Chapter Text
“You’re sure?”
Steve is asking for the fiftieth time, even as Eddie herds him into his tent for pre-battle talks with the scorekeepers. Eddie would usually be annoyed. He hates being coddled, hate’s people trying to ‘fix’ things for him or whatever, but in this instance it’s kind of cute, how much Steve seems to earnestly want to bash Matt’s brains in.
“I’m sure. For the hundredth millionth time, I’m sure.” Eddie says patiently, and squeezes Steve’s cheeks gently, “Calm down, Highness. It’s alright. I’m not afraid of him, he’s too much of a coward to do anything to me and you are so much scarier than he is. Even with your pretty freckles and sparkly doe eyes.”
Steve blinks at him and turns faintly pink, because Eddie isn’t the only one that likes praise around here. “I just want you to be happy,” Steve says, all honest and honey-sweet, his eyes like copper coins, and Eddie shoots a look around them quickly and then pecks him once on the tip of his nose and then on his lips.
“I’m happy,” Eddie says, and means it. “Now go win yourself a crown, Chief Stefan. And if you fight Rowena, aim for her left knee. She hurt it three summers ago in a -” he leans in, whispers, “ - marching band accident and has never truly recovered.”
“Good advice,” Steve agrees, and then tilts his head, “If I see Matt giving you trouble, I’m climbing out of the arena. Straight over the walls with my stupid club and kicking his ass.”
“Hot. I’ll hold you to that,” Eddie agrees, and then snorts, “Like the gremlins won’t get to him first.” He waves Steve’s concerns away and shoves him towards the tent flaps, “Go! You’re going to forfeit!”
Steve’s eyes glitter and he smiles, walking backwards to the entrance to the tent. He swings up the foam-covered pipe that makes up his club, rests it on his shoulders, and blows Eddie a kiss. Eddie catches it, and Steve pauses, just inside the tent. “No favor today? How will I know you’re cheering for me?”
Eddie bows low, so that the bells at the end of his hat brush the ground. “You know more than anyone just how loud I can be.” He looks up, still bent at the waist. Steve can’t see his eyes through the mask but he can see the cocky, crooked smirk on his mouth. “I’m sure you’ll hear me cheering, sweetheart. And you’ve got plenty of favors – all over you.”
Steve thumbs a dark red bruise on his ribs and nods, pleased, before he vanishes into the arena and Eddie turns on his heel and runs towards the steps that lead to the stands.
—
Combat wounds don’t reset between battles, but they did overnight. It means Robin doesn’t have to fight while hopping on one leg (courtesy of Nancy), but Steve still has a red band around one of his arms to indicate where he’s been hit and is still ‘bleeding’.
It means he needs to watch his left side more, but that’s alright. He favors his left pretty badly anyways, has since Billy Hargrove broke a plate across the side of his head. Sometimes he has migraines on that side, and so he tries to avoid getting battered and bruised over there anyways.
He passes his next match-up without sustaining any more wounds. It’s some tall, lanky guy that seems absolutely terrified of him, staring more at the bite marks all over his throat than at Steve’s face. Steve isn’t really used to being scary, but apparently he’s got something of a reputation now, because the guy trips over his own feet when Steve swings for him, and Steve winds up nailing two attacks against his chest and moving on rather quickly.
He has to go back in the tent, then, while other competitors repeat. Robin is there with him, also waiting her turn.
“So…. there was a sock on the door when all of us guys got home.” Steve says casually, sipping his water.
Robin does not look at him. She finds the upper panels of the tent very interesting, suddenly. Steve nudges her.
“So…?” He presses, grinning and eager, elbowing her side. She continues ignoring him, and he sets his cup down. “Soooo?”
She shoots him a look, purses her lips, and looks away again. He rolls his eyes and then pokes her in her thighs and belly until she shrieks and swats at his hands, laughing and leaning her head on his shoulder. “Yes, yes, okay, maybe you weren’t the only one to get some last night.”
“Yeah?!” Steve bounces in place, his unstyled hair flopping across his eyebrows and his eyes. Robin rolls her eyes at his enthusiasm and punches his shoulder.
“You already knew that, dingus,” she says, cheeks red.
“But like – kissing? More than kissing?”
“I am not discussing this with you,” Robin hisses, “I am not discussing this with you, oh my god.”
“Did she do the little – the–” Steve does something with his face that makes Robin cover him entirely with both of her hands and shove, knocking him off the stump they're sitting on as she groans loudly and swears in several languages. Steve hits the ground laughing, even after knocking his drink over, and she glares at him even as she turns splotchy and ugly-blushes all over.
“I hate you,” she declares, “I hate you so fucking much.”
“Rowena Buckwheat!” calls the squire at the entrance to the tent, and Robin flees from his side like he’s got the plague.
Steve keeps giggling long after he’s gotten back in his seat.
—
The day drags on, the tournament amping up. As more and more people are defeated, the fights get harder. Robin loses her right hand at one point, and gets struck across the leg the next battle while trying to adjust to using a sword instead of her staff.
Eddie cheers for her when she scrapes through both fights, but even his strangely well-timed improvisational poetry and taunting can’t save her when, shortly after three in the afternoon, she’s called back out for what turns out to be her final battle.
If truth be told, Robin and Steve have probably scooted by on a lot of luck. Yes, their battle-worn instincts have them dodging faster and swinging harder, but there are now plenty of people that they’re fighting that have actual experience in LARP fighting arenas like this one. They might not know life-and-death fighting like Steve and Robin, but they definitely know how to swing the foam weapons around with a lot more dexterity and grace.
Robin’s final battle comes in the form of a giant man with a battleaxe. He’s got gray in his beard and braids in his long hair. He has fantasy stuff that the Party doesn’t recognize tattooed across his arms, like really tattooed. He’s wearing brown and gray, with a sloppily-drawn wolf’s head across his chest and heavy, real metal plate armor on his arms and shoulders that make it clear he’s been doing this for a long time.
He takes the time to cut off her leg, first.
A hold is called so black tape can be wrapped around Robin’s thigh. And then she’s told not to use that leg, to keep the weight off of it.
“No!” half the party screams, as soon as play resumes, while the other half calls out “Rowena!”
“You have a lot of friends with you, this afternoon, Lady Rowena,” says the man, stepping back out of range as Robin sweeps his sword towards him. She wobbles precariously, her shoe lifted off the ground to make sure she doesn’t cheat. He doesn’t strike immediately, watching her flail and fall. She grunts as she hits the ground, getting grass stains on her palms as she catches herself. “It is… refreshing, to see so many young faces, here to cheer on someone like you.”
Robin looks up, brow furrowed. “Someone like me?”
The man smiles fondly, stepping back to give her space and avoid her flailing limbs and weapon as she pushes herself back to her one foot. He reaches into a pouch on his tunic and produces a flower.
It’s made of fabric, this flower, and very pale blue. He extends his hand, battleaxe still held firmly in the other. “I was told to give this to you, if and when I defeated you.” He says, and Robin has time to see Nancy’s favorite floral print scrunchie wrapped around the end as he passes it over.
“Oh.” she says, eyes very big. The man smiles again, laughs, and then raises his axe.
“Do you surrender, Lady Rowena? Or will you force your loved ones to watch you die?”
Robin blinks at him, completely unprepared, and then looks to the stands. Nancy and Eddie are in the front row, shouting her name, smiling and waving at her.
Robin lets herself fall back to her knees and bows her head. “You win.”
“This fight, perhaps,” says the man in the wolf’s head tunic, “But you, I think, are winning the war.”
And then the squire blows his horn, and Rowena Buckwheat, darling of Hawks and left hand of the plains and whatever other nonsense Eddie had toted her up with, is defeated.
—
Steve passes her, going in as she’s going out, and she drags him to the side, whispers, “I’m so in love with your ex-girlfriend” in his ear, and he laughs, lets her kiss his forehead and squish his cheeks.
She squeals and he laughs, shoving her gently as she rushes her way past and he strides into the sunlight.
“Stefan!” Dustin roars, his voice louder than most of the rest of the crowds as he waves. It seems he and the kids have returned from their quest just in time.
Because against all odds, like really, all odds, what is even going on – Steve makes it to the finals.
There are him and three other competitors left. Instead of having them fight one-on-one, like they have the rest of the day, the final battle is a free for all between the four of them. There are people selling snacks in the stands as the bleachers fill with more LARPers.
The four competitors are down in the arena, some of them pacing like caged animals that are clearly itching for a fight. Steve isn’t, though, he’s just leaning his weight against the wall closest to his friends, head tilted back to look up at them.
Mike and Lucas are fighting over the last few coins they’ve earned. Lucas wants to buy Max a beaded bracelet, and Mike demands the coins to pay for Will’s lemonade, even though Will seems to be perfectly content sitting there and talking to Dustin.
Eleven and Max are pointing out the competition and compiling a list of weaknesses for Steve to exploit. He doesn’t know how helpful the list will be, but sometimes it almost feels like Eleven can read minds or something on top of her telekinesis and dreamwalking, so, he’s more than willing to let them talk.
Robin is sitting on a bench while Nancy stands behind her and weaves her flower into her hair, tying it off with careful, reverent fingers. Robin is red as the kids’ shirts, but Nancy isn’t unaffected either. Steve thinks they’re both adorable and hopes that they keep doing whatever weird gay girl shit they’re doing when they get back to Hawkins.
If Nancy breaks Robin’s heart, he’s not sure what he’ll do, after all.
And finally, there’s Eddie, who, if Steve’s being honest, Steve has had his eyes on the majority of the time.
Eddie has his guitar and is playing it, singing loudly in that smokey, rough voice. It’s a strangely higher pitched voice than Steve was expecting before all of this, but it’s beautiful. Suits him. It’s that kind of voice that makes girls bat their eyes and guys throw him devil horns. He’s running through popular songs and his own, personally enjoyed songs all the same, replacing names and lines with on-the-spot references to Steve.
His performance is drawing people to Steve’s side of the stands. They come for Fight Fire with Fire, a Metallica song that sounds much nicer to Steve’s ears when played on the acoustic guitar and sung in Eddie’s voice, but they apparently stay for some other reason, because his side of the arena is filling fast.
He eyes his competition.
The one to his left is the only girl, with a coiled braid of red hair and a green stripe of warpaint across her chin. She’s wearing leather like it’s common for her to do so, and has a long red coat patched over and studded with little brass knobs. Her ears are taped into points, and her mouth is pressed in a thin line. She’s one of the two that paces, glaring at the rest of the people in the arena like she wants to fight them. Steve thinks that if these were real weapons, she’d be absolutely terrifying.
To his right is a man with a spear. He wears a helmet with a long dark plume that covers his face completely. He has two wounds told in red tape around his right thigh and his right arm - the one with the spear. He’s in chainmail and dark leather, and he looks like he’s done this a thousand times. He paces too, but it’s more methodical, more soldierly, his spear thudding into the grass.
The one directly across from him is the man who beat Robin. He’s sitting down, drinking a beer and adjusting the laces on one of his boots. He looks calm and easy-going the same way Hopper does. It makes him the most threatening thing on the field, Steve thinks, because it’s a sort of easy-going confidence that belies the fact that he doesn’t give a shit, he’s confident and sure of himself and doesn’t need to pace and snarl like an animal.
Steve stands there in tight leather pants, a cloak, with his upper half naked and covered in hickies, and thinks – hey, what the absolute fuck am I doing here?
A grape hits him in the side of the head and he stumbles even though it wasn’t forceful enough to make him stumble. He blinks, startled out of his thoughts, and looks up at where the grape came from.
It came from Dustin, of course, but he’s flanked by the girls. Dustin holds onto Max’s belt as she leans down to talk to Steve, rambling about weaknesses and strategies. Steve nods, listens as much as he can while forcing his hands down to his sides and not up onto her shoulders to help keep her steady. If she falls, he’ll catch her. He thinks Max knows that.
“You’ve got it, Steve?” Max asks, slightly out of breath from being nearly upside down and also her rapid-paced speech.
Steve gives her a high-five, which she returns for once, and then she’s being hauled back up into the stands with a lot of grunting and fussing on Dustin’s part. Lucas claps her shoulders and shakes her a little, grinning happily.
They’re all rooting for him. Steve will never get over this feeling, he doesn’t think. He can’t even remember the last time his dad saw him play basketball, but these kids are here giving him pointers on how to win a fake fight in an arena with foam weapons.
He loves them.
Speaking of love, Eddie leans over the railing again, bells ringing, mouth set in a huge smile.
“How ya feelin’, my lord?” he asks, biting his bottom lip slightly to make his smile less face-splitting. It doesn’t work, just makes him look a little bashful. Steve’s heart could burst, it’s so full.
“I’m good,” Steve says, his cheeks aching with his own expression of happiness. “You think Prince Steve sounds better than King Steve?”
“Cocky,” Eddie taunts, and then purposefully moves his head so Steve has a pretty clear idea of where he’s looking. It isn’t his face. “Although I guess you have plenty of reason to be, baby.”
Baby scorches down his back and straightens his spine, makes his cheeks turn red. He just laughs, though, a huffed, cute sort of thing. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
Steve shakes his head, scuffs his boot. “You’re too much.”
“Am I?”
“Nah.”
Eddie is going to fall into the arena if he leans any further over. At this point, Steve kind of wants him to. But if he does, he’ll probably do so ungracefully and in a flailing mess and probably hurt himself. So instead, Steve glances around. Plenty of people are watching. He can’t kiss Eddie.
“Ladies, gentlemen, monsters and maidens!” calls the announcer. It’s the woman from the bardic competition, strutting her way out onto the tall stand where the other announcer used to stand. She gives a quick rundown on the rules, which haven’t changed, and lifts her hands.
“If you will all join me for a countdown!”
Ten! Yells the crowd, including the kids and Eddie, and Steve pushes off the wall.
Nine! He blows a kiss to the crowds – it could be for anyone, but Eddie subtly (for Eddie, at least) catches it, licks his palm like he’s eating the kiss up. Steve grins.
Eight!
He rolls his shoulders, shifts his weight around, lifts his club off the ground.
Seven! Six!
He pauses as the cloak brushes his arms and legs.
Five!
He reaches up, undoes the clasp with his free hand, turns his back on his opponents.
Four!
The cloak whacks Eddie in his face and he scrambles to catch it before it falls back into the arena.
“Hold onto that for me!” Steve yells, as the crowd shouts Three!
“Yessir!” Eddie agrees, much to the kids’ chagrin, as the crowds scream Two!
At one , Steve spins back around, and meets the others in the fray.
They’re all melee fighters. Nobody that had fought with a bow and arrow had made it into this final competition. And they all rush in - nobody waits behind to see who’s going to be picked off or tries to hide. All of the people in this final tournament made it this far with fast reflexes and aggression, not patience.
Steve ducks under the jab of the spear, feeling wind tug his hair as he brings the club up, knocks it aside. The man pivots and wards off an attack from the redheaded woman, who brandishes a sword and shield like they’re just extensions of herself. She closes in on the spearman, limiting him severely as he’s forced to either back up, or accept her blade across his ribs.
Steve is not safe, though. She whirls on him after whapping her foam blade across the spearman’s leg. Steve backs up, surprised by the snarl on her face, but he’s faced much worse than a pretty girl in armor, so he doesn’t go far. She seems startled to find him so close as he lunges forward, and her shield bangs into his shoulder.
“Ouch,” he says, even though it doesn’t really hurt, and she snorts.
“Maybe don’t show up to a fight covered in hickies.”
“Maybe you would do better if you had some,” Steve retorts, and bangs her thigh with his club.
There are no holds in this match. A referee is watching carefully to make sure that everyone is being honest, but they don’t want to interrupt the action.
The man with the axe that defeated Robin takes out the legs of the spearman. He gets a wound on his arm in return, but then the spearman is dead, and the man with the axe rounds on the redhead.
She ducks the axe, shoves the man back with her shield, and then retreats back a few paces. There’s a moment of tension where Steve feels a bit silly, standing there with his club and no defense, his eyes flicking between his two enemies warily.
Redhead deems Wolf-Man the bigger threat, and lunges. As he brings his axe up to defend, Steve watches Redhead whap her foam blade across his leg. Another wound, but he retains his limb. The axe comes down hard on the shield and the Redhead stumbles, and Wolf-Man takes out her leg with two rapid hits.
She growls a little as she shifts her weight, unsteady. Steve lunges - it’s probably a cheap shot, but he thinks standing there safe while they duke it out is probably worse. He’s aiming for Wolf-Man, and Wolf-Man knows it, but Redhead doesn’t. She swings out uselessly, catches Steve across the shoulder. His left shoulder - he loses an arm.
“Shit,” Steve says, and drops the arm behind his back.
Redhead is like a shark. She must smell Steve’s blood, sense his weakness, because she twists on the spot, pivots on her one good foot and ignores Wolf-Man to attack Steve. Her foam short sword knocks the club out of Steve’s hand with a quick swirl move, catching on the grip and flinging it far away.
Steve leaps away from her jab and watches his weapon roll to a stop on the other side of their fight. It’s too far to get to, he’ll be killed before then.
All she needs is one more attack, but then Wolf-Man’s axe comes down hard across her shoulders. She shrieks with anger as she goes down, and Steve doesn’t waste the opportunity of Wolf-Man’s actions.
It’s Upside Down adrenaline that makes Steve twist away from the slash of the man’s axe and leap over Redhead’s body. He slides to his knees beside Spearman, “Sorry, dude,” he says, and rips the spear out of his grip with his one hand.
Wolf-Man is coming for him, and Steve doesn’t have time to stand, so he plants the butt end of the spear in the dirt and points the other end of it and – Wolf-Man can’t stop in time to avoid it.
The ‘pointy’ end of the spear thuds home into Wolf-Man’s stomach. It actually probably winds him, with how much of an impact noise there is and the way Wolf-Man falls to one knee with a real grunt instead of a pretend one.
Steve stands, holding the spear in his hand, and looks around for more danger.
“ That’s my goddamn best friend! ” Robin screams, and Steve looks at her and she’s grabbed hold of Eddie. They’re jumping up and down in the stands, screaming at one another, losing their shit.
“Fuck yeah that’s my boy!” Eddie yells, shaking Robin almost violently.
“Prince Steve!!!!” Dustin howls, throwing his head back and pumping his fists in the air. He starts the kids in on a chant: “Ste-fan Ste-fan Ste-fan” which rapidly spreads through the stands as Jonathan picks it up, and Nancy, and Argyle, and then strangers start to do it, too.
Oh, Steve realizes, the spear still gripped in his fingers with white knuckles. I won .
—
There’s a lot of fanfare after that. Steve tries to get to his friends, but the squires all get in his way.
“I just want to say hi–” he tries, reaching for his friends again. Eddie reaches back, but the second Eddie’s gloved fingers touch the ends of Steve's, a knight gets in his face and tells him he’s got to go to the victory tent.
“Stefan!” Dustin shouts, bounding towards him, but then a knight grabs his arm and jerks him to a stop. “Ow, dude, what the hell?”
Steve, still riding the high of adrenaline and combat, sees red.
“Get out of my fucking way!” Steve snarls, a vein in his throat standing out as he bucks up, shoulders rolling, body sliding into a combative stance without him thinking about it and the knights back off, looking startled.
“Sorry, my lords,” says Eddie in his jaunty voice, bells ringing around him as he sweeps in, “You know the wildlings, no manners whatsoever, I’m so terribly sorry.”
Steve doesn’t know where that ferocity came from, but it leaves him the second Eddie touches him. These are just people. This is just a game. These aren’t scientists or corrupt cops or Russian guards that are going to hurt Dustin or the others, they’re just knights, playing their part, and he won the competition. They’re trying to help, trying to take him to the victory tent before he gets swarmed by people.
“Sorry,” Steve agrees, when Eddie slings an arm around his shoulders and squeezes, just once. “Sorry, I… my bad.”
“Not a problem, your highness,” says the knight stiffly, though they look a little wary as they circle Steve and gesture towards the giant tent that holds the king and queen.
“Go,” says Eddie, squeezing Steve’s bicep as he steps back, “We’ll be in the crowd, and see you after, okay?”
Steve frowns, and glances at the knights. He wants his friends on stage with him. He wouldn’t have gotten this far without Robin, and Eddie has been calling himself ‘Chief Stefan’s fool’ this whole time, and they’re his , goddammit, he did this for them. So, he pauses and shakes his head.
“Knights,” he says, waving one hand at them like he’s already been crowned, lofty and above it all. “My… companions. They come with me, or I don’t go.”
“Stefan,” Eddie says, a strange note in his voice, and Steve nudges him, not even sparing him a glance.
(Even though he literally always wants to look at Eddie.)
The knights share a glance and then shrug, “The Hawks realm won the competition. You are entitled to your guests.”
“Thank you,” says Steve, and Eddie’s shoulder bumps his, and he smiles.
So, when gets dragged up on a stage, where he kneels before the king, who kind of honestly looks like Santa to be honest, Robin and Eddie are there, too. They put a crown on his head - real metal, with gold plating and clips to keep it on. Eddie and Robin get fancy little armbands to identify them as Prince Stefan’s right and left hands, respectively, and there’s a lot of cheering, and clapping, and the crowds wave at them and go wild and throw flowers at their feet.
“This is crazy,” Steve says, and Robin and Eddie giggle and nudge him and look all around absolutely delighted.
—
Later, after Steve has been crushed in hugs and cheered on and Jonathan and Eddie boosted him up on their shoulders to carry him back to the cabin, Steve falls face-first onto the couch, crown tumbling off his head, and releases the loudest sigh he’s ever released.
“Are you okay, my kingly dude?” Argyle asks from where he’s sprawled on the floor, legs up on the armchair but head on the ground, inspecting a few rolled blunts he’s pulled from hidden pockets on his tunic.
“I’m great,” says Steve, and rolls over. He picks up his crown and inspects it, and Argyle nods wisely.
“Heavy is the head that wears the crown, my brother,” he says, and Steve eyes him for a moment.
“It’s not a real crown.”
“Do you have a real head?” Argyle retorts, and Steve goes silent, because it is obvious Argyle has already been hitting the good stuff. Probably why the master bedroom smells like weed instead of sex, like he’d expected it to.
The other kids are taking a quick water-break before they head back out to adventure for the last four or so hours before they’re expected back. As they all troop out, calling final congratulations and thank-yous to Steve as they go, Will pauses by the couch.
“Eddie is giving himself a pep-talk in the bedroom,” he says, in a hushed voice as he leans over the back of the couch to talk to Steve. Steve looks up at him. His dorky bowl-cut is all askew (and mostly grown out) and he looks smug as hell. “He’s hyping himself up to talk to you, because I think he thinks you’re now the coolest person ever. Or something.”
He straightens, and then feigns an ‘oops’ face. “Oh! I mean, uh, Eddie asked me to tell you he needs to talk to you in the guest bedroom.”
“Oh my god,” says Steve, and takes a wild swing at Will. He doesn’t usually play fight with Will, because Will isn’t as tactile, doesn’t thrive in wrestling and violence like the others, but this time Will laughs, dodging Steve’s swatting hands and following his friends out the door.
“Don’t forget your stupid spell components!” Steve yells, and Will darts back in to grab his belt with pouches full of bean bags that make up his spells.
“Nnnno!”
Steve jumps, spins, finds Eddie already right behind him, making the whiney complaint. He’s taken off his mask and the hood hangs back around his shoulders. He’s pouting at Steve, big bambi eyes wide and brow furrowed and his lips all pursed.
“No?”
“You can’t be a pretty dumb jock with rippling abs and all that bullshit and then say something like spell components or – or win a tournament and expect me not to cream my fucking jeans, Steve fucking Harrington, I’m going to die, I made it out of the Upside Down, I made it through a hell dimension with killer mutant bats and you are going to kill me, you fucking asshole, I’m going to die, because my dick is going to be so hard, and –”
“I’m going to retire to the bathroom again.” Argyle says, scooping a lighter off the table, “But I wish you all the best, my amigos, and no death.”
Eddie looks startled, like he hadn’t even known Argyle was there. He does his little flail and face-cover and Steve grabs his arms, hauls them around his waist, and kisses him. With his tongue, with his smiling mouth, with his teeth and his groping hands, and –
“Okay,” Eddie says, panting, tipping his head back and away and letting Steve bite his throat and jaw and make out with his collarbones. “ O kay, bedroom first, bedroom first, then back – a-ahh… back to the—”
He moans, and Steve chuckles against his throat and hauls him back to the guest room.
—
The kids are still cranky about not being allowed at the fancy feast and ball this evening, but their negative attitudes are offset at least a bit by their excitement at having leveled up. They get new abilities and things added to their character sheets because of all the questing they’ve been doing, so they’re sitting around the coffee table with the last of Steve’s snacks from the car, munching on pretzel sticks while filling out paperwork with absolute delight on their faces.
Jonathan and Argyle are also staying back. They’d only really come to support their friends, and they’ve both consumed so many bags of Doritos and Cheetos that they can’t bring themselves to move. It might also have something to do with how blurry and red their eyes are, and how much the master bedroom walk-in closet reeks of weed.
So that leaves Robin, Eddie, Steve, and Nancy to get ready in their formalwear and head to the feast, followed by the ball.
Whoever got Nancy her costumes did an excellent job. She comes out of the upstairs bathroom with her hair curled neatly. She’s got a circlet on with a veil tumbling down the back in a very light yellow, and she wears a pale dress, cinched at the waist with draping sleeves in white and that same pastel yellow. She looks ethereal and otherworldly as she comes down the stairs and giggles while she hugs Robin.
Eddie had asked Robin carefully about this costume. The others were for comfort and movement, Eddie knew, so he hadn’t had an issue letting her wear men’s boots and comfy leather pants, or flowing monk pants. But this was a ball, and he wanted her to feel beautiful, however that may be. He’d offered her doublets and stockings and everything else, but she’d denied them. She wanted to wear a dress.
So, when she catches Nancy in her arms, it’s with tightly tied dark gray sleeves. Her dress is a charcoal color with a low neckline and tight waist, the sleeves not draping and dangling like Nancy’s but firm to her wrist, so they didn’t get in her way. Her hair was pulled up, out of her eyes, away from her cheeks, making her look sophisticated and sharper than they were used to seeing her. Max had helped with her makeup, and she looked dark, almost witchy. It was a good look for her.
Eddie had kept his bells, but in a different way. The mystery and shrouded nature of Eddie the Exiled is done away with, because he wanted to be able to see, he said. He wants to be able to watch Steve all night, wants to see him be clumsy and a bit out of place in this world of dragons and magic and nerds, and he wants to see it with his own eyes.
He has a smaller version of his infamous hat, one that sits on top of his head but lets his wild rocker curls fall about his neck and shoulders freely. He’s still in purple and black, but it’s simpler now, a checkered doublet over a puff-sleeve white pirate shirt. The neckline of both are low enough to show off a few hickies and the flaming edge of one of his tattoos. His pants are skin-tight black leather, and Steve suddenly, abruptly, doesn’t really want to go to the ball, actually, he wants to stay home and –
“Ah, ah, ah.” Eddie shakes his head and his finger and shoves Steve’s grabby hands away from his butt. He’s unsuccessful, because Steve just darts in again anyway, getting a handful of ass as he wants it, and Eddie laughs. “Not much of a prince charming,” he playfully teases, and Steve shrugs.
“Aren’t I a wild thing or whatever?”
“Wildling,” Eddie corrects, but smiles, “And yeah, I guess so.”
Steve gets to wear a shirt to this ball. It’s dark purple, not much different from a lot of his long-sleeve button-downs, but it doesn’t have buttons and laces at the chest. Eddie stole the laces, so a lot of his chest hair is on display, but he doesn’t mind, much. He’s in black leather pants, too, and Eddie laced his bracers back on over the shirt and gave him a sword belt with a shiny metal sword. He’s much more cleaned up than before.
“It feels like we’re going to nerd prom,” Steve says, linking his hands around Eddie’s waist. Eddie elbows him in the ribs and wriggles free.
“You’re going to be asked to dance a lot,” he warns, and Steve shrugs, because again – sounds like prom.
“Eddie didn’t go to prom.” Nancy points out, and Steve frowns, shoulders dropping.
“That’s right… didn’t you rent a tux and then show up at my house to get blasted?”
Eddie beams, “And it still took you like half a year to recognize that I was trying to get in your pants.”
Nancy sticks out her tongue in disgust, and Robin fake gags, and then Jonathan emerges from his weed coma long enough to take a bunch of pictures before they all hurry out the door.
—
The ball is held in the only permanent structure on the entire property. It’s a building of gray concrete and metal painted and carved to look like bricks. It had probably been a gymnasium or maybe a warehouse at some point but had long since been hollowed out. The floors are hardwood, now, and all of the industrial feeling had been hidden away by the decorations that draped the walls. There were paintings and drapes in a hundred colors, streamers made of thin, gauzy fabric, statues and banners and furs and everything else.
Steve’s only real experience with balls or galas or any sort of fancy, extravagant party came in the form of school dances and one weird, kind of vaguely hazy country club gala his mother had taken him to when he was eleven. So, he’s a bit impressed with this. The decorations, at least, are much prettier than anything Hawkins had pulled off in the high school gym.
“There’s another room where the feast takes place,” Eddie says, gesturing, and Steve looks at him and is just so glad that he’s maskless, that he can see his face. It makes him smile dorkily.
“Let’s go there, then,” Robin pipes up from Eddie’s other side, “Because I am starving.”
They get seated at the feast. It’s lucky that there are four of them, two boys and two girls, because that means they can sit all together as if they’re on a double date and nobody will question anything. For appearances sake, they can’t be as affectionate and touchy as they all are, but Eddie and Steve sit next to each other, across from Nancy and Robin respectively, and nobody bats an eye.
Steve holds Eddie’s thigh beneath the thick, expensive tablecloth, and nobody can even tell .
“Is that cheese ?” Robin swears happily, and digs in.
It’s a four-course meal, this massive, congratulatory feast. The first round is a massive bowl of cheese fondue with a spread of crackers, bread, fruit, and vegetables. Steve wants to hoard all the little, tiny garlic breads to himself, but the others all apparently are trying to do the same thing. They kick each other beneath the table for hogging them, and Eddie glares at the carrot sticks like he’s about to suggest they trade them with another table.
“Vegetables are good for you.” Robin says, and then promptly steals the last bit of toast.
“Rowena, if I didn’t already have a duel lined up for tomorrow, I’d demand your head on a stick from our beloved Prince Stefan.” Eddie says and settles for a cracker.
“Stefan is probably the lazy sort of prince,” Nancy warns, “Leaving everyone to sort out their own problems.”
“Oh, damn,” Eddie sits back, stares at Steve. “Oh, no. You… you’re the Man now, aren’t you?”
Steve blinks at him, half an apple slice in his mouth, and swallows. “What? Wasn’t I always?”
“Shit, you’re right. I’ve gotten into bed with the enemy.” Eddie taps his chin, apparently thinking. “First, he’s a wealthy white pretty boy, now he’s a prince, shit, Eddie, you’re really compromising your morals here…”
“What?” Steve frowns, “What are you–”
“I’ll pretend it’s a ploy,” Eddie says out loud, pointing at Robin, “I’m only sleeping with him to bring down The Establishment from the inside.”
Robin nods wisely, “A spy mission.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Some anti-government Hippie stuff, Steve, don’t worry about it,” Nancy says, reaching across the table to pat his shoulder. Steve frowns even more, confused, and Eddie sputters furiously beside him.
“Hippie?! What about me, when you look at me, says–”
The second course gets brought out while they bicker around the table and Steve finishes all the cheese. It’s a soup, some sort of salty-smelling, strong vegetable soup, and Steve drains that back, too.
“Do you know how long it's been since I had anything that wasn’t out of a can?” Eddie practically moans as he shoves a potato into his mouth, his eyes closing with happiness.
“It’s been like, two weeks. I baked a pot pie for you like, two weeks ago,” Steve says, and Eddie sways a little, rocks, and then plops his head on Steve’s shoulder.
“You’re right. But this is really good .”
The dinner goes on like that, with them all chatting and happy, holding hands with their partners beneath the table or looping their ankles together. Occasionally, some other stranger or two will come over to congratulate Steve. A few tell Robin how good with a staff she was, or try to flirt with her. She seems confused by the attention, and horrified by the flirting, but it’s good fun.
The main course is a plate of barbecue ribs that Nancy struggles to eat without getting it all over her sleeves. Robin helps hold them back, but then she also needs to eat. Steve and Eddie tear into them without offering any assistance, because they’re dumb boys, and eventually Nancy gives up. She only gets a tiny bit of sauce on the inside of one of her sleeves, so it’s fine.
“You’ve got…” Robin trails off and just reaches out, brushing some sauce off of Nancy’s lip. Steve and Eddie share a glance as Nancy looks absolutely lovestruck, and both giggle to themselves.
They’re all feeling pretty full by the time the dessert gets there, and then they each get a tiny pie of their own.
“It’s so small, so cute,” Eddie coos, even as Steve just jabs a fork right in and shovels cherry pie in his mouth. “It’s so tiny!”
“That’s what he said,” Robin mocks with her mouth full, and Steve kicks her under the table, glaring.
“No, no it is not.” Nancy says casually, while inspecting her fork, and Steve chokes, face flushing. Robin looks at Nancy with horror and disgust.
Eddie raises his wine glass, which has already been refilled like five times. “Cheers! No, it is not!”
Nancy clinks her glass delicately, and sips. Steve continues choking, coughing as Eddie gently pats his back like it will help at all.
“Oh my god, I hate everyone at this table.” Robin shakes her head and rubs her eyes, as if to scrub the image from her brain.
“Everyone?” Nancy asks with one arched, perfect eyebrow, and Robin clearly shuts down.
“I didn’t even say anything.” Steve manages, a little more than a croak as he finally swallows his pie.
“Yeah, but it’s your dick they feel the need to go on and on about,” Robin complains, and Steve sighs and puts his head in his hands and his elbows on the table.
“Manners,” Eddie chides, and taps at Steve’s elbows like Eddie has any right to talk about manners when he’s got one leg pulled up in the chair and sits like a fucking gargoyle all the time.
Steve ignores him but puts one of his legs on top of Eddie’s beneath the table. Eddie smiles to himself, and finally eats his pie.
After the feast, they move back to the main hall of the building, where the ball itself takes place. There’s already music playing, instrumental versions of songs that Steve recognizes off the radio, and some he doesn’t. There’s a live band with numerous singers switching out, and he nudges Eddie.
“Kind of wish you were performing, man,” he says, just to watch the bashful-pleased look cross Eddie’s face as he pulls his hair in front of his face and grins like a dork.
“Come on, let’s dance,” Nancy says, and then grabs Robin’s wrist and drags her out onto the dance floor without giving her a chance to decline. Robin stumbles along behind her, stepping on the hem of her dress twice before she remembers to pick it up.
Steve wants to dance, too. He wants to wrap Eddie in his arms and do the cute, romantic sways that all the other couples are managing. Some of the couples are same-sex, mostly women, but they’re not… close . Robin and Nancy are breaking the norm by holding each other as they rock. The others could be passed off as friends, some of the guys as jokes, but Steve doesn’t want to do that, doesn’t want to hide. He wants to slip his hands around Eddie’s hips and hold him and kiss him and spiral around the room in badly timed steps to the instrumental version of Take My Breath Away that’s playing on stage.
But he also doesn’t want Eddie to have to be afraid, or for some douchebags to follow them home and spray paint their cabin walls, or some shit because they’re both guys.
He’s frozen in place, debating the problem, scrambling for a solution he’s never had to think of before.
And then he misses his chance, because the soft, sweet romantic music changes to something upbeat and perky, and everyone starts dancing like high schoolers at prom.
Eddie, apparently having had the same dilemma, turns towards Steve and bows low. This hat isn’t as bouncy as the other one, but it still jingles. Steve raises both eyebrows as Eddie offers a hand. “Shall we, my lord?”
“Yeah, sure, my harlequin,” Steve agrees easily, bowing back similarly, and Eddie grins so wide his cheeks probably hurt as they join Nancy and Robin in jumping up and down.
They get approached on the dance floor, too. Nobody tries to separate them, as apparently word has gotten around that Steve is a feral sort of prince, dangerously protective of his friends and companions, but they bop along to the music with them for a while, congratulate Steve, ask Eddie about his job as a bard.
It’s funny, Steve thinks, that Eddie gets to be the most himself while wearing a costume and pretending.
As the sun sets and night rises, the room becomes lit by only the torches on the walls. It’s dark, and in another setting it might be spooky. But for once, the flicker of lights isn’t setting Steve’s teeth on edge. Maybe it’s because he can see that they’re fire, that there aren’t any lightbulbs threatening the return of the Upside Down and Vecna and all of that bullshit. It’s just dim torches, turning the room black and orange, casting shadows across his friends’ faces and making Steve feel warm.
And hidden. As the night comes over them completely, things slow down again. There are crowds around them, but it's dark. He feels a little bold, a little daring as he slides his hand along Eddie’s arm, drags him close, drapes the other one around his hips.
Eddie looks at him. They’re of such similar height that they’re level. His eyes are black in the darkness of the room, half-hidden by the shadows cast by his hat and his long, tangled hair. He’s got slight shadows beneath his eyes from not sleeping, and there’s still a hickey on his throat that Steve can see when the fire flickers right, and he’s beautiful.
“You sure about this, big boy?” Eddie asks, checking on him. The big boy is an echo of that time, in the camper, when Eddie knew he could drive without asking, and trusted him to take the thing when Eddie couldn’t. He hadn’t asked, then, but he’s asking now.
“I’m more sure about this than I have been about anything else.” Steve admits, and Eddie flushes, barely visible in the darkness, and they sway, slowly, carefully.
A first dance, but maybe not the last. Steve wouldn’t mind linking themselves together, swaying in Eddie’s kitchen to some throat-scratchy rock ballad, or one of his records, or anything. He’d dance with Eddie in silence, if Eddie would let him.
“You’re thinking really loudly, your highness,” Eddie says, quiet, soft enough that Steve almost doesn’t hear him, has to read the words on the lips he was already staring at.
“Yeah?” Steve asks, just as soft, and Eddie nods. Steve leans in a little more - danger, danger, danger , you’re in public, Steve Harrington – “Can you hear my thoughts, then?”
Eddie’s lips part without a sound, just a little, just enough that Steve can see his straight, perfect teeth between his lips. And then he smiles, just a tiny bit. “I think I can, actually, Stevie,” he whispers, and Steve leans in to kiss him, because he’s helpless to do anything else.
They kiss, there in the shadows but out in the open, and Eddie melts like Steve is the wick of his candle, and Steve is glad that Eddie’s holding him because otherwise he might float away.
“I think I might be in–” Steve starts, and then stops as a rough hand lands on his shoulder and he’s jerked back from Eddie and spun around.
“Nah,” says the stranger, cloaked in white and gold just like Matt but not Matt, maybe a friend. “Nah, I know I ain’t seen the douche that won the tournament kissing no fairy.”
“I’m a jester, actually,” Eddie says, which is completely unhelpful when this man is still gripping Steve’s shoulder, looking like a snarling, angry dog.
The man shakes Steve slightly, “You gonna tell me I saw wrong?”
Steve knocks the guy’s hand off his shoulder. “Look, man, I don’t know what you think you saw, but–”
And then Steve’s mouth is bleeding, because the guy fucking hits him .
“Dude!” Eddie yells and the music cuts out and the crowds part with a scream as Steve falls back, startled by the abrupt taste of copper in his mouth and the sting of his lip.
The crowds scramble back, security starts to step forward, and Steve gets back to his feet, because that’s what he does.
“Don’t do that again,” he says, spitting a bit of blood onto those nice hardwood floors. He holds up a hand to keep Nancy at bay, because she’s taken two steps forward in her cute little kitten heels and looks ready to jump on the guy’s back and break his neck.
She stops, and Robin grips her arm, and Nancy scowls.
“Look, we don’t have a problem, here,” Steve says, and it sounds like King Steve, is what it sounds like. Casual to the point of uncaring, a bit cocky, a tad biting, like he’s sneering down his nose from his throne. He didn’t know he could still do this voice, but here it comes. “Just leave us alone, and you can go back to getting drunk with whatever friends tolerate you right now, huh?”
Eddie, at his shoulder, looks at him with his head tilted slightly. The bells jingle. There’s a wideness to his eyes that wasn’t there before, and when Eddie licks his lips a little, Steve realizes it’s because he’s enjoying the show.
“We don’t need your kind around here,” sneers the man, and he winds up a fist again. “We don’t need fags polluting —”
So, here’s the thing. Steve gets in a lot of fights, that’s true. But he usually does try his best to keep from really fighting normal people. Monsters are one thing, but bullies or jerks, he just rolls his eyes and endures. He doesn’t like violence, doesn’t like his constant headaches and backaches and the twinges of pain in his waist and throat from the bat bites. So, he keeps the fighting to a minimum, usually sticks with threats and whatever.
But this guy is such an asshole, and Steve had been having such a good night.
So, when the stranger swings a fist towards Steve’s face, Steve catches his arm. He side-steps, planting his feet like goddamn Billy Hargrove told him, and pushes the arm to the side. Then he grabs the sword at his waist, draws it, and slams the pommel into the guy’s nose.
It’s a little more satisfying than he’d like, to be honest, to watch the cartilage snap and blood make his white tunic red and pink.
The guy reels back clutching his nose, and security arrives just as Steve slips the sword back into his belt.
“What is going on?!” demands a guard, and Steve gestures at the blood-splattered stranger.
“This asshole attacked me out of nowhere, said a bunch of rude shit.”
His crown is crooked from the action, pulling his hair, and he reaches up slowly to fix it. Eddie makes a strangled noise behind him. Steve just looks at the guard and tongues his split lip. “He assaulted me, insulted my friends. Tried to hit me again, and I stopped him.”
“I-is that… so…” says the guard, looking at Steve like he’s actually a little intimidated. Like Steve, in this stupid unlaced shirt and metal crown, are something dangerous.
“No! He hit me!” yells the stranger in a garbled voice, cradling his face, “He should get expelled, kicked out!”
“I asked him to leave us alone, to stop, and he didn’t.” Steve says, “I’d be more than happy to leave, sir, but I won’t stand for not having the truth out there.”
“I…” the guards look between Steve and the stranger and seem uncomfortable.
“It’s true,” speaks up a new voice, and it’s the man with the wolf on his chest. He’s out of armor, in more velvet and leather, but the crest on his arm is the same, “These folks, your prince? They weren’t doin’ nothin wrong. Just dancin’ like everyone else. And this asshole came over and hit him, threatened him a whole bunch too.”
His eyes meet Steve’s as he speaks, and Steve knows that the man knows he was dancing with Eddie. The man just doesn’t give a damn. Steve smiles slightly, inclines his head, and the guy nods back.
“I see,” says the guard, more sure now. He rounds on the man in white and two other security guards drag him away.
“Thank you,” Steve says, after the chaos dies down and he’s able to get to the man with the wolf on his chest. “That was… that was real cool of you, man.”
The man offers a hand, and Steve shakes it. He had a solid grip, and he once again reminds Steve of Hopper. There’s something about his steadfast, calm composure and his broad, sloped shoulders. And his eyes, which look kind but a little sad. “Nah, it was nothin’. We need more young folks like you and Edmund the Exiled,” he says, smiling sadly, “Then maybe one day we won’t have to hide so much.”
“You’re…?” Steve trails off, not sure if he’s allowed to ask. But the man had said ‘we’, about Eddie and Steve, and that… points in a direction.
“My husband died last fall,” says the man, and then huffs a laugh, scoffs and tilts his head. “Well. Not legal husband. But he was mine, all the same. We went through hell together. Can’t imagine what folks young as you two mighta been through, but I see it in ya’ll. You’ve got somethin’ dark in your past, but bright in your future. You hang on to it, won’t you?”
Steve nods, because his throat feels too tight to speak. “Yes, sir.”
“Have a good night, Stefan.” says the man, with a nod, and then he leaves. And Steve doesn’t know his name, but he feels like he’s connected to that guy, feels like he just stepped his foot in what all of this really means, somehow.
He returns to Eddie and the girls where they stood off to the side, not really dancing.
“You wanna turn in for the night?” he asks, even though it’s not too late. But they all nod, and then they drift towards the doors, and into the night.
—
Eddie drops to his knees as soon as they’re in the bedroom, tugging at the laces of Steve’s pants, and Steve barely has time to fully slam the door shut behind him and turn the lock before his dick is out and Eddie’s putting his mouth on it.
“Fuck!” Steve gasps, head falling back against the door, and Eddie slides down the length of it, hollows his cheeks, sucks Steve into his throat. Steve wasn’t even hard before, but he is now, fuck.
Eddie keeps going a moment longer, humming and eyelashes fluttering as Steve knocks his stupid hat to the floor and grabs handfuls of his hair.
Then he pulls back, stands, grabs Steve by the hips and shoves him on the bed.
“Take everything off except the crown,” Eddie demands, eyes dark and mouth curling dangerously as he undoes his own clothes and lets them fall to the floor. “I want to fuck the King out of King Steve.”
“Holy shit,” says Steve, and then he tears off his shirt and pants and everything else, and Eddie drags him to him, and makes good on his promise.
—
Steve comes twice, and Eddie laughs darkly, and keeps going.
—
After, when Steve is lying on his back, panting, bitemarks across his shoulders and finger-shaped bruises on his thighs, he rolls over to look at Eddie, who has a cigarette in his mouth and a sated, satisfied look on his face.
“I feel like – I feel like that was, was planned, or something–” Steve manages, a little shaky, his body still shivering from stimulation and hnnng, good sex.
“I thought about bending Pretty Boy King Steve over cafeteria tables for like, my entire Junior year of high school,” Eddie admits, like that’s something you can just say , like Steve’s dick doesn’t give a valiant twitch at the thought despite being absolutely out of commission.
“You what? ”
“One time, that shithead that followed you around – Tommy, or whatever – he snapped at you and you just turned around and gave him this look , and Tommy ducked his head, all submissive, and I nearly creamed my fuckin’ jeans.” Eddie shakes his head, “Jesus, I wanted you to fuck me and I wanted you to cry on my cock, Stevie Harrington.”
“Mission accomplished,” Steve says, breathy and a little lost, and Eddie laughs, rolls over, and kisses him into the sheets.
—
Argyle knocks on their door about twenty minutes after they’ve stopped fucking. Eddie says ‘come in’, even though they’re both butt-naked, and Steve yells ‘do not come in, Jesus’, and Argyle pokes his head in anyways.
He is completely unaffected in every way by the way Steve grabs the sheets and hides himself and Eddie salutes him with a cigarette, a single pillow in his lap but otherwise his body on full display. He just gives them a tiny thumbs up.
“Hey,” he says, “Fancy Nancy sent me to tell you dudes that we’re rollin’ up in the backyard, if you wanna join.”
“Hell yeah,” says Eddie, sitting up, and Steve stays behind the covers, but says:
“We’ll be out in a minute, man, can you – can you shut the door, please.”
Argyle nods and gives another thumbs up, “Congrats on all the sex,” he says, and then he shuts the door.
“I thought I locked it.” Steve says as he drops the blanket.
Eddie pauses in pulling on a pair of jeans from Steve’s suitcase, and glances at the door. “Wait, you did. You absolutely did. I was offended about it, because it meant you were thinking clearly while I gave you head.”
They both stare at the doorknob, come to the conclusion that Argyle picked the lock in order to offer them weed, and then move on. It was hardly the strangest thing they’d learned about Argyle lately, so, whatever.
—
They spend the night, until around four in the morning, on the back porch. Argyle and Eddie keep producing joints from seemingly nowhere, although Eddie cuts Robin off not too far into the night and Argyle pats Nancy on top of her curly head and tells her to take it easy.
Steve gets similar warnings after he melts out of his armchair and lays in the grass.
“I love you guys,” says Robin, as Nancy helps her to her feet once the night comes to an end. “I love everyone here, in this house. Even Mike Wheeler.”
“We love you too, Robin,” says Argyle, and then, “Ooh… like Batman’s little… his little friend, right?”
“Robin,” Jonathan agrees, and nods.
He and Argyle dissolve into a very quiet rendition of the Batman theme song from the 60s TV show. Eddie laughs at their feet, and blows Robin and Nancy a kiss.
“Goodnight, Lady Rowena. Princess Nancy,” he says, and blows a smoke ring that circles their head.
“I’m the princess,” Steve complains, rolling over and crawling towards Eddie, “Not Nance… me.”
Eddie raises both eyebrows, keeps the joint between his lips as he reaches out to cradle Steve’s face. “Oh, yeah? You’re the princess?”
“Wait,” Steve looks very focused and thoughtful, but his hair is also in his eyes and he leans into Eddie’s hands like he’s absolutely dying to be touched, cradled, held. “Wait, I meant the boy one…”
“Mhmm,” Eddie says, and then, “C’mere, Princess,” and then he takes a drag off the joint, leans forward and shotguns smoke into Steve’s open, eager mouth.
“Gay,” says Robin, helpfully, as she’s taken inside.
“Truth,” says Argyle, and then he falls immediately asleep on Jonathan’s shoulder.
Nancy laughs into her shoulder, eyes slightly red, cheeks rosy, hair a total mess. She kisses Robin, on the mouth, and Jonathan smiles all soft and sweet at them as they close the door behind them.
“I won a tournament for you,” Steve mumbles into Eddie’s shoulder, later, when Eddie gets them both to their wobbly feet and starts to guide them inside. “I won for you, for youuuu…”
Eddie kisses a flippy bit of hair that comes out from Steve’s temple, and wants to say ‘I love you too’, but instead, he says: “I know, sweetheart. I know.”
—
The last day of the LARP event is a massive festival. It’s like something from a dream. There are flowers everywhere that weren’t there yesterday, being sold in booths as crowns or bouquets, woven onto ropes that criss-cross the roads and cover tents and windows.
Steve wears the outfit he wore to the ball last night, because the sheer amount of hickeys and bites across his chest is a little absurd, now, thanks. The others put on their usual garb, and they’re off.
Nancy buys all the kids crowns of pink carnations, and everyone except Mike wears them happily. Mike just holds his, frowning at it, until Eleven and Will team up to cram it onto his head.
There are petals blowing everywhere and the air smells like flowers and pollen.
They join a line-dance in center square, and drink weird floral teas that none of them except Robin like, and laugh and spend too much money, real or otherwise, and play carnival games. Will gets painted by an artist that specializes in rapid painting, and then Eleven buys the painting and gives it to Mike, and it’s all happy, all morning.
As noon approaches, though, Steve gets anxious. Eddie doesn’t seem bothered at all, the jingle of his bells happy and well-suited to the mood of the day as he dances between rings of flowers, blows bubbles with some performers, plays a few songs here and there for people who ask him to when they see his guitar.
Eddie doesn’t seem to be worried about the duel, and it makes Steve worry more.
“Hey, Stevie,” Eddie says, calling out the nickname instead of Steve’s character name. For someone who is such a stickler for rules at his own D&D table, he sure does bend them a lot around here for Steve. He’s talking with the kids about what kind of magic Will should use, because Will gets to pick a speciality at this level. “Lightning or ice?” he asks, and Steve frowns, looks down at Will.
It’s not a very far look down, though. Will has grown up fast, he’s just a few inches shorter than Steve at this point. And he’s looking up at him, hopeful and wide-eyed and a little embarrassed, like he expects Steve to brush him off, scold him or something.
It makes sense. Steve from two weeks ago would roll his eyes and tell them he didn’t care about their stupid nerd shit.
The Steve that is today freaking out about his boyfriend (?) having a duel in less than an hour and appearing entirely unconcerned about it says: “Uh, why would the kid not do fire?”
Will blinks and looks at Eddie. Eddie looks at Steve.
“Fire is pretty basic,” Eddie says, but it’s hesitant. Not in a wary way, but in a curious one, like he wants to hear Steve’s justification. “A lot of people do fire.”
“Yeah, but if anyone needs fire powers it's Baby Byers,” says Steve, shrugging like it's casual, and Will’s eyes go wide. “Imagine one of those tentacles coming for you and you just fuckin – whack it with a fireball, or whatever.”
Will blushes, and Steve thinks he’s fucked up, mentioning real-life shit to the kid who wants to know what fake magic spells to use.
“It would be… badass,” Eleven agrees, and Will nods eagerly.
“I was thinking fire, but Eddie thought that I’d look cooler with lightning in the paintings, so I–”
“Just split your elements next level,” Eddie interrupts, “Chief Stefan right. Fire suits you, kid.”
And Will turns very red, then, but he also looks giddy and pleased as he and the kids gather around his character sheets and write a bunch of nonsense Steve doesn’t understand. Eddie had filled out his sheet for him. Steve just swings the foam weapons when people tell him to.
Eddie slings an arm around Steve’s shoulders, then, and leans into his space. “Now,” he says, “Not that I am not appreciating the attention, because you know I thrive only when pretty people give me attention, but you seem… concerned. Mommy Steve is making eyes at me, and I don’t know what to do about it. What’s worryin’ you, gorgeous?”
“Aren’t you freaking out about the duel thing at all? What if he hurts you? Cheats and brings a real weapon or something?” Steve presses his hand to Eddie’s lower back, because touching is comfort, or whatever.
Eddie’s mouth does some weird wiggly thing that Steve nows means he’s holding in laughter, and he bristles, but Eddie just says, in a happy bouncy voice: “Well, then I know you and Nancy will kick his ass, and Robin will jump on his face with her ugly red Chucks. Right?”
Steve blinks, and then realizes Eddie isn’t scared because there’s no reason to be. This Matt guy already hurt him, when he was alone, but he isn’t alone anymore. Eddie knows Steve will be there, and their friends will be there, and there’s nothing to be afraid of anymore, because Eddie isn’t alone . He’s not running, because he’s got people around him that aren’t running. He can stay, because they stay.
Steve kisses him, and Eddie presses back before quickly pulling away, because it’s broad daylight and in public, and Steve is dumb and doesn’t ever remember to not do things like that.
“We’ve got to get you to your duel, jackass,” Erica says, appearing with Max, Robin, and Nancy. “I saw that ugly motherfucker doing some weirdass stretches in the middle of the little arena where weirdos mud wrestle, so you better put him in the ground.”
“We have got to discuss your language,” Steve says, shaking his head, “God, were you raised by wolves?”
“No, I have parents. Unlike some people.” Erica says, looking Steve up and down dryly, and Robin bursts into laughter at Steve’s expense yet again.
“Jesus Christ, you’re such a little shit,” Steve hisses, and Erica sticks out her tongue.
“To the duel!” Eddie says, and starts to play Beat It on his guitar as he leads the way through the LARP grounds towards the arena.
(It draws a crowd, because of course it does, and Eddie delays the whole thing by about two minutes to play a quick encore, because people are cheering and Eddie really does love positive attention, it doesn’t matter who it’s from, and he’d probably get delayed even more when someone suggests some Van Halen song and he absolutely preens… and then Nancy takes his guitar away and herds him towards the fight.)
—
It’s really a joke, this fight.
Eddie had told Steve that Matt broke his wrist and beat the shit out of him about a year or so ago because it had been true. But it had also been true that Eddie had been sort of crossfaded, sleepy from sex, and also naked.
Now, Matt comes at him with a sword and shield made of hard plastic and foam, and Eddie steps forward instead of back, slides the length of his narrow foam rapier down the entirety of Matt’s blade until it hits crossguard, flicks it beneath his fingers, and sends Matt’s blade spinning into the dirt.
Matt tries to shoulder-check him with the shield and Eddie just sways to the side, watches Matt stumble past him.
He jingles as he hops back a step and backs off. “ Fetch , boy,” he says, grinning, as he dances away from another shield-bash and Matt stumbles past like a raging pig.
Matt glares at him for a moment, and then begrudgingly stomps over to where his sword lies in a patch of dirt. He keeps his eyes on Eddie as he snatches it up, like he thinks Eddie might stab him in the back.
Eddie doesn’t. He even lets Matt readjust his grip.
And then he does the exact same thing again, but this time he catches the sword with a flourish and a bow, spins out of reach of the shield, holds both his rapier and Matt’s heavier shortsword in his hands as he bows to the audience, blows his friends (Steve) a kiss.
Matt is red-faced and glaring when he turns back around, flips the shortsword in his palm and offers it hilt-first, all polite and dramatic. Matt snatches it. Takes a stance. Drops his shield to hold the sword with both hands, even though a shortsword doesn’t have room for that, even though it’s not correct.
Eddie feels the DM in him itch at the back of his throat, but he keeps his mouth shut. He wonders to himself why he ever thought Matt was attractive. He remembers confidence and dark corners with flashing lights, some rock event he doesn’t even remember the name of, now. And Matt had been there, and Eddie had been there, and then they’d been there together, and now –
Matt spits in the grass, charges Eddie.
“And, three,” Eddie says, as he once again disarms his opponent and dances backwards. He scoops up the sword, throws it to Dustin playfully as he spins, drinking in the cheers of the crowd as they call his character’s name.
He ignores Matt, weaponless and seething behind him, to hop up to the side of the arena. This is a smaller ring, just a small wooden fence around dried earth that they hose down to do the mud wrestling shows. Today it’s dry, and Eddie skips over to where his friends are, and leans across the fence to playfully snap his teeth at Steve.
Steve grins at him, easy and quick, and Robin reaches out to shake his shoulder, laughing as she chants along with the crowds.
“Eddie!” Nancy yells abruptly, and Eddie turns, and a hard metal shield slams into his stomach, causing him to double over and spit a bit of saliva into the ground as he wheezes.
Matt sneers down at him, “Not so cocky, now, huh?”
Nancy is over the fence before anyone can stop her, punching Matt in the face, and Matt grabs her by the front of her chainmail and her dress and spits directly in her face. Eddie winces, thinking about how Matt is about to die because there are no other outcomes to spitting in Miss Nancy Wheeler’s face than death.
And then a few more of Matt’s friends jump the fence, and Robin dashes past Eddie and Steve to swing clumsily at Matt, and all hell breaks loose.
But they have a crowd, you see. And he’s made a grave error, because no one hits the fan favorite and gets away with it. He hit Eddie - who has charmed all these people with acoustic covers of heavy metal songs and Michael Jackson, and then he spit on Nancy, who is pretty and soft and an absolute princess by comparison to the people he’s flanked by. Around them, people charge Matt and his friends, yelling, shouting, brandishing weapons both foam and wood. They climb the fence with flowery liqueur spilling out of drinking horns because if there’s one thing nerds can do, it’s drink. Dustin and the other kids climb up on the fence, point and laugh and sneer as feral, drunk nerds attack Matt and his friends, and then it’s really just a brawl.
“We gotta go!” Steve yells over it all, as Eddie watches chaos happen because of him, because someone hit him.
Robin appears, Nancy’s hand in hers. Will and Erica grab the other kids, and Eddie and Steve wrap an around around one another's shoulders, and they run. They stop by the cabin and laugh as they pack, tripping over one another, recalling moments here and there, flinging clothes around so that everything is mixed up but everything is somewhere, in a bag or otherwise. They pack up Steve’s car, and Eddie’s van, and Nancy’s car, and they pile in all mis-matched and odd.
Steve winds up driving his car with Eddie in the passenger seat. Nancy’s driving his van, and Jonathan’s got her car, and all the kids are accounted for, so they take off.
They’re still laughing as they tear up grass and burn rubber on the highway.
“Wanna come back next year?” Eddie asks, reaching over to push the crown up properly on Steve’s head. It keeps going crooked because he has a horrific cowlick, if he’s honest, that’s why it takes so long to style his hair.
“With you?” Steve asks, glancing at Eddie. Will, Eleven, and Max are in his back seat, arguing about if they’re disqualified or their characters are dead because they didn’t turn in their character sheets.
“You got someone else trying to take you to Renfests and LARP events, Harrington?” Eddie asks, knocking his knee into Steve’s thigh, sitting like a monster or a goblin or something in the passenger seat.
Steve shakes his head, slings his hand into Eddie’s and squeezes. “No, just you.”
“Damn straight,” Eddie says, and leans over to kiss him, and Steve keeps his eyes on the road, but he also kisses back, and the kids all yell but it’s worth it.
It’s all worth it.