Chapter Text
i.
Steve pinches the bridge of his nose and pushes through the crowd of Halloween monsters and cheap polyester. He needs to get out. He needs some air, but more importantly, he needs to get as far away from this party as possible. People are drunk and excessively rowdy. He hopes they’re already too drunk to pay close attention to him because tears sting behind his eyes and he’s not sure how much longer he can keep a straight face.
He finds several guys from his basketball team hanging around the front door and turns on his heels without even thinking about it.
“Hey Harrington,” one of them yells. “Come check out the keg!”
He’s just gonna pretend he didn’t hear that. Their heckling gets louder, a lot more rude, and Steve just speeds up his pace. Shoulders bump against his’ as he crosses the living room.
He stumbles up the stairs and ignores the couple making out across the fifth through tenth step. His cheeks are definitely wet now.
He’s been to this house before, so he knows the way to the master bedroom. To the one door they’re never allowed to go through whenever there’s a party here. He decides to make an exception for himself. It’s just a few minutes. He needs to compose himself and then he’ll get out of here.
When he opens the door, he finds he’s not alone. A guy with a head of dark curls sits with his back against the side of the bed. Smoke curls up from his cigarette toward the ceiling, where it’s whisked in all directions by the fan.
It’s the first person he’s seen all evening who is not in costume. On anyone else, the leather jacket and the silver chains would have been a one time thing for Halloween, but he recognizes the guy from school. That’s Eddie Munson. He just dresses like that.
“You okay, dude?”
He wants to turn around, but Eddie sounds genuine, more than Steve’s ever heard him. So he stops, keeps his eyes on the floor, though.
“It’s been a long night, Munson,” he says. “I’m kinda done.”
And then, to his own surprise: “Wanna talk about it?”
Steve looks over his shoulder down the hallway. The thought of going back downstairs makes him want to throw up. He closes the door behind him and sits next to Eddie on the floor. The wooden base of the bed digs right under his shoulder blades so he slumps a little further down.
The surprise encounter stunted his tears for a bit, but they’re bubbling back up.
He takes a deep breath and his lungs tickle with an earthy scent. Ah, that’s not not a cigarette. Eddie’s just smoking weed in Tina’s parents’ bedroom. Whatever. That seems on brand for the guy.
“What are you even doing here?” he asks because now that he’s sitting down, he doesn’t think he can talk about himself without crying.
“Just here to sell,” he says nonchalantly and he drapes his lower arms over his knees. He’s the picture of casual, twirling the joint between his fingers. “People know where to find me, not in the mood to join the party.”
“Ah.”
He should just go. What the fuck is he even doing here. Eddie’s black leather clashes with the floral bed sheets. Steve knew this was Hawkins High’s go-to guy for weed, but he hadn’t expected him to mention it so casually. It seems like the thing you shouldn’t say out loud.
“Come on now,” Eddie says with a playful lilt to his voice. “I’ll trade you a joint for a story. Tell me what’s up.”
Steve bites back another tear as Eddie wiggles the joint in front of his face. It’s a tempting offer.
So he talks. Starts with Nancy and the fucking punch bowl, ends with her calling him bullshit in the bathroom.
And then he just keeps talking. Eddie is a surprisingly good listener, even if it’s probably just because the weed is keeping him busy. He seems determined not to share any of it until he gets his story first. Steve leaves out a lot, obviously, not willing to break his NDA over one pathetic, drunk evening.
“Sounds like she was really fucking drunk,” Eddie sighs when he’s done recapping his disaster of a relationship. “People say shit they don’t mean when they’re wasted.”
Steve shakes his head so fast the world spins for a second. He’s not sure if he believes that, in fact, it might be the complete opposite. What if the alcohol just made her more honest? What if she’d been wanting to say this for a long time?
He sets his hands next to him and leans back even further. The carpet scratches the heels of his hands, but it’s grounding in a way.
“You didn’t see her face,” Steve says. And then quietly he adds: “It was like she could tell.”
The chorus to the Monster Mash blasts through the floor boards like someone turned the volume all the way up. His voice gets lost in the sound of people screaming and he’s not even sure if Eddie can understand what he’s saying.
For a second, he thinks Eddie really didn’t hear him. He takes several drags of the joint and lets the smoke fog up the empty space between them.
“What could she tell?”
Eddie passes the joint to him and Steve takes it, mostly so he has an excuse not to answer. He’s smoked weed before, but that was a while ago, back when he still hung out with Tommy and Carol. For some reason the thought of his old friends makes his stomach lurch into his throat so he takes an extra long drag.
He doesn’t cough and briefly thanks whichever saint is charge of not embarrassing yourself in front of near strangers.
Static settles into his brain almost immediately, like a thick blanket over every single emotion he’s felt tonight. It’s like he’s watching himself feel things from a polite distance. He rubs his face out of habit and is almost surprised to find the wet tear stains. Oh that’s right, he was crying.
“That there’s something wrong with me,” he says with remarkably little emotion.
He tells himself it’s the weed. Being stoned just turned off his emotions, but he knows that’s not the whole story. This is just how his brain works. He’d been crying long enough, it was time to cut it out.
In his peripheral, Eddie turns to face him. He stretches his left arm across the bed and leans onto his elbow. “And what’s that, huh?” Eddie says with a light and gentle tone. “You’re too athletic? Too traditionally handsome? Parents just love you too much, that it?”
Steve winces. “Shut up, man.”
He looks up so he can pass the joint back and finds Eddie’s painfully sincere eyes staring right at him. It should be kind, but it pisses him right off.
“No, no. You gotta tell me what’s so wrong.” Eddie smirks. “Was your hair too voluminous?”
“Shut the fuck up!”
Eddie flinches and his shoulders shoot up to where they almost meet his ears. Fuck.
“I’m sorry,” Steve says quickly. He doesn’t mean to yell, he really doesn’t. “I just...”
“What wrong with you then?” Eddie sounds a little pissed off now. When Steve doesn’t say anything he adds: “You can tell me. God knows I’m a little fucked in the head as well.”
Eddie takes another drag of the joint and ashes onto the carpet. His lack of respect for private property seems to know no bounds.
“I can’t love her the way I’m supposed to.”
Now that seems to pique Eddie’s interest. He raises an eyebrow and one corner of his mouth quirks into a grin. Eddie looks him over like he sees him for the first time. His eyes linger on the shoulders of his jacket, then on his lips and then he looks right at him again.
“Pray tell,” he says and a full smile cracks across his face.
And oh well. It’s not like he knows Eddie. Not like he ever has to see the guy again after this.
“She’s like, incredible, right?” he starts. “She’s pretty and smart and I could listen to her talk for hours, but I just… I can’t get it to come naturally.”
Eddie seems to consider his next words carefully, it’s a strange look on the guy. “So… You don’t love her?” he says. “That’s fine? I mean, doesn’t that kinda solve your whole problem?”
Like we’re in love.
“But I should love her,” Steve says and guilt floods his body. He should’ve argued more about the notion that he doesn’t love Nancy Wheeler. “I do love her! I’ve never cared this much about anyone and...”
And she’s really beautiful? He can’t say that out loud. Especially not to this random guy who he shared one math class with. It makes him sound like the worst person in the entire world. It’s not the full truth either. He really, really cares about Nancy and...
“…And if I don’t love her,” he continues. “Then there’s gotta be something wrong with me. If I can’t even love her the right way, then I can’t love anyone.”
“Maybe you’re just looking in the wrong...” Eddie stops himself and swallows so loud Steve can hear it.
“What?”
Eddie takes a deep breath and pushes himself off the floor. “You wanna get out of here?” he asks and he holds out his hand. “This party sucks anyway. I have some more weed at home.”
Oh. That actually doesn’t sound too bad. Especially compared to going back downstairs and joining the party. Or going home by himself and sitting in the dark emptiness of his bedroom.
He grabs Eddie’s hand and lets himself get pulled up. They’re almost exactly the same height, Steve notices for the first time.
Eddie grins showing all his teeth in a smile that looks like trouble and it’s the last thing Steve remembers.
ii.
He wakes up the next morning with a God awful hangover and a burning desire to erase his entire brain from existence. But not right now. First, he’s gonna need some more sleep. Like ten hours of it.
He pulls the blanket over his head, but it won’t give all the way. The fabric is caught behind something. No, someone. Wait? This is not his blanket.
Steve peaks over the edge of the dark sheets and the first thing he sees is the guitar mounted on the wall across the room. Next to him in the bed, someone shifts. A dark head of curls pressed face first into the pillow, a boy without a shirt on. Eddie.
“Mornin’ sunshine.” His voice is rough and smoky.
Memories flood back in. Eddie stealing a bottle of wine on their way out. Strange looks, linked hands, so many stars. A forty minute walk to the trailer park because they weren’t sober enough to drive. Little clouds of breath. Black space in between. Drinking straight from the bottle, back and forth, fingers touching. You’re actually a pretty decent guy, but he doesn’t remember who said it.
His brain is a snow globe someone shook too hard and the pieces of last night are still settling into place.
“What time is it?” he groans as he sits up. “Don’t we have school?”
He’s still in his costume from the night before, minus the jacket, and his belt digs a mark into his hips. His mouth is somehow dry and sticky at the same time.
“That ship has sailed, my friend,” Eddie says. “It’s like… Past noon probably. Who cares?”
That’s probably the attitude that got him repeating his senior year. Steve doesn’t really care about one missed day of school. It’s just...
“I gotta talk to Nancy,” he says and it feels urgent.
“You sure?” Eddie mumbles into the pillow before turning his head to look at him. “Last night you seemed pretty… Done with it?”
“I was drunk.” Steve swings his legs off the side of the bed. “People say shit they don’t mean when they’re wasted.”
Eddie barks out a laugh and Steve chooses to ignore him. He searches the room for a clock, a radio, anything with the time on it, but Eddie’s room is like one of those seek-and-find books. Posters wallpaper the entire space, along with hand drawn pictures and post it notes. Steve counts at least three amplifiers and another guitar propped behind a chest of drawers before landing on a digital clock. It’s half past one.
Past your curfew, Harrington? Smoke of another joint blurs the blinking lights of a digital clock. Shag carpet and pillows on the floor. Blurry edges. Just the punchline to a joke he doesn’t remember telling. Glinting teeth. Wide smiles. Have you been funny this entire time?
“Fuck,” Steve mumbles mostly to himself. “I gotta go right now.”
If he doesn’t do it now he’s gonna change his mind. He’s gonna let Eddie tell him that it’s okay. That he doesn’t have to date Nancy if he doesn’t want to anymore. But he wants to. Eddie doesn’t get that. He wants to more than anything.
He taps his pockets, but doesn’t find his keys. Right. He didn’t take his car.
“Want me to drive you?” Eddie asks and Steve can hear him roll his eyes.
“Uh, please?” He doesn’t have the wiggle room to politely decline even though Eddie seems less than thrilled about having made the offer.
Eddie groans and sits up. His sweatpants hang low on his hips and now that he’s out from under the blankets, the dragon tattoo on his back is on full display. When he reaches for something on the floor, his tattoo stretches, breathing life into the inky black lines.
It’s kind of mesmerizing.
He pulls a black sweater over his head and Steve snaps out of whatever just got into him. Eddie pushes himself off the beds and pads out of the room into the hallway without saying a word.
Steve isn’t quite sure what to do now, but he spots his costume’s suit jacket on the floor. When he grabs it, the sleeve is wet to the touch and the smell of red wine wafts into the air.
Be careful! Slurred on the steps outside the trailer. A bottle passed haphazardly while tripping up the stairs. Stained shoes. Stained jacket. Hands pressed to mouths to stop from waking up the neighbors with their roaring laughter. You’re the worst. Slamming doors. Oh, but you love it.
Steve blinks away the memory and crumples the jacket between his hands. Without it, he’s only wearing a long sleeved shirt, but it’s gonna have to do. He looks down and finds his sneakers indeed also stained. That’s a problem for later.
“Your taxi leaves in five, Harrington,” Eddie yells from the other side of the wall, maybe the bathroom. “Better hurry up.”
iii.
“What are you even gonna say to her?” Eddie asks as he turns the key in the ignition.
The engine sputters to life on the second try like it’s complaining. Steve barely has the time to fasten his seat belt before Eddie speeds off. It only takes a few seconds before they’re well over the speed limit.
“I don’t know,” Steve mumbles, voice barely audible over the music blasting from the speakers. Metal, probably, given Eddie’s reputation, but Steve wouldn’t know the first thing about it.
“Well maybe think of something, yeah?” Eddie spits. “We’re gonna be at Miss Wheeler’s in T minus ten.”
He says Miss Wheeler like Nancy personally wronged him somehow. He doesn’t think they ever spoke, it’s hard to even imagine them in the same room together.
So Eddie’s a bitch when he’s hungover. Good to know. Steve peaks at him through the corner of his eye in the hopes it won’t be obvious he’s staring.
Eddie’s jaw clenches into an angle so sharp it must hurt his teeth. His knuckles clutch white over the steering wheel. Maybe not just the hangover then. Hadn’t they been getting along pretty well? Like an evening worth repeating kind of well? Steve certainly thought so. He’s a little blurry on the details of last night, but in every single memory he’s managed to retrieve they’re both laughing.
“Look dude, you don’t have to drive me,” Steve says. “Just drop me off here and I’ll walk the rest.”
Eddie lets out a long breath and releases his death grip on the steering wheel ever so slightly.
“No, it’s fine...” Eddie forces his lips into a tired smile. “I’m just tired, didn’t mean to be rude.”
Steve doesn’t know what to say to that so the music fills the car again. It’s loud and brash and he’s pretty sure it’s vibrating all the way through his bones. It makes it kinda hard to think about Nancy, although maybe that’s part of its typical appeal.
The van, unsurprisingly, smells like weed, which only makes his hangover worse. He reaches to rolls the window down only to find that the crank doesn’t work.
“It’s just...” Eddie takes one hand off the wheel to run through his hair. “Last night you told me you didn’t even love her and now we’re what? Going to apologize?”
“We’re not doing anything,” Steve says, a little louder than strictly necessary. “I’m going to talk things through like an adult and get back together.”
Eddie sticks out the tip of his tongue and bites it like he has a lot to say about this. He stays quiet anyway.
“Oh, like you know the first thing about love,” Steve says. “I’ve never even seen you talk to a girl.”
Eddie’s brows quirk up and he bites at a smile. Doesn’t say a word, still. Asshole.
“I do love her!” Steve yells. “The whole thing was a misunderstanding. I just have to be better.”
“Whatever you say, man.”
His casual tone makes Steve want to punch something. Who does Eddie think he is? He doesn’t even know Nancy. He just heard Steve drunkenly complain about their relationship for maybe twenty minutes. He’s not an expert in any sense of the word.
“It has to be her,” Steve says. “If she just lets me explain myself, it’s going to be her.”
He’s not making a lot of sense, but he blames the hangover. Besides, he doesn’t have to make sense to Eddie. As long as Nancy is willing to forgive him, it’s fine.
He’s not entirely sure what he’s supposed to be forgiven for, but Nancy can probably explain that to him now that she’s sober.
“If it’s not her, I think you’re also gonna be fine,” Eddie says, tone still casual. “I may not know anything about dating girls, but I do know you don’t have to love her if you don’t want to.”
Steve sighs. He wants to love her. Desperately. He does love her. Eddie sounds like he’s speaking from experience, somehow, but Steve isn’t sure which experience. Eddie’s never dated anyone as far as he knows, only seems interested in his band and being an all around obnoxious presence in the cafeteria. Hell, in the middle school there were even rumors that he was gay.
There’s a short silence.
“Could you maybe drive past that flower shop on Main?” Steve asks.
“I’d literally rather crash this car.”
“Never mind.”
He tucks his hands under his thighs and keeps his mouth shut for the rest of the drive. Trees flash by at regular intervals on either side of the road as the front lawns slowly get bigger. Nancy’s house looms at the end of the cul de sac and Steve swallows hard. Fingers crossed her parents aren’t home.
Eddie parks his van on the curb and clicks off his seat belt.
“Just going to have a smoke,” he says when Steve raises an eyebrow. “Plus you might need a getaway car.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence, asshole,” Steve says as he gets out of the van. “But I think I can handle it from here.”
He speeds to the front door before his brain can tell him not to when someone shouts him name.
“Steve!”
It’s one of the kids who got involved last year. Dustin. One of Will’s friends who hid that little Russian girl. Or? Not Russian girl? He heard so many different stories last year he has a hard time separating the truth from the cover up.
Steve assumes the kid is here for Mike, but then he makes a beeline and sprints right towards him.
“Steve! I need your-” Dustin stops abruptly when he notices Eddie trail behind. “Who’s that?”
“That’s Eddie,” Steve says. “He’s a friend of mine, what do you want?”
Dustin raises an eyebrow. “He looks way too cool to be your friend, dude.”
Eddie takes a few steps forward and a grin splits across his face. He reaches out to ruffle Dustin’s hair, but he ducks out of the way.
And yeah… Maybe Eddie does look too edgy to be his friend. The silver chains he wore last night are apparently a permanent addition to his ripped jeans and he’s tied a flannel shirt around his waist that serves no purpose other than… looking cool, Steve presumes.
“I like this little guy already,” Eddie smiles. “Now please enlighten me. How do you two know each other?”
Steve doesn’t have time for this shit. “Look, Dustin,” he says. “I’m kind of in the middle of something.”
“Looking for Nancy? She’s not home.” Dustin says. “Neither is Mike so I really need your help. Do you still have that bat?”
A cold front settles between Steve’s ribs like a sip of ice water on an empty stomach. It’s something about the urgency in Dustin’s voice, right on the edge of real panic. Something about the image of his baseball bat.
“Bat?” Eddie frowns.
“It’s in my car, so I don’t have it here,” Steve says. “Why?”
The gears turn behind Dustin’s eyes. “Well, could we go get it?” he says. “It’s kind of an emergency.”
“An emergency?” Eddie asks.
“Just let your friend drive us!” Dustin nudges his head to the side, right where Eddie is.
“What? No!” Steve shakes his head. “Whatever this is, we’re not getting Eddie involved.”
“I’m so confused.”
“Steve, this is a Code Red,” Dustin says.
It’s a split second decision. His brain says no. This sounds bad, don’t get Eddie involved. He signed an NDA. But he’s been making a lot of decisions against his brains wishes the past year.
“Fuck it,” he says and he turns back to Eddie. “Change of plans?”