Chapter Text
My darling, apple of my eye, love of my life and keeper of my soul, Steve,
Today is December 18th. The purveyors of capitalism invented the tradition of celebrating monthly anniversaries so that couples would be suckered into buying each other chocolates and flowers more than a singular time every year. That being said, we’ve been officially dating for two months, probably unofficially dating for much longer, and I woke up this morning to find myself absolutely overwhelmed by my love for you. This is not unusual. But it felt particularly remarkable today.
In fact, this morning was slightly more mundane than usual, if at all possible in our beautiful, mundanely domestic lives: my wristwatch alarm went off at 7:30 and I woke up to you drooling into your pillow and snoring so fucking loud that my brain rattled. I think normal people would find that slightly endearing, maybe a little annoying. But you’ve only ever dabbled in normal behaviors despite what the masses tend to think, and calling anything about me normal is laughable. We’re weird! We’re a weird couple! So I just looked at you and thought about all the ways I had you, all the ways I have you, and all the ways I want to have you in the future. I don’t know if that makes any sense. It’s hard to put these feelings into words when they’re so much bigger than us.
You’re just the best. You’re so beautiful and kind and strong and funny and… You’re everything. I don’t know. I’m writing this in your bathroom while brushing my teeth and I just got toothpaste all over this paper. I’m sorry about that. Please don’t look at the toothpaste stains. It’s making this whole thing a little less romantic than I’d like.
I simply cannot wait to see you later when I get home, and kiss you silly up against the front door, and watch you try to teach Robin how to cook from the dining room table because you still won’t let me into the kitchen even though I have proven time and time again that I know how to cook, it’s just not to your particular liking. I’m wearing one of your stupidly tight shirts under my uniform because it smells like you and I have traded your pink bandana for your light blue one just to have another part of you all over me. All I think about is you. I’m a little obsessed, honestly. I would think it might be a problem if it were anyone other than you. Seeing as it is you, I just find myself thinking that I’m really fucking lucky. Like, against-all-odds kinda lucky. But I guess that’s just who I am, now.
Anyway, I love you so much, sweetheart. I hope you have a good day today. I’ll be thinking about you always, and dreaming of coming home. Happy two-month anniversary—we did it!
Yours forever and ever (and ever, in case there was any doubt), Eddie.
Growing up, Steve’s house was always cold.
His father preferred it that way, keeping the thermostat below 70 degrees at all times. Steve hated it and so did his mother, who constantly shivered beneath her many layers of expensive clothing but never spoke a word about the unbearable temperature to his father. The coldness came to be the first thing he associated with his house.
And then there was the fact that everything inside was white and neat and tidy. This could be attributed to his mother and her obsessive cleaning tendencies. The inside always smelled like bleach. Sterile. Steve had to pick up after himself anytime he moved anything out of place. No toys strewn on the floors, no books left open and dog-eared on the kitchen table, no dirty laundry outside of his hamper, no keepsakes other than trophies, certificates, or MVP awards—things his parents could brag about to their affected friends at fancy dinner parties.
Then came the silence, making itself known with each of the business trips his father took, that his mother tagged along on, that went for longer and longer stretches of time until they eventually just bought another home in the suburbs just outside of Chicago and remained there the majority of the year. No voices filtering through the rooms, no footsteps or clanging in the kitchen, no noise beyond the shifting and creaking of the foundation.
In general, it lacked the charm and coziness that Steve had come to associate with other people’s houses, like Nancy’s or Robin’s. It felt more like a hotel suite than a home, with interior design catalog furniture and abstract art on every other wall.
Nowadays, Steve is amazed at what he has been able to transform it into, particularly in his parents’ absence. There is so much light and color and love tucked away in all corners. Will’s thoughtless doodles are pinned on the fridge with a rainbow of magnets and Max’s old board is propped up by the back door. A homemade cookbook with recipes written out in El’s careful scrawling print has a permanent home in the kitchen cupboard. Lucas’ hightops reside in the foyer and butterscotch ice cream for Erica is stockpiled in the freezer; the knit hats Mike has taken to wearing recently are left on the table constantly; Dustin’s science projects are strewn all over countertops carelessly, all organized chaos.
And the kids are one thing. Robin’s never really been all that organized in the first place. She leaves a breadcrumb trail of belongings all throughout the halls, her flannels laid over the backs of chairs and textbooks for her college classes open on all surfaces. Nancy has a pistol hidden in a shoebox under Steve’s bed that he hadn’t even known about until recently, and he finds himself wondering how many other weapons she’s hidden all over the house, just in case. Photographs by Jonathan are tacked up on his walls and he goes all red and flustered any time he sees them, but never really says anything about it.
And Eddie is left all over, of course. His essence is traceable, tangible, so achingly real in every single room. It's all Eddie’s dark loose clothing and his nickel-plated jewelry, his belt loop chains and black bandanas, his various toolkits for cars and appliances and bicycles respectively, his laugh echoing in the hollow hallways and lingering brightly.
This place used to be bare and cold and empty but ever since everyone else has made it a home, it feels so damn warm and loud that Steve doesn’t really know what to do with it, or with the love that wells up and overflows from his heart anytime he stops and actually thinks about it for more than a passing second.
Steve wakes up the morning of their two-month We-Finally-Got-Our-Shit-Together anniversary to find Eddie staring at him, crouched over at the foot of the bed with his round unblinking eyes like a fucking gargoyle. It should be creepy. Steve is used to this, though, so now it’s just kind of a thing that Eddie does.
“What,” Steve says groggily, wiping the drool from his mouth.
“Nothing, angel, go back to sleep,” Eddie trills. He has this cute little habit of singing a lot of his words and Steve kind of loves it; love how Eddie has this innate musicality that exists in all parts of him and is just threatening to burst out at any given moment. He has a really nice voice when he’s singing anything that isn’t metal, and hell, even when he’s singing metal, too. Sometimes he’ll be singing along to an older folk song on the radio while fixing the tears on his new thrifted battle jacket or patching a hole in the tire of one of the kids’ bikes, and Steve just stops whatever he’s doing, closes his eyes and listens from the other room. It’s hard not to.
“Ugh,” Steve groans. He sits up and scrubs at his eyes. “I’m awake, now, though.”
Eddie huffs. “Well, I didn’t tell you to wake up, sweetheart.”
“No, you didn’t, but you were staring again and I could feel your eyes on me. Creep.”
Eddie grabs at his chest and collapses into Steve’s dresser as if he had been shot through the heart. Steve has also gotten used to the dramatics. “You wound me, Steven. Excuse me for not realizing that it’s a bad thing to be so captivated by your beauty in the morning sunlight that I stare at you a little bit when you’re asleep. I didn’t realize my appreciation of your features and frame was frowned upon in this household.”
“It is when you wake me up,” Steve grumbles, but he still scoots as close as possible, reaches up to wrangle Eddie by the collar of his coveralls and reels him in for a deep kiss.
Eddie hums into his mouth. Still all music, and so ridiculously sweet.
“You’re lucky I love you,” Steve says against his lips. He doesn’t mean it. Steve’s the lucky one, really.
“Hmm,” Eddie bites his bottom lip and then the tip of his nose. Eddie’s a biter. And it’s not even in a sexy way a lot of the time; it’s like he’s overwhelmed and needs to do something with his feelings. “Don’t I know it. And I love you too, baby.”
The pet names are up there, too. They make Steve feel so safe and desired, so wanted and secure. He goes all warm and pleased, feeling the pleasure and love roll all over his body in waves down to his toes. Baby, baby, baby. He likes being someone’s baby. Someone’s sweetheart. Eddie’s sweetheart.
“Go to work,” he says.
“I’m going,” Eddie replies, although he actually inches closer instead of going anywhere.
Steve pulls back to scowl. “You cannot get fired from the shop because of me. Wayne would be so upset.”
“I don’t think Wayne could ever be upset with you, angel.” Eddie finally pushes to stand up, adjusting the blue bandana in his hair in a way that is unbearably attractive. Steve has to clench his hand in the sheets so that he doesn’t do anything stupid like climb Eddie like a tree when he should’ve been in his car and driving to work ten minutes ago. “But fine. I’ll go, since you want me gone so bad.”
“Lunch is in the fridge.”
“I know, Stevie.”
“And make sure to drive safely. It’s really icy out there and I know you always like to go, like, ten over the speed limit like an idiot. Just because Hopper can’t arrest you anymore doesn’t mean it’s not still dangerous.”
“Sure, Stevie.”
“And say hi to Luis for me,” Steve says, just because he knows Eddie will get all weird and embarrassed about it.
Eddie whirls around just to scowl at him. “Absolutely not,” he states, eyes narrowed. “I don’t like that the two of you are, like, in cahoots, now. And I hate that you’re packing extra snacks for him and Ralph. As soon as our lunch break begins they’re descending onto my locker like fucking jackals. I can’t even enjoy your love notes in peace, anymore, and that’s a fucking travesty.”
Steve laughs. He can’t help it. “Could you ever?”
“Well, no, I guess not.” Eddie frowns. “Those bastards. They ruin everything.”
“Well, we probably wouldn’t be together if it weren’t for them, so I’m thankful, and I’m gonna keep packing extra cookies.”
Eddie softens. “Fine. I will have you know that I would’ve figured out that you like me back eventually, though.”
Steve raises an eyebrow. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah. Like… 80, 75% sure.”
“Good enough for me. Now go, Jesus, you know how Bob feels about you being late, Teddy—“
“Yeah, yeah,” Eddie says, but he strides back over and ducks in for one last kiss before scurrying out the bedroom door and down the stairs. He can hear voices drifting up from the kitchen—sounds like Max being a pain in the ass, as usual. The front door opens and slams shut when Steve is getting changed, and the squeak of his tires on the frozen pavement filters up as he’s making the bed. Even in his departure, Eddie is all noise.
Steve has always hated the quiet.
About a month ago, Steve talked to his parents over the phone in a conversation that lasted a little less than five minutes. He hasn’t told Eddie about it yet for a number of reasons. Mostly because the crux of the conversation had been Steve’s dad telling him to get the hell out of the house by New Year’s Day.
My house, he’d said. He’d said a lot of other things, too, called Steve a lot of things: lazy, ungrateful, aimless, the list goes on and on. Shockingly, those things hadn’t been as hurtful this time around, and didn’t really register or pierce as deep as his father had probably intended. It was my house that wound up bringing everything to a screeching halt, striking Steve to the core. My house, he’d said, like he hadn’t left with Steve's mom almost a year ago to stay at their other place and like the both of them hadn’t charged Steve with taking care of this one. Like his father had made this house anything more than what it was: bare bones with no flesh or meat or pulsing blood. Nothing that made it feel alive.
Steve’s father hadn’t been the one to occupy it for longer than a few weeks at a time over the past three years. He wasn’t the one responsible for it, beyond the mortgage already paid in full. He wasn’t the one who filled the place with light and laughter and love. That was Steve. All Steve.
But he told Steve to get out. So Steve started slowly packing away all of his things in cardboard boxes in his dad's old study, where nobody would see them, and he eyed the kids’ stuff, and Robin’s clothes, and Eddie’s everything strewn all over each of the rooms in heaps and waves, and he thought that leaving this place, despite its inherent relationship to so many negative things, will hurt like a bitch.
Steve walks downstairs later that morning to find a bouquet on the kitchen counter next to a letter written on a spare sheet of lined paper he knows was ripped haphazardly from Eddie’s DM notebook.
He reads it slowly as he drains a cup of coffee and goes all gooey on the inside. He can’t help it. Eddie is just so damn romantic and Steve loves it, eats it up, returns the gestures as easy as breathing and it all feels so unreal, the idea that he could be loved so fiercely and wholly by someone; the idea that he could love someone the same way in return, as easy as breathing.
He left a long note in Eddie’s lunch today, too, along with extra-extra sweets. The perks of two-month anniversary celebrations and being in love with someone who loves romantic gestures like that. It never gets old, the back and forth. Steve knows it never will.
“Gross,” Max says halfheartedly from where she munches on Honeycombs at the kitchen island, her eyes flicking from the flowers to the letter.
“It’s our two-month anniversary,” Steve informs her, setting the letter down to unwrap the sweet peas from their pretty purple tissue paper. “And didn’t Lucas buy you flowers for your birthday last month, Mad Max?” He fishes around for a pair of scissors in the junk drawer and begins to cut the stems diagonally over the kitchen sink.
She rolls her eyes. “He only did it because Eddie started doing it for you. I think he’s using you guys as, like, an example for the ideal romantic relationship when it comes to our dates and stuff.”
Steve snorts. “Not the best idea. Me and Eddie aren’t exactly normal.”
“That’s what I keep trying to tell him,” Max says. “You guys started dating before either of you realized it. Your first kiss happened, like, six months later. You’re doing your entire relationship backward.”
“At least we haven’t broken up five times within the last month,” Steve snarks, and Max scowls at him but apparently does not have any kind of defense prepared so the kitchen goes quiet again, but not silent—Max chews on her cereal and kicks her leg out against the island and Steve hums as his scissors catch on the stems.
Dustin interrupts their mutual quiet by stumbling blearily into the room, still in his PJs and rubbing so hard at his eyes that Steve momentarily worries he’s going to do permanent damage to his corneas.
“Happy two-month anniversary or whatever,” he mumbles, without even really looking at the flowers or the note. He’s nursing the world’s worst bedhead and a rumpled shirt that is probably Steve’s, since it advertises a swim camp he doesn’t remember from ‘81 and the only camp Dustin has ever been to was the one for space nerds out on the west coast.
“When did you even get here?” Steve asks as Dustin walks around like he owns the place, fetching himself a glass from the cupboard and shoving Steve over so that he can fill it from the tap.
“I’ve been here this whole time, Steve,” he says with an attitude as always. He then proceeds to drain the whole glass loudly in about three seconds. Max makes a face.
“Okay, so how did you get in? I didn’t let you in.”
“I have a spare key, duh,” Dustin says.
This is news to Steve. “I have not given you a spare key. I have not given anyone a spare key besides Robin, and I know she still has it. Why do you have a spare key and where did you get it?” he says, sounding progressively more hysterical as he speaks. He has to remind himself not to get too worked up with these kids; if he allowed every single thing they did to rile him up, he’d have shit blood pressure and probably be prone to heart attacks on the daily.
Dustin shrugs. “Well, you may or may not have seven new spare keys that somehow got made and distributed to various teenagers in need of a safe haven during our tumultuous school year.”
“It’s winter break,” Max interjects, rolling her eyes.
“Tell me you didn’t,” Steve begs. Dustin does not meet his eyes. “Jesus, I’d at least understand you and Max, but all seven of you shitheads? What the hell is Mike gonna do with a spare key, Henderson? Why are you giving Mike Wheeler access to my home without my permission?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t want him to feel left out.”
“Thanks, asshole,” Mike Wheeler says as he enters the kitchen, looking similarly sleep-rumpled and also wearing Steve’s old clothes. What the fuck?
“What the hell are you doing here?” Steve asks.
“We had a sleepover.”
“Who’s we?”
“Everyone,” Lucas says sheepishly as he shuffles in too, and El and Will behind him, which is just grand.
“What—what the fuck, where were you guys this whole time?”
“On your living room floor,” Lucas answers, rooting around in Steve’s pantry for a blueberry PopTart. “We watched horror movies on your TV.”
“What,” Steve says.
“I do not like horror movies,” El comments.
“Me neither,” Will says.
“Well, what’s your favorite genre?” Lucas asks.
“Rom Coms,” El and Will say at the same time, like they’re the creepy twins from The Shining, not that it even matters. Steve’s kinda still stuck on the fact that they all just decided to have a spontaneous sleepover at his house and collectively neglected to inform him of said sleepover until the following morning like a bunch of socially incompetent weirdos.
“You assholes can’t just decide to have a sleepover at someone’s house and not tell them that you’re sleeping over. You couldn’t have even asked me?”
“No, because you would have said no,” Mike says, “But we have some family over at mine, and Lucas’ basement isn’t finished, and Dustin’s mom doesn’t like it when we watch horror movies, and Hopper won’t leave us alone when we’re at El and Will’s. Max refuses to have any of us over just on principle, so where the hell do you want us to go?”
Unfortunately, he raises a fair point. Steve sighs. “All right, fine. Jesus. Just tell me next time when you guys are doing this, okay? So I can prepare properly.”
“Prepare what?” El asks.
“Mentally and emotionally for my house to be filled with a bunch of fifteen-year-olds,” he answers tiredly, and she nods in quiet understanding.
Erica pops in from the hall, fully dressed, and snatches the pop tart right out of Lucas’ hand. “If you didn’t want us here, then you shouldn’t have given us spare keys.”
“I didn’t,” Steve says emphatically, feeling like he’s going a little crazy. “Dustin made them without my permission. You think I want all seven of you little assholes to have access to my home at all hours of the day?”
“Well, that’s just too bad,” Dustin says, as he fetches himself a bowl and joins Max at the island to also eat Honeycombs. Eddie’s gonna be so pissed that his Honeycombs stash has been raided. “Because we have them now and they’re all customized so there’s no way we’re giving them back. Erica’s has Hello Kitty on it.”
Erica roots around in her pink overalls pocket and holds up her key, which is indeed bright pink with a tiny Hello Kitty on the head.
“Fine—whatever—just. Do me a favor and don’t stay here tonight.”
“Why?” Mike asks, face screwed up in annoyance. Like he isn’t the one trespassing, the shithead.
“Because it’s his and Eddie’s two-month They-Finally-Got-Their-Shit-Together anniversary and Steve’s gonna make an elaborate dinner that he doesn’t want to share with any of us because he hates us and then him and Eddie are going to talk about how in love they are and then they’re probably gonna bone about it,” Dustin answers, before taking a comically loud slurp from his cereal milk.
“Ew,” Mike says.
“Nice,” Max comments.
“Good for you,” El says. “I will help make dessert.”
Which is how Steve ends up with a house full of veritable gremlins on his day off, trashing the place and running up the electric bill and generally making his life a lot harder than it needs to be. But they clean up afterward, and El helps him make lemon squares, and they’re all out of the house by 4 PM, picking their bikes up off the lawn that Steve hadn’t even noticed up until now. Steve offers to drive them home since it’s December and cold and icy out but they all decline. They’re getting too cool to be seen riding shotgun around town with him, apparently, though not cool enough to neglect using his living room for coordinated secret sleepovers. Once any one of them gets their license or, God forbid, their own place, it’s game over. He’ll probably never see them again.
“Good luck,” Lucas calls good-naturedly as he mounts his bike. “On the dinner.”
“And the boning,” Mike says, just to be a little shit.
“Steve doesn’t need good luck for that, idiot,” Dustin says, and then they’re tussling and Steve closes the door so he doesn’t have to endure any more stupid teenage boy shenanigans. As if he wasn’t a teen just a year ago. It feels like an eternity. He wonders how old the kids feel, and then decides that it’s probably okay if they want to break into his house and marathon shitty horror movies and sleep on his living room floor just to feel like kids again.
Every year Joyce hosts a holiday party for their ragtag group of almost-apocalypse survivors sometime in the middle of December, and it’s a lovely little affair, quiet and wholesome. String lights are forbidden but tinsel garlands make up for the lack of color. It’s A Wonderful Life plays on the TV and the adults drink spiked cider and the kids gorge themselves on all kinds of sweets and gifts are exchanged all around. It’s really nice. Steve had gone in both ‘83 and ‘84 and marveled at how it felt to have a family so present during the holidays, even if Hopper and Murray mostly stuck around in the kitchen and got wasted on good whiskey and he and Jonathan were still on weird terms back then. The kids are always excited to see him, maybe less so now that they’re literally living out of his pocket and already see him on a near-daily basis, but still. It’s nice. It’s relaxing. It’s something to look forward to, with his parents’ New Year's deadline looming on the horizon.
The afternoon of the party has Eddie showing up on Steve’s doorstep in a deep red sweater and jeans with no holes in them. His hair is tied up neatly and he has a huge duffel full of presents that are wrapped haphazardly in blue tissue paper and shoved into gift bags.
“Hi,” he says, sounding a little breathless like he rushed to come over. He probably did.
“Hey,” Steve says, reaching out to pull him inside by the hem of his sweater. It actually might be Steve’s from a couple of years ago, now that he’s looking at it. The door swings shut behind him and Steve kisses Eddie soundly on the corner of his mouth. The scars all along Eddie’s left side reach up his jaw and end by his nose in pretty little starbursts; it’s hard to reconcile the fact that something that caused Eddie so much pain could look so beautiful on his skin.
“You look nice,” Steve says.
“Yeah?” Eddie shuffles in place. He’s a little shifty, eyes flicking around wildly like how they usually do when he’s nervous. “That’s—that’s good.”
Steve hums. “Yeah. Why did you get all dressed up, though? It’s just the kids, really. Robin and Nancy, too.”
“Well, yes,” Eddie says. “And Joyce Byers, who I have yet to officially meet. Plus Chief Hopper, who’s pretty much only ever encountered me when I was executing my more… illicit activities.”
“He’s not the Chief anymore,” Steve says. “And why does that matter?”
“Oh, come on, Steve, like you wouldn’t get all dressed up to impress your boyfriend's family,” Eddie says, a grin finally cracking onto his face like lightning, his hands finding their way under Steve’s sweater to meet the warm skin of his stomach.
“I first met Wayne in the hospital the day I dragged you out of the Upside-Down, and I must’ve looked like an actual mess,” Steve points out. “I had your blood all over me and my bat bites were leaking something that wasn’t blood and I hadn’t taken a shower in, like, three days. And he didn’t even care.”
“Okay, but those were different circumstances and you know it,” Eddie says with a pout.
“I guess. I just feel like they're not gonna care how you look, you know? Not Joyce or Hopper, and especially not everyone else. You don’t have to change yourself for them. You could come in your usual Ozzy Osbourne t-shirts and ripped jeans and chains and all of that stuff and it would be okay, you know?”
“Maybe. I don’t know.” Eddie sighs. “I just… I know it’s stupid of me but I have this thing about needing people to like me after this spring. Before? I pretended not to care what other people thought and I did a lot of stupid shit to make people uncomfortable just for the hell of it. But now, I just… I think I want to come across as a nice boy, you know? One that people can trust with their kids or whatever.”
Steve feels himself softening. “Yeah, I get it,” he says. “You always look like that, though.”
“Like what?”
“Someone people can trust,” Steve tells him.
Eddie groans, his cheeks all delightfully pink. He’s so cute. “You know that you’re biased.”
Steve huffs. “Well, whatever, now you know that even if everyone in the world looks at you and thinks you’re scary—which, by the way, will never happen—I’ll always see you as how you really are on the inside.”
“Yeah?” Eddie lifts an eyebrow. “And what’s that?”
“Soft and mushy and adorable,” Steve answers. “Obviously.”
“Obviously,” Eddie echoes, but he lets his head fall to Steve’s shoulder and he kisses his neck, softly because he knows Steve is ticklish there. “Let's get going, yeah?”
“Yeah, just let me get my stuff.”
They’re the last ones to arrive. The kids are playing card games at a group of rickety plastic tables in a cleared-out living room and Joyce accepts the two pies that Steve made with way too much praise, because she may or may not have forgotten about dessert. He then helps her with dinner alongside Murray, who is certifiable and keeps eyeing Steve like he’s about to explode, but together they manage to keep Joyce from setting everything on fire and get their feast ready.
Nancy and Robin are tucked together on the couch, watching the movie while not really watching it, whispering to each other quietly instead. Eddie and Jonathan and Argyle disappear onto the porch and have to be dragged back inside by a disgruntled-looking Hopper, each smelling conspicuously of weed. Eddie sits next to Steve at dinner and can’t stop touching him: resting his arm along the back of his chair and his hand on his thigh and playing with his fingers on the table’s surface. Murray now looks way too smug; Erica and Mike keep making a point to gag in their direction. Joyce pulls both Steve and Eddie aside after dinner and tries to ask them something about homosexuality without actually using the word homosexuality, to which Eddie promises that he and Steve will try to swing by at a later date so that they can have this conversation in private. Argyle eats most of the chocolate pecan pie and tells Steve that it’s positively schmackin’, which is a good thing, he guesses?
Things devolve into pure shenanigans after that. Hop and Murray may or may not be having a drinking competition and Joyce is outdrinking the both of them; someone that tiny should not be able to put away that much liquor and then hold it that well. Pretty soon all three of them are red in the face. Someone else sticks mistletoe up in the kitchen. Steve suspects Nancy, who has had three cups of spiked cider herself and laughs way too loud anytime someone gets caught underneath it. Joyce kisses Hopper on the cheek, Robin smacks a loud kiss onto Steve’s forehead, Dustin and Mike get caught underneath it and Mike resolutely refuses to let Dustin lay one on him, no matter how much Dustin screeches about the unflinchingly rigid rules of mistletoe and tradition and cowardice and Mike, come on, it’s not even that gay to kiss your friend on the lips. And then Eddie has to drag Steve under just to prove Dustin wrong, kissing him deep in front of everyone to the soundtrack of their jeering and cheering and booing.
It’s a good night. It’s a great night. Steve could live in the memory of it forever, keep the warmth that spread throughout his chest and store it somewhere else for later, when he needs it most.
“Maybe we should host our own holiday party,” Eddie says later that night as he wraps his entire body around Steve’s like an octopus. Eddie’s always been wiry, on the leaner side, but he’s been putting on more weight recently. It’s definitely from a combination of eating regular meals, being consistently happy, and working at a body shop where he does manual labor for, like, eight hours a day. Steve grabbed his arm the other day and went slack-jawed when he felt an actual bicep there. Like, mass and weight and shit, filling out his palm easily. And then he had to explore all of the other muscles Eddie had unwittingly developed over the past six months, and, well. They didn’t get a lot done that day.
But he’s definitely gotten a lot heavier. The weight is comforting when he lays himself bodily on Steve, and Steve can wrap his arms around Eddie’s waist and squeeze as hard as he wants and not worry about breaking the guy in half, now. It’s great.
“Hm?”
“Like, Joyce’s party was really nice. But I know Max’s mom will be working on Christmas Day, and I think Wayne would like to celebrate something this year. Usually we just put up an electric menorah and give each other gag gifts. Which is fine, you know? I stopped wanting to celebrate Chanukah in any official capacity after my mom died. But, I don’t know, it might be fun. Your parents won't be here, will they?”
“No,” Steve says, with a lump in his throat that has been there since the phone call. “Not on Christmas.”
“Okay,” Eddie murmurs. “We should have everyone over. This can be, like, a trial run.”
“A trial run?”
“Yeah. For when we’re fully functional adults and have our own place.”
Steve’s heart slows, then speeds up. “Our own place?”
“Yeah,” Eddie says. He sits up, a little bit, just so that he can look into Steve’s eyes. “Look, Steve, I know I’ve made this abundantly clear multiple times, but just in case, I need you to know that you’re kind of the love of my life. Like, you’re the one. I don’t see myself ever moving on from you, alright? So that means that I want everything with you. I want to be with you all of the time, and get married when it’s no longer illegal, and probably even when it is because the law is bullshit anyway and if we love each other, then that’s all that really matters, right? And I want a whole big family with you. Six kids and all. Actually, you know what, six is for quitters, let's go for seven. Lucky number.”
Steve is doing this thing he didn’t even know he was capable of where he’s laughing while tears begin to pool and stream down his cheeks. The last time he cried this hard was when Nancy broke his heart. But things change. She’s one of his closest friends now, and so is Jonathan Byers. Robin Buckley the band geek is his best friend and platonic soulmate. Eddie “The Freak” Munson is his one and only. No one can predict shit like that, really, and Steve can’t help thinking about how his past self would see all of this—see Steve surrounded by the freaks and nerds and peasantry of Hawkins, and then see how luminously happy he is, too.
Eddie is still babbling on. “And like, I want to live with you always, whether it’s in this house or another house or, fuck, there’s a plot for sale in Forest Hills right now, sweetheart. As long as I’m with you, it really doesn’t matter. And I want to go to my shitty little 9 to 5 at the garage and be bothered by Ralph and Luis and open the lunches you pack me and put each and every note up on my locker door until they’re all overlapping. And then I want to come home to you and our babies. Which I realize is actually a pretty stereotypical heteronormative apple pie dream but, like, we’re us, so does it really count? I mean, you’re Steve Harrington and you were the King of Hawkins High up until a few years ago and then you started beating monsters’ faces in with a baseball bat and babysitting a bunch of traumatized preteens for fun, and I’m me. Super senior drug dealer weirdo freak Eddie, and it doesn’t make sense and it’s not normal and that’s all I ever wanted. A not-normal life with you.”
“Eddie,” Steve croaks.
“Steve,” Eddie responds, leaning up to place a gentle kiss on Steve’s eyelid, and then wiping his tears away with gentle fingers. “Sorry for running my mouth. Uh, do you want that, too? With me?”
“Yes,” Steve says emphatically. “Yes, of course I do. I've told you I do. That hasn't changed.”
“Right, of course. Just checking. That's good,” Eddie says contentedly, letting his head fall back to Steve’s chest again.
“My parents want me gone,” Steve suddenly admits, feeling a little bit bad that he’s cutting into such a remarkably romantic moment with his bullshit. He lets a hand fall over his eyes so that he can’t see Eddie’s face when he says it.
“Huh?” Eddie asks. “What—what do you mean?”
“They want me out of the house by New Year’s,” he confesses miserably. “I talked to them a month ago and they’re basically kicking me out. Which is fine, because I’m twenty and I should probably stop living at their place anyway, right? Except this house has only ever been cold and empty and quiet and I was the one who filled it with—with all of this. There’s so much of everyone everywhere and I’m so scared about leaving it behind. I saw us living here together forever.”
Eddie doesn’t speak for a moment: instead he takes Steve’s hand in his and holds it between his own. They both have shitty circulation so their hands and feet are perpetually cold, especially in the winter, and Eddie has taken to holding Steve’s hands and blowing hot air all over his frozen fingertips. He does so now, and then kisses Steve’s knuckle, the back of his hand, turns his hand over to kiss at the delicate skin of his wrist, where the blue of his veins peek through.
“It’ll be okay,” he says, sounding so certain that it’s unlike him. Eddie is all uncertainty, spontaneity, surprises, forks in every road of his life. “We’ll figure it out.”
“I have to be gone in a few weeks,” Steve tells him.
“So we’ll pack your stuff up and you’ll come stay with Wayne and me.”
“Eddie, I can’t ask that of you—“
“Steve, I’ve literally been more or less living here for the past year. I think you coming to stay with us for a while will be okay. At least until we figure out a new place. Nobody’s buying in January, bet we’ll have our fair share of places to look at.”
“Okay,” Steve says.
“And then we’ll make it our own place—actually ours, not your parents’ and not Wayne’s, but ours, and the kids will be over constantly and Robin will get her own room and we can decorate the shit out of it for Halloween and have our own proper non-denominational holiday party. You can get a fake Christmas tree and I’ll put up the old shitty plastic menorah me and Wayne use in the window and we’ll brainstorm ways to procure seven children and it’ll be great. Okay?”
“Okay,” Steve repeats, reassured, feeling infinitely more anchored and loved. Eddie smiles into his skin prematurely. “But only if you invite Ralph and Luis to our non-denominational holiday party.”
“Absolutely not,” Eddie protests immediately, and Steve quiets him by smothering him in kisses, and everything else—the good and the bad and harsh realities and pleasant dreams—all of that is forgotten, only if for the night.