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Eddie and Will play this game whenever Eddie visits him.
Eddie never tells him what time he’s going to get to Will’s pre-war walk-up on Jane Street, a curious little half-address sandwiched between two newer developments. After a disastrous living situation in Haight-Ashbury a few years back, Eddie has instituted a strict policy against ever again living in an apartment without an elevator. He doesn’t know how Will does it. Still, the stairs are manageable in this one, enough that Jonathan can usually do them without difficulty. (Though that could be him bullshitting and pretending he doesn’t hurt. Eddie’s gotta harass him a bit more about that.) Eddie races up the five flights of stairs as fast and as silently as he possibly can, sure that today, today, he’s going to actually manage to get to the door, maybe even rap his knuckles sharply on it for once before it opens.
Today is no exception to this, and Eddie has high hopes until he whips himself around the final staircase landing. It’s dashed, of course, when he sees who’s already waiting for him at the end of the hallway.
“Eddie Munson, as I live and breathe.” Will is leaning against the doorway of his one bedroom, 5C, posture effortless in a way it had never been when he was a nervous, shy adolescent.
Dustin is obviously his favorite of the kids (they aren’t really his children, so he can totally play favorites), but if he had to pick another one, it would be Will. Will has grown up to be…well, frankly, fucking cool. He’s still a spindly little thing, but he’s tall, taller than Eddie now even, with a haircut reminiscent of Thin White Duke-era Bowie and a fashion sense to match. Time away from Hawkins has done him good.
“You have to stop doing that,” Eddie says (wheezes, really, he’s not exactly in his best monster-slaying shape these days and could absolutely stand to smoke less), because he really does, it scares the shit out of him every time. El generally only uses her powers in emergency situations, but Will gets a kick out of using them unnecessarily, as he seemed to skip over the nosebleed phase of things.
(“God had to give me something, right?” Will had once said over Indian takeout from the frankly incredible hole in the wall around the corner from his apartment. “I was already gay, poor, and traumatized in rural fucking Indiana.”
Eddie had choked, only partly because of the heat of his vindaloo. “I was also gay, poor, and traumatized in rural fucking Indiana. Where’s my consolation telepathy?”
Will had cackled at this, a full body thing. “You’re a heavy metal Adonis who has Steve Harrington wrapped around his little finger. Telepathy pales in comparison.”)
“Oh, but it’s so fun though,” Will says. “Come in, please, people will talk.”
“As if you don’t want them to talk,” Eddie says, shuffling past Will and into his cozy, cramped, comfortable West Village digs.
“True, that’s also pretty fun,” Will admits with a laugh.
Will has lived in this apartment since he graduated from Gallatin in 1993, going on five years now. Out of all the cities Eddie has been to, New York is not incredibly high on his list of favorites– the sonic rush and the crowds really don’t do it for him at this age. But Will’s apartment, nestled in a cozy little pocket of this loud, bustling city, is truly something special. It’s smaller than Eddie could possibly live in now, smaller than the first trailer he and Wayne shared, but the sun shines through the window in Will’s kitchen which looks down on a hidden courtyard below, and his bathtub is tucked into a nook in his bathroom, and Eddie gets it. A place of his own, in a city where Will can chuck his baggage into the East River, let it soak up all that polluted water.
Eddie is in New York with both an explicit agenda and a hidden one. Explicitly, he is here to plan with Will for their upcoming Triumphant Return to California. Even though Jonathan and Argyle have been in Washington since 1994, they’re headed down to stay with Argyle’s mom for a few weeks, pack up her things and help her move in with them. Will is also going to tag along with the posse as they catch up with some of Eddie’s friends from his own California years of soaking up the sun and trying desperately to not think about…certain people.
His hidden agenda is, granted, his long-term hidden agenda with Will: try to help him get over, get past, get good with the Mike Wheeler situation.
Eddie doesn’t know every detail of what’s up with them right now, but from what he’s gathered from long phone conversations with various Party members (fond concern from Lucas, sardonic glee from Max, and thinly masked irritation from Jonathan, though that might also have been because of the whole Irma situation, Eddie is not touching that one), it’s not looking good. Years of resentment from Will and years of sheer obliviousness from Mike have completely eroded what stability was once present in their relationship. Eddie sees what’s happening, and he understands both sides. It’s just not healthy for Will to hold a torch for a guy that is incapable of feeling the same way.
Is he being hypocritical? Sure, maybe. He’s not going to lie and say that he’s a shining example of moving onward and upward, though it may look that way on the surface. Truth be told, it’s been…tough. Josh has been spending more and more time at work lately, less time at Eddie’s place, and despite having been together for three years, they’ve always maintained separate residences. When Eddie mentioned going on this trip, Josh told him to have a good time, knowing without having to ask that he was not invited. And even if Steve was anything other than straight, he’s been married for nine years to a woman they all love. He’s always been, in some way or another, ostensibly Off Limits. Never mind that there are cracks in the foundation. Never mind that there’s a careful distance between Steve and Megan whenever they’re all together. Never mind that it’s some kind of joke, how Steve is “wrapped around his finger,” how Max called Eddie “the one that got away” to Steve’s face. –
Eddie can’t. He can’t let himself think, for even a second, that Steve could ever be his. So all those maybes and never minds and “funny” stories that have been relayed to him, which could have been something Eddie as a younger guy would have pinned his entire heart to, that all doesn’t change the essential fact: Steve is not his. Steve is not his, he never could have been, and he never will be.
On the surface, Eddie is good with this. On the surface, Eddie has a sweet, funny, sexy boyfriend who respects his space and his independence. On the surface, Steve is just a cherished friend, and he can laugh with the rest of them at how “crazy” Steve is about him.
Of course, beyond that top layer there’s a whole lot of mess and the sensation that he’s going to lose it all, at any second. Doesn’t mean that he’s wrong about Will and Mike, though. Those that can’t do, teach, or something.
He’s built it up a lot, maybe, this going back to California, but his years there had meant a lot to him. He finally broke free from Hawkins just shy of his twenty-fourth birthday, after Wayne’s gentle hints that a change might be good for Eddie had culminated in a “fuck’s sake, boy, if you don’t figure out how to get past this town and what it’s done to you, I think it really might kill you and I’m damned if I watch that happen again.” (his uncle’s a quiet man, but shit he knows how to break out the big guns when it’s warranted.) He wasn’t wrong, either. Eddie had thought he’d gotten himself into ruts before (repeating senior year three times couldn’t really be termed anything but) , but this one had been a particular doozy. The little hobgoblins were off to college, off to the next big thing. Steve was married. Everyone was happy. Eddie was the one left alone, left behind. And he didn’t know what the fuck to do about it apart from, much as he hated to admit it, getting the fuck out of there too.
So, with his uncle’s metaphorical boot in his ass getting him out the door, Eddie had decided it was about time to figure out what the fuck he wanted to do next. Go west, young man, or something like that. He’d just wanted to find a way to get warm somehow. That had been his only conscious thought: just seek that sunshine. He had resisted the urge to overthink anything else, beyond that, sure that further self-examination or contemplation would plant his ass back in the Hawkins dirt, where he would simply freeze to death.
The first night he was in San Francisco, he made his way out to White Horse and nursed the same Budweiser for a few hours, terrified to talk to anyone, taking it all in. It was a Saturday night, so the bar was packed, and it was…normal. No one was looking at him funny, with his long hair and his tight pants. Guys danced with guys and girls flirted with girls and it was all so regular, like this was Charlie’s in Hawkins and some townie was asking a pretty young girl to go steady. The bartender was kind of a bitch and the way he joked with some of the guys made Eddie feel a little sour, but it wasn't in an unsafe way. It was…fun. Magic.
He left before last call, but stayed awake in his new apartment until the first rays of morning sunlight shone through his window, too thrilled to go to sleep. The next night he wore his best muscle tank, lined his eyes, and went out with a purpose.
“Hey, you were here yesterday,” said a guy who had also been there yesterday. Eddie remembers because he had been eyeing him a little bit – big brown eyes, Tom Cruise hair, a little bit of a jock in a way that made Eddie feel hot all over. Eddie was horribly predictable. “Are you actually going to talk to us this evening?”
“Who says you’re worth talking to?” Eddie quipped right back. He took a gulp of his beer so he didn’t, like, smile or anything, ruin the bit.
“Oooh, kitten’s got a whip, Tom,” one of the guy’s friends said, a dead ringer for Prince, which was very interesting…and ultimately a futile thought, as he had an arm around a guy that looked, alarmingly, like a gay Jason Carver. (A little disappointing, but hey, he still could window shop with the best of them.) The guy who initially spoke to him – Tom, apparently, which was fucking hilarious – flushed and coughed, his eyes not leaving Eddie for a second. Prince-guy waved a dismissive hand in his direction. “Don’t worry, babe, Tom’s just sour because he has to work a little for once.”
“Oh, poor thing,” Eddie said, and what was he doing, talking smack to this guy who could probably break him in half. “Must be hard not getting everything handed to you.”
“I like a challenge,” Tom said, something flickering in his eyes. Something molten, something fierce. It made Eddie shiver just a little.
“Challenge you to buy me a round?” Eddie said, staring Tom down, this Playgirl centerfold come to life. Christ alive.
Prince-guy laughed, and when Eddie looked over, his boyfriend was cracking a smile, too. Eddie leaned in closer, jumping a little when Prince-guy winked and laughed. “Oh, I like you. What’s your name, honey? I’m Lloyd, and this” – he gestured to Bizarro Jason Carver, who waved – “is my reticent other half, Paul. Come sit with us girls.”
So that’s how that evening started – new friendships formed, hovering in Tom’s orbit and laughing too loudly at jokes he made that were only half funny until last call. It ended with Eddie’s tongue down Tom’s throat in the alley next to the bar, his arms around Tom’s neck, a phone number pressed into his jeans back pocket with a sturdy, warm ass squeeze and a gentle plea to call me, baby, please, please, you’re so sweet. They only dated for a few months – he turned out to be more than a huge douchebag, his similarities to Steve starting and ending with those eyes. When he blew Eddie off with a note by his bed, a stock script of “it’s not you, it’s me” without so much as a proper goodbye, Eddie was upset, but he laughed and laughed and laughed after chucking the note in the trash. He’d clawed his way out of an apocalypse, got the fuck out of small town Indiana, to have the privilege of being ditched by a guy who couldn’t care less about him. How wonderfully normal.
That night at White Horse, with brilliant, beautiful Lloyd, impossible Tom, even Paul, who was funny as fuck whenever he bothered to open his mouth – it was the start of Eddie’s renaissance. A world that had previously only been a dream with his reach. Most of the guys from that night are gone now – Lloyd died in those first bleak days of January 1992, and more and more of them started dropping off too shortly after – and ultimately Eddie couldn’t handle the ghosts waiting for him around every corner of the city, had returned to Indiana with a shaved head and a broken heart. Still, despite the pain, despite the grief that threatens to swallow him whole some days, Eddie wants all that for Will. Wants him to talk back to a hot jerk at a divey bar, make some friends that he hasn’t known since he was a child, live a little.
The evening, at first, is pleasant, light and easy in a way Eddie has not felt for quite some time. Citing a need to save money, but probably just looking for an excuse to show off, Will cooks up some recipe he found in the New York Times food section, some reimagining of an Italian dish that’s really just jazzed up pasta puttanesca. It’s good, if a bit salty - a tendency with Will’s cooking, but Eddie’ll never say anything about it – and they eat in Will’s living room, Bringing Up Baby on mute in the background so they can talk. Eddie sprawls on the couch, like he always does, and Will is curled up in a chair that has followed him through his last three residences.
“I can’t believe it’s finally here,” Will says, breaking their comfortable silence.
It sounds like small talk, but it isn’t. They don’t really do that. Eddie smiles because yeah, they’re leaving in just over three weeks. Plane tickets are bought, rental cars are locked down, Eddie’s given the advance call to old friends to see who’s in the area and might be free for dinner (or have a couple of guest rooms they could crash in). Hank, a former friend-with-benefits who worked far better as just a friend, has already offered them a place to stay in his spare bedroom for a good portion of the trip, not bitter about Eddie’s lack of contact before now. Tonight is the final step in the planning process, the best part: places to eat, sights to see, an itinerary they’re guaranteed to throw out the window the second they get out there. It’s wild. “Feels like we’ve been planning it for how long now?”
“Too long,” Will says. “How long has it been since you were last there?”
Eddie has been out to the West Coast a few times since he moved back to Indiana, but it’s always up to Bellingham to see Jonathan and Argyle. He likes the Pacific Northwest quite a lot - not enough to make a home there, but it’s perfect for Argyle and Jonathan, with weather that’s better suited for Jonathan’s worsening chronic pain than other places they’ve lived. He’s camped in the Rockies. But he has avoided California going on six years now, only somewhat by accident.
“Too long,” Eddie settles on parroting back. Will has a version of California Eddie distilled in his memories that Eddie would like him to retain. He doesn’t need to talk about the pain that exists under the surface. “Gotta work on my tan.”
“Your burn, you mean?” Will says, blocking the pillow Eddie aims at his face with a precision that only mind powers can give you. “You’re a lobster and then you freckle up. No tan for you.”
“Alright, alright, enough jokes about my delicate complexion. In all seriousness, I think it’s gonna be a good one.”
“Agreed,” Will says, eyeballing a bespectacled Cary Grant for a second before turning a grin on Eddie. “I’m glad I let you badger me into it.”
“Badgering? Me?” Eddie lays a scandalized hand over his heart. “I would never. Absolutely ever. To even suggest it. How could you.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Will laughs. “The nerve of me, I get it.”
“I really didn’t mean to badger you about it,” Eddie says, letting his hand drop with a laugh. “Just got latched onto the idea and then couldn’t let it go, you know? Got me thinking about the good ol’ days, what it meant to me. How it would be fun to share that with you, too. Because like, the whole time I was out there, it was just like. Good for me, you know?”
“I remember,” Will says with a grin. “You finally got some bulk on you, stopped living entirely off of Twinkies and gas station hot dogs.”
“Well, the Twinkies were off-brand in California, I had to figure something else out,” Eddie says mournfully, not in the least wounded at the reminder of his ribs-visible-through-his-t-shirts days. “But I didn’t just mean the food, though it was spectacular.”
“Yeah,” Will smiles at him, still the sweet kid even now. “I thought about that a lot, when I moved to New York. How you said that California was the first time you’d really been around like, a lot of gay people, and how it was actually–”
“–fucking annoying,” Eddie laughs, finishing the sentence for him. “Yeah, and it was.”
“But fucking magical at the same time,” Will concludes. “How you could breathe out there, in a way you’d realized you weren’t, in Hawkins.”
“Yeah,” Eddie says quietly. “I kind of wished you could have had that too, at the time.”
“Well, I was just a kid and very much had Jonathan breathing down my neck, terrified I’d wander into the bay, or something,” Will laughs. “So it wasn’t quite the right time for me yet.”
The visits from the Byers brothers had been great, but yeah, Will was maybe still too young to really get out of California what Eddie was getting out of it. He’d come out to Eddie by that point, had started having the scarier conversations with his friends, his family, but he was still trying to figure out a way to get a handle on his sexuality as anything more than a theoretical concept. He just– wasn’t really ready for it yet. Not even twenty, still a kid in a lot of ways. The shit he’d been through had made him grow up too fast while simultaneously setting him back a little. Young in ways his peers weren’t, while with a world of knowledge that people twice his age wouldn’t have.
“And then you had New York, and things really opened up for you,” Eddie says.
Will gives him a look, like he thinks Eddie might be making a sex joke or something. Which he actually hadn’t been, but Eddie grins anyway just to get Will to roll his eyes.
“So it wouldn’t be like, the same,” Eddie continues, “But it would be better, too, because we can actually experience things now that you’re not, like, eleven years old.”
“Yeah, that would be fun,” Will says, sticking his tongue out at Eddie for the kid joke.
“And maaaaaaybe,” Eddie says. “We could take the nightlife for a spin, right? This time without the old marrieds. Meet some new people?”
Will puts down his chilled vodka, a Murrayism that only he seemed to pick up on out of the rest of them. “Why are you saying it like that?” he asks directly, eyebrows coming together in a frown. Eddie likes that about Will’s straight talk, appreciates that he can cut right to the chase when the rest of them can be just little Energizer Bunnies banging their drums and marching around the subject in circles. It is an unfortunate factor of this, that Will is at his most direct when he is starting to get his most pissed off. “What about Josh?”
Yeah, Josh. Shit. “No, I mean– I didn’t mean me, okay? Josh is fine. We’re fine.”
“Yeah, sure,” Will says, staring down at his hands. “Maybe you should take your own advice, though.”
“Will, I have a boyfriend,” Eddie says. He doesn’t like where this is going, but it’s Will. He’ll follow into certain danger. “I’d be a killer wingman for you. Hype you up. I’m great at that.”
“You have a boyfriend who’s not coming with you on a two week trip,” Will counters. “Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if we both went out on the town, you know? Maybe then you could finally get a certain clueless straight guy who’s only ever going to break your heart out of your system. Stop pretending that the two of you not talking is the worst thing that’s ever happened to you, when it’s actually the best, could actually finally wake you up and get you moving the fuck on.”
And that’s– Jesus Christ, it’s like looking into a funhouse mirror. It’s everything he wanted Will to realize for himself, but of course, Will’s too goddamn sharp in all the most unexpected and occasionally unfortunate ways. Only Will could flip this right back around on Eddie, because only Will’s mind would work that quickly, and also because only Will is armed with enough of the vulnerable details about Eddie’s true, actual Steve feelings.
It’s not that Eddie has shared like, a lot. This is not, ha ha, really his area of strength, but he has still shared. Will trusted Eddie with something terribly vulnerable and a conversation he was terrified to have when he came out to him, and Eddie was touched by that. Understood that it was because they weren’t that close at the time, but the act itself had made them close, and the following years of offering Will advice and being the Elder Gay Statesman for him had cemented it. Just like Will and El can connect over their sharing supernatural sibling shenanigans the way none of the rest of them can, this is something that he and Will share that no one else does (Or, no one else did, Eddie is starting to wonder if any of them are absolutely heterosexual in this merry band, but regardless, he and Will are certainly holding it down on the Kinsey Six side of things).
It had been a surprise, but not at all an unpleasant one, the first time Eddie had caught himself being the recipient of Will’s gay guidance and advice. When the uncertain kid had grown up into a man, one who was no longer Eddie’s little gay apprentice but an equal with his own perspective and experiences to offer for Eddie’s shit show life and choices. Eddie had felt like he could offer his own confidences too, quietly bemoaning his hopeless Steve Harrington feelings, and Will had clearly understood the situation enough to be receptive, and compassionate.
This is also a surprise, but a wholly unpleasant one, to have those confidences thrown in his face without even a trace of that compassion.
Eddie takes a deep breath, trying to check his temper. He gets it, he reminds himself. He gets it, boy ever does he get it. But maybe he’s been a little too, uh. Too much treating the kid like a kid, when it might be past the time for some frank truths.
Because he knows, he does. Part of the fortunate timing of this trip is that he knows that Mike and Will have turned a corner in their friendship, and not in a remotely hopeful way. What had started with an invitation from Mike to get drinks when he was in the city for a week, an invitation that Will had turned down, for no real reason apart from he hadn’t really been feeling like going out that night, had turned into something Will had found himself apologizing profusely for, making promises to make amends, but this time– this time, rather than the gratitude that things were okay between them again, that their friendship was good and fine and perfect, the whole thing is clearly sitting like poison in Will’s stomach. It was a few weeks ago now, but Will has brought it up to Eddie on two separate phone calls, and there’s been something else in his voice every time he’s said Mike’s name lately.
Will Byers is finally, truly, getting fed up with Mike Wheeler. That is good, Eddie reminds himself, that is progress. The poison in Will’s gut which he is now spitting indiscriminately all over his living room is not meant for Eddie at all.
But still, fuck. Eddie’s only human. He can know that, and be glad for it. And it can still fucking sting like a slap.
“Will,” Eddie starts. Sounds gentler than he thought he would, though it’s even odds as to whether the quiet in his tone is something kind, or something deadly.
Will snaps his head up instantly. Even though he’s grown into his features, he still has those giant, glittering hazel eyes that Eddie remembers from meeting him when they were young, Eddie still licking his wounds from the Upside Down and Will nursing his own wounds from a broken heart. A heart that keeps on breaking into smaller and smaller pieces, it seems, ground into dust by years of inaction.
“Don’t,” Will says, his jaw stiff, upper lip quivering. Eddie can’t read minds, or anything, but he doesn’t have to to know that Will’s not going to like where Eddie goes with this.
“No, listen.” He has to be gentle with this - gentle with Will in the way that others have not been, but playing the other side too, so as to not appear patronizing. Will hates it when people are patronizing. “Time away from Mike is good for you.”
“We’re not talking about Mike?” Will says, like Eddie’s grown a second head which, hey, weirder things have happened to them.
Eddie laughs hollowly. “Sure, yeah, the hell we aren’t. Maybe I should have checked this earlier, honestly, but I thought– hey, what’s the harm, if you project some of your shit? Maybe it’ll help you, maybe it’ll clear some things up. But I see I was mistaken.”
“We’re not talking about Mike,” Will repeats slowly, just condescending enough to set Eddie’s teeth on edge. “We’re talking about Steve.”
Oh, so it’s going to be like this. Fine. Eddie can play that game. “Time away from Mike, who we absolutely are talking about, by the way? It'll be good for you. But time away from Steve is…it’s fucking killing me, Will.”
It’s the first time he’s actually said that out loud, even to himself, and man, doesn’t it just hit like a right hook to the jaw. Time and distance and silence, Eddie valiantly trying to relate to Steve and the life he’s carved out for himself with Megan. He’s trying to take care of himself, he’s trying to take care of Steve, he’s trying to take care of their relationship, such as it is, such as it can only be. He wishes he had more of an answer as to what that looks like beyond I guess I just can’t see him or talk to him right now, but he’s been coming up blank on other options for, fuck. For months now.
Ever since he had asked Steve, kind of out of nowhere, if he and Megan were talking about having kids.
He’d known he’d made a mistake, known it had been a big one, when Steve had gone quiet on the other end of the line, just a deep inhale before he had asked, in a terrible, flat voice, “why would you ask me that?”
And, honestly? Eddie has no idea. No fucking clue how those words found their way out of his mouth, when it’s not like— of all the preoccupations, Steve and Megan having kids? Yeah, that’s something the rest of them have talked about, first with anticipation and then with some concern, but in Eddie’s own personal list of Steve Harrington Things That Keep Him Up At Night, it doesn’t even crack the top ten. It just seemed like a normal question that someone who was just a friend, just platonic with a capital P, would ask. He is now pretty sure that had he cleared that impulse with Robin first, though, he would have rightfully gotten his head bitten off, and then probably never said shit to Steve about it and wouldn’t have found himself in this situation at all.
They’d gotten off the phone quickly after that, and Eddie has not spoken to Steve in nearly six months. He’s convinced himself that it’s just being busy, life getting the best of both of them, but at night, when it’s just him and his thoughts, he can’t help but think otherwise. And he’s too chickenshit to be the one to pick up the phone first, and just find out.
“That’s why you should forget about him, Ed,” Will says, clearly thinking he’s, like, won the conversation or something, like it’s a competition.
“No, you don’t get it. I…I don’t need clarity, okay? I’ve got plenty. Tons. So I know, okay, that this is it for me. I’m not going to get another shot at this, Will. Not another shot at making different choices, of making things right with Steve, none of it. I’ve gone too long without saying anything and it’s not going to change. But you get that shot, Will. Your world is so much bigger than Mike Wheeler. My world is not like yours.”
“I don’t know why you keep insisting that I’m talking about Mike,” Will says, voice tight. “I’m talking about your obsession with stupid fucking Steve Harrington –”
“He’s not stupid,” Eddie says, not a shout but close to it. He knows he’s focusing on the wrong part of that statement, but it’s the only part of it he can tackle at the moment.
Will scoffs, leaning back in his chair like it’s a throne. “Are we talking about the same person? Guy who forgets, like, basic vocabulary words? Zones out in the middle of all of us hanging out? Telling me I can do better when you, my friend, can do miles better.”
Will is projecting, he is, Eddie knows he is. This is New York Will talking, a catty, mean invention that’s a real hit in Alphabet City. This awful creature is not Real Will, except for the hurt – that’s not just real Will, that’s Baby Byers. A hurt, scared, traumatized kid who is convinced that because he’s not happy, no one else should be either. But he fucking sees red.
“Here I was, thinking of letting you down real easy, but I’m not going to do that,” Eddie says in Bad Guy Voice. Will’s spine straightens immediately; Bad Guy Voice still unnerves all of the kids, even though they’re well into adulthood now. “If we’re going to go on this trip together – which I would like to, as I put in for time off at work and everything – you’re in need of a serious attitude adjustment.”
“Don’t patronize me, Munson. I’ve fucked men older than you.”
“And aren’t you so proud?” It’s vicious, not innate but learned from Lloyd and the boys. Read him like a book and hit him where it hurts, sweetheart, Lloyd had purred, steady like a soldier by Eddie’s side when Tom sneered at him to impress his new boy toy. Eddie has found his own version of calculation that suits his own purposes just fine, a mix of cool cattiness and Dungeon Master character analysis. Will’s lucky it’s just Eddie taking a swing – Lloyd would have absolutely eviscerated Will if he were here right now.
As Eddie knew it would, his barb has the desired effect – Will recoils, sits back in his seat, hazel eyes wide. Alright, that’s…that’s something Eddie can work with. He sighs.“You know how we sometimes talk about how rich people are, like, the worst?”
Will nods, quirking his lip in a little pout.
“Well, what you and I had that rich people like Steve did not have was family. We had love. If Steve had had a Wayne or a Joyce or a, fuck, even a Mrs. Wheeler to get his stubborn ass to the hospital for a CAT scan or something when he was repeatedly getting the shit kicked out of him, he wouldn’t be zoning out in the middle of conversations or forgetting basic vocabulary words. You ever thought about it that way?”
It hurts Eddie to think about, whenever he does. Steve bandaging his own wounds, ignoring his headaches, running headfirst into danger again and again so that someone would notice and care. It hurts Eddie to think that after all this time, he hasn’t done anything about it – and, fuck, that’s not Megan’s fault either. She’s talked to Eddie about her concerns, in the few times they’ve been alone together. But she’s afraid to press too, dealing with her own shit, having to choose her battles in a marriage that is, unfortunately, offering them both plenty of battlefields to pick between.
Will heaves a sigh, just this edge of dramatic, but Eddie knows he’s broken through the nasty little facade. “Uh, guess I didn’t.”
“Yeah, not a lot of people do,” Eddie says. Eddie doesn’t even really know the full extent of it, because other than Jonathan, Steve is the absolute worst in their little family at talking about his problems. “I’m not obsessed with Steve, Will. This isn’t some schoolyard thing. I’m in love with him.”
“Eddie,” Will breathes. His demeanor has changed so quickly and now it’s all Baby Byers.
“I’m in love with him,” Eddie repeats – the second time he’s ever said it aloud, wow. “And I’m not going to deny that you were – are – in love with Mike. I wouldn’t chalk that up to some teenage crush. But what’s going on with me and Steve is not what’s going on with you and Mike.”
Will laughs humorlessly. “Isn’t it though?”
“No, it isn’t,” Eddie says.
“How so?” Will asks. It’s a challenge.
Eddie pauses while he tries to articulate exactly why this is. On the surface, they sort of are similar situations - the weird gay kid with an unrequited crush on his married best friend. And Steve is Eddie’s best friend, even if their dynamic is a little off right now. It isn’t like the initial days after Spring Break 1986, where things with Jeff and Gareth were tenuous at best because Eddie didn’t fucking know who he was anymore, much less how to relate to the guy he’d been before, the guy that Jeff and Gareth still kind of expected him to be. Eddie’s not worried that he and Steve won’t be friends, ultimately. Mike and Will, on the other hand, are in grave danger of not actually coming out of this oncoming fight even speaking to each other.
Eddie settles on, “Steve doesn’t expect to be a priority the way Mike does.”
Will balks, like he does whenever anyone calls Mike Wheeler out on his obvious flaws. “What do you mean?”
This conclusion just dawned on Eddie maybe thirty seconds ago, so he’s definitely winging it here, but hey, being a bullshit artist has always helped him. “Well, I mean, with his folks and everything. I think Steve’s always felt like an afterthought, so he’s never expected people to put him first. Young Wheeler though? Only boy, upper middle class family, married a girl whose entire love map is him. He’s always been put first so he expects it. And you’ve played right into that.”
“That’s not fair,” Will protests. “I couldn’t help – I can’t help –”
Ah, this. Eddie has his footing in the theory now, can really dig in. “You can’t help how you feel, but you can help what you do about it.”
This seems to humble Will in a way that Eddie’s other words have not, which is…about right, he guesses. In ways, Jonathan protecting Will from, like, everything has done him few favors in the perspective department. Eddie has worked through his own resentment of that situation, the fact that Will has an older brother as good as Jonathan that he loves, of course, loves more than anything, but also takes a little bit for granted.
“You want to know why you feel like shit, about Mike?” Eddie goes on, feeling a little reckless and like the dialogue is getting away from him, but still like he can’t quite help it.
Will cracks a slight smile, but looks away. “Sure, by all means, let me know how Will Byers the NPC feels about the events of the campaign.”
“I’m not joking around right now, Will,” Eddie says, with a degree of patience that he is frankly very impressed with himself for maintaining (or faking). “You think you’re mad at him for the shit he pulled in the city, but you’re not.”
“Uh, okay,” Will is trying for a patient tone as well, and Eddie’s not sure which of them is faking it more successfully. “I am pretty sure I am.”
“Fine, fine,” Eddie waves a hand as though dismissing this. “You’re mad at him, because he made you feel like shit, made you feel like you had to apologize, when you didn’t and still don’t think you should have had to. But he’s done shit like that before, and you’ve shaken it off, you know that.”
Will says nothing. Will’s eyes are steady on Eddie’s face, like he’s trying to guess his next move, but this – this is an arena where Eddie is five steps ahead of him. There is no waiting at the end of the hallway because he senses Eddie running up the stairs. There’s no razor sharp precision. When it comes to Mike, Will is painfully unguarded.
“What’s different this time,” Eddie says, “and why you’re acting like kind of an asshole right now, is that you’re finally getting pissed off at yourself. Because he keeps pulling this shit, he will continue to keep pulling this shit, because that is who you are to each other and how you have been since you were six fucking years old. And I think you’re finally getting past the ‘woe is me, my great tragic pining heart,’ and consciously or not are starting to realize that this cycle is bullshit, and it’s bullshit to keep putting up with it and feeding into it the way that you have been.”
“Oh no, don’t hold back, darling,” Will says, tone absolutely dripping with disdain. It’s cute, honestly. “Tell me how you really feel about the cross I bear.”
“If the shoe fits, babe,” Eddie says. There’s something inside him that laughs a little at the snipe, some reimagining of Lloyd’s donkey bray when something really tickled him. “God, Will, when was the last time you two really enjoyed each other’s company? Without some undercurrent of fucking garbage on either of your parts? Be honest.”
“I don’t know,” Will says, like it’s being ripped from him. “I don’t know, Eddie, okay?”
“And–” Eddie takes a deep breath, runs his hands through his hair. He wants to give Will’s statement some time to hang in the air, but he can’t lose momentum now that he’s got Will within reach, livid and hateful but an active participant in his own life for once. “And– it’s about goddamn time you realize that! About goddamn time you realize you’re not having fun anymore. Because you shouldn’t keep doing this. You shouldn’t keep getting back on the same fucking hamster wheel with this guy when you know better, you feel better, you want better. You know that you need to seriously address this shit with Mike, fundamentally change your friendship and maybe end it altogether, and it scares you shitless and you are furious with yourself about that, and that you let it get this bad in the first place. And I got to say, Byers, I got to be honest with you here, I am so very fucking proud of you for making it even this far.”
Whatever protest Will was working himself up to make, in a rage or in a snit or something else, dies right on the tip of his tongue, and he rocks back in pure surprise. It was, Eddie admits, kind of a hard left for his rant to take. He’s surprised himself, a little bit, to be honest. But it’s true. It’s right.
“I am,” Eddie says. “I am proud of you. It sucks, but it’s really admirable to get to this point. To realize that things have to change. You’ve just got to not be a fucking asshole about it, dude.”
That startles a laugh out of Will, though hard on its heels is a tell-tale chin wobble, those big hazel eyes filling up with tears.
“I don’t–” he says. “I don’t mean to be an asshole. Or to let Mike walk all over me. I’m just– I’m scared, Eddie.”
Eddie reaches out, takes Will’s hand. Will’s not always a hugger, not always big on being held, especially in moments of stress. But he’s the kind of guy who does need a little human grounding, a little comforting contact, in tough times. Well, it’s half a he’s that kind of guy thing, and probably half a spent too much time in a freezing cold and dark alternate dimension where there was no comfort to be had at all, just slime and danger and blood and running. Hard to know what he would prefer, if he hadn’t gone through everything he’d gone through. But that’s true for all of them, in their own different ways.
“I know,” Eddie says.
“I can’t stop thinking about like–I don’t know how this can end, with me and Mike. Or, no, that’s not– I do know how it can end. I think I even know how it has to end. He’s saved my life, again and again. Our friendship has saved my life. But now, now things are so different and so fucked up, but I think now it’s. Now it’s the thing that’s saved my life, the person who’s saved my life, that’s making my life a goddamn misery. But I still don’t– I don’t know how to live a life, without him in it.”
He’s holding onto Eddie’s hand like it’s hanging off the edge of a lifeboat, like it’s all he’s got keeping him from sinking into a cold dark void. Eddie holds on, holds on tight, because he gets how that feels.
“It might not be an end,” Eddie says softly. “Who the fuck knows, right? You and Wheeler, you’ve been through it all together, and then some. And your friendship has saved your life, and it’s saved his too. Nothing ever will change that, no matter what. But yeah, for now, at least?”
“For now, it has to end,” Will finishes. And laugh-sobs, rubbing his free hand over his eyes. “God, I don’t know how I feel about saying that out loud.”
“That’s okay,” Eddie says. “You don’t have to know, yet. You don’t have to do anything, quite yet. But just– just getting it straight in your head, will help.”
“Yeah,” Will sighs. “Yeah, you’re right.”
“Listen,” Eddie says. “This trip will be fun, okay? We don’t have to go out, we don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do. We can both just like, be terrible at surfing and ride the streetcars like tourists and try not to drive the rental off a cliff.”
“I’m actually not terrible at surfing,” Will sniffs.
“My friend, we are both abysmal at surfing,” Eddie says. “The fact neither of us have drowned in the attempt is frankly a miracle. But it’s fine, because really all we want to do is sit out there in the water and talk shit, right?”
“I’m not conceding anything,” Will says, the stubborn little asshole. “I am, in fact, a great surfer.”
“Sure, sure,” Eddie lets him off the hook. “My point is, this is just going to be a break. From all of it. And that can mean whatever you need it to mean. That’s what I’m really talking about, when I say California was good for me. It got to mean what I needed it to mean, to be out there. That’s why it’s special to me, ultimately.”
“Okay,” Will says. “Yeah, I get that.”
He lets go of Eddie’s hand finally, to wipe off his face, seeming to have collected himself enough that he doesn’t need the grounding touch anymore. Has managed to haul himself up onto the lifeboat, maybe.
“So, uh–” Will looks at him tentatively. “I’m sorry for what I said about Steve. But you really– you really don’t see it that way, with him? That you should cut it off? I get that– I see what you mean, that it’s not the same thing exactly. But can’t this trip be that for you, too? A break?”
Eddie considers this. Really tries to consider it objectively, in fairness to Will but also to himself, maybe to Steve too, even.
“A break is…always good,” he says slowly. “And the first time I went out there, it was– you know, Steve had just gotten married. And I was so heartbroken, dude. I really was. I was so happy for him, truly, but my heart was broken.”
Will nods.
“I needed to figure myself out, without him in the picture,” Eddie says. “I needed a gay community, yeah, but also– Jesus, you were probably too young at the time but when we were in high school, even middle school, Steve Harrington was like the teenaged fantasy, almost as soon as I could even admit to myself that what I was feeling was a fantasy. So he’d been fucking tied up in that from the start. And then to find out he’s actually a good dude? Save shit and kick ass by his side? Get absorbed into his badass little found family? Really get to know him? I was so sunk, man, I was toast.
“I just needed– I needed to figure out all of that, without him right there in the middle of it. Being gay, sex, men, love, the whole thing. I needed to really see it, without him being so all-encompassing right dead center all of it that I couldn’t see past him at all.”
Eddie sits with this, for a second. Thinks about Lloyd, Tom, Hank, Paul. The rest of them. Thinks about the men he’s been with. Men he’s cared about. Men he’s tried to love. Thought he had loved, sometimes, in a collection of moments. Men he could have loved, maybe. If things had been different.
Unfortunately, the thing that had needed to be different was Eddie himself.
Fuck. And Josh. Josh, in particular. Deserves better than this. Deserves better than Eddie thinking like this, talking like this. But now that he’s actually saying this, now that he’s actually getting this shit off his chest at last he– he can’t stop himself.
“And I did,” he says finally. “I think I did get that figured out. But the difference is– letting go of Mike, for you, I really do think that it’s going to fucking– fucking absolutely free you, for the kind of love that’s going to knock your damn socks off. Letting go of Steve, for me, is– I did that. I did that, or I tried that, anyway. And it didn’t take. It just confirmed what I already knew. That I’d already found that love. My socks were already knocked all the way off. Gone, baby.”
“Even if he doesn’t feel the same way?” Will asks, gentle.
Eddie shrugs. “Weirdly, that part doesn’t even matter.”
“Eddie,” Will groans. “What the fuck, come on, man. How could it not matter?”
“It doesn’t,” Eddie insists. “Or, okay, what I mean is— that doesn’t change it. However he feels, that doesn’t actually have much to do with how I love him. It just…is what it is. It doesn’t depend on him someday ever feeling the same.”
“Wow,” Will says. “That’s. Uh. That’s either really fucking tragic or the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard in my life.”
Eddie hoots a laugh. “Oh, man. Both, dude. It can totally be both.”
“But it doesn’t hurt you?” Will presses. “It’s not hard, being back around him now? Eddie, are you having fun?”
This time, Eddie doesn’t feel like his words are being wielded against him. Will isn’t flipping Eddie’s argument back on himself like he’s trying to score points, hold up the fun house mirror to Eddie and trip him up with it. He’s asking, sincerely asking, with concern for his friend written all over that face.
“Well, like I said, not at the moment,” Eddie sighs. “But that’s because Steve and I haven’t been talking. I have put distance between us, and. Shit. That’s the part that hurts. I guess I keep hoping that it’ll stop hurting, despite knowing better.”
And– fuck. Fuck, it hurts like hell to not be talking to Steve. And he knows that, has known that. But what he hasn’t thought about at all is how it will feel, to be away from Josh for the next two weeks. Hasn’t thought about it, because he knows that he’ll be fine. He’ll be just fine.
Eddie closes his eyes, suddenly so fucking tired. God, he’s an idiot.
“Eddie?” Will asks, a little alarmed. Which is fair.
“No, it’s just– that got me thinking about something else,” Eddie says.
How, specifically, when Josh had told him that he loved him for the first time, Eddie had said I love you too , immediately. Didn’t want to leave the guy hanging, right, ha ha, that would be pretty rude, right? And it wasn’t that he hadn’t meant it. Or, it didn’t count as saying it without meaning it, if you were sure that you would mean it, like, eventually.
Eddie has been saying it back, been saying it for a long time now, borrowing against an eventually, I will mean this with my entire heart and soul that he is realizing, right in this moment, will never arrive.
“Josh,” Will says, like it’s so simple. But maybe it is.
“Yeah,” Eddie says, like that explains anything. But maybe it does, with the way Will nods, that brilliant mind of his probably already filling in the blanks.
They sit in silence for a moment, not comfortable exactly, but not uncomfortable either. In a weird neutral place, like they’re both digesting what has just transpired. The biggest argument they’ve ever had, certainly, followed in hot pursuit by a one-two punch of realizations probably neither of them were exactly prepared for.
In a way, though– in a way, Eddie is glad it happened. Not just because maybe now they’re on the same page as to what this trip can mean, a little more about why Eddie had insisted on California specifically. More than that, it’s been a long time since he and Will started their little gay alliance. Will was just a kid then, and Eddie had maybe gotten something of a head start on him but was, he feels now, little more than a kid himself. But shit like this– a fight like this– doesn’t happen between kids. Doesn’t happen between a wise sage and his mentee, who’s looking to the old sailor to show him the ropes in this deeply mixed metaphor. Talking like that with someone, fighting like that with someone, the kind of thing that sucks in the moment but just makes your bond ultimately stronger, you can only do that with an equal. A peer. A friend.
Eddie’s heart swells a little at the thought.
“Fuck,” Will says after what feels like an eternity. “You always have been kind of a sadistic DM, Eddie. But no one can ever say you don’t know your shit, Jesus.”
“It’s true,” Eddie sighs. “Always been my curse.”
They fall into far more easy conversation after that, the stuff that they originally set out to do this evening before getting sidetracked by their damage, Jesus Christ. It feels good to plan something like this, and Eddie is surprised to find that little knot of hurt, that little knot of grief whenever he thinks about the friends he lost, the life he left behind, the anxiety at returning to the place where it all happened, loosens more and more as they talk about it. As in talking through it all with Will he remembers again the places he liked to eat, the dives where you could catch the best live music, and even the best places to catch a handsome stranger’s eye.
Yeah, shit. He’s so glad they’re doing this. Glad he’s doing it, glad they’re doing it together. It is, Eddie is absolutely certain, going to be a phenomenal trip.
–
Eddie’s been home for about a week when his phone rings. He’s just getting used to being back in this time zone, his trauma-assisted bizarro sleeping habits thrown for an additional loop, one which has put him in a shitty mood at work, especially when combined with the fucking timing of the month’s regular supply of full moon collisions requiring urgent repair. He finally has a day off after working for seven straight days to cover the expense of the New York trip, with another long stretch ahead starting tomorrow to help put some cash away for the big one ahead.
“For whom does this bell toll?” Eddie says into the receiver, voice resonant and ponderous like a haunted house butler. It’s not what he usually says when he picks up the phone, certainly not how he usually says it, but he’d really only picked up the phone to stop it ringing so he could tip himself right back into bed. It’s his day off, he plans to spend most of it dozing to the sounds of his old favorite Deep Purple record on repeat, so the sooner he can scare this asshole off the phone, the better.
He’s grown up, sure. But he’ll never be so grown up that he’ll resist playing the Freak card, if it achieves the desired effect.
“Jesus,” the sweetest voice Eddie has ever heard in his whole life says, a laugh in his tone. “Hey, Eddie. It’s Steve.”
I know it’s you, Eddie wants to say. You could speak into a tin can from the far end of an auditorium and I’d know it was you. You could speak Russian and I’d understand you perfectly. Instead he says, impressively casual if he says so himself, though Steve can probably still hear the smile in his voice, “Hey, man, what’s going on?”
“Listen, um, I know it’s been a while –” Steve says, and he sounds…nervous about it. Like maybe he’s been having trouble reaching out too.
“Water under the bridge,” Eddie says immediately, easily, like it hasn’t been among the worst times of Eddie’s life. “Is this a courtesy call, or are you in need of assistance?”
“God, I wish it was just catching up,” Steve says. Says it like Steve’s greatest wish in the world right now is to ask Eddie all about his day, and that his greatest burden to bear is that he simply cannot do just that. Which is ridiculous, but it’s still got Eddie’s fool heart clanging against his ribs, because Steve Harrington sure knows how to deliver that earnest sincerity in a way that really makes you think, makes you hope– “Megan and I are in a bit of a situation.”
They’re stranded in Ohio, because of course they’re in Ohio. The Beemer is finally fucking dead, which, in Eddie’s professional opinion, is goddamn impressive, considering it should have kicked the bucket five years ago. They’re already late for Megan’s father’s birthday party, and at this rate, they’re not going to make it in time before the old geezer has to head up to bed. As Steve explains the situation, it’s so clear he’s trying his hardest to be calm, to be level for Megan, whose warm voice Eddie can occasionally hear chiming in in the background of the call, but Eddie knows him better than most. Eddie doesn’t have to interact with Megan to guess that she’s freaking out, but doing that passive-aggressive WASP “oh no, it’s fine, it’s fine” thing that’s practically genetic. Which, Eddie knows, kicks off the same programmed behavior in Steve, trapping them both in the kind of horrible feedback loop that has been (Eddie almost wishes he didn’t know this, but he does) one of the foundational issues in their increasingly rocky marriage. So there’s no doubt that’s bleeding into Steve’s overall mood, and Eddie can hear the strain behind that upbeat, hey man don’t worry about it tone.
Eddie does the math in his head. It’s about half past one in the afternoon. Steve and Megan managed to get the car to a gas station just shy of an hour outside of Columbus, in some podunk town with nothing around it for miles. A cab would be an astronomical cost, and Eddie is sure they’ve already had the argument about Steve not wanting to rely on Megan’s parents to cover it. If Eddie were to hop in his car now, it would take him a bit less than two hours to get there. Factor in driving to the Hills’ residence in Columbus proper, and driving all the way back…that’s Eddie’s only day off for the next nine days entirely wasted.
“I’ll come get you,” Eddie says. It’s not even a question.
“You’re fucking amazing,” Steve says, clearly too frazzled to try and hide the vulnerability in his voice, the sheer relief.
Eddie grips the side of his hall table tightly, closing his eyes and allowing himself a euphoric smile. Steve is speaking to him, Steve called him fucking amazing, Eddie is somehow the person who put that note of relief into Steve’s voice.
He can let himself be stupid and self-indulgent about it now, because he knows he’ll have plenty of time trying to keep all this off his face, as soon as he lays eyes on Steve again.
“Happy to be of service,” Eddie says, back in his spooky butler voice. “Sit tight, and the Munsonmobile will call on you shortly.”
“I’ll be sure to have a bag of Funyuns and a Coke waiting for you,” Steve says, with a laugh that’s miraculous.
“Throw in a few Slim Jims, and I’ll consider this transaction settled.”
Steve laughs some more, and Eddie cradles the phone against his ear, leaning his shoulder against the wall and wishing that his piece of shit phone could do a better job of bringing that sound to him with absolutely crystal perfection, so he could close his eyes and pretend Steve was right here.
“Done,” Steve says. And hangs up on him.
Hangs up on him. The absolute prick.
Eddie laughs, puts the phone back on the receiver and immediately puts his face in his hands.
The things you do for love. Jesus Christ.