8. Chapter 8

When they arrive, Eddie lets out a whistle through his teeth. “Nice castle, Harrington.”

“Shut up,” Steve says.

He opens the door and stands aside for Eddie to enter — what he doesn’t expect is Eddie taking his hand and pulling him in after, pressing him flush against the now closed door, lips less than inches from his own as he says, “You said it could be a come-on?”

“I did,” Steve manages, as Eddie swallows his breath in a kiss.

They make it, somehow, to Steve’s bedroom. Steve lets his body lead and his mind follow; this is something he knows how to do, something he’s good at. Soon Eddie’s shirtless, and Steve takes a moment to look at him, at the sharp clefts of his collarbones and the faint hollow lines of his ribs, at the dark scattered tattoos and the column of hair disappearing under his jeans, before he pulls his own shirt off and falls to kissing him again. They press against each other; for a moment this feels unspeakably natural, like he knows every move to make, every touch, every sound. Eddie sighs against him as Steve kisses down his neck and really this is easy, this is no different to anything else.

But it is different, is the problem. Steve doesn’t want to think like that but he is, he is thinking like that, he’s thinking about how Eddie isn’t one of those girls, he’s thinking about how he doesn’t know what he’s doing and he’s going to fuck this up and this is new, too new, so new, and he remembers the last first time he had with someone who mattered to him and that was Nancy in this room as Barb died just outside and–

Eddie twitches, then, but it’s not a good twitch, more like an involuntary flinch, and just as quickly Steve realises Eddie is trembling even as he pulls at Steve more and more insistently, like he’s trying to put something off, and it’s not just Steve who’s freaking out, just a little bit, inside his own head.

“Eddie,” Steve says softly, and then again more firmly when Eddie doesn’t respond. “Look at me.”

Eddie looks at him. His pupils are blown, his face hazy, but there’s something beneath all that. “What?” he says, and his voice is different to his look, to his touch — his voice is small, and hesitant, and scared.

And not only that, but Steve is scared too. He’s thinking about how he’s a little bit gay and that little bit is enough to completely change how he views the world and his relationships and himself, most of all, and now he’s in bed with Eddie Munson about to do something he’s never done before and it’s so fast, so soon, so good but so soon and it’s scary, is what it is, it’s fucking scary. So he says quietly, carefully, “You think– I don’t know. We could just– lie here, or something? Instead of–”

“Okay,” Eddie says immediately, and Steve is maybe a little selfishly hurt by the relief in his voice — at least, until Eddie lays down with his face hidden in the crook of Steve’s shoulder and Steve feels his heartbeat against his skin, rapid beyond the point of arousal and definitely veering into the territory of panic. Eddie seems aware that he’s noticed. “Sorry,” he says, voice muffled. “It’s– I don’t know what it’s–”

“You okay?” Steve asks slowly, the own nervous jump of his heartbeat responding to Eddie’s own.

“I feel– shit, I feel crazy right now, how can I- I go from–” His speech speeds up, like it did that night in Family Video, breaths coming in frantic pants between a tripping, hurtling series of words. “Fucking– hell, I feel like God is– is fucking– is fucking cockblocking me right– now, Jesus– Jesus Christ–”

It startles a laugh out of Steve, even as Eddie hyperventilates into his shoulder, and Eddie manages a small, fractured laugh in return. Steve shifts his arm and curls it around Eddie’s torso, pulling him closer. “Can I do anything?” he asks, again in a quiet, careful voice. He knows Eddie might not like the tone, but he can’t help it. The concern.

Eddie just exhales shakily, breath hot against Steve’s bare skin. “Just have to– I’m– I’m fine– just have to– just have to get through– fuck, this is so– just have to get through it–”

“And talking helps?”

“Sometimes, can be– but it can– oh, fuck, I don’t– shit, Steve, I’m sorry– fuck– just talking a lot can force– force my lungs out– out of it, y’know? Jesus– Jesus fuck– and just knowing– I’m sorry, shit, this is so– I don’t– yeah, knowing someone’s listening is– like, it’s– to the– to the craziness, it’s– it’s calming somehow, fuck–”

“I’m listening,” Steve says. He traces a continual figure of eight on Eddie’s ribs, which are jolting with each panicked breath. “I promise. I’m listening.”

“Fuck, I’m so– hate this happening around people, it’s so– it’s not– I’m fine– and we– I ruined– fuck, I ruined–”

“You– c’mon, man, you didn’t ruin anything.” Steve looks at the dim ceiling, taking a deep breath of his own. “I was scared too, y’know. It’s– like, it’s okay.”

Eddie doesn’t say anything. His hand has somehow found its way to Steve’s wrist and is clutching on tightly, rings digging into Steve’s skin, not that he’s going to complain. Whatever helps. And Eddie’s curled a little closer into him, too, a leg thrown across Steve’s thighs, face mushed against Steve’s neck, skinny frame trembling as he clings to Steve like a fucking anchor.

“Do you want me to– I don’t know. Do you want me to talk, instead?” Steve says, after a long moment of desperate silence.

Eddie shifts against him. “Yeah, if you–” Another couple of rapid, helpless breaths. “Christ, this is– insane, fuck, just– I’ll be– I’m sorry, I’m sorry– distraction– would be– fuck– would be good–”

Distraction. Steve can do distraction. But he’s got nothing to talk about — head completely empty, suddenly — so he sings instead. The first thing on his mind, which isn’t exactly Eddie’s scene at all, like at all, but he asked for a distraction and hating Steve’s music taste is as good a distraction as any. “Wouldn’t it be nice if we were older?” he sings softly, vaguely tunefully, he hopes. “Then we wouldn’t have to wait so long…”

Eddie jerks against him, but when their gazes meet, Steve finds him smiling faintly, even as it doesn’t reach his frantic eyes. “Jesus H.– Christ, Steve, I think my– I think my panic– attack might go away just because– just because it’s disgusted by this– by this shit–”

Steve doesn’t reply, just sings a bit more. “And wouldn't it be nice to live together, in the kind of world where we belong?”

Eddie doesn’t interrupt him this time. He lets Steve sing through the whole song, which he knows very well, actually, an old favorite when he was a kid — and now, he thinks, in bed with Eddie, it has a little bit of a new meaning to it.

When he’s done, Eddie’s not shaking quite so hard, and his breathing is almost regular against Steve’s skin. He still hasn’t let go of Steve’s wrist.

“What if I’m losing my mind?” he says, very quietly. “Like, what if this is just–”

“You’re not,” Steve says, pretty adamantly, because he knows he’s not. Because he knows what this is like, and he knows too many people who know what it’s like, and it’s not losing their minds. There’s a quote, suddenly, he remembers Nancy saying late one night when neither of them could sleep after it all went wrong the first time and she was curled into his side just like — Jesus — just like Eddie is now, curled there and she said softly when it got to five a.m. and sleep was nowhere near, she said Insanity is a perfectly rational adjustment to an insane world. He repeats it now: “Insanity’s, like, a rational adjustment to an insane world.”

Eddie looks at him in the gloom. “That’s a lot of big words for you, Stevie.”

“Stevie?” Steve wrinkles his nose. “I can do big words.”

Eddie snorts. Then there’s a gentle silence. “That– fuck, for some ridiculous reason that actually kind of helps. Where did you get that one from?”

“Who says it’s not mine?” He’s definitely raised an eyebrow, though Steve doesn’t look to see. “Alright, I got it from Nance.”

“Wise woman, Wheeler.”

“You still think I should get back with her?”

The silence is less gentle this time. Eddie hasn’t moved, but he’s tensed up against Steve, and his voice is tight when he says, “I mean, I don’t exactly know what you want me to say to that–”

“Nothing, man, I– nothing.” Steve wants to bring a hand up to rub at his forehead, but one’s still tucked over Eddie’s ribcage and the other is held in the grip of Eddie’s fingers on his wrist, and neither hold is one he wants to break. “Sorry. I don’t know why I said that.”

A beat. “I said what I said because– shit. This is just kind of embarrassing, really, but I mean– well, you two looked good together. And you had some sort of lost look, I don’t know, like you were looking for something and I knew Robin wasn’t it and I knew there was no way–” Eddie breaks off. “I was already so far gone on you, Harrington, Jesus. I knew I had less than a hope in hell, hell being the place which we were actually in, to be fair, so maybe I should have considered that — but yeah. Just wanted you to be happy, I guess. Shit.”

Oh. It’s– sweet, actually. Steve thinks about him already so far gone, even in the middle of a manhunt, even with the mob hanging over him and Chrissy and Vecna and all of it — still far gone. He feels sort of warm at the thought.

“I guess while I’m being– yeah, like, honest, or whatever–” Eddie takes a long breath in, steadier than before. “I really want to have sex with you. Like– but, yeah. I don’t know if I– I need to sort my head out, first.”

“Can I, uh, be honest with you too?” Steve says in the dark. He feels Eddie nod. “I– like, yeah. I really want to have sex with you too. And I’m very used to– y’know, like, ladykiller and all that, what they say. I never really wait.”

“Scandalous,” Eddie says against his skin.

Steve smiles a little. “But it– it feels bigger right now. Like, a bigger deal. Because it’s–”

“A guy,” Eddie finishes for him. “A gay thing.”

“Not a gay thing but– yeah. A gay thing. A bisexual thing.” He feels absurdly proud to say it out loud. “It’s… new. And it’s– a thing.”

“It is definitely a thing.” Eddie hums against his neck. “I’m not gonna blame you for that, Steve. Swear to God. Or, wait, I swear on Dustin’s mother.”

Steve groans. “I can’t believe I said that.”

“What can I say, you were clearly so flustered in my presence–”

“Uh, yeah, because you had a shard of glass held to my neck–”

“Don’t pretend like you didn’t enjoy it. Like, just a little bit. Deep down.”

Steve flicks at Eddie’s arm. Eddie tightens his grip on his wrist in response, a quick squeeze of his fingers that somehow manages to be the most comforting thing in the world. “Anyway, back to the point, I– yeah. Also need to wait a bit, I think. Just to– to feel less, y’know, earth-shattering? About the whole thing?”

Eddie breathes out. “We can do that,” he says, and there’s relief in his voice and relief in Steve’s chest and maybe God really is cockblocking them right now, but Steve doesn’t care that much because Eddie is still here, still right in his arms, making promises and plans and saying we and really that by itself feels good.

Eddie shifts in his arms. “I can’t believe I finally get into Steve Harrington’s bed and then freak out before I can even suck his dick, like, talk about tragic.”

“I mean, if you hadn’t, I, like, probably would also have freaked out.”

“I bet you say that to all the girls.” He’s smirking faintly in the gloom. “Good to know my panic attack made you feel better.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake, you know what I meant–”

Eddie laughs. But then he goes quiet, the silence stretching on, until finally — “I don’t know why I– I don’t know. I guess, just after Saturday night–”

Steve doesn’t want to think about Danny right now. And more than that, it’s an awful thought, that being reminded of being reminded of something bad can itself become bad, just some endless fucking loop of nightmarish bullshit. “You don’t have to, like, explain it. It’s really okay.”

“Yeah.” Eddie lets go of his wrist, which feels like a loss until his fingers find Steve’s hand and begin to fidget with it absently. “It’s been– yeah, it’s been pretty bad all day, like my mind was just waiting for me to let my guard down so it could freak out. Something about being back in school, seeing all the stuff about–“ he sucks in a breath, deliberately slow and even “–about Chrissy, and Fred, and Patrick, and the way people look at me, not even like I’m dirty but like I’m dangerous, now, and I just really need to graduate, y’know?”

“Yeah, I know.” Steve thinks, then, about asking. Double-super-senior, and all that crap. But Eddie’s touchy about it, clearly — but Eddie’s also here, sprawled in Steve’s bed with his limbs everywhere and his heartbeat right next to Steve’s own, and they’ve already been pretty damn honest tonight so what’s a little more? “Why are you– like, why haven’t you graduated yet? You’re not stupid, you’re smarter than I am, for sure, and yet–”

Eddie sighs. “I just can’t study, man. I just– can’t do it. Doesn’t work in my brain. D&D? Fine, I can spend hours on that, no problemo, but the second I sit down to do– hell, anything else– it’s just, poof. It’s like my mind leaks out of my ears, and there’s a million other things to do and I know I need to study but it’s like my mind doesn’t know that. And assignments, I just forget them, like, I know I gotta do them but that just doesn’t translate into actually doing them, y’know?”

It’s not like Steve is that great at studying either. But he could do it, when he had to. He’d leave it to the last minute, but he’d do it, even if it took him til four a.m. because there was no way he wasn’t graduating, no siree. Eddie’s hand is still twitching over Steve’s, fidgeting with it the way he does with his own hands, and for a second Steve wonders if maybe it’s all related, the constant nervous energy, the never sitting still, the not being able to concentrate.

“It’s always potential, is the thing. They’re always telling me– or they were, until they held me back the second time and clearly gave up trying– telling me I’m wasting my potential. Because– yeah, I guess I used to be considered, uh, smart, or something. Used to be being the operative phrase, here. You know, I read all of The Lord of the Rings when I was nine? And let me tell you, The Two Towers is no joke for a nine year old.”

Steve doesn’t need to be told that. In long, boring Monday hours at Family Video he’s tried to get into The Fellowship of the Ring — completely secretly, of course, Dustin would be unbearably smug if he knew — and the effort of it has been like extracting his own teeth.

“But, like, I think I’m capable of reading maybe a sentence of Moby Dick at a time before I feel like I’m itching out of my skin and climbing up the walls. And the final’s in a week. And I want to pass, shit, I really want to fucking pass, not that anyone seems to believe it–”

“Hey, I believe it.”

Eddie, possibly for the first time all night, goes still. “Oh,” he says. He’s silent for a moment, then, “Jesus, Harrington, this ability of yours to make me feel better is kind of uncanny, actually, you sure you weren’t the one with superpowers grown in a lab–”

Steve snorts a laugh. “Just take the compliment, man. Please.”

He can feel Eddie smiling against him. After a moment, he says, “I- yeah. I mean it, though. You do make me feel, like, better, and these days that takes- that takes a lot. I- um, despite it all, I had a really good night with you. And if I haven’t completely freaked you out with the, uh, craziness, then maybe we could–” his voice goes quieter “–maybe we could do it again?”

“Yeah,” Steve says immediately. He doesn’t even consider being embarrassed by the speed of his own response — what is there to be embarrassed about? Eddie, folded in his arms, fits here like he’s fucking meant to fit here, like this is what Steve’s been looking for all along. “Yeah, I’d like that.”

After a long, silent moment, so long Steve wonders if he’s fallen asleep, Eddie speaks again. “I don’t know about sleeping arrangements chez Harrington, but in my house sleeping in jeans kinda sucks, actually, so how about we–”

“Right.” Reluctantly, very reluctantly, Steve disentangles himself from Eddie’s warm limbs and roots through his drawers to find sweatpants and a t shirt for Eddie, both of which come up slightly baggy on him. Steve finds a spare toothbrush from somewhere and they brush their teeth standing next to each other by the basin, smiling at each other in the mirror, their minty spit mingling as it swirls down the drain. Something strangely domestic about it all, actually.

Then they lay down together again in the dark, side by side. Suddenly awkward. Steve doesn’t really know what to do with his hands, where to put them, whether to touch or to–

Then Eddie lets out a little sigh and moves closer without warning, slinging an arm over Steve’s chest and pushing his face into the crook of his shoulder again, and Steve wonders at it, at how natural it feels. And at how if this were a girl he wouldn’t be wondering at all. But it’s Eddie, and it’s different, and it’s not better, necessarily, but it’s different.

(He hasn’t had this good a first date since he took Nancy out for pie.)

And for once, he sleeps dreamlessly.

When he wakes up, thin morning light filtering in over them, they’re in much the same position, sprawled together and taking up most of the bed. Eddie is still asleep, his hair tickling Steve’s nose, breathing deeply and evenly against his skin. Steve’s rather enjoying this, actually, and it’s nice to see the guy get some rest for once, but he looks over at the clock and sees it’s nearly seven and he also has to pee, like, really badly, so he carefully extracts himself and thinks about making breakfast. Eddie doesn’t stir.

He’s cooked up something simple, toast and eggs scrambled the way Tommy H’s mom used to scramble them in the mornings after sleepovers in third grade, when he returns to the bedroom to wake Eddie. Which feels unfair, really, because he’s pretty and peaceful in the early sunlight. Steve thinks about the previous night, about kissing him in the car and holding him through his panic attack, and feels something flutter in his chest. It’s those moments, he thinks, the vulnerable ones — those are the ones that make all the difference. He didn’t really realise that when he was dating Nancy. He pushed them aside and wanted to be normal, wanted her to be normal, but really why should she be normal? Why should he? Insanity is a perfectly rational adjustment to an insane world.

Eddie stirs sleepily when Steve touches his arm, blinking in the light. His t shirt — Steve’s t shirt — has ridden up to expose his hips, and for a second Steve remembers him shirtless last night, bony lines and dark tattoos blossoming on pale skin, but only for a second, because they’ve put that aside for now. For now.

“What time is it?” Eddie says, voice low and gravelly with sleep. He rubs at his eyes and makes no move to sit up.

“Seven-thirty. Rise and shine, you got a fun day of school ahead.”

“Ha, ha. Tell me, Harrington, is it weird for you to have a high schooler in your bed? Cradle snatcher, much?”

“You’re literally older than me. And, like, not to sound like a total loser but most of my friends are fifteen-year-olds, so.”

Eddie smirks. “Oh, you’re definitely a loser.” His hands come up to tangle in Steve’s hair — already styled for the day — and pull him down into a kiss.

His tongue is licking into Steve’s mouth when Steve manages to extricate himself and say, “I thought we were, uh, waiting–”

“Doesn’t mean I can’t make the wait fun, right?” Then Eddie’s smile fades a little. “Or, like, if you don’t want to, like, we-”

“I want to,” Steve cuts him off, pulling him into another light kiss to put off that insecurity. “How did you sleep?”

“I’ve slept worse. I’ve also slept better. You snore, Harrington.”

He decides to ignore that comment. “Breakfast?”

“What, no breakfast in bed? Your chivalry is slipping, clearly, whatever next?”Steve just shoves at him lightly in response. Eddie follows him down the stairs, still with sleep in his voice and blinking it from his eyes, and is saying something along the lines of what culinary delight awaits me, then, more dry Honeycombs from the back of your cupboard or will it be more–

And then they both stop. Sitting at the breakfast bar, head buried in her walkman with her hair around her face, is Max.

There’s nothing explicitly incriminating about the scene, really. Eddie and Steve, Eddie in pyjamas, having breakfast together. It’s not like they’re holding hands. But the t shirt Eddie’s wearing is an Adidas t shirt, which he wouldn’t be caught dead in outside this house so it can only really be Steve’s, can’t it, and the hickey from the other night is on full, fading display on the side of his neck and really the most telling thing is the absolutely stricken look Steve can feel on his own face, the way a flush burns on his cheeks and the way Max stares at the two of them with a smile creeping across her mouth.

“I fucking knew it,” she says. “Oh my god, the hickey was you–”

“It wasn’t, actually,” Eddie says, pretty smoothly, actually, now he’s gotten over the initial frozen surprise. He enters the kitchen and helps himself to a plate of eggs. “Any additional ones are, though.”

Steve lets out a strangled sound. Max and Eddie are disconcertingly chill about the whole thing. Max’s grin is growing wider. “I knew there was something going on, oh my god, Harrington and Munson, this is too good for words–”

“What are you doing in my house?” Steve manages.

“Oh.” She looks at her hands, shoulders drooping, and he forgets everything else because he knows that look on her, the uncertain unhappiness, the reluctance to ask for help. He steps forward and sees that her eyes are red. “Yeah, I– it was stupid, really, but, like–” She looks at Eddie, then. “Ever since I got, y’know, Vecna’d, everyone’s been going at me to open up and shit and, like, last night was really– my mom– so I– yeah. I went round to yours– to Eddie’s– but he wasn’t home and I didn’t want– I didn’t know who else, so I– yeah. Biked here.”

Eddie pulls himself up to sit cross-legged on the counter. Steve thinks about telling him not to and then decides he looks too good up there, plate in one hand and fork in the other, looking at Max with big, expressive eyes. “What happened?”

Steve didn’t know they even really knew each other, not all that well. But Max bites her lip and starts talking: “She just drank, like, too much. Which she does. It’s not– yeah, it’s not a big deal. Sometimes it’s a bigger deal than others. And last night–”

“It was a bigger deal.” Eddie is nodding.

“I had to–” Max closes her eyes. “Had to hold her hair back as she threw up, which, yeah. That was fun.”

“Christ,” Steve lets out. “That isn’t–” And then he stops himself, because she doesn’t want to hear his opinions of her mom’s parenting right now, does she? She just wants someone to listen.

“That isn’t fun,” Eddie finishes. “Also, not really fair on you, is it?”

Max and Steve both stare at him. She looks stricken. “But she’s– I mean, this year’s been–”

“Y’know, they’ve always got an excuse. Right? Why don’t you let them keep making their own excuses, and don’t, like, waste your energy doing it for them. Just a thought.” He eats another forkful of eggs, as if he hasn’t just said something totally inappropriate.

But then Max looks lighter, suddenly. “Yeah,” she mumbles. “I guess– yeah, I guess it is pretty shitty.”

And Steve understands, suddenly. Something about Eddie and something about Max, and something about the reason she went to Eddie first, before anyone else, even forgetting the fact he lives next-door. He thinks about last night, about the way Eddie knew what he had to do as his breathing spun out of control, like he’d done it so many times before, about I’m a gay guy in a small town who ran away from home and about then when my dad–.

Steve wants to know. He really wants to know. But it isn’t his place to ask.

Max brightens as breakfast goes on, and Eddie soon has all three of them laughing, her teary eyes forgotten. They have to go soon, though, and there’s something Steve can’t let slide without addressing it, so he stops Max in the hallway as Eddie’s getting dressed: “You’re not gonna, like, tell anyone, right? About–” He looks up the stairs. “About this.”

“Your secret’s safe with me, promise.” She gives him a soft smile, then, none of the usual cynicism in it: “I’m, like, happy for you. Y’know? I feel like this is– yeah. Good.”

“Yeah,” he says, echoing her smile. “It is good.”