#toburnup

“Hey! What about me?” Lucas pouts.

“I’m literally her boyfriend,” Mike says from where he’s sitting on the recliner opposite Eddie, taking a break from their discussion about the latest campaign to scold his best friends.

“Tough shit. Still her favorite.”

El looks at Mike, then at Lucas, at Dustin, considering, and back to Mike. “Dustin’s my favorite,” she confirms.

“That’s messed up,” Lucas mutters, accepting Max’s consoling pat on his arm.

“Congratulations,” Steve says dryly, interrupting Dustin’s cheers of victory and Mike’s flustered protests. “Now where am I supposed to sit?”

“You can sit right here, princess.”

Eddie, comfortably sprawled in one of the recliners, pats his lap and grins smugly at Steve, like he knows his invitation won’t be accepted.

It’s been some kind of unspoken competition between the two of them lately, seeing who can get under the kids’ skin the fastest with their excessive displays of affection and pet names. It started with a co-parenting bit the kids developed several weeks back. The dipshits love to tease them, enjoy how frustrated Steve gets when they call him their mom and Eddie their dad, and the best way to get them to lay off, Steve had reasoned, was to lean into it. 

Instead of huffing or rolling his eyes the next time the kids told Eddie to “talk some sense into his wife,” Steve had said, “Eddie agrees with me. Don’t you, honey?” while unnecessarily straightening the collar of Eddie’s jacket, pressed close into his space. 

Eddie’s eyes had widened in surprise, but only briefly. Almost immediately, his hands were settled on Steve’s hips, and he was crooning something ridiculous, along the lines of, “Always, baby.” It had the kids gagging in response, making various faces and comments that all meant the same thing: they hated seeing the two of them act like this. 

Which is, of course, exactly why Steve and Eddie keep doing it.

It’s like a game of Gay Chicken, except the only people they’re trying to freak out are their obnoxious observers. 

So when Eddie offers his lap and looks at Steve like he knows he won’t do it, like this is too far outside the range of Steve’s comfort level, Steve rises to the challenge.

Like he does most things in his life, Steve doesn’t think it through very much, just shrugs and plops down in Eddie’s lap. “Thanks,” he says over his shoulder, relishing the surprised sound Eddie lets slip.

It’s more uncomfortable than he thought it would be, and he shifts around a little, fully blaming Eddie’s skinny ass legs. He’s never actually sat in someone’s lap before, though, so maybe he’s a little to blame, too. 

He always loved being the one with a lapful of the latest girl he was flirting with. He got to wrap his arms around her waist, tug her closer to his chest. It was easy to access her ear for whispered conversations and her neck for teasing kisses. And it was always nice, being that close to someone, the weight of them bearing down on him pleasant. Comforting, even.

This, though, being on the other end of it, isn’t as fun as he thought it would be. His thighs are tense, still holding himself up so he doesn’t crush Eddie beneath him, and he feels about two seconds away from toppling over. 

“You’re not gonna break me, you know.” Eddie’s voice is low, his breath hot on the back of Steve’s neck, and Steve fights like hell to suppress a shudder. He’s supposed to be the one with the upper hand in all this. “I’m stronger than I look. Relax.”

Eddie’s arm loops around his middle and pulls him in, and Steve finally lets himself melt into his hold, resting his full weight on Eddie. He wraps an arm around Eddie’s shoulders and angles his body inward, keeping one leg tucked between both of Eddie’s and draping the leg closest to Eddie across Eddie’s other leg. He doesn’t resist it when Eddie grabs Steve’s outer thigh, keeping him in place. Steve would never admit it, but it’s almost…nice. Being held by Eddie like this. Possibly even better than being the one doing the holding. 

“Must you? There’s a stool, like, right next to you,” Dustin says, pointing to the stool that is, in fact, available and right next to them.

Whatever. Steve shrugs. “This is more comfortable.”

“Aww, sweetheart,” Eddie coos and taps Steve’s nose with his ringed forefinger. Steve narrows his eyes. Leave it to Eddie to keep trying to one-up him. Trying and succeeding, which is the most irritating part.

“Ew,” Max says after Lucas explains to her what they’re doing. “Can you not?”

“Seriously. We were in the middle of a conversation,” Mike adds on, eyeing Steve with disdain.

“And? I’m not stopping you.” Steve takes a bite of his pizza. Pretends like this is completely normal and not at all affecting him in any way.

He feels, more than hears, Eddie chuckling and has to bite back his own smile in response. “Continue, Wheeler,” Eddie beckons, and everyone resumes their conversations before Steve interrupted them so he could sit on Eddie’s lap.

At least, Steve thinks they do. It’s hard to focus on anything other than the way Eddie is unconsciously rubbing his thumb in soothing circles against Steve’s waist. It’s a little dizzying, and Steve blames his recent dry spell on his reaction to such a simple touch. To any of Eddie’s touches as of late. He’s just desperate for any kind of human contact, so it only makes sense that he’s more sensitive to it, no matter who it’s coming from. 

He’s startled out of his thoughts when El makes Dustin’s drink explode in his face. Dr. Pepper drips off his nose, and the room erupts into laughter as he lunges to wipe his face off on her sleeve despite her twisting away, squealing. 

Eddie laughs, delighted, never tired of El’s displays of her powers, and his grip on Steve tightens. When he turns to Steve with his bright eyes and dimpled cheeks, Steve is powerless to do anything but return his smile and hope it doesn’t look too dopey. 

the theme of two roads diverging started for me at the very top of the fic. I was thinking about Steve, and about the fact that this fic at it's whole is kind of my interpretation of what would have happened without him, in seasons three and four. and I couldn't stop thinking about the robert frost poem "the road not taken", which obviously comes up throughout the fic.

the first time we hear steve reference it is in chapter five (aptly named "two roads diverged"), after spending the day with dustin, with this passage:

He was having that feeling again. Not quite deja vu, but… the feeling that his life had diverged, two roads, and he’d taken the safe one. The brightly lit, clear path. The life his dad had wanted for him. The obvious choice. But the other road—dark, less well trod—he felt the ache of it, the regret of not taking it. Something in his brain screamed that there was a poem just like it, two roads in a yellow wood, but he had never had the brain for poetry and he couldn’t remember it if he tried. Two roads and Steve picked the easy one, the safe path, pavement and nepotism. But here, in Hawkins, looking down that other road… He wondered, and not for the first time, if he’d ever not regret his decision.

Steve doesn't really remember the poem well, but he knows he's heard it (likely in school), and he thinks it fits his situation. of course, we as the reader know he didn't really have the choice in the way he thinks he did, but for steve it's the moment when he realizes like, oh shit. I could have stayed, I could have been part of the party, maybe I could have helped.

the sentiment comes up again in chapter seven ("the letters"):

Maybe if Steve had come around more. Maybe if he hadn’t— Steve broke, truly that time, letting the sobs pull him under and away. Finally, for the first time in his life, he let them come, hard and painful, as he cried for the life he could have had. Two roads diverged, and he had chosen wrong.

Steve is sitting at the point where he realizes why the path was chosen for him, why Richard made him leave Hawkins and his life behind, and in this moment he knows for sure that the other path would have been better for him (again, us as the readers remember what actually happened in season four, so in my mind steve really dodged a bullet here, but...).

we see the poem come up again in chapter thirteen, with the letter Otis leaves to Steve:

And: I can only hope that one day you’ll know a love as strong as mine and Tony’s. One day you’ll step back and look at what you have in the world, your family, your belongings, the path of your life, and you’ll see a choice to take. And I can only hope that when you’re faced with that choice, you make the decision that is the most right for you. One of my favourite poets, Robert Frost, has a very famous poem. It ends as such: Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and I— I took the one less travelled by, And that has made all the difference. I see this poem, Steve, as a map for life. When you are one day faced with this choice, when you’re staring ahead at yourself and you can see one path, a path that is perhaps easier, and may please more people, and may make life run smooth and sure, and a second path that is less well trod, less well understood, but that you think may lead to your happiness? My recommendation, and you may take it with a grain of salt, is to make your own path through the wood. Dark and scary it may seem, but if you are with the ones you love, the ones who truly love you back, you will never regret it for a second.

And this does a few things for us, at this point in the fic. First of all it's another point of connection between Otis and Steve. Another reminder of how similar they are as men, and a way for Steve to see yet again that he has this connection to his family he never thought possible. Otis is a sap at heart (we already know of his love for Oscar Wilde) and I can see him reading this poem and feeling it ring true in his own life. He took the safer road, of Margite, and likely spent many years wondering if he had chosen right, or should have taken the more difficult path.

It's also another way for us as the readers to get a sense of what Steve is thinking through someone else's eyes. Otis tells Steve not that he should take the safe easy path, or the hard one either, but to make his own path through the woods. To be his own man, and not allow the pressure of the external world influence how he decides to live his like.

But ultimately, the thing I love about this poem is (and I suspect Otis would have known this too): it was written as a joke. Frost says it right in the poem that actually the roads are basically worn down about the same - neither is "less traveled" in a way that makes a meaningful difference: "Though as for that the passing there / Had worn them really about the same".

And that's because choice, here and in much of life, is both an illusion and an impulse. Steve had no choice on the road he took, for those first few years. He says it himself - he was 18 with no money, no house, no support (that he knew of), what was he supposed to do? And yet still he stands looking back on his life and wonders if he could have done things differently. But the reality is: even if he had been free to make the choice, how can any of us know if we've made the right one? For Frost, his traveler chose 'right', "and that has made all the difference". But the reality is, either road, either choice, would hopefully have led to a good life. I could have skipped a party at 18 and I would be an entirely different person today, but not a lesser one, or a worse one. But where I sit now, I made the right "choice", even though the choices we make are never long enough to see their results.

But ultimately, at the story end and the line you chose, we reach an end:

Two roads diverged, and he had finally found his way back to the path he was supposed to be on.

Steve has gone from wondering, to doubting, to knowing where he's meant to be. The roads had diverged, but Steve no longer laments that he has "chosen wrong". Because if he had stayed on the first road (the road of the show, perhaps), he may not be where he is in this moment, with Chrissy and Ness and Eddie at his side. But instead, he followed Otis's advice, and carved his own way through the forest, and here has landed exactly where he was supposed to be: home.

She lifts an eyebrow at him. 

“Or something.”

And then she’s got her fingers in the hair at the nape of his neck, tugging him down. Steve will never admit it, but he loves the feeling of the wall behind him, the way he feels pinned up. Supported. 

“Worse ways to go.” He breathes against her lips. 

She’s small, tiny, and he’s got at least half a foot on her, so it isn’t hard to stoop a little lower, get his hands around the backs of her thighs and hoist her up. Settle the weight of her against him. 

“You’ve got some moves yourself.” She says. Brushes the hair away from his forehead and Steve does his best to not press into the warmth of her touch. 

Instead, he navigates them through the dim light of his home. Skips the stairs that lead up to his room and heads straight for the couch, sitting down carefully, so she has time to adjust. She laughs and he swallows the sound of it, wrapping an arm around her back and sealing her to him, so it can’t escape. 

Steve’s in no rush here. He’s got time and a half, with Robin out for the night, and it’s been so long since he’s done this. It doesn’t stop him from playing with the hem of her shirt, from tugging it out from its firm tuck into her skirt. He relishes in the shudder his fingers inspire against her skin. 

She breaks away, pulls back to help him get her shirt up and over her head. He spares a second for her bra, a utilitarian thing, before heading straight for the dip of her clavicle. Keeps and iron grip around her waist as she shifts in his lap. 

He loves this. Missed this. The feeling of hands in his hair, of a steady rhythm starting up as she moves again. The sound of someone in his ear. 

He migrates away from the bone, heads up her neck and gets teeth right on a tendon. She gasps and the feel of it zings straight through his skin. Goes for it again, this time with intent. 

And then she goes rigid in his grasp.

“Shit.” She hisses, rolls off of him to the side so she’s laying down. Steve follows, skin still singing, settling into the cradle of her hips. 

Her arms come up immediately. Defensively. One covering herself and the other firm on Steve’s chest, keeping him at a distance. 

“I thought you said your roommate was out for the night.” She hisses at him. 

“She is?” He says, and wonders what that has to do with anything. “She’s out tonight.”

“Well, she clearly came back early.” She says, looking a little bit like he might be stupid. “She’s on the stairs.”

Steve frowns. 

Robin doesn’t really come back early. She actually has a reputation for closing out the bars. And if she doesn’t and she’s alone, she’s calling Steve, bullying him into a ride. 

It’s his luck that the one in a million chance of Robin coming home early happened tonight, of all nights. And maybe she heard him and decided loitering on the stairs was the best way to let him know she’s home, with the added bonus of making the whole thing as uncomfortable as possible. It’s well within her playbook. Nancy, he thinks her name is, tilts her chin up and narrows her eyes at him, hand still keeping him at bay. 

He gives her a smile. “Don’t worry. She’s just doesn't know how to use words like a normal person when we have guests over.” He says it loud, clear. So Robin can hear.

But no indignant squawking happens. He rolls his eyes. She’s really leaning into this. 

“Robin.” He says, pushing up and away from Nancy and looks over his shoulder. “C’mon-”

There’s no one on the stairs. 

Not Robin. 

Not even the reflective eyes of their cat. 

He sits up all the way. The stairs lead up to the hallway, completely cast in stark shadows. He stares at it, hard, like maybe Robin’s head will materialize in the dark, peeking around the corner to spy and make sure her prank worked. 

But she doesn’t pop out and he’s left staring into the void of their upstairs. 

He sits up. 

“Rob?” He calls out, even louder this time. “You home?”