written for the @steddiebingo splash into summer mini event | prompt: sand | rating: t | wc: 775 | tags: crack treated seriously, bi steve, featuring eddie’s super normal reaction to this, discussion of blow jobs
read on ao3
“Worst place you’ve ever had sex in. Go,” Eddie says, handing the joint to Steve, who’s sitting next to him on the trailer’s old couch.
They’ve been throwing stupid questions at each other for the last twenty minutes, so Steve doesn’t react any differently to this one, just takes a hit and thinks it over.
Eddie allows himself three seconds to stare at his pursed lips before he glances back at the stained ceiling.
“The beach,” Steve says finally. “Sand, man. It gets everywhere.”
Eddie sniggers, taking the joint back. He’s never had sex on the beach but he trusts Steve’s judgement, he already hates it when sand gets in his hair, he can’t imagine having it– elsewhere.
“But,” Steve continues like he’s lost in thought. “At least it washes away, you know? Maybe it’s actually the alley behind this bar in Indy– my knees were hurting for days after that.”
There’s a sound like a record scratching in Eddie’s brain as he processes Steve’s words.
“W–What?” He stammers out because Steve can’t mean–
“Yeah, I shouldn’t have been kneeling there for that long,” Steve says, making grabby hands for the weed. Eddie hands it over without taking a hit. “It was gross, too,” he continues, his lips wrapping around the joint enticingly. Eddie can’t help but glance at them. They curl into a smirk when he adds, “The floor was gross, not the– you know.”
Eddie splutters. “I– I don’t,” he chokes out. There’s no way Steve is talking oh so casually about blowing someone in a dingy alley. Eddie needs clarification before his brain starts getting any ideas. “What– what were you doing on your knees?”
At that, Steve gives him a quizzical look. “What do you think, Eds?” He says with a chuckle, brushing his hair back with his free hand. With the other one he offers the joint back to Eddie who waves it away, his mind reeling already.
“I’m not thinking! My brain is just like–” He makes an explosion sound, his hands mimicking his head being blown. And it is– by the realization that Steve Harrington admitted to sucking dick. “You– were you blowing a guy?” He asks, his voice raising embarrassingly.
Steve nods sheepishly and Eddie’s mouth drops. “Why?”
Raising an eyebrow, Steve repeats. “Why?” When Eddie nods a little impatiently, he snorts. “I don’t know, Eddie, why do you suck dick?”
“Because I like it!” Steve gives him a look like duh, exactly. Eddie sputters some more. “But I’m gay, you’re-”
“Something,” Steve finishes when Eddie trails off, gesturing uselessly. “Bisexual is what Rob called it.”
Eddie blinks at him, at a loss for words.
Steve’s eyes narrow. “I thought you knew.”
At that, Eddie lets out a bark of laughter. “No! Steve, of course I didn’t fucking know! Do you think I would act normal around you if I knew that?”
“You never act normal,” Steve teases. “You’re not acting normal right now.”
“Apologies, Your Majesty, for this jester needs a moment to erase the image of you sucking dick from his brain,” Eddie snaps, his voice bordering on hysterical.
Steve’s eyes sparkle. “Would you rather see it for yourself?”
A strangled sound slips past Eddie’s lips in response.
Steve scoots closer, a smirk stretching over his face. “That’s why you’re freaking out, right?” He asks, lowering his voice and sending shivers down Eddie’s spine. “Because you wish it was you.”
Eddie opens and closes his mouth a few times.
“It can,” Steve whispers, crowding Eddie against the arm of the couch. “If you want.”
“What– What’s happening?” Eddie asks, finally finding his voice.
“I’m offering to give you a blow job,” he says just as casually.
“Because you like sucking dick,” Eddie says, matter-of-fact.
“Yes,” Steve shrugs. “And because I like you, dork.”
“Oh.”
When the silence stretches, Steve nudges Eddie’s leg. “So what do you say?”
“What do I–” Eddie laughs, less hysterical but still disbelieving. Giddy too. “I say yes, of course, Stevie, Jesus H. Christ!”
“Good,” Steve chuckles amusedly. “Hand me a throw pillow then, I’m not hurting my knees this time,” he says with a wink.
Eddie shudders, his dick twitching in his pants. Blindly, he grabs one of the couch’s pillows and shoves it into Steve’s hands.
He slides to the floor, settling between Eddie’s legs, his knees on the pillow. There, he quite literally blows Eddie’s mind.
And as it turns out, Steve didn’t really need the pillow. Eddie comes approximately forty-five seconds in and then Steve is off the floor and climbing on top of Eddie, grinding against him, his knees digging into the plush couch instead.
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AO3 | rating: m | wc: 1.8k | cw: smoking, assault, violence | @steddiebingo splash into summer 2026: "let me go" | @steddiebingo round 4: whisper | tags: loose season 2 au; implied past steve/tommy; implied past tommy/eddie; pre steve/eddie; assault; violence; steve gets injured; eddie defends him; tommy gets his shit kicked in | gen masterlist
Eddie's exhausted. He slips out the backdoor, leaving the swirling mess of the party behind, the bass still thumping in his fucking bloodstream. He leans against the porch railing and lights a cigarette, taking a moment to just let the nicotine calm him. Grateful as fuck that everyone seems to be inside tonight, leaving him this blissful moment alone.
It's not that is was a bad night. Quite the opposite. He sold out his stock and made a hefty profit. Enough to cover his costs to Rick and cover the water and maybe even electric bills for the month. Wayne won't necessarily be happy about where he knows the money came from, but it's not like they're really in any position to make that a top priority.
Someday, though.
Someday, Eddie swears he's gonna find a way to get Wayne out of that trailer and into a better house. A house he deserves. He gave up so fucking much to take Eddie in, and Eddie'll be damned if he ever forgets it. His sole mission in life at this point is just to give Wayne the life he fucking deserves.
A great first step to that is paying these bills. And maybe graduating high school this year. He's fucking trying. Putting his all into it.
"Ah, fuck." Eddie groans as he remembers the fucking chem test he has next week, makes a note to himself to study tomorrow. Like, actually study.
He ashes the last of his cigarette and stubs it out, tossing it in the bin. Starts mentally planning the rest of his weekend as he makes his way to his van.
And that's when he hears it.
The muffled sound of scuffling met with a sharp thud of body hitting brick carries around the corner, stopping Eddie dead in his tracks. He presses up against the side of the house and listens. Well, as much as he can listen through the dull thud of the music blaring inside the house. Tells himself he's doing this only to avoid whatever fight is brewing around the corner, but there's that small flame inside himself that flares to protect protect protect.
"Stay fuckin' still." A deep voice growls.
Eddie knows that voice. Would recognize it any-fucking-where. And his stomach turns at it.
Tommy fuckin Hagan.
The bane of his fucking existence.
Well, one of them, at least. A grade-A fucking asshole that Eddie's had one too many altercations with already.
They basically grew up side by side in the tiny classrooms of Hawkins Middle and High schools. Eddie's seen a number of versions of Tommy Hagan. The one obsessed with Spiderman and dressed like him for a whole year. The one who fell off the monkey bars and broke his arm and had to wear a cast. The one who started playing basketball and made the high school team while still in junior high, who wore that like a badge of pride. The one who stalked the halls behind Steve Harrington, throwing people around. The one who used to meet Eddie in the woods behind the school when he needed —
And the worst one is the one that started the second he started hanging around Billy Hargrove and Jason Carver. Something about that wombo combo has amplified the explosive anger harbored in Tommy's body to a million. So, Eddie stays away. Tries to avoid him these days, fully aware that Tommy is one wrong step away from going off the edge, and Eddie'll be damned if he's ever on the receiving end of anything like that ever again.
More scuffling sounds and Eddie swears he hears someone gasp in pain, the undeniable smack against the brick exterior reverberating into the night.
"Why don't you be a good boy and do as you're fuckin' told?" Tommy says.
"Let me go." A second voice snarls.
Shit, Eddie knows that voice too. He'd be an idiot not to after years of hearing it haunting the halls of Hawkins High and chatting up practically every girl in their grade.
"That's not really how this works." Tommy grits out, voice dripping in saccharine malice.
"Yes, the fuck it is, Hagan. Now, fuck off. I said no." Steve Harrington spits.
And, like, damn, Eddie's gotta hand it to him, because he still thought Steve and Tommy were friends. Clearly not the case. Not by the way Tommy growls in response.
"Yeah, well, you'll be changin' your tune real fuckin' quick, here."
Look.
Eddie's never been a particularly smart man. He does well enough. Has enough wits about him to know how to survive, how to leverage his weight to throw off another, how to slip through the cracks. Though, more often than not, he's slipping away battered and bruised. So, he's not what one would consider smart. But, he's also not a cruel man.
The majority of his bruises come from times he's thrown himself between a sheepie and whatever bully of the week there is — ironically, usually Hagan, or Hargrove, or Carver. Wayne tells him to stay out of it, but Eddie's never been one to sit back and let someone take a beating they didn't deserve. Not if he can do something about it.
And what he hears next has him throwing every self-preservation instinct he has out the window. Because the sound of a punched out groan and something snapping followed by a muffled wail spills out into the late night air, and before he can stop himself, Eddie is around the corner, throwing Tommy fucking Hagan to the ground.
"The fuck? Munson?" Tommy sputters, rolling slightly with a wince.
Eddie immediately drops down, knee pressed to Tommy's chest, eliciting a sharp groan. "Fuckin' piece of shit, aren't ya, Hagan?"
"Freak." Tommy spits.
"Didn't your parents ever teach you that 'no means no,' or is that the only way your daddy was able to get your mom to sleep with him?"
"You fuckin'—" Tommy swipes an arm wildly at Eddie's face and misses by a fucking mile. Eddie laughs, presses his knee harder against Tommy's chest, grips his chin tight.
"Let me be the one to teach ya then. No means no, asshole." Eddie's fingers are bruising in their hold on Tommy's jaw. His own eyes are wild, chest heaving, as he stares down at Tommy.
For what it's worth, Tommy has the wherewithal to actually look a bit fucking terrified. A look Eddie is going to be riding the high of for the rest of his fucking life.
Tommy squirms beneath him, eyes flitting across his face, to Steve, back to him. Eddie swears he hears Tommy whimper. Hears the way his breath hitches. Feels the way his chest moves erratically under where Eddie's knee is still pinning him to the ground.
"Just— fuck — let him," Steve sucks in a sharp breath. "He can go."
Eddie just shakes his head. "No. Fuck that. Fucking asshole needs to be taught a lesson about assaulting someone."
"Oh, believe me." Eddie laughs, his smile positively feral. "I'm always lookin' for a reason to put you in your fuckin' place."
Then, Eddie brings his fist clean into Tommy's jaw. Something that takes both Tommy and Steve by surprise based on the way Tommy yelps and Steve grabs Eddie's shoulder, tries to yank him back. Eddie shakes Steve off, though, and presses his knee a bit harder, grips Tommy's now bleeding face tight.
Eddie leans down, his face mere inches from Tommy's, and growls. "I can fuckin' ruin you. Don't try me."
"You can't do shit." Tommy seethes.
"Oh, really?" Eddie laughs, the sound wholly devoid of any mirth.
"Eddie, just, come on. It's not worth it." Steve tries to pull him back again.
This time, Eddie lets himself be pulled back a bit, but only enough to shift his knee onto Tommy's shoulder. He presses down until he feels a pop and Tommy screams.
"Don't you ever fuckin' touch him again. Understood?" Eddie's glare is hard, his voice eerily calm.
As Eddie stands, he pushes Tommy with his boot, making the guy groan anew.
"Get the fuck outta here, Hagan. Now. 'Fore I change my mind."
And, surprisingly, to basically everyone involved, Tommy staggers up and half-runs away, disappearing around the back of the house.
"Jesus." Steve lets out a massive sigh laced with a groan of pain.
Eddie stays staring at the backyard, waiting to see if Tommy spills back out. His fingers keep clenching tight fists at his sides, the usually cool metal of his rings hot and heavy. There's a small part of him that wonders if Tommy's blood got on his rings — kind of hopes it did, really.
"Eddie, c'mon, we should both, ugh fuck, should go."
At that, Eddie turns, eyes raking over Steve's hunched body, brows furrowing as he sees just what Tommy managed to do.
"Shit. Can I—?" Eddie gestures at Steve, offering up his arm.
Steve stares back at him for several long seconds, his breathing labored, arm clutched across his stomach, and Eddie knows that Steve must be thinking about just how fucked he is at the moment, if he really needs help or if he can hobble home alone.
If he wants to risk Eddie taking him home after watching the fight.
As if to emphasize that thought, Steve looks pointedly at where Tommy had hobbled off.
So, Eddie softens his face and whispers, "I'm not gonna hurt you. Promise."
Which just makes Steve snort, a wince falling out. "Yeah, first time I heard that one."
"Okay, fair. But, uh. I'm not — I'm not Hagan. And neither are you. So, no desire to do any of," he gestures wildly behind him toward the house, "ya know, any of that to you."
"Sure."
"I just wanna make sure you get home safe." Eddie cocks his head, eyes worrying over Steve. "Maybe press an ice pack to your face."
Steve grunts, reaches one hand to his face, winces as his fingers softly drag across his skin. "Is it bad?"
Eddie's eyes dance across the planes of Steve's gorgeous pretty beautiful face. Catalogue every angle and dip and mole. Linger on the soft bruise blooming across his cheek. "It's…not great."
"'Course." Steve lets out a breath that sounds a lot like a groan. "Just what I need."
"It's not too bad right now, but, uh," Eddie winces. "Definitely gonna be a whole…thing."
"Lovely."
There's a beat. A long, quiet moment where Eddie isn't quite sure what to do next. Not sure if he should offer help again, or if he should slip away into the night, leave Steve to bandage himself up.
Deep down, though, he already knows. He knows he knows. Knows there never really was a choice to make. That intrinsically he would never leave someone like this — not even if that person was Steve Harrington.
So, Eddie takes a deep breath, extends his arm again, and gently whispers, "Let's get you home, Harrington."
Written for @steddiebingo 's Splash of Summer mini event
Prompt: Drive-in Movie | rated T | word count: 564 | Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson, Steve Harrington & Robin Buckley |
Outside of a semi-apocalypse, Hawkins didn't have a lot to offer to the idle youth on a weeknight. It was nearly July, but the weather was still too cold for an impromptu dip in the lake. Not that Eddie ever wanted to put a single toe in these treacherous waters after what had happened with the Upside-Down. Still, Steve, Robin and Eddie were bored, and even if the town was deserted, there were still a couple of places open at eight p.m. on a Wednesday.
So to the drive-in they went.
Generally speaking, Eddie or Robin was the one to select which movie to watch. Steve rarely ever joined the fight when it was time to choose, and preferred not to answer when they asked him if he wanted to watch whatever horror movie or film d'auteur each was sponsoring. They often ended up rolling one of Eddie's many dice to make a decision, and Steve followed.
This time, however, a movie had caught his eye.
"Top Gun."
Robin stopped her tirade about the weird movie she was trying to sell to Eddie. "What?"
"We're watching Top Gun."
The best part of following Eddie or Robin's lead almost every time when it came to movies was that any time he did have an opinion on the subject, they couldn't say no.
"The army movie?" Eddie asked, "with the planes"?
"I like the trailer. It looked promising." Steve simply said.
Eddie opened his mouth to argue, then immediately closed it. He couldn't say anything against that. Not when Steve had chosen a movie he wanted to watch, for once.
"Top Gun it is!" Robin declared.
Two out of three. Top Gun it was.
Fifteen minutes in, and Eddie had to admit the movie wasn't so bad. At least for army propaganda.
The actors weren't that bad on the eyes…
"Shit, Tom Cruise is so hot."
Eddie had not said that. And Robin was a lesbian. Which left only one person.
Eddie stared incredulously at Steve, who had just described a man as hot.
He was dreaming. It was the only plausible way Steve Harrington, former king of all jocks, straight boy supreme, had just said a male actor was hot.
"Why are you looking at me like that?" Steve asked.
"Why am I…" Eddie spluttered. "You…" He took a deep breathe. "I didn't know Tom Cruise was your… type, Stevie."
Steve's slow smile set fire to his veins.
"Oh, well, I have more dept than you think. I have broad tastes when it comes to people, I suppose." He started playing with his hair. "Is Tom Cruise my type? Not really. He's hot and all, but would I ever go for a guy like him? No, I don't think so." He paused for a second. "Iff you really wanna know… I kind of have a thing for nerds."
"Nerds?" Eddie repeated, feeling suddenly faint.
"Yep." Steve smiled at him. "Nerds."
The sound of Robin's voice was a shock to the system.
"I need to pee. A lot. I won't be back before at least fifteen minutes."
Quick as a viper, she grabbed Eddie's head. Her eyes were drilling holes into his skull. "Now shoot your shot or die."
She clambered down the van, and suddenly they were alone.
"So…" Steve's voice wavered. "Do you…"
Eddie grabbed Steve's neck with both hands and crushed their mouths together.
Steddie Bingo 2025 - A Splash of Summer Mini Event : A1 - Power Imbalance // B1 - Sensation sharing // C1 - "I made you this"
'A Day at the Beach' - 22.07.2026
I went for something simple and combine two prompts that seemed perfect together :3
Done using ink pens, colored pencils, gel pens, alcohol markers, graphite pencils and Photoshop for the background, seashells, seaweeds, Eddie's jewelry, the shadows effect and the prompt titles
AO3 post 1 / AO3 post 2 / Bluesky post / DeviantArt post / Instagram post / Pillowfort post / Twitter post
Done using ink pens, colored pencils, gel pens, alcohol markers, graphite pencils and Photoshop for the background, seashells, seaweeds, Eddie's jewelry and the shadows effect
AO3 post 1 / AO3 post 2 / Bluesky post / DeviantArt post / Instagram post / Pillowfort post / Twitter post
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Tags: Post canon, Eddie lives, Future established Steddie, time travel, fairground psychics with questionable ethics, Post-canon Eddie Munson, Scoops-era Steve Harrington
For @steddiebingo splash into summer prompt: Time travel, and for prompt 'Prize' on my main card.
This is me breaking more or less my only fic writing rule and posting something that I've not finished writing yet ... but I messed up on the deadlines for the summer mini bingo card and I don't have until the end of the month like I thought (Did I read the rules when they sent them to me? Yes. Did I retain any of that information? Clearly, no). Chapter 2 will likely go up in the next week(ish) if you want to wait for the whole thing but part 1 fills my last mini bingo prompt, so putting this up to sneak inside the deadline.
***
The evening is beginning to cool from the heat of the day, but it's still warm enough Eddie didn't need to wear a jacket. He's glad he did though, if only for the extra space given how quickly his pockets are getting crammed with tokens and change, keyrings and tiny crappy toys and someone's half a candy bar that's in his back pocket. He's pulled the short straw here and he has no idea what he did to deserve it; can see Max and Lucas headed his way and turns left before they spot him in case they have some more junk to get him to carry.
If one of these dumbasses wins a goldfish it is one hundred percent not going to be his responsibility.
Steve finds him again just as he's wondering where he's meant to put the small blue bear Robin's just pressed into his arms on her way to the cotton candy stand; Eddie tries to take the coke Steve's brought him and tucks the bear inside his jacket to free his hands. Steve looks at the bear critically.
"Interesting look for you."
"Maybe I'm branching out." He takes the drink Steve passes to him, looking down at the top of its fluffy bright blue head. "Looks kinda like that one of yours, doesn't it?"
"Hey, don't mix Raspberry up with some new imposter bear."
"I know he'll always be first in your affections, baby."
Steve grins and falls into step next to him and Eddie wants to duck his head, press his face into Steve's neck and breathe; restrains himself just about and lets their shoulders knock together as they walk instead. Steve passes him his drink, lets their hands press tight for a moment as he does and Eddie grins as the lights of the fairground glint on polished metal, his ring on Steve's finger.
He wants to get used to it; wants the years to make it an expected thing — and he never wants to lose the wonder of it.
They walk together until Steve's eye catches on a stall where people are throwing little soft half-basketballs at nets fixed up in an ascending diagonal. Eddie can see Steve's eyes assessing, looking at the prizes on display on the back wall — and Eddie absolutely can see a fucking goldfish back there and hopes madly that it's either fake or dead; there's no way that thing's surviving the drive back to Chicago with them at the end of the week.
He turns to Steve with a grin. "You gonna win me something?"
"Oh, baby, no, I'm gonna win me something."
Steve's grin is bright and sharp and Eddie lets their hips bump as they walk together to the stand. "Remind me again why married you?"
Steve hmms, pretends to think, leans in and says quiet, "Because I give great head?" just as they arrive at the stall so that Eddie doesn't have chance to reply.
Eddie drinks his soda leaning against the corner of the stand and watches Steve fondly as he pays his money and takes his chances. He gets two and misses the third and it's as he's grumbling about the whole thing being rigged that the skinny teenager who's running the thing holds out a small piece of white card, pushing it towards Eddie's chest.
"Mystery prize," he mumbles, "good for one free entry." He looks away like he's embarrassed about it and then waves the card at him when he doesn't accept it straight away. Eddie takes it cautiously from the kid's grubby fingers and reads, his eyebrows raising.
He snorts a laugh, can't help it. "A psychic, really?"
The kid shrugs, uncomfortable, and points off to Eddie's left. "She's over there. Tells me to give them to certain people sometimes, I don't ask about it." He looks up and meets Eddie's eyes in a glance that seems to want to say something, but then the kid's moving away, heading to his next customers.
Eddie passes the card to Steve, who reads it, turns it over to see its blank other side and then looks Eddie over somehow contemplatively as he hands it back, eyes catching on the bear tucked into Eddie's jacket. "You gonna give it a go?" There's an odd little tightness to Steve's voice that Eddie's not sure the meaning of.
"What's the matter?" He takes the card, makes sure to rest their fingers together for a beat as he does. "Think the county fair psychic is gonna tell us something devastating that we never knew about ourselves?" He lets a bit of mockery out into his tone, makes light. It's not like Steve puts stock in this kind of stuff.
Steve just shoves his hands in his pockets and shrugs. "The guy gave it to you. It's your, uh, free psychic reading."
Eddie glances over to where the kid had pointed, a small purple tent, shadowed inside, with a sign proclaiming the Mistress Joanna.
Steve shrugs, takes Eddie's drink from him. "I'll wait here for you."
"You sure?" Eddie isn't sure himself that he wants to go and get his fortune read by a psychic with a carnival tent, but, "I guess it could be fun."
Steve smiles at him blandly, says, "Sure it will," and so Eddie figures, why not, there are worse things, and walks over, ducks inside the tent.
The Mistress Joanna is about five feet even and wears jeans and a loose, knitted sweater with a pattern of yellow daisies that drops to her mid-thigh. Eddie's not sure what sort of vibe she's trying to get over, but she's definitely hitting more hippy Earth-mom than the knower of all his deepest secrets. He reconsiders the mom part though, looking at her again — then reconsiders it back again. He couldn't guess how old she is between twenty and forty.
She smiles when he comes in and gestures welcomingly to the chair opposite where she is already seated, on the other side of a small black table — lawn furniture, Eddie's pretty sure. The whole thing is so almost-but-not-quite that he wants to laugh.
He sits and she narrows her eyes at him, face blank except for a smile playing around the corner of her eyes. She surveys him for a moment, long enough that it becomes awkward and Eddie wants to fill the silence with words, but then she leans forward and gestures for him to take her hands. Feeling foolish, Eddie does.
"What is it that you're needed for, do you think?" she asks softly, and Eddie opens his mouth to say something but he doesn't feel right, suddenly; his fingers are going numb although she's not holding on to him tightly. "Hm. No matter. I knew the second I recognised you that now's the time." She withdraws her hands from his and stands, gestures to the opening of her tent, "You should go, you have things to do."
Eddie looks behind him to where the fair is continuing without him, to where he can see Steve standing, arms folded while he waits for Eddie to come back out. Eddie wants to make a comment, ask is that it or you didn't even tell my future but he's started to feel dizzy and like he might puke; when he stands to leave the floor shifts under his feet like sand and the walls spin and blur.
He turns for Steve, reaches for him but his stomach roils and his legs give out. His knees hit the dirt.
—
When Eddie wakes up it's with the worst hangover he's ever had in his life, and as he groans and squeezes his eyes shut to block out the evil, evil sunlight he gropes around to find covers to pull over his head and freezes when he realises that his hands are landing on — it feels like grass, slightly damp with the morning.
Eddie freezes; takes stock. Outside of his pounding headache there is definitely a feeling that something's not right: it starts with the damp grass under his hands, grows with what is, undeniably, a breeze across his back where his shirt has ridden up, and starts rattling alarm bells at what is certainly the sound of nearby traffic. Eddie is outside. He is sleeping, he realises as he cracks open his unwilling eyes, on the side of the road.
Sitting up, his whole body protests; everything aches as badly as his head and it takes him a solid minute to make it to his feet with a healthy pause halfway up to breathe in through his nose and slowly out through his mouth so that he doesn't throw up on his shoes. He knows where he is — just outside of Hawkins, maybe a hundred yards from the turn off to the fair, which — Eddie frowns — seems to be packing up to leave; he can't see many of the rides over the treeline any more and the big wheel looks halfway deconstructed already. Which is strange — he'd thought it was here for the weekend — but he supposes they must have another town they're meant to be in tonight.
But — Eddie can't actually remember leaving the fair. He can't even come up with a theoretical order of events that would have him getting so wasted that Steve just left him here to sleep it off — even if Eddie had spun entirely out of character and gotten himself absolutely insensate Steve would have made sure Eddie made it home safe so that he could give him all the necessary grief about it in the morning.
It's not that far into Hawkins proper from here, to the little hotel they're staying at for the weekend just after the sign for the town limits, and it doesn't look like he's got many options so Eddie starts to walk. It's going to be hot, later, but the sun hasn't yet burned away the chill of the night so he shivers, clothes damp from lying in wet grass — he assumes — all night.
Eddie walks down the edge of the blacktop, hands shoved into the pockets of his jacket, trying not to worry.
Thinking up his worst possible scenario — that he somehow got drunk or wasted or something enough that he passed out on the side of the road, some state worse than he's ever been in, but yet not worthy of a hospital, and Steve couldn't get him back in the car. Steve still wouldn't have left. He would have — have fucking parked up next to him or something, so that he knew Eddie was safe until the morning, then nursed him through his hangover so he could read him the riot act stone cold sober. Or maybe instead Steve totally lost track of him and somehow didn't care about finding him again — but that wouldn't happen; none of it.
They don't leave each other.
Eddie is already running tense, already churning on worry of what's happened to Steve, and what that means about what's happened to Robin and Dustin and everyone else when he sees the sign.
Too much has happened in the last decade for Eddie to believe in coincidence or even madness as a first answer; to not believe what his senses tell him, even when what they tell him is totally fucking impossible.
Only, this time he is — apparently — in it by himself and so he takes a minute to kick at the grass and scream fuck as loudly as he can at a passing car before he sits down in the grass, just for a minute, to read it again. Then he lets himself dwell on the implications of Next exit: The Starcourt Mall: Now Open for Business! in garish brand-new bright pink.
Eddie remembers when this first went up, with a blacked out 'Now' and a tacked on 'spring '85' at the end. He remembers when the 'Now open' was revealed, how he had refused at first to set foot in that capitalist hellhole, even if that principle had crumbled fast. And then, he remembers after the fire, when the sign was ripped down.
Now he tears up handfuls of grass and looks at it brand new again and traces back, to the last thing he remembers clearly before waking up in the grass — the psychic at the fair.
He'd felt sick from the moment she touched his hands; she had told him he had things to do.
It's with an awful sinking feeling that he wonders if those things to do were things in the — the past. The time before the mall fire, when Eddie was nineteen and blissfully unaware of the fuckery the world was about to play on him.
Eddie sits as the morning grows warm and ponders that he is considering seriously that a woman in a tent wearing daisy-motif knitwear has sent him back in time — and it still might not be the weirdest thing that's ever happened to him.
It's close, though.
There's one way to be sure, so Eddie drags himself to his feet and starts walking again, eating the other half of Dustin's candy bar and jamming Robin's blue bear in his back pocket in its place. Eventually he meets a reminder sign, a hideous cheery little Starcourt Mall, next left! just to make this day worse.
As the sun starts to warm the air, threatening to turn scorching by mid-morning, Eddie takes the next exit.
—
Eddie has no plan. Except, he supposes, for the need to confirm what he thinks is happening before he does anything else because even in the frankly ridiculous breadth of his weird shit experience, time travel is taking it a bit far.
By the time he's trudging into the Starcourt parking lot he's too hot, his legs are tired and his feet hurt; he's long since tied his hair up and out of the way to try to keep himself cool and he's sure he's going to end up sunburned to all hell. He's noticed a distinct lack of fundamental structural damage to every street he walked past on the way here: time might have helped this town heal some over the last decade but nothing came back together without a scar, and the roads here have never seen a faultline.
Eddie wishes that he believed he's just gone straight-up crazy, but he's not that lucky.
It's still early enough in the morning that the car park is mostly empty and when Eddie walks through the front doors into the mall's blissfully air conditioned entrance there are only a scattering of people milling around the walkways. Eddie moves out of the way of the door and touches, carefully, the wall to his left. It feels solid enough.
"This is actually happening, isn't it," he mumbles to a pot plant, and lets his feet carry him by muscle memory toward the food court. Steve had worked here six days a week from the week after graduation until the place was ashes so chances are good that if he's not here yet he will be soon.
Still, he's only looking for Steve as a gateway into the Hawkins Weird Shit society; he's got no idea what he thinks they're actually going to be able to do about this, if he can even convince Steve he's not a nut case.
His spirits sink when he sees it's a girl at the register, then realises with a start that it's Robin — he'd hardly recognised her with her hair still so long like that, let alone the stupid fucking sailor hat, and he's halfway to walking over to speak to her when he realises it'll be useless. She won't be in the Weird Shit society until after the 4th of July; she'd probably recognise Eddie Munson from the school band but twenty-nine year old Eddie of the future would have too many hurdles to get past until after the Mindflayer, and the Russians.
There's a pang at that, of pain to come for people he loves, and soon.
But Eddie has more immediate problems. He watches as Robin turns to shout over her shoulder and a few seconds later a familiar figure comes out of the staff room at the back, swaps places with her at the counter with an exchange of mutual baleful glances. Eddie cracks an involuntary smile; he would recognise that man anywhere.
Standing at the edge of the food court, Eddie looks at Steve Harrington: 1985 edition. His heart is awash with nostalgia, and it makes him feel absurdly fond and hideously old and painfully jealous all at the same time, even though he knows that the Steve that's over there, flirting with a legwarmer wearing highschooler with a high pony tail — god but Eddie doesn't miss the eighties — that Steve isn't even dating Eddie yet. That Steve might not even properly understand that he's bisexual yet, Eddie's a little vague on the timing of that revelation.
It's a couple of minutes until Eddie accepts he's essentially hiding behind a plastic fern like a massive creep and he needs to go and talk to the eighteen year old version of his husband, still a little baby-faced and with that ridiculous hair swoop that Eddie Munson, version '85, had found utterly fucking irresistible. Steve is making change for the only person left in line and Robin is still in the break room so now's his best chance of being able to start this conversation uninterrupted.
"Shit," Eddie mutters to himself, and starts walking toward the Scoops Ahoy display counter before he can talk himself out of it.
He gets there just as the person in front is leaving, and then there's just Steve, looking at him with the forced smile of the unwilling customer service worker.
"Welcome to Scoops Ahoy, what can I get you today?"
"Hi," Eddie breathes out, and stops.
There's a pause that becomes long and awful, and Steve frowns at him. "Did you want a sample or something?"
"Uh. No." It's too late now to realise that he should at least have planned a conversation opener before he came over here, and Steve is starting to look at him like he's a weirdo. Eddie feels horribly like every time he'd tried to talk to Steve while he was working here the first time around; Eddie had consumed more ice cream in a month than was in any way sensible while he was trying to build up the nerve to say something to Steve that wasn't dessert related. "I need to talk to you."
"About … ice cream?"
"No, uh," Eddie looks behind him to make sure they haven't gathered an audience. "About —"
"Hey, you look familiar, do I know you?"
"In … a way — which is what I need to talk to you about, it's —"
"Yeah, you look like this guy from my school, uh," Steve frowns at him, head tilted; Eddie feels his face heat under the scrutiny like he actually is nineteen again. "Munson, yeah. Eddie Munson, you guys related?"
Some small, permanently teenage part of Eddie weeps and cheers at the knowledge that Steve Harrington knows his name and Eddie shakes his head and squashes it because for fuck's sake Steve Harrington married him in their back yard last year.
"Yes and no — look, Steve, I've really gotta talk to you, ok, some weird shit is happening and sure, it's not your usual kind of weird shit, but fucking weird anyway and I am not built to do this solo, you know what I'm saying?"
Steve blinks at him. "No, I absolutely don't know what you're saying."
"Look, can you take a break, can we talk?"
Steve glances left and right, like he's looking for help. "C'mon, man, can you just buy your ice cream already?"
Eddie rests his palms on the counter, drops his head and counts to five, then stands and looks his stupid, stupid future straight in his lovely brown eyes. "Steve. Your friendship group includes a girl with psychic powers and you yourself have been known to beat on interdimensional hellbeasts with sporting equipment. Your middle name is Anthony, you feed a stray cat out back here that you call Pepsi and you've got a birthmark real high up on your inner thigh that's shaped like Australia. You wanna come find out how I know all that or do you want to debate the relative merits of peppermint stick versus cherry jubilee?"
