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Steve wasn’t stupid, despite what many people would like to believe. He noticed things about other people and could be very introspective when he wasn’t in fight or flight mode trying to stop the end of the world with a bunch of passively suicidal teenagers.
When he had his first kiss, he remembered how it felt. It was Tommy Hagan, who claimed it was “for practice” so that they wouldn’t make fools of themselves when they tried to kiss a girl, but the butterflies in Steve’s stomach made him understand that this meant more to him than to Tommy. They swore each other to secrecy, but he remembered.
He always felt that their last interaction was a little charged, too. Tommy had grabbed him by the front of his shirt to shout in his bloodied face, and he might have looked at his lips accidentally before escaping his grasp and driving away. He kept it all to himself and tried not to dwell on it too hard. It didn’t matter, he reasoned, because he still liked girls.
It wasn’t until Eddie practically stormed into his life that he got a clue. This time, the feeling was around him constantly, what with Eddie being a permanent member of the group, and he finally realized that he was truly somewhat gay. He couldn’t stop paying attention to his hands, his eyes, the way he couldn’t keep still when he was excited about something.
For a moment, it made him feel whole, that he wasn’t too different from Robin and Eddie after all. He and Robin liked girls, and he and Eddie liked guys. The perfect triangle. Except, he was still the odd one out, wasn’t he?
He imagined the looks on their faces if he told them, the brightening of their features at the prospect of another queer member of the group then squashed by the clarification that he wasn’t all the way gay. He wondered if they’d laugh, call him silly for thinking that was relevant, that he’d still one day marry a woman so it didn’t matter.
Or maybe they’d be angry at him for wasting their time. He could see the betrayal on Eddie’s face, thinking Steve’s feelings for him were some kind of joke. He could envision the trust between them vanishing all because he decided to open his mouth. They might, he thought, close off completely for daring to compare himself to them. Nothing was worth that.
The weekend after he realized he was bisexual, he kept his mouth shut.
He, Eddie, and Robin were all lounging in Steve’s living room, talking about random topics. He was on the armchair, and Eddie and Robin were both hanging upside down off the couch, claiming it would “help them think better” as they talked. Robin was gushing about Vickie, Eddie chiming in about his own secret crushes. It made his chest ache to think about Eddie with other men but he knew he had to get used to it because he and Eddie were not a thing. They’d never be a thing.
I’m like you, he wanted to scream at them, but he wasn’t, was he? He was something else entirely. Something alien. Not gay enough, not straight enough… just not enough.
It weighed him down like he had rocks in his pockets but he tried to walk around like it wasn’t heavy. He kept it to himself, sewed his stomach up so he wouldn’t spill his guts to them and acted like everything was normal. It kept itching at him, though. For his entire life he hadn’t allowed himself the freedom to like men, and now that he was content with it he couldn’t do anything about it. That is, until he decided to drive to Indy.
It didn’t take too long to find a gay bar one weekend. He had told Robin and Eddie that he had a date, and they joked that maybe “she” was the one. If only they knew. He made a beeline to the bar, barely glancing at his surroundings in his anxiety. Regardless of his paranoia, he still wanted to experience this new-but-not-new side of him, but he was nervous as all hell.
The bartender was a guy that looked a little older than Steve, with a dark complexion and brown hair that loc’d around his ears, wearing a silver stud in his nose. His name tag read “Jeremy”, and he wasn’t attending to any patrons when Steve stiffly walked up, so he got to assess him fully, looking him up and down. “First time?” he asked.
Steve leaned one arm on the bar, huffing out a laugh. “Yeah. Can I get a vodka coke?” Maybe it was basic, but the classics were classics for a reason.
Jeremy nodded. While he mixed the drink, he eyed Steve. “You don’t need be to be nervous, you know. We get lots of newcomers. No judgement here.” He set the drink in front of Steve, who went for his wallet, only to be stopped. “On the house, man,” Jeremy said, waving his hand. “Call it a baby gay discount.”
They chatted for a little while, mostly because Steve was too scared to approach the floor. He watched how the crowd danced around shamelessly, some men grinding against each other or feeling each other up. He didn’t know if he could shake the self consciousness that came with his new identity, at least not yet.
“You’re not going to join in?” Jeremy asked eventually, and Steve blushed when he realized he’d taken up so much of the bartender’s time. He was very easy to talk to, and he was nothing like Eddie, but he was easy on the eyes. He tried to apologize for bothering him, but he was waved off again. “It’s no big deal, just…” He looked Steve up and down again. “What’re you looking for, coming here?”
Steve shrugged. “I mean, I figured myself out not that long ago. I just don’t know what to do about it.” And I’m trying to get rid of these stupid feelings for one of my friends.
Jeremy dissected him with his eyes in the same way he was doing all night, like he was trying to study him. He leaned in to whisper conspiratorally. “My shift ends at midnight,” he murmured, eyes tracking all across Steve’s face, “If you wanted to figure out more.”
Sleeping with a man was not what he expected, but that wasn’t a bad thing. Though he admittedly liked bossy women, he’d mostly taken control in the bedroom with girls. With Jeremy, however, he felt inclined to open himself up to direction, to be a dutiful student to whatever he was willing to teach him. If he became comfortable with it and a little bossy himself, who’s to say?
He went a little crazy after that. He had no self control, seeking out encounters with men he’d meet there, because now that he’d had a taste, he couldn’t stop himself if he tried. It also helped ease the Eddie shaped hole in his chest, honestly. It wasn’t as unbearable when he had someone whispering in his ear or shoving him to his knees. Jeremy was cool about it, just happy to have introduced him to the scene (and taken his gay virginity).
Whenever he made the trip, he told Robin and Eddie he had a date, which roughly translated to “I’m going to go get obliterated in the bathroom of a gay bar”, but they didn’t need to know that. He felt a little guilty lying to them, and he knew he was pulling away, especially from Eddie, but this was the lightest he’d felt in so long. Sure, at night when he was alone with his thoughts he wished that his two lives didn’t have to be separate, but he assured himself that this kept everyone happy. That’s all he wanted.
_
Steve was acting weird. Eddie was sensitive to the other’s behavior on account of being in love with him and all, but both he and Robin noticed that he was more cagey than usual and spent less time with them. At first, he thought that maybe he just had a bad week, but it just kept happening. He told so little about his social life outside of them that if he didn’t know Steve was gone every other weekend he would have assumed he didn’t have one. It was unlike him.
Eddie didn’t do shit about it, though. Steve was stubborn, but so was he. It didn’t matter how much he loved him, if Steve wanted to be elusive Eddie wasn’t going to chase after him. That’s why, when Robin found a gay bar in Indianapolis, he agreed to go. They almost didn’t, Robin from fear of social interaction and Eddie from fear of his inexperience causing him to make a fool of himself. They promised each other to be brave, though, so off they went.
They told Steve they had plans without really specifying what they were, and he got a sick sort of satisfaction at doing exactly what Steve had been doing to them. He felt kind of bad about that, but what was he supposed to say? “I’m trying to get over you”?
It didn’t matter. He didn’t have to deal with his stupid gorgeous face or dumb (endearing) straight boy naivety tonight. He could dance with strangers and try his best to forget about his doomed crush.
They were both somewhat timid when they arrived, but after some encouragement Robin left to explore while Eddie hung out near the bar, scoping out the scene. It was somewhat crowded, it being a weekend, but everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves.
He did a double take when he saw a polo out of the corner of his eye. In the flesh, with another man’s hands on his hips, was Steve, his back to the man’s front, reaching his arm back to tangle in the guy’s hair as they swayed to the music. He was sure the shock on his face was extremely noticeable but he couldn’t look away, because what the hell was he doing at a gay club in the first place?
He went through every interaction with Steve he’d ever had. He’d never spoken about men in a way that could indicate that he was interested. He was reminded of Steve’s recent secretiveness. God, was this what all those “dates” were these past few months that he refused to talk about? Why keep this from him? From Robin?
In the midst of his internal monologue, a guy slid up next to him, eyeing him and taking a sip of his drink. He followed Eddie’s line of sight and chuckled. “He’s a pretty one, huh?” he asked with a glint in his eye.
Eddie cleared his throat, trying to parse through his thoughts and formulate words at the same time. “Yeah. I know him.” He didn’t say they were friends, because he was reevaluating who exactly he was to Steve that he couldn’t even trust him with this.
“Hmm.” The man looked him up and down. “He let you take him yet?”
Eddie turned sharply toward the guy. “What?” What kind of question was that?
The man held his hands up in surrender. “I’m just asking, man. I only had to dance with him for like ten minutes before he offered me a blowie.”
“You– what?” Eddie repeated. “Are you sure you have the right guy?” Even with the evidence right in front of him, he couldn’t believe it.
The guy outright laughed in Eddie’s face. “Dude, he’s been through half the regulars–”
“Okay,” a bartender with a name tag that read “Jeremy”, who Eddie hadn’t realized was listening in, warned from behind the bar. “Cool it.”
Waving a hand at him as if to say “whatever”, the man said, “You’re just protective ‘cause you got to him first.”
With a quickness that startled all of them, Eddie whipped his head around to face his new arch nemesis. The guy was handsome, he could admit, and a little alternative. He didn’t know Steve was into that. In retrospect, he didn’t know Steve was into a lot of things. He sort of wanted to knock the guy’s lights out for touching the man he loved, but he knew he held no ownership over Steve, so he let the anger simmer.
Suddenly, Robin appeared next to him on the opposite side of the gossiper, a big smile on her face. “It’s awesome here!” she exclaimed.
Before he could warn her that Steve was there, his voice rang out, getting closer as he spoke. “Hey, Jer! Could I get some water please? I’m sweaty as fuck–” he abruptly stopped talking as Robin and Eddie turned to face him, and his face dropped as if he’d seen a ghost. He went paler than Eddie had ever seen him, and he’d seen him partially eaten by bats.
Robin wasn’t much better. Her face went through a million different emotions at once. There was shock, confusion, fury, then settling on heartbreak. Eddie could relate, though for the most part he just wanted to pummel every man here that had laid a hand on Steve, including the bartender that Steve had given a fucking nickname.
None of them spoke for a long time, and the stretch of silence only seemed to make Steve panic more. His breathing got erratic and his eyes were wide, flicking between the two of them with pure fear in his eyes that Eddie didn’t understand. He was the first to speak. “What the fuck, Steve?” He’d meant to be a little more graceful about it, but seriously, what the fuck?
“This guy bothering you?” the bartender asked Steve, setting down a glass he was cleaning. Deep down, Eddie was sure he meant well, but it only made him want to vault over the bar all the more.
Steve shook his head. “No, just–” he beckoned for the two to follow. “Outside.”
Silently, they all walked out of the bar and into the neighboring alley. Leaning his back on the brick wall, he waited for an explanation, but it didn’t come.
Robin seemed to be too in her head to begin the conversation, so Eddie crossed his arms and said, “Explain.”
Looking at anywhere but the other two and seeming extremely uncomfortable, Steve shrugged, shifting his weight back and forth. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”
That made Eddie even angrier. “I want to know why the fuck we weren’t told about this.” Sure, everyone had a right to privacy, but the three had well established that boundaries didn’t exist between them. “How long has this been going on?”
Steve shrugged again. “A few months?” he said uncertainly. Robin made a punched out noise. Eddie knew she was taking it the worst, that her soulmate had found his identity without her by choice. The noise alerted Steve, who scrambled to explain himself. “It’s not a big deal. It’s not like it counts, anyway.”
Eddie had the sudden need to sit down and sigh heavily. “I think dancing with men and sleeping with them makes you kinda gay, Steve,” he flatly said. Robin’s eyes went wide; she hadn’t known that last part. He’d run into many closet cases that insisted it “didn’t count” if they didn’t go all the way, but he never expected Steve to be one of them.
“No, I know I’m bisexual,” Steve rebutted, looking frustrated. He didn’t seem to have a problem saying the word, so denial wasn’t the problem, further confusing Eddie. “It’s just— I’m not like you two. I don’t have just one preference.” He nervously ran a hand through his hair. “I still like girls. I like guys too, I really do, but I’m— I’m not queer enough for it to matter, so why bother? I wasn’t gonna intrude on something that doesn’t belong to me.”
They were all silent for several moments. Steve had said what he did as if it was fact, as if he knew with absolute certainty that he was meant to be excluded from the queerness he was surrounded by. He thought back to all the times he and Robin talked about gay things that they assumed Steve didn’t understand because of his history with women. They never even entertained the idea of him liking the same gender too. In all honesty, it broke Eddie’s heart.
“Jesus,” Robin muttered sadly, interrupting Eddie’s scattered thoughts. “Steve, that’s not true.”
Steve shook his head. “Isn’t it though?” Without waiting for an answer, he continued to ramble. “I mean, what if I end up with a woman? What will my liking guys mean then? Nothing. I don’t— it feels dirty, almost, the idea of saying I’m a queer when on the outside I seem like a straight guy. I get to ignore boys for girls, if I want. Doesn’t that make me selfish?”
Eddie couldn’t believe what he was hearing. What Steve was describing was a horrible, distorted view of bisexuality and he vowed to check up on him more now that he was aware of the deep-seated self hatred he must have had. “Let me ask you something,” he said coolly, “Do you think Robin or I chose to be gay?”
Looking confused, Steve exclaimed, “No, of course not! That’s what I’m saying—”
“If sexuality is not a choice,” Eddie butted in, speaking slowly and clearly to get his point across, “Then you didn’t choose either. You didn’t wake up and decide to like both. You just do.”
Steve sighed. “But I can’t compare myself to either of you. I’m not the same.”
Understanding dawned on Robin’s face and she took a step forward. “Steve, me and Eddie aren’t the same either. You’re thinking Eddie and I are two sides of the same coin and you don’t belong, but really we’re two sides of one of those stupid dice the boys use that have a million sides and they all mean something. You’re not any less than. You’re one of us.”
He sniffed. “I am?” he asked shakily. Eddie could tell he was trying not to cry.
“Absolutely,” Eddie said emphatically. “Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”
With a wobbly lip, Steve took a deep breath in and out. Eddie watched him try and fail to hold himself together as tears finally overtook him, spewing out after being held in for so long. Immediately, Robin moved to envelop him in a hug, which Eddie got pulled into as well. “I didn’t know,” Steve whimpered. “I didn’t— I didn’t know.”
Having been a freak all his life, Eddie was not unfamiliar with the feeling of otherness, but he knew that Steve was sensitive about it since his fall from popularity. How he managed to keep this secret hidden for so long was beyond him. He stroked Steve’s back with one hand, Robin and he murmuring reassurances as they embraced.
He didn’t know how long they stood there embracing each other, but eventually they grew cold and tired. Together they piled into Eddie’s van. Robin’s place was closer, so she got dropped off first. In the back of Eddie’s mind, though, he also just wanted to spend time alone with Steve, even for just a few minutes. The anger from before their talk was still there, however, and even though he knew that jealousy was an ugly trait, he had a hard time keeping it together, restraining himself so he didn’t beg Steve not to sleep around anymore.
“Even if it wasn’t how I expected,” Eddie said, hands tense on the wheel. “I’m glad you were able to figure things out. It’s not easy, but you seem to have made a name for yourself back there.” Unbeknownst to him, he’d begun gripping the wheel to the point of white knuckles.
Steve frowned. “Then why do you still seem upset?”
Eddie shook his head. “I’m not.” His tone was wholly unconvincing, he knew, but deflection was his only strategy at the moment.
Shifting in his seat, Steve continued to push, eyebrows knitting together. “You so are. Why?” He was way more perceptive than people gave him credit for.
“I don’t—” he sighed, finally loosening his death grip on the wheel. He’d beat himself up over his dramatics later. Right now it was about survival. “It’s nothing I have the right to be upset about.”
Thinking in silence, Steve let his eyes roam Eddie’s taut form, cataloguing his expressions, reading him like a book. Eddie could unfortunately tell exactly when the lighting bulb went off. “Oh my god, are you jealous?” he asked excitedly.
Eddie flushed and scrambled to defend himself. “I’m not!” he lied, “You’ve got it all wrong—”
“You are totally jealous, what the fuck?” Steve kept staring at him, waiting for an explanation that the other didn’t want to give.
After a few moments of awkward quiet, Eddie muttered, “I don’t really know what you expect me to say here, man.” He already figured it out. What more did he want?
“The truth.”
Eddie gulped. He guessed there was nothing else left to say. “Fine,” he said with a clenched jaw. “I hated it. Being there. I met your fucking— boytoy Jeremy and heard about how easy you were in the span of five minutes. I almost can’t take it, Steve, it’s like you know just how to push my buttons.”
When Steve didn’t say anything back, Eddie thought he must have ruined it. He’d sounded possessive, was too honest too quickly like always and it was going to bite him in the ass. But then, Steve suddenly spoke. “Turn around.”
Perplexed, the metalhead chanced a quick look at Steve. “Huh?”
A hand very sneakily wrapped itself around Eddie’s thigh and squeezed gently, causing all of Eddie’s trains of thought to come to a screeching halt as he quickly glanced down at the tanned hand. “Take me back to your trailer. Please?” Steve asked, and he was done for.
Without really putting any pieces together, he obeyed, making a probably illegal U-turn in his excitement for whatever Steve was up to. The whole ride, Steve never let go of his thigh.
After he parked, Eddie was practically dragged to the door and he sent a thankful prayer that his Uncle Wayne wasn’t home that night. Once both inside, they just stared at each other. He tried not to be self conscious of his home, even if Steve only seemed to have eyes for him. “So,” Eddie tried, having an idea of what was going on but not the whole picture. “What’s this ab—”
Steve pounced, shoving Eddie to lay across the couch with a surprised yelp before he leaned in and took a heavy seat right in his lap. Eddie gasped and clutched the smooth hips in front of him for dear life while Steve ran his hands up Eddie’s stomach and chest, then down and over his shoulders, leaning in for a kiss that Eddie happily accepted.
The older boy’s whole body had a flush to it, never having felt so intimate with someone before. It could just be the beginning of a one night stand, but it felt like a promise for something more. When Steve started tugging his shirt up, though, he had to ask. “Wait, wait,” he breathed. “Am I— Is this—” He ran a hand over his face. “What are we doing here?”
Chuckling, Steve tugged at the collar of Eddie’s shirt with one finger and said, “Hopefully something with less clothes.”
He began to lean in again, but Eddie stopped him with a palm on his chest. “No, I mean in the grand scheme of things.” Steve had apparently slept with several other men, and while he would never judge him for that, the metalhead couldn’t help but feel a little insecure, not wanting to be just another body when he felt this deeply. “Are we just having fun?”
Steve’s face hardened immediately. He grabbed Eddie’s hand that was still on his chest and laced their fingers together, as if trying to make a point. “The only reason I hung around those clubs was to try to get over you, and obviously that didn’t work.” Without giving Eddie a chance to even process that, he continued. “If we do this, you’re mine.”
A slow grin spread on Eddie’s face, and with a sudden confidence he groped Steve’s ass with his free hand, pulling him further into his lap. “I’ll be honest,” Eddie said. “I’m not sure if I want you to destroy me or me to destroy you.”
Chuckling, the younger ran a hand through his new lover’s curls, tugging at them a little. “Why don’t we go down together?”