Chapter Text
They’re sitting on the roof of Wayne and Eddie’s trailer, the dull orange glow of the streetlamps just bright enough for them to see each other. Eddie can just make out the blue of Steve’s shirt, because it’s a bright shade that’s almost turquoise in the sunlight. The rest of him is grayscale, the only hints of color coming from the streetlamp itself.
The moon is almost full above them, but the night is cloudy. They like to come up here and stargaze when the sky is clear. Neither of them know the names of any constellations besides the two dippers, so they make up their own names and stories. Steve swears that the three bright stars that appear in a line are meant to be the belt of a hero from mythology or history, but since he can’t remember which historical and/or mythological figure the belt belongs to, they keep renaming it.
Tonight it’s Bowie’s Belt, because Eddie has been plucking away at his acoustic guitar for almost a half hour playing Heroes. They can’t see the three familiar stars in the sky behind the dark wisps of cloud, but they named it, anyway, because they know it’s there.
“I fucking love Bowie,” Eddie says for the third time, starting the song over again.
Steve laughs, just as he’s laughed the last two times. This isn’t new information; they’ve compared their tape decks and of the few artists they have in common, Bowie is the one they both feel strongest about. Eddie could take or leave most of the pop Steve favors, just as Steve knows next to nothing about Eddie’s favorite metal. But they both know Bowie. They both listen to and appreciate Bowie. And so they find themselves like this most nights Eddie gets out his guitar, and it’s like finding an old friend every time.
Eddie will never admit it, but he likes it when Steve sings along. His voice is always hesitant and quiet, barely above a low mumble. It’s like he’s not sure if he’s allowed to sing, as if he expected Eddie to ask him to be quiet the first time he tried. Instead, Eddie had leaned in closer, his own soft voice accompanying Steve’s. Now, Steve sings quietly, unbidden and uninhibited, while Eddie plays.
“D’you think you could teach me?” Steve asks.
"Teach you what?” Eddie stops playing and looks over at the other man, who’s lying down on the roof and looking up at the cloudy sky. Steve turns his head to look at him, his hair getting mussed from the motion.
“To play guitar.” Steve lifts his own arms as if he’s holding a guitar, too, pretending to strum his fingertips up and down across its strings.
Eddie raises his eyebrows.
“You wanna play guitar?”
Steve shrugs, his arms falling back to rest on top of his stomach.
“You gunning for my spot as the party bard, Harrington?” Eddie teases, strumming his pick across the strings with mock aggression.
This makes Steve pick himself up, leaning back on his elbows so he’s not lying down anymore, but not quite sitting up, either. He shakes his head, then leans closer towards Eddie and shifting his weight onto one arm so he can reach up and rub the back of his neck with his other hand.
“Nah, man, I just think it’s cool.”
Eddie covers the guitar strings with his hand to stop the discordant sound still ringing from the instrument. His expression softens, despite himself.
Steve thinks playing the guitar is cool.
“Yeah,” he nods. “Yeah, I can teach you.”
Steve sits up properly, now, looking eager. When Eddie doesn’t move, Steve tilts his head to one side expectantly.
“Wait, you mean now?”
“Are you busy?”
Eddie almost says that yes, they’re both busy right now. They’re enjoying themselves up on the roof, like they do almost every night. And no, they’re not really doing anything right now, but these moments of quiet relaxation and companionship have turned into his favorite moments of the day. The world is still and sleepy around them, with only the stars and the moon (and the clouds) for company.
It’s in moments like these that Eddie feels like maybe, just maybe, their trouble is over. He remembers how in the few days they spent together fighting against Vecna, nothing had been still and sleepy. Even while the rest of the town rested, their party had been up planning and preparing and worrying. Eddie hadn’t even been there for most of it, but even hiding out at Rick’s place had come with its own type of anxiety. He couldn’t truly relax, not knowing that one wrong move would lead to him being arrested or attacked or who knows what else.
Now, though, they get moments like this. They get to be normal people again. Or maybe they don’t get to be normal people, because normal people don’t have scars from getting eaten alive by demonic bats, and normal people don’t carry tapes with their friends’ favorite songs on a loop in their glove boxes, and normal people don’t panic every time someone in front of them zones out into a daydream. But they get to have normal experiences, like these. They get to sit on the roof and just exist together at the end of the day.
And Eddie wants to stay here, in this normal moment. But he supposes that what Steve is asking is a normal request, and so instead he says, “No, I’m not busy.” He slides off the roof, feet finding the windowsill of his bedroom window. He uses this to step back down onto the ground, then looks up expectantly at Steve.
“Where are you going?” Steve asks, clearly confused.
“It’s too dark to see up there,” Eddie explains. “You need to be able to see the strings if you want to put your fingers in the right places.”
Steve just nods and climbs down off the roof, too.
They hoist themselves back into the trailer through Eddie’s open window. Once they’re both inside, he hands his acoustic to Steve, who holds it like it’s precious.
“You’re not gonna break it,” Eddie chuckles, shaking his head. He lifts up the strap attached to it, and Steve ducks his head so he can sling it around his body. Only then does he let go of the instrument, letting it hang in front of him. His hands move first above it, then below, as if he’s not sure what to do with them.
Eddie, for his part, grabs his electric guitar. He passes Steve a pick, which he twiddles between his fingers.
“So these babies are very different,” Eddie looks between the two instruments, gaze fond. “But, they’ve got the same number of strings and it’s the same basic principle. So I can show you what to do on the Warlock, and you can do the same thing on Slayer.”
“Wait,” Steve holds up the hand that isn’t still twiddling with the guitar pick. “Warlock and Slayer?”
“Shut up, man,” Eddie’s cheeks color, and he gives the other a little shove. “This one’s,” he lifts the guitar he’s holding, “literally called a Warlock. Like, that’s the model of guitar. Someone else came up with that name, not me.”
“Yeah, and that had absolutely nothing to do with why you got it,” Steve teases. “Or the fact that it’s red, which I know is your favorite color.”
Eddie’s face is quickly turning his favorite color.
“Well when they make a guitar called Babysitter, I’ll be sure to let you know,” he shoots back, which makes Steve snort, affronted.
“I swear to god, Eddie.”
“You call yourself a babysitter all the damn time,” Eddie shrugs. “So if the shoe fits.”
“Okay, so Slayer?” Steve presses on, looking down at the guitar he’s holding. “Is that because of the, the uh…” He turns his head, trying to get a better look at the words Eddie carefully painted onto the instrument. “The machine slays thing?”
“Yup,” Eddie rocks himself back and forth on the balls of his feet, refusing to be embarrassed about this one. “This machine slays dragons.”
“Because of Dungeons & Dragons,” Steve supplies, to which Eddie nods.
“And,” he adds, “it’s a riff on Woody Guthrie. Y’know, ‘this machine kills fascists’?”
Steve shakes his head.
“He had that on his guitar,” Eddie explains. “And he was, like, violently opposed to fascism. He used music to spread that message. And, y’know, a bard in D&D uses music to cast spells, so–”
“Your guitar could slay a dragon,” Steve finishes for him. He grins over at Eddie, without a trace of sarcasm or annoyance or boredom or anything Eddie would have once expected to see in Steve Harrington’s face while talking about Dungeons & Dragons. “Because you’re our bard.”
Eddie’s cheeks flame again, this time because of the easy way Steve calls him ‘our.’ Because Eddie belongs with the group, now. Which means, in some small way, he belongs with Steve.
“Yeah, I am.”
He says it like a normal person might say, “you’re my friend,” or even, “I love you.” He’s agreeing with Steve that he fills a role in their group, and also that he’s accepted the claim the others have on him. He’s accepted the way he not only belongs with them but to them. He’s theirs now, entwined to them by the forces of the universe and all the other bullshit they went through that bonded them for life.
“What am I, again?” Steve asks.
“Our paladin,” Eddie supplies immediately. “A noble warrior who made a sacred vow to protect the people in his care.”
Steve rolls his eyes.
“Again with the babysitter shit!” He puts his hands on his hips. “Are you gonna teach me how to play this, or what?”
Once upon a time, Eddie would have heard this tone and assumed Steve was pulling rank. That he was annoyed or impatient. But he knows this tone, now. He knows the difference between what Steve sounds like when he’s actually annoyed and what he sounds like when he’s just goofing around. He’s playing at impatience right now.
“All right, all right, keep your hair on,” Eddie plays along. “But full disclosure, this first bit is gonna be fucking boring.”
They sit at opposite ends of his bed as Eddie names the different parts of the guitars. He makes Steve touch each part and repeat what they’re called, taking care to point out the differences between the Warlock and Slayer. Just because they’re both guitars doesn’t mean they’re identical, which seems to throw Steve for a loop when Eddie points out the different number of frets.
“Why does yours have more than mine?” Steve actually pouts when he asks.
“It’s because electrics are so much thinner and smaller,” Eddie turns the Warlock so Steve can see. “And there’s no soundhole, because it’s made to be plugged into an amp. No soundhole means more room for frets.”
“What do these dots mean?” Steve runs his fingers over the frets, pausing each time he gets to one of the white dots on the neck. He pushes the strings down against them, doing so with two fingers when he gets to the frets that have two dots instead of one.
“They’re there to help you remember where to put your fingers to play certain notes. So if I asked you to hold the strings between the fourth and fifth frets, how easily could you find that?”
Steve counts them out, fingers pressing against the first dot when he gets there.
“Oh,” he nods. “I get it.”
“Eventually you’ll just know where your fingers go. It turns into muscle memory, y’know? But until then, those dots are really gonna help you not have to count the frets out every single time you switch positions.”
He tries to teach Steve some beginner chords next, showing him where to put his fingers and which strings to press down on. But the differences in the two guitars keep tripping Steve up. He’ll see where Eddie’s fingers are on his guitar, and then the number of frets and dots won’t match to the one in his hands.
So Eddie abandons the Warlock, places it reverently back on its stand and instead sits next to Steve.
“Here, lemme just,” he reaches out with his left hand, placing his own fingers onto Slayer’s neck. He does so while awkwardly leaning forward, so he can see what he’s doing and not mess up Steve’s grip on the instrument. “This is a C chord.” Eddie removes his fingers. “You try.”
Steve mimics his finger placement.
“Yup,” Eddie nods. “Now press down so the strings are touching the neck, and strum at the soundhole with your pick.”
Steve does as instructed, his fingertips going white with the effort of pressing down on the strings. The resulting sound is crisp, but a little hesitant, as Steve slowly drags the pick across all six strings.
“Yeah!” Eddie grins. “A little faster, go down and up a few times with the pick.”
Steve repeats the process, this time strumming back and forth. Eddie lets him play with the C chord for a while, lifting his fingers away from the strings and pushing them back down, familiarizing himself with the way it feels.
Eddie has him try an E next, pointedly choosing a chord that uses the same fingers. He demonstrates first, leaning awkwardly forward again to show Steve the difference between the two chords, slowing the motions of his practiced fingers as he easily switches from the C to the E.
When Steve mimics him this time, he fumbles.
“Shit,” he hisses. “Wait, where do my fingers go next?”
Eddie shows him again, patient and slow.
But Steve isn’t patient, despite Eddie’s earlier warning about this being the boring part. You have to master the basics before you can move on to more complicated chords, or full songs. Steve makes a frustrated noise when he doesn’t get his fingers in the right spot again, his teeth gritting together.
“Can I?” Eddie reaches out, hesitantly, his hand hovering above Steve’s. Steve’s eyes linger on Eddie’s hand before traveling up his arm, brake at his neck, then flicker quickly up to make eye contact.
“Y-yeah, man,” Steve nods.
“Okay, so the tricky part is how your second and third fingers have to swap places,” Eddie explains, both of his hands maneuvering Steve’s fingers back into the familiar C chord. “So you go from here,” he moves Steve’s fingers into the correct placement for the E, “to here. And they’re swapping, just as your index is moving from the second to the third string.”
“This shouldn’t be hard,” Steve says, the notes of self-deprecation in his voice playing louder than the guitar itself.
“No, it should,” Eddie corrects him. “Learning anything for the first time is hard.”
“But, like, I’m good at this shit,” Steve insists. “I know how to make plays, and I’m good with my hands.” He says this unabashedly, either not realizing or not caring that he’s just thrown out an innuendo that’s making Eddie’s face heat up again. “I should be able to do this.”
“Just try it again,” Eddie urges, leaning back to give him some space.
Steve does try it again, and he’s slow with it but he gets all his fingers pressed against the correct strings. He moves his index finger first, then the other two, so it’s not the fluid, single motion that it looks like when Eddie does it. But he’s learning, and he’s never done this before, and Eddie thinks he’s doing great.
“And strum,” Eddie reminds him, once his fingers are pressed down.
The chord that meets his ears this time isn’t as sharp as the C had been. He thinks that maybe Steve isn’t trying as hard this time.
“Go back to the C,” Eddie instructs, and Steve puts his fingers back in the right place. It’s slow, and he’s still doing it one finger at a time, but he remembers where they go. Eddie has him switch between the two a few times, thinking he sounds pretty good.
Steve is thinking something else entirely, because after a minute or so of his slow switching, he makes another noise of frustration.
“Why can’t I get it?”
“I mean… I think you got it.”
“Don’t patronize me, man,” Steve shakes his head. “I suck at this.”
“Because you can’t play Bowie yet?” Eddie asks, without a hint of sarcasm.
“No,” Steve’s voice raises slightly. “No, I know I can’t just, y’know, hold a guitar and know what to do. But this,” he flexes his fingers, “is hard. My fingers aren’t fast enough. And pressing down on the strings hurts! Why didn’t you tell me it hurts?”
Eddie holds out his own hands, palms up.
“It hurts at first,” he admits, “but if you keep at it your fingers get calloused. And then it doesn’t hurt anymore. See?”
And he expects Steve to look. He expects that maybe Steve will shift a little closer to get a better look, so he can compare their fingertips and notice the differences between them. But instead, Steve takes one of his hands into his own. The hand that isn’t now holding Eddie’s skates across his fingertips, feeling the callouses. Then he holds Eddie’s index finger, pressing his thumb into it to really feel the difference.
Eddie gets a little lost in this. It feels so intimate, as if Steve isn’t just looking for differences but is trying to understand something more about him. His thumb caresses Eddie’s finger, the sensation spreading a pleasant buzz through all of Eddie’s fingers, into his hand, up his whole arm.
“I got these when I still played sports,” Steve doesn’t let go of Eddie’s hand when he says this. “The blisters from the baseball bat were the worst.” He squeezes Eddie’s finger twice, then releases his hand. “I guess I’m out of practice.”
“And that’s the magic word,” Eddie says, a little breathlessly as he tries to remember how to move his hands. He clears his throat and grins widely, donning the invisible coat of the Dungeon Master as he leans back in and crows, “Practice!”
“Yeah, yeah,” Steve shoves him. “I get it.” He rolls his eyes. “Next you’ll say it’s good for my ego to be bad at something.”
“Not at all!” Eddie exclaims, still in character. “For nobody can be bad at anything so long as they’re trying!” He claps his hands together, the one Steve had been holding still buzzing. “Now, go again. Make haste!”
He watches as Steve mouths, ‘Make haste?’ and adds a question mark at the end with the way his face contorts into one. But he does start playing again. He switches between the two chords Eddie’s already shown him, doing so without needing to ask where his fingers go.
Eddie teaches Steve a few more chords, and they keep going until Eddie can call out the letter and Steve can remember which one is which. They don’t aim for speed, just accuracy.
When Steve passes Slayer back to Eddie, his face is flushed. He says, “Thanks,” quietly, almost shyly.
“Yeah, man,” Eddie nods as he puts the guitar away. “Of course.”
They fall into silence, but it’s not uncomfortable. It’s like the silence of the rooftop, where it doesn’t matter if they talk or not. The purpose of them being together isn’t to chatter endlessly, or to strive for a nice flow of conversation without faltering or awkward pauses. They’re here because they like existing in tandem.
“I, uh, haven’t really worked at anything for a while,” Steve admits, finally.
Eddie thinks this is a bold-faced lie, because he’s watched Steve run himself ragged trying to save people. Steve had had his insides become his outsides, held together by a thin piece of cloth, Nancy Wheeler’s pure force of will, and his own adrenaline. If keeping going after that isn’t working at something, then Eddie doesn’t know what is.
He doesn’t say this, though, because they don’t talk about what happened to them in casual conversation like this. Steve isn’t considering what they’d been through in his admission, and it isn’t Eddie’s place to remind him of it. So instead of waxing poetic about Steve playing the hero, Eddie asks:
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, it’s been a long time since I did anything, y’know, new?” Steve shrugs. “It’s not like working at Family Video takes that much effort. I didn’t have to learn anything to work there. I mean, I did, y’know, need to learn the register and the system and all that but that stuff’s easy, man. But this is…” he gestures at Slayer, “this is a… a skill.”
“A cool skill,” Eddie echoes Steve’s earlier sentiment.
“Yeah!” Steve agrees, enthusiastic again. “It’s…” he falters momentarily, and Eddie watches his face cloud over. He knows that Steve is thinking about something related to the Upside Down, but he’s not going to say it. So when he finally completes his thought, it’s just to say, “the coolest.”
“You can say it,” Eddie tells him, quietly.
Their eyes meet, and hold on.
“Music can save the world,” Steve says, so sure of it because they’ve seen it happen. “And it’s so important. But it’s hard. I’m not used to things being hard, because I haven’t tried to learn anything since… since high school. And even that’s being generous because I don’t think a lot of what I did senior year even counts as learning. It was just, kinda… coasting.”
“Nothing wrong with that,” Eddie grins.
“But what if I can’t do it? What if it’s too hard, and I give up?”
“Then you give up,” Eddie shrugs. “Nobody’s forcing you to learn to play the guitar, Steve. You should learn because you want to, not because you have to.”
It’s unspoken, the part where Eddie’s really telling Steve that if this is some lingering Upside Down guilt, he needs to let it go. Nothing would have changed had they had two guitar players. And Steve knowing or not knowing how to play the guitar in the future isn’t going to change anything, either, because Vecna is gone. They still have their tapes, and they still have their makeshift weapons, and Eddie’s pretty sure Nancy has even more guns now, but it’s over.
Steve doesn’t have to learn the guitar to save the world.
He can learn because he thinks it’s cool.
A small part of Eddie wants Steve to learn just so that he can teach him, so that he can have an excuse to spend time with him that isn’t just “you’re one of the few people my age who’s been through the same traumatic experience and I just want to exist with someone who gets it.” So they can have something nice, and simple, and that’s theirs.
“I think,” Steve says, slowly, “it would be nice to try something. And to care about something.”
His eyes linger on Eddie while he says it. Eddie thinks that maybe he said it with the same earnestness he would have used if he’d said, ‘someone,’ instead of ‘something.’
“Then I’ll teach you,” he promises, trying to sound just as earnest. “For as long as you want to learn.”
He really means, ‘I’m yours for as long as you’ll have me.’ But he can’t say that.