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When Steve first started learning to play piano, he hadn't thought much of it. The piano had been in his living room for as long as he could remember, and his parents were gone again and he was bored.
It started as hi just sitting in front of the piano plucking keys until he figured out how to make them sound decent. Then he started trying to match the notes he was playing to notes he was hearing from the radio. It just escalated further from there. He went to the library and checked out a book about playing piano. One book turned into two turned into three. Steve spent more time than he'd care to admit sitting alone in front of that damn piano, and well it was only inevitable that he'd start singing along at some point.
No one was ever supposed to know about the piano, though. That was always important to Steve. He'd jump up away from the keys whenever Tommy let himself into the house without warning, toss the books under the blanket on the couch and pretend nothing was going on. Tommy had figured it out, though. Of course he had. He noticed that Steve had grown protective of the piano during parties, yelling at people for putting their beers down on it. He noticed that it wasn't dusty anymore. He noticed how often he found Steve in the room with it when he walked into the Harrington house. Steve waited months for Tommy to make fun of him for it, and to his surprise he never really did. Just one little passing comment about how Steve was being weird about it.
Of course, Tommy silence had ended when his and Steve's friendship had. But Steve was fighting bigger, badder monsters than Tommy Hagan then, and no one else really believed him except Carol. And Billy. But he had better things to hold over Steve than a piano.
Somewhere along the way, Steve stopped playing. The piano grew dusty again, in the corner of the living room. Demons took precedence. Surviving took precedence. Keeping a bunch of middle and high schoolers alive through the end of the world took precedence. Steve ran out of time for hobbies somewhere along the way.
But it was over. The Upside Down closed, Vecna killed. The scars lingered, of course. Physical things, like the bat scars covering Steve and Eddie. Mental ones, too, the nightmares, the tears, the shaking, the way the tiredness had settled into their bones somewhere along the way.
Despite it all, Steve thought he'd gained some good things from the Upside Down, to ease the trauma. He got a family, a little brother and a little sister and all their friends. He got Robin, who understood him like it was as easy as breathing. He got Eddie, who loved him like there had never been another option. He got Joyce Byers and Jim Hopper, who were somehow more like parents to him than his own ever had been. He got other new friends, too, like Eddie's band mates and Robin's girlfriend, and even Murray. He got the full warmth of a house filled with people that he never got to experience growing up.
Still, he missed the piano. The way that it felt when his fingers mapped their way across the keys. The way that he could speak without opening his mouth. The simple magic of a melody. He found himself longing for the house to be empty again, just for a little while, so that he could play. Could remember the feel of ivory under his fingers and music notes wrapped around him like a blanket.
Logically, of course, he knew that he could play while the others were in the house. That they would understand. That they wouldn't judge him for it, even if he was shaky at first. Even if he was bad. But music, for him, had always been something private. Something he didn't share with others. Not in the way Eddie and the other Corroded Coffin boys did, or Robin and the school band did. Hell, he'd never even told Robin or Eddie that he used to play.
So, Steve waited. He waited and waited, and waited some more. And then, finally, he got his chance. The house was empty, Wayne wasn't working so he had decided to relieve Steve of his duties in taking Eddied to physical therapy. Max was over at the Sinclairs' house. Dustin was home, for once, or else off with Mike and Will. El and Jonathan had gone for a drive into the next town over to go to the thrift store. Everyone was occupied, and happy, and safe.
He sat down at the piano, brushes the dust off with an old rag, and turned on the radio for inspiration for what he should play. He fiddled around for a minute or two, having to change off the SQWAUK station to find something with a good piano part. Then he did, and "Piano Man" by Billy Joel was lifting gently from his speakers. Steve paused for a minute, listened to the song come through the speakers. He had caught the end of the song, of course, so he had to go and dig out his cassettes to actually remember the beginning of the song.
He had no idea how long it had been by the time he was actually playing again, and not just stumbling over chords and notes like an idiot. All he knew was that, despite the initial awkward stiffness of his fingers, everything had come flooding back to him like memories he didn't realize he'd even lost. He was playing well, near perfectly despite his lack of recent practice, because he knew the song well.
He shifted to another song when "Piano Man" ended without even thinking about it, going into "Vienna" and then "Only the Good Die Young" and onward, like he'd never taken a break in his life. He was so into it that he almost didn't hear the front door open, and fully didn't register what it actually meant. He just kept playing, because now that he'd started all he knew was that he didn't want to stop. He didn't hear the footsteps walk into the room, or he absolutely would've registered the gait as being Eddie, and he just kept going until, at the end of his most recent song, his trance was broken.
"What the hell?!" Eddie exclaimed from behind him, and Steve snapped around so quickly he nearly fell off the piano bench.
"Eddie! You're home!" Steve said with a smile, and a creeping pink blush, as he closed the lid over the piano keys.
"Since when can you play piano?" Eddie said immediately, pointing an accusing finger to the piano itself.
"Uhh," Steve rubbed the back of his neck and winced a little. "Like six years ago, I guess?"
"WHAT! Why am I only learning this now? Why'd you never tell me?!"
"Look, I haven't played in years, Eds. Not since '83, really, when this whole mess started." Steve answered.
"Absolutely not. No way. I heard that. You sounded amazing. There's no way. I would sound way worse than that if I tried to play guitar right now, and I did it like five months ago!" Eddie responded.
"You have nerve damage in your hands, Babe."
"Not the point!" Eddie answered, and gestured wildly at the piano in front of Steve. "How has no one ever mentioned this before?!"
Steve looked down at the rug, flush getting darker by the second. "They don't know about it either."
Eddie just gawked at him for a minute, standing there in flabbergasted silence. Wayne decided that that was the perfect time to walk into the room.
"You play well. You should do it more often." Wayne offered.
"Thanks," Steve answered.
Wayne just let out a grumble in response, but it sounded vaguely affirmative. "Alright boys, I've gotta run to the store before it closes, so I'll see y'all for dinner later."
Both boys said their goodbyes before Eddie was back on Steve. "So.. none of your friends, or even your ex-girlfriend, know that you can play piano, even though like half of them play instruments themselves. And you always say you can't sing! I heard you, you sounded great!"
Steve's blush had spread to his ears. "Okay, well, like I said I haven't really played since all of this stuff started! I'd have told you guys if someone asked."
"Okay, Baby, we have got to work on your sharing skills. Because this is definitely the kind of thing you could be telling people even if they don't ask. Were you just playing Billy Joel?"
"Mostly."
"Do you know anything else?" Eddie asked. "Like, Queen or something?"
"Yeah."
"Will you play for me?"
Steve stared at the carpet a minute longer, then looked up at Eddie and saw the hopeful glint in his boyfriend's eyes and sighed. "Only if you promise not to tease me for it."
"Pinkie promise," Eddie answered and held up his hand, pinkie out until Steve reached out and locked his pinkie with Eddie's. Then he shuffled backwards and took a seat on the chair closest to the Harringtons' piano and settled in to watch as Steve took a deep breath, opened the piano back up and then started to play. Softly, at first, but gaining confidence and volume as he went on until it was about the volume it had been when Eddie discovered him again.
Eddie started singing along to the song as soon as the lyrics popped into his head, and a couple seconds later, Steve joined him in singing as well.
~ ~ ~
Looking back, Steve still really wasn't sure how Eddie had talked him into it. But when he had played for Robin the first time and she freaked out and told him how amazing it was, he had gained a bit of confidence. And when the Corroded Coffin guys had been much the same, Gareth going so far as to tell Steve they had to figure out how to put a piano in a couple Corroded Coffin songs so he could play with them (which was not happening, no matter they thought), he had decided it might not be so bad if the party heard him, too.
So, that was how he found himself sitting his living room, which was more full of life than it had ever been in Steve's life, ever seating area occupied and a few people sitting around on floor, perched on his piano bench, fingers posed to begin playing.
He started with the song that had started it all, "Piano Man", and by the time he'd reached the chorus the whole room was singing with him. Eddie from that same chair, Robin leaning against the wall right next to the piano and Vickie by her feet on a cushion, Dustin on the rug by El's feet where she sat on the couch, Lucas and Max from where they were on the love seat, Joyce from her place beside Nancy and Jonathan, and even Hopper from the chair beside Eddie's. Even Will and Mike, where they say by Dustin, holding hands under the blanket where they thought no one could see it. Even Nancy and Jonathan, who had settled together, warm bodies pressed close despite their fight earlier that day.
And, as the song came to an end and Max called out for him to play another, and El cheered her agreement, Steve realized that this was what home felt like. That, despite it all, despite the monsters, the demons, the Russians, the magic, the scars, the bruises and the blood, they had found their way to the other side. They still had each other. They were allowed to be happy again. They were safe, and they were warm, and they were real, and they were together. And that was all that really mattered.
And, if Steve earned himself a new nickname as "the Piano Man", and his family (because, let's be real, that's what they are) teased him about the piano occasionally, that was okay. Because he got to share the peace, and that security, and that passion with the most important people in the world.
(And if, years later, Steve agreed to play the wedding march for Max while she walked down the aisle, that was really no one's business. And if, many years later, Steve and Eddie share their first dance after they are finally legally married to "Piano Man", well that's just a coincidence, really.)