Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Eddie feels like a fucking moron.

This isn’t new. All throughout high school, he felt like and was treated like one. His peers would tease him for his low grades and his short attention span, and the teachers treated him like dog shit because of his perceived lack of interest in everything. His friends have a longstanding history of mocking him when he does something stupid. And he is always, always the last person to know things.

Except where D&D is concerned. That’s the one exception, because he knows everything. And whatever he doesn’t know is covered in a rulebook, so the answer is at his fingertips at all times.

So feeling like a moron is nothing new.

Feeling like a moron because of Steve Harrington? Also not exactly new, because Eddie’s been feeling like he’s one step behind the guy for months now.

But this type of feeling like a moron is very new.

And it had been Wayne of all people who’d pointed it out to him.

They’d been sitting down to dinner, just the two of them. They don’t get to do that often, what with their conflicting schedules and how Eddie barely has a moment to himself with the showcase fast approaching. He’s almost always at someone else’s house practicing, which typically leads to their mother asking if he’s staying for dinner. (He always does.) And even when he is at home for dinner, Steve is there, too.

So a dinner with just him and Wayne has turned into an abnormality. And Wayne had made note of it, gesturing to the empty spot Steve normally claims and asking, “The Harrington kid not coming today?”

Eddie had shook his head. “No, he has to work late. Inventory, or something?”

“Good,” Wayne’s voice was gruff, tired. “I need to talk to you about something.”

“Yeah?” Eddie’s interest was immediately piqued.

“Yeah. I wanna know what his intentions are.”

“Intentions?” Eddie frowned, completely lost.

“With you,” Wayne elaborated, which immediately caused Eddie to sink down in his seat, covering his face with his hair.

“Oh my god,” he groaned. “Oh my god, no, not you too.”

Wayne had waited for him to gather his composure, just like always. Wayne’s good like that, giving Eddie time to adjust to the conversation. He doesn’t ambush him or talk quickly to get it all over with; he starts it, offers an acclimation period, and then they talk. Eddie thinks that this is why they get along so well and have gotten along since he was a young teenager with a hotter head and a meaner temper than he has now. Wayne had seen the troubled boy underneath all the bravado and had given him time to come out.

“Now, I know you kids have been through a lot,” Wayne had disclaimed, “and nobody comes out the other side of something like that the same. But you boys in particular are headed down a slippery slope.”

“What?” That had blindsided Eddie. He’s used to people teasing him about how close he and Steve are, at this point. But nobody has ever called their relationship dangerous.

“I’ve seen it before,” Wayne pressed on. “War, hell on earth, it’s shit like that that changes you so deeply and messes you up so bad that you don’t know how to be normal afterwards. And I see it in the Harrington kid, Eddie. I see all the signs.”

Almost afraid to ask, Eddie’s voice had come out timid when he asked, “What signs?”

“Codependency. He’s losing himself, the person he was, and he’s filling that gap back up with other people. With you.”

“Me?”

“He’s playing your guitar, singing in your band. And I heard some of the little ones teasing him for helping you with your latest game.” Wayne shook his head. “Don’t think I don’t remember you complaining about him before this all started. About how Steve Harrington,” Wayne mimicked Eddie’s mocking tone in a way that should be condescending, but because it was his uncle there was no bite to it at all, “had to be a douchebag because of that code of yours. The one where all athletes are evil, or whatever it was you said. So tell me, when was the last time that kid tossed a ball around?”

Eddie’s silence had answered for him.

“And he’s doing all your stuff. He’s filling all his time with things you love. So where’s his time for the things he loves?”

Eye contact has always been hard for Eddie, but in that moment he couldn’t even look in Wayne’s general direction, let alone at his face. His eyes were trained on the ground, looking and feeling much like a sheepish child.

“Ed, I need you to hear me on this one,” Wayne’s voice is even. “Be careful with him. Figure out what he wants, but then give him what he needs instead.”

And so Eddie feels like a moron.

This entire time, Steve has been opening himself up to everything Eddie enjoys, and he hasn’t even bothered to find out what Steve did in his free time before that. He likes to think that Steve doesn’t still see him as the Eddie who climbed up on tables to complain about balls-in-laundry-baskets games, the one who bemoaned the pedestal everyone put athletics upon. They’re too close for Steve to think he’d react like that, should he want to watch a game together or talk about sports, right?

But he also hasn’t given Steve a reason to think otherwise.

This is how Eddie finds himself outside of Lucas and Erica’s house, of all places.

The street is quiet, many of its residents having left the neighborhood after the events of last spring. They, like those in Steve’s neighborhood, are the ones with enough money to pick up their lives and start over with no fuss. But the Wheelers and the Sinclairs are both still around, despite both sets of parents constantly weighing their options. Eddie knows this because Mike and Lucas will talk about it together in hushed voices, their heads bent close together, when they think nobody else is listening.

Eddie feels naked walking through this neighborhood, even though he’s fully clothed. He’d parked his van a few streets away, worried that someone would slash his tires if he parked close enough to the wrong house. These are the families that still think he’s a murderer, the ones who hadn’t bought the cover story.

He’s never been timid in his life, or so he thinks, but when he raises a fist to knock on the Sinclairs’ door, that’s exactly what the knock sounds like.

Thankfully, Erica is the one who answers.

“You look like shit,” she tells him, ever the honest spitfire.

“Thank you for your astute observation, Lady Applejack,” he leans against the doorframe and adopts a haughty tone anyway. “Perhaps one day you’ll learn you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, but then again, charisma is not your strength.”

Erica rolls her eyes, but a small smile is tugging at the corners of her mouth.

“No offense, but what are you doing here?” she asks, next. “Because last I checked, you told us in no uncertain terms that our neighborhood was off-limits. Like, the entire thing. And that you’d never set foot here under pain of death.”

“And I was a dramatic piece of shit, wasn’t I?” Eddie chuckles dryly. “But, uh, I need to talk to your brother.”

“You ever heard of a phone?” Erica shoots right back.

“You wound me,” Eddie clutches his hands to his heart. “This is important. And not an over-the-phone conversation.”

“Please tell me you’re not like the others and think the government is listening, or whatever,” Erica rolls her eyes. “I’ve done the math, and with virtually no proof that anything supernatural ever happened here and no way to actually prove it now, the chances of them still listening to us are less than two percent.”

“Did you include El’s powers in that calculation?”

“Yes, of course I did. And I also included all of the friends in high places who did everything they could to make it look like she died.”

“Okay, fair,” Eddie concedes.

“If they are listening, they’ve tapped into the Hawkins PD. They’ll learn more from what people call in than what we call each other about.” Erica nods, as if this settles the entire matter, and walks away from the door. With her back to him, she says, “Lucas is in his room. Knock first.” And then she keeps going, turning and walking through a doorway and leaving him alone.

Under his breath, as he walks towards the bedrooms, Eddie says in a high pitched voice, “Oh, hi, Eddie, it’s nice to see you. Thanks for risking your life coming here today. Let me, most importantly, tell you if my parents are home so I know how careful to be.” He sighs, rolling his own eyes when he comes to a halt in front of Lucas’s closed door.

His first knock goes unanswered, so Eddie waits an appropriate amount of time before knocking again. When there’s no answer the second time, either, he knocks a little louder. He thinks maybe Erica is playing some kind of prank on him when the door swings open, a very tired-looking Lucas hanging onto it.

“Erica, leave me a–” he cuts himself off, bleary eyes recognizing Eddie as not his sister. “Eddie?”

“Erica could have mentioned you were asleep,” Eddie grimaces. “Sorry, man, I’ll just–” He starts backing away from the door, gesturing over his shoulder to indicate that he means to leave.

“It’s okay,” Lucas yawns. “‘M awake now.” He pushes himself off the door, opening it wider. “C’mon in?” It’s an invitation, but it’s also a question.

Eddie understands why. They don’t do this. Him and Lucas. They don’t hang out one-on-one, and it’s been that way since Eddie first met him as a reluctant freshman dragged along to a Hellfire Club game by his two best friends. Lucas is, if he’s being honest, the only member of the Party with whom he’s never quite sure where he stands.

Lucas hastily tugs at the comforter on his bed, pulling it up to cover the obviously just-slept-in sheets. He sits down, looking pointedly at the chair at his desk. Eddie pulls that out so he can sit down, too.

“So, uh, what’s going on?” Lucas asks.

“Do you and Steve still talk about sports?” Eddie blurts out, with absolutely no preamble or explanation.

Lucas seems taken aback by this.

“Yeah, a little, I guess,” he shrugs. “Not as much as we used to.”

“Why?” Eddie presses, not caring that he’s prying.

“Because he spends all his time doing other stuff now,” Lucas shrugs. “Between his job, and band practice, and hosting all of us at his house all the time, Steve doesn’t really… do anything else.”

“Shit,” Eddie sucks in a sharp breath. “Okay, uh, so… what did you talk about?”

Lucas crosses his arms over his chest.

“Why?”

Eddie groans, scrubbing his hands across his face. He tugs at his hair, hiding the frustrated downturn of his lips with the wavy locks.

“Because I want to do something nice,” he admits. “Because Steve is, uh, codependent, according to my uncle. And he shouldn’t be. Not with, uh… not with me.”

“And you’re just realizing this now?”

Eddie’s so caught off guard by Lucas’s words that he drops his hair.

“What?” The word comes out a snap, though he doesn’t have the energy to put any bite behind it.

“Yeah, man,” Lucas laughs, “uh, everybody knows that. About Steve. And you. And about Robin and Steve, and Dustin and Steve. He’s just… I dunno, clingy?”

“And nobody thought to ask him what he actually wants to spend his time doing? We just keep barging into his house like we own the place and making him do shit for us?”

“Well, he likes having us over,” Lucas shrugs. “I think it helps. Seeing everyone all the time, I mean. It reminds him we didn’t die.”

That admission is met with silence, as they both mull over the truth in the words. They didn’t die. None of them did, somehow. And it had been a near miss, for more than one of them. Eddie still has nightmares, can still feel the teeth of those damn bats sinking into his flesh. But the nightmares never have him dying. It’s always someone else. Someone else he was trying to save but couldn’t reach in time.

And because they don’t talk about it, he doesn’t know what Steve’s nightmares are like. But Eddie can guess.

“Okay, so we’re helping him by crowding him,” Eddie waves his hands, trying to clear the air of the sudden depth of the conversation. “That’s good, I guess. But, to my point, Sinclair.” He points both index fingers at the boy. “Sports.”

“Why do you care?” Lucas chortles. “I thought you’d sooner die on your own sword than pretend to care about balls-in-laundry-baskets, or whatever.”

“Steve cares,” Eddie explains. “Except, he doesn’t anymore. And that’s the codependency thing, and it’s not healthy, and I want to know about sports teams.”

“And you asking this has nothing to do with your codependency?”

“Leave me the fuck out of it, man,” Eddie leans back in the chair, balancing on its hind legs. “This isn’t about me.”

“Yeah, it is,” Lucas leans forward. “You feel bad.”

Eddie makes a noise of protest, but can’t form any actual words.

“You do.” Lucas looks smug. “You feel bad and now you’re trying to level the playing field.”

“And if I am?” Eddie asks, defensive.

Lucas’s smug smirk softens.

“Then, it’s about damn time.”

Eddie opens his mouth to protest. Then he stops, mouth agape. And instead of talking, he thinks.

He thinks about Lucas never sitting with them at lunch, always hanging around with the members of the basketball team. He thinks about how many times he’d heckled the team in the halls, and in the cafeteria, or during assemblies. Always with people around, because if there were people around then he wouldn’t get beat up. Sometimes people would even laugh.

He thinks about Gareth and Tommy and Jeff, how all of them had nothing and no one until he brought them together. How suddenly they weren’t picked on less, but they had him, Eddie, as a shield.

Eddie had donned the jester’s hat in school to keep his friends safe. With the attention squarely on him, at all times, the others could fade back and let him take the brunt of everyone else’s rage. Because he could take it.

He thinks about the Sinclairs, how they’re the only black family in this entire neighborhood. He thinks about some of the detestable bullshit he’s heard some of the previous kings of Hawkins High spew about people with skin darker than their own. He thinks about how Patrick had been able to withstand all of that, for almost four entire years, because the basketball team had his back.

He realizes just how much Lucas had to lose, sitting here in his bedroom while asking him for help. And suddenly the help he’s asking for seems stupid and minuscule and impossibly selfish.

“I… have never apologized to you,” he realizes.

“What are you talking about?” Lucas frowns at him, clearly not having any clue where Eddie’s brain has been flitting around to in the silence that’s stretched between them.

“The championship game,” Eddie clarifies, his tone lacking all of the sting it had back in the cafeteria when Mike and Dustin had asked him to postpone the Hellfire conclusion that conflicted with the basketball game. “I… we didn’t need to play that night. Hellfire, I mean. We didn’t.” He laughs, and it’s almost a hysterical sound. “We could have just played at someone’s house, for god’s sake. We’re all fucking friends, man. Or at least, we were supposed to be.” He sighs, dropping the chair back down on all four legs and sagging his posture forward.

“I was a self-righteous asshole who stopped your friends from going to your big game because my head was so far up my own ass I didn’t want to consider that some… balls-in-laundry-baskets,” he chuckles, “game was important. But it was. It is. And I’m sorry.”

Lucas just blinks at him. And Eddie has to look away, because eye contact is hard and it’s even harder, now, when he doesn’t know what Lucas is going to say next.

But he does think that this was an important step he needed to take, and that maybe he’s one step closer to knowing where he stands with the elder Sinclair.

“So, there’s the Pacers,” Lucas says.

Eddie has no idea what the Pacers are, and he looks up, confused.

“They’re the basketball team. And then there’s the Indians. They’re baseball.” Lucas is smiling, ticking the teams off his fingers. “And you’ve got the Colts; they play football. And technically there’s the Komets for hockey, but they’re not, y’know, in the national league or anything. And the Hoosiers, that’s what they call all the teams at Indiana University. But normally when people say Hoosiers they’re talking about basketball. Those are the teams in Indiana.”

“So, Pacers,” Eddie nods, feeling frantic. “Hoosiers. Basketball. That’s the one that’s best, right?”

Lucas just laughs.

“Obviously basketball is the best. But I think, for you? If you’re gonna get into a sport? It’s gotta be hockey.”

“Okay, hockey,” Eddie scoots forward on his seat. “Yeah. Sure. Why hockey?”

“Because it’s fast,” Lucas explains. “The game can turn in an instant. It’s not like football, where they spend just as much time in time-out planning as they do playing. And I think, even if you gave it a fair shot, you would get genuinely bored watching basketball.”

“And what’s wrong with baseball?” Eddie asks.

“Too slow.” Lucas shakes his head. “No, it’s gotta be hockey. That’s your in.”

“Why do I need an in?”

“Because this is Steve we’re talking about,” Lucas snorts. “He’s not gonna buy that you suddenly care about all the stuff you spent six years complaining about. He’s not that dumb.”

“He’s not dumb at all,” Eddie replies automatically, as if it’s a reflex.

Lucas has the decency to look apologetic.

“Okay. He’s not dumb. Which is why you definitely need an in.”

“But how do I get the in?” Eddie asks, suddenly feeling desperate.

Lucas grins. “Youngblood.”

“I swear, Sinclair, every time you say something I’m sure makes perfect sense in your sports-filled brain–”

“It’s a movie,” Lucas interrupts. “Youngblood. It’s a hockey movie. I’ll ask Steve to get it for our next movie night.”

“You’re a fucking genius.” Eddie’s eyes widen, and he points at the boy. “A genius, Sinclair. You hear me?”

Embarrassed, Lucas ducks and shakes his head.

“I am gonna… give your character a magic item, or… something.”

Lucas looks back up.

“How about you come to my games sometime?”

“Deal.” Eddie stretches out a hand to shake on it.

“And, uh, bring the others? Mike and Dustin, I mean.”

“Under pain of death, I will drag them if I must, Sir Lucas.”

They shake on it.

And at their next movie night, Eddie watches Youngblood with Steve and Lucas while Mike DMs a game for the rest of the band, Will, Dustin, and Erica in another room. Robin, Nancy, and Jonathan had expressed zero interest in the movie and disappeared downstairs to play pool with Max and El in tow. Argyle is lying half inside and half outside Steve’s house, his torso outside and the rest of him inside, lying in the doorway. He claims he’s “listening to the vibes,” and doesn’t want to actually watch.

Eddie notices him light up and hopes he’s far enough outside for Lucas not to breathe anything in.

Seconds later he wonders when he turned into the mom.

“Sinclair, this movie is brutal,” Steve says when they’re about halfway through it. “Why can’t they just leave Rob Lowe alone? He’s doing his best.”

“He doesn’t know how to fight!” Lucas reminds him. “C’mon, Steve, he’s gotta man up and punch someone!”

“Yeesh,” Steve’s eyes widen. “See, this is why we don’t have a hockey team. Nobody wants to deal with dudes wailing on each other like this.”

“But there’s a wrestling team,” Eddie cuts in.

“That’s different,” Steve says, immediately, even gesturing with a hand as if to punctuate his words.

“How is it different, Stevie?” Eddie asks, turning towards him and leaning back against the sofa. “Please tell me how teenagers groping each other and slamming their heads into the floor is any different from this.” He waves a hand in the general direction of the television.

“Well, for one thing, the fights aren’t actually part of hockey,” Steve explains.

“Could have fooled me!” Lucas laughs. “Steve, half the movie is about this guy not being able to punch people.”

“Right, right, and,” Steve holds a finger in the air, “this is a movie. Not a game. It’s a movie, so it has to have dramatic tension and a story and all that shit. So they’ve tied his inability to fight into his insecurity as a hockey player, and he has to overcome one and the other.”

“So people don’t punch each other’s lights out on the ice?” Eddie sounds skeptical, because he is.

“Okay,” Steve holds his hands in the air. “They do. But it’s not normally like this. The ref steps in in real life. There’s an unspoken five second rule, or something. Any longer than five seconds and it’s overkill.”

“So every single fight in this movie wouldn’t have even happened,” Eddie snorts.

“Nah, probably not,” Steve shakes his head. “But like I said, dramatic tension.”

“When did you get so smart?” Eddie teases, reaching out to swipe a finger through the curl of hair resting on Steve’s forehead.

“Shut up,” Steve rolls his eyes, but Eddie notices the blush rising in his cheeks.

“So what else does this movie get wrong?” Eddie asks.

“It’s actually pretty accurate. Although, I can’t decide how I feel about the Masterton reference.” Steve grimaces, as does Lucas.

“The what?” Eddie is, again, lost.

“When Swayze hit his head,” Lucas starts, and Steve finishes, “it’s a reference to when Bill Masterton died.”

“No shit?” Eddie looks between the two of them, thinking that they must be joking. But both of them look solemn.

“Yeah. He fell and hit his head, just like that.”

“And he fucking died?”

“Yup.”

“No, you guys are shitting me,” Eddie shakes his head. “No way. There’s no way!”

“There is absolutely a way,” Steve argues. “Nobody wore helmets back then!”

“Well why the fuck not?” Eddie throws his arms in the air. “That’s just dumb!”

“We know that now,” Lucas rolls his eyes, sounding defensive. “But, it’s like any new information. People have to prove their theories before other people start to believe them.”

“So some guy had to die to get hockey players to wear helmets?”

“I never thought about it like that,” Steve says, staring blankly at the still-playing movie. “But, yeah, I guess.”

“That’s metal as fuck.”

Both of the others stare at him.

“Dude, I don’t think suffering a traumatic brain injury that resulted in death is metal,” Argyle pipes up from the floor. “That’s just… sad.”

The three of them exchange a look.

“You’re right, Argyle,” Eddie decides, looking at Steve when he says it. “That is sad.”

“Now wearing a helmet all along because you care about your cranium? That’s metal as fuck,” Argyle declares. “Who was the first hockey player to wear a helmet? Because I like that guy.”

“Probably Eddie Shore,” Steve answers.

“Eddie Shore,” Argyle repeats thoughtfully. “I like him.”

“Who the fuck is Eddie Shore?” Eddie asks, already not liking the guy for daring to have the same name as him.

“He tripped Ace Bailey and ended his career,” Steve starts to explain, but is quickly interrupted by Argyle.

“Nope, I do not like him.”

“Bailey forgave him, in the end. They did a game in his honor and retired his jersey, and before the game he gave his jersey to Shore. To publicly forgive him, I guess. And he was wearing a helmet. Eddie Shore, I mean.”

“How do you know all this?” Lucas asks, incredulous.

Steve shrugs.

“Sports trivia is fun.”

“Is that a thing?” Eddie frowns, thoughtfully. “Is there a sports version of Jeopardy? Because you,” he nudges Steve, “would clean the fuck up. What other secrets are you hiding in there?”

“No secrets,” Steve shakes his head. “We’ve just, I dunno, never talked about this stuff.”

“Hey Steve?” Lucas leans forward, more fully involving himself in the conversation. “Uh, they’re doing tryouts for the team again. Next week.” He reaches up and rubs the back of his neck. “Could you, uh, help me practice?”

“You’re not worried, are you?” Steve turns towards Lucas, instantly concerned. “Sinclair, you scored the winning basket at the championship game. They’d be stupid not to take you back.”

“Yeah, and that was after I rode the bench all season,” Lucas rolls his eyes. “Anyone can have a moment of luck, Steve.”

“That wasn’t luck.” Steve’s voice is firm and sure. “No, listen to me, Sinclair. It wasn’t. You got the ball in the tussle, and you set yourself up for the shot, and then you took it. And you sank the shot. That wasn’t luck. That was skill. And without, uh,” his eyes flick to Eddie momentarily, “without Carver, they, uh,” he clears his throat, “they don’t have any big egos on the team anymore. No big egos means nobody’s gonna be monopolizing the ball. Not yet. And Coach would be stupid to let that happen again, not after the, uh, the last two.”

Eddie’s missing something, here. Steve and Lucas have a look of understanding between them, a look that tells him there’s something more he would know if he’d been part of this group earlier. Or maybe he would know if he’d paid any attention to the basketball team, other than the jeers he would throw around in the cafeteria. But he’s pretty sure Steve isn’t talking about himself, when he mentions big egos.

Lucas looks away from Steve, turning back towards the television.

“Oh shit, he went home?”

All of them turn back to the movie, none of them having followed the story to where it is now. But they keep watching it, anyway. Eddie asks questions every time he doesn’t understand a hockey reference or the way the game seems to be working (which is often) and Steve and Lucas both answer him.

At the end of the movie, Argyle sits up from where he’s been lying on the floor this entire time.

“I didn’t like it,” he declares. “Youngblood should have fought the guy and then won the game. Not the other way around.”

“You’re probably right,” Steve concedes, stretching his arms above his head. He turns towards Eddie. “Want to go outside? I could use some air.”

“There’s air all around us, my dude,” Argyle points out.

Steve chuckles and stands up, walking over towards where Argyle is now sitting in the doorway. He lays a hand atop the other’s head, ruffling his long hair.

“There sure is, my dude.” Steve breathes in deeply. “And even this far away, I can still smell the farts coming from my dining room.”

“Farts and pizza,” Argyle breathes in deeply, too. “And Doritos.”

“Fresh air sounds great,” Eddie decides, pointedly not sniffing the air.

Neither Lucas nor Argyle follow them outside, so it’s just the pair of them wandering the perimeter of Steve’s backyard. They start near the pool, since that’s closest to the house. Steve positions himself so he’s between Eddie and the covered pool as they walk around it.

“It would be cool to replace it with a skating rink,” he says, waving a hand in its general direction. “Not like I use it at all.”

“You’re just saying that because of the movie,” Eddie teases.

“Yeah, I am.” Steve shrugs, shoving his hands into his pockets. “But it would still be cool.”

Neither of them say anything as they pass the pool, walking back towards the lawn where Corroded Coffin had played, back before Steve was one of them. Eddie smiles as he remembers, picturing all of their friends spread out in the grass. When they’re far enough away from the pool, he bends down and stretches his arms out so he can touch the grass, feeling the tufts beneath his fingers.

“Thanks for, uh, pretending to give a shit about all that,” Steve says, and his voice sounds far away. Eddie turns, realizing that Steve has turned away from him, that he’s looking back towards the house.

“What do you mean?”

“Eddie, you just watched a hockey movie when you could have been playing D&D.” Steve shakes his head, still looking at the house. “I’m not an idiot. And that was fun, but you don’t have to keep pretending like you care.”

Eddie stands back up.

“Stevie, I wasn’t pretending.”

Steve crosses his arms over his chest, still not looking at him.

“I’m not,” Eddie insists. “I just… Lucas told me about the movie, and I thought… why not? Why not give it a try?”

“But you hate this shit,” Steve tells his house.

Eddie reaches out and touches Steve’s shoulder, which makes the other flinch away from him. He pulls back immediately, not used to this type of reaction. He thinks he must have done something wrong.

“Do you, uh… do you want to be alone?” he asks, even though that doesn’t make sense because Steve had asked him to come outside. When he doesn’t get an answer, he tries, “Did I do something wrong?”

“No,” Steve practically trips over himself in his haste to turn back around and reassure him. His face looks crumpled, somehow. “No, Ed. I just…” He runs a hand through his hair. “That was… really nice. I had a lot of fun with you and Lucas and Argyle, but I just… I needed you to know that it’s okay.”

“That what’s okay?”

“If it was a one-time thing.” Steve puts his hands back into his pockets. “I didn’t want to say anything in front of Lucas. But I need you to know that you don’t have to… I dunno… be someone different. Stop doing the things you love because of… because of me.”

“Stevie,” Eddie’s voice trembles, because this matters and somehow everything is so much more serious than it was a mere breath ago. “I need you to listen to me.” He ducks his head, catching Steve’s eye. “Look at me, and just listen, okay? Because… because remember how you said that I make things easy? And you don’t have to be good at everything and that’s okay? Well, uh…” a nervous chuckle escapes him, and he almost breaks eye contact but forces himself to keep holding it, “you, uh, you do too?”

It comes out a question, even though there is no question in Eddie’s mind about any of this.

“I’m not not doing the things I love, or anything like that,” Eddie assures him. “I’m just making room. For new things. Because that’s what you do for the people who matter to you, right? You make room for them, and for everything they love.”

He thinks it’s a pretty good speech, and he’s feeling really proud of himself for it. But then Steve turns away.

“Eddie, you don’t have to like sports because I like sports.”

“Okay, then you don’t have to learn how to play D&D,” Eddie counters.

“Wait, hang on,” Steve takes a hand out of his pocket, turning back around and cutting him off. “No, that’s… that’s different. All the kids–”

“And you don’t have to be our singer anymore,” Eddie keeps going. “And you don’t have to perform in the showcase.”

“But–”

“And you don’t have to learn to play the guitar. Steve, you don’t have to do any of this.”

“Jesus, it’s not a competition.”

“Exactly! It’s not!” Eddie has to look away, now. He tugs on his hair, twisting it between his fingers. “It’s not a competition,” he repeats, quietly. “But if it were, you’d be winning.”

“And, what, this is you evening the field?” Steve scoffs and crosses his arms over his chest. “I’m too good at caring about all the stuff you like, so you’re gonna do it back to me?”

“No, that’s not–”

“Then what is it?”

“Why can’t you just believe me?” Eddie asks, desperately. “Steve, I had fun. That was fun! And I’ve never doubted you, when you suddenly cared about all my shit. So why can’t you believe that I care about yours?”

Steve looks down at the ground. He shifts his posture from foot to foot a few times, then kicks at the grass. He mumbles something that Eddie can’t hear.

“Stevie, please,” Eddie steps closer. “Please talk to me.”

“It’s not important,” Steve shakes his head, still looking at the ground.

Eddie thinks that it is important. He thinks this might be one of the most important conversations they’ve ever had. And so in this moment, he thinks of Wayne. He remembers how Wayne has handled all of the important conversations they’ve had over the years, how he’s introduced the topic, given Eddie time to adjust to it, and then they’ve talked it through.

“We’re going to talk about this when you’re ready,” he tells Steve. “Because it is important, and because it’s important we can’t ambush each other with it.”

“So you’re telling me to walk it off and try again?” Steve asks.

“I’m telling you I want to listen, and I want to understand. But I’m not gonna force you to tell me if you aren’t ready.”

“Okay,” Steve mumbles.

“Do you think you could explain how hockey works, in the meantime?” Eddie asks, feeling like he’s pressing his luck.

Steve looks up, and it’s clear he’s looking for a joke. He’s waiting for Eddie to minimize the game to “puck-in-net,” like he’s done in the past with basketball and laundry baskets. He’s waiting for Eddie to break, to laugh, to say, ‘Jeez, Steve, you really fell for that?’

But there is no joke, and Eddie watches as he realizes it. He watches the question leave Steve as he realizes that there really is nothing they can’t talk about, nothing they can’t share.

“So, there are six players on the ice at a time,” Steve begins. “Three forwards, two defencemen, and a goalie.”

They walk so many laps around Steve’s backyard that Eddie loses count. And the whole way around, Steve explains how hockey works. Eddie stops him any time something doesn’t make sense so he can ask for clarification, and Steve has to explain how the penalty box works three separate times before Eddie thinks he might, maybe, sort of understand.

And the longer they walk, and the longer Steve talks, the more enthusiastic he gets. Eddie’s seen Steve get excited about things before, so this isn’t new. But he’s never been able to listen to Steve explain something in full. Normally, it’s himself or one of the others explaining things to Steve. But for once, it’s the opposite. And Eddie likes it.

He’s never really thought about this before, about how one-sided their relationship is. Or how one-sided all of Steve’s relationships are. Watching him come alive like this, get so invested in something, is new. And it’s wonderful.

Steve’s eyes are alight and sparkling as he talks about his favorite teams. He shares anecdotes about why certain rules exist, about how helmets became standard for incoming players and how recent this ruling had been. He explains how some referees still don’t wear helmets. He talks about Lord Stanley of Preston like he’s a close friend and not a historical figure who lived long before both of them had been born.

“And just to be clear, you don’t play hockey,” Eddie laughs, at the end of it all.

“Nope,” Steve shakes his head.

“So you’ve never played this sport at all, you’ve never dreamed of being in the HNL–”

“NHL,” Steve corrects him.

“NHL,” Eddie repeats, and then again for good measure. “NHL. National Hockey League,” he grimaces when he realizes where the mistake came from, “not Hawkins National Lab.”

Steve has the good grace to chuckle and say, “Nope, definitely never wanted to be there.”

Because even though they never talk about what happened, and the lab’s involvement, they can, sometimes, joke about it like this.

“I never thought I’d play sports professionally, at all,” Steve admits. “It was just something I did for fun, y’know?”

“Never?” Eddie presses.

“Well, okay, I guess when I was a kid,” Steve concedes, shrugging. “What did you want to be when you were a kid?”

“A rock star,” Eddie answers without hesitation.

Steve punches him, lightly, in the shoulder.

“Well, here’s to one of us fulfilling his childhood dreams.”

“My point,” Eddie says, loudly, because he has a point and he’s not going to let Steve derail them, “is that you just… know all this. For fun. Not because you played hockey and needed to learn the rules. Because this is fun for you.”

“Y-yeah,” Steve shrugs again, shoving his hands back into his pockets. “Yeah, man, it’s fun.”

They stand in silence for a few moments. Steve rocks back and forth on the balls of his feet, his eyes darting around the yard and only lingering on Eddie for the briefest of seconds. Eddie, meanwhile, stares openly. He stares in appreciation, his hands sliding into his own pockets so he doesn’t do something stupid like reach out and try to hold Steve’s hand. Or grab him by the face and kiss him. He smiles, lazily, and his head cocks to one side slightly and he just appreciates the man in front of him, appreciates the gargantuan capacity of love inside him and how deeply and how completely he gives himself over to it, once he figures out what he cares about.

Finally, Steve clears his throat.

“You just gonna stare at me all night, Ed?”

And because he’s too deep in his appreciation, Eddie doesn’t think before blurting out, “I fucking love you, man.”

And once it’s out there, and he realizes what he’s just said, he doesn’t panic. Which is unexpected. Not that he has much practice when it comes to telling other guys he loves them and is used to panicking afterwards, or anything. Eddie’s just always assumed that, should his feelings for Steve ever come tumbling out of his mouth, it would be an accident or would happen at the worst possible time and he would immediately panic about trying to play it off like a joke.

This admission is an accident, in fairness. But it’s a happy accident, and one that Eddie doesn’t mind.

Steve deserves to know how deeply he is loved in return. This isn’t about Eddie confessing his feelings and trying to get something in return for them. There’s no ulterior motive in his words, no testing of waters or steering of ships. This is just him making absolutely certain that Steve knows how loved he is.

So he keeps his hands in his pockets. He doesn’t tug at his hair to hide the magnificent blush that’s exploded all over his face. He just smiles softly, his entire self wide open, and waits.

Steve isn’t fidgeting anymore. He looks like a deer in headlights, staring with huge, blank eyes. He isn’t even breathing. His mouth has gone slack and is hanging open, and it takes every ounce of self control Eddie has to not reach out and close it for him.

Then he blinks, and Eddie doesn’t recognize the mask he’s putting on. But he knows it’s a mask, because the smile Steve has carefully donned doesn’t match his eyes and his back is rigid-straight.

“I love you, too,” he says, anyway.

And Eddie might be a moron in a lot of ways, but he’s not a moron in this way. So he knows that while Steve has made this confession with an expression that scares him, he knows it’s not a lie. Steve can’t lie, not to any of them, and not about anything. If Eddie had pressed him earlier, had really pushed to find out what’s bothering him, Steve would have told him. He wouldn’t have been happy about it, and it probably would have come out with a string of curses and in broken sentences that he’d have to fit together like a jigsaw puzzle to actually get it, but Steve would have told him.

If Steve didn’t love him, he wouldn’t have said anything at all. Or maybe he would have tried to laugh it off, shrug it away. No, Steve loves him, and Eddie suspects that it’s in a similar sort of desperate way that they all love each other, now. The way they say one thing and mean something else and trust each other to see beneath the surface of those words. The way the bond between all of them is larger than any of them have the words for.

Eddie reaches out into the space between them, and it feels like a chasm. Steve is so far away, but Eddie is determined to pick away at that mask and whatever pretense has settled itself there between them and force Steve to understand. He takes the other’s hand, links their fingers.

“I love you,” he repeats. “I love you when you’re playing our guitar, and I love you when you’re singing in our band, and I love you when you’re playing Mom to all our weird, tiny, kid friends.”

This makes Steve’s mask slip, as he can’t help but snort out a laugh. He looks down at the ground, shaking his head, and his hair covers his face so Eddie can’t see him.

“And,” Eddie adds, because this is the most important one, “I love you when you nerd out about sports.”

Steve looks back up, and his face is crimson.

“Jesus Christ, Eddie, you can’t just… say that.”

“What?” Eddie tugs at their joined hands. “Call you a nerd and a jock in the same sentence?”

“No,” Steve follows the tug, lifting their hands up so they’re held aloft, on an even level with their shoulders. He reaches out with his free hand to tug at Eddie’s hair, to tuck it behind his ear. “You can’t tell me you love me like that… like you’re… not when…”

He’s floundering, and Eddie can see the mask coming back.

“Hey,” he reaches out himself, touching Steve’s cheek and feeling the hot blush. “Hey, no, you can talk to me.”

“Have you figured it out yet?” Steve asks.

Eddie blinks.

“Figured out what?”

Steve sighs. It’s a heavy, resigned noise that becomes even heavier as Eddie watches both of Steve’s arms fall to his sides.

“Catch up, Munson,” he challenges. “Catch up, and then you can tell me all this,” he waves a hand between them, “gooey shit again. If… if you still feel the same.”

Steve goes back inside. Eddie stays where he is, feeling much like he did during his first ever D&D game, when he was a brand new player and not the Dungeon Master and he’d shown up with a half-baked idea, a blank character sheet, and a six-sided die he’d stolen from Monopoly. How can he catch up when everyone else was already miles ahead, and they’re playing an entirely different game?

And so Eddie just sits down, in Steve’s backyard, and his mind starts buzzing because he has no idea what the fuck just happened.

Eventually, Jeff finds him. And kicks him in the foot, but lightly, the way you kick someone when you just want their attention.

“So what happened?” Jeff asks him, once he looks up and acknowledges that another person is outside with him.

“I told him I love him,” Eddie says, because he thinks maybe Jeff will appreciate this.

“And?” Jeff sits down beside him.

“And he loves me, too.”

Jeff lets out a whoop that is entirely too loud, clapping him on the back.

“Fucking finally, man!” He gives Eddie a shake that feels like he’s trying to rattle his soul from his body. “So you two official now? So stunned from the Harrington charm that you’ve been rendered speechless and boneless?”

If Eddie were in a position to make jokes, he might have quipped that he hopes the Harrington charm will make him the opposite of boneless. But now is not the time for these kind of jokes.

“Um, I’m supposed to figure something out and then tell him again?”

“What?”

“What?”

They stare at each other. Jeff frowns.

“Are you messing with me?” he finally asks.

“No?” It comes out a question, even though it’s not. “No, I’m just… I don’t understand what just fucking happened.”

Jeff presses him for details, tells him to recount everything from the beginning. And so Eddie does, starting with the scheme Lucas had come up with for him about watching Youngblood so Eddie could try showing interest in what Steve likes, for a change. Tells him about how Steve is apparently an untapped treasure trove of sports trivia. Doesn’t tell him about Steve getting defensive and closed off because he thinks Eddie was just pretending, because they haven’t finished that conversation yet and Eddie doesn’t want anyone else to know about that. Which, in retrospect, is probably pretty important, in context.

“And then I told him I love him, and he said he loves me too, and then I doubled down and he got weird about it,” Eddie finishes.

“Weird like…” Jeff trails off, but his expression finishes the sentence for him.

“No, not like that,” Eddie shakes his head. “No, he just asked me if I figured it out yet and to try again once I did.”

Jeff just stares at him again.

“What?”

“You really don’t know?”

“You do?”

“Oh my god,” Jeff buries his face in his hands. “Oh my god,” he repeats, muffled into his own palms. He looks up and asks, “How, exactly, did you tell him you love him?”

“I believe the phrase I used was, ‘I fucking love you’,” Eddie quotes himself.

“Just like that?”

“Just like that!” Eddie practically screeches.

“And you didn’t call him your best friend, or anything stupid like that? Like, you made it absolutely clear that you are in love with him, romantically,” Jeff smirks, “and carnally.”

“Oh my god,” Eddie shoves him.

“I’m making sure!” Jeff shouts back.

“I mean,” Eddie waves his hands around, tugs at his hair, “I didn’t explicitly tell him it was romantic love. But it was implied!”

“Of my fucking god.”

“What?”

“GO TELL HIM!” Jeff bellows, pointing back at the house. “RIGHT NOW!”

And Jeff never yells like this. It startles Eddie like he’s a spooked animal who just heard a gunshot. He scrambles to his feet, tripping over himself in his haste to get back inside.

Gareth, Tom, Lucas, and Argyle are directly inside the still-open doorway, all of them staring out at him as he comes galloping towards them. Gareth snickers as he moves out of Eddie’s way. Tom and Lucas have the decency to look sheepish. And nothing phases Argyle, so he just looks cool and collected, as always.

“Jeff yelled at you,” Gareth says, still sniggering.

Eddie flips him off, looking around the room to see if anyone else is in here, or if it’s just these four. Seeing nobody, he keeps going so he can check the dining room. He hears a familiar smack of skin-on-skin, a high five, as he leaves.

In the dining room, Will is helping Mike clean up his campaign. They’re carefully rolling up the map paper while Dustin, Erica, Max, and El are throwing popcorn at each other’s faces. But there’s no Steve, and so Eddie doesn’t stop to ask them how the game went or who needs rides home. He just keeps tearing through the rooms on this floor, and when he doesn’t see anyone else he goes down into the basement.

But the only people downstairs are Jonathan and Nancy. They’re sitting together, Jonathan with his arm around her, and they look so content and peaceful and right together that something in Eddie’s brain (or maybe his heart) breaks a little just seeing them like this. He suddenly feels too loud, and too awkward, and too much all at once.

“Sorry,” he grumbles. “Carry on.”

He leaves as quickly as he’d appeared, because Steve isn’t there. And the whole point of this is to find Steve. And if Steve isn’t down with Nancy and Jonathan, and he’s not badgering the kids to stop throwing food, and he’s not with the others in the band, then he must be with Robin. And they must be upstairs.

And, like, the upstairs isn’t off limits, or anything.

It’s just that they never go up there. So he doesn’t bound up the carpeted stairs, taking them two at a time. He slows, taking them carefully, as if something is going to jump out of the darkness up there and yell, “Boo!” Or maybe Steve’s parents will materialize out of the framed photos that line the stairwell and ask him what the hell he thinks he’s doing in here.

It feels different, being up here. This part of the house hasn’t been reclaimed by the Party. They don’t belong up here.

Eddie knocks on the first door and swings it open, revealing a dark bedroom with a made bed that looks like it hasn’t been touched in years. He tries again, this time getting a bathroom. The next set of doors are obviously closet doors, so he skips those. And then tries again.

This time, he swings the door open to find Steve and Robin sitting in the bed that must be Steve’s, their heads bent close together. Both of them look up as the door swings open, and as he steps inside, Robin stands. She puts her hands on her hips and takes a step to the side, between the two of them, but Steve reaches out and tugs her back.

“It’s okay, Robbie,” he says, quietly.

“I have to tell you something,” Eddie says, his words coming out all in a rush even though he’d been so carefully and tentatively exploring up here to find them.

Robin looks at him fiercely, and then looks to Steve. He smiles at her.

“I did tell him to try again when he figured it out.”

“Oh my god,” Robin groans, falling sideways onto the bed. Then, just as quickly, she rights herself and hops up off it. She skip-trips over to the door and performs a series of vigorous hand motions that he’s pretty sure all mean she is going to kill him, skin his corpse, and then burn him if he messes this up.

“Noted,” Eddie nods.

“Behave,” she instructs, and Eddie isn’t sure if it’s meant for him or Steve.

And then it’s just the two of them. Again.

Because his nerves are shot, Eddie chuckles nervously and says, “Buckley’s fucking terrifying, sometimes.”

“That’s nothing,” Steve shakes his head. “You should see her with a Molotov.”

“Oh, I have,” Eddie reminds him, walking fully into the room. “Think she still has any of ‘em?”

“I know she does.” Steve looks over to his nightstand, and Eddie follows his gaze and sees the nail bat leaning against it.

Eddie still has the spear that Lucas and Erica made for him, keeps it under his bed. They all know Nancy still has her guns. Everyone has kept something, something they can grab quickly in case it’s not over. But Eddie knows that Steve is the only one who keeps his souvenir out in the open. Part of it is because his parents are never home to find it. Part of it is because Eddie knows Steve wouldn’t care, if they were.

And part of it is because Steve doesn’t want to waste a single second, fumbling in the dark under his bed, should monsters come calling again. He doesn’t hesitate; he throws himself headlong into every fight. He’s brave and strong and heroic and he doesn’t run away.

Steve deserves someone who won’t run away.

In the blink it takes Eddie to look away from the nail bat and back to Steve, he decides he’s not running anymore. He decides that the only way he’s leaving is if Steve asks him to. If his feelings are too much, or not enough, or just not the right kind, then that’s okay. And he’ll leave. Try to adjust them into something else, into what Steve wants them to be, so he doesn’t have to stay away.

“I love you,” Eddie tells him, firm and sure.

“I know,” is how Steve answers him, which makes Eddie groan and scrub his hands over his face.

“Not the Star Wars bullshit,” he moans into his hands. “Fuck.” Eddie clears his throat, drags his hands away from his face. “No, Stevie, I’m in love with you.”

And because the universe has a sense of humor and nothing makes sense, Steve’s idea of an appropriate response to this admission is to expel all of the air from his lungs, posture sagging so much that he practically folds himself in half, clutch his bedsheets with both firsts, and choke out, “Oh thank fuck.”

“Um.” Eddie’s eyes start to dart around the room. Because… what? “What?”

Steve snaps back to attention with startling speed.

“You really mean it?” he asks.

“What?” Eddie repeats. He’s definitely missed something. “I… yes? What, do you want me to say it again, or–”

“And just to be clear,” Steve stands up, raising both of his hands as he takes hesitant steps forward, “when you say in love–”

“Is this sort of thing normally this confusing for you?” Eddie is completely lost.

“Eddie, please,” Steve lowers his hands, keeping them open and outstretched, palms up. “You… outside… it sounded like…”

“Oh, fuck,” Eddie smacks himself in the face. “Steve, no, please, you can’t have thought–”

“I’m just making sure,” Steve stops reaching out for him and instead combs his fingers through his hair, pulling at it frantically. “I need to be absolutely positive–”

“B-because I’m a guy?” Eddie asks. Because that makes sense. It makes sense that Steve needs a little extra help understanding, deciphering the difference between platonic and romantic love when it’s not a girl who’s saying it.

“No,” Steve shakes his head, his fingers still locked in a death grip on his hair. “Because you’re my best friend and I–”

“Robin’s your best friend,” Eddie interrupts, because it’s true.

Steve lets go of his hair and makes a high-pitched, frustrated noise. He reaches out with tense, curled fingers as if he’s about to grab Eddie’s face and squeeze him, or rip his hair off, or pull on his ears.

“Okay, we’re both your best friends,” Eddie concedes, reaching out to take hold of both of Steve’s wrists and tug his hands down. Steve responds to this by grabbing onto both of Eddie’s wrists, too.

“You are my best friend,” Steve repeats, “and I love you, and I’m in love with you.”

“Is this what I was supposed to figure out?” Eddie asks, stupidly.

Steve responds by tightening his grip on his wrists.

“Yes!”

“And you couldn’t tell me this why?” Eddie asks, this time indignantly.

“Because I thought you didn’t feel the same!”

Eddie blinks.

“Steve?”

“Yeah?”

“Have you looked at me, lately?”

“What do you mean, have I looked at you? Of course I fucking look at you, I can’t take my fucking eyes off you–”

“Then how in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost I don’t believe in,” Eddie hisses through his teeth, “did you not notice how fucking gone I am for you?”

“Of course I fucking noticed–”

“Then why was this up to me to do something?”

Steve breathes in, slowly, through his nose.

“Eddie, I have been telling you that I love you for months. Showing you for months. And so after a while, I just thought… maybe you changed your mind.”

“So, wait,” Eddie’s brain is reeling, trying to catch up. “Wait. Outside. Five fucking minutes ago, when you told me to try again.” He pauses, but Steve doesn’t fill in the answer for him, leaving Eddie to stumble through his own conclusion. “You… you meant after I realized how you feel. You meant– wait.”

Eddie’s grip on Steve tightens, this time.

“You thought I was gonna run away from you, if I figured it out?”

Steve sighs, falling forward and pressing their foreheads together.

“I mean, I hoped you wouldn’t.”

“How in the fuck–”

“I hoped that you’d decide to keep being my friend, anyway,” Steve admits. “Y’know, look past the weirdness of not reciprocating–”

“No, I very much reciprocate.”

“–and we’d just keep being friends, anyway.”

“Oh my god.” Eddie lets go of Steve’s wrists and reaches up to cup his face, instead. “Who are you and what have you done with douchebag, ladykiller Steve Harrington?”

Steve smirks.

“I killed him.”

“You sure as fuck did, babe.”

The term of endearment slips out, taking the place of the ‘man,’ or ‘dude,’ Eddie would have used in any other circumstance. It slides out easy, and just like before when he’d confessed his love and not immediately panicked about it, he doesn’t panic about this, either.

Steve actually whines when he says, “No fair, I wanted to do that, first.”

“What?” Eddie’s fingers tighten around Steve’s face, then slide to his neck. “Call me ‘babe’?”

“Call you anything.” Steve grabs two fistfuls of Eddie’s shirt, right below the collar.

“Too late,” Eddie smirks. “It’s mine, now.”

“Think we can agree to kiss each other at the same time?” Steve asks. “Call that one even?”

“Fuck,” Eddie breathes. Almost passes out. Then asks, “Do we count to three?” like it’s an appropriate response, like he’s not completely losing his sanity and his ability to stay conscious all at the same time, because Steve Harrington is talking about kissing. Kissing him, specifically.

“Sure,” Steve nods, sounding more than a little desperate. “Yeah, let’s count to three.”

“One,” Eddie says.

Steve leans in and swallows the number as he kisses him.