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I.
“Oh you’re kidding, I love that book,” says Steve Harrington.
Eddie wonders, for about half a second, if he’s somehow fallen into a different dimension. He stares down at the battered copy of The Silmarillion just in case he’s accidentally been reading like… whatever jocks read, a basketball like — handbook, or whatever. He isn’t. It’s still The Silmarillion. Eddie looks up at Steve Harrington, who is standing at the bottom of the stairs Eddie is sitting on, sunlight in his hair, sneakers shifting awkwardly on the tarmac of the school yard. “Uh-huh,” Eddie says, sort of dumbly.
“I mean, it took me a while to get through ‘cus I’m like… not great at reading.” Harrington blushes and runs a hand through his hair. “And like… it isn’t as good as the other ones… not enough Hobbits. Hey, you flunked again, huh?” He winces then, pre-emptively because Eddie’s still too dumbfounded by this conversation to even feel offended. “I’m only saying because uh… I babysit these kids right? I mean… kinda, they don’t really need babysitting, they just use me for rides around town and they don’t even give me gas money. Besides the point.” Harrington runs a hand through his hair. “They’re into that game you play, the club? D and D.” (He says it like that, not fast like D’n’D he says it like a dad, all slow and careful — D — and — D.) “So I’ll probably be seeing you around,” says Harrington, “picking them up and shit.”
Eddie blinks at him. “You are still talking to me,” Eddie says, marvelling. Harrington looks faintly embarrassed still and at that he sort of sinks in on himself like a weird deflatable thing, like a pop up mattress. “You have read the Silmarillion.” (He’s going to tell everyone… no one is going to believe him, God Harrington is dastardly.) “You know what D&D is.”
Harrington blinks back very slowly. “Uh-huh.”
“Harrington I’ve told you before that you should be buying your drugs from me, not from whoever Tommy H. gets his shit from.” Everyone knows Tommy H. and Harrington aren’t friends any more, it feels a little unnecessarily mean, all of a sudden, to bring it up. “What are you on, man?”
He laughs, sounding like he’s a little queasy. “Uh, nothing man. Just — Seeya.”
“… Bye,” he manages. He thinks he’s normally pretty pithy and funny but today all words are failing him. Maybe he’s dreaming, this seems like the sort of thing that would happen in one of those ludicrous and fucked up nightmares where you end up not being able to tell if all the weird shit you did is a memory or reality. He watches Steve Harrington walk away towards the parking lot and freedom from Hawkins High forever. It feels a little bit like he’s tripping acid again but marginally less traumatic.
“Man, are you okay?” asks Gareth, materialising at the foot of the stairs where Harrington had just been standing. “You look like you’ve accidentally shit yourself or something.”
Eddie pulls a face at him, opens his mouth to ask him if he knew that Steve Harrington was a massive nerd, remembers that no one is ever going to believe him and silently curses Harrington. “Nothing, man. Let’s go.”
*
II.
“Man, I hope this is rock bottom for you,” says Eddie, “if you keep digging I don’t know what you’re going to find.”
Harrington scowls at him and readjusts his shitty little sailor’s hat. He’s standing with one hip cocked, spinning a scooper around his finger. It’s — it’s nothing. It’s like — Nothing. “Munson. Ice-cream or scram.”
Not being as nice as last time they met, sure. That’s fine. “Y’know, it’s been killing me.” He taps his fingers on the counter and Harrington raises an eyebrow at him, waiting. “I’ve wanted to talk to someone for so long about how you’re a massive nerd but I know no one will ever believe me.”
The scowl falls away to a quick grin. “My master plan.”
Eddie shoots him the middle finger because fuck , he knew that was on purpose. Dick. “Dude,” he says, melting over the counter, “it’s too hot. What flavour do you recommend, Captain?”
“Maybe you shouldn’t be wearing leather. Put on a pair of jean shorts and a short sleeve like the rest of us.” Eddie raises his head to glare balefully at Harrington. “And I recommend the HMS Butterscotch,” he adds after a moment.
As Harrington loads him up a truly horrendously large sundae, Eddie eyes him and his floppy hair spilling out from under his paper hat and his weird little sailor get up. “So,” he says and Harrington looks up from where he’s scooping the extra chocolate scoop Eddie asked for, “I’ve been wondering… How the fuck do you know what the Silmarillion is?” He’s had Harrington saying not enough Hobbits playing on repeat in his brain for at least five weeks straight.
He rolls his eyes and stabs a blue plastic spoon into the top of the sundae. “I have hidden depths, Munson, I’m a many layered individual.”
Eddie eyes him sceptically.
“Hey, Harrington! Your breaks up,” someone says, banging out of the backroom, “you can stop flirting or whatever.”
“I’m not flirting with the town freak,” says Harrington and then winces.
“This is what I mean,” says Eddie, not even feeling that offended for some reason, “you do not have hidden depths.”
The girl — also unfortunately in sailor uniform — glances between them. “I already added a tally to the You Suck column,” she informs Harrington, “I suppose I can take it off, just this once. I thought you were talking to a girl, you were taking ages. Now I see you’ve just been missing the high school glory days.”
Harrington rolls his eyes again, very dramatically. “I wasn’t bullying him this whole time, he just ordered an unreasonably large sundae.”
“Customer’s always right,” says Eddie, grinning and sliding the sundae across the counter towards him.
“Go away,” says Harrington.
“Do you believe that he’s secretly a nerd?” he asks the girl, ‘Robin’ her nametag reads.
She frowns and looks Harrington up and down. “Uh… no?”
Harrington winks at him, paper hat jauntily perched on that perfect hair. The world is distinctly unfair.
*
Eddie eats as much ice-cream that summer as he usually would, thank you very much. His wallet is fine . (Harrington never has any nerdy leaks, however many books Eddie not-so surreptitiously pushes under his nose.)
(Sometimes he comes by whatever booth Eddie is sitting in, normally when he’s alone, and will stare at him for a long moment before whispering something nerdy — one time Eddie’s pretty sure Harrington hisses precious at him like Gollum — if only anyone else would hear him.)
The mall burns down, he doesn’t see Harrington for a few weeks until he walks into Family Video one day and sees him with that girl, his co-worker from Scoops Ahoy, he wonders if she’s his girlfriend. Harrington smiles at him when he walks in. He likes Star Wars because of the furry little guys, he says in front of Robin and his boss, who sighs like this is an argument that’s been hashed out several times. (He sneaks up behind Eddie in the sci-fi section and has an animated conversation with him about Back to the Future , he seems inordinately concerned about Marty fucking his mom on accident.)
*
III.
Eddie adopts Harrington’s baby nerds for no particular reason. They are the type of kids he shepherds up at the beginning of a new year, anyway, so it’s not because of him, or anything. They’re pretty good at D&D, too, even if Sinclair has his heart set on basketball (he takes after Harrington, obviously), and they’re fun.
When Harrington picks them up the first time he grins at Eddie and says, “Hey, Munson.”
The kids are all milling around being dicks by the door with Gareth and Jeff.
“Harrington,” says Eddie, feeling a little as though he’s fallen into a trap without realising it.
“Were they good?”
“Yes.” Eddie frowns at him, trying to work out why he feels like Harrington is about to laugh at him. “Uh… yeah, they were great.” He looks over his shoulder, everyone else is out of earshot. “Why are you acting like we’re a divorced couple and you’re picking them up after a weekend with dad? I promise I fed and bathed them, Harrington, all their homework is done, yadda yadda.”
Harrington shrugs at him, still grinning. “Dunno, they’ve been so excited about D&D all week, said you invited them to your campaign? Mike’s been going on about his paladin every hour ,” he says, shit eating grin only growing, “and he’s in his too cool for nerd shit era, so he must have been very excited.”
Eddie narrows his eyes. “You pronounced it right, you know what D&D is —” he accuses, mouth falling open before he can say more. The nerve . “You were all ‘ D and D ’ and now you know what a paladin is?”
Harrington looks like he’s about to start laughing, Eddie feels a little hysterical. The kids swarm them suddenly, talking ten to the dozen, complaining about getting home in time for dinner and shit. “How was the uh…” he pauses like he has to think, his eyes bright and shining on Eddie’s face, “Dungeons in the Dark?”
Henderson punches Harrington’s shoulder. “Dude, it’s Dungeons and Dragons .”
The world is a deeply foul and depressing, at times. “You dick,” he says to Harrington.
“What’s he done?” asks Mike with some interest, like getting dirt on Harrington is his life mission.
“Nothing,” Eddie says darkly. “Nothing at all.”
*
IV.
The world is fouler than Eddie could have possibly realised.
“I’m dying and you tell me this?” he demands of Steve Harrington, who is sitting beside him in Eddie’s trailer, the right side of the portal, waiting for everyone else to come back with an ambulance, or a car, or something.
Harrington rolls his eyes which is frankly rude, Eddie will be having a word with the Devil when he gets down there (probably within the next ten minutes) and let him know to get Harrington the express pass right down there alongside him. “Dude, Munson, you aren’t dying .”
“You’re telling me you do know who Ozzy is and you’re expecting me to believe I’m not dying? This is the kind of sick prank God would play on — actually, it’s the kind of sick prank you would play on me, what am I supposed to do? Ask the Devil if he believes Steve Harrington knows that Ozzy Osbourne bit the head off a bat and did it to evil alien bats just to be a nerd? And then lied to me about it? ‘Oh, no, Munson? Who is this Osbert Oozeborne? Did you say that was his name? I am a preppy dick and —’”
Steve snorts. “You can’t be talking this much and simultaneously be dying.” Then, sort of musingly, “Personally I think playing Master of Puppets — though very impressive, Munson — was a little… mainstream.”
“You did not just say that to me,” Eddie groans. Seriously, if he’s not dying, he might be now.
“I would have preferred a bit of Ozzy, honestly, I know Sabbath is like ‘so seventies’ or whatever, but it’s objectively better.”
“No,” Eddie manages to say, “you’re just wrong.”
“Or you could have gone Dio, you know,” he says, grinning like a maniac, “keep with some of the Black Sabbath guys but more modern, if you’re into that.”
He glares at Steve. “I’m not dying, am I? You wouldn’t be telling me this if I was dying. You’re trying to torture an injured man. You are — you are awful.”
“You’re finding it kinda metal,” Steve says, still smiling at him. He says it like Eddie finding it metal actually means something else, like hot or sexy or whatever, maybe Eddie has just lost a lot of blood. “Keep your eyes open, Munson,” he says, sort of cheerfully. Eddie realises, sort of distantly, that he might be dying, Steve is just trying to keep him talking by being a dick. “Did you know I’ve played D&D?”
Despite himself, he finds his eyes opening again. “You are such a monumental dick .”
*
V.
He’s sitting beside Steve Harrington’s pool, which is a trip and a half. Robin is waving the kids away from the barbecue like they’re dogs begging for a treat while Steve flips burgers while wearing the preppiest and most dad-like polo Eddie has ever witnessed. It’s not attractive, at all . No.
The sun is shining and the monsters have been defeated and the world is good again. Steve has comfortable pool loungers. It’s a nice day.
Someone drops down at the end of his lounger and he knows it’s Steve by the smell of his cologne, which is weird. “Burger,” says Steve and drops a paper plate on his chest.
Eddie cracks open an eye. “Burger indeed, thanks Harrington.” It’s a good burger, this day is full of good things. “Question,” he says, “did you get into the nerdy stuff before or after you realised monsters are real?”
He snorts. Eddie can feel the bare patch of skin between his shorts and where his polo rides up at the small of his back against his ankle. “I’ll never tell.”
“Do I have to almost die every time I want you to tell me a secret?”
Steve shrugs, the sun is behind him and it makes his face an unknowable shadow and turns his hair into flaxen gold even though it’s brown. “Depends what kind of secret.”
“Interesting,” Eddie mumbles around his burger. “What kind of secret doesn’t require near death experiences?”
“You’ll have to find out.” Eddie’s pretty sure Steve winks at him again but it’s hard to tell, squinting into the sun (he blushes anyway, just in case he did). “I mean, maybe I’ll tell you where my SEGA is if you’re a good boy.”
Eddie’s eyes, which had been drifting closed in the warmth of the sun, snap open. “You have a what ? Which model?”
Steve shrugs, long and languid like wouldn’t you like to know?
“Do the kids know?”
He grins, teeth flashing in the sun as he turns his head to look at them all choking down their burgers so they can jump back in the pool. “What do you think?”
“You’re unbelievable,” Eddie pronounces with certainty. “You are a jerk. A dick. A —”
*
one.
The start of the new millennium goes pretty well, all in all. Everyone assumes it was Eddie and Robin who decided to theme the party as the Millennium Falcon, Eddie is drunk enough to tell anyone that will listen it was actually Steve’s idea (as usual, he’s pretty sure nobody believes him). Robin and Steve — who are still, scandalously, married (despite the fact Robin has been off seeing the world with her ‘very close friend’, Mandy) — are catching up in the corner and probably spiking the punch bowl because they still act like teenagers around each other. Eddie is in tears in the kitchen over the fact Mike and Dustin keep hiding their beers guiltily every time he walks in like they aren’t both twenty-nine, and is on a mission to stick up the Falcon decal that keeps falling off the wall in the hall.
It’s a good start to the new year, the new decade, the new millennium. Eddie’s pretty tipsy already because Max — though really, this close to her thirties, she should be in the same boat as the rest of them — keeps deciding shots are a good idea and pillaging Steve and Eddie’s liquor cabinet (and Eddie can’t say no to a shot never mind his age). Midnight has already passed and he kissed Steve so thoroughly in front of the kids that Mike had told him it was probably traumatic and he was going to tell his therapist, that had been fun.
The group sort of meanders to gather in the living room as Steve finally works open the bottle of champagne they were meant to have at midnight (the cork had gotten stuck) and starts handing out glasses and talking New Year’s resolutions.
“Well I’m giving up dating for at least half a year,” Will says, looking morose and sipping champagne like it’s tainted with arsenic. “It’s actually getting depressing.”
Dustin, with his arm around his wife, says, “You could give the newspaper ads a go.” (He says this every time someone mentions relationship issues because he seems to think it will solve everyone’s problems, just because he was extremely lucky.)
“I’d rather not get murdered.”
“I’ll give it up with you,” says Max, grinning.
“Hey, what?” says Lucas, Max’s husband, now.
Steve, who is now pressed against Eddie’s side, his arm snaked around his waist (Eddie wonders if he’s purposefully copying the exact pose Robin is doing with Mandy or if it’s just a credit to the longevity of their single braincell), says, “I’m probably going to make a proper D&D club for my kids this semester, I have some ideas for a campaign.” Steve is a teacher now, sort of unsurprisingly.
Everyone stops talking.
“You’re just going to give up the ghost like that?” Eddie asks, incredulous. “You’ve been pretending to not be a nerd for thirty-four fucking years and —”
“It’s the new millennium,” Steve says airily, “time to turn a new leaf and all that.”
“You what?” says Mike. “Hello?”
Dustin is quieter than Eddie has ever seen him, mouth open for words he can’t seem to find.
Robin, who of course knew, looks like she’s either about to start crying, laughing, or both.
Steve is grinning, slow and sly, his eyes twinkling. “So… who else is excited for the rumoured Lord of the Rings movies, I’m hoping they’re loyal to the books.”
Everyone starts talking all at once. Eddie feels like a pit of despair has opened around him, twenty-five years of knowing that Steve Harrington is a giant nerd and all he can shout is, “I was dying and he told me he liked Black Sabbath! I was dying! Literally!” over the noise (he doesn’t even care that people who don’t know what the Upside Down is are here to hear it). Steve is laughing at him, his eyes twinkling. All Eddie can think about is that day outside Hawkins High and wonder if Steve had meant to let slip that he liked The Silmarillion, if this had been his plan all along.
“You’re such a dick,” he mutters as Dustin starts loudly talking about every single (apparently he’s categorised them) time Steve said ‘Dungeons and Dragons’ wrong.
Steve hums, all serene, and winks at him.