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Steve can't stop thinking about Eddie in a swimsuit.
He says as much to Robin one day in the middle of their shift, and she-
Laughs at him.
"When did you see him in a swimsuit?" She asks, still giggling.
Steve gives her a pained look. "I haven't."
Robin frowns a little. "Then why are you--" her mouth opens big, her eyes widening to match. "You're having fantasies—"
Even in her shock she's aware enough to cut herself off, glancing around the empty video store. She pushes off the counter to scuttle over to him, speaking in a hushed voice.
"Are you having fantasies about Eddie Munson, scantily clad?"
Steve gives her a good-natured shove. "Get out of my face, Gertie, Jesus Christ. 'Scantily clad'."
Robin narrows her eyes at him. "Barring your terrible attempt at avoiding the question, I gotta ask: where's the bi panic?"
"That was last night, after I woke up with a hard-on after a very specific dream--"
"Beach or pool?"
Steve sighs. "The beach."
Robin nods. "Crashing surf, spraying water, wet sand; you wanna boink him on the beach.”
“Oh my God,” Steve says, ears burning as covers his face with his hands. The silence next to him is practically vibrating with expectancy. Steve lowers his hands and sighs. “What?”
Robin is staring at him. “You didn’t deny it.”
“Well!” Steve says conclusively, slumping under her look. “Okay, some of the panic is still here, especially if you make me think explicit sex scenes when I’m still coming to terms with the idea of making out with someone with stubble.”
Robin winces. “Yeah, sorry, that’s fair. I just guess I always figured you’d handle this a lot worse.”
“’This’?” Steve repeats. Robin nods.
“The realization you’re bisexual.”
Steve shoots up straight. “Wait, you knew?”
“Suspected,” Robin corrects. “You just have way too many Wham! posters in your room for me to think you’re a hundred per cent straight.”
“Okay, well, how does that help me now with the Eddie-in-a-swimsuit thing?”
“It doesn’t,” she says. “I just needed my I-told-you-so moment.”
Steve groans. “Thanks for that.”
“I know something else that isn’t going to help,” she says just as the bell above the door jingles cheerily. “Hey, Eddie!”
Eddie comes grinning up to the counter. “Buckley, always a pleasure.” He leans over the counter and waves to Steve, crouched down behind the register. “Harrington.”
Robin yanks Steve to his feet. “Hey,” Steve says, sure his cheeks are bright red, “I was just, uh—”
Eddie cuts him off with a dismissive wave of his hand. “I get it. Sometimes you need a good hunch behind a counter. You know if you’ve got the first Alien movie?”
Eddie is already heading to the shelves, and Robin gives Steve an assessing look.
“Bi panic?” she asks sotto voce.
Steve swallows, forcing himself not to stare at Eddie in the aisle. “Low. Manageable.” He darts a quick glance over, biting his lip when Eddie bends over to look at something on a low shelf.
Robin strikes.
“Hey, Eddie, Steve’s having a pool party and you’re invited,” she calls.
Steve is pretty sure he’s going to faint, because he had naturally lied when Robin asked him how he was doing, so now, with Eddie walking back over with a tape in hand and a grin on his face, yes, Steve is pretty sure he is going to faint.
“This isn’t gonna be a Carrie-at-prom thing, is it?” Eddie asks. “Cuz if it is, I can get you a deal on the blood.”
Oh; instead of fainting, Steve had a stroke, apparently, because none of what Eddie said is registering.
“Bluh,” he manages, making Robin snort.
“Totally scheme-free party, I promise.”
Eddie makes a face. “Well, that’s boring. B.Y.O.S., then?”
This time they both look at him blankly.
Eddie sighs. “Bring your own scheme?”
“Oh!” Steve says, way too loudly. “Ha! Yes, th…that.” He smiles at Eddie, a touch manic.
“So, when is this?” Eddie asks.
“Saturday,” Robin says. She’s writing furiously on a scrap of paper as she talks, hiding it from view.
“What time?”
“4:00,” she says, glancing up at him.
Eddie looks at Steve. “Do you concur?”
“Do I—what?” Steve asks. Robin suddenly snaps her fingers in Eddie’s face.
“Hey, look at me a minute,” she says, looking between him and her paper once he does and scribbling something.
“Uh, yeah, Saturday at four, if you want, you know, you wanna come.” He kicks Robin’s shin when she snorts. Eddie looks between the two of them, then shrugs.
“All right.”
“Okay,” Steve agrees, and his voice breaks in a way it hasn’t since he turned thirteen and he got his man voice, one squeaky, two-toned summer.
“Well, I’ll take this and get outta here,” Eddie says, sliding his tape over the counter. “This town isn’t going to terrorize itself. Three, right?”
“Right,” Steve says, and scans the back of the case and stuffs the dollar bills into the cash register. “So, see you Saturday.”
“Bye, Eddie,” Robin calls. She’s taping something in a magazine, grinning madly to herself.
Steve doesn’t trust it.
Eddie grabs his tape and backs away, doing something with his hand that makes Steve blush and look around to see if anyone else noticed. Eddie is almost out the door when Robin thrusts her magazine under Steve’s nose, and he automatically looks at the picture it’s open to, and then he chokes on his next inhale.
“He’s fine,” Robin calls to Eddie, who had paused when Steve made a sound like a chicken being stuffed with a rubber squeaker. Steve manages a wobbly thumbs-up through the tears in his eyes, and as soon as Eddie is out of sight and earshot, glares at Robin.
“You’re an asshole,” he tells her. She bites her lip and tries to hold back her laugh. This means she sounds like a balloon sputtering out its last bits of air and Steve angrily laughs which makes Robin just lose it.
“I’m sorry,” she finally gasps out, cheeks flushed.
“You know I hate when you make me laugh when I’m trying to be pissed off.”
“I know but your face—you’re frowning and you always start sarcastically, like ha ha ha! and then you go for real but you’re still so frowny.” She giggles.
“You’re a dick, and Eddie fucking flashed me the shocker—” he whispers this last word, leaning close to Robin—“when he left.”
Robin is staring at him with a weird look on her face.
“Eddie flashed you the shocker?” she repeats faintly.
“Yes!” Steve hisses, and after another quick glance around, mimes the motion under the counter. “That’s weird, right? I mean, I know he’s weird and that’s not a— Robin?”
She’s just sitting there, giving him a manic grin and kind of shaking, breathing wheezily.
“Robin! Are you okay—” Steve stops, letting go of where he’d grabbed her shoulders—“Are you laughing?”
It’s not until she actually falls off her chair she makes any sound, groaning in pain but managing to cackle madly. Steve does not help her up.
“What is so goddamn funny?” he demands.
“Steve,” she gasps out, dragging herself back into her chair, “holy shit.” She fans her face, gasping in great gulps of air. “I don’t think I’ve ever laughed that hard in my life.”
“Glad I could be of service,” he snipes. Robin sighs, and reaches out, taking a step closer, and, okay, Steve will accept an apologetic hug—
Robin snags her water bottle from the counter behind him, backing off to lean against the counter again as she drinks. “Hey, Steve?”
He looks up from his sulk- his thoughts and Robin grins at him.
“Rock on,” she says, and lifts her hand and throws up the same fingers Eddie did.
“Robin! This is Family Video,” Steve says, grabbing her hand and pushing it down out of sight.
“Oh, my sweet summer child,” Robin sighs fondly, reaching up to smooth Steve’s hair back. He flinches away from the sudden movement and she glares at him. “I wasn’t gonna hurt you!” She flicks his forehead.
“Ow!” Steve cries indignantly. “What did you just say?”
“I said I wasn’t, as in it’s the past particle…principle…thing. Didn’t mean it was off the table.”
“Oh, why don’t you go sort the returns?” Steve says. Robin sticks her tongue out at him.
“Because I’m merchandising. You go sort the returns.”
Steve scoffs and pushes off the counter. Robin stops him by thwacking the magazine against his stomach.
“Don’t forget this,” she says with a grin.
Steve meets her gaze, and neatly closes the magazine, tucking it under his arm and marching past her with perfect composure. He hears her snort and he grins to himself.
“Hey, Steve.”
He stops and glances back. Robin folds her fingers into a heart.
“Love you,” she says.
It was dumb, but there had been a small, insistent part of Steve that warned she would look at him differently if he told her about his burgeoning sexual awakening. He crushes it to dust as he rolls his eyes back at her.
“Love you,” he says in a long-suffering voice. Inside he’s flooded with gratitude for having her in his life, as his best friend. With Robin, everything becomes a little more bearable.
“I hate you, Robin Buckley,” Steve says, eyes fixed on the pool. She laughs, slurping her drink noisily through a straw.
“You’ll thank me later,” she promises, then nudges him with her foot. “Why don’t you go in?”
“I’m not hot enough yet,” Steve tries, and it’s pathetic and he knows it. Robin does, too.
“Eddie!” she yells, cupping her hands around her mouth like she’s hollering across the cafeteria. “Show us your tattoos!”
“Aw, you got ink envy, Buckley?” Eddie asks from where he sits on the edge of the pool, feet in the water, a can of beer at his side.
“The only tattoos I’ve seen in person are the shitty homemade ones that dude at the bowling alley has,” Robin says. “I wanna see art.”
Eddie pulls his legs out of the pool, swivelling around and getting to his feet with a languid stretch, stepping past Nancy's lounger where she lays in the sun. Steve tries not to stare as Eddie approaches, but it’s normal to watch someone walk up to you, right? But how much is normal and how much is too much? Is it different if they’re bare-chested, wearing only baggy black swim trunks and sunglasses?
All the times Steve had thought of Eddie in a swimsuit, he had never factored in sunglasses.
They’re devastating.
Eddie grins down at where the two of them sit on loungers, and Steve sees his own face reflected back in the shiny lenses. “Well, this one was a do-it-myself-er,” he says, perching on the edge of Robin’s chair and tapping the small skull above his knee. “I was twelve. When Wayne saw it, he said he was going to beat me with my leg after it got infected and fell off.”
Steve knows Robin says something but his hearing has faded out, watching Eddie’s fingers curl over his pale knee. They’re a little pruny; since Eddie arrived, he’s spent nearly the entire time in the pool. His shirt is on the chair beside Steve, carelessly pulled up and off in one swift motion, and Steve’s fantasies came true in one dick-throbbing moment.
Eddie’s chest is smooth but for a sparse smattering of hair over his pectorals, thinner at the edge. Steve caught a flash of nipple and almost brained himself on the patio umbrella shooting to his feet with the excuse of getting drinks. By the time he came back outside with the cooler, Eddie was in the water with Nancy and Robin.
“…meaning or do they just look good?” Robin is asking as Steve tunes back in.
Eddie tuts at her. “You think good-looking things can’t have meaning?” He looks over at Steve. “Bad news, Harrington: she thinks you’re meaningless.”
Steve actually hears the little shriek in his head when he realizes Eddie just called him good-looking. Robin is grinning hugely behind her margarita, making not -at-all subtle eyebrow waggles behind Eddie's back.
Steve is distracted from glaring at Robin by the sudden stench of skunk. He turns around, and he should have guessed: Jonathan and Argyle have arrived. Nancy sits up from her lounger beside Robin, smiling as Jonathan goes to sit with her, kissing her in greeting.
“Hey, man,” Argyle says to Steve, “I hope it’s okay I brought weed. If not, totally cool; I can just go smoke it in my van and come back.”
“No, you’re good,” Steve says, and thank fuck for him, really, because Steve needed a distraction from the spark of hope buzzing in his belly.
“Cool,” Argyle says, and takes a pull off a joint. “Hey, man,” he says to Nancy, passing her the joint then reaching into his pocket, pulling out a small tin. “I brought enough for everyone.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Eddie says. “Are you seriously coming onto my turf and hawking your California weed?”
“Oh, dude, it’s so much better,” Jonathan says.
Eddie clucks his tongue. “Than most of the ditch weed we got around here, admittedly so, but—” he spins and roots around in his bag for a moment, and Steve is off to the side and can see the few soft folds of skin around Eddie’s middle when he bends and he doesn’t know when something like that turned him on so much but hel-lo—“this is no ditch weed.” Eddie holds an enormous Ziploc baggie aloft, stuffed with dark green buds.
“Can I put my face in there?” Argyle asks. Jesus, he and Jonathan both have heart eyes looking at the stuff.
“I suggest a more conventional matter of ingestion,” Eddie says, and in his other hand he holds up a cookie tin. He drops the weed carelessly on top of his bag, and pries open the cookie tin. “Anyone allergic to peanuts?”
“Why can’t I have a whole one?” Steve asks, watching Eddie break one giant cookie into three sections.
“Because your tolerance is the same as a toddler’s, and I’m not looking to make you green out,” Eddie says. He split one cookie between Steve, Nancy, and Robin, and then takes a whole one for himself and Jonathan and Argyle.
Steve looks down at the crumbly cookie in his hand. He sniffs it, and there is definitely that thick marijuana scent, but the peanut butter is noticeable, too. He takes a tentative bite, chewing quickly, making a face when he gets what feels like a chunk of weed stuck in his tooth. He prods at it desperately with his tongue, and feels the wedge loosen and he swallows it, shuddering. One bite down, maybe five to go.
“I always knew brownies were good with weed in them, but I never heard of peanut butter cookies,” Robin says through a full mouth. Her entire cookie section is already gone.
Eddie nods. “Yeah, chocolate doesn’t go over too well, so I thought, peanut butter cookies, get a little extra protein with your dosage.”
“Do you just, like, mix the weed in the cookie dough?” Steve asks. Jonathan and Argyle both laugh, but Eddie doesn’t.
“No, we make cannabutter, and then use that instead of the regular store-bought butter,” Eddie explains.
“Canna…butter?”
“Yeah, it’s butter with weed in it,” Eddie grins. “Not the best on toast, but in cookies, it’s fucking great.”
Steve is fascinated, not so much by the subject matter, but more by Eddie and how animated he becomes when he talks about something he’s passionate about, as he rambles on about making the butter and what other sorts of things he’s made with it.
“The butter cake is the winner, though,” Eddie says. He’s been steadily rolling joints as he talks, and there’s a neat line of them on the low table between the chairs. “Definitely the most requested.”
“Do you sell your weed desserts?” Steve asks. He’s finished his cookie, washing the taste of weed and peanut butter down with a sip of beer. It’s suitably disgusting.
Eddie shakes his head. “No, they’re just for…personal use.”
“So you personally request them?”
“I have a deal with a friend,” Eddie says evasively. “I grow the weed at her place, she makes the butter, and we usually do the baking together.”
“Your girlfriend lets you grow at her place?” Argyle asks. He’s spread out on a blanket in the grass next to the pool, watching Jonathan, Nancy and Robin bob around in the water.
Steve awaits Eddie’s answer with bated breath, as he’s never actually confirmed Eddie’s sexuality one way or the other.
Eddie snorts, sparking up a joint. “I’m not into geriatrics in that way.” He inhales deeply, closing his eyes. “She’s got cancer. She uses marijuana medicinally, prefers to not smoke anything since that’s what got her in this situation in the first place.”
“You mean you grow weed for someone’s grandma and she bakes you weed cookies and shit?” Argyle asks. “Damn, I wish I lived in Hawkins.”
“People will tell you all I got is the cheap weed, and that’s all you should expect from Indiana, blah blah blah,” Eddie says, exhaling a cloud of smoke. He holds up the joint burning steadily away. “This, though, this is the shit for the people I like.”
Steve might be imagining the way Eddie’s eyes flick to him when he says that.
“Same as what’s in the cookie,” Eddie adds. “You smoked Neville’s Haze before?”
“Dude, is that what this is?” Argyle asks excitedly. “Man, I had it once, the day I got my license.” He chuckles. “That was the best drive.”
Eddie tosses Argyle one of the joints. “Then indulge, my friend, and lose yourself in the heady waters of nostalgia.”
“Bless you, dude,” Argyle says, bowing his head at Eddie before sparking up and flopping on his back with a contented sigh.
“Steve?” Eddie is holding out another joint.
“I don’t think I should smoke a lot,” Steve admits. “I think that cookie is starting to kick in.”
Eddie nods, dropping the joint back on the table, then he offers his own. “Just a hit or two?”
“Yeah, cool,” Steve says, and through sheer force of will keeps his fingers from trembling as he takes the joint from Eddie. He inhales, watches Eddie watch him with a little grin. He sucks the smoke back, lets it fill his lungs, then lets it out with a harsh cough. “Smooth,” he croaks, handing it back to Eddie.
“You are a fucking card, Harrington,” Eddie says, eyes crinkling as he grins.
“The queen of hearts,” Steve says. Since he stopped coughing, his head feels lighter, like it’s trying to lift off his shoulders.
“Not the king?” Eddie asks. “KInda goes with your whole high school persona.” He offers the joint again, and Steve takes it, this time only taking a small hit. He still coughs, but not enough to make his eyes water.
“I don’t wanna be the king,” Steve says, shaking his head. “All he does is behead people.”
“Yeah, usually the queen,” Eddie points out with a grin, stubbing the joint out in the grass then dropping it in an empty beer can.
“Yes,” Steve agrees, “but this way, I don’t go around killing ladies, and then, when it’s my turn, maybe they can do it at the top of a hill.”
“Why the top of a hill?” Eddie is still grinning and Steve feels his own mouth curling up in a loopy smile.
“Because your head survives for, like, eight seconds after its been cut off, so if they cut off my head at the top of a hill, it can roll down and I’ll be like, wooo the whole way down, and then I can die happy,” Steve says. God, it’s such a good idea.
Eddie is laughing at him and instead of being offended, Steve feels his grin stretch wide across his face.
“What?” he demands. “You don’t think that would be fun? And, like, get a whole bunch of people lined up and do ‘em all at once, like a festival.” A thought occurs to Steve and he giggles wildly. “Not the Rolling Stones, the Rolling Heads.”
Jesus, it’s not even funny but he suddenly can’t stop laughing, thinking about it, a pile of heads rolling and bumping their way down a hill, cheering and whooping as they go. He thinks, what if his dad was one of the people, because his dad hates spinning, and would probably just be frowning the whole way down, the one grumpy head that just wants it all to be over.
Steve tries to tell Eddie this but he can’t talk for laughing, the image of his father’s severed head glaring all the way down a hill keeping him going. Eddie is still laughing at him, and Robin has pulled herself from the pool and is standing in front of them, hands on her hips.
“What’s so funny?” she asks, lips already twitching.
“They’re talking about rolling their wives down the hill,” Argyle says from where he’s still reclined and smoking.
Steve and Eddie lose it anew, and Robin starts laughing, grinning at Steve.
“You are so baked,” she tells him, sounding delighted.
“Those cookies are awesome,” Nancy says from where she’s floating on her back in the pool. “Hey, when are we eating?”
“Pizza,” Jonathan says from his spot near her head.
“No, when.”
“Ohh, I gotta call them,” Steve says. He stands up and frowns. “They’re gonna know I’m high.”
Eddie stands and slings an arm over Steve’s shoulders. “Leave it to me, Stever; I have plenty of experience with coming across stoned.”
“Sober,” Steve says. “I think you mean sober.” He’d taken his own shirt off but never actually got in the pool, and now, having Eddie topless and pressed against his side like this is literally everything he wants. Eddie’s warm, and smooth, and soft, and he looks as good in a swimsuit for real as he did in Steve’s fantasy.
Eddie laughs, a quick, wild thing. “Probably,” he agrees, then steps away, leading the way into the house, Steve trailing after him dumbly. They go into the kitchen and Steve pulls out the phonebook. He won’t say it, but he really likes the sight of Eddie in his kitchen, half-dressed, smelling faintly like chlorine, sunglasses pushed up into his hair.
“You look good in here,” Steve tells him, brain fuzzy on why he shouldn’t say something like that out loud. Eddie grins and bats his eyelashes.
“You should see me in the bedroom.” He giggles and claps a hand over his mouth. “I didn’t mean to say that out loud.”
“Why not?” Steve asks. Eddie gives him a funny look.
“Man, you’re toasted,” he says, and pulls the phonebook over. “Who are we calling and what are we getting?”
“Eddie,” Steve says very seriously before he can think about it, “I’m, like, super high.”
Eddie chuckles. “I noticed. You good, though?”
Steve nods emphatically. “Oh, yeah, so super good, like, I feel really light inside, you know? And kinda like my brain is expanding and trying to take in more than it can, and then everything I’m thinking about is like, way more interesting.”
“Neville’s Haze is very cerebral,” Eddie says with a nod, watching Steve with a little grin.
“It’s super good,” Steve says again. “It’s like being drunk but not stupid. Why didn’t I use this in high school? It would have made everything so much easier.”
“More fun, at least,” Eddie says.
“Oh, yeah,” Steve agrees, and looking at Eddie looking at him, dark eyes focused on Steve, guard down, he makes a decision. “I’m gonna tell you something, and you can’t laugh, okay?”
“Is this something you’d tell me sober?”
“Yes,” Steve says, because he can’t imagine keeping this to himself forever. “Probably not this easily, though. I only invited you here so I could see you in a swimsuit. That might make me a slut, but at least I’m honest.”
Eddie is staring at him. “Whyyyyyy?” he asks, long and slow.
Steve takes that as his cue to expound on all the things he likes about Eddie. “Because you’re pretty,” he says. “And I like pretty boys, and I like brown eyes. You’re also a really good friend, like, to everyone, and you’re the most interesting person I’ve ever met and, well, I wanna get to know you better.”
Eddie blinks.
“Biblically as well as, like, non,” Steve adds helpfully.
Eddie exhales shakily. “Your tolerance really is shit,” he says, leaning against the counter and crossing his arms over his chest.
“Was I ogling?” Steve covers his eyes with one hand. “I’m sorry, I’ve been trying not to stare, but all my eyes want to look at is something that makes them feel good right now, and that’s you.”
He peeks between his fingers when Eddie doesn’t answer, and sees him fiddling with the thin silver chain around his neck.
“You know, the conservatives love screaming that smoking weed turns you gay,” Eddie says without looking at him. “They would love Steve Harrington for their poster boy proving them right.”
“I’m not gay,” Steve says. “Bisexual. I thought liking you meant I never actually liked Nancy or the other girls I dated, but then I learned about liking both, so I thought that was cool, so I never, like, lied to Nancy when we were together.”
Eddie nods slowly, looking at Steve silently. Then he nods at the phonebook. “You better call. You’ve got guests.”
“Oh, right, the pizza,” Steve says, frowning at the phonebook then looking at Eddie. “What about what I just said?”
Eddie snorts. “Why don’t we save it for another day?”
“You think it’s only cuz I’m high I said that, right?” Steve asks. “I mean, I said it because I was high, yeah, cuz suddenly it seemed really easy to say, but I don’t, like, only feel this way because I’m high.”
Eddie sighs, scrubbing his hands over his face. “Steve—”
“I can prove it to you,” Steve remembers suddenly. “Just stay there, I’ll get—”
“Steve.”
He stops, halfway out of the kitchen, and turns to face Eddie. “Yeah?”
“I don’t want proof,” he says. He looks uncomfortable. “Can we talk about this some other time?”
“Okay,” Steve says. He walks back into the kitchen. “I’m sorry, I didn’t—”
“It’s cool,” Eddie says, just as Robin stomps into the kitchen.
“How long?” she asks Steve. He blinks at her.
“How long—”
“For pizza!”
“Oh,” Steve nods. “Just about to call.”
“You haven’t even called yet?” she cries. He sees her look between him and Eddie, brow furrowed, and quickly heads her off.
“Take these,” he says, grabbing a few bags of chips from the cupboard. “Tide you over until—”
“Hey, do you have funyuns?” Argyle wanders into the kitchen, grinning lazily.
“I have funyuns, and I am willing to share,” Robin says. She levels a finger at Steve. “Call. Or I start eating pool noodles.”
It’s only once they’ve both walked out that Steve realizes Eddie left, too. He sighs to himself, reflects that maybe when he’s stoned out of his mind isn’t the best time to get real with someone, then finally dials for pizza delivery before going back outside. He sits on his lounger again and looks around.
“Hey, where’s Eddie?” he asks.
“He’s getting changed, he said,” Jonathan says from his spot on Argyle’s blanket.
“Yeah, he grabbed his bag and went back inside,” Nancy says.
But Eddie isn’t inside, and when Steve checks out front, his van is gone.
Steve drives to Eddie’s mid-morning the next day, gut churning with anxiety and nerves. He has no idea what Eddie’s thinking but if he has to guess, he expects to have the door shut in his face as soon as he knocks on Eddie’s door.
Eddie doesn’t shut Steve out, but he’s visibly on guard when he opens the door.
“Hey,” he says.
“Hi,” Steve says, heart beating furiously. “Can I come in?”
“No,” Eddie says, stepping out and closing the door behind him. “My uncle’s sleeping. We can go for a walk, if you want.” He motions to the field leading to the forest that gives the trailer park its name. Steve’s hopes, violently plummeting then rising just as meteorically, prevent him from doing more than choking out an agreement before following Eddie down the steps.
Steve doesn’t know what the appropriate distance from prying ears is, but Eddie seems in no hurry to talk, nor is he hurrying along, or trying to outpace Steve. They walk along short, patchy grass before coming to the lip of the woods. Eddie leans against a tree as if it had been put there for that exact purpose, and looks at Steve.
“I’m really, really sorry,” Steve begins, and Eddie’s face falls, just for an instant, before he composes himself. “Um, what I said last night—”
“It’s cool,” Eddie says, voice even. “I told you, you have the tolerance of a toddler.”
Steve frowns. “No—well, yes, that’s probably true, but that’s not what I’m talking about.”
“Look, no offense, but I really don’t need to hear about how much you regret it,” Eddie says.
Steve stares at him. “I don’t regret it. I mean, I do regret I pissed you off enough to leave—”
“I wasn’t mad,” Eddie interrupts.
“Well, you weren’t happy, and that was my fault,” Steve says, “and I made you feel like you had to leave—"
“Yeah, because I was…I dunno, upset or something.” Eddie mumbles it like it’s shameful.
“Because of me.”
Eddie nods slowly, gaze still fixed blanky ahead. “No,” he says, then sighs again, rubbing his eyes. “Like, it wasn’t so much you as what you reminded me of. Just something that sucked and I don’t wanna deal with again.”
“Can I ask what?” Steve asks. Eddie’s shoulders hunch and he jams his hands in his pockets, arms stiff at his sides. “Or not, sorry, I don’t wanna—"
Eddie shakes his head. “Nah, it’s…relevant. Um, when I was fifteen, I had a friend who thought he was gay. I guess I got a little too excited, you know, like ‘oh my god someone like me and he’s already my best friend!’ I mean, for me there was no question, I knew I liked boys. But,” he shrugs, “one sleepover where we kissed and held hands was apparently all he needed to get it out of his system. The next Monday he walked into school holding Martha Kelly’s hand. Never talked to me again.”
“Jesus,” Steve says, heart twisting at the thought of being rejected on two fronts like that.
“So, that’s something you need to get,” Eddie says, looking at Steve for the first time. “This isn’t a passing fancy for me, this is who I am. And I’m not willing to be the person you ‘try things out’ with, so unless you’re certain, then, thanks but no thanks.”
“Do you remember last night, when I said I have proof?”
Eddie nods.
Steve pulls one a worn, folded poster, the kind that gets stuffed into the record sleeve. He unfolds it and holds it up for Eddie to see.
“This is out of the November 1978 issue of Osmond’s World,” Steve says. “I cut it out of my grandma’s magazine and slept with it under my pillow, and hid it in my TinTin set when I wasn’t home.” The faded glossy picture of Donny Osmond rattles faintly in his grip as he looks Eddie in the eye and says, “I used to kiss it goodnight every night.”
Eddie, up until this point watching with a raised brow, lets out a sharp bark of laughter. “And they call me a freak,” he says, eyes warm as he looks at Steve.
“I think you can still see the lip prints,” Steve says, pushing the picture into Eddie’s hands. “You can keep that, if you want.”
“What use would I—” Eddie falters when he looks back up and sees the other picture Steve is holding, brow furrowed. “Uhh, what’s that?”
“The new thing I’ve been kissing at night,” Steve says. He can see Eddie doesn’t get it, and, slightly embarrassed, he hurriedly explains. “See, it’s a picture of a dude in a swimsuit- it’s actually a really nice one, I think it’s- okay, that doesn’t matter.” His jaw clicks shut when Eddie gently takes the cut-out magazine page from him.
“Is that supposed to be my head taped to his body?” Eddie’s lips are twitching, and Steve can hear the laugh in his throat.
“Yes,” Steve says, looking down at the picture with Eddie. “Robin drew it.”
Eddie snorts, then peers at it closer. “She did a really good job with the eyes, I must say.”
Steve nods, breath momentarily leaving him when Eddie looks up at him. They’re standing closer than he’s realized, and neither of them are in any hurry to pull back.
“Yeah, she really captured the—” Their faces are inches away from each other, and Steve can feel tiny puffs of Eddie’s breath sear across his lips.
“The what?” Eddie asks, gaze dipping to Steve’s mouth then back to his eyes.
Steve shakes his head helplessly. “I don’t know shit about art,” he says, and leans forward to kiss Eddie.
It’s a lot better than the picture.