Archive of Our Own ^beta

The sun blazes down from a bright blue sky. “No cheating,” Mike says firmly, the lake lapping around his waist. His hair is plastered to his forehead, dripping onto shoulders already reddening in the heat. 

“No cheating,” Eleven agrees from behind Steve. She places her hands on his wet shoulders, and he crouches down so she can climb up his back. Steve grabs onto her legs to stabilize her. A great splash of water splatters his side as Eddie shrieks.

“Don’t just fucking jump, you’re gonna knock me over!”

“I’m trying!” Mike protests. “You have to get down lower, like Steve!”

Eleven clambers onto Steve’s shoulders, settling into position with her knees hooked around his arms. Steve wipes the droplets from his eyes. Mike is wrestling up to Eddie’s shoulders, making Eddie stagger. “You’re kind of a shitty horse,” Mike grits out. 

“Oh, am I?” Eddie says, rocking his weight so Mike nearly slips from his back with a yelp. “If I go down, you’re going right down with me, Wheeler. Watch yourself.”

From Steve’s other side, Will is perched on Jonathan’s shoulders, both of them watching with quiet amusement. The water ripples around them. Steve’s swim trunks billow lazily around his thighs, the initial shock of cold long since settled to a pleasant numbness, balancing out the scorch of sunshine on his back. He straightens up, Eleven shifting her weight so she can sit comfortably. “Alright, are we doing this or what?” he asks.

“Oh, we’re doing this,” says Jonathan.

From the nearby shore, Robin shouts, “On my mark!”

They shuffle into a sort of triangle shape, the riders each wearing grins that promise violence. 

“Three! Two! One! And… go!”

Eleven lets out a war cry, and Steve takes his cue to charge. 

Mike doesn’t stand a chance. Silent, unspoken agreement makes him the obvious target, and Eleven and Will launch a coordinated assault of flailing limbs. Through the shouting and splashing, Steve manages to lock eyes with Eddie. He’s taking most of the splashing straight to the face, shaking water from his eyes and spitting locks of his own hair out of his mouth. When he catches Steve looking, he blanches, and Steve grins. 

“Hold on!” Steve shouts to Eleven, tightening his grip on her before ramming into Eddie. Eddie stumbles. Above them, Mike is left half-clinging onto Will, nearly unseated. 

“Oh, come on,” Eddie’s saying breathlessly, and Steve almost thinks he’s given up, but it’s followed by, “That all you got, big boy?”

He lunges back at Steve; Mike falls back into place with a yelp, and Eleven shrieks. They collide, Steve pressing all his strength upwards to keep Eleven upright. His feet dig down into the sand, slipping against the bottom of the lake. 

“Go El!” Nancy yells outs from the shore.

“Traitor!” Mike shouts viciously. 

“Go El!” Max cheers, joined by Lucas’s cry of, “Get his knees, Steve!”

“Do not get my knees,” Eddie threatens, his shoulder pushing hard against Steve’s chest as their riders wrestle overhead. The angle is awkward, and with the amount of effort it takes to keep his feet planted, Steve isn’t planning on doing anything except staying upright. But he’s tempted. Eddie’s breathing hard, his hair falling over Steve’s shoulder. “Do not even think about getting my knees, Harrington—”

“Aye aye,” says Steve, and lurches back. Eddie swears and stumbles into him, momentum carrying him forward, and Jonathan throws himself into his side. Mike only has time for a screeched “No!” as Jonathan shoves Eddie into the water, sending Mike toppling after him. Eleven’s laugh is loud and bright. Steve sees her reach out to Will, drawing her hand back for a high-five—

And Jonathan plows into them both, Will shouting triumphantly as he wrestles with Eleven. “No!” she gasps, her voice rising to a panicked scream that still sounds somehow delighted. “No! Steve—”

Something catches Steve in the side of the head. 

The world spins. The next thing he knows, water crashes over him. 

Cold slices through his bones. Something pulls hard on his neck. Muffled screams sound from above the surface. Steve struggles to re-orient, his heart slamming against his ribs. His hands find nothing but water. And below him, below him—

Sand. 

Feet on the sand.

Steve bursts back up to the surface, gasping for breath. Sound is clear again: Mike complaining, Will joking, Jonathan chiding them both. 

Eleven’s voice, sudden and close: “Steve.”

Steve startles. She’s standing in front of him, her short hair standing up in wet spikes, unmistakably concerned. “Are you okay?”

There’s a dull ache in Steve’s skull where he was hit. His pulse skips along, making a light, quick rhythm in his throat. Below him, the glow.

“I’m fine,” he says, sounding strangled even to his own ears. “Just hit my head a little. I’m good.”

“Oh, shit,” says Jonathan, taking notice. “Did I get you?”

“I don’t know,” says Steve, his voice coming from somewhere else. “I don’t think so, it’s fine. It’s all good.” Below him, the gate.

“Let’s take five,” Jonathan suggests. “Maybe go easy on the roughhousing.” He moves on quickly, to Steve’s intense gratitude. “Hey, you guys want to swim out to the raft? Make it a race?”

“Last one there carries the cooler!” Mike blurts out, and dives into the water. Eleven gives Steve a searching look. 

“Go on,” Steve manages, tilting his head after Mike. “Can’t let him get his pride back.”

Eleven nods and dips underwater to swim after him. 

Steve turns back to the shore and starts to wade into shallower water without even really thinking about what he’s doing. The current around his shins feels colder than it had before. His feet slip into the sand like it wants to swallow him. He can feel the panic rising again as weeds brush against his ankles, cresting like a wave, and he pushes faster through the water, feeling it lick lower and lower down his legs until it’s only inches deep.

“Hey,” says Eddie. Steve jumps; water sloshes around his feet. He hadn’t even noticed Eddie following him. 

“Hey,” he echoes.

“You okay?” Eddie asks, falling into step with him as they reach the edge of the water. “I feel like I might’ve, uh…” He clicks his tongue, taking a swing at the air. “Clocked you there by accident. Or elbowed you or something. I kinda fell into you.”

“It’s fine,” Steve mumbles. “I think Will kicked me or something, man, it’s not your fault.” His head doesn’t even hurt, really. It’s his pulse that can’t fucking calm down; he’s breathing funny and can’t seem to stop. Better to lean on the excuse of a head injury than admit he can’t handle one fall into the water. 

“Okay,” Eddie says slowly. “I just… you stayed under for a second there, man. Like, a long second.”

They’re too close to the picnic table now. Robin straightens up at their approach, and it takes only a moment of looking back and forth between Steve and Eddie for her expression to stiffen. “Is everything okay?” she asks, directing it at Eddie for some reason.

“Um,” says Eddie. “I might have hit him in the head by accident?”

“It wasn’t you,” Steve says wearily, just as Robin turns on him with wide-eyed outrage. 

“Steve!” she says. Beside her at the table, Nancy is shaking her head, too, looking troubled. Robin jumps up and wastes no time, grabbing Steve’s face in both hands to inspect him closely. 

“I’m fine," Steve complains. “Seriously, Rob, overkill—”

“You are not supposed to get any more thumps to that fragile little baby skull of yours,” Robin says, pushing his eyelids up. “You know that. And you also know that if you go and get even more brain damaged and leave me rewinding VHS tapes by myself, I will kill you—”

“No more chicken fights,” Nancy says firmly. “We shouldn’t have even let that happen.”

“Hold on, more brain damaged?” Eddie interjects.

“I saw him fall, it didn’t look bad,” Lucas chimes in from the picnic table. “It should be fine, right?”

Nancy hesitates, but smiles anyway. It doesn’t make her look less worried. “Right,” she says with forced cheer. “No, you’re right. It’s just—you don’t want to take chances with this kind of thing. But it should be fine as long as he’s feeling okay. You’re okay, right, Steve?”

“Yup,” Steve says pointedly, removing Robin’s hands from his face. “Can we all just calm down a little, please?”

“I feel like I’m missing something,” says Eddie. 

Steve goes to sit on the edge of the picnic table, waving his hand. “Eh. I’ve had a few bumps, the doctors told me to wear a helmet if I’m riding a bike, it’s all good.”

“He’s had multiple severe concussions and he’s lucky the damage wasn’t worse,” Robin translates. “As in, we’ve blazed past the ‘don’t do that!’ zone and are now squarely in ‘one more time and it’s lights out, buddy!’ territory.”

“But,” Steve stresses, because Eddie’s gone pale and is looking like a deer in the headlights, “It’s actually fine, because we were just messing around and I feel totally fine.”

“No headache?” asks Robin.

“Or dizziness?” Nancy says tentatively.

“No and no,” Steve snaps. “Jesus, you guys. You’d be able to tell if something was up, alright? I’m telling you, I’m fine.” 

Nancy and Robin look unconvinced. They can tell something is up; they’re just wrong about what it is. Steve isn’t about to keel over and die. He’s just an idiot who’s a little justifiably jumpy around lakes these days. 

But he can’t admit that now.

“So, no more chicken fights,” Eddie says weakly. 

*

A million years ago, Steve used to go to Lake Jordan with his swim team friends, since it was less popular than Lover’s Lake and therefore easier to get away with underage drinking. A dilapidated, sagging old lake house was their secret hideout. None of them ever bothered to set foot inside, sketchy as it was, but the outside alone held all the amenities a group of teenagers could want: a picnic table, a private strip of shoreline, and a rope swing that hung from a willow tree over the water. For them, it was paradise. Steve spent the summer after his freshman year laying on the overgrown grass, drinking himself dizzy and stumbling into the water when the muggy heat became suffocating.

That was what gave him the idea. 

The swim team got scared off the property after some kayakers drifted close to shore and asked too many questions, and as far as Steve knows, the place has been completely vacant for years. In other words, it’s the perfect spot to take a suspected murderer and a teenage girl with superpowers. 

“You’re sure this place is abandoned,” Nancy had said on their first visit, peering from the driver’s seat out to the shore. All her passengers had already unloaded and raced toward the water. 

Steve shrugged. “This place was the team’s best kept secret, and they haven’t been around in years.”

Nancy pursed her lips, her eyes fixed on a point in the distance. Steve didn’t have to turn to know she was watching Eddie. 

Most of Hawkins was still under the impression that he was dead. A bit of Hawkins Lab string-pulling had gotten his name cleared on the official record, but public opinion was beyond even their control. They’d moved Eddie and his uncle out of their trailer for their own safety, with strict instructions to lay low until… something. Steve didn’t know what came next. Only that it was better for Eddie if he was still assumed to be missing in action. 

“Nobody’s going to find us here,” Steve promised. “I swear.”

Nancy drummed her fingers on the steering wheel. “Okay,” she finally said, and unbuckled her seatbelt. 

And that was it. They came back the next weekend, and the next, and then it was a routine, and summer rolled in with a blistering heat wave that made the hair at the back of Steve’s neck perpetually damp with sweat. But the breeze off the lake was cool, and as long as everyone he cared about was in his line of sight, he didn’t mind getting sunburnt. He would take any excuse to get everyone in the same place again. Finishing out the school year with Robin and all the kids sequestered away every weekday had been painful. 

When Steve first suggested the lake, he’d thought swimming would be fine—after all, it wasn’t a pool, and it wasn’t Lover’s Lake, so he should have had nothing to fear. Now, of course, things are different. The thought of submerging makes his palms clammy, and he knows that if he freaks out about it again, he won’t be able to play it off so easily. Robin’s been keeping a close eye on him since the chicken fight incident. Steve doesn’t find it nearly as annoying as he’s letting everyone think. 

So he’s been spending his time on land with Max, who jeers at the boys from her wheelchair, and Robin, who is consistently slathered in a greasy white layer of sunblock. The one time Nancy successfully entices her into the water, Robin wades straight into a dead fish floating belly-up on the surface, and the shriek she lets out echoes across the entire lake. It makes Eddie laugh so hard he almost falls off the picnic table. 

He’s the most surprising member of their benchwarming crew—sometimes he goes out and splashes around with the freshmen, but most of the time, he sits on the shore, reading a book or grinning as Robin recounts every embarrassing story about Steve she knows. 

It’s not for a lack of trying on part of the boys, though. “Come on, Eddie!” Dustin shouts from the water. “Just one time! I’ll never ask you for anything again!”

“Nope,” Eddie calls back, lazily flipping a page in his book. “That thing’s built for shrimps like you. If I go on it, it’ll snap.”

“Jonathan’s done it like five times!” Mike yells. 

“Sorry, what was that?” Eddie thumps one ear with the palm of his hand. “Didn’t hear you, I got water in my ear.”

“Eddie!” Dustin whines.

The rope swing has proven the most contentious point of Eddie’s stubbornness in staying on land. He’ll usually concede to wading in the shallows or the chicken fights Steve has been banned from, but he refuses to jump off the rope swing outright, and he never swims out as far as the raft. If Steve had to guess, he’d say their reasons for sticking close to shore are similar. He doesn’t know for sure, though, and he doesn’t plan on prying. 

“I already said no,” Eddie sing-songs. 

“It might be worth it just to get them to shut up,” says Max, scowling out over the lake. Her eyes are hidden by a pair of red sunglasses. She’s been wearing them everywhere and claiming it’s a fashion statement, but Steve’s familiar enough with light-induced headaches to guess that her vision is still giving her trouble. Something about the beveled square shape of the glasses makes her look younger—it reminds Steve of the kids who used to run around the town pool when he was lifeguarding. Her attitude is still decidedly teenaged, though. 

“Yeah, but what message would that send?” Eddie muses. “Can’t reward them for being annoying, they’ll never stop.”

“They never stop anyway.”

“Come on, just once!” Lucas yells. “It’s easy!” As if to demonstrate the point, he grabs the rope and backs up a few steps, then takes a running leap and soars out over the water. When the rope swings as far as it’ll go, he flings himself off and hits the water with a loud splash.

“I can never tell if that’s supposed to impress me,” Max comments.

“It isn’t,” says Steve. “He’d be yelling at us to make sure you were watching.”

“Not like I can see from this far, anyway.”

Robin snorts. “Consider yourself lucky. Eddie’s got their attention right now.”

On cue, Lucas bursts up from beneath the surface and shouts, “Eddie, come on!”

Eddie growls a sigh and sets his book aside. He cups his hands over his mouth and yells, “I don’t have a swimsuit!”

Lucas squints, holding up a hand to shield his eyes from the sun. “You never have a swimsuit! Just go in your underwear.”

“Who says I’m wearing underwear?”

“Gross!” Mike complains. Eleven makes a face and echoes, “Gross!”

“Oh my God,” Robin groans. “As much as I loathe to admit it, Eddie, it might be better for you to just give in.”

“It might be better for them to shut the hell up,” Eddie mutters.

“Or grow the hell up,” Max adds. 

“Yes, but putting aside their need to shut and/or grow up, I cannot take much more of this,” Robin begs. “Just once. To silence them. Please?”

“Oh God, not you too,” Eddie moans.

“Just once, and it’ll be over!”

Eddie makes a frustrated noise, curling his hand into a fist and looking away as he knocks it against the table a couple times. It seems as though he’s weighing something over. In the end, he clears his throat and says, “I don’t want to go out that deep.”

“But—”

A warning flag flies up in Steve’s head. “Hey,” he says quickly, before they can back Eddie into a corner where he’s forced to admit something he doesn’t want to, such as a fear of being fully submerged in an open body of water. “If he doesn’t want to, he doesn’t want to. We can deal with a little whining.”

Robin completely misses the attempt at a signal. “You may be able to handle their whining, but most of us do not have the patience of an oft-tried babysitter,” she says. “I’m just saying it—”

“I can’t swim,” says Eddie.

Robin and Steve both stop short.

Oh. 

So… not the same issue as Steve, then. 

Eddie leans over the table on his elbows, pointing at them both. “But if either of you breathe a word to those little shits,” he says, jabbing his thumb aggressively toward the lake, “I’m mobilizing them to annoy you for the next year. Got that? I’ve got the power of hero worship on my side, and I will use it to exact revenge.”

“Noted,” says Max. Eddie glowers at her. She grins. “What? I won’t tell. I don’t swim either, we’re on the same side.”

Eddie nods shortly. If Steve’s not mistaken, there’s a hint of a flush creeping up on his neck. Steve gets it, he thinks. There’s a good chance the kids would give Eddie shit for it if they knew, and Steve is all too aware of how fragile that power of hero worship can be. It only took one summer at nerd camp for Dustin’s faith in Steve to utterly collapse. 

Still. For entirely unrelated reasons, Steve can’t help but stare at Eddie. “You never learned to swim?” he asks.

Eddie snorts. “And when would I have learned something like that?” he asks. “We didn’t all have parents lining up to sign us up for kiddie classes at the town pool.”

“But you—”

“I just didn’t, okay?” Eddie says defensively. “I can wade around or doggie paddle, that’s enough.” He grabs his book again and flips it open. “Sorry if that offends Mr. Swim Team Co-Captain, but most of us don’t need to know the butterfly.”

Steve doesn’t know what Eddie thinks he’s seeing in Steve’s expression. Steve’s not offended. He’s just sort of… shocked. Awed, maybe.

He’d been about to say, but you made it through the gate. Out there in that little boat with everyone diving after Steve, Eddie had chosen to dive in too, not even knowing if he could make it back up to the surface again. And later on, describing the scene to Steve, he’d called himself a coward. Christ.

Eddie glares at him. Steve swallows, trying to regain his footing. “Not offended,” he says. “Just, you know. Swim team co-captain and lifeguard. I know my shit.”

Eddie scoffs. “Oh, co-captain and lifeguard? My mistake, not remembering all the bullet points on your—”

“Dude,” Steve says, before Eddie can get going on another misinterpretation, “I’m saying I could, like. Teach you. If you wanted.”

Eddie cuts himself off, his mouth still open. He shuts it abruptly. 

“What, like right now?” he asks.

Steve shrugs. “Whenever you want. No rush.”

“That could save us all from another month of screaming,” Robin says thoughtfully. “Might be nice.”

Eddie chews on his lip. 

“Only if you want,” Steve says. 

Eddie looks out over the lake. The afternoon sun glitters over the surface, ripples of white light broken only by the distant heads of their friends treading water. They look so small from this far away. They seem to have given up on getting Eddie’s attention.

Eddie sighs. 

“Yeah, alright,” he says. “Sure. But not right now.” 

"Sure. It can be a private lesson," says Steve. Eddie's face does something odd, and Steve holds up his hand. "Nope, no changing your mind now. I'm getting you on that goddamn rope swing, for everyone else's sake if not your own."

Eddie eyes him a moment longer, then shrugs and spreads his hands. "If Steve decrees it, so it shall be," he says, only a little mockingly.

The urge to bitch right back at him is like a spark in the back of Steve’s throat. He doesn’t understand why Eddie still does that, even after he told Steve that he’d passed the Munson test of not being a douchebag or whatever—there’s always some comment with the King before Steve implied, even if it’s not said out loud. 

But, Steve reminds himself, forcing the spark back down before it can catch, Eddie will have to let it go eventually. What does it matter if he’s still a little petty? He dove down through that gate for Steve despite any misgivings he had. 

The least Steve can do is show him how to swim back up.

*

After they drop all the kids off at home, Steve drives Eddie back to the lake. Eddie has his own car, a little black compact that the Hawkins Lab people gave him after they took his van––something about testing everything in the vicinity of the trailer gate when it opened––but he makes no secret of how much he hates driving it, and anyway, Steve likes having him ride shotgun. It’s funny to see him in the front seat for once, rather than squished in the back with Dustin. One of the first things Eddie does is roll his window down and hang one arm out the side like they’re cruising in a convertible.

"Enjoying the fresh air?" Steve deadpans.

Eddie hums. "Just planning my escape route in case you try to kidnap me.”

They don't talk much on the drive. Steve is sure they're both conscious of the fact that this is a first-time thing, being alone in a car together, and it’ll probably happen again. It's not uncomfortable, though. Steve just watches Eddie from the corner of his eye, taking him in. It's more than seeing him in the front seat that’s new, he realizes—it’s seeing him without the posse of freshmen. Just himself. 

It makes him seem older. 

They’ve nearly made it back to the lakeside when Eddie says, “You don’t have to do this, you know.”

Steve only raises his eyebrows.

“I’m not gonna be good at it,” Eddie says. “Like, seriously, if you’d rather just give up and hang out on the bench, that’s totally cool with—”

“I’m not on the bench,” Steve says, offended. “I’m the star player.”

Eddie rolls his eyes. “Okay, maybe you are,” he says. “But in case you hadn’t noticed, I’m the resident non-athlete, and I know you think you can fix that, but I’m telling you, you’re not gonna be able to teach me in a day.”

Steve pulls into their parking spot from earlier in the day, a patch of gravel tucked in near the abandoned lake house, and kills the engine. “Then we’ll take more than one day,” he says, with an unspoken duh. 

Eddie trails after him to the shore. Steve kicks off his shoes as he goes and strips his shirt off. It’s still plenty warm out, but the trees cast longer shadows now, and the grass is cool beneath his feet. He shivers as he dips his toes into the water. 

Eddie coughs. “So, um.”

“You’d better have been lying about not wearing underwear, Munson, or I swear to god—”

“Fuck off,” says Eddie, and there’s a sound of fabric shifting from behind Steve. He turns around and is immediately hit in the face with Eddie’s shirt. 

“What is it with you and throwing clothes at me?” Steve complains, bending down to snatch the shirt from the sandy ground. “You know, you can just hand me things.”

A bundle of denim hits him in the back of the head. Steve groans and grabs Eddie’s jeans before they can hit the ground, too. 

“Shit, sorry,” Eddie says, suddenly right behind Steve and a little nervous. “I forgot about the—the head thing. Did that hurt?”

“Nah, I’m fine,” Steve says, turning to pass Eddie’s clothes back to him. Eddie is, in fact, wearing boxer briefs, and nothing else. Steve's seen him strip down to wade in the lake before, but seeing so much of his skin never gets any less startling. Steve always forgets that Eddie’s shoulders aren’t as broad as the vest normally makes them look. He’s pale as a goddamn sheet, too, except for the pink-red scars that pockmark his stomach and chest. 

Eddie catches him looking. “Might not even be worth it to teach me to swim,” he says wryly. “Don’t think I can ever set foot at a public pool again with these bad boys.”

“We could just go together,” says Steve. “Then we’d match.” 

His own wounds have healed up better than Eddie’s. The demobats tore him up pretty good, but the bites were shallow; as months passed by, they’ve smoothed over into pale, warped ripples of scar tissue. Without thinking about it, Steve touches one close to his hip. As if in a mirror, Eddie does the same, his fingertips brushing over his stomach. 

His boxers have little dragons on them.

“Come on,” Steve says, tearing his eyes away from the line of a scar that disappears beneath Eddie’s waistband. He wades into the water, Eddie splashing in behind him. “You said you can doggie paddle, right? Can you tread water? Like, properly?”

“What do you mean, properly?”

“Okay, so that’s a no,” Steve says. The water rises up to his thighs as they go. He tries not to think about it. “What about floating, can you float?”

“Not without sinking.”

“Yeah, that’s what floating is, dipshit.” Steve stops when the water is up to his waist. It’s cooler than it was earlier in the day, enough to raise goosebumps along the line where the water encircles his stomach. He shakes his hair and jumps a few times, exhaling hard. “Okay. I haven’t taught lessons in a while, but, uh, the first thing we’ll have to work on is submerging yourself. You gotta be comfortable being underwater if you’re gonna swim.”

Eddie makes a face, his arms crossed over his chest. “It’s gonna take my hair forever to dry if I go all the way under.”

“Tough,” says Steve, unimpressed. “My hair’s my best feature, if I can handle getting it wet, you totally can.”

Eddie rolls his eyes. “Can you, though?”

“What?”

“Can you handle getting your hair wet?” Eddie asks, raising his eyebrows. “Or are you just gonna watch me suffer?”

Steve shrugs. “I can handle it, I’m just choosing not to.”

Eddie crows. “Now that is a load of bullshit, Harrington,” he says. “How am I gonna trust you to teach me if you can’t even dunk your head in, huh?” He aims a splash at Steve. Steve yelps a little as a shock of cold hits his shoulder. “Come on, man, put your money where your mouth is.”

Eddie’s grin looks dangerously like he might shove Steve underwater himself. “Fine,” Steve says quickly. His heart skips light through his chest. It’s just a dunk; he’s got this. Three, two, one.

He closes his eyes, drops his knees, and plunges into the water. The lake swallows him up. For a second, it’s dark, and cold pressure envelops him from all sides. It’s silent. Just the muted roar of blood flowing through his ears. 

Then Steve plants his feet back on the bottom and shoots back up above the surface, inhaling deeply. He shakes his wet hair and smooths it back from his forehead. “Your turn,” he says. Eddie grumbles to himself, but takes a loud breath and sinks down under. He’s only gone for half a second before he comes back up, streams of water dripping down his face. He blows a few drops from his lips, squinting, and wipes his bangs out of his eyes. 

Steve can’t help but laugh. Without clothes on, it’s only Eddie’s hair that lets him cling to his edgy aesthetic; when it’s all wet and flattened, he looks like a different person. “What?” Eddie says crossly.

“Your hair, dude,” Steve says, snorting. “I think it might be both of our best features.”

Eddie wipes more water from his face. “I can’t tell if you’re trying to insult me or hit on me.”

Steve catches himself before he can say anything. The first thing that had come to mind was why not both, but that’s not true, is it? He’s not insulting Eddie. And he’s definitely not hitting on Eddie. He's not into him like that—he's not into guys like that. His anxiety around submersion has him completely scrambled. “Let’s keep going,” Steve says. “Do you think you can go under for five seconds?”

Eddie rolls his eyes. “Okay, you know I’m not an actual child, right? This isn’t baby’s first swim lesson.”

“Isn’t it, though?”

“You want to call me baby, that’s your god-given right, Harrington.” Eddie winks and drops under before Steve can even register what he’s said. A stream of bubbles rises to the surface. 

With a moment’s silence to belatedly absorb the words, Steve’s face heats. He’s already missed his chance to retort. He resorts to mentally cursing himself instead. This always happens. The slightest misstep, and Eddie pounces on him—sometimes to remind him of what a douche he used to be, sometimes to remind him what a loser he is now. Steve hits on every girl in Hawkins and still can’t get a date. Of course he’d try and fail to hit on Eddie too, right? Because he’s stupid and desperate? 

Steve scoops some water up in his hand and quickly splashes his face with it, willing the blush to fade. He tells himself it’s just low hanging fruit. Eddie likes to rile him up, and one of the easiest ways to do that is to wound his pride. But he won’t get anywhere trying to insinuate that Steve doesn’t have charm—past failures or no, Steve knows he’s good at flirting, okay, he’s got methods. He’s got it down to a science. If he was actually trying to flirt with Eddie, he’d do a better fucking job of it. 

Not that he is. 

Eddie comes back up, spitting out water. “Was that five seconds?” he asks. “Shit, do I have seaweed in my hair?”

Steve had forgotten to count. 

“We’re in a lake, it’s not seaweed,” is all he can think to say. He can’t spot anything in Eddie’s hair, though. He can barely spot any algae on him. Steve supposes it makes sense; Eddie’s a lot less hairy than Steve. It must all wash away too easily. He watches as the water traces smoothly over Eddie’s chest, droplets racing each other downward. 

“Whatever, it’s seaweed,” Eddie says, and dunks himself back underwater. 

Steve feels hot. Maybe he's just oversensitive from the chill of the water. He barely remembers to count to five before Eddie splutters back up. “Harrington,” he says, swiping water from his eyes, “If you’re gonna make me do this shit, I better see you doing it too. Come on.”

Steve doesn’t want to be underwater. 

“Come on, man, I feel stupid doing this by myself.”

Steve hesitates. Eddie grabs him by the shoulders. His hands are cool. His wet hair falls in ringlets in the hollow of his collarbone. “Thirty seconds, okay? We’re big boys, we can handle it,” he says brightly. “One, two—”

And before Steve can protest, Eddie’s pressing down on his shoulders, dragging them both under. 

One. Two. Three.

Steve keeps his eyes shut tight and locks the air in his lungs. Eddie’s fingertips dig into his shoulder. Six. Seven. Eight. The sand beneath his feet is cold and sludgy, a thick grain that slides out of place wherever he touches down. It isn’t going anywhere. This is as deep as it goes. 

Ten. Eleven. Twelve.

But the water presses in. It swirls around his hair. It makes every effort to seep in through his ears, his nose, his lips closed tight—it isn’t going anywhere, either. 

Steve’s heart pounds, too loud in the muffled silence. Fifteen. Sixteen. Seventeen. The longer it takes, the more his lungs will burn. Soon he’ll have to gasp for air. When he does, the flood will suffocate him. His lungs spasm. How long has it been? How much time does he have?

Water crashes around him, and Eddie drags him up. Steve’s hearing pops back to clarity and the sound of Eddie’s laughter. 

“So what’s next?” he’s asking. “Should we sign me up for the Olympics?”

Steve breathes in and out, brushing his hair out of his face. Even above the surface, his heart won’t slow. Eddie’s holding onto his shoulders, and some animal instinct cries out for Steve to bury his face in Eddie’s neck, to seek out something warm and stable. He jerks away instead, his stomach flip-flopping. He can only imagine how much Eddie would make fun of him.

“I’m taking that as a no,” Eddie says cheerily, “And I find your lack of faith disturbing.”

Steve wants to cringe away from the water around his waist, but it’s still there, surrounding him. He looks around. They’re only thirty feet from shore. It’s never felt so far. The mortifying urge to cling to Eddie has not diminished in the slightest. 

He smooths his hair back again out of habit. “Don’t get ahead of yourself,” he forces himself to say, and turns back to Eddie. “Let’s get you floating first.”

Floating turns out to be an ambitious objective in itself. Eddie has a tendency to sink like a stone—he can’t keep his back straight enough to stay on top of the water, his legs always flopping a little too low—so without Steve supporting him, he just ends up spluttering and splashing with two inches of water over his face. 

Steve doesn’t mind holding him up, though. In fact, it’s just the opposite—every time he lays his palms flat, hovering just beneath the stiff muscles of Eddie’s back, he doesn’t want to take them away. The physical contact helps him breathe. It makes him focus on being gentle, on placing his hands just the right way to keep Eddie comfortable, rather than bracing himself to be dragged underwater by an unseen creature. 

If only that was enough for him to fully relax. 

He keeps up a rambling narrative the whole time: “Okay, now stretch your arms out—little more—good, now lift up? Like there’s a rope pulling your hips up? Just let it carry you, lift ‘em like—okay, one more time, let your head fall back. Just look at me.”

“I am looking at you,” Eddie pants, his eyes trained on Steve. Despite the complaining, there’s zero hesitation in the way he looks up, like eye contact alone would be enough to hold him steady. 

“Good,” says Steve, fighting to keep his voice even. “Now don’t stop this time. Gotta keep your chin back, or you’ll keep sinking.”

It’s humiliating. He shouldn’t need Eddie to anchor him. Trying to hide his relief is almost worse than drowning in anxiety. He feels jittery; he keeps tripping over his words. He makes sure all his touches are light, his fingers ghosting over Eddie’s back in quick bursts. Anything to seem less suspicious. He’s lucky that Eddie hasn’t noticed yet—it feels obvious that he doesn’t want to pull away, that he’s secretly relishing every time Eddie wobbles and sinks into his waiting arms. God, he’s fucking blushing. Eddie probably has noticed. He’s probably just playing along so things don’t get more awkward than they already are. 

They make it through twenty more minutes of practice, then Steve makes up an excuse for them to leave. 

The drive home is quiet. Steve’s insides churn. Eddie lounges in the passenger’s seat, one arm hanging out, and he keeps looking at Steve—not saying anything, just looking at him. Steve doesn’t dare look back. 

When they reach Eddie’s apartment, Eddie unbuckles his seat. He doesn’t get out. “So,” he says. “When are we doing this again?”

Steve’s stomach clenches. Something inside him jumps, eager—yes, swimming with Eddie, driving with Eddie, again—but it’s quickly crushed by dread. One lesson was hard enough for him to get through. They’re going to have to keep doing this if he really intends for Eddie to learn to swim, but that means spending time in the water. Sticking it out despite the constant urge to move his feet so nothing can grab onto them. 

Company makes it bearable, Steve reminds himself. He made it through one afternoon. He can do it again. If that’s what it takes to get Eddie swimming properly.

“I don’t know,” he says, scratching at the back of his neck. “Whenever. Same time next week?”

“Same time next week,” Eddie says with a nod. He tilts his head a little, and there it is again, that fucking look. Almost like he’s waiting for something. And Steve doesn’t know what it is, but he feels it too—like there’s something else that should be said.

Whatever it is, it doesn’t happen.

Eddie hops out, leaning his head back into the car. “See ya later, Harrington,” he says, and pulls his beach towel off the seat, throwing it over his shoulder. The car door smacks shut, and then it’s quiet.

Steve watches him saunter up to the door of the apartment building. He turns the key in the ignition, turning over his shoulder to back the car up. The low rumble of the engine goes right through him. When he turns back, Eddie has disappeared inside. 

*

Eddie isn’t just bad at swimming. He’s fucking awful. It’s no wonder he’s never risen to the bait no matter how much Dustin heckles him. Three whole afternoons at the lake with Steve, and he’s still struggling just to float without assistance. Watching him attempt to tread water a few feet away, Steve’s eyebrows steadily climb higher, and all he can say is, “Wow.”

Eddie keeps his chin tilted back, the water lapping up around his face. “I don’t want to hear it,” he huffs. His feet kick hard somewhere beneath the surface, struggling to keep him up. 

“No, keep going. That’s… almost what I said to do.”

“You said to move my arms—”

”Steadily. Strong movements. Slow. Keep ‘em going back and forth, but don’t rush, you’ll just exhaust yourself.”

“If I try to do that—” Eddie splutters and spits out a bit of water that’s crept too high— “I sink.”

“Then you’re either not bracing your arms hard enough or you’re not kicking hard enough.”

Eddie groans. Instead of keeping his arms low like he’s supposed to, skimming just beneath the surface, he lifts them higher and splashes, panting as he flounders his way over to Steve. In shallower water, he can finally plant his feet on the ground and stand up. He takes a moment to catch his breath, one hand to his chest as he gulps down air. 

“You want to know what would help with that breath control?” Steve says mildly.

“Shut up,” Eddie grits out. After a few more breaths, he says, “Show me again. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with my arms.”

“Again?”

“Harrington,” Eddie says. “I’m handing you the opportunity to not only demonstrate your superior skill at something, but to take credit for my own improvement when it occurs. Just take it. For my dignity’s sake.”

Steve laughs. Eddie looks like he’s fighting down a smile, too. That’s one thing about spending so much time with him that Steve hadn’t expected—he’s been forced to appreciate how fucking funny Eddie can be. Sure, he always makes the kids laugh, but that’s different; around them, all Eddie has to do is be sarcastic and throw around references Steve doesn’t understand. When it’s just the two of them, it’s his dry wit that has Steve constantly cracking up. It kind of reminds him of that first summer with Robin. 

This whole idea—the time in the water that swim lessons would demand of him—initially made Steve nervous, but in reality, he’s been having too much fun with Eddie to remember that the lake makes him anxious. When they’re together, he almost enjoys swimming again.

He’d missed that feeling. 

“Okay, c’mere,” says Steve. Eddie sidles up next to him. Steve raises his arms up high, so they’re just barely visible through the murky water. “So, hold ‘em about this high.”

Eddie lifts his arms to the surface. Steve pushes them down a little. “Lower. You want to get some resistance. Now move ‘em back and forth.” Eddie slowly swishes his arms. “Ah, see, there’s your problem.” Steve takes Eddie’s forearm in his hands and gently tilts it outward. “You’re not trying to just skim over the top. You want to push the water out,” he guides Eddie’s arms apart from one another, “Then pull it back in. Put some muscle into it, I know you’ve got some.”

“Gee, thanks,” Eddie says dryly. 

Steve squeezes Eddie’s bicep. It’s not exactly firm, but there’s subtle bulk to it. “Muscle and technique. That’s all it is. You have to be working the water, or you’re not doing anything to keep yourself on top of it.”

Eddie rolls his eyes. He has water drops clinging to his eyelashes, spiky and wet. “This is why I keep you around, Harrington. Your little nuggets of wisdom.”

“You know, you and Henderson both—you complain about my advice, then you follow it, and it works.”

“You want to keep comparing me to Henderson while you’re feeling up my arms?”

Steve hadn’t realized he was still holding onto Eddie’s arm. He lets go, and it takes a second too long for him to remember to respond. “There’s nothing to compare to,” he mutters. “That kid’s hopeless. If he didn’t already know how to swim, he’d be shit out of luck.”

“What, you mean you wouldn’t teach him?” Eddie stops swishing his arms, pausing to push his wet hair back from his forehead. He grins at Steve, mischief in his eyes. “I’m just special, huh?”

“You,” Steve says pointedly, “are an opportunity to demonstrate my superior skill at something, and take credit for your improvement.”

Eddie gets that look again, like he’s fighting a smile. He’s still for just a second too long, like a cat gearing up to pounce, and Steve is learning—little by little, he’s learning. He has just enough time to yelp and throw up his hands in front of his face before Eddie splashes a wave at him. Steve blindly swipes back. Water sprays everywhere. The lake comes alive with churning motion and Eddie’s cackling laughter, a minute of chaos before they tire themselves out. 

“Asshole,” says Steve once the water has gone calm and quiet again, wiping water from his eyes. “Go tread water.”

“Aye-aye,” says Eddie, and falls backwards into the lake. He lets himself drift a few feet to where it’s deeper, just over his head, and then rights himself, carefully tilting his head back and moving his arms the way Steve showed him. It takes some concentration—his brow furrows, and his teeth come out when he’s really fighting for it—but it works. He stays upright. He treads just fine.

“Holy shit,” says Steve. “I didn’t think you’d actually be able to do it.”

Eddie grins. “Oh, I’m full of surprises,” he says, and throws in a wink just to make trouble.

After that, his progress is rapid. In just a few hours, he gets the basics down, and for all intents and purposes, he seems ready to start learning basic swim strokes. His confidence grows along with his skills—but for every thumbs up Steve flashes him, the more Steve finds himself hesitating.

This feels too easy. Over too soon. There has to be something else Steve is forgetting, more skills he can equip Eddie with. It doesn’t feel right to just spend a few whole days together and then go right back to how things were. 

Steve’s eyes wander as Eddie practices treading, and they land on the willow tree at the edge of the lake. 

Now there’s an idea. 

“Hey,” Steve says when Eddie comes back to the shallows. “You’ve got that down pretty well. You think you could try the swing out now?” He points his thumb at the willow.

Eddie pales. “Um,” he says. “No, I think I would maybe drown?”

Hesitation is exactly what Steve needs. “You should try it,” Steve coaxes. “It’s just gravity, all you have to do is fall and then push yourself back up.”

“I’ve been working on staying on top of the water, not getting below it,” says Eddie.

“And you’re getting better at it!” Steve says eagerly. “So that means you need a new challenge, right? You don’t have to stay on top anymore.”

Eddie puts his face in his hands.

Steve grins. “What, are you scared?”

“No,” Eddie groans, his voice muffled. “Just wondering if you’re intentionally trying to kill me.”

“Give my teaching skills some credit, you’re not gonna drown. And if you practice while nobody’s watching, it’ll make it easier to do it next time Henderson starts bugging you.”

“I didn’t sign up for this thinking you were going to take his side!”

“Come on,” Steve wheedles. “If you do it, I’ll do it.”

Eddie peers out from between his fingers. He studies Steve closely, evidently deciding whether to believe him. Steve should probably ask himself the same question. He can stand in the water with Eddie and not freak out anymore—it’s easy to be distracted when the water is only up to his shoulders—but immersion is something else. 

Eddie sighs. “Fine,” he relents. “Not today. But next time we’re all here.”

Steve holds out his finger. “Pinky swear?”

Eddie eyes him in disbelief. “Seriously?”

Steve didn’t have time to think better of it. Now he does. “I’m holding you to your word, man,” he says, trying not to flush. 

Eddie shakes his head, but he’s smiling a little. “You’re such a loser,” he says, holding out his hand. “Must be why you get along with Henderson.”

”You get along with him,” says Steve. He hooks their pinky fingers together.

Eddie’s grin widens. “Guess we’re all a bunch of losers, then,” he says. “Maybe that’s why you and me get along, too.”

They shake.

Steve really hopes Eddie doesn’t actually expect him to go off the swing. 

*

The picnic table crew is growing. There’s Steve, ever the observer—he’s usually watching the kids swim around, quizzing Max on the schoolwork she’s still making up from the end of the spring term, or arguing with Robin over which movie stars are the hottest. There’s Max herself, who’s prone to asking invasive questions when she’s bored, and sometimes Lucas, who distracts her from doing so. Then there’s Nancy and Jonathan, both with their faces buried in books more often than not—summer reading due before they start college. Steve doesn’t envy them. 

And usually, there’s Eddie. But the lessons have been paying off. He’s been swimming with the boys more often these days. Now, he moves in the water the same way he does on land—easy, confident, an air of theatricality always present in his posture. Steve had never noticed the lack of that confidence until it suddenly appeared.

He ought to be pleased. This, after all, is the improvement he should be taking credit for. But when he looks out from the picnic table to see Eddie swimming back and forth, not a care in the world, it comes with an odd little sting under his skin. It never really occurred to him that if Eddie had the option of hanging out elsewhere, he would. 

“On my mark!” Lucas yells from the distance, standing atop the raft. Mike, Dustin, Will, and Eddie stand poised at the edge of the water, ready to spring. “Three, two, one—go!” 

They jump in and begin to swim toward their referee. Lucas was disqualified from the race on the basis of athleticism. The reasons why are evident in watching the competitors noodle toward the raft. Will is the only one managing to swim in a straight line.

“Look at Eddie go,” Robin comments. “You’ve been teaching him, right? He’s pretty good.”

“That’s a word for it,” Steve mumbles. Eddie’s form is terrible—his palms hit the water flat like he’s dunking a basketball into it—but he does have strong legs and a height advantage, so he’s kicking his way into the lead.

“Hey, to go from nothing to that?” Robin nudges him. “That’s real progress. I don’t know if I should be complimenting him or you.”

“Don’t compliment him, it’ll go straight to his head.”

Eddie hits the raft and grabs onto the ladder, throwing a triumphant fist into the air. Will comes in hot on his heels, too late. “We have a winner!” Lucas cries. Eddie whoops and hauls himself up the ladder. He scoops Lucas into his arms and briefly staggers under his weight, which makes Robin snort, then hefts him up into the air.

“Your boyfriend is being princess carried,” Robin informs Max. “Oh—no, your boyfriend is being thrown from the ramparts.”

Eddie heaves Lucas off the raft into the water, producing a great splash. Max claps. Eddie looks up and flashes two big thumbs up to the shore, his toothy grin visible from a distance. Robin snorts again, fond. “He’s been such a showoff lately.”

“Lately?” Steve says incredulously.

“Yes, lately! I mean, yeah, always, but the past few weeks especially. Have you not noticed?” 

Steve shoots Robin a glance from the corner of his eye. She isn’t paying attention, just smiling absentmindedly as she watches the racers paddle back to shore. Steve hadn’t noticed a difference. But it must be because of the swim lessons, right? Eddie’s probably proud of himself.

Steve should be proud of him, too. So why does all this feel like pressing on a bruise?

“Did you see that, Harrington?” Eddie crows as he wades back toward the picnic table. 

“I saw you throw a defenseless peasant to the waves,” Robin offers. 

“Good show,” adds Max. Eddie bows with a flourish. He looks expectantly to Steve.

Steve puts his elbows back on the picnic table. “I don’t know, man,” he says, squinting. “Impressive, but… I seem to recall you making a promise you haven’t yet made good on.”

Robin perks up. Eddie pauses. He looks over at the willow tree, and for a moment, seeing the conflict written across his face, Steve regrets it. Why does he have to push? Why can’t he just let Eddie have his wins? 

But then Eddie looks back, a sparkle of something dangerous in his eyes, and steps out of the water toward him. “Is that a challenge?” 

Steve tilts his head, looking up at Eddie. “It was a challenge the first time I said it. I think now it’s a dare.”

Eddie runs his tongue over his teeth and grins. “So that’s how it is,” he says. “Okay, Harrington. I’ll bite.”

He strolls up the shore to the waiting willow. Under its trailing branches, he stops and waves to Steve. “Do a backflip,” Robin calls. 

Nancy has set down her book to observe. “What’s going on?” 

“Eddie’s going off the rope swing,” says Robin.

“After a whole summer of harassment, it turns out all it took was Steve asking him to,” Max mutters, so quietly Steve almost misses it. He wants to protest—instinct says he ought to—but he doesn’t even know what he’d say. It’s true, after all. He shushes her, keeping his eyes locked on Eddie instead.

Eddie bows again, grabs the rope, and takes a running leap from the roots of the tree. When he hits the water, he makes an even bigger splash than Lucas did. Robin cheers and claps. Nancy politely joins in. 

Steve watches the water. He holds his breath. After a few moments, Eddie’s head breaks the surface, and Steve exhales. Eddie whoops loudly and paddles back to the tree, grabbing a thick root so he can clamber back up onto solid ground. He goes running for the picnic table and yells, “Promise fulfilled!”

Steve claps. “The student has become the master.”

“And the master has his end of the bargain to maintain,” says Eddie, expectant.

Steve freezes. 

Something must show in his face. Whatever it is, Eddie catches it immediately. There’s a moment of surprise, both of them looking at each other and not knowing what to say—Robin and Nancy watching too, in their curiosity and ignorance—and Steve’s heart starts to beat faster, anticipating the rope around his hands, the crash of water around his ears. He swallows hard. He doesn’t have time to be embarrassed. He can only look at Eddie and silently plead with him not to push it.

Eddie looks at the swing, then back at Steve. “Um,” he says, and clears his throat. “Well, obviously you shouldn’t go on the swing, fragile little baby skull and all. But you promised me a mutual challenge, so…” He holds out his hand and says, “Race?”

Steve blinks up at him.

“So shy, Mr. Swim Team Co-Captain?” Eddie asks innocently. “Come on, show me what you’ve got. Some of us miss our star player when he’s hanging out on the bench all day. ”

Something warm blooms inside Steve’s chest and unfurls all the way down to his toes. He could call it gratitude. He could call it relief. He’s glad to not have to go off the swing, but really, it’s the words that soften him: Some of us miss our star player.

One sentence, and that sting, that itch under Steve’s skin is gone. 

He grabs Eddie’s hand and pulls himself up. “This isn’t gonna be as easy as racing Henderson,” he says. 

“Oh, I’m counting on it,” Eddie says with a grin.

Steve drops Eddie’s hand and lopes toward the water. The boys are hanging out in waist-deep water and chit-chatting. “Sinclair!” Steve barks. “You ready to referee again?”

Lucas squints at the two of them. “Depends, am I gonna get dunked again?” 

Steve waves a hand in Eddie’s direction. “He’ll be good.”

Eddie snorts. “Will I now?” he murmurs as Lucas turns to swim toward the raft. 

“Yeah, you will, ‘cause that’s how I fuckin’ taught you,” Steve says, and he smirks. “You just won’t be good enough to beat me.”

They pick a point where the water is just deep enough to dive into and set up there: legs bent, heads down, ready to go. Lucas takes a minute to surface at the raft, then he climbs up and waves his arms. “One!” he calls. “Two! Three!”

Steve and Eddie exchange grins.

“Go!”

Steve plunges into the lake. It swallows him eagerly. He focuses on movement—his arms carving forward, fingers locked tight, pressing the water back. He can feel Eddie moving somewhere nearby; his kicking churns the water, the sound of it a muffled thrash in Steve’s ears. Steve kicks harder. He hasn’t swam like this—with total freedom, with enough space and reason to focus on speed—in ages. Maybe years. It feels like being fifteen again, racing his swim team buddies toward this very same raft.

There are flickers of other feelings, too. A sense of outrunning something. He has to be fast, because if he isn’t, it might catch up—but swimming fast is something he’s always been good at, and even with everything that’s changed, that much is a constant. 

When Steve tilts his head up to breathe, he risks a glance forward. He’s almost to the raft. He can still feel Eddie’s movement through the water; he’s fallen behind. Steve is winning. Encouraged, Steve dives back in and pushes through the last few strokes, propelling himself forward until his hand hits the metal of the ladder. He grabs onto it and breaks through the surface with a gasp. 

“And the race goes to Steve!” Lucas shouts. 

Steve wipes water from his mouth and grins up at Lucas. “No surprises there,” Lucas admits.

Steve turns back to look for Eddie. He’s made it about a third of the way. “Almost there!” Steve calls out. Eddie doesn’t even need the encouragement. He’s doing fine. Sloppy, maybe, his kicks off-rhythm and limbs uncoordinated, but fine. He’s swimming, and swimming pretty decently. 

Steve watches him weave a meandering line toward the raft, and a smile grows on his face that he can’t even think to suppress. He really did it. They did it. 

And then he feels something. 

A swish in the water below him. The raft is in deeper waters than he’d remembered—probably a good ten feet of space underneath, enough to carry movement, purposeful, swift, and he barely has time to panic before something hooks around his ankles and yanks.

Submersion is instant. Water floods Steve’s mouth as he screams. He thrashes, wrenched out of time and place. His hands can’t break the surface. He kicks out as hard as he can—anything to keep from going down, down, where even the light can’t reach him. 

His foot hits something solid, and the pressure around his ankles releases at once. Steve bolts for the surface. Two swift strokes, and he breaks it, gasping and spitting out water. His lungs heave. He wants to curl into a ball and scream, but he has to flail about to find the ladder. Once his hand finds metal, he clutches it like a lifeline. 

A splash mere feet away from him makes him shriek. A sopping wet head of hair shakes itself out, groaning in a nasally teenage cadence: ”Fuck, Steve, ow!”

It takes a second. Steve’s mind wails for solid ground. He barely has the capacity to put together the reality of what’s happened, but he does, with a hysterical mixture of anger and white-hot embarrassment. ”Mike?” he half-yells, strangled. “Fucking Christ—don’t do that!”

Other voices filter in from the near distance, it becomes clear only too late that they have an audience. Will guffaws, while Dustin jeers, “I told you, man!”

This is—it’s too much. Steve needs to be out of the water now. Lucas is saying something to him, but he doesn’t hear any of it. He dives beneath the surface and swims for the shore.

His body needs movement, and he leans into it with ferocity, arms and legs pumping through the water. They work overtime so he can keep his face below the surface as much as possible. He doesn’t have to school his expression like this. He can be miserable and pathetic, running from the mere suggestion of a memory, and nobody has to see it. 

The water quickly shifts in depth. He can feel the temperature change, the water growing cloudier. He keeps swimming longer than he usually would, and it’s only once he’s facedown in water shallow enough to wade in that he registers the voices calling out to him from above. 

"Steve!” That’s Robin. And: ”Steve! Hey! Steve!” followed by a lot of splashing and words that can’t be made out, which is Eddie.

Steve braces himself. The momentum can’t last forever. He can’t just swim to the ends of the earth. He sags into the water, letting his knees hit bottom, and then straightens up on them, wiping droplets from his face. The sounds are sharp all at once—and they’re mostly splashing and spluttering from somewhere behind him.

“Come on, man, you’re making me look bad,” Eddie whines, his words garbled. “You know I can’t swim as fast as you, you just proved it. Hold up.” His voice is pitchy the way it is when he’s winded. Steve focuses on taking a few deep breaths before wiping his face again. 

He can’t pass this off with nonchalance. He knows that, and he tries to shape his expression into one of annoyance instead. But when he turns around and sees Eddie floundering after him, it just won’t take. 

“Finally! Oh my God.” Finally able to touch bottom, Eddie staggers toward Steve. “Dude. You okay? That little shit, I didn’t know he was going to go after you like that—”

He’s pale and breathing hard, a mess of stringy hair and scars. The second he’s learned to swim, he swims after Steve with utter sincerity. Again. 

Steve’s lip wobbles.

“I’m fine,” he tries to say, but his voice cracks. 

“What did he do?” Eddie asks. He splashes through the distance between them, bobbing up and down as if he’ll be able to identify some kind of wound. Robin is hot on his heels. She lifts her knees up high to run through the water. Steve meets her eyes, and she slows, taking him in with wide-eyed concern that morphs all too quickly into understanding. 

Just like that, his cover’s blown. Steve stumbles to his feet and wades to throw his arms around her, burying his face in her neck. It’s easier than having to cover it with his hands. He angles them away from the picnic table—he’s scraping to hold onto any amount of dignity, and turning his back is all he can manage before he crumples into Robin. He clenches his core to keep himself in one piece. It only makes the break that much more prolonged: when it comes out, the sob that wracks him is pathetic. 

“Oh fuck,” says Eddie.

“Ooookay,” says Robin, squeezing him tight. “Uh. Let’s see. Alright, here’s what we’re gonna do—on three, I’m gonna let go and we’re gonna run for the car, okay? Get some privacy? Privacy is good. One, two—three!”

Steve doesn’t let her hold him as they splash out of the lake. Speed is the priority. There’s alarm from Will and Dustin as they pass, but Robin no doubt gives them some kind of vicious nonverbal signal: they quickly fall silent and let Steve pass. Steve refuses to look at them. Robin is allowed to touch him only because she understands. She may not know the exact cause, but she knows what it looks like when he gets like this—she knows that it happens at all. 

Eddie follows them past the empty lake house, through the grass, to the side of the half-rotted old shed where Steve’s car is parked. Steve doesn't have to say anything. As soon as they get close, Robin says, “Eddie—”

Eddie interrupts. “Do you need a ride somewhere?”

Robin looks to Steve, uncertain. Steve shakes his head. “No, I’m not going anywhere,” he mumbles. “Just—need a minute.”

He doesn't turn around to watch Eddie’s expression shift, but in the answering silence, he knows it must. 

“I’ll talk to Mike,” says Eddie, and then, with more than a little anger, tight and controlled: “I’ll talk to all of them. Robin, you just—take care of him.” 

“Don’t,” Steve says sharply. He can imagine what Eddie would say. He can imagine Mike’s face—suddenly bashful, lips tight, flushed with the abrupt reminder that his actions can hurt people. It’s a facial expression he shares with Nancy. The very thought of it makes Steve feel hot and awful. 

“Well, someone has to say something. Just because they didn't realize doesn't mean—"

If Eddie said something, there would be no coming back from it. It would break something that Steve cannot allow to be broken. He opens his mouth, but the size of it, the sheer weight of what’s at stake, chokes him. 

“I’ll talk to them,” Robin says quickly, lifting a hand to placate Eddie. “I’ll just go and say Steve—cut his foot on a rock or something.” She stops, clenching her hand into a fist. “No. Actually, no, that’s terrible. I’ll say he was, um. Shit.” Her hands flap around uselessly. “Ahh, ah—oh! He’s super pissed off at Mike for being a little rat and he’s taking a minute to cool off so he doesn’t say something mean. Okay, stay here. I’ll be back!”

She runs back in the direction of the lake. She always runs so fucking weird. 

The weight eases from Steve’s chest. 

He can still feel Eddie’s eyes on his back. The silence is long and uncomfortable. Steve drifts to the side of the car and leans heavily against it. He lifts his chin to the sky, staring up at the dappled sunlight between the trees. The leaves are so very green where it shines through them. A breeze rustles gently.

Eddie clears his throat. “Mike didn't hit your head, did he?” he asks awkwardly. 

“No,” says Steve. He rubs his eyes. “That’s… kind of the least of my problems, to be honest.” That much is probably obvious—Eddie saw him go under at Lover’s Lake. If he’s smart enough to recognize what’s bothering Steve now, he’s smart enough to recognize why Steve was always reluctant to be fully underwater.

Eddie comes and leans against the car, mirroring Steve’s posture. Steve glances at him from the corner of his eye. As soon as Eddie catches him at it, Steve looks away again. Eddie opens his mouth and draws in a breath. 

Steve breaks the pause before Eddie can. “I had issues with swimming before Lover’s Lake, believe it or not.”

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah. I was co-captain of the swim team, man, you think I quit for no reason?” Steve glances at Eddie, who’s giving him an odd look. Steve can’t parse the meaning of it while avoiding eye contact, so he shifts against the car, bringing them properly face to face. “What?”

“Why are you teaching me?” Eddie asks. “If it—you know, if it fucks with your head like that.”

Steve idly drags one foot against the grassy ground. It’s soft and a little damp, cool from the shade. “I didn’t know you couldn't swim,” he says. “I wouldn't have expected you to go through the gate after me. If I’d known.”

Eddie winces. “Man, you don't owe me anything for that—”

“It’s not about owing you,” Steve cuts him off. “It’s not like that. You could get hurt doing something like that, and now, if it ever happens again, you won't, okay? That’s it.”

This is a lot of serious talk for them. Steve doesn’t realize he’s waiting for Eddie to smile and crack a joke until he’s met with a sigh instead. “Is that what goes on in your head?” Eddie asks quietly. “Always saving somebody?”

It could be a joke. If it weren't for the way he says it. 

Steve shrugs. “I’ll stop when it stops paying off,” he mumbles. 

Not intentionally, his eyes land on the scars rippled across Eddie’s waist. Eddie looks down. His lips pinch. 

“It’s okay,” says Steve. The embarrassment is fading. He has it in him to be kind, now that he's caught his breath. “I mean it. It’s over, right? We’re all okay now.”

“And what if we aren’t?” Eddie asks.

Steve smooths his wet hair back. What counts as okay when you jump at shadows in the lake, but you can still laugh and float on top of it? Does it actually matter? 

“I don’t know,” says Steve. “You just pretend to be normal, I guess.”

Eddie rests his elbows back against the roof of the car. He looks out toward the lake, and slowly, he nods. 

Steve doesn’t know if he actually understands. Maybe he’s just pretending. 

*

No one asks Steve about it, after. He can tell they want to. Whenever he gives Dustin a ride somewhere, the kid stares at him like he’s trying to achieve telepathy—which he might be—so he suspects Robin warned them off trying to apologize.

It's a relief to be able to leave it behind without comment. Steve's life looks normal, and right now, that's the most important thing. As they creep toward the end of July, everyone else has things to plan for—Jonathan is packing for New York, Nancy's finally found a roommate for her first year at Emerson, and Robin's mailbox is full of letters from Bloomington. It all makes Steve's stomach clench, but he doesn't say a thing. They're moving on. They're doing well. That's a good thing.

Robin's room is a mess. Steve has been hanging out with her while she "packs"—meaning, rediscovers the detritus of her childhood hidden in her closet and dumps it all onto the bed.

"There's no way all this is going to fit in your mom's car," Steve says, watching her attempt to jam a third photo album into an already-overflowing box.

"It'll fit," she says determinedly.

"Do you really need all this stuff?"

Robin glares at him. "See if you're still saying that when you have to pack up your entire life." She heaves her entire body weight onto the box and wrestles a strip of packing tape over it. "That reminds me—the last time I visited I took a bunch of clippings from the classifieds, you should read through those. It’s mostly for one-bedrooms, but just in case they don't give me on-campus housing I took some of the two-bedrooms, too. Can you believe they haven't told me yet? My mom says colleges always take forever to tell you anything important—but either way, there's options, mostly near campus. I figured you'd want to be closer to me even if it is a little more expensive? It's not too bad."

Steve's mouth goes dry. After a pause, he says, "Thanks. I'll… yeah, I'll take a look."

Robin straightens up, and the bulging box immediately splits back open. She sighs and rips off another strip of tape. "I still have to find a job, too. You think Bloomington has a Family Video?"

Steve shrugs. It's hard to look directly at Robin as she fusses with the box. It's hard to know what to say. Of course he's discussed going to Bloomington with Robin—that was the plan, before everything that happened in the spring—but it feels… strange, now that it's real. Trying to picture the future away from Hawkins makes him flinch.

"Is Scoops a chain?" Robin asks, distracted by a stubborn piece of tape. It's gotten stuck to itself and her nails are too short to peel it apart again.

"Yeah," says Steve, and motions for her to hand the roll of tape over. "You think a local place would spare the extra cash for those uniforms?"

Robin shrugs. "It was Starcourt. Everyone wanted to be flashy."

"Nah, they're regional. There's one in Indianapolis." Steve focuses on the tape, working his nails under the sticky film. It makes it easier to avoid eye contact. "I don't think I'd want to work there again, though."

"Say it isn't so," Robin says. "You're telling me you don't miss the sailor suits?"

"No, I… I don't know. I haven't figured out what I want to do. Maybe I'll still be in Hawkins a year from now, y'know?" Steve mumbles. "I mean, you're all leaving. Somebody's gotta be left to babysit."

The tape pulls free. Robin doesn't take it back from him. "You're joking, right?"

Steve shrugs again.

"Steve,” she says, aghast. “You've wanted to get out of here forever. We've wanted that. What the fuck are you talking about?"

Steve’s wanted to forget Starcourt forever. He's wanted to forget Nancy pulling a gun on him and those dogs breaking into a rusted-out bus, and now there’s Vecna, too—but the second he even puts his head underwater, it all comes flooding back. How can he run from something that's in his own head? And where would he run to? He's not going to college. There's no other world waiting to replace the one he lives in now.

"I don't know," he says again. "You're right. It's just—weird to think about leaving. I'll look at the papers."

"You better," Robin says in an odd tone of voice. Steve glances up. She regards him in silence for a moment, just taking him in. It's rare to see her look so hesitant, like she doesn't know what to expect from him. Steve smiles at her, but it doesn't feel right; it's just his face trying to recall an emotion that isn't there.

He gets up and pulls her desk drawer open to search for the clippings. He finds a few and stuffs them in his pocket.

When he gets home, he looks at them, then drops them into the recycling bin.

*

The end of summer creeps toward them like rot across roadkill. Steve seems to be the only one who feels it coming. Robin hasn’t brought up Bloomington since she gave him the classifieds, and the kids are back to their typical cheer. All of Steve’s weirdness seems to have been forgotten. He doesn’t know why he expected anything else.

After a sun-drenched afternoon in late July, he pulls up to Hopper’s cabin and kills the engine. Will and Jonathan unbuckle their seatbelts and hop out. “Thanks for the ride, Steve,” Will chirps before he shuts the door. 

Eleven is waiting for them on the front steps. Nancy must have dropped her off earlier. They all pretend that she rides with Nancy because she wants to hang out with Max, and not because Max is only willing to undertake the awkward transition from car to wheelchair in front of a select few. She greets Will and Jonathan and then waves to Steve. Steve waves back.

He’s just turning the key in the ignition when Joyce bursts through the front door. She runs out to the car and waves to Steve with both hands, smiling at him before knocking on the window glass. Steve rolls the window down, bemused. “Hi,” he says.

“Hi!” she says. “Thank you so much for giving the boys a ride—do you have a moment?”

Steve glances up to the porch. Will and Jonathan have already gone inside, but Eleven is hanging back, curious. 

He says, “Sure?” 

“Oh, good. Do you want a cup of coffee?” 

It’s going on four in the afternoon. Joyce beams at him, hopeful. “Uhh,” Steve says aloud, making eye contact with Eleven through the windshield. “Yeah, sure, why not?”

“Great,” Joyce says, relieved. “Well, come on in, then!”

So Steve turns off the engine once more, unbuckles his seatbelt, and hops out. 

When they go inside, Eleven has vanished without a trace, along with Will and Jonathan. Joyce busies herself with the coffee machine. “Thank you again for driving the kids so much,” she says, distracted as she measures out a spoonful of instant grounds. “It’s been so good for them to get out of the house. I was nervous about the whole lake thing at the beginning, but I’m glad you brought it up. It feels like the first good, normal summer thing any of us have had for a while.” She flashes him a small, ironic smile. “Funny how those things happen.”

“I just wanted to be able to see everyone,” Steve says, leaning back against the counter. “It was weird when we all just had to go back to school in the spring.”

”So weird!” Joyce says in a hush, raising her eyebrows for emphasis. She shakes her head and fills the carafe with water. “Well anyway, I’m glad you did. Feels like a proper send-off.” She hits a button, and the machine slowly begins to hiss. “What’s coming next for you?”

Steve has to stop himself from grimacing. He opts for the more diplomatic shrug. “More of the same, I guess. No college plans, so there’s not really anywhere else for me to be.”

“Huh,” says Hopper, and Steve nearly jumps. As imposing as he is, Hopper’s too good at appearing in rooms without warning. It’s a trait he shares with Eleven. Maybe that’s where she got it from. Hopper eyes the burbling coffee machine with a frown, then raises an eyebrow at Steve. “You’re not going to Bloomington?”

With Robin? is the unspoken assumption. Steve averts his eyes. 

For a long time, he thought he would. He still wants to. But something keeps him lingering in Hawkins—a duty or a curse, he doesn’t know. He just keeps thinking about the kids. If he leaves at the same time everyone else does, there'll be no one left to look after them except for Eddie. And there'll be no one to look after Eddie at all.

“I don’t think this place is done with me yet,” he mumbles.

Hopper laughs without humor. “You could die in Hawkins and the Lab would still be coming to your gravestone to ask you questions. There is no ‘done.’” 

“Hopper,” Joyce whispers, glaring at him. She redirects her attention to Steve: “I’m sorry about him. He isn’t happy to be back here, it’s making him cranky.”

Hopper shrugs. “Coming back from the dead is a lot of paperwork.” 

The coffee machine bubbles and spits into the carafe. “Why not just… go back to California?” Steve asks.

Hopper retrieves a mug from the cabinet. “You’re close with Henderson?” he asks instead of answering. Steve nods. Hopper hums, and when the coffee machine quiets, he fills his mug to the top. “Then I’m guessing you know some things have a way of making you stick around even if it’s not your first choice.”

He meets Steve’s eyes over his coffee. Steve drums his fingers against the countertop, and then he nods. 

“And,” Joyce says hesitantly, stretching the single syllable like taffy.

“Joyce,” Hopper says wearily. 

“Hopper,” she says pointedly.

“What?” Steve asks.

“Nothing. Hop’s allergic to sensitive conversations.” Joyce gives him a look. Hopper scoffs and lifts his mug to his lips, but doesn’t deny it. 

Steve goes very still. “Are we having a sensitive conversation?” 

“Well, we’re about to.” Joyce pours a cup of coffee and holds it up “How do you take it? Do you want milk or sugar?” 

Steve usually does, but he shakes his head and takes the mug mutely. His lungs lock down, not letting anything in or out. He knew things had blown over too easily. Is this how it happens? Someone’s mom is going to be the one to bring up his freakouts at the lake? 

Joyce makes another cup for herself and sighs. “Since you brought up California—there’s another reason we’re planning to stay here.” She purses her lips. “El had some… trouble in Lenora. She didn’t fit in with the other kids, they gave her a hard time. I didn’t even realize how bad it was until after we left.”

Steve only realizes he’s been keeping a death grip on the mug as his hands relax. He inhales, his lungs functional once more, and nods, clearing his throat. “I can imagine.”

“She could’ve gotten herself in serious trouble,” Hopper mutters. “We’ve been working on self-control.”

Steve goes to take a sip of coffee and stops himself. “Did she—”

“Not with her powers,” Joyce says quickly. “Not like that. But it… it wasn’t good.”

Steve nods slowly, mentally rearranging some pieces of how he pictures El. Most of the time she just seems like any other kid, except for a few quirks of speech and attitude. But she’s a fighter, too. She’s had to defend herself from things most people couldn’t even imagine. He can picture those instincts getting her in trouble.  

“Anyway,” says Joyce, “I was hoping to ask you if you could… I don’t know, talk to her? Or help her? I’d ask Jonathan, but,” she lowers her voice further, “It’s not like he was an expert at becoming part of a school community, either. Don’t tell him I said that.” She gives him a meaningful look and takes a drink of coffee before going on. “You were, though. I’d heard your name before I even met you. Steve Harrington’s a guy who knows how to make friends.”

Steve takes his first sip of coffee. It’s stale as dust and piping hot. The grounds have probably been here since before Hopper left. He keeps drinking anyway. Resisting the urge to grimace provides a welcome distraction—because sure, Steve Harrington was the king of Hawkins High. Once. Thinking about the way girls talk to him now makes him want to shrivel up and roll under the floorboards.

“You don’t have to go around introducing her to people or anything,” Joyce says, waving her hand. “That’s not what I mean. But I heard you helped Dustin with the transition into high school, and I you know, thought maybe you could give her some—pointers.”

“She’s got Jonathan,” Steve says weakly.

“Not after this summer,” Joyce says with a sad smile. “Not in person, anyway.”

“Well, she won’t be totally alone. She’s got her friends. And Eddie’ll be around, too.”

“I know she won’t be alone, don’t worry. I just figured she could use a role model, that’s all. And Eddie…” Joyce looks to Hopper, who says nothing. Like Steve, he retreats to tactful silence and a sip of coffee. 

It grates on Steve’s nerves with unexpected ferocity. “Eddie’s a good guy,” Steve says defensively. “He’s been a great role model for Dustin.”

“No, I know, I know. He was helping me with the school paperwork the other day. Turns out he knows a lot about that stuff, I don’t know what I’d do without him. But…” Joyce shrugs helplessly. “He might not be around much longer either, you know?”

Steve freezes. 

“What do you mean?” he asks slowly.

“Oh, nothing’s guaranteed, but you know, Hawkins Lab is doing everything they can to keep him anonymous for now, and that’s not a long-term solution. It sounds like they’re trying to set up some kind of witness protection thing. They’re not saying much about it,” her expression darkens, “So who knows when or where, but that’s the safest option for him. And I’ll be damned if I let them mistreat that boy any more than they already have.”

Steve takes a slow, mechanical sip from his mug. He doesn’t taste anything. He’d known, of course, that Eddie would eventually have to leave Hawkins. But hearing it said out loud takes it from a distant hypothetical to jarring reality. If Eddie leaves, Steve will really be the only one left. 

Isn’t that all the more reason for him to stay? 

“You don’t have to, you know,” Hopper says, eyeing him closely. “Talk to El. She’ll adjust.”

“No, I will,” Steve says automatically. “You’re right, she needs me.”

“She needs someone, yeah. But she’s got a lot of someones. They all do.” Hopper looks out the window a moment, then drains the rest of his coffee and sets his mug in the sink. “Don’t let this town eat you, kid,” he says. “You’re better than that.”

He leaves the room without another word, leaving Steve clutching his coffee mug and struggling to think of what he could even say in response. The only words that come to mind are, Don’t be so sure.

*

Steve wouldn’t have guessed that Eleven had had a rough spring back in Lenora. The next time they gather, he finds her laying on a beach towel with Max, absorbing the sun and gabbing about some movie he hasn’t seen. He watches them for a minute, trying not to be obvious about the fact that he’s watching. In the afternoon light, Eleven seems completely fine—happy. It’s funny to think that someone could be happier in Hawkins than outside it. 

A knocking sound comes from somewhere behind him. Steve turns to see Eddie sitting on top of the picnic table, already stripped down to his boxers. The red tartan ones. Not that Steve is keeping track of his underwear. "Tremendous news," Eddie announces, and knocks his knuckles against the table again. "Nancy has permitted chicken fights to be reinstated. With one caveat."

"No Steve?" Steve says dryly.

Eddie makes a finger gun and clicks his tongue. "Right on the money. You ready to watch me kick your protegé's ass?"

"I think he's your protegé as much as mine."

"Wait, what?" says Dustin. "You said you were gonna be on my team!"

"No way, man, you’d be down like a bowling pin if Eleven came after you. You're benched." Eddie points his thumb in Will's direction. "Now, Byers, though? That kid's an undefeated champion."

Will goes pink in the face. "I think Jonathan does most of the work," he says. Eddie waves him off, and Dustin splutters. Right as he starts yelling, Eddie winks at Steve.

Steve claps him on the back. "Nice," he says under his breath. "Wear him out at the start, you might get some quiet on the ride home."

Eddie grins. In the same hush, close to Steve's ear, he says, "I never want a quiet ride, Harrington."

Steve makes a face and pushes him away. "Go lose your chicken fight, man," he says, ignoring the nervous flutter in his chest. Eddie cackles.

"Well, you heard the man," he says. "What say you, Will the Wise? Shall we kick ass?"

"We shall," Will says gravely.

"I didn't actually approve this," says Nancy.

"And I didn't actually ask!" says Eddie, leaping to his feet. "Quick, she can't catch all of us!" He whoops and takes off running for the water. The boys scramble after him. 

Max muffles a snort behind her hand. “Go get Lucas,” she says to Eleven, who giggles as she gets up from her beach towel. 

Steve leans against the picnic table to watch. Once the water is past waist level, Will climbs up onto Eddie's shoulders. The rest of them spend the next few minutes arguing, and the teams are settled with Eleven on Mike's shoulders, Lucas on Jonathan's, and an exceedingly put-out Dustin serving as referee. He accepts the role on the condition that he does not have to be impartial.

"One!" he yells, his voice echoing over the water. "Two! Three!"

He waves his hands, and the teams charge.

Despite his status as one of the nerdiest people Steve knows—Steve won't go as far as to say the nerdiest—Eddie is surprisingly capable at this kind of thing. He's not as strong as Jonathan, but he's far from stringy, and more than that, he's strategic. The focus in his face is evident even from a distance. He holds his weight low in the water, keeping a tight grip on Will's legs and adjusting as needed to keep him from swaying. When Will takes a swing at Lucas, Steve can see the work it takes to keep him upright, the shift in Eddie's biceps and the grit of his teeth.

He's watching Eddie so closely, he doesn't even notice when Dustin disappears. He barely hears Robin giggling. He only catches that something is happening when Eddie's brow suddenly furrows—and then Eddie yelps, nearly unseating Will with a sudden hop and jackknife of his torso.

"Motherfucker!" he howls, stumbling. The cause becomes apparent when, a split second later, Dustin surfaces with Eddie's boxers clutched in one gleeful fist.

"I was never impartial!" Dustin cries, his lisp ever more pronounced in triumph. "No gods, no masters!"

Eddie lunges at him. Dustin screams and dives back into the water. Will abandons ship, jumping from Eddie's shoulders with a splash, and the chicken fight abruptly dissolves into Eddie chasing Dustin around. Dustin has the element of raw terror on his side, and manages to fight his way to the shallows first, breaking into a slow, splashing run through the water, waving Eddie's boxers as he goes.

Eddie is forced to stop before the water gets too shallow. "I'm gonna fucking kill you, Henderson!" he hollers. "And you're getting permanent disadvantage on all rolls!"

Dustin actually stops before he reaches the shore. "All rolls?" he cries, turning over his shoulder.

"I'll do it," Eddie threatens. "No gods, no dungeon masters!"

Dustin wavers. 

"Don't listen to him, Dustin!" Lucas calls from a distance. "He'll do it no matter what you say!"

"You're already in too deep!" Mike adds. "Go big or go home—throw 'em in the tree!"

On the sidelines with Steve, Max says, "Jesus."

"Should we do something?" Robin asks, sounding only mildly concerned.

"The picnic table has a policy of neutrality," Nancy says, but the sparkle of mirth in her eyes is anything but neutral.

"Give me my underwear back!" Eddie yells.

Dustin weighs it over. "I'll give them back if you don't give me disadvantage," he decides.

"That's not—"

"I hold the leverage here!" says Dustin, waving Eddie's boxers around. "I could make you give me advantage! I could do anything! I'm being gracious."

"Or I could come over there right now and make you really regret your choices," says Eddie. Eleven bursts out laughing, covering her mouth with her hands, then quickly covering her eyes instead. Mike follows suit. The water ripples around Eddie's hips; Steve can just make out the trace of hair leading down from his stomach.

Steve covers his eyes, too. Just in case. "Give 'em back, man," he calls out half-heartedly.

"Oh, so it's not funny anymore when I'm not the only one in danger," Dustin says. "I see how it is. Let the record show that you're all a bunch of cowards. You wouldn't survive a day at math camp."

"Did math camp involve a lot of involuntary viewing of your friends' junk?" Lucas asks incredulously.

"You'd be surprised," Dustin says darkly. There's a pause, then a wet slapping sound and a chorus of groans. Steve peeks out from between his fingers. Eddie's boxers are floating on the surface of the lake, a good ten feet shy of where Eddie is waiting.

"This is why you're not on the basketball team," Lucas groans.

"Yeah, that's the only reason," says Mike.

"I thought they would go farther!" Dustin protests. Eddie raises his eyebrows, but Dustin holds up his hands. "Hey, I did my part, man. Gesture of good faith. Now you're on your own."

"Somebody is going to give me my fucking underwear back, or I swear to god," says Eddie.

"Not it," Mike and Lucas say in unison.

Steve is already getting up. He's already wearing swim trunks just in case; all he has to do is tug his shirt off. "You talk a lot of game about math camp for somebody who won't get within twenty feet of the guy whose pants you pulled off," he says pointedly to Dustin as he wades into the lake.

He snags the boxers just as they're starting to sink. "The nerve of that kid," Eddie huffs. He takes them back from Steve and ventures into deeper waters to yank them back on.

"Tell me about it," Steve says sympathetically. "You should definitely put him at a disadvantage or whatever you said."

"Oh, I'm gonna," says Eddie. Steve cocks his head toward the shore, and Eddie follows him out.

Dustin is abruptly overcome with remorse as the consequences of his actions register. "You're not gonna do another fight with us?" he cries.

"Fighting privileges revoked," Eddie says, clapping him on the back in passing. "Impartiality doesn't mean permission to invade my undergarments." Steve snorts.

"Okay, but you have to admit it was funny though," says Dustin.

Eddie flips him off again. Dustin looks so crestfallen, Steve can't help but grin over his shoulder and mouths, it was funny.

"I saw that," says Eddie, pointing at Steve. "You're on thin fuckin' ice too, Harrington. You think you're such hot shit."

Steve scoffs as they cross over onto land. "Well, you think so, too." Eddie stumbles over a rock on the shore. Steve grabs onto his arm to steady him. "I mean, you think you're hot shit, too," he says. "All that—you know, the cafeteria stuff? Yelling at people? Your little flock of nerds. You thought you were the coolest, don't even deny it."

He might be imagining the pink tinge to Eddie's cheeks. "Your use of the past tense is telling," Eddie mutters, shrugging Steve off. "You're probably right, though." 

Steve slows to a stop before they reach the picnic table, turning instead to take a seat in the roots of the swinging tree. Eddie trails a few steps behind. He doesn’t sit down right away, instead casting a look over his shoulder at Dustin. "He never would've gotten away with this shit before,” he says, almost regretful. 

He doesn't specify when Before is. He doesn't really have to. It's a different point in time for each of them, but they all have it—a moment when the normal world became just a memory, replaced by something new and strange. Steve knows that feeling. He didn't know how to take it when Dustin came back from math camp and suddenly had a sarcastic retort for everything he said. In a world so fundamentally changed, it was the smallest changes—the objectively normal ones—that threw him the most. It felt like, little by little, everything from Before was slipping through his fingers. 

"Probably not," Steve agrees. "But now he knows you’re mortal. No taking that back.”

Eddie gives him a sharp look. He licks his teeth, and Steve can practically hear the sore comment fighting to come out, but in the end, Eddie just lets out a sigh. He folds down to his knees and sits next to Steve. "Not good for my ego to call out when it's bruised, man," he mutters.

"It's not a bad thing," says Steve. "I just mean, like—he got extra annoying after he had to save my life. It freaked me out at first, but I think it's, like, a relief thing. He pisses you off because he can. 'Cause you're still there to piss off. You know what I mean?"

Eddie pauses. "You really think that's it?"

Steve shrugs. He didn't actually put the pieces together himself. After one too many rants to Robin about how Dustin was acting after Starcourt, how things were different, she'd stopped him and said, "You think he doesn't feel the difference, too? You think any of this isn’t just him trying a little too hard to make things feel normal again?"

And, well. Steve knows a thing or two about that.

"I've never actually asked," says Steve. "But, yeah. I think that's it."

Eddie laughs ruefully. "You're better at reading people than I thought you were."

Steve grimaces. "I don’t know about that. I’ve just seen him act like this before. And…" He bites his tongue, teetering on the edge of a confession, but swallows it down in the end. He’s not ready to admit out loud that sometimes he acts the same way. That he gets this wild urge to push Eddie to be as Eddie as possible, just so the smartass comments and the bad jokes can distract him from the scars rippled across Eddie's stomach. So he can relish in the fact that Eddie’s still around.

Up until now, around just meant alive. Now, though, there's a different kind of loss they'll all have to grapple with. People quietly migrating into college or witness protection. The ones who know how to walk away will disappear one by one, and the rest of them will continue getting through the days by distracting themselves.

Steve will probably get double the heckling from Dustin whenever Eddie leaves.

"And what?" Eddie prompts him.

"Nothing," Steve mumbles. "Sorry. I've just been… weird. It's weird that everybody's leaving."

Eddie raises his eyebrows. "Are you not?"

Deja vu. Steve swallows the reflexive I don't know, and instead, admits what's been weighing on him: "I don't think so."

But that's too much honesty. The surprise on Eddie's face is too real. Steve clears his throat and forces a smile, nudging Eddie’s shoulder. "What, you think I'd leave you here by yourself?"

Eddie stares at him. "Knowing you, Harrington, I can’t tell if you’re kidding."

"Knowing me?" Steve's brow knits. "What does that mean?"

"You’d better not stay in this shithole just to save me."

It feels like being slapped. Not because it's insulting, but because it gives voice to a memory that Steve has barely even allowed to cross his mind—his life in Hawkins after graduation, but before Robin. When his days were spent remembering the Demodogs and his nights were even worse. If Steve leaves, Eddie will be alone as he was in those months. He might not be able to forgive himself for letting that happen to someone else.

But these are things that he absolutely cannot say to Eddie, who already seems to think that Steve has a savior complex.

"Why are you still here, if it’s such a shithole?" Steve says defensively.

He regrets it as soon as the words come out of his mouth. He knows exactly why. 

Eddie looks out over the lake. He's found a rock somewhere on the shore; Steve didn't see him pick it up. Eddie rolls it over and over under his thumb. “Don’t really have a choice,” he says evasively.

Yeah. 

“But you’re leaving eventually, right?” Steve asks. “That—witness protection thing? They’re gonna take you out of Hawkins?”

Eddie stops rolling the rock in his hand. For a minute he just studies it. “Didn’t think you knew about that,” he finally says.

“Not much,” Steve says, ignoring the sudden tightness in his chest. “Just that you’re leaving. Joyce told me.”

Silence.

“Do you, um.” Steve clears his throat. “Do you get any say in where you go?”

Eddie shrugs. “That’s what they told me. I haven’t decided yet, though. I don’t even know when I’m moving.” 

“Anywhere you’d want to go?”

Eddie laughs humorlessly. “I thought about New York for a bit, but… I don't think the city crowd would find my battle scars and tales of destruction all that relatable.”

"I mean, maybe," says Steve. "Have you heard what the landlords are like out there?"

Eddie looks like he wants to glare at Steve, but the message doesn't quite reach his face, which does something complicated before finally landing in a wry grin. "You know, Harrington, I hadn't thought about it like that."

"If you went to New York, you’d be near Jonathan," says Steve. “So, you know. You’d have somebody who gets it.” 

“It doesn’t have to be New York. I’d go anywhere, really.” Eddie flicks his wrist and tosses the rock into the lake. It skips once on the surface, and he says, softer: "Anywhere that’d have me.”

Talking about this makes Steve’s stomach hurt. Both because he hates to think about Eddie leaving, and because he knows the feeling so well. “As long as it’s not here, you’ll be safer,” he says, trying for encouragement. “You could be happy in a lot of places, I bet. I mean, even just the places we know people will give you some options—there’s New York, Boston, Bloomington…” 

Eddie hums. "That where Robin's going?"

"Yeah," says Steve. "You could go, too."

"And do what?" Eddie asks, an edge to his voice. "Pretend to be normal?" Steve hears the echo of his own words, and it stings. 

After a minute, Eddie says, “Just tell me I’m not the reason you’re staying.”

Steve’s chest tightens. He can’t explain why he’s staying. He doesn’t have the words yet. He knows he’s going to have to—this is the question everyone will ask. Joyce and Eddie already have. Robin’s sure to be next, and then everyone else will want to know, too. Why the hell wouldn’t Steve just get out? Why is he so stuck on this town that’s nearly killed him time and time again? 

Before he can even try to come up with a response, Eddie says, “You should go with Robin. If that’s what you really want.” 

Steve frowns. "Who says that's what I want?" 

Eddie shrugs stiffly. “Your face.” 

He hadn’t been looking at Steve’s face. 

He does now—their eyes meet, and there’s an intensity to Eddie’s gaze that makes Steve shiver. Eddie’s lips press into a line. "You already taught me to swim, man,” he says. “That's enough. Don't break your own heart for me, too."

He gets to his feet and walks away. Steve's throat constricts; he has to resist the urge to jump up after Eddie. 

There are so many things churning inside him—a twinge at the thought of staying, a pang at the thought of leaving, and even now, an entirely different kind of ache that settles into his stomach just watching Eddie walk away. He recognizes it. It’s the same ache he felt watching Nancy walk out of someone else’s bathroom in sophomore year with her blouse stained red. It’s the same ache he felt in the silence after he confessed to Robin, those few moments before she slid under the stall to confess something even bigger.

Fuck.

Oh, fuck.

He sees it now—the thing that’s been hiding just outside his line of sight for so, so long. Except seeing it doesn’t fix anything. 

It’s not like he can ask Eddie to stay. 

*

Steve still likes girls, is the thing.

He likes holding onto the curve of their waists. The way they smell. The sound of their voices. Their soft skin, the way it feels pressed against his body. Even if it weren’t for the physical things, he’s been in love with women before, and that much he knows was real. 

He doesn’t know how Eddie fits into that. It feels different with him than it does with a girl—less like a dance and more like a game. He doesn’t know what he’s doing, and a fear of failure that he’s never had before is always skittering beneath his skin. He doesn’t know how to win this game, or if he’s even supposed to. There are no steps laid out for him to follow. No expectation for him to lead. 

Usually, this is when he asks the girl out. This time, though, it’s not Eddie he needs to talk to—it’s Robin. 

He’s out at the quarry with her, sitting near the cliff and trying to work up enough nerve to speak. Being too close to the edge always makes him dizzy. There’s a boulder set far enough back that they don’t have to feel that terrible thrill of gravity, but they can hang their legs off the side and still feel daring. He needs a little of that bravery right now.

Robin has her hand in a bag of salt and vinegar chips, unbothered by the elevation. She stuffs a couple in her mouth and licks the salt from her fingers. Offhandedly, she asks, “You doing okay?”

It catches Steve off guard. “Yeah,” he says automatically, reflexively, like he hasn’t been jittering ever since he picked her up. “You?”

Robin sighs. She reaches into the chip back again, pursing her lips at the reservoir below them. “It’s weird,” she says. “I’m… actually having a really good summer, somehow? After all of it? It feels like that shouldn’t be allowed.”

“It won't always feel like that,” Steve says. Robin hasn’t had to do it as many times as he has. “Summers, holidays, all that crap—they're always weird at first, like they don’t fit into your life anymore. But this is what the rest of life actually is. Or what it’s supposed to be, at least.”

Robin snorts. “I don’t think you actually believe that,” she says. She passes him the chip bag. 

Steve nudges it back towards her. His insides are all wound up; eating will only make him sick. “I do and I don’t,” he admits. “I want to believe it.”

Robin stuffs a few more chips into her mouth. The breeze whispers faintly over the rocks around them while she crunches. “It feels like it’s going to come back,” she says after a minute. “I know I’ve been saying that since last year, but, you know. Now it feels even more true. Except this time…” Her lips press flat together. She inhales deeply through her nose, and Steve doesn’t want to notice the redness in her eyes, but of course he does. His stomach sinks. 

He forgets that sometimes, when she asks him if he’s okay, it’s not really him that she wants to talk about.

“This time if it comes back, I’ll be alone,” she says, and her voice wobbles. She quickly crumples the chip bag onto the rock next to her and presses her palms into her eyes. “Fuck. Come on," she says to herself, and then to Steve, “You see none of this, okay? Ignore this, this isn’t happening.”

Steve puts his hand on her knee. “You won’t be alone,” he says. “You'll always have me.”

Robin sniffles. After a long moment, she says, “I want to believe that.”

Steve almost flinches. Here it is. 

He's honestly surprised it's taken this long. 

“You still want to stay, don't you?” Robin asks, still wobbly. “What happens if you do that and then—then one day it starts raining Demogorgons again and you go charging in with that bat of yours to protect some stray grandma and get ripped into little pieces before I even know anything’s happening?” She lowers her hands and looks at Steve, the watery blue of her irises made truer by the redness all around them. Her lashes are spiky with tears. Steve knows she’s going to ask, and she does. “Why won’t you just move with me?” 

In the moment it takes him to swallow around the lump in his throat, she presses on. “We don’t have to have it all figured out. My parents are helping with tuition for now, and we can find you a job somewhere—you have experience with, like, everything, we’ll find you something. You could babysit.” Robin laughs, and Steve can’t help but smile, too. Just as quickly, though, she bursts into tears again. “We just—we don’t get to make choices when everything goes wrong. Mike and El and them didn’t even get here until everything was over.”

Steve wraps his arm around Robin’s shoulder and pulls her in tight. “You can choose right now,” she says thickly. “Don’t make me do it alone.”

“You won't have to do it at all,” Steve says. He tries to be firm, but it’s not helped by his voice cracking. “It’s over for real this time. You get to go to college and have a good life.”

“Then you can, too,” Robin says wretchedly. “Just come with me.”

Steve’s chest aches. It would be so easy to just say yes. Cave in, give her the answer she wants. He wants to. But this isn’t what he brought her here to talk about, and having this conversation will let the other thing sink back down, swallowed up deep inside him and forgotten. The thought of it sends a spike of panic shooting up through his chest. 

“Robin, I need to ask you something,” he blurts out.

Robin nods, taken aback.

“It’s… weird," Steve says, stumbling over his words. "I know it’s—look, I know it’s a stupid question to ask, but listen to me, alright?”

Robin nods again. 

Steve takes a deep breath. Their boulder isn’t far back enough after all. The gravity is making him dizzy. 

“Before Tammy,” he asks, his heart hammering. “Before anyone else, did you ever like guys? Like, did something—change? Do you think it can change?”

Robin stares at him.

Any sudden movement feels like it could send Steve plummeting down the cliff. “I always just assumed you—came like that,” he says. “But I’ve been wondering if maybe—”

“Why,” says Robin.

“Huh?”

“Why have you been wondering,” says Robin. There’s an odd intensity in her face, something cool and focused. Tears still trace their way down her cheeks, clinging stubbornly, but no new ones drip down to chase them. Steve feels a little nauseous. It would be really ironic if both times they had a conversation like this, someone was throwing up. It was almost easier to do it on drugs.

“I just,” Steve says, his feet swinging aimlessly off the boulder, and the words dry up in his throat. “I. I like girls. Or, I did? But if that can change—I dunno, maybe it’s just one person? Can you have, like… an exception?”

Robin pauses. Her face does something complicated, and she looks away, gazing out over the cliff. “What kind of exception?” she repeats, her voice carefully controlled.

Steve clears his throat. He has to look away too. “You know,” he says. “I don’t really have a good story the way you did. I just… might like guys now. A guy. I think.”

Robin stops breathing. "Steve," she says.

"Robin?" Steve says nervously.

"I—" She puts her hands over her face and inhales deeply. "You think? You think you like a guy? What does that mean?"

"It means I do," says Steve.

"Okay," says Robin. "Okay. For how long?"

"Like, a month? A couple months? I don't know! Why are you being weird?"

Robin looks appalled. “Oh, I don’t know, because my historically definitively heterosexual best friend is revealing life-altering information to me? Since when does Steve Harrington like men!”

“I don’t know!” Steve cries. “That’s what I’m trying to ask you!” 

“How would I know that!” Robin flops back against the rock and squishes her fists into her eyes, rolling over. “Hold on, hold on. How did I not notice this? Shouldn’t I have seen the signs? I can usually tell! Am I a bad lesbian?”

“You aren’t—”

“Hold on,” Robin shouts, sitting abruptly upright again. She points an accusatory finger at Steve. “Who?”

Steve’s face floods with heat. 

”Who?” Robin demands. “Someone I know?”She stares intensely at Steve. And then, without another word, her jaw drops.

“Don’t,” Steve warns. 

“Eddie," she says.

“Robin,” Steve whines. 

“Eddie?” Robin shouts. 

Steve buries his face in his hands. Robin screams. “What the fuck? Oh my god, what the fuck?”

It takes several minutes of incoherent yelling before she gets back to real sentences. She also starts crying again in the middle of it, but she’s also laughing, so Steve gives up on understanding what she’s thinking until she uses words again. 

“God, you scared the shit out of me, Steve, I really thought you were going to say you had a crush on me again,” she cries out. "Asking me if I can have an exception. You are such a dick.”

“Oh, so I didn't know how to ask a sensitive question, now I'm a dick—"

“Yes, I'm so glad you understand,” Robin says, sniffling loudly. She wipes her nose on her wrist and then wipes her wrist on her shorts. “Ugh. So this is why you’re not coming, huh? You don’t want to leave him?”

Steve shakes his head. “It’s not like that."

“Uh-huh,” says Robin. 

“It isn’t,” says Steve. “Not like—I’m not choosing between you. I wouldn’t just fuck off because of some guy, Robin, come on.”

“Gonna tell him you called him ‘some guy.’”

Steve ignores her. “I just don’t know how to leave,” he says, and it comes out so shockingly simple that it silences the both of them. He has to swallow hard again. “I mean, you were right,” he says. “I don’t really think it’s over. I probably never will, even if it is. And now all of us, the people who actually know what the fuck happened, we’re all leaving it, and that means if it ever happens again, we’re all screwed. So… feels like someone has to stay, right? Might as well be me.”

“You and Eddie aren’t going to college, therefore you must martyr yourselves to our dying hometown to prevent the end of the world,” Robin says solemnly. “Yeah, that makes sense.”

“Eddie’s going to leave, too.”

Robin throws up her hands. “What! Steve, you just told me you’re in love with the guy—”

“I did not—”

“At least that excuse makes sense! Seriously, Steve, if you’re going to commit yourself to being miserable, at least have a coherent explanation of why.”

“It does make sense,” Steve says hotly. His face is warm, and having to explain himself is awakening a squirming discomfort in his chest. He doesn’t usually have to explain. Robin usually just gets it. But now here he is having to spell out exactly why he can’t be like her, because he isn’t like her, because he’s fucked up and might not ever stop being fucked up. “You’re gonna get out of here no problem,” he says. “You get to find something different, you know? You can be somebody different. And I know you can do that because you’re the bravest fucking person I know—”

“Bullshit, you know Nancy Wheeler.”

Steve plows onward. “You’re the bravest person I know,” he says forcefully. “But I’m not like you, Rob.”

Robin is a chameleon. She can be whatever she needs to be to survive. A soccer player, a theater kid, a band geek. A snarky shopkeeper or a goofy friend. She puts on the skin of a nice, normal, heterosexual girl who’s never fought a single monster, and it may be a farce, but you’d never know that if she didn’t want you to. She doesn’t have to fake being happy—that’s the part that matters most.

Steve… does.

Robin sighs. “Steve,” she says. And after all the tears she’s shed, somehow it’s this, just saying his name, that makes her sound the most quietly sad. 

Steve gestures vaguely, half to discourage that pitying look, half to mime the shape of an idea he can’t fully articulate. “I can do—this. I’m good at this. The other stuff out there, though…”

“Just because leaving scares you doesn’t mean you can’t do it,” Robin says. “Don’t make me do it by myself just because you’re afraid.” She puts a hand on his knee and squeezes it. “Dingus.”

“What if I leave, and it all just follows me?” Steve asks, little more than a whisper. It could get lost under the breeze. “What if I don’t ever get to be normal?”

And that’s it, isn’t it? That’s the question he’s been trying not to think about for months. That’s the problem. When pretending fails him, he doesn’t know what to do anymore. 

“Then you stop trying to,” says Robin. “Duh.”

“But—”

“You want to know why I told you about Tammy Thompson?” Robin asks gently. “I was tired of pretending. I didn’t want to be normal anymore. I just wanted to be real. And I was terrified you’d hate me, or ruin my life or something, but right then when I said it, I wasn’t thinking about any of that. I was just thinking about how nice it was to talk about it for once.”

Steve frowns. “I can’t go around telling people in Bloomington about Demogorgons.”

“No, you can’t. But you told me about Eddie.” Robin squeezes his knee again. “That’s something.”

 Steve shuffles over to the side and rests his head on Robin’s shoulder. It feels so heavy. 

“Everything’s gonna be okay,” Robin says softly, her breath warm against his hair. She hooks her arm around his shoulder, holding him gently in place. “You know it will be. Don’t be stupid.” 

Steve tries to imagine a life in Bloomington. The two of them, just like this. They could find other spots to have secret conversations. Find new mindless part-time jobs to fill with banter. Get an apartment, a TV. They could watch the movies they used to rent and eat ice cream for dinner. People would assume they were a couple, but when they were alone, they’d talk about girls and boys and everything else that made them different. 

The cold breeze off the quarry keeps cutting through Steve’s imagination. But imagining is more than he’s ever allowed himself before.

*

The TV plays Cheers reruns late at night. They're the only thing close to being worth watching. Steve is sprawled on the couch, blearily taking in the screen and retaining nothing. The audio plays just fine, but it might as well be silent: the show's tinny voices and canned laughter blend into the rest of the living room, all a part of the same dimly-lit scene. It’s dark out. There’s not a sound from outdoors. The entire house is still. 

A high-pitched warble from the kitchen jars the scene. Steve jumps violently. The phone keeps ringing, oblivious, as he gets up to retrieve it.

He plucks it from the wall leading into the kitchen and says, “Hello?”

“Oh, good, it’s you,” says a familiar male voice. Steve’s brain is running slow, only just pulled from the stupor of late-night television. By the time he recognizes the caller—Eddie—Eddie’s talking again. “Sorry, I was worried I was gonna have to explain to your parents why I was calling so late. And also who I am. Might’ve just hung up if that was the case. But hey, it’s you! I didn’t wake you up, did I?”

“No,” says Steve, rubbing his eyes. “Couldn’t sleep.”

“Me neither,” Eddie says. Even over the phone, Steve can sense the bright, restless energy radiating off him. He’s probably been sleeping even less than Steve. “You want company?”

Steve glances over at the oven clock. It’s just past midnight. Sitting and doing nothing clearly isn’t wearing down the insomnia. Maybe if he does something else for a while, he can wear himself out enough to actually fall asleep. “Sure,” he says. “You need a ride?” Eddie might have his own car, but Steve figures he might appreciate not having to drive it. 

Sure enough, Eddie’s voice goes dark at the very mention of it. “No,” he says. “I’ll be there in ten.” Then he hangs up.

Privately, Steve suspects that Hawkins Lab’s claim of running tests on Eddie’s van was just an excuse for them to take it—anything to keep him from driving such a brazenly recognizable car around town. They’ve actually been decent when it comes to shielding him from unwanted attention, probably because Joyce and Hopper raised hell once they found out everything that happened. That doesn’t make Eddie any less resentful, though. Steve’s only ever seen the outside of the apartment they gave him, dropping Eddie off after lake trips. “It looks nice enough,” he’d commented once, trying to be encouraging. Eddie had just scowled and unbuckled his seatbelt.

“Oh, it's nice alright," he said. "Like a fuckin' hotel. Tried to put one nail through the wall, they gave me shit for it for a whole week."

Then he got out and shut the door, and Steve hasn’t brought it up since.

Steve turns the TV off and goes to get a glass of water. A little hydration makes him feel less like reconstituted sludge. He splashes some cold water on his face, and he's almost a person again. 

By the time Eddie knocks, he's properly awake, waiting in the kitchen with two beers and a pack of Marlboros. He goes to open the door and lifts the beers in greeting. Eddie lights up. “A man after my own heart,” he says, grinning wide. Steve offers the cigarettes as well, and Eddie snorts. “Man, of course you smoke Lights.”

“I did sports in high school, I had to stay in shape,” Steve defends himself.

“Yeah, you keep telling yourself that.” 

They find themselves on the back step, illuminated by a motion-activated light and the faint blue glow of the pool. Eddie calls Marlboro Lights "mom cigarettes," but all the same, he sucks them down one after another, rambling about Dustin and his uncle Wayne and Hawkins. Steve takes slower drags, mostly listening. It feels like Eddie's working up to something, and eventually, his chatter tapers off into uneasy silence. One of his knees bounces relentlessly.

"How're your neighbors?" Steve prompts him.

"Quiet," Eddie says bitterly. "I think the complex is mostly empty. I've only seen a few people around, and they didn't bother to introduce themselves when we moved in."

"Maybe Hawkins Lab is putting them up, too," says Steve. "One big house full of hush money."

Eddie chuckles darkly. "Wish there was less hush and more money."

"At least it's quiet, though, right? You can get a good night's sleep."

"Yeah, good one," Eddie mutters, and takes a long drag from his cigarette.

After he's done exhaling smoke, Steve cautiously says, "I sleep okay in the spring. Certain times of year are worse for the nightmares, though. Summer gets pretty bad."

Eddie rubs his eyes. He's quiet for a minute, then he sighs. "Great," he says tiredly. "So it doesn't get better."

"No, it does. Sometimes things just… remind you of it all, you know?"

"Yeah," says Eddie. "Yeah, I know."

Eddie's demeanor doesn't lend itself to subtlety. He's the type to climb cafeteria tables and shout during lunch; he doesn't exactly seem the type to hide what he's feeling. It's only over the past few weeks that Steve has learned that does keep things to himself. There are finer details to his expressions, things that say he's thinking loudly, if nothing else.

This is the face Steve hates the most. The glassiness that slides over Eddie's eyes—the same hollow look he wore in the boathouse, when he first told them all what happened to Chrissy Cunningham. The one that says he's somewhere else.

It lasts for only a moment, and then he’s back again. "How long has it been for you?" he asks, side-eyeing Steve as he takes another drag. "I still can't get the timeline straight. I keep thinking I've got it, and then Dustin drops some new lore about you guys."

Steve does some mental math. "It's been a year since the summer stuff," he says, thinking out loud. "Two years since Dart, if Dustin told you about that."

"Oh yeah," Eddie says. He smiles faintly at the ground. "That fuckin' lunatic."

"And three years since the beginning."

"When you found El?"

Steve waves his hand. "I didn't meet her until later. Like, way later." His memories of the night they did finally meet aren't great—everything after Billy smashed a plate to his skull is soft at the edges. The memories skip and jump, more like recalling a story he's been told than something that happened to him. When Eleven showed up at the mall, she was a mystery to Steve. In some ways, she still is.

"How'd it start for you?" Eddie asks.

Steve sighs and gestures to the pool with his cigarette. "Right here," he says. Eddie tilts his head, uncomprehending. Such a tiny gesture, yet it makes something in Steve cringe, knowing what it means. 

"Has anybody told you about Barb?" he asks. Eddie shakes his head.

Talking about her makes Steve feel hot and cold all at once, choked up with grief that both is and isn't about Barbara herself. Her death isn't his story to tell; it's Nancy's. But it shouldn't be anyone's at all.

"Barbara Holland," Steve says. “Did you know her?” Eddie's brow furrows. "The one who died from the chemical leak. It was all over the news, you probably saw it."

Understanding dawns. "Yeah, I remember that."

"Wasn't actually a chemical leak," says Steve. "She died… here." He gestures uselessly to the pool once more. "The Demogorgon. She was the first one it killed. Right in my backyard."

Eddie exhales slowly. "Shit, man."

"I didn't see it happen or anything. But I…" Steve's cigarette is burning down, the cherry glowing between his fingers. He contemplates smoking the rest of it, but crushes it out on the step instead. "I used to think about it a lot. Didn't feel great around pools for a while."

"I bet," says Eddie. He doesn't say anything for a minute, letting his own cigarette slowly burn down. Then he breaks the silence: "So, were you and Barb, like…"

"No," Steve says, pulling a face. "God, no." It comes out sounding more disparaging of a dead girl than it should. "This was when I was with Nancy," he clarifies. "They were best friends. We weren't close, it just—you know, somebody dies in your yard, that affects you."

"I know," Eddie says quietly.

Steve knows he does. 

But leading Eddie back into thinking about it—Chrissy splayed across his ceiling, or whatever his nightmares are about—is the exact opposite of what Steve's trying to do here. He clears his throat. "Anyway, I'm not like that with every girl. Give me a break."

It's a very transparent attempt to change the subject, but Eddie meets him there. "Aren't you?" he asks playfully, finally taking another drag. "Henderson's told me some stories."

Steve snorts. "Yeah, well, I could tell some stories about him too. He doesn't know shit about shit." He reaches for the pack and shakes out another cigarette—only his second of the night, compared to what must be Eddie's fourth. "He still thinks I'm in love with Robin."

Eddie raises his eyebrows. "Aren't you?"

"No," Steve says defensively.

"Right," says Eddie.

He’s absolutely not going to let it go. 

Steve points his cigarette at him. "I had a crush on her when we first met," he says sternly. "But not anymore. We're friends."

Eddie nods thoughtfully. Steve thinks he's getting on board until he says, "So, she rejected you."

Steve bristles, wanting to argue even if it is technically true. But he can't explain the technicalities to Eddie. He can't say that it wasn't really about him. Sometimes he just has to let people believe whatever explanation they've come up with, even if that explanation is Steve being a loser.

He deflates and says, "Yeah."

"Ouch," Eddie says, feigning sympathy. "What, the hair wasn't doing it for her?"

"Yeah, I'm not really her type," Steve says.

Eddie grins. "Well. It's a relief to know that there's at least one person out there who doesn't fall for your whole classic all-American boy thing."

Steve flushes. "Yeah, she was—sort of immune to my charms."

Eddie snorts. "That must've been embarrassing for you."

"Very," says Steve. "Can we talk about something else?"

"You're blushing!" Eddie says delightedly. "Steve Harrington, what did you do to that poor band geek?"

"I didn't do anything!"

Eddie clucks his tongue. "That bad, huh?" He rests his chin on one hand, grinning wolfishly. "I need to get her side of this story."

Anxiety zings through Steve's veins, quick and sharp. "Don't do that," he says. "She hates it when people make a big thing out of it—"

"You mean you hate it?" Eddie asks with a smirk.

"Don't ask her about it," Steve says desperately. His tone gives away too much, but he needs Eddie to understand and drop it, no teasing, no extended mockery. Eddie's grin falters. "Seriously," Steve says. "Please. She won’t want to talk about it."

Eddie doesn't push. He doesn't say anything at all. His confusion slides into something more contemplative, and Steve realizes too late that he's missed the mark. His mind races for some way of backtracking, but before he can, something in Eddie's expression shifts. Something goes click.

"Oh," Eddie says, softly surprised.

Steve's heart stops.

Eddie licks his lips, thoughtful. "So when you say she was immune to your charms—"

"Eddie," Steve says hoarsely. Oh, Robin is going to fucking kill him.

"Okay," says Eddie, nodding slowly to himself. "Cool. Gotcha. Probably should've put that together before now." Steve curses and buries his head in his hands. Eddie nudges his shoulder. "Hey, it's okay. I won't tell."

"It's not," Steve moans.

"Dude, it's fine. Why would I care?" Eddie laughs. "I just—sorry, I know it's a big deal and all, I just—wow. I've never met anybody else before. Or I thought I hadn't."

Steve lifts his head again. The gears in his mind turn from Robin to Eddie, creaking as they grind together.

Eddie's smile drops. They regard each other with mirrored expressions of dumb shock.

"Oh my god," Eddie says blankly. "You don't know."

"What?" Steve says stupidly.

"Fuck." Eddie stabs his cigarette onto the step and darts to his feet.

Steve's heart jackrabbits in his chest, yet he still feels slow, too far behind to catch up to Eddie pacing down the side of the pool. "Are we talking about what I think we're talking about?" he demands.

Eddie lets out a loud sigh that turns into a groan. He stops at the end of the pool and rubs his eyes. "You tell me," he says tersely, not turning around.

"Are you—"

Eddie groans again. "Don't, man, don't make it weird. I'm just an idiot." A beat, and then he turns around, squinting. "No, actually, wait. You're an idiot. You're best friends with Robin and you knew, and you still couldn't figure me out?"

Steve feels like he might explode. "How was I supposed to know? I hadn't even figured myself out until like two weeks ago!" 

Eddie does a double take. His mouth opens, but nothing comes out. The rhythm is broken—just like that, it’s no more insults, just Eddie staring. His eyes are so wide, he must be able to see every goosebump prickling along Steve’s arms. He must be able to see Steve’s heart beating out of his chest. It feels like being naked, or worse than naked—Steve feels like Eddie can see even more of him than he can. 

A grin twitches at the corner of Eddie’s mouth, the way a frightened animal bares its teeth. “You don’t mean, like… uh.” He swallows and holds that wobbly smile. “Are we, um—talking about what I think we’re talking about?”

Steve belatedly realizes that he hasn't even lit his second cigarette. He fumbles around for the lighter and uses it as an excuse to look away. "Now who's making it weird?" he mutters.

Eddie smacks his hands together in excitement. "You are not!" he crows, racing back up to the step. "Are you fucking with me?"

"No," says Steve, flustered. "I mean, I'm not—I like both, you know?"

Eddie turns around in a full circle. Seemingly at a loss for what to do with himself, leans back and lets out a single hoot of delighted laughter. "Steve Harrington goes both ways!" he shouts. "You're so fucking with me!" He lunges toward Steve, but Steve startles, and the movement is aborted partway through. Eddie catches himself, hopping awkwardly as his balance teeters, and then hops back away from the pool's edge. "Sorry," he says. Steve looks back and forth between him and the pool.

"Were you just going to push me in?" he says incredulously.

"No," Eddie says blankly. At Steve's look, he curls in a defensive posture. "I thought better of it!" he whines. "You just talked about hating pools, I didn't want to be an assh—"

He doesn't manage to finish the sentence. Steve jumps up and shoves him sideways, and Eddie hits the water with a shriek and a loud splash. He comes up spluttering. Steve's veins are alive with adrenaline, giddy with his own daring, at the significance of what they've just revealed to one another.

Eddie's hair is plastered over his face, and he spits out water as he tries to claw it away. "Fuck!" he cries out. "And here I was trying to be considerate! Jesus."

"What was that?" Steve asks innocently. "Sorry, couldn't hear you over the splashing. You've really got to work on your form."

Eddie paddles to the side of the pool, grumbling indignantly. He climbs out dripping wet, and Steve is laughing up until the moment Eddie hooks his arms around his waist and rams into him.

One moment he's standing, and then the water explodes around him. Eddie holds on tight. They sink together, a rush of bubbles all around Steve's head. He squeezes his eyes shut and holds his breath until momentum carries them to the bottom of the pool. Bubbles fizzle around him, and as much as Steve should be bracing himself for panic, he finds himself grinning instead, more bubbles streaming from his nose. His hands drift to Eddie's hips, fingers curling through his belt loops, and he makes no move to swim even as the bottom bumps gently against his back. 

He almost forgets that he’s underwater. The pressure, for once, feels less like a threat and more like an embrace. The water holds them steady, suspended inches above the floor. Peaceful.

When Steve's breath starts to run out, Eddie squeezes his hands and pulls away. Steve feels the water ripple as Eddie propels himself up to the surface, a scant few feet above. He follows blindly, and greets the sudden burst of night air with a gasp. The stars are out above them.

He must linger too long gazing up at them, because Eddie clears his throat. “You okay?” he asks.

His hesitation isn’t necessary. Steve’s pulse is alive in his throat—not with fear, but excitement. He pauses treading water long enough to wipe a few stray drops from his face. “Yeah, I’m good.”

“Good,” Eddie says, satisfied. His arms open and close steadily through the water to keep him afloat. “Your first mistake was letting your guard down, you know.”

Steve snorts. “Yeah, I’m seeing that. I think I’m gonna need to have words with your swim teacher. He taught you too well.” 

Eddie shrugs, somehow looking sly even with his hair hanging in sloppy wet locks. "He's okay," he says. "Kind of a goody two-shoes, though."

"A what?"

"I told you, you've got that classic all-American handsome thing going on," Eddie says. He paddles toward Steve, wearing a shit-eating grin. "Very preppy."

And after all the questioning, the relentless little fears that have plagued Steve all summer—this, at last, is easy. He feels like himself for once—Steve Harrington, a little bit cool and a little bit lame, a leader and a charmer and all the other things he was before he had to be a savior. It's something about the way Eddie looks at him, the sparkle in his eyes. The electricity.

He doesn't have to think about what to say. He just lets the charge flow through him. "Oh, so you think I'm a conformist," he says, cocking his head. "And the fact that you're into that is—my problem, somehow?"

Eddie licks his lips. Steve holds his breath, silently urging him to go with it, go for it, let it be what it is.

"Is it?" Eddie asks, raising his eyebrows.

"Is it what?"

"A problem."

Steve lets out the smile he's been hiding. "No," he says. "You know what is a problem, though?"

"What?"

"The way you tread water," says Steve. "I'm telling you, your form fucking su—"

Water crashes over his head. "Asshole!" Eddie yells, and splashes him again. They're both laughing, Eddie smacking water at Steve again and again until they're so much closer, into the shallows and bumping up against the edge of the pool, and Eddie pushes him into it and kisses him.

He kisses the way he talks: enthusiastic, brazen, and bolder than Steve. Steve wouldn't dare shove his fingers through a girl's hair like Eddie does to him. The sensation of it—Eddie's grip firm, possessive—is too distracting for him to even try to keep up. A jolt goes through his gut when he realizes Eddie isn't expecting him to keep up. The way he nips at Steve's lower lip says it all: there's someone in charge here, and for once, it's not Steve. Eddie knows exactly which buttons to push—a quick grip on Steve's jaw forcing it to tilt up, a little tug on his hair, a bit of pressure pinning his hips back against the side of the pool. The sound it pulls from Steve's throat is not one he's ever made before. This is more than the electricity he knows. This is—this isn't fair.

Steve's always been one to get lost in a kiss, but this is different. It burns right through him. He gasps against Eddie's mouth, and the low chuckle he gets in response makes him horribly conscious of how much he likes this. There's no space between them; nowhere to hide. Steve needs—he needs them even closer, but that's too much, too fast. He needs to catch his breath. He puts a hand on Eddie's chest, their lips catching softly as he pulls back.

In the dim blue glow of the pool lights, Eddie's eyes are black and shiny. He's beautiful. Steve drinks him in with growing awe, a feeling so strong he dissolves into it. It's almost as intense as the kiss, but Steve can't do anything about it without touching Eddie, and he's trying not to do that. Nevermind the fact that he hasn't taken his hand off Eddie's chest. They're both breathing heavy.

Eddie leans in again, and Steve turns his head, flushing. Eddie doesn't back up. He just sighs and presses his nose beneath Steve's jaw instead.

"I know that look," Eddie murmurs against his wet skin. "Don't get flighty on me, Harrington. Just let it happen."

Steve nods, overwhelmed. He's a little turned on and painfully aware of it. Eddie's hot breath on his neck isn't helping.

"If you did all that just to run away the moment things get good, I'm pushing you back in, I swear to god."

"I'm not running away," Steve says, breathless. "I promise."

He feels Eddie's mouth move against his skin; a twist, a grimace. "Doesn’t have to be a promise," he says. "Just—"

"But it is," Steve asks. "I'm not going anywhere. Wouldn’t dream of it." He permits his hands to settle at Eddie's hips, keeping him close. "I—god, Eddie, it’s been a really long time since I felt like—”

Eddie sighs. "Steve."

Something in his tone knocks Steve off the cloud he's been floating on. "What?" he asks.

A pause. When he speaks, Eddie's tone is rueful. "You’re really gonna make me say it, huh?"

Steve doesn't let go of him. He doesn't know what Eddie means, and he doesn't want to—he just wants to hold him like this for the rest of the night. But his blood is cooling, and just as suddenly as they started kissing, it seems now they've stopped. The moment is over.

"New York. Boston. Bloomington," Eddie says softly, echoing a past conversation. "I don’t know where I’m going, but I’m not staying here, and I’m not gonna wait for you to figure out what the hell you actually want. So don't tell me anything you can't take back. Please."

For a long time, Steve just wanted to feel normal. But even though looking at this pool meant talking about Barb—even though he’s never going to be who he once was—he’s standing in the water right now, holding onto someone who makes him feel like it doesn’t matter. He doesn’t need to be who he was a few years ago. He’s still Steve. He’s… happy.  

Maybe that’s all that actually matters. 

"Come with me to Bloomington," Steve blurts out.

Eddie pauses. 

“What?” he asks. 

"I know what I want," says Steve. “For a while I was scared that if I tried to get away, it wouldn’t work, but what if we just—ran toward something, instead of away? That’s what I want. To go to the city with Robin, and with—”

He grabs Eddie’s hand and holds it close to his chest, where his heart is hammering. He's a little shocked to hear himself say this out loud—he hadn't planned it, hadn't dared to even consider it as a possibility—but the words tumble out faster than he can control, like they've just been waiting for him to catch up. "With you,” he says breathlessly. “We could skip town, find jobs, make some friends that aren't freshmen—could be a good deal, right?"

Eddie straightens up, but doesn't look Steve in the eye. He's thinking. 

"You'd leave the kids with no babysitter?" he asks warily.

Steve shrugs. "We can come back and babysit on the weekends."

The next pause is longer.

"What if they need you?" Eddie asks.

The question—the real question, the one Eddie won't ask out loud—hangs in the air between them. What if it happens again? What if it isn't over, and when nightmares come clawing their way back into the real world, Steve isn't here to swing a bat at them? Can he leave Dustin to fend for himself? Or Max? Will? Any of them?

No. He can't.

But that's not the right question—because even in the worst case scenario, they wouldn't be fending for themselves. Hopper is still around. Eleven is stronger than Steve could ever hope to be. They haven't yet seen the limits of what Joyce is capable of, and hell, the kids all have parents, too. They might not know everything, but they're there. 

"They don't need me," Steve says, and when he finally says it, it sounds… simple. Anticlimactic. Not the sentencing of guilt he always thought it would be.

More than that, it sounds true. They don't need him. Hopper said it best—they all have a lot of someones to rely on. Steve was the only one who needed it to keep being him.

Eddie's fingers trace along the side of Steve’s neck, right where his collarbone meets his shoulder. "I think you might've knocked your head when you fell in the pool," he says. But he smiles, hesitant and crooked.

"It doesn't take a head injury to see we both want to get out of here," Steve whispers. He leans in and presses his lips to Eddie's. He tries to pour everything into it—the nervous trip of his pulse, the blush still lingering under his skin, the fear, the exhilaration, the hope. This could be something. He doesn't know what, just—something.

He trails two kisses along Eddie's jaw. Eddie asked him not to make promises in words, but Steve can't help wearing his heart on his sleeve one way or another. "Just say yes," he breathes. "Please."

Eddie groans softly. "Stevie…"

It's too fond to be a real complaint. He's wavering. "Please?" Steve says hopefully.

Eddie kisses him. It's gentler than before, no real heat behind it, but Steve still melts. When Eddie breaks away after only a few moments, Steve finds himself following, chasing the contact. He blinks, dazed. Eddie rolls his eyes. "You're such a pain in my ass," he says under his breath. At Steve's innocent look, he lets out a long-suffering sigh, knocking his forehead against Steve's. "Fine. You win. Turn the fuckin' doe eyes off, Christ."

"You'll come with me?"

"Yeah. God help me." Eddie shakes his head. There's some trepidation in the way he bites his lip, but he's still smiling, and he even breathes a laugh toward the ground. "There's gotta be better music in Bloomington, at the very least."

Steve grabs him and hauls him in for a kiss. This time, he doesn't let Eddie pull away.

*

A sheen of light ripples over deep blue. The colors shift where a stiff breeze pulls the surface of the lake along with it, shadows illustrating the movement of the wind. 

The shore is quiet today. Robin stands out in the shallows, just deep enough to hold Max in her arms bridal-style, letting her swish her legs through the water. She's in physical therapy now. Moving in water helps, apparently.

Nancy, Eddie, and Jonathan are in up to their waists, sucking on popsicles. Farther out, Eleven and the boys are racing laps. They don’t have any yard markers, so Dustin keeps swimming longer loops than everyone else and then complaining when he comes in last. 

Eddie turns around and squints over his shoulder. He gives Steve a questioning thumbs up. Steve makes one back. He'll swim eventually—right now, he's just leaning against the willow tree on shore, soaking in the sound of their far-off voices and inhaling the smell of the lake. Something aquatic and green with plant matter. Distinct, yet difficult to describe. It's both calming and bittersweet.

He wishes it could be like this forever. If no one ever left—if nothing else ever changed—then he wouldn't have to, either. 

Between him and the pebbly sand below hangs the rope swing, tough and knotty and weathered with age. Steve takes a hold of it and gives it an experimental tug. It holds weight.

Right now, it’s a beautiful day—just him, the lake, the breeze, and his friends all waiting for him in the sunshine. Steve doesn't know how much of this summer will follow him out into the rest of his life. He hopes it'll just be this part. Knows it might be more.

He wraps his hands around the bristly old rope, walks it back until it’s taut, and leaps over the edge.