Chapter Text
6:00AM
Something final settles in his chest, pushing down the dread that came with the morning. The eep, eep, eep of his alarm lets Eddie know that it is another bright and brilliant 6:00 AM. His arm is trapped in the top sheet, and maybe he should just stop using it since he always gets it twisted around his legs and his arms in the night. With a wiggle and a twist he's free. Letting his thoughts of ill portents stay trapped in his throat. In case speaking them makes them true; today is a day that needs to be right, for some reason he's sure of that. It doesn’t have to be perfect, but he can’t fuck it up.
He gets the alarm shut off with a final mangled eep, but not before Wayne can holler, “Yer gonna be late, Ed.”
Guilt isn’t going to make Wayne any less awake, not when Eddie trips and stumbles and makes a god awful racket trying to make it out of his room. They do the song and dance anyway, cause it makes Wayne smile, just a little at the lined corner of his mouth, when he can say he spent his childhood sleeping through the train. Maybe Eddie has a few things in common with a runaway locomotive, this morning especially feels like it has tracks he can settle on.
“It’s gonna storm tonight,” Wayne digs a balled up fist into his weathervane knee. “Be safe tonight, promise me.”
Something lingers, from a dream he had last night maybe, memories of his Mom’s crash and something with one of his own. He keeps the quip on his tongue with his Honeycombs. That dread comes again and he's honest as he says, "Yeah I will, or I'll stay somewhere if I can't drive."
He means at Gareth's, or shit in the back of his van down the road from Harrington's place, but still his brain can’t help but think that Harrington parties don’t get broken up. That people crash in Steve’s house all the time when they aren’t good to drive. Eddie never does, because he doesn’t make it a habit to sleep in enemy territory. But it would be the easiest thing in the world to hide away in a bedroom or a bathroom or one of those giant rich person linen closets. He could wait out the storm there, if it came.
And the part of his brain that’s 19 and horny all the goddamn time picks up fantasy. Imagining a world where not only is he invited to stay, but he’s asked upstairs. Into a hallway where Steve’s bedroom rests behind a mystery door and he’s gonna pick the right one, Monty Hall.
“Get before you’re late,” Wayne chides, pulling Eddie from a dream world where Steve Harrington would want Eddie anywhere near him.
“I’m gettin’.” He knows Wayne doesn’t hear it though, the man really does sleep like the dead.
Passing Period - 8:45AM
When he looks up from the goosebumps Steve’s trailing finger left in its wake, Hagan is gone. There will be a fallout from this split, holes have been left in both boys that will be filled by someone. By Monday, he expects, the school will feel the tremoring aftershocks.
Monday is when he’ll have to worry about it, as Steve pointed out, he’s already late for class. He can’t hide his head in his locker thinking about the interaction he just played voyeur to.
All he wants to do is think about what just happened. He wants to turn it over in his brain.
Cause somehow the weird feeling he’d woken up with this morning, solid and creeping, has only grown as the day went on. The day shifting like sand around him. Moments that feel familiar the way a dream he’s had before is familiar, shifting and untouchable. Muscle memory twists the dial on his locker left, right, left, his mind too busy thinking about the day so far. How Hagan doesn’t even feel like the weirdest part of it. It almost feels inevitable.
When he’s had Steve zipping up his backpack for him without a word. Sending Eddie off with a smile and a pat to the back that made him want to wag his tail. When he’d found homework crumpled in the bottom of that same bag, homework he would have sworn was at home beside two half-painted minis. Homework that looks like he did it, but Eddie never put that funny little line through his 7’s.
His locker opens with its usual squealing kathunk. Scattering his thoughts like leaves in the wind, the reveal of his things reminding him he’s on the wrong side of a ticking clock and his copy of Hamlet is hiding away somewhere. Beneath a clan white paper with his name gently written across it. The clock ticks on, but he can’t resist the temptation of opening something meant softly for him. Meant for him in a different way than the torn off edges of math homework and rumpled index cards with orders were meant for him.
Something crisp and deliberate, folded over once ust so it would fit between the slats of his locker.
Eddie,
Ditch the last half of 3rd and meet me at your bench. Not a checkup, just wanna see you.
-Steve
P.S. You’ve got a pop quiz in O’Donnell’s class. March 5, 1770 - Boston Massacre, you’re on your own for the rest.
P.P.S. Tie your shoe before you eat shit ♡
It’s hard to tell which gets him more: the heart, the 7’s, or the way he tells Mr. Eddie was only late because Carruthers held him to talk about outside additions to the band. A blatant lie from a mouth butter wouldn’t melt in.
3rd Period - 11:15AM
It doesn’t stop him from agonizing about whether or not he should trek out there.
Looking at Steve has been giving him double vision. Eddie feels like there’s a fun house mirror somewhere or some kind of Star Trek device that has overlaid two versions of the same guy over top of one another. There’s the Steve he expects, based on everything he knows about the guy up to yesterday: cocky, bitchy, and arrogant. The kind of guy who says shit like ‘it’s not worth it’ to his friends like they’re the white bread, Cobra Kai extras to Steve’s coming-of-age-movie villain. Then there’s the Steve that’s coming into focus. The real deal. The Steve that walked into school today wrong. Or right? Different certainly than the one who’d left before. This Steve that’s sending Tommy away and leaving notes in his locker. Who seems settled and charming, and hopefully still a little bit bitchy. It’s a little hot.
And he really wants to see that Steve again. Wants to know about that heart and why he wants to see Eddie. Plus about a thousand other questions that have him claiming to need the nurse so he can slip out of Chemistry and crunching through the fallen leaves to the rotted out table the whole school knows is his.
Steve is sun dappled and beautiful stretched out across it. Desperate golden rays reaching out from the clouds for the first time all day just to try to brush against his face..
It’s jarring when he isn’t actually there when Eddie makes it to the clearing. The bench grey and empty as it usually is when he sets up for office hours. He’s already made his way out, maybe even been reported for skipping, so he’ll sit on the bench that gets closer to the ground every time it’s used. The breeze pushes through the trees with a rustle sending a new rain of leaves falling down around his shoulders. All Eddie can do to protect himself is tuck his neck deeper into his borrowed flannel as his fingers start to numb. Tries to keep his mind occupied on something other than the cold, poking at the bruise that is Steve Harrington.
Change has always felt like a strange and alien thing. Strange the way he recognizes himself in a mirror, never noticing the way his bones shift beneath his face as he ages. Strange the way the tree he can see out his window is recognizable with its billow full of green, maple leaves as it is with bare spindling arms. Strange the way he can recognize a Steve that will warn him about a quiz in the guy who used to divvy out his lunch to his miserable friends, before glaring at people like Eddie.
Maybe Steve’s change just felt too alien, too quick. It wasn’t the slow change of puberty that left his face looking more and more like his Momma. It was the quick and startling kind that took her away.
That made it sound bad, and he wasn’t sure that this was. Eddie was warmed by the thought of him, even out in the cold. That could just be the break in the weather, the wind slowing and the clouds breaking for just a little while. Long enough that he can hear the footsteps.
“Sorry, sorry, I know I’m late,” the apology carries over the fall ground being rushed over. From behind him comes Steve Harrington. “I’ll plan better next time,” he says on a long exhale, winded in the abstract way jocks get. “Maybe next time- 2nd period instead, I have to see Robin, but we’re always gonna get carried away, I think,” he explains and Eddie nods like it means something. “Click’s class. If I don’t go then she might pick Tammy as a project partner.
“It’s, I’m working out the system, figuring out the timing so everything’s right.”
“Hi Steve, how are you?” Eddie says it mostly to be an ass. Partially because he isn’t sure what there even is to respond to, even if that is the most Steve has ever said to him in a row.
“I’m fine now, Eds, that was the point if you were listening.”
“I was listening. You made me sit out here all by myself so you could-”
“Oh shut up, you were fine. I bet you were only out here for like a minute.”
“Shut up! From the guy that just wanted to see me, making me wait in the frigid cold. I should actually go to the nurse, I could have frostbite-”
“No! No, Eddie, c’mon. I’m sorry I had something equally as important as you that I had to take care of before I could see you.”
The tone straddles the line of bitchy and fond in a way Steve Harrington is expert at. Directed at him, Eddie can feel the way it draws out a flush in his cheeks that the October air can’t cut. “Laying it on pretty thick, Harrington.”
“Flattery works on you, doesn’t it?”
“Did you have a reason for dragging me out here or did you really want to trade Clickity-Clack for my pretty face?”
“I’d look at your pretty face all day, Bambi.” There’s that tone again, “But I did need one thing before tonight.” He pauses for a second, a twist in his brow like he’s realized something about his own thought, “All this time, I don’t actually know where you keep your stash.
“Hargrove’s doing something out at Freddy P.’s and I’m cutting the guest list so it’s more… exclusive. I don’t want you to miss out on the money. And anyone stupid enough to stand in an open field in the rain deserves something.”
“Thought this wasn’t a business meeting, Stevie.”
It’s easier than kicking up a fuss, as Wayne would say. His stash will keep until the next big party even if he wants the money now. Hargrove talks a big game but he doesn’t have the money Stevie and Hagan throw around, when they don’t want him around he gets a wad of cash thrown his way. Billy’s guests have to supply their own party favors. He has no plans of going to a field party, but he holds his tongue. Eddie’s not in the habit of shooting down well meaning boys, he has few stopping by his doorstep anyway.
“This is barely business.” Steve says, “Not a single bored executive has made a snide and vaguely sexist comment.”
"My board of directors is pretty small, but I could make a comment about your gams if it would help the mood.”
The sunlight catches on the pearly line of Steve’s teeth, his laughter sweeter than any hallelujah chorus. “I just wanted to see you”
“You just saw me last period.”
A flick of the wrists swats that thought out of the air, “Yeah and you were too busy connecting the material to outside works to pay attention to me. A surprising show of kiss assery from you, Eds.”
“Fuck off,” the directive tastes sweet as it clings to the roof of his mouth. An aftertaste of ‘oh god he was paying attention to me’ floats on the pallet. “So you had me ditch class to even the score. And so you could see me.” He adds as Steve moves to correct him again, finger poise in the air. “Something you could have done at lunch, by the way.”
“I’m sitting at the band table with Robin, if you didn’t want to see me you could’ve just said so.” He plays at hurt feelings the way a possum plays at death, all dramatics.
Not that it makes it any less effective, or any less cute. “Now I didn’t say that.”
“Good,” Steve looks pleased all the way up to his sun bleached hair. “Prove it by still coming by tonight.”
Yards from campus the shrill brrring of the bell can still be heard sounding much too soon. Steve gets up without waiting for an answer. Eddie isn’t sure he had one for him anyway.
Lunch
He hadn’t been kidding about braving the band table. When Eddie makes it to the cafeteria -- History book and the pen he decided was the least likely to be noticed covering the skin of his palm with him -- he finds Steve wedged in tight as the teeth those clarinet’s orthodontia are correcting. He’s pressed against Buckley’s side, two pieces you were sure didn’t fit but pressed together anyway for spite just for the universe and the puzzle manufacturers to laugh back at you. Eddie, half in love with the unfinished painting of Steve Harringont can’t find an ounce of jealousy. They both look happy.
It’s a real counter to the lemon pucker confusion on Gareth’s face when Eddie rolls up.
Joey gestures to a brown lunch sack the way a normal person would point to an undetonated bomb.
“ Steve Harrington left that for you,” Jeff says, it sounds like an adult’s surprise that Santa visited.
E- Thought you might be wishing you did drop your lunch ♡ S
The heart makes a dangerous reappearance, it makes Eddie’s thud too fast in his chest. He doesn’t care one way or another about the dingy brown meatloaf on his tray, but he could spin sonnets about the peanut butter and jelly sandwich with the crusts cut off that he finds in that brown paper bag.
Gareth breaks the spell that the table has fallen under, “Do you think it’s poisoned?”
“Why would he sign his name on it, dumbass,” Joey shoots back.
“Better question,” Jeff says, “what kind of Little Debbies do rich people bring for lunch?”
He snatches it close to his chest, jealously protecting his home packed lunch from the pack of dogs he’s some how befriended. “Back the fuck off, it’s mine!”
Band Practice
Maybe he was right about setting the intention of the day. About not letting the pessimism -- realism -- touch the air. With the exception of his now crooked pinky toe and the d4 shaped hole in his foot, the day doesn’t really go off the rails until band practice.
Eddie can already envision the set list they’re gonna end up with. Old standards they’ve been playing together since they first figured out you could make your own band. AC/DC, Metallica, Zeppelin. They won’t break up, they have these same fights every few months when tensions build too high; and cause no one cares about a nothing band from nowhere Indiana until they get big. Fleetwood Mac proves you can save your bitters until it can be spun into a platinum record.
Just like Eddie saves his original songs until anyone outside of this garage, and the people who made those people, care about the name Corroded Coffin.
While he’s ignoring the jabs that Jeff and Gareth are vollying back and forth he wishes he had the notebook from under his bed. It might be time to add a ballad to the tracklist of that eventual EP. A love song to round out the B-side. He’s willing to swap out some he’s for she’s in order to sing about big brown eyes and tawny hair.
The Party
The Harrington house has a hollow weight to it that feels obvious from the road. As the rain pounds down on the roof of Eddie’s van he wonders how it doesn’t punch right through the shell. A thing that's purpose seems more facade than home. Maybe that’s just him projecting. Another place where his Doctrine is crumbling and needs reassessed. Before today he would have said the same of Steve, another empty thing inside this shell house, a nesting doll with no center.
He was wrong though, and can say that with ease. Steve has a gooey center that he’s been hiding. It’s oozing out of him as he makes his way down from his house, a smile on his face Eddie had half a mind to call fond; if the other half weren’t still wondering what he's done to make Steve feel fond of him.
Rain drips down the bridge of his nose. A perfect drop forming on its peak in spite of the plain black umbrella he’s holding over his head. The kind that businessmen have on the street or Bogart would offer Hepburn; and here’s Steve holding it high over the driver’s side of the van to protect Eddie’s exit. Amusement quirks across a glossy pink mouth. “You gonna get out?” His voice muffled by the roaring rain and tempered glass.
The wet catches him the second he opens the car door.
Steve jumps back, a surprised yelp bubbling out as he avoids getting hit by its swing. The moment he’s out of the van the damp soaks into the denim of Eddie’s jeans, the ends of his hair start to frizz. The umbrella isn’t built for the broad shoulders of two growing men, but it helps. Still, he can’t resist following the line of Steve’s arm; from hand up deliciously flexed forearm, to his face where Eddie sees the second a challenge catches hold.
Don’t make eye contact with dogs, bulls, or jocks.
“We better run,” he says, boyish and wild. Water already spots Steve’s shoulders, soaks his shoes, but his hair stays dry.
Eddie, taking gym against his will for the second goddamn time, manages a synced up heel turn. Euphoria bubbles out of him with a giggle, as they step forward. Steve’s wet Nikes slapping a puddle with a splash that draws something bright and childish out of him even as the rain water climbs the denim of his jeans to the shin.
Sneakers squeak and slide as they cross the threshold of the Harrington house.
Steve’s strong shoulder catches him as his knees buckle, Eddie can feel it shift beneath his hand. Warm palms clutch tight at Eddie’s sides. Steve, bent at the waist with his legs sprawled out behind him like Bambi on the ice, looks up at him pink from the cold and the fun. “C’mon we can dry off in here.”
In here ends up being a room so white it looks sterile. A green towel, a stark color block on the back of an all white couch. The feeling of being anticipated like this blooms warm in Eddie’s chest, the subtle care.
Steve is a firm wall at his back, chilled with the damp that they’re trying to shake. He pushes them both through the doorway in a gentle tangle of soft laughs and gangly teenage limbs. Wet sock prints betray their overlapping trail across the wood floors. As they cross the threshold of the room a fire bursts to life in the fireplace, a roar like the one Eddie can feel in his chest.
Steve reaches forward, damp shirtsleeves brushing the bare skin on Eddie’s arm as he points. It’s a line he can’t follow fast enough, distracted by the shivering chill the touch causes. The room fills with the wobbling scratch of needle settling into groove.
It’s amazing the things rich people will automate and slap timers on.
Bony toes connect with the back of his heels as Steve nudges him into the room. The sounds of The Temptations and the fireplace snapping are the only sounds in the room. He can’t think of a thing to say as Steve’s hands reach up to gather the dripping hair from the back of his neck. He’s alight with the shivering tingle of not quite contact; fingers that almost brush his cheek, his neck. When a towel, fluffy and warm, wraps around his shoulders Eddie can still feel the burn of Steve’s hands through two layers as if on skin.
Rounding the couch, a small spread makes itself visible on the table. Chips and bread and cheese and fruit, teenage boy’s attempt at a hobbit picnic, sprawl across a table while two seating beer bottles stand sentry before two wine glasses. There’s a lingering film climbing the side of one, but no botte.
“Be honest with me, Stevie. Am I late for the party or was this guest list more exclusive than you let on?”
The weight of the empty wine glass surprises him when he snatches it from the table. It’s the base beneath the stem his fingers are pinching that cuts through the air. Nearly flipping from his fingers as he pulls it close to his face. Fighting the impulse to twirl it around the stem like a baton just to see what it would sound like.
Steve’s nose curls in a bunny’s distaste, taking in the glass, “I thought they fit the mood better, but wine is disgusting.” He says.
What’s really disgusting is how cute he is. Socks a wet pile on the floor, he’s curled up on the couch with his bare toes on the furniture. Looking at Eddie like he wants to apologize that his goblet hasn’t been filled.
His laugh surprises them both,. Eddie sets the glass back down on the table before he can do something stupid like bite it until he can grind that glass back into sand beneath his teeth. “And what mood did you try to set with a girl who didn’t like Mrs. Harrington’s wine selection?”
“No girl, um I guess answering your first question the list did get narrowed down to one and he didn’t RSVP so I really just had to hope he was actually coming.”
“Excusez moi. Didn't know what kind of soiree this was. What mood were you hoping to set that this Budweiser isn’t gonna fit?”
From the soundsystem the speakers squeal and the record slips. Pink gives way to a ruddy red, “Well if you have to ask…”
That’s the thing isn’t it. He doesn't really need to ask. Not with the stereo crooning and the press of green terry cloth keeping the back of his neck dry. Not when there are strawberries on the table and a boy sitting next to him who did it all.
“I guess ‘m just confused on why?” It slips from him, smaller than he hoped it would. If it was bigger he could have played it off as a joke.
There’s safety in humor. No one can accuse you of being something that isn’t allowed if you’re just kidding. You can joke and call guys sweet names and blow kisses from across the hall as long as it’s coming from behind two layers of sarcasm and a coat of irony. But if it’s small and it’s scared then it’s real.
“Hypothetically? No, sorry, that’s not funny. I mean, okay, let’s say I’ve been reliving today over and over again. Weeks worth of the same day, and I've been thinking a lot these past few weeks,” Steve tells the light blue denim covering his knees. Somehow a few weeks sounds like longer, liminal and stretching into eternity. “About a lot of things I guess, this ‘hypothetical,’ me, you .
“And it was miserable at first. Maybe that’s just how change feels, uncomfortable, bones not fitting right. I realized the longer I went, when I tried to go back to what was ‘normal’ the worse that feeling got.” His hand clenches tight in a fist, thumb trapped inside. Eddie has a memory that can’t be real, Steve getting his face beat in by Hargrove, the urge to correct his form distracts him enough that he loses track of the point Steve is making.
Change? A hypothetical time loop that was actually a metaphor for a quarter life crisis? “And now..? Where does that leave us?”
The beer bottles stick in their rings of condensation as they both reach for one. Their fingers brush for just a second as they try to fill a shared need for something to do with hands that weren’t meant to stay idle. Maybe he’s spent too much time with his nose buried in fiction, where things like sparks are real; but they’re too damp for static electricity. He’s sure he felt something.
“I like you Eddie. I like you a lot.” The label on his bottle peels off as Steve picks at it. Eddie’s testing the integrity of his; hand aching against the wet as he squeezes. “You’re bright and strange and… And exciting! I lived the same day over and over, even before all this. I was just doing the same shit every day and hating it; but what else was I going to do? So I lived it; and then while, while today was happening I got to spend it with you. In a hundred little ways, different places and different times.
“I feel like I have to work to keep up and I want to . I want to be the kind of guy who can keep up with you and change with you. I want to be a better person, and yeah some of that's for you, but it's also just as much for Robin and Lucas and the kids and Nancy and Jonathan and Me . I want to be better for me and for everyone else I- for everyone else I care about.
“If tomorrow happens or if it doesn’t, I had today and,” the dread from the morning creeps up the back of Eddie’s throat like bile. It’s one of the nicest things he’s ever had said in relation to him. And it sounds so final. “And I’m happy. Even though tomorrow you might forget about this; and you’ll think I'm King Douche again.”
There’s a smile, it’s there. He’s seen enough smiles in his life to know that the uptick at the corner of Steve’s mouth, lips pulled tight over teeth, is a smile. Sad as Steve sounds, he's smiling.
“I don’t think I could forget all this, Sunshine.”
With enough patience he could graph the slope of Steve’s mouth. How his smile pulls tighter, horizontal into a grimace at those words. He means them though Grabs a handful of something off the table in front of him even if guilt tries to take the words back he won’t be understood with a mouthful.
“I hope that’s true.” The careful distance they’d kept when sitting down, a teenage boy’s generous estimation of a foot, feels like a canyon. “I hope it is, but if not I’m glad I got today with you. I’ll keep trying.”
Standing on the steep sided edge, Eddie succumbs to the pull of gravity. Leaning into Steve’s side, eyes sliding shut as he moves, if it goes wrong he’ll deny it but Eddie knows what he’s reaching for.
“No!” A hand on his chest stops him fast. Eyes flying open, an apology held on his tongue. “Tomorrow, please, I can’t if you won’t remember again.”
“So we won’t,” a promise he makes with a hand on his heart, holding Steve’s there too. “It’s getting late.”
“You should let your uncle know you’re staying.”
“Oh, I’m staying?” Eddie teases, letting the tension fizzle out with the dimming fire.
“Well you have been drinking.”
The couch does its best to keep him in place. “No answering machine,” comes out in a grunt as he tries to stand. “Won’t know to worry til the morning anyway.”
Something sad flits across Steve’s face, barely long enough to be noticed, a look like Wayne’s when he’s pulled the old photo albums out and he sees a picture of Momma. Like a ghost it’s gone as soon as it’s appeared.
“Come upstairs with me,” he says.
“Bet you say that to all the boys.”
“You wish.”
“It is 11:11.” Eddie teases, pushing his luck now that he knows the odds are actually on his side. He leans as far into Steve’s space as he thinks he’ll be allowed, chests bumping and breath mingling.
“Guest room. I’m putting you in the guest room.”
“Still seems a little early.”
“You’ve gotta know what time to call the party, Eds.”
He can’t get his reply out through his yawn. It’s probably better that way, pretty boys like getting the last word.
Eddie wakes with a start and a sharp inhale. The kind that rakes its way down his throat as he goes, demanding you remember the pain of living after you've finished dreaming. His legs are tangled in the sheet, bare soles of his feet slipping against fabric rougher than his wash softened bedding at home. It's disorienting. Waking up somewhere he doesn't remember. Not knowing what it was that ripped him so roughly from sleep.
Lace curtains let in the early morning light, it glares off the high sheen baby pink walls. It's painful, blinding for his sleep-worn eyes. The white bedding with its rows of tiny pink roses doesn't help. Maybe it was an allergic reaction to the Laura Ashley that woke him up.
Only, tired and slow to act, he notices the closed door is swinging open after it slams into the wall. By then the bed is already dipping. Steve Harrington swinging his way onto what Eddie remembers now is a guest bed.
Knees bracket either side of Eddie's thighs, pressing them close together it's the safest thing to focus on. The alternative is dealing with the thing his forcibly woken brain is screaming: Steve Harrington is sitting in his lap. The dawn halos him golden, angelic.
"It's Saturday," he announces with the breathless delight a child announces Christmas. Then, before he can say something stupid, Eddie finds himself tasting the too sweet mint of mouthwash and the warm neutral taste of Steve's mouth.
Steve kisses him with a single minded focus. Unhurried and unworried about what the rest of the day might bring. Pressing Eddie deeper into the downy fluff of the pillows, fist stretching out the neckline of his shirt. He sees the appeal in being devoured, why those girls in the hallway would squeal and giggle when they got lifted, spun, and pressed against the lockers. An act of devotion in its own way, being so needed that you're consumed.
There's a trail that connects them, caught by the morning sun like gossamer, when Steve pulls back. "It's Saturday," he says again, breathless for a brand new reason.
"It is," Eddie agrees, brainless and willing to agree with anything that Steve might suggest at this point.
"I hope that was okay."
"Definitely better than my other alarm clock."
"And if I wanted to do it again? Saturday, wow, and you’re… Wow”
“You always this articulate in the mornings, Stevie, or am I just special.” Eddie says, it’s safe he figures to throw a bit of snark at a guy that’s sitting on your morning wood.
“I haven’t done today before, fucking sue me, Bambi.” He shifts on his knees, pulling the English garden that’s protecting Eddie’s modesty even tighter across his lap, “Seems like you didn’t mind my articulation too much though.”
In a move that makes Eddie wonder if today might be both his best and worst day ever, Steve gets up. Swings off the bed in a showy dismount, pressing what his Momma always called a ‘just because’ kiss to his cheek as he goes.
“I’m gonna make breakfast, you should call your Uncle so he knows you didn’t wreck your van in the rain last night. I’ve got a line in my room if you want some privacy.”
“Oooh a private line,” he teases.
Which proves to be all that’s needed for the anticipated return of bitchy Steve, “You got a problem with my private line that I can use privately? Maybe to share private things with boys that shouldn't be overheard by parents or uncles that work nights.”
“I rescind my comment.”
“Thought you might.”
It’s only after Steve leaves that Eddie realizes, he never actually said which door leads to his room. Stepping out into a hallway he hadn’t really paid much attention to the night before, that stretches out an unseemly length and hangs on to the minimalism that was probably all the rage, but leaves Eddie wishing for French arms and candelabras.
He follows a gut feeling, a lingering ‘I’ve been here before’ sensation straight into a dark bedroom. It seems criminal that someone as bright as Steve is in a room that doesn’t catch the morning light, but unlike Eddie’s bedroom it’s neat enough that even in the dark he can make out the shape of the phone.
Two rings is all it takes before Wayne’s gruff, “‘llo?” Is in his ear.
The greeting all that’s needed for something in him to break. An inescapable wave of emotion that floods through him as sure as the tears that are welling in his eyes. He’s always been good at hindsight, knowing when he barely missed fucking up so bad there wouldn’t be a chance to make up for it. Hearing Wayne’s voice now, he can feel in his heart how close he was to never hearing it again.
“Hey Wayne,” it’s watery and way too soft. His uncle, who can sleep through the train and had his hearing damaged in the mines and worsened at the plant, definitely hasn’t heard him. Eddie clears his throat and says a little louder, “I stayed with a friend last night, but I’m fine. I’ll be home later, okay? Sorry, for waking you up.”
“Don’t ever apologize for letting me know you’re okay. See you when you get home, Ed.”
He stands there for longer than he’ll ever admit, holding the phone in his hand listening to the incomplete chord the dial tone plays. Thinking about Wayne and family and the people that will change their lives because they think he’s worth slotting in them.
The layout of the downstairs is more familiar, even if he feels a bit like Ginger Rogers floating through the house back to front, instead of being rushed from the front back out as quickly as possible. He knows the kitchen is just past the stairs, the smell of sweet dough cooking gives him something to follow anyway.
It’s big, like everything else in the house, but this is the first place that has felt homey. Flour splattered on the counter, the smell of food rising in the air, cabinets opening and shutting to the sounds of dishes shaking and silverware rattling. Steve, there in the middle of it all, green Henley and grey sweatpants he looks comfortable ladling something out of the chipped blue mixing bowl in his hands into or onto whatever his body is hiding.
"And what is my Harry homemaker making for breakfast?"
"You want to give that one a second go?" He's got an apron on when he turns, half tied like an afterthought or lazy follow-through on old routine. Is it something he picked up watching his parents move around in the kitchen? The same way Eddie flicks flour into the skillet to make sure it's hot enough to fry, just like Wayne.
"Nah, I think we should savor how bad that was. You've got to appreciate your fuck ups since you cant go back and fix them." Steve's laugh is nourishing in a way Eddie doubts whatever he's baking could possibly be. "Harry, short for Harrington just to clear that up, cause a joke is always funnier once you've had to explain it. Though if the rumors are true, the swim team has you committing some absolute capital crimes," and now he's gesturing at Steve's chest like that's a thing that they do together. Hand waving over pectorals like that's acceptable.
It's hard to tell if the heat of the kitchen is to blame for the pink across Steve’s nose bridge, high into his cheeks.
"It's waffles, to answer the first question. It's the only thing I can make."
"And to answer the second?" Eddie asks, like there even really was a second question and not a poorly executed mimicry of what it would look like if Eddie felt him up.
"Guess you'll have to stick around and find out." He winks with all the charm of a Tom Cruise character. Turning back to his waffles while Eddie takes his turn with a warm face.
"What are your plans after breakfast then, Stevie boy?" He's going to make good on the implied offer there. Stronger people than him, he figures have been strung along by a kiss and a bit of attention from Steve.
"Mom should be home sometime today, she'll have to fill me in on this week’s Dallas. I should probably meet up with Robin so we can work on our project, call her at least. Maybe try to get a pickup game going with Lucas, he'd probably like Jay and he couldn't make the extra practice yesterday."
Somehow in the domestic early morning, it had become easy to forget that the boy in front of him is Steve Harrington.
Steve, who would have been crowned Homecoming King if he hadn't given it up to Tommy. Steve, who will likely go on to be Prom King in the spring. Steve, who carries his popularity like it's nothing, until you forget it's there; or until he's listing off a social calendar he can't fit an extra moment into. And Eddie hasn't made the cut.
"Oh."
"And figure out where we'll go on our first real date," Steve adds over the start of Eddie’s pity party. "You could stay for the Dallas thing though if you want, Mom is always looking for someone new to indoctrinate."
"Oh!"
"Plan for next Saturday, I've got to give you time to decide-" Steve cuts himself off mid thought, head cocked to one side and mouth still half formed in a word, leaving Eddie to wonder what he might have to decide.
The radio flicks itself on, startling him from his top two contenders 'decide where you want to go' and 'decide if you're sick of me.' It statics and flickers between stations, he kinda expected a family like the Harrington’s to have a radio that worked a little better. Even the shitty handheld Wayne kept in the kitchen got better reception than this. And when it finally stops they’re able to hear the fading refrains of Tiffany singing about beating hearts, it makes him miss the static.
Steve’s idly stirring the batter as pop transitions to news report. “The movies would be good.” Eddie says before whatever is so important that they’re listening to the news can play. Steve looks a second away from shushing him. It’s very domestic, in a June Cleaver way he hasn’t really thought to yearn for.
“As a second date,” he barrels on, cause the introductions of the news team are only going to last so long and then Steve will shush him before he has a chance to be brave. “Cause Tuesday, you should come see the band play.”
“On a Tuesday night? My dad’s too much of an asshole to let me out late on a school night.”
“Guess you’ll have to sneak out, Majesty, why date a bad boy if you're only gonna take him to the sock hop.”
“There are easier ways to admit you’ve seen Grease and want me in leather pants, Bambi.”
Eddie, found murdered in the Harrington’s kitchen, is actually quiet when Steve sets a plate of waffles in front of him. From behind his back, a can of Reddi Whip makes a surprise appearance. His brain is making scattershot associations in its death throes, bouncing between whippets and licking cream off a toned swimmer’s body. A fantasy interrupted by the fluffy white smile being added to the plate in front of him.
“Now shut up so I can hear this, ‘kay?”
Man enough to admit it’s kind of hot when Steve bosses him around, Eddie shoves as much of his waffle into his face as possible. Smiling, charming as he can, with a mouthful of half-chewed food. The alternative is giving voice to one of those little assumptions that Eddie hasn’t let go of. Of course Steve was the kind of guy that listened to the morning news. It’s very adorably yuppie of him.
Maybe he should take a page from Steve’s book and let go of some of his personal doctrine. To stop letting stereotypes and biases color his world.
“-whistleblower we can exclusively reveal as Hawkins Lab employee, Richard Harrington. Who, along with local chief of police James Hopper, rescued children being held in the facility.”
Sweet cream holding his tongue, Eddie manages to keep the sudden certainty that Steve looks just like his father to himself. He doubts he’ll ever be introduced officially, but he is curious how close young William got to the real thing with his pictures.
“In an interview Richard had this to say,” the even, unemotional tone of the reporter, replaced suddenly by a clip of Mr. Harrington, “‘I just did what anyone would do. Discovering what they were up to was- I have a son not much older than some of these kids, it makes me sick even thinking about him being treated the way these kids were.’”
The radio flicks itself off with enough force to rattle it on the counter. “What an asshole.” Steve’s declaration doesn’t make the pleased expression on his face any less obvious. He’s pleased by the waving, passionate tone his father has on the radio. Being placed in a spot of importance above work, that he could inspire his father to do something brave.
“Sounds like someone’s about to have a little brother or sister.” He teases.
Steve shoves another waffle under Eddie’s nose, a whipped cream heart on top of it, “I really don’t think that’s how adoption works, dude.”
“You can’t call me dude when you were just talking about a date, asshole.”
“Yeah? And asshole’s okay to call someone you aren’t going steady with yet?” Smug he graces Eddie with a view of the long line of his neck as he sprays a burst of whipped cream directly into his mouth.
“Did they not cover that one in your cotillion classes?”
“I didn’t do cotillion, asshole.”
“No? But you catch on so quick, Sweetheart.”
Revenge comes on swift feet. From across the countertop Steve’s mouth is on his, his tongue still sweet with whipped cream.
“So from asshole to sweetheart, what’s after that, Emily Post?”
“Guess you’ll have to keep me around to find out.”
Yesterday had felt solid. Every decision had felt crucial and important, as if he only had one chance to get it right. Today feels like a reward. Does Steve feel the same way? Leaning across the counter, does he feel like getting to be here, in a kitchen painted orange by the early fall morning, is a gift for surviving?
“I’ll keep you ‘til tomorrow at least.” Steve says.
Yesterday was a test. Today a reward. From Steve’s mouth tomorrow sounds like a promise.
A promise that would stretch out and on, tomorrow never really comes shifting further and further staying just out of reach. Today stretches endlessly out in front of him and, with this deadline that will never come, all he wants to do is figure out this boy in front of him.
Today feels like a brand new day to try.