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Steve Harrington has always fallen in bits and pieces. The way someone’s hair sits, or the way they stand when they’re nervous, or the way they smile when they think no one is looking.
Steve is always looking.
So it’s no real surprise to him when, just one week after Spring Break, he starts noticing Eddie Munson.
It’s the hands, first. Eddie has wild hands, always tapping or drumming or waving. Steve finds himself standing close enough to Eddie often enough that he starts getting used to dodging those wild hands.
Magic hands.
Because he dodges when he has to but a lot of the time Eddie isn’t just talking, isn’t just excited. A lot of the time, especially after he’s finally able to leave his hospital bed (which takes much too long, in Steve’s humble opinion), it’s to touch. To ruffle Steve’s hair. To wrap an arm around Steve’s shoulders. To pull Steve in and keep him there as if Steve would ever want to leave.
They’re magic because Steve’s parents weren’t the hugging type. Because for however much he loves her, neither is Robin. Because the last time someone really touched him was Nancy, when they were together, and that’s a long goddamn time for Steve.
Magic hands indeed.
Somehow, without noticing, Steve slots Eddie into his life as if he’s always been there.
It takes maybe six weeks before Eddie’s over more often than he’s not. Steve starts thinking of the guest room as Eddie’s room, even though they fall asleep together on the sofa most nights. Eddie’s music collection starts migrating, and then, eventually, his guitar.
His guitar stand.
His extra picks and his extra strings.
The case.
A drawerful of clothes. Two.
And before Steve can blink, Eddie is moved in, comfortable in spaces Steve isn’t, even though Steve’s parents called three weeks after Spring Break and told him they’re not coming back, that he could have the house if he wasn’t leaving that hellhole.
(Thanks, Dad, Steve had said, and then he’d gone over to Eddie’s and watched him talk until the weight in his chest had dissolved into nothing and he could breathe again.)
It’s the guitar that really gets Steve in trouble.
He walks in after a shift at the Squawk to find Eddie restringing it, tongue between his teeth, brows furrowed. He doesn’t look up when Steve shuts the door, completely and entirely focused on what he’s doing.
Steve goes to make himself a snack and pretends not to watch Eddie from the kitchen.
Thank God for open floor plans.
Eddie’s rings flash as he works, little sparks of light that have Steve completely transfixed. He’s gentle but firm with them, the same way he touches Steve, who can’t help remembering how those fingers feel on the back of his neck, massaging the ache away.
The last string twists into place, note humming through the house, and Eddie looks up and Steve is caught.
“Wanna try?”
“Okay,” Steve says, peanut butter crackers forgotten on the counter as he crosses the room because who is he to deny Eddie Munson, the boy who almost died for their kid, anything?
He sits on the sofa and Eddie places the guitar in his lap and then scoots behind him so he can wrap himself around Steve, guiding his hands into the right place, gentle but firm and Steve wants to melt.
“Press down a little harder,” Eddie murmurs and Steve does and Eddie strums the guitar and the chord vibrates through Steve’s chest, dislodging something that’s been stuck for as long as he can remember. Without really thinking, he lets his head tip back against Eddie’s shoulder, eyes slipping closed. He hasn’t been sleeping much. None of them have, really.
Eddie sets the guitar aside and wraps his arms fully around Steve, chin resting on Steve’s shoulder.
“You okay?” he asks softly.
“Tired,” Steve admits. “A little achy.”
“Same,” Eddie admits. “Demobats?”
Steve shakes his head. “This is from before.”
Eddie hums. “Will you tell me about it?”
“There were Russians,” Steve says. “Under Starcourt. Rob and Dustin and Erica and I found out and went down there like idiots. Rob and I got caught, and they, uh… They thought we were spies. Drugged us, tortured us. Dustin and Erica had to come save us.”
“Jesus,” Eddie breathes. “Steve, that’s- Jesus.”
“Yeah. Still can’t really smoke weed. Was a minute there where I thought I was dead.”
“Stevie.”
And that one word, full of pain and fear and hurt, could restart Steve’s heart a hundred times over.
“I’m alright,” he promises. “I’m okay now.”
And yeah. Yeah, he is.
Eight weeks after Spring Break, Eddie is finally given the all-clear to drive again.
As it turns out, he drives like a fucking maniac.
The first time Steve rides shotgun in his van, the two of them headed to pick the kids up for a meeting at the Squawk, he spends the whole drive clutching at the door handle, squeezing it hard enough to leave marks.
Eddie cackles when he sees, barely audible over the blasting music. “Relax, Stevie! I haven’t killed anyone yet!”
“Yet,” Steve grits out, half-certain that his heart is going to give out.
On their way back, all the kids safely tucked into their beds, Steve leans against the door and watches through half-lidded eyes as Eddie drums and sings and plays air guitar waiting for red lights to turn green. He drives one handed half the time, the van rattling under Steve’s body, some metal song screaming over the radio, Eddie singing along, louder, and Steve should hate it and yet-
And yet Steve also watches the way Eddie checks every mirror before he turns. The way his hand shoots out in front of Steve’s chest when he brakes too hard. The way he glances over when he can, making sure Steve’s okay. Careful. So careful. Even through the chaos of the drive.
The van is parked in Steve’s driveway when his eyes flutter open. Eddie’s music has been turned way down low, and he’s leaned up against his door, foot pulled up into the seat, drumming on his knee.
Steve sits up a little, rubbing his eyes, and Eddie smiles.
“Hey.”
“Hey,” Steve replies, voice a little raspy from sleep. “How long was I out?”
“Only an hour or so. You sleep like shit usually.”
“You could’ve woken me up.”
Eddie shakes his head. “You looked like you weren’t having a nightmare for once.”
And Steve realizes he’s right. He hadn’t been having a nightmare. He hardly remembers the dream now, only flashes of bright doe eyes and long curly hair, but he knows it was sweet.
“Yeah,” Steve says softly. “Thanks.”
And Eddie Munson drives like a maniac.
But somehow, Steve has become the kind of person who falls asleep next to him anyway. Who sleeps peacefully next to him anyway.
And so, when they go upstairs to bed, Steve invites Eddie into his room.
They both sleep through the night for the first time in months.
Eddie officially moves in that week.
It’s Wayne’s idea. He pulls Steve aside during the weekly dinner the three of them have and points out that Eddie basically lives there anyway and it’s been good for both of them. How Eddie seems… settled.
Steve doesn’t look too closely at that, but he brings it up that night, sitting on the sofa, each of them with a book. (Steve’s been reading Lord of the Rings, because Eddie loves them and Steve wants to know him better. He’s on book three.)
“Wayne pulled me aside today,” Steve says, trying and probably failing to sound casual. “He said, uh… He asked if you might want to officially move in.”
Eddie looks up from his book (he’s reading the Silmarillion) and tilts his head. “Wayne said that?”
“Yeah. He wanted me to make sure you knew it wasn’t that he wanted you out. Just- you’re over here all the time anyway.”
Eddie chews on the inside of his cheek. “And would- Would you-”
“I want you here,” Steve says, too quick to come off casual.
Eddie goes all soft at that, a smile creeping across his face.
“Okay,” he says. “We can go pick up my stuff tomorrow.”
We. Steve feels his chest go warm at that. “I’ll clear out some of my clothes for you.”
Slowly, they fall into a routine. Steve makes breakfast, because he’s always been an early riser, and Eddie joins him right as the coffee finishes brewing. They go to the Squawk most days to hang out with the kids, to plot against Vecna. Usually Joyce and Hopper bring food to that, but sometimes Steve and Eddie make lunch.
At night, one of them (usually Eddie) makes dinner while the other watches, and then they sit on the sofa and read or watch a movie or just chat.
Eddie’s posters go up on Steve’s walls to cover the ugly wallpaper, and his music collection sits in the living room on a shelf Steve builds as a surprise while Eddie’s over at Wayne’s one day.
And suddenly, the house that Steve has hated since forever becomes a safe haven.
So he invites Robin over, another day Eddie’s at Wayne’s, because he feels like he hasn’t seen her in weeks and he misses her so much it physically hurts.
She walks in and Steve watches her inventory every change, catalogue every item that was Eddie’s and that now belongs to both of them.
And then she turns around, eyebrow arched.
“Eddie moved in,” Steve admits.
Robin nods slowly. “I see that.”
“He was over all the time anyway. Crashed in the guest room more often than he was at home.”
“...right.” Robin sits on the couch. After a moment, so does Steve.
Robin bites her lip. “Do you need to tell me something?”
“I… don’t think so?”
“You’re sure about that?”
Steve blinks. “Is there something I should be telling you?”
Robin stares at him for another second, and then she buries her face in her hands. “No,” she says. It comes out muffled.
“You’re acting weird,” Steve tells her.
“You’re an idiot.” Robin sighs, then sits up, runs a hand through her hair. “Wanna watch a movie?”
“Hell yeah,” Steve says, deciding that whatever that was can be deciphered later.
Eddie comes home just as Robin’s getting up to leave, pulling his sweatshirt off and hanging it on the hook by the door.
Or, more accurately, Steve’s sweatshirt. It’s his Hawkins High Basketball one from sophomore year, worn and soft. It’s Eddie’s favorite.
Steve sees the moment Robin notices, but she says nothing as Eddie leans over to ruffle Steve’s hair, only arches that eyebrow again.
“Hey, Stevie. Buckley. I’ll get dinner started.”
Steve grins at him over the back of the sofa. “Thanks, Eds. How was Wayne’s?”
“Good! We played Monopoly. He kicked my ass.”
Steve snickers. “Per usual.”
“Yeah, yeah. Buckley, are you staying for dinner?”
Robin shakes her head and stands up. “Mom wanted me home. I’ll see you guys tomorrow though.” She hugs Steve goodbye, waves bye to Eddie, and slips out the door.
Steve waves out the window until she bikes away and then he strolls into the kitchen and perches on the counter behind where Eddie’s cooking.
“How was Buckley?”
“Really good,” Steve says, grinning. “It’s been a while since we’ve hung out.”
Eddie turns to smile at Steve, leaning against his side of the counter. “I’m glad,” he says softly.
And when Steve wakes up screaming that night from nightmares of his days under Starcourt, wordless and then Robin’s name, over and over until he’s hoarse, Eddie is the one who holds him while he sobs, magic hands on his shoulders firm-but-gentle, and Eddie is the one who leads him downstairs to call Robin until he can breathe again.
Steve’s house has never been a home. Not to him. Not when his parents could come back at any time, could fill the house with shouting and arguing and fear. Not when, while they aren’t there, the house is just empty instead.
But now there’s a guitar stand in the corner of the living room, the guitar usually found either in Eddie’s arms or left somewhere for Steve to rescue later. There’s music, always, music Steve hasn’t heard and music he has, rock and folk and metal and pop. On bad days Steve will walk into the house or come out of the shower to find his favorite Beatles album in the cassette player, every time without fail. He starts buying Eddie more posters when he sees them at the store because they make Eddie beam like nothing else, and they start migrating out to the living room and the kitchen when he runs out of space on his walls.
One day, Steve comes home to find Eddie sitting on top of the dining table, which is inexplicably painted completely white. Eddie has a paint palette next to him, and he’s painting designs onto the white - designs like the ones on the vest that Steve still has in his closet, designs like the tattoos he’s seen on Eddie’s back, sharp and dangerous and chaotic in the same breath that they feel like protection.
Eddie grins up at him. “Hey. Saw you glaring at this thing the other day. Figured I’d fix it up for you.”
Steve fucking hated that dining table. He can feel himself glowing, a smile spreading across his face before he even really realizes it. “Thanks,” is all he says, but he sees understanding in Eddie’s eyes.
“No problem, Stevie.”
Over the next few weeks, Eddie does the same to the kitchen cabinets, and to the coffee table, and to Steve’s dresser. He paints the mantle and the banister and even the toaster, until their whole house is full of art and beauty and Steve starts smiling as he unlocks the door because he knows he’s walking into something lovely.
The house starts to feel like them, and slowly, the echoes of slammed doors and cigarette burns fade until Steve hardly remembers them anymore.
And then one day he comes home from a sleepover at Dustin’s after Dustin called him at almost one in the morning in a panic and finds the living room walls have been painted in purple and yellow stripes and he has to sit down for a minute because he’s cackling so hard at the face his mother would make.
Eddie leads him into the kitchen next and Steve laughs until he cries at the puce and green checkerboard.
What a feeling it is, he muses as he catches his breath, to be known like this.
They have an old-kids-only party the next week, and Nancy, Jon, and Robin are suitably horrified and amused. Eddie’s gotten to the downstairs bathroom (vomit green with lemons), the hall (neon orange and magenta), the stairwell (orange plaid), and the outside of the master bedroom (yellow and black like a warning sign) now, and he doesn’t seem to have any plans of stopping.
“What the fuck,” Nancy says.
Eddie grins at her, bright with joy. “I’ve been redecorating.”
“He noticed I hated the decor before,” Steve explains. “And it’s our place now, we figure we can do whatever we want. Isn’t it perfect?”
Nancy considers them for a long moment before cracking a smile. “I’m glad you’re happy.”
Steve blinks at her, and then he smiles back, softer. “Yeah,” he says. “I really, really am.”
And he is. Despite the looming threat of Vecna. Despite Max, who he still visits every week. Despite the idea, however unlikely, that his parents could still come back.
He’s happy.
And of course they plan, of course they strategize, of course they talk. They spend a few hours filling Eddie in on the past few years, and another consoling each other. Steve spends these hours curled into Eddie’s side with his feet in Robin’s lap. Eddie’s fingers stroke through his hair the whole time, gentle comfort that has Steve almost shaking at the worst parts.
But then, once they’re done debriefing, they shift to lighter topics.
The kids’ latest DnD session.
Eddie’s logic behind his colors.
The fucking weather, how nice it’s been lately.
And then, later, all of them three beers deep:
“I’m gay,” Robin blurts, squeezing Steve’s ankle like it’s the only thing holding her down to Earth. “Like, really gay.”
Steve holds his breath right along with her for the nearly ten seconds of silence before Eddie finally speaks.
“Same,” he says, hint of a laugh in his voice. “Although I’m sure you’ve all already heard the rumors. Thanks for telling us, Buckley.”
Robin smiles, relief evident on her face as Nancy and Jonathan both agree, both reassure her and Eddie that it’s okay.
Steve, meanwhile, might be having a little bit of a crisis. Eddie’s laughter, his voice, rumbles through his chest into Steve’s body, those magic hands still in his hair, just those things combined already driving him insane but the realization of Eddie’s sexuality threatening to rip him over the edge.
“Robin,” he says, voice cracking a little, “can I talk to you for a minute?”
Robin frowns. “Uh… yeah. Yeah, okay.”
Steve pulls her into the bathroom, closing the door behind them and locking it for good measure.
“I think I like Eddie,” he says, voice hushed. “Like… like like.”
Robin stares at him for a moment.
And then she starts laughing so hard she has to sink to her knees and lean against the wall for support.
“It’s not funny,” Steve hisses, heat creeping up his neck.
“No, no, of course not,” Robin wheezes. “Just- Oh my god, hang on a second-”
Steve stands there with his arms crossed for a solid minute before she catches her breath.
“Steve,” she says finally, tears still in her eyes, “I knew.”
“You what.”
“You guys act like an old married couple.”
Steve scoffs. “So do you and I.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not living in your house and wearing your hoodies, am I?” Robin grins like it’s checkmate.
Steve has to take a second to consider this. “Does Eddie know?”
“That you like him? No way, he’s as blind as you are. He definitely likes you back though.”
Steve opens his mouth.
Then closes it again.
It feels like his face has caught on fire, and he’s one hundred percent certain that the blush has spread down his neck, too. Robin’s staring at him with that damn eyebrow raised.
And. Well. Steve can see it. In the way Eddie touches him, gentle-but-firm with those magic hands of his. The way Eddie looks to Steve first when he makes a joke, to make sure Steve saw. Hell, it’s all over the walls, all around him right now in the ugliest fucking shade of green he’s ever seen in his life dotted with perfect little lemons.
“Oh,” Steve says softly.
Robin squeezes his shoulder. “There we go. I’ll be in the living room if you need me.”
She slips past Steve, who hardly notices, a little dazed. It’s like the knowledge smacked him over the head and gave him yet another concussion.
When he returns to the living room, Eddie’s already watching him, brow creased.
You okay? he mouths.
Steve nods and collapses onto the sofa next to him, burrowing into his side. He fits perfect there, nestled up next to Eddie’s rib cage.
Those magic hands return to Steve’s hair, and Steve’s eyes slip blissfully closed.
This is the life, he’s pretty sure.
Steve lasts maybe fifteen minutes, once everything settles. Once they’re in bed, all the others already cleared out.
He’s staring up at the ceiling fan, the thing clicking on every spin in a way that should be annoying but that after so many years with it is really just comforting.
He spends those fifteen minutes going through every possible variation of how to say this. He drafts a dozen different speeches, a hundred ways to say what he wants to say, but none of them are right.
He spends those fifteen minutes with Robin’s words echoing in his head. He definitely likes you back, though.
He spends those fifteen minutes listening to Eddie breathe, slow and warm and even, and running through every moment he misread, every beat he missed, of the past few months.
And then he rolls over to face Eddie.
Eddie’s already looking back, eyes sleepy and half-lidded but still on Steve because of course they are.
“Hey,” Steve whispers, a little breathless.
“Hey,” Eddie whispers back, that honeyed voice of his soothing any doubt Steve could possibly have about this.
“I’m gonna tell you something.”
Eddie smiles, a little crooked in this painfully endearing way. “What’s up?”
“I like you,” Steve says, the words singing true in his chest. “Like, a lot a lot.” His cheeks burn with humiliation because he sounds so stupid, thirteen again inviting his very first crush to sit with him at lunch.
Eddie blinks, and then he beams, and he has got to be the sun because there’s no way a human smile should be that fucking bright. “Stevie,” he says softly, “I’ve liked you for months.”
And then he pulls Steve into his arms and Steve buries his face in Eddie’s shoulder and breathes.
“I like you, too,” Eddie says into Steve’s hair. “Like, a lot, a lot.”