spacious, secluded and, most importantly, very close by.  

Unfortunately, after having ridden to the hospital sliding around in the back of the van, Steve took issue with this on the grounds that it was “completely gross.”  

Eddie thought that was a little much. Sure, it wasn’t totally spotless, but Steve was being dramatic. It was fine.  

“Like you've never tossed some garbage in your backseat,” Eddie challenged, leaning up against a lamp post. He crossed his arms over his chest, indignant.  

Steve stuck his head out of the van. “You kidding?” he asked. He produced a fist full of Big Mac wrappers. “This isn’t some garbage, this is the entire dump.”  

Eddie rolled his eyes.  

Steve climbed out of the van and deposited an armful of trash into the garbage can. He dusted off his hands and put them on his hips. “Besides, if I ever had garbage in the car, I always cleaned it out before I brought someone in there to screw around with.” 

Eddie grinned. “Welcome to the world of screwing around with dudes,” he said cheerfully. “We’re messy.”  

Steve raised his eyebrows. “Yeah, I call bullshit. I’m a dude, okay, and I’ve never had an issue keeping my stuff neat and orderly.”  

Eddie looked at him. He still had his hands on his hips. “How is it that of the two of us, I’m the one people consider a nerd?” 

Sighing in a deeply put-upon manner, Steve turned back to the van. He stood, appraising. Eddie moved to his side, looked between Steve and the van's interior. “What’s happening?”  

Steve raised an eyebrow. “You take Econ?” He asked. Eddie nodded. “You remember that thing? Where you hold the shitty part of some deal against what it’ll get you?”  

“I said I took Econ, I didn’t say I did well.”  

Steve frowned. He snapped his fingers. “Cost-benefit analysis, that’s what it’s called,” he said, triumphant. “So I’m doing that, except it’s me trying to figure out if the cost of fooling around in this van is worth the benefit.”  

Eddie laughed. “Look, not to brag, but—” He nudged Steve’s shoulder with his own. “It is.”  

Steve considered this. “I’m okay with the brag,” he said. He climbed into the back of the van, then extended a hand back to Eddie. He yanked him inside and had just gotten the doors firmly locked before Eddie pulled him toward him.  

Eddie thrust his mouth against Steve’s and they sank back against one of the van walls and down to the floor. He wrapped his arms over Steve’s neck, parting his lips.  

Steve didn’t mention the mess again.  

***  After school, they’d headed over to Steve’s house, which was still blessedly empty of parents. As much as Eddie loved his van, he had to admit making out in Steve’s bed was better.  

Although, Eddie had noticed there were a pair of dirty socks on the floor of Steve’s room, which he was only too happy to point out.  

Steve had just rolled his eyes, in the process of removing both their shirts. He tossed them both on the floor, and Eddie almost made a jab about that, too, except then Steve’s head was bent slightly, and he was kissing a slow line down Eddie’s chest.  

A sense of self-preservation had kept his mouth shut. 

Now it was getting late, and for the moment, they were taking a break. It was Eddie who insisted on the break, because he was pretty sure it was what Steve wanted. It was just that the more they rolled around on his bed, kissing and groping each other, the less Steve seemed to remember that.  

Before they’d moved from the van to Steve’s room, they’d had a quick conversation about things like boundaries and how fast or slow Steve wanted to take things.  

This all being new to Steve, Eddie didn’t want him doing things faster than he was comfortable with, and Steve had agreed they just should stick to kissing for now. Agreed that taking things slow was a good idea.  

The problem with this conversation was that it turned out that, similar to the way Concussed Steve had been a very different person from Regular Steve, so too was Horny Steve.  

Regular Steve wanted to take things slow. Horny Steve cared very little about what Regular Steve wanted.  

It fell to Eddie to play moderator, trying to be respectful of the guy who’d said (like ten minutes earlier!) that they should definitely stick to above-the-pants stuff, and the guy who had then started to unbutton Eddie’s jeans.  

So they were taking a break, both of them lying shirtless on Steve’s bed. Eddie lay against Steve’s chest and was entertaining himself by running his fingers over the muscles of Steve’s arms, and trying not to think about whether or not Steve could bench-press him. Thoughts like that lead to dangerous places.  

“You’re hairier than I thought you’d be,” Eddie said absently. He brushed his fingers over the hair on Steve’s chest, then let his hand drift down his abdomen. Also dangerous, but there was only so much maturity that could be reasonably expected of him.  

“I can shave,” Steve said simply.  

Eddie’s head snapped up. “Don’t you even joke about that.” 

Steve gave him a crooked grin. He ran a hand over Eddie’s pale shoulders, making him shiver. “Do you want to go out sometime?” he asked. Eddie raised an eyebrow. “Like on a date. We could go to the movies. Guys do that.” He shrugged. “No one would know.”  

“You want to take me to a movie?” Eddie asked.  

“Well, yeah,” Steve said. “I mean, if you want to. You can pick the movie, apparently, I have shit taste.”  

“I never said that,” Eddie said. “You just have a shit VHS collection, is all.”  

“Okay, I’ll pick the movie. I think there’s something with John Travolta that just came out...” 

Eddie stuck a hand over Steve’s mouth, cutting him off. “I’m choosing, forget it.” He felt Steve smile against his palm. Eddie took his hand back.  

He looked at Steve, still not entirely sure how this had happened. “You’re sure about all this?” he asked.  

“Sure about what?”  

Eddie shrugged. “You know. This. You, me... us...”  

Steve considered this for a moment. “I think it’s the most sure I’ve been about anything in a really long time,” he said. “I actually think I owe Billy Hargrove a thank you.”  

“Steve, he hospitalized you.”  

“I lived,” Steve said. He shrugged, as if something being only a near death experience was hardly a big deal. “Besides, apparently, that guy is like, the greatest wingman of all time.”  

“Okay, sure.” He shook his head. “I really think it had a lot less to do with Billy and a lot more to do with the fact that the concussed version of you was fucking obsessed with me. That’s the guy you owe the thank you to.”  

“Nah,” Steve said. He smiled at him, and tucked a strand of hair over Eddie’s ear. “That guy didn’t go anywhere.”  

That look was on his face again, the one Eddie was probably never going to understand. He didn’t know what Steve was seeing, didn’t know why someone like Steve, who had seemed to have everything, had chosen to waste his time with a guy like him.  Hadn't really believed it possible.

But lying in Steve’s room, laughing and joking and planning what they were going to do over the weekend, Eddie was once again more than happy to have been wrong.  

*** Epilogue: Friday Again  

There were a lot of ideas about who Steve Harrington was. A charming heartbreaker, some popular sports-playing asshole. A ladies' man. The kind of guy that every girl wanted and every guy wanted to be. 

Steve wondered if that person had ever really existed. He’d been him, and for a while, it had felt normal. But looking back, he didn’t think any of it was real or true. It had been easy to flirt with girls, to be charming and funny. It made people like him, and that felt important.

So he’d been happy enough to do it, happy enough to play the role he’d fashioned for himself.  

Happy enough for a while anyways.  

If he was being honest with himself, and he was at least trying to do that lately, it hadn’t been working long before Billy Hargrove had entered the scene. Much like the violent injury he had so kindly given Steve, Billy’s presence just made it all that much harder to deny the truth.  

It wasn’t working. And he wasn’t happy.  

Nothing like a good thump on the head to make a guy reevaluate his entire life, right?  

The weekend before had been a strange time. He’d spent most of Sunday feeling shitty and sorry for himself, and moping around his stupid empty house. He’d opened his Dad’s liquor cabinet a few times, but just closed it again straight away.  

Monday morning, he’d felt better. So, alright, maybe it wouldn’t work out with Eddie. That was something he’d been determined to accept (he didn’t want to, but it seemed like if he pinned all his potential future happiness on one guy, he was just going to wind up miserable again).  

Besides, it was a lot more than his love life that was causing him problems.  

He didn’t like his friends, he didn’t like his hobbies. He didn’t like his life.   

That last one seemed like the kind of thing you didn’t change all at once, so he’d started with the other two.  

He’d thought he’d feel worse about quitting basketball (and basically quitting his friends, too). But he didn’t. It was actually a massive relief, like a huge weight off his shoulders.  

Somewhere in Hawkins was probably an amateur league he could join, a team that didn’t take things so seriously. He still loved basketball, and loved the sense of community and comradery that came with sports.  He wasn’t giving up the game, just the stress of playing at school.  

Just like he’d told Eddie, helping out with the school play had more or less been an accident. He’d caught Margo and Robin lugging heavy band equipment through the halls and offered to help.  

Robin, who he would later learn was stubborn as hell, insisted they were fine. Margo had thrust the box she was dragging into his arms and gone to get lunch.  

Steve didn’t really think theatre would be his new thing, but for the time being, he was having a good time (and getting to use power tools, which he liked). And even if the hobby didn’t work out, he had a good feeling about the new friends.  

He’d spent the week trying not to get his hopes up too much about Friday. Really, he’d tried. And when the time came, he was absolutely certain that he would handle the second rejection by completely falling the fuck apart.  

But he would’ve done it in a quiet way that no one else knew about. He would’ve gone home, blasted music and screamed. He would’ve spent the weekend running and working out and making sure that when he went to bed at night he was too tired to think.  

And Monday he would’ve been okay. He would’ve been happy to be Eddie’s friend. God knows he needed those, and Eddie was still just about the only other person he knew who wasn’t straight.  

If he was going to be not-straight himself (and probably he didn’t have a choice about that, now that he wasn’t shoving those feelings right the hell down) he could use a friend who knew more about it than he did.  

When Eddie had found him lying on the basketball court, trying to figure out the important message from the gym ceiling, this was what he’d been thinking about.  

Not just the stuff about Eddie, but all of it. His life, his future. The ceiling was right about one thing; he’d been so fucking lost. For a long time, too.  

He’d been wondering if everything he’d done that week would do any good. Leaving basketball, trying to make new friends and trying out new hobbies. Abandoning the safe little bubble of popularity he’d happily sheltered in since ninth grade.  

He was lost. And maybe it was the kind of lost he couldn’t find his way back from.  

And then in stumbled Eddie Munson, like he had some kind of weird sixth sense that told him when Steve was suffering. Sure, it wasn’t brain-trauma suffering, more existential than physical, but suffering was suffering.  

It wasn’t funny, seeing Eddie look so panicked. But it was kind of sweet. Cynical, disaffected Eddie Munson had practically fallen all over himself at the sight of Steve on the ground. At the possibility that he was hurt again.  

The ceiling, it turned out, was not telling him he was lost. In fact, it was telling him the opposite. He hadn’t lost his way, hadn’t strayed horribly off-course. He was wandering, sure. But it didn’t mean he was lost, only that he was still finding his way.  

That, on its own, had done a lot to make him feel better. When he’d confessed to Eddie that he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about him, well, he thought he might have even handled the rejection without a weekend full of screaming.  

Fortunately, he didn’t have to. For reasons he still wasn’t quite sure of, Eddie had buried his face in his hands and confessed that he couldn’t stop thinking about him too. Suspicious, sarcastic Eddie Munson.  

Steve thought he might’ve blushed a little.  

Steve wasn’t delusional. He didn’t think his life was suddenly going to be perfect. In fact, he’d definitely just made a bunch of choices that were going to make parts of it a lot harder. But for the first time in a long time, he felt good.  

He felt free. It had taken him four years, countless meaningless hookups and an excruciating concussion to get here, but he’d done it. He’d found something real, admitted to himself the things he wanted and the person he wanted to be.  

It wasn’t perfect, and it wouldn’t be easy. But it was real. It was true.  

And that made it all worth it.  ***