Chapter Text
They’re preparing the weapons in Eddie’s trailer when he notices it. Steve’s borrowing one of his t-shirts from the Hellfire Club from Eddie’s junior year. It’s already a bit small on Eddie, and it pulls tight now across Steve’s chest and stomach. And as they prepare for the impending battle, Eddie can’t even focus on the fact that there’s an impending battle . Mostly because Steve should not look good in a remnant of the worst year of Eddie’s life.
But also kind of because the way Steve sticks his tongue through his teeth just a bit every time the fabric hits his stomach a certain way. His wounds should be healing by now: it’s been two days since the upside down. Something about the way he reacts, though, to the shift of soft, well-worn fabric worries Eddie to no end.
So when Nancy suggests someone stay with Eddie while they go get dinner, he requests Steve.
“He’s hurt,” Eddie says.
“I’m fine.”
Jesus, Harrington. “And, I, uh, actually wanted some advice anyway.” He glances at Robin, because isn’t that what straight boys do . She’s watching Nancy, thank god.
Steve’s not: he’s staring straight at Eddie, like he’s trying to decode him. God, Eddie hopes he doesn’t get too far in that process.
Finally, Nancy lets up. And Eddie’s a bit relieved, because if she dedicated any more brain power to her ex, her brain might explode. Not that Vecna isn’t trying to do that already, but come on, Nance, he wants to scream. It was Robin who figured out your favorite song; not your ex. Eddie wonders if Vecna tormented Nancy about being queer while she was gone, or if she hasn’t addressed it yet. She should get on that, with how Robin watches her.
When they’re gone, Steve finally breaks the silence. “Look man, if you’re gonna ask about Robin, quit while you’re ahead. You’re really not her… um… type.”
Oh, so Steve knows. Maybe that makes things a little bit easier, then.
Or maybe Eddie just wants Steve to call him a fucking freak like everyone else. Maybe the inevitable rejection would hurt less.
“She’s not mine,” Eddie says, and he hopes to God Steve figures it out. From the useless look on his face, it isn’t clicking. So he moves on. “I just said that so you’d stay. Because, look, you’re clearly in a lot of pain right now. And I know you wanna play brave for everyone else, but trust me, I am the last person who wants that right now.”
Steve frowns. “I’m fine.”
“You aren’t.”
“I’m…” Steve stops, and exhales. He looks at his feet. “Yeah. No. I think it might be infected.”
Eddie’s lived in a trailer park most of his life, and if he learned one thing, it’s how to pull together back-alley cures for every ailment. Back when he lived two doors down with his parents, he used to help her mom take care of the kids on the block when they got hurt, or sick. Back then, he thought he’d be a doctor one day.
Now, he reflects briefly on his life while he digs through his uncle's liquor cabinet for a specific cheap vodka in a specific plastic bottle.
“Take your shirt off, and get on my bed,” Eddie calls. He wishes to god that came in another context.
And that’s the reason why, when he’s on his feet, and back in the room, his jaw almost drops. Because Steve isn’t sitting on his bed — he’s laying shirtless, on his back, with his head propped up on his arm. His muscles are tense, and he’s a bit sweaty.
He has a fever, Eddie realizes. And his attention snaps away from sex-god Steve Harrington and focuses in on the wounds at his side.
They’re a nasty shade of yellow and red, surrounded by every shade of green and blue and purple. They’re infected for sure, and Eddie isn’t even sure where to start.
“This is gonna hurt.” That sounds like as good a place as any.
He moves to Steve’s side, the one by the edge of his bed, so he doesn’t have to climb onto the bed with him just yet. He gets down on his knees, and as he uncaps the bottle, Steve asks, “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”
Eddie glances up at him. “I’ve done this before, promise.” Yet another line Eddie would do anything to say on his knees to Steve in another very specific context.
“You sure?” And Eddie can hear it now, hear how terrified Steve is.
So, he does what his mom always did, when kids were scared: he tells a story. “My mom was a nurse. When I was growing up, well, a lot of families around here can't afford hospitals, or prescription medicine. On her days off, she did what she could with what we had to help out around here. So growing up, I did this a lot. Do you know how many kids don’t realize you have to wash the scraps on your knees?” Eddie suddenly pours the alcohol onto Steve’s wound. Steve screams, and tenses. He claws at Eddie with one hand, writhing from the intense burn. And Eddie rolls just out of the way, expertly capping the bottle before anything spills. Because Eddie has done this. A lot.
After a moment, Steve leans back on the bed and moans, “Holy fuck.” He looks like a wreck on Eddie’s bed, and Eddie literally has to look away – it’s a lot to handle without just imploding .
“Did that hurt?” Eddie asks, trying to mask the fact that he cannot breathe. Steve throws something at Eddie—Eddie’s only stuffed animal, a teddy bear—in response.
“Never again, Munson.”
Eddie finally manages his composure, and glances up. “We still have one more round of this, Harrington.”
“Oh, Jesus. I’m gonna need some of that, then.”
“You don’t want this shit. It’s, like, half Everclear, half the cheapest shit they sell.”
“Yeah? Trust me, after that, I do.”
Eddie hesitates, then says, “I’ll drink to that.”
Steve pats the bed next to him weakly. “Let’s get drunk, Eds.”
Eds? They’d circle back to that later. Eddie slowly circles around the bed, crawling up next to Steve but, like, in a chill bro way .
He hands the bottle off to Steve, who doesn’t even hesitate before tossing back quite a bit of the liquor. Eddie’s almost in awe. He lets Steve hold the bottle a moment longer, before taking it himself.
And in a flash, he dumps just enough on Steve’s other wound. Steve tries to punch Eddie this time, but Eddie just pushes him down into the bed. His hand fans out across Steve’s bare, shaggy chest for only a moment too long. Eddie decides it’s the pain that’s making Steve’s heart beat so fast.
“What the fuck Munson?” Steve won’t look Eddie in the eyes, just averting his glare lower.
“I’ll drink to that,” Eddie mumbles. He rolls back onto the bed, and tosses back some of the vodka himself. Unlike Steve, he coughs, loudly, and lurches forward. “Fuck, that’s fucking disgusting.”
“You get used to it,” Steve says, still wincing. Eddie offers him more, and he gladly accepts it.
A little while later, Eddie feels properly smashed. Maybe it’s the liquor on an empty stomach, or the boy lying next to him in the full size bed, but his body feels fake. Like it might betray him.
“What happened to your mom?” Steve asks quietly, his voice heavy with liquor and exhaustion and a little bit of sweetness Eddie hasn’t heard before.
“Huh?”
“I mean, what happened to her?”
“Oh.” Perhaps it wasn’t his body that would betray him, but his words. “Well…” He tries to think up the words. It was supposed to be a routine blood transfusion. It was supposed to just be anemia.
It was supposed to be her son who got it first, because he was the freak.
“She died,” Eddie says. Because everyone knows she died. Because clearly that’s not the answer Steve wants.
“How?”
And now Eddie folds. “She had it .”
It , the reason he never goes home with random guys from the crowds at shows. It , the word whispered in the hallways around Hawkins, attached to insult after homophobic insult. It , the disease that never should’ve been Eddie’s alone to deal with, before the media and the politicians and the small-minded people in his hometown got ahold of it.
Eddie waits for Steve to respond.
“Oh.” He just says. And then he adds, “I’m really sorry. Is that why you…”
“I what?” Eddie says it too quickly. Maybe he was wrong about Steve. Maybe he doesn’t know about Robin after all. Maybe he’s an ass like the rest of them.
“You stopped being Hawkins’ freaky genius kid?”
And now it’s Eddie’s turn to say, “Oh.” Because how would he have known Steve remembered that, once upon a time, Eddie was going places. Eddie barely does anymore.
“That was you, right? I remember being jealous of you, when they moved you straight from our seventh grade class to high school. I couldn’t wait to run with all the older kids, and you just… Did.”
“Yeah, well, it’s hard to graduate when your mom’s dying of… dying. Or when your dad disowns you. Or when you’re accused of murder.”
“Your dad disowned you?”
Eddie reaches out, and takes the bottle back from Steve. He takes a swig; Steve was right, he is getting used to it. And now, it’s now or never. Eddie doesn’t know if he should say what he’s about to, but he does.
“Yeah, well… My dad found out I was gay. I found out he was religious.” Steve doesn’t say anything, and Eddie doesn’t have it in him to look at him. He takes another draw of vodka, and continues on. “My uncle didn’t give a shit. His sister died because people were too busy hating on gay guys to focus on what mattered, so he took me in. Everyone at school already called me a freak, so nothing my dad said changed that. But there’s something about being told to pack your bags because you had a crush on Andy Felps—“
“Andy Felps?“ Steve says slowly. Eddie gulps.
“Yeah, Andy Felps.”
Steve bubbles for a moment, stuttering over a set of syllables that Eddie can barely make out. Finally, he manages, “But he’s so… I’m so much cooler than him.”
Eddie doesn’t even know how to respond at first, so he says the only drunk thing that pops into his mind. “Are you jealous, Harrington?”
“Yes.” Eddie immediately looks at Steve, and his intense proximity gives him the perfect vantage point from which to watch Steve’s eyes widen. “I mean, no! I mean… I guess I just think you should’ve had a crush on me and not… Andy Felps.”
And for once, Eddie isn’t convinced that Steve’s straight. In fact, the panic on his face is so much closer to the kind Eddie experienced back when he did like Andy.
“Well, I didn’t think you were a good dude until about two days ago.” Eddie’s still watching him, studying the flutter of his eyelashes, the casual way his head turns. Noting the intensity in Steve’s eyes as they lock with Eddie’s.
“And now?”
“And now you’re lying in my bed listening to me spill my deepest, darkest secrets,” Eddie finishes. Steve grins drunkenly.
He blinks, once, and then looks back to the ceiling. Eddie doesn’t think he’s imagining that Steve shifts a bit closer.
“We should, um, bandage you up.” Eddie gulps, overwhelmed by the sensation of Steve’s body heat. “But the right way, this time. Not with your ex’s t-shirt, or whatever.”
“Yeah, yeah. We… yeah.”
“Um. Just stay here, and I’ll grab the stuff from out front.” Pouring honey on Steve Harrington’s body would absolutely be too much to handle normally. Just to make it extra fun, Eddie grabs his handcuffs from the wall on the way back in.
“So you don’t hit me this time,” Eddie says, as he tosses them to Steve. Steve looks sufficiently nervous now.
“What’re you doing this time?” He asks, but Eddie watches as he dutifully puts on the handcuffs. Good boy , Eddie thinks. And then he blushes and looks away.
“Honey does a really good job of dressing wounds,” Eddie whispers, as he places one knee down on the thin layer of mattress between Steve and his side. “I’m gonna go ahead and kind of cover your cuts in the them, before I get you all wrapped up, okay?”
Steve watches Eddie’s every move as he fills the deep, messy cuts with honey, pooling on as much as he can of the thick golden syrup. Then, he shifts his knee between Steve’s legs. Steve gulps, but still he watches Eddie’s face. Maybe he’s waiting for Eddie to betray himself here. Eddie slowly slides the bandages under Steve’s back, catching some of the drizzled honey before it hits the mess of sheets beneath them. Eddie begins wrapping them around Steve’s toned, smooth torso, trying hard to not hyperfixate on the way Steve flexes when Eddie’s calloused fingers brush against his skin. And then he’s done, and still perched with half his body between Steve’s legs.
The front door opens, and, shockingly, Steve stays put until Nancy calls to them from the kitchen, proclaiming burgers and fries. Eddie shoves whatever shirt he can grab off the floor (a Sex Pistols shirt that Eddie cut the sleeves off of) in Steve’s direction, and heads into the kitchen. On the way down the hall, he swaps their medicinal vodka for a different, much tastier bottle of cheap vodka.
“Did you get the slushies?” Eddie asks. Nancy points to the counter next to her, as she and Robin dole out burgers (and a grilled cheese for Max).
“Where’s Steve?” Robin asks. She gives Eddie a quick head-nod in Nancy’s direction as he goes to put a little vodka in each slushy. A warning, Eddie thinks. He quickly dumps what he can in, and caps the bottle.
“Bedroom. We bandaged him up again.” Then, Eddie hip-bumps Nancy. “Your shirt wasn’t totally doing it, Princess.” She laughs, thank God .
“Yeah, well, it got us through the Upside Down, didn’t it?”
Before Eddie can respond with something snippy, Steve stumbles into the kitchen. His hair’s a wreck, and Eddie desperately just wants to pull on it.
“What are you wearing?” Robin asks. Steve doesn’t say anything. Instead, he takes one of the slushies and heads out the door. The slam of aluminum on aluminum shakes the room.
Everything silent, except for the quiet sound of “Running up that Hill” on Max’s walkman. Robin locks eyes with Eddie, and a silent understanding passes between them. She frowns.
Nancy moves to follow him, but Robin stops her. “I got this,” She promises, and Eddie trusts that she does. She soundlessly slips out the door after Steve.