Archive of Our Own

As much as it can, life goes back to normal in the ashes. Hawkins is a ruin of its former self — torn in half, ripped asunder — but what else are they supposed to do? They rebuild. Steve picks up construction work around his shifts at the video store; it feels good to go home at night with dirt under his nails, to stand under the hottest water that he can stand to ease tired muscles. He volunteers at the aid centre that's still taking up half the high school, spends time folding clothes and packing boxes, hauling the boxes out to be pressed into waiting hands. His parents call and tell him that, given the circumstances, they're going to wait this out at the house in Hawaii.

He says that he understands. He knows that he isn't surprised. In their absence, he does everything he can to hold shit down. To pick up where he left off, like he has every time weird shit went down. Something about it is harder, this time, though. Every step forward is a small battle won; there's a weight on his shoulders that he can't seem to shift. Somehow, it feels like they lost more, this time around. When he sees one of the others — Nancy or Robin, Jonathan or Hopper or Joyce, or one of the kids — he feels the constriction in his chest ease slightly. Here is someone else who was there. Here's someone else that understands.

He tries to ignore the absences: Max, and Eddie. He tries to imagine them whole, and present. Some days he's more successful than others.

The problem is that once you know it's there — the world that lurks under the world — you can't ever go back to being normal again, no matter how much you want it. No matter how desperate you are to just go back to being the man (the boy) you were before. Sometimes, lying awake in the middle of the night, tracing the ragged scars on his side, the echo of the friction burn around his throat, Steve finds himself thinking back and back, past Family Video and Scoops, Ahoy!, back to when the most important thing on his mind was whether Nancy Wheeler actually wanted to make out with him. When he was still King Steve. When he could hide in that, and feel safe.

He thinks about how, sometimes, his head feels heavier without a crown.

Sleep, when it comes, is hard won.
When he sleeps, he almost always dreams.

He steps into the cafeteria and, in the way of dreams, he's both nineteen and fourteen, all at once. The scent of the place is particularly vivid, redolent with pizza grease and ketchup. He's wearing the pair of sneakers that he liked best when he was a Freshman; he's tall, but he hasn't broadened out through the shoulders yet. Spotting friends, he weaves his way between the long tables, tray in hand, and then…

Eddie 'the Freak' Munson. The very first time Steve remembers seeing him. Freshman year for Steve, so it's Sophmore for Eddie, right? Right. His hair is shorter, not quite a buzz cut, shaggy across his forehead, and he's wearing black — a t-shirt, jeans — boots instead of sneakers. What Steve remembers — what he notices in the dream — is the sharp line of Eddie's jaw, and the way he uses his hands, the silver of his rings catching the light as he shapes words with fluttering fingers and pushes them out into the air. Steve remembers the moment viscerally, remembers being equally drawn to and repelled by the volume of the older boy's voice, the passion with which he spoke, the way he shifted and bounced in his seat. Even at that age, Steve had been intensely aware of how to carry himself, how to meet expectations (and people had expected so much of him, hadn't they? It had started at home, with his bold as brass dad, his paper thin mom, and then it had extended out and out and out until the whole thing was so heavy that he could barely breathe under the weight of it).

But he remembers being fourteen, and how it had felt to see Eddie for the first time.

Somehow, miraculously, Family Video survived the apocalypse. Half the town is empty, but the people who are left still need distractions, so they're still as busy as they ever were. In a lull, late in the afternoon, Steve leans his arms on the counter and lets his head drop, his eyes drifting closed for a minute. He'd woken up just as tired as he'd been when he crawled into bed; these days, just trying to exist, just trying to pretend that the world is normal and mundane and kind, is exhausting. He stifles a yawn against the back of his hand, and doesn't straighten.

"Hey, dingus," says Robin, her voice soft, her knuckles nudging him in the small of his back. "What's up?"
"Nothing," says Steve, straightening up, knowing from the look on her face that that clearly wasn't as convincing as he would have liked it to be. "I'm fine."
"Yeah. You absolutely look it. One hundred percent. Give the man his Oscar." She doesn't even look up from the magazine that she's paging through, but Steve knows her well enough to know that it's an act; she's spent most of the shift so far looking at him. "You've been like this for days, Harrington. What the hell's going on with you?"

How is he even supposed to answer that? He shakes his head instead.

"What the hell's going on with any of us, Robin?" he says, stretching his arms over his head, and then leaning to grab a pile of tapes that need shelving. "Half the town is still on fire. El can't work out what the hell's going on with the plants. We're all waking for Vecna to come back and actually get the job done this time. I'm just…you know. Making it. One day at a time. Just like everybody else."

He spends the rest of his shift studiously trying to avoid talking to her anymore. Because what the hell is he supposed to say, honestly? How does he explain the fact that he still wakes up bathed in sweat, a muscle deep ache in his side, a burn in his throat? How does he explain the dreams, and the weird, painful longing that they leave in their wake? How's he supposed to quantify the guilt he feels, that they didn't have a chance to go back for Eddie's body? That they talked about it less and less, and then even Dustin stopped mentioning it? That, eventually, you stop keeping track of how many times you should have died, but didn't but, as it turns out, it's harder to ignore when someone should have lived, and didn't get the chance.

He doesn't know why he cares. He doesn't know what it matters. It's not like they'd even known each other for long.

But it does matter. It does, it does, it does.

He's standing in the Hawkin's High Locker room, and it's Junior year, before Billy Hargrove and everything going to shit. Sweaty, Steve strips off his shirt and drops it on the bench. He's not sure if he's just played a game or finished a practise but, based on the silence behind him, around him, he'd put money on the latter. It doesn't matter. He just needs to shower and then meet up with the others, and…

Footsteps. The scuff of rubber soles on tile.

"Steve Harrington," says Eddie, dragging the syllable of Steve's name out between his teeth. His head is canted to one side; in the dim light, his eyes are almost black. Eddie's wearing gym kit, but barely - his shorts are slung low on his hips, his t-shirt holed at the hem, the sleeves rolling where he's cut them shorter. Everything's clean, but worn and picked apart, like he couldn't bear to have something against his skin that he hadn't altered somehow, that he hadn't made his. His dark hair is pulled back from his face, knotted loosely and, not for the first time, Steve thinks about how Eddie kind of reminds him of Nancy Wheeler.

"What do you want, man?" asks Steve, hooking his thumbs under his waistband as he pads towards the shower.

"Me? I just want to get out of this shithole whole," says Eddie, and Steve isn't looking at him, but he can hear the look on his face, the way a smirk just tugs at the corner of his mouth. He can feel Eddie's eyes on him, as he walks away, as he steps into the shower. He shoves his shorts down and ignores the fact that he's being watched, ignores the fact that, knowing that, his face heats up.

"Maybe you should do your fucking homework, then? Pass Math?"

There's a soft snort of laughter, and he realises that Eddie's closer than he thought. Warm water sluices over his skin. He ducks his head and feels it trickle through his hair.

"Here's what I wonder, Harrington," says Eddie and he's suddenly close enough that Steve feels it as much as hears it, feels warm breath against the side of his face.

"You going to tell me, or..?"

"What I wonder is - what the hell happened to you, man?" asks Eddie, and Steve has the strongest sense that, if he swayed backwards, he'd be pressed against Eddie everywhere they touched. He doesn't, though. Steve stays where he is, head bent under the sluice of the shower, tense through his shoulders and his biceps and his hips. "When did you turn into such an asshole? I remember you before, man. You were fucking golden."

And then he's gone, like he was never there, and Steve shivers (and not just because the air is suddenly cooler) and

And wakes up thinking how many times he wondered that exact thing himself.

One afternoon, after he drives Robin home, Steve turns left out of her street instead of right, and heads out to the hospital on the edge of town. Out of habit, he stops at the little convenience store on the ground floor, buys grapes and a soda, a copy of a skate magazine before he climbs into the elevator and rides it to the dim private room on the top floor, tucked away at the end of a long corridor. The rest of the hospital might be groaning at the seams but, thanks to intervention that's come from way, way over their heads, Max sleeps peacefully on in private.

"Hey, kid," he says, dropping into the seat at her bedside. The casts don't change. Neither does the look on her face. But her hair is damp, newly parted and plaited and Steve has this moment of just being pathetically grateful that someone is taking care of her. He might have hated her brother (because her brother was an asshole) but, however much he hated Billy, he loves Max just as hard. In his wallet, folded and refolded so many times that it's gone soft along the folds, there's a letter. He's read it so many times that he doesn't even have to take it out to know what it says.

He does what he usually does, on a night like this - he toes out of his sneakers and then he sits with his feet up on the edge of her bed and he eats the grapes and he drinks the soda and he reads Max every word of the magazine that he bought. Sometimes it's skating, sometimes it's fashion or celebrity gossip or music. He doesn't even know if she can hear or not (he knows that El doesn't think so). But, if she can, wherever she is, he wants her to occasionally hear a familiar voice. It feels really, really important, somehow.

A nurse comes in and listens while Steve finishes up the review that he's reading. She's one of the ones he likes: probably old enough to be his mom, her blonde hair cut short and sensible, her eyes the blue of faded jeans. They crease at the corners when she smiles.

"You're really good to her," she says, straightening the sheet over Max's hip. "Isn't he, Maxine?"

"Max," he says, his voice suddenly raw in his throat. "She likes to be called Max."
He's pretty sure that he's told her that before. He doesn't blame her for not remembering, though.

When it's time for him to go, he adds the magazine to the pile he's started on a bottom shelf. He drops what's left of the grapes at the nurse's station. When he gets into his car, he sits in the driver's seat for a long moment, his hands frozen on the wheel. His eyes sting. His throat burns.

He pulls himself together, and then he drives.

Hi Steve. If you're reading this, I guess…I guess things didn't turn out the way we planned it. Sucks to be me, right? I just wanted to tell you…I wanted to tell you thanks, for everything you've done for me. For taking care of me after Billy died. For standing up for me. Just keep being you, okay? This is going to be really shitty for the others but I know you'll be able to cope with it. I know you'll take care of them — all of them — and make sure they're safe. I love you, Steve. If this doesn't work out, I want you to know that. xM

"For your modesty, dude."

He remembers this, that moment in the Upside Down, the rough fabric of Eddie's vest, and the ache in his side under makeshift bandages. He puts it on, and there's the way that Eddie smells again: cigarettes and weed but underneath that there's fabric softener and soap, like he's trying to smell good because he already grew up in a trailer, so why give anyone else any ammunition, right? He remembers the warmth of Eddie's body still in it when he put it on.

He remembers this but, this time, the details have shifted. This time, Eddie and him are alone, no sign of Robin or Nancy ahead. The sky overhead is heavy and dark, but the world is quiet, still in a way the Upside Down almost never is. Eddie stands still, looking straight at him, arms folded across his chest, and Steve tries not to notice the lean muscles in Eddie's arms, the neat, spare lines of him. Steve himself has gotten a little softer since high school; he still runs, but he doesn't play as much sport and it shows, in his muscle tone and a little softness through his chest and sides. He's strong in different ways these days and, honestly, he doesn't hate it. For so long, he was so entirely wrapped up in how he looked; now, he's more worried about how he's useful.

Eddie is still looking at him, that smug half smile on his face. Steve doesn't know him well enough to read that look, but he's drawn to it, all the same. He looks over his shoulder and laughs.

"Jesus," he breathes.
"What?"
"Skull rock," he says, and glances back at Eddie. "I practically invented this place, y'know. Made it popular, anyway."
"Oh, I bet you did, King Steve," says Eddie, moving forward, crowding into Steve's personal space in the way he always did, the way he made look so easy. "How many girls did you come up here with, anyway?"

Steve feels himself blush.

"Enough, I guess."
"Mmm-hmm."

Eddie wanders away from him a few steps from Steve, his hands shoved into the pockets of his jeans. Steve finds his eyes drawn down to the tight line of Eddie's ass in dark denim, the bandana in his back pocket, the silver chain hanging from his belt. Even in the dream, he wonders what the fuck he's doing, looking at Eddie Munson's ass, but that doesn't stop him looking, doesn't mean that he's not still looking when Eddie turns around.

"Can I help you with something, dude?" asks Eddie, and there's that familiar swagger as Eddie moves closer again, that smirk as Eddie tilts his head slightly to meet Steve's eyes. It doesn't take much; there's only an inch or so between them in height, with Eddie in sneakers, Steve in bare feet. Steve shakes his head and Eddie smirks wider.

"Liar," he says, and then Eddie's leaning in closer, and his calloused fingertips are just skimming along the line of Steve's jaw. Suddenly, Steve is desperate for Eddie to lean in that extra fraction; he can feel it in every inch of his bare skin. Eddie's breath is hot and damp against his lips.

He swallows.

It didn't happen like this. It didn't. They'd walked through the woods side by side and Eddie had talked to him about Dustin, about how Dustin thought he was a badass. Steve remembers how that made him feel, so how is it that, now, dreaming, all he can think about is the way that Eddie smells, his eyes fixed on Eddie's mouth?

"God, Eddie," he breathes. "Jesus."
"Cool your jets, Stevie," says Eddie, fingers of one hand just skimming the bare skin under the hem of his vest, over the waistband of Steve's sweats, and…

On his nightstand, his alarm shrills out and Steve reaches out blindly, killing it with the heel of one hand. He lies there for a moment, his breath shivering in his chest, one arm draped across his eyes. Already, the exact details of the dream are slipping, but he can still remember the smell of Eddie's skin. He went to bed in sweats last night and, when he shifts his hips under the sheet, he realises that he's half hard.

Jesus Christ.

He sits up, kicking his legs out of the bed and bending over his thighs for a moment, dragging in a breath, scrubbing both hands back through his hair. Eddie. Eddie Munson. He'd known Eddie in school, obviously, but they had moved in radically different circles and, up until a few months ago, Steve had honestly never thought of Eddie as anything but a freak. After he'd met Dustin and the others, a lot of the venom had gone out of that thought, but he'd still never even considered that they'd ever end up anything even approaching friends.

Still. Stranger things have happened, right?

He pads into his bathroom, shucking off his sweats as he goes, and turns on the shower. He adjusts the temperature, setting it as cool as he thinks he can stand before he ducks under it. Unbidden, he remembers the dream he had where he was showering after basketball — Eddie in his gym kit, his hair tied back, standing so, so close. Steve makes a soft, strangled sound and presses his hands against the tile, letting his head hang forward. It's not the first time he's woken up half hard after dreaming about another guy, but he's always put it down to hormones or not getting laid recently enough. When he sat on that bathroom floor listening to Robin talk about liking girls, he'd felt…something, maybe — a flicker of a realisation of a rumour of a thought — but he hadn't held onto it too hard. He'd let it slip through his fingers and, later, when he remembered thinking it, he'd dismissed it as an after-effect of whatever the Russians gave them. He liked girls, right? He'd always liked girls.

But this? This feels different somehow. The way that he'd felt in the dream (the way that Eddie had made him feel, in the dream) lingers. It's not the first time that he's had a dream like that but, usually, they're more frantic - fumbled handjobs or a mouth on his cock, his hips and chest pressed against firm muscle - and less…

Less longing.

It makes a sick kind of sense, he guesses. Before, he was having dreams he wouldn't act on, and now? Now he's having dreams that he can't act on. Because Eddie Munson is dead and gone and left behind in the Upside Down. Because, like so many times before in his life, Steve Harrington apparently didn't realise what he had until right in front of him until it was already gone.

He worries at it all day while he works, while he shifts lumber and mixes cement, his body doing the heavy work mechanically while his brain spins off in all directions. Today, he's working with a crew that are doing repairs downtown, the ash still filtering down like snow. When he first started helping out, he'd been pretty sure he'd never get his head in the game; most of the other guys are either ones who did this kind of work before or guys who used to work at the plant, before everything happened and the ground opened up. Now, though, he actively enjoys it; it puts extra money in his pocket, and it gives him something to focus on other than the workings of his own head. Which doesn't mean that he finds no time to think about the dreams that he's been having, but it does mean that, for a few hours, the sound of Eddie's voice in his head isn't quite so freaking loud.

They'd already arranged that he'd pick Robin up after her band practice so that they can hang out, so 8pm sees him sitting in his car with the windows cracked just enough to let air in without ash and Springsteen playing softly on the speakers. Sometimes, when he picks her up, he feels the weirdest sense of loss — for who he was in High School, he guesses. For how simple things had felt, back then, before that day that he walked into Jonathan Byer's house, bat in hand, and the world fell in on itself a little.

He closes his eyes, and he thinks, consciously this time, about Eddie Munson. About the classes they'd shared during Steve's senior year — they'd sat a few desks away from each other in math, and Eddie had had a deeply annoying habit of kicking Steve's chair in English. He'd probably loaned Eddie a pen a few times. Steve grades had been just good enough to scrape by for graduation. Eddie's hadn't.

He thinks about the first time that he saw Eddie after that, in that boathouse, when Eddie slammed him up against the wall, the bite of broken glass at his throat. He remembers the look on Eddie's face, the heave of panicked breath in his chest, the slightly sweaty, lived-in smell of him, after hours of running, and hiding, and fear.

Can't start a fire, croons the Boss. Can't start a fire without a spark.
Which is kind of on the nose, isn't it?

Steve starts when the car door opens, jarring him out of his Munson-based reverie.

"Hey, dingus," says Robin, dropping her trumpet case into the back and then swinging into the passenger seat, ruffling her hands through her hair. "Sorry I kept you waiting. That went on and on and…" She stifles a yawn against the back of her hand. "Sorry. On."

"Don't worry about it," says Steve, turning the radio down a little and pulling out of the lot, driving up towards the road. "Are you okay to…y'know…hang out for a while? I thought we could go for a drive or something. Fries on me?"

The way to Robin's heart is almost always free fries, he's found.

At first, they just drive, the music still playing. In the past, Steve might have tried to fill the silence but now, after everything, he kind of likes knowing someone well enough for this kind of quiet. Robin hums quietly to herself, her head tilted towards the window and, outside, the lights of Hawkins spill by. He swings by KFC, and Robin runs in, his money in her hand, and comes back with two orders of fries and two large Pepsis. After that, they head out of town, a little, out closer to Lover's Lake, where they'll be able to see some stars.

Once he's killed the engine, Steve finds himself suddenly anxious, his foot bouncing a little as he settles himself, his drink in his hand. He takes a long pull of the soda and sets it down, pops a few fries into his mouth and chews, thoughtfully.

"How did you know?" he says, finally.
"About what?" asks Robin, looking over at him, a fry frozen on its way to her mouth. "Because I know a lot of things, you know. It's kind of my whole deal."

Steve doesn't say anything for a long moment. He takes a breath and holds it until he feels a tightness in his chest and then he lets it out. He opens his mouth and closes it. Sips his soda. Tries again.

"That you weren't…straight. I guess?"

Robin's whole posture changes. She shifts, turning her body to face him, one leg curled up into the seat with her. Her dark-rimmed eyes are wide.

"Wait. What are you telling me?"
"That I…" He tips his head back and looks up at the roof of the car. "Might not…entirely…" He takes another deep breath, and just says it. "Might not entirely be straight."

"Wow." Robin draws the single syllable out in a way that kind of reminds him of Eddie, despite the vast difference in the timbre of their voices. "I…Wow. I really thought you were the straightest person I knew."
"Yeah, well. I, y'know." He makes a vague gesture at himself. "Contain multitudes or some shit, I guess."

He doesn't even remember who said that. He's pretty sure he didn't make it up, especially with a word like multitudes.

"Are you…" He watches Robin take a moment to formulate the question. "Are you seeing someone?"

He shakes his head, more vehemently than he means to. "No. I mean, no. It's just…Yeah. It's something that I've been thinking about and…" He huffs a laugh, glancing up at her. "Feels good to say it out loud. Kinda."

Robin's quiet for a moment and then she shuffles closer, leaning her head against Steve's shoulder.

"Yeah," she says, finally. "It kinda does, doesn't it?"
"I still like boobies," he says, feeling the need to clarify. He's not looking at Robin, but he feels her smile against his shoulder. "Just for the record."
"So you just…like other things too?"

He nods.

"I guess? I've never…you know…acted on it, but. Yeah. I think so."

Robin squeezes his knee for a second and then she reaches out, stealing a few fries from the box balanced on the seat between his legs.

"Cool," she says, and, for the first time in days and days, Steve feels the noise in his head and his chest go completely quiet. It feels like a weight off his shoulders. It feels like he really knows who he is for the first time in years.

"Cool," he echoes, and then he turns his head and drops a kiss into Robin's hair. "I love you."

Another smile.

"I love you too."

It's kind of funny - he tells Robin and, almost immediately, he stops dreaming about Eddie. Maybe it was like opening a vent or squeezing a pimple or something; telling Robin relieved the pressure, and now it's not on his mind anymore. Maybe it was never even about Eddie; his subconscious just latched on to the last guy around his age that he'd spent any time with, other than Jonathan Byers. The thought is still there, though - what if he acted on it? How would it be different from being with, say, Nancy?

One night, he gets into his car and he drives out of Hawkins, heading for Indianapolis. There's a bar there where he thinks he might be able to try it out - turn on the charm, and see what happens. It took him hours to decide on what to wear, before he settled on jeans, boots, and a henley. He styled his hair. He stared at himself in the mirror for a long time.

He's never going to know unless he tries, is he?

There's a slightly hairy moment when Steve thinks that his fake I.D isn't going to pass muster — it's always been good enough for getting beer just outside of Hawkins when his parents are out of town, but this is the big city, and maybe they're quicker on the uptake here? Still, he makes it through the door. The air inside is close and humid, heavy with cigarette smoke and sweat. Steve makes his way to the bar, orders a beer, takes a convulsive swallow. He tries to make himself relax, through the shoulders and his chest, tries to just be in his skin. He doesn't feel like this around women but he knows his track record there, doesn't he? He feels like he'ss safe in the assumption that, if someone's in this bar and they're also in possession of a dick, then they're potentially going to be interested in him.

At least, that's the theory.

A guy catches his eye. He's taller than Steve by an inch or two, with longish blond hair, a shadow of stubble on his jaw. Skinny and loose, leaning over the bar, dressed in black cotton and denim, silver rings on his fingers. There's something familiar about him, about the way he presents himself while still being different enough that Steve doesn't feel pathetic watching him. The guy looks up and catches Steve looking; Steve feels himself blush but, then, the other guy winks. Steve raises his beer in a tentative toast.

A moment later, the guy slips into the space at Steve's side. His hair is long enough to brush his jaw, but it's shaved over his ear. Steve finds himself fascinated by that, by the silver earrings fringing the bare lobe, by the holes in the threadbare t-shirt over a sharp collarbone. Steve finds himself uncharacteristically nervous but, over the last few years, he's learned what to do when he's nervous. He throws himself forward, and hopes for the best.

"Hey," he says, half-shouts, his mouth close to the other guy's ear. "I'm Steve."
"Hey." The smile is bright and, Steve thinks, genuine, warming blue eyes. "Danny." He lifts his bottle, sips his beer; the fingers of his other hand graze against Steve's hip. Steve's stomach does this little nervous dip; it isn't entirely unpleasant. "I haven't seen you here before."

Steve shakes his head. Danny's hand stays on his hip and Steve finds that he doesn't mind that. He turns his body a little, lining their bodies up in a way that feels entirely natural. Once, he'd told Dustin that the way to get girls was to pretend not to notice them but that's not always the right thing. Sometimes, you can let yourself be drawn in. Sometimes, you can just be obviously available and see what happens.

Robin likes to tell him that he ought to trust his intuition because, sometimes, the universe really is guiding your life. Now, Steve doesn't actually think that he believes that shit, but he also finds that he isn't really surprised when Danny leans in and grazes their lips together. Arousal thrills through Steve's core, buries itself deep in the pit of his stomach. He feels his cock take notice, his jeans suddenly tighter. Danny pulls back enough that Steve can see his face, see the suddenly very direct look in blue eyes.

"Do you want to go somewhere?" he asks, and Steve nods before he's even had time to think it through. He lets his body do the thinking for him.

"Yeah," he says, and he chases it with a long swallow of beer, so cold that it basically tastes like nothing at all. "Let's…do that."

Danny takes him by the hand, threading their fingers together and, as he's led through the tangle of the crowd, Steve is struck by how different it feels — holding another man's hand, versus holding, say, Nancy's. He can feel the strength in Danny's long fingers, the width of his palm. The sleeves of his black t-shirt are rolled up, and Steve finds himself staring at the long muscles in his upper arms as they shift, as Danny tugs him through the club, into a tight corridor and then through a scuffed door that says 'LADIES' in scrawly, handwritten letters.

"Wait…" he says, as Danny turns them, as he backs them towards a cubicle.
"Hardly any women here," says Danny, laughing a little breathlessly as he crowds into Steve's space. "Less chance of being interrupted."
"Oh, okay," says Steve, stepping back enough to let Danny shut the door behind them, push the lock into place. "I get it."
"Good," says Danny, and then he's stepping in, pressing his hips against Steve's, one hand coming up to cradle the side of his face as he leans in again.

This time, it's not just a brush of lips. This time, it's a proper kiss, lips and tongue and the edge of teeth, and Steve finds himself opening his mouth, fully committing. His hands fist in the back of Danny's shirt, holding him close. He's tall and lean, all hard muscle, so different from anyone Steve's ever made out with before. Steve's always loved making out - he loves the closeness of the other person, the fact that - for a moment at least - it was two people entirely focused on each other. Except…

Except that his mind keeps wandering. He keeps taking the way that Danny feels, pressed up against him, and thinking how it might feel different if it was…someone else. Someone a little shorter, a little softer in the middle, a little sharper at the edges. Danny breaks the kiss and Steve shakes his head a little, to clear it. The last thing he needs is to be thinking about Eddie, right now. Eddie's dead. Thinking about him won't get him anywhere, will it?

Instead, he curls his arm around Danny's neck, tentatively pushing his fingers into his blond hair.

"I…don't really know how this works," he admits, glancing down — at Danny's lips, his chest, the press of their hips. The plywood door is reassuringly solid against his back. He focuses on what he can feel: the door, Danny's weight against him, the warmth of the other man's skin through his t-shirt. Things that are tangible. Things that are real.

"That's okay, love," says Danny, his thumb stroking along the line of Steve's jaw. "Don't overthink it. It just has to feel good. That's all. When did you last get tested?"

Steve blanks for a moment, and he shakes his head dumbly.

"Never, I…"
"That's okay. I'm clean, and there's still plenty we can do."

Steve swallows, nods and leans in just enough to close the space between their mouths. This time, it's him that drives the kiss, who nudges it deeper, tilting his head and opening his mouth, making a soft sound when Danny presses forward with the tip of his tongue. This time, Steve doesn't try to overthink it. This time, his hand stays in Danny's hair, as the kiss, the other cupping the side of his neck, his pulse against Steve's palm. The other man's mouth is soft, responsive, and Steve suddenly finds it much easier to get lost in kissing him like this. Danny's hands wander, down Steve's arms, up his sides, rucking up the fabric of his shirt slightly; Steve feels cool air against his skin. Danny tucks the tips of his fingers under the waistband of Steve's jeans, skimming around to the front, thumb against his belt buckle.

"Is this okay?" he asks, and Steve finds himself nodding.
"It's okay," he says.

It's more than okay.

He ends up pushed back against the cubicle door with his jeans and underwear shoved down around his thighs so that Danny can curl long fingers around his cock. That much, at least, feels familiar; Danny clearly knows what he's doing, but Steve's had handjobs before, and there's only so many ways that they can go, right? For a moment, he fumbles, unsure what to do with his own hands, but then Danny is guiding him, overlapping their fingers, so that their cocks are pressed together, so they're both rocking into a tangle of fingers with every stroke. Steve can feel it building, that electric tightness in the pit of his stomach, in his balls, and then everything goes bright and sharp at once and he comes hard, his head thudding back so suddenly that it's almost painful. Maybe he hadn't realised how much he needed that until it was already happening. After, his thighs still trembling, he focuses on Danny, on the shift of his fingers and palm, on bringing the other guy off. He knows what he's doing, he tells himself. It's not that different from things that he's done before.

When they're both done, Danny leans his forehead against Steve's, presses a sweet kiss against the corner of his mouth.

"Not bad for a first time," he says, a smirk tugging at the corner of his lips. "Well done, darling."

Danny cleans them up with perfunctory, spare grace; it's clear that he, at least, has done this before. Once they're both put back together, clothes back in place, Danny kisses him one more time.

"Can I buy you a drink?"

Steve hesitates. For a moment, he thinks he's going to say yes, but then he shakes his head.

"I think…I'm going to go. But, thanks, though?"

He hates the uncertain, slightly needy note in his own voice right then. It reminds him of other nights, of standing with Nancy Wheeler in someone else's bathroom. You don't love me?

"You're welcome," says Danny, pushing his hair back from his face. "I'll see you around, maybe."

When Danny steps out, Steve locks the cubicle door behind him and he waits, for a moment, in silence. When he's ready, he stands up and washes his hands, splashes water on his face. He slips out of the bar without running into Danny, and goes to his car. It isn't until he's behind the wheel, the engine already running, that it hits him - this great, yawning emptiness. This paralysing sense of loss. He leans his forehead against the wheel and just lets himself feel it for a moment. The tears take him by surprise but, for a moment, he just lets them come. For the first time, really, he lets himself mourn.

Springsteen croons about the poets, how they just stand back, and they let it all be.

By the time he knows what's happening, Eddie's already inside him. He's naked, on his back in Eddie's bed, on Eddie's stained sheets, his knees spread and Eddie's cock — oh, God — buried deep inside him. Eddie's weight rests on his chest for a moment, and Steve can feel the heat rolling off him, the want trembling through the muscles of his upper arms, his back. Eddie's hair is caught back from his face, and Steve runs his fingers up the bare nape of Eddie's neck. Eddie's skin smells of sweat and soap and cigarette smoke.

It's too much. It's not enough. It's perfect.

Eddie turns his head and kisses Steve's bare shoulder, his neck, the hinge of his jaw, and Steve finds himself whining, shifting, wanting more and more and more. Eddie's naked on top of him, and Steve realises that, even with a year of shared gym classes, he's never seen Eddie naked before, not once. He's fit, lean, but still a little bit soft, through his chest and stomach; less hairy than Steve, just a scatter across his sternum, more from his belly button down. Steve slides both hands down and grabs at the curve of Eddie's ass, which is surprisingly ripe and soft, and fills his palms perfectly. He lifts one leg, grazing it against Eddie's hip.

"Are you going to fuck me," he asks, breathlessly. "Or are you waiting for a formal invitation?"
"Jesus H. Christ," breathes Eddie, his mouth still close to Steve's ear. "You're so fucking impatient, Harrington." He punctuates with a hard thrust of his hips, pushing so deep that Steve could swear he sees stars.

"Fuck, yes, I am," says Steve, arching his back into the press of Eddie's cock inside him, his blunt nails dragging against the pale skin of Eddie's back and shoulders. "C'mon, Munson. Show me what you got."

Laughing, Eddie thrusts into him once, twice, and then he's pulling out, shifting up onto his knees and slapping the flat of Steve's thigh, taking hold of his hips and manhandling him a little, so Eddie's lifting and Steve's squirming until he ends up on his belly on the mattress, legs spread, splayed, fingers curling over the edge of the mattress as Eddie rubs the head of his cock against his asshole and then pushes right back in, so deep that Steve can taste it on the back of his tongue. He groans, the sound drawn out of the core of him, as Eddie starts to really fuck him like he means it, thrusting hard enough to rock Steve against the mattress. The friction of the sheets against the length of his hard cock is amazing, maddening and he reaches back with one hand, clutching at Eddie's thigh, his ribs, the curve of his skull - holding on to anything he can reach.

"That's it," he mumbles, moans, rocking as much as he can in the tight space between Eddie's hips and the mattress, one arm bent underneath him to give him some leverage. Eddie's mouth is on his shoulder, and Steve can feel the edges of his teeth against his skin, the wet swipe of his tongue. Steve's never done this with a guy, not for real (though he's thought about it, guiltily, late at night, looked at porn that he'd immediately shuffled to the very bottom of the stack hidden at the back of his closet), but he thinks he could get used to the way Eddie sounds when he fucks: the breathy moans, the groans, the mumbled curse words. He thinks he could get used to the warmth of Eddie's palms and the thickness of his rough fingers, the weight of him, the press of his cock.

He thinks he could get used to Eddie.

"Fuck," he mumbles. "Please, please, please." He says the word so many times, it doesn't sound like a word anymore. He pleads. He begs. He doesn't care. He's never wanted anything this much.

"C'mon, Stevie," says Eddie, sucking up a mark on the side of Steve's neck, right over his pulse. "Lemme see it."

And that's enough to push Steve over the edge, to make him come hard, his cock pressed and pulsing against his belly, against the soft, worn sheets. Eddie fucks him through it, his thrust slower, deeper. Steve just about has the presence of mind to wonder if this is why Eddie wouldn't own up to the source of those stains…

"God, you're good, Stevie," murmurs Eddie. "You're so fucking good. You're golden, baby."
Steve feels the praise bloom in his chest like sunlight.

He wakes up and that glow is still on him and, for a moment, he just lies still in it, lets it sink into his skin. He's had sex dreams before, obviously, but never one as intense…as real...as that. He wakes up still aching with it, his cock thick and hard against his belly under the sheets. It's been a while since his last wet dream but, for a moment, he feels like he's teetering on the edge of it, like he could come without touching anything, with just the memory of the way it had felt in the dream.

Eddie fucking Munson. Jesus Christ.
Of course. Of course he'd fall for someone he can't have, can never have. Of course he'd fall for the boy who's never coming home.

Steve kicks off his sheets. He'd gone to bed naked the night before, and the air in his room feels heavy and humid on his bare skin. He lies there, still breathing hard, his hands up over his head, his heels digging slightly into the mattress. He's going to have to do something about it, or he's never going to get back to sleep. He's going to have to do something about it, or he's going to go out of his mind.

Without turning his head, he gropes for the tube of KY on his bedside drawer; when his mother's away, he doesn't even have to go through the motions of pretending that it isn't there. Fumbling, he slicks both hands, shifting onto his knees and letting his head drop to the pillow in front of him. He curls one hand around his cock and reaches back with the other, running his fingers along the cleft of his ass, pressing in one and then, a moment later, a second. He fucks himself with both hands, his eyes closed, as he imagines someone kneeling behind him, as he imagines hands on his hips, his back, in his hair. He jerks off and he imagines how it would feel to be getting completely and thoroughly fucked by Eddie fucking Munson.

He comes with three fingers pressed into his ass, fucking into his own fist, two syllables tumbling out of his mouth on the edge of a sob. He makes a mess - all over himself, and the sheets. When he's done, he wipes a smear of come off his jaw, stubble scraping the back of his hand. Without really thinking about it, he licks it clean. He strips the sheets off his bed, leaving them in a pile in the corner of the room — he'll deal with them in the morning. Right now, he needs a shower, and then he needs to try and get some sleep because, Jesus, his opening shift is going to really fucking suck otherwise.

It isn't until he's back in his bed, curled up in clean sheets, his hair still damp that he really lets himself feel it: a loss he doesn't really have any right to grieve. He'd barely even known that Eddie Munson existed before Chrissy Cunningham died. He'd barely even registered that he was there.

And here he is, anyway, right?
A tear slips free, rolls down the side of his nose. He tastes salt at the corner of his mouth. When he finally lets himself feel it, it's the worst thing in the world.

When he manages to fall asleep, he sleeps like the dead. He doesn't dream.

A sound in the darkness wakes him. One minute, he's fast asleep, and then next thing, he's wide awake, startled out a doze by a soft plink sound. He rolls to look at his clock and he finds that the display is dark, which throws him for a moment before he realises that it's just another black-out. In the days since Hawkins fell apart, as more and more of the people in charge of maintaining the town's infrastructure have fled, things have started to get more and more shaky.

Plink.
There it is again.

He gets out of bed and pads over to the window, twitches the blind and expects to see Dustin or Mike or one of the other shitheads standing by the pool. Maybe there's something wrong with Max? Why wouldn't they just call though — he's always made sure they've all got his number and…

Nobody. There's nobody there. And then…plink.
It's definitely coming from behind him.

"What the fuck?"

He turns slowly. His bedroom is exactly as it ought to be: the rumpled bed, the lube he'd discarded earlier, the sneakers he'd worn to work. He rubs both hands across his face. He's imagining things; just because he doesn't remember dreaming doesn't mean that he wasn't and some flicker of it is still clinging on, and then movement catches the corner of his eye, and…

And he all but falls backwards, scrambling on his hands and his heels until his back hits the wall, his heart pounding like a wild thing, like wings in his chest.

"Oh, my God," he mumbles, shaking his head slightly. "Oh, my God. What…What?"

There, in the full length mirror, Eddie is crouching. He looks like hell, his hair lank and tangled, half in his face, his Hellfire t-shirt torn and stained with blood and ichor. His hands are filthy, his nails ragged and bloody. He's holding a palmful of gravel cupped in his fingers. As Steve watches, he frowns, and then throws another up against the glass.

Plink.

"What the fuck?" breathes Steve, and then he's pushing back to his feet, walking towards the mirror. He sees the moment that Eddie realises that he's there; his dark eyes pull into focus and his lips part. A fat tear rolls down his cheek, leaving a pale trail in the dirt that's ingrained in his skin.

"I'm dreaming. I've got to be…This has got to a dream, right?" says Steve, and he watches as Eddie frowns, trying to read his lips. Steve bites his lip, rubs his upper arm with one palm. He's dreamed so many versions of Eddie, so many variations, but never like this. This Eddie looks real in the way that none of the others have. This Eddie looks like he's been through hell and kept going.

Steve's heart is still thrumming in his chest. Eddie's mouth is moving, and Steve tries to figure out what he's saying, but he can't. Eddie's bottom lip is split and swollen and Steve can imagine the word coming out slurred, no matter how clearly Eddie tried to annunciate. When he shakes his head, he sees the frustration flash across Eddie's bruised face. He turns away from Eddie, looking for paper and a pen, a marker, something. He should get in his car and go and get Eleven — he hates relying on her, but he figures she'd know what to do — but, when he turns back to Eddie, he sees an idea flicker across the other man's face.

On the other side of the glass, Eddie leans in, his cheeks puffing as he huffs a breath. The mirror fogs up from the inside out and Steve watches, in silence, as Eddie writes three letters with the tip of his finger.

S.
O.
S.