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“I can’t believe Robin really expects us to drive eleven hours for her sorry ass,” Eddie grumbles to himself despite the fact that he is loading up Steve Harrington’s car with his things anyway. It would have been more efficient storage-wise to take his van, but that thing could barely make it across town let alone across state lines.
“Eleven hours with you isn’t exactly my dream either, Munson,” Steve groans, coming around behind him as he shoves the last suitcase into his borderline overflowing trunk. He really doesn’t know how they have this much stuff for a long weekend trip, but he’s really not going to question it. “But she’s our friend and she’s stuck at Sarah Lawrence for her birthday so we’re going.”
Eddie groans, although it’s mainly for the dramatics at this point. It’s a little hard to hate someone after you help each other save the world from interdimensional monsters. Not that Eddie ever bothered to hate Steve in the first place. In fact, everything would be a hell of a lot easier if he did hate him, but he’s always liked Steve a little more than he should. It’s worse enough now that he’s actually gotten to know the guy. Now, they’ll be in a car together over the course of two days. And squeezing into the shitty dorm mattress together since Robin’s roommate transferred last semester and neglected to tell housing, leading the girl to go, “oh no, don’t worry about getting a hotel, just stay in my room,” which means Eddie will have no choice but to be suffocated by Steve Harrington. This can’t go well for him.
“C’mon, Harrington, we gotta get on the road, it's already way too late,” he sighs, looking at the rising sun. He hasn’t been up this early for something since high school (a place he finally escaped this past year. Almost dying put some stuff in perspective so Eddie was determined to pull his grades up). They should have left an hour ago, but Steve’s alarm hadn’t gone off allegedly, so Eddie had spent most of his morning knocking on the door of his ridiculously large house where his parents never seemed to be home. Not that he can say anything about that, he’s in the same situation, just in a shitty trailer park. Kind of annoying, how people’s lives work out.
“I’m going, I’m going, just get in,” Steve nods, motioning to the passenger side of the car as the two of them prepare to leave. He isn’t sure he’s going to survive an eleven-hour drive with Steve and his music taste, but hopefully, he’ll let Eddie pick the radio station at some point. “It’s only, like, seven, do you think we could make the whole drive today?”
“We should, worst case we pull off at a motel for the night,” Eddie shrugs as the other begins to back out of the driveway, arm stretched out to grab the headrest that Eddie’s leaning against. “But we should get there at like eight or nine if traffic isn’t awful. If you wanna take us through Ohio, I can switch off with you around Pennsylvania.”
Steve hums softly, “You’re being surprisingly… not annoying right now. I half-expected you to be tossing trash at my head already.”
“Too early for that, I don’t start my job of being your biggest nuisance until about nine, so you got a couple of hours to prepare yourself,” the other teases as he leans back with his hands behind his head, watching the roads of Hawkins disappear in the rearview mirror. “Don’t worry, Harrington, I don’t wanna be stuck here with you either.”
“The things we do for Robin,” the man grunts under his breath as they fall into a steady silence under the early morning sky. It’s surprisingly peaceful how quickly they are able to relax around one another. Eddie isn’t even sure why he likes to rile Steve up so much anyway. Maybe it’s just fun to watch him squirm. There’s a reason he likes it, this much he is all too aware of, but as long as he never lets it affect anything he’ll be fine. They’re just… acquaintances that like to get on each other’s nerves as a joke. They aren’t even friends.
It’s probably an hour before they even have a full conversation. Metallica’s Enter Sandman is playing through the radio and Eddie reaches out to turn it up, somehow prompting Steve to ask, “Can you play that part?”
“What? The intro? That’s a bass, Harrington. I don’t play bass,” Eddie says with a small chuckle, “but I do know the guitar sections of this song. Metallica’s kinda a cheap shot, though. I mean, if you’re serious about being a metal band, you don’t put metal in the name of the band. They’re new hot shit right now, but if they stick around they’ll sell out like that.” He snaps his fingers for emphasis as if to drive his point home.
Steve scoffs at this, shaking his head slightly, “Okay, Metallica, sore subject. If you’re so righteous about your metal music, what constitutes as good metal to you? King Eddie of the Metal Heads.”
“I appreciate you using my proper title, thank you, really,” Eddie pretends to be honored with a hand over his chest as he bows his head slightly with a laugh leaving his lips. “Well, you can’t go wrong with Iron Maiden, or AC/DC is pretty metal. Pantera, they’re newer on the scene, formed in ‘81, but they’re pretty good. Megadeath’s pretty new as well, but still good. Why do you care? The most hardcore you probably get is, like, Blondie.”
“Hey! Blondie is pretty hardcore!” Steve laughs, but it’s obvious by his tone that it’s a boneless defense, not that either of them really cares in the first place. “I’m more of an ABBA fan, personally.”
“That’s because ABBA is one of the best bands to grace the earth,” Eddie says, not missing Steve’s bewildered look that darts from the road to Eddie, and back to the road. “What? Didn't expect me to be down with disco? I contain multitudes, Harrington.”
“So you can read Whitman, but you couldn’t pass a high school English class for three years?”
“Technically I did pass it the third time, thank you very much,” he iterates, biting his lip, “I dated this gu— girl who was, uh, super into poetry so I read a few their favorites to get in with them.”
The lie is rough on his tongue and he clears his throat as if that would do anything to cover up what he very-obviously almost slipped out. His heart races in his chest as he realizes what he may have let go just now, but Steve doesn’t even seem to notice the slip-up. At least, if he did, it didn’t show on his face or in his next words.
“Eddie Munson,” Steve mutters almost under his breath, “A poetry man.”
The conversation eases up from there as that comfortable silence overtakes them again. It’s strangely easy to be around Steve like this, the boy just staring ahead at the road with one hand on the wheel and the other by his side, occasionally glancing over at Eddie, but never quite saying anything. The silence should be awkward, especially as it stretches from minutes to hours, but he finds himself content.
“It’s past nine,” Steve says after a while, “You haven’t started irritating me yet. This may be a new record.”
“You know, you didn’t have to save my life that one time if I bother you so much,” Eddie jokes. At least, it’s partially a joke, but hidden behind it is the implication that in their battle with Vecna, there was nothing stopping Steve from simply letting Eddie die, just like Chrissy or Ben or how Max almost did.
Steve shrugs, “I like to fulfill my charitable needs, what can I say?”
“Do the nightmares ever stop?” he finds himself asking before he can stop the words from leaving his mouth, “I mean, you know. It’s all over, so it should be over, but…”
“It’s never over, not for your brain,” the other says with a sigh, “I’ve been fighting those creatures since sophomore year and if the nightmares ever stop, you’ll be the first person I tell.”
Eddie lets out a sad laugh that’s more of a dry chuckle if anything, his eyes falling to his own twiddling thumbs in his lap. Knowing that Steve has fought these things multiple times and seen so much shit and even falls prey to night terrors of all things is daunting, to say the least. His hope for ever feeling normal ever again is bleaker than it was before.
“You know, Vecna, he would come for people that had secrets,” Eddie says, feeling the need to talk about it with probably one of the few people in the world that would ever understand. “I didn’t realize it until he had me, but he doesn’t prey on your fears to get in your head, he’s no Freddy Kreuger. He goes for the secrets. Robin and I were talking a few months ago. It seemed Chrissy was always vomiting after she ate, Ben had some accident he survived that he probably felt guilty about and Max’s was… her grief. Isn’t that weird?”
“All of it’s weird, they’re monsters from another dimension,” Steve attempts a laugh, but the tone has shifted, “Look, you don’t gotta tell me whatever it was Vecna tried to get you for, what’s important is that he didn’t and we all end up okay, yeah? The kids are fine, we’re fine and hopefully, this is the last of it. If it’s not, it’s gonna be someone else’s problem because I’m sick of fighting shit. I’m just surprised that I, of all people, was the one to get you to snap out of it.”
“Yeah, weird,” Eddie mumbles to himself, knowing exactly what the creature had preyed on. He had never found his silly schoolgirl crush on Steve “The Hair” Harrington to be particularly useful. In fact, it was more of a nuisance than anything else in his life. However, as it turns out when the very same boy you’ve been staring at for most of your high school years is rescuing you from a monster trying to make you feel sick about your own sexuality, it’s pretty fucking convenient. When he looks up, he meets Steve’s eyes, worried. “Eyes on the road, Harrington. And don’t tell anyone I’ve got feelings, yeah? I’m still trying to maintain just a little bit of that hardcore personality the chicks dig.”
Steve laughs openly at this, the mood of the morning shifting right back into the place where it belongs. It was easy. “Oh, yeah, because Dungeons and Dragons is a huge chick magnet, for sure, Munson, I believe that. Also, you don’t have to feel shitty for talking about it. I refused to talk about it for a while after the first time I ended up fighting shit, probably what led to my breakup with Nancy. She seems to like guys that are a bit more in touch with their feelings.”
“Do you miss her?” he asks before he can help it, “I mean, you and Jonathan seem cool and all, but I mean, she was your first long-term girlfriend, right? And not like anyone’s really… taken her place.”
He hopes it comes across more subtle than it feels, the underlying questions in between his words poking through the thin air of the car. Steve is quiet for a moment before he answers, “I mean, I loved her, yeah, I still do, just not in that way anymore. I think she was miserable with me, towards the end, but she just didn’t realize it. We’re better off as friends, I believe that wholeheartedly. And as for someone filling her place, low blow, Munson, not my fault the ladies of Hawkins are a tough crowd.”
“Maybe you gotta look for more than just ladies then,” he suggests calmly, a devilish grin on his face as one hand absentmindedly twirls his textured hair between his fingers.
“Yeah, maybe,” Steve answers with a scoff, his eyes darting to Eddie’s face and darting down, most importantly, before they return to the road. Eddie must be going crazy because he could have sworn Steve Harrington just looked down at his lips like he had an idea in mind. He was also very much paying attention to the way Steve hadn’t denied Eddie’s “suggestion” nor made a crass comment. Sure, he knew Steve was friends with Robin and always supported her, but boys were different. Boys were different when it was themselves that might be anything other than the norm. That was a rejection Eddie would often feel for days in the form of a black eye.
“Just saying,” Eddie shrugs, the words heavy on his tongue despite the casualness of his tone, “There are options out there beyond the nearest post-grad cheerleader.”
“I was never much of a cheerleader guy,” the other mumbles, keeping his eyes on the road now. “You good to drive in about two hours? We’re almost through Ohio.”
Eddie nods, “Good with me, we should stop for gas and also probably food soon, though. I’m getting hungry.”
“Yeah, yeah, there’s a McDonald’s off the next exit, seems like it’s next to a gas station, we can kill two birds with one stone,” Steve tells him as he looks over his shoulder to change lanes. His eyes hover on Eddie for just a moment as he finishes and Eddie must be making this up because Steve has never even glanced twice at him throughout all the years they spent walking the same hallways.
Not too long passes before they pull off the highway, stopping for gas first. He stays in the passenger seat while the other fills up the tank that’s already draining after just a few hours of non-stop driving. It’s easy to exist in the space of Steve Harrington, Eddie thinks. He twiddles his thumbs, watching while Steve leans against the side of the car with his arms crossed, that nonchalant coolness obvious in the way he holds himself, watching the numbers on the pump climb. The early morning sun shines on the side of Steve’s face, casting him in golden hues. Eddie opens his mouth like he wants to say something, might slip and call him beautiful, but the pump clicks before he can make that mistake. He clears his throat absentmindedly as the other gets back in the car, any wisp of a moment gone with the wind flowing through Steve’s hair.
The lunchtime break passes without much conversation, the early morning they both had paired with a few hours of driving causing both of them to be a bit drained. Before long, they’re back on the road and creeping towards the Pennsylvania state line. He keeps his eyes on the road, fearful that the more he stares at Steve without realizing that the object of his affections will dare to call him out on it. Before he knows it, Steve is pulling off the shoulder and motioning for Eddie to switch with him.
It’s easier when he can keep his eyes on the road, the radio quietly playing some alternative music that both of them manage to agree on as he watches Steve begin to nod off out of the corner of his eye. They’re about six hours from New York, the sun high in the sky as they’ve just about reached the halfway point. Indiana is far in the rearview mirror and Eddie wonders if his inhibitions have been left behind as well.
The afternoon climbs ahead of them as Steve falls asleep in the high sun, head leaning gently against the window. Eddie finds himself making sure he doesn’t cross any bumps in the road or make any sudden movements so that the boy can have his rest. He isn’t sure how much time passes, the clock on the dashboard a blurry entity as nothing else seems to matter but Steve in the passenger seat and the road ahead of them.
The rest of the drive is a blur of meaningless conversations; the two of them laugh like old friends, teasing each other relentlessly, and a lot of gas station snack wrappers are scattered along the floor of the car. The sun has fallen over the skyline as they cross the state line into New Jersey and their journey wanes down.
Steve looks down at the map with Robin’s college circled in red marker that they prepared for this occasion, the highway they needed was also marked in red to differentiate from the endless lines. “Uh, okay, just keep going on this road, at this rate we’re not much more than an hour away from New York, I think. Did you know I’ve never left Hawkins?”
“Me neither,” Eddie says breathlessly as the two of them share a light chuckle. “Definitely didn’t expect to run away from Hawkins with you by my side, Harrington. No offense.”
“Well, we do have to go home at some point,” Steve laughs, “Although, it turns out you’re not so bad to run away with. So, there’s that. And if we do ever run away, you know we’re gonna have to bring Robin with us or she’ll kill us.”
“Very much true,” the other chuckles and Steve joins him as the laughter settles over the car. The closer they get to their destination, the more Eddie finds himself never wanting this to end. If the setting sun in the sky is any indication, it seems like their journey will be coming to an end much sooner than he wants it to. Eddie finds himself saying, “You know you’re not so bad, Harrington. Not so bad at all.”
Steve is quiet for a moment and he can feel the eyes on him. “Glowing review from someone who helped me save the world. Nancy would have died if it wasn’t for you, you know.”
“Robin was the one who knew her favorite song, I just played the right chords,” Eddie sighs, following the signs on the interstate that will lead them to New York. “That was probably the first time in my life I didn’t run away from something.”
If Steve was planning on saying something, he hesitates long enough that the moment passes. With a weary sigh, Eddie turns up the song on the radio, The Trooper by Iron Maidan flooding the car as Eddie pretends that it does anything to fulfill the heavy silence left behind by their topic of conversation.
“Welcome to New York,” Steve says with a sigh, pointing to the illuminated state sign as they cross. Steve relays the directions to Eddie as he keeps driving, hoping they don’t get lost. Even at night, the traffic is already becoming unbearable. “They weren’t kidding when they call this the city that never sleeps.”
“We aren’t even in the city, I think this state, in general, is just unbearable. Jesus, no wonder everyone hates traffic. So glad we don’t have this shit in Hawkins,” Eddie groans as they drive, the mood becoming almost tense if they aren’t careful.
It takes them almost forty-five minutes to get to the campus from there and even longer to find the right parking lot that’s outside of Robin’s dorm building. As they pull up, there’s a figure sitting on the steps who darts up the moment she sees their car. Illuminated under the street light is Robin, a glowing smile on her face.
“What do ya know, you guys managed not to kill each other!” she says with an awed expression as she takes turns giving both of the boys a hug.
“Yeah, yeah, don’t cream your pants,” Steve teases as he opens the trunk and begins grabbing their stuff. Eddie reaches over to help and their hands brush as Steve hands him a suitcase; both of them linger on the movement before something seems to spark them back into reality and they jump apart. When he turns around, Robin is looking at him with furrowed brows.
He mouths a quick, what? To which the girl just shrugs and begins to walk towards the dorms with the two boys and their things in tow. They get a few odd looks from the girls wandering the halls, but nothing too eventful before they make it to the third floor where Robin’s dorm is. She pushes in her key and opens the door, pushing it in so the boys can go first, dropping their things on the carpeted floor. The bed is bigger than he thought, but it’s still going to be a squeeze for him and Steve to share if they want to.
“I know it’ll be tight, but there are extra blankets and pillows if one of you guys wants to sleep on the floor,” Robin tells them as she closes the door behind them.
“Nah, the bed will be fine if Eddie’s cool with it,” Steve says which very simply shocks Eddie to his core. He expected Steve to jump ship the moment Robin mentioned a way out, but he didn’t. “If he snores, I’ll just make him go share with you.”
“Hey, I don’t snore,” Eddie defends to which Steve meets him with a raised eyebrow.
“Okay, okay, well, you guys are probably exhausted from the drive so feel free to get ready for bed now, I’m probably gonna do the same. We’ll start doin’ fun shit tomorrow, yeah? I’m really glad you guys could make it.”
They come to an agreement as the three of them begin to settle down for the night. Steve and Eddie get into the bed, taking a moment to figure out what’s comfortable before they just lay down side by side with their arms pressed to their sides, but Steve keeps squirming. Robin is fast asleep in the bed across the room, completely oblivious to their plight.
“Harrington, neither of us are gonna sleep if you keep moving around like that,” Eddie says quietly with a light chuckle.
“Maybe if you didn’t have a stupid amount of muscle mass, this would be easier.”
“Oh, please, you think it’s hot.”
“That doesn’t matter when we’re trying to fit into a bed that is way too small,” Steve retorts, sounding half-heartedly irritated. Eddie immediately hones in on the fact that Steve doesn’t deny the fact that he allegedly finds him hot.
“Oh, my God, just—” Eddie grumbles before doing something he hardly expects himself to do and grabs Steve by the arm, tugging him so that he is halfway on top of Eddie and able to stretch out more than he was. Steve yelps at the sudden movement and the other places a hand over his mouth before he can be too loud. “Don’t wake her up, dude.”
Steve rolls his eyes as the hand is removed, now speaking in a whisper, “Sorry, I didn’t expect to be manhandled.”
He groans, “Oh, shut up, you probably like it.”
Silence follows the statement and he wonders if he’s gone too far, but when he looks up, Steve’s head is raised to look at him, their eyes meeting. Steve is warm on top of him and he thinks this feeling is going to drive him insane and it’s his own doing. The other’s eyes dart down to his lips before meeting his eyes. This time, with them so close, Eddie is sure he wasn’t imagining it. No, this is all real. He seems to realize he’s been caught staring because even in the darkness, he can see the blush that spreads across Steve’s cheeks. Jesus, he made Steve Harrington blush and he didn’t even have to try.
“What? Never been this close to another boy before, Harrington? Are you nervous?” he whispers it, taking advantage of their close proximity as a slow smile spreads across his face, delighted in getting to tease Steve with this. “Don’t tell me you’re experiencing sinful thoughts, for shame.”
“You’re an idiot,” is Steve’s oh-so genius response, but there’s no real heat behind it as the two hold their eye contact. “Have you ever… thought about it?” He doesn’t clarify, but the gaze that drops to his lips gives him more than enough information.
Eddie scoffs, “Thought about it? Steve, I’ve done it. In fact, I would like to do it more often.”
He seems casual as he says it, but his heart is racing in his chest. He’s sure Steve can feel it the way their chests are pressed together, but there are bigger things to worry about right now like the fact that he really wants to kiss Steve Harrington and his inhibition is getting lower and lower with each passing second.
He watches the gears turn in Steve’s head, processing the information he’s just been given. “You— you called me Steve. You never call me Steve. It’s always Harrington or something stupid.”
“Steve,” Eddie breathes out once more, this time with meaning as yearning fogs his mind to the point where he’s about to abandon all reason.
“It wasn’t a girl you learned Whitman for, was it?” Eddie shakes his head. Steve kisses him.
He’s caught off guard at first, but very quickly catches on as he begins to kiss back, the hand that had been lingering on Steve’s arm from tugging him over here moves up to the nape of his neck and embeds itself in his hair. The other holds his face, feeling the warm skin beneath his fingers, his brain working on catching up to the fact that he’s kissing Steve Harrington of all people. Not to mention Robin is across the room and this could all go fairly south, fairly quickly.
Steve pulls back for a moment, panting, “Sorry. I-I wanted to try it.”
“And what’s the verdict?”
“Not sure, can I try again?” Steve asks with a sly smile forming on his lips as that familiar confidence bleeds back into his expression.
Eddie chuckles and nods, this time leaning up to meet him in the middle as they kiss once more. It goes deeper this time, Eddie working a gasp out of Steve that gives him an opening to slip his tongue into his mouth, the kiss furthering into unexplored territory. The feeling of Steve kissing him while literally being on top of him is driving him insane as a hand comes down to hold his waist, pressing them even closer.
When they break apart this time, Steve falls to the side, still lingering on Eddie but not quite on top of him and he thinks that’ll be the end of it, but Steve reaches out and pulls the other so he’s on top now, one hand bracing himself against the mattress and one hand still on Steve’s waist. Steve lets out a quiet groan as Eddie kisses him again, pressing their hips together in a way that is nothing short of sinful and he wonders just how far either of them are willing to go with their friend in the room and he needs to put a stop to this progression before they do something Robin will certainly hate them for if she ever finds out. All that being very much considered, Eddie doesn’t think he would be able to stop kissing Steve if he tried. It’s addicting, he realizes, the press of Steve’s lips against his own as they break apart only to reconnect over and over again.
It all comes crashing down when a pillow hits Eddie on the back and they both freeze. A voice cuts out across the room. “Go to bed, you stupid horndogs.”
The two of them share a quiet laugh before Steve calls out, “Happy birthday, Robin?”
“Yeah, yeah, go fuck yourselves,” Robin calls back with no heat behind it before she turns to face the wall away from them and silence falls over the room once more.
They chuckle quietly as Eddie falls back onto the bed, pulling Steve on top of him as they were before except this time he lets an arm wrap around Steve’s side, holding him close as the two of them slowly drift off. Yeah, this went a little bit better than he thought.