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If you’d asked Steve, four years and some change ago when he was fresh out of Hawkins High with the rest of the graduating class of 20 fuckin’ 15 and dusting off the last of the chip on his shoulder, the last thing he would’ve thought of was shacking up in two bedrooms with six people, textbook balanced on his knee while his roommates put their heads together over their video’s sound quality. Or maybe it was film quality? His job is to talk over the scripts that him and Eddie and Robin put their heads together over, not to work whatever arcane fucking magic Eddie and Jon do with the videos that they shoot.
Because that’s the other thing that his junior-year self would’ve called him a fuckin’ lunatic for, along other words, most of ‘em Harrington Sr.’s. Gap year? Disappointing, but expected, and better than the paramedic certification he’s tried twice for now. Certainly better than their little Youtube channel where they take the time to drive out of state into the latest dive that Nancy’s found for them, and then spend the night breaking their backs– and sometimes, arms– trying to prove ghosts exist.
God, but Steve’s obsessed with the direction his life’s taken. Like a trainwreck, Robin had suggested, and then Argyle had helpfully added after the crash. Which: also fair, the crash-out of ‘13 had been legendary, and ended up in more than one life-altering realization, first on the floor of Scoops Ahoy’s deep freezer with Robin, a frozen pint of ice-cream on a rapidly swelling black eye, and then behind the counter at Blockbuster, may it rest in video-rental peace .
So: cut to August the twenty fourth in our lord the year 2019, where he’s camped out in the room’s only bed. He’s nursing a strained shoulder after he pulled Robin’s lanky ass up through the steam-tunnels they were filming in, and trying not to freak out about the exam on pharm that he had due by midnight on the dot, and sort of failing at it. The freak-out part, anyways.
“Why are you grading the color of the video,” he says, amused, because that was the only snippet out of the last hour that he’d caught between his textbook and the steadily-creeping haze of exhaustion, and Eddie’s head shoots up like he’d forgotten that Steve was even in the room. Fair, even if it rankles a little, but he challenges anybody to be good company after spending eleven hours straight in a condemned house on the off-chance of catching a faulty fuse on camera and then an exam.
Eddie doesn’t seem to have minded, though, judging by the little curl of amusement at the corners of his lips; he sways in Steve’s direction, grinning over the top of his hand. “So that the plebeians of the internet aren’t denied your pretty face, Stevie.”
He says it so easy, too, and the hairs on the back of Steve’s neck prickle with the blush he’s willing to not appear. That’s just Eddie; melodramatic as most of their ragtag group tended to skew towards, who thrived in the spotlight like a goddamn sunflower. Melodramatic, and only about half of it ever really meant anything.
Not that Eddie was a liar, just that– he played up different aspects. Like those little squids that Robin talked about, the little chameleon ones. Did Steve believe that he would cheerfully run over a motherfucker for any of ‘em? Hell yeah.
But he’s also seen the way that Eddie will cheerfully flirt his way through a bar, the way he drapes himself across any of them on a long drive. He’s just like that.
So he rolls his eyes back, none of the heat that he’d normally have bitten back with, and props his chin on his good hand. “You think I’m pretty? Most people usually buy me a drink first, Munson.”
“I’ve bought you so many, ” Eddie says, and rocks back like he’s been shot, hand over his heart. Steve sets aside his book, giving it up for a lost cause, and grins, all teeth. Jon sighs– whether it’s at one, or both of them, and rescues the laptop from Eddie’s lap before it can tip off.
“Work expenses don’t count. You ever going to take me out for something that’s not business?”
Eddie pulls a lock of hair across his mouth, dark eyes sharp with mirth. There’s a faint dusting of pink across his ears. “Give me a date and time and I’d be all yours,” he says, and something in the back of Steve’s brain pings at how lightly he’s rolling his words.
He sits up straighter, both eyebrows going up; the door handle wriggles, and Robin yells, “you better be decent or all of this Pita Inn is ours, motherfucker.”
The moment pops, and he feels the soap-bubble rainbows of it stuck to the top of his mouth as he shouts back, “give us a second, Eddie’s putting his pants back on,” and Robin shrieks with disgust as she shoulders the door open.
“I will make you sleep on the motel floor, ” she threatens, and Steve reaches out to poke her in the side with a knuckle as she passes.
“You wouldn’t. Who’s gonna be the channel face, then?”
“You can’t deny the king his beauty sleep,” Eddie chimes in, and Steve cuts him a sidewise look. He’s lounged back against the couch, leaning back over Jon’s shoulder, his own shoulders tighten when he meets Steve’s eyes. There’s a dusting of pink across his ears.
Robin swats back at his hands, and he shelves that for later analysis as she sets a plastic bag down on the bed, passing the other two off to Argyle. Steve reaches over to unpackage the kebab plates, dividing them up; Robin doesn’t like the ones that have touched the tzatziki, and he can’t stand the falafel, and it works out in a weird sort of way because they really weren’t joking about being two halves of the same brain.
And it’s because she’s sewn into his goddamn brainstem does she sit thigh to thigh with him, pokes him with her knee, and he hisses and jerks away.
“The weapons, ” he complains, and shoves the first kebab into his mouth because he can feel the way she stares him down, and can only hope his expression says do not interrogate in public.
Robin, for all of her various social graces– well, what stands for them– clocks the room fairly quick, all things considered. Her eyebrows draw together; we’ll talk about this later, and he nudges her back in acknowledgement.
It’s not until Jon clears his throat a little do the two of them look over. All four are staring; Nancy looks bemused, while Eddie’s leaning forward like he’s watching a particularly interesting telenovela. Jon just looks tired.
“Do you actually hear each other talk when you do that, or is it like–” Eddie makes a vague gesture that Steve doesn’t even try to interpret.
“We speak entirely in radio waves,” Robin says, and leans over to steal a kebab off of Steve’s plate. Steve rolls his eyes, and stretches his legs out. Nancy’s eyebrows rise up, and he gives her a rueful look.
“We should do a video on you two,” Eddie says. “Like those psychic tests.”
“I’m already drawing the line at ghosts,” Steve points out, and refuses to acknowledge Robin silently exchanging another tomato for a kebab off of his plate. “I’m not adding psychic to it.”
“You do it on the regular,” Eddie says. He’s wheedling, at this point, and Steve levels him with a stink-eye that has nowhere near the weight it deserves. “It’d be like you two are riffing, just– with a camera. Half our viewers have a bet on you actually being psychic, anyways.”
“And the other half think we’re dating, so why are we trying to feed that, ” Steve says, and Robin makes an identical face to him.
Eddie rolls his eyes back, good naturedly, but he does drop it.
Interesting, as Robin would say.
Very, very interesting.
–
The uptick to their mood doesn’t last. Nancy stacks the last of their styrofoam plates, and says, “are we doing three and three, or four and two?”
A long, pregnant silence, and just as Steve is about to offer to draw straws, Eddie draws a knee up to his chest, and says, “why make someone sleep on the floor? Yours has a pull-out, doesn’t it?”
“We’re sharing,” Robin says. “We got the couch last time. I am not breaking my back. Steve already nearly broke mine.”
“You nearly broke my shoulder,” he protests. “If anything, I should be claiming the bed on sick privilege.”
“The king gets his mattress,” Eddie says, amused. “I can take the–”
“We’ll take the couch,” Jon says around a yawn. “Nancy, Argyle, and I have some editing to finish, anyways. The light balance is killing me.”
“That still leaves one on the floor,” Nancy says. “We can just do four and–”
Steve cuts a look at Robin, raising an eyebrow slightly. She raises hers significantly higher, widening her eyes, but it’s not a no, and right as Eddie says, “earth to wonder twins,” Steve turns back to them.
“We can share. It evens out, right? Nance has the queen and couch, and we have the king.”
Eddie trails off. Nancy levels Steve with a thoughtful look, and even Jon leans back, looking–
Well, if he’s ever seen the guy looking smug…
“I feel like we’re missing a key player here,” Eddie says, clearing his throat after his voice catches on the first syllable, and Robin snorts.
“Dingus asked. It’s fine. But you’re sleeping on the other side.”
“I can take the floor, dude, ” Eddie says, and this time, Steve rolls his eyes harder.
“You’re driving sixteen hours, dude. Take the fuckin’ bed. You’ll just have to take the wall side, ‘cause we both get claustrophobic.”
Eddie stares at him for long enough that Steve’s about to genuinely lean forward to do a sign of life check, before he shakes his head a little, and says, “that’s fine.”
–
It’s fine, Steve thinks, as they drift apart, Robin claiming the bathroom first.
–
It’s fine, he thinks, the three of them piling into the bed like a fuckin’ clown car.
–
…Okay, maybe it’s a little not fine.
–
“Spill,” Robin says, the moment they settle into the Bimmer. They hadn’t, as a matter of fact, spoken about it all night. It was hard to when the object of discussion was pressed back to back against him; at the start of the night, anyways.
Steve had woken up to the start of the morning, when it was barely light out. There had been an arm slung over his waist, a leg twined with his.
When he’d next awoken, they’d been gone. Eddie had greeted him out by the kitchenette, looking up from where he’d been hunched in conversation with Jon– barely awake– and Argyle– way too chipper for eight in the morning– and pushed a coffee mug his way.
Steve had taken it, gut twisting tight and hot.
“I’ve known this guy for six years, ” he says, instead of thinking about how cold his back had felt. “And I still can’t tell when he’s joking, or– what.”
Robin’s quiet for a moment, and even the lack of clarification about who he’s talking about sounds judgemental. When he risks a look over, she’s frowning out the windshield contemplatively, which is slightly better.
He looks away, because Eddie’s leading them onto I-294, and Steve fucking hates these mergers, and Jon drives a little bit like he’s racing death, and it would suck if they were late to their next gig because he crashed them. He even gives them until they hit the largest stretch of the straightaway, before Robin says, carefully, “is this, like, a new problem, or–?”
“I mean,” Steve says. “It’s a “he’s been doing this for two years ” and at some point, like.”
He gestures with one hand. Robin picks up his train of thought, threading the needle like she’s the one performing surgery. Maybe she is, the way they pick each other’s hearts out until they’re ready to say it.
“You start wondering how much of it is a joke?”
“You could sound more surprised,” he says, because if he looks at this head-on, he is gonna start– something, he doesn’t know what. Robin only sighs.
“You said it yourself. When it’s going on for two years… ”
“Don’t tell me we’re the last to the party,” he says, and Robin hums, seesawing her hand in his peripherals.
“To be fair to you, he didn’t know there was a party either. I think he feels safe in the zone he’s kept you both in.”
“Safe enough to cuddle up like an octopus,” he says, and Robin snorts.
“Safe enough that you two are disappearing to have your little smoke-up and fight about music rituals every week in the back of his van. Or he keeps dragging you back to visit Wayne. Or you followed him out on his insane ghost channel stunt idea. Or–”
“I’d do the same for any of you,” he points out, a little hesitantly. Robin, without hesitation, reaches over to bump his shoulder loosely with a fist.
“Does it feel the same?”
His silence is answer enough that she changes tack.
“You haven’t talked about it? Even once?”
“Would you? ”
“ I wouldn’t,” Robin says, and huffs. “But mine is also different. I’m not the one with an ex and a weird situationship. Maybe he’s waiting for you to make the first move, because as far as he knows—”
“He knows I’m not pining after Nancy,” he says flatly. “I just barely lived down the Winnebago conversation last Christmas.”
“Another point to you not being me,” Robin says, “because I would’ve passed away from telling my ex that I could see her living out a hippie Winnebago dream with me and my six chumps, nothing to speak of talking about it with my current crush.”
“He’s not a crush, ” Steve says, instead of addressing literally anything about the rest of that paragraph. Robin gives him a side-eye like she knows this, and then toes off her sneakers to curl up on the seat.
“Fine. Romantic interest.”
“ Friend. ”
“Both can be true.”
“I think I’m done with this conversation,” Steve mutters, and resists the urge to thunk his forehead into the wheel. Robin shrugs a little, and shuffles over to lean more against the door.
“You asked, babes. All I can do is encourage you.”
–
He thinks, next time, he should ask what her idea of encouragement is.
“I’m rooming with Nancy,” Robin announces first when she climbs back into the van with three sets of keys twirling around her fingers. “No offense to our local partakers, but I miss my pillows not stinking of skunk.”
It is probably his fault for assuming she’d leave it so soon, but Jon’s surprisingly quick on the ball, leaning forward to snag another set of keys.
“Probably don’t want to room with us, then, we’ll be taking time off.”
“Don’t forget we’re getting up at daybreak,” Nancy warns him, and Jon shrugs.
“We’ll set timers,” he says, and starts to wander off after Argyle; Robin lingers behind, glancing between Eddie and Steve.
“So–”
“That leaves us two,” Eddie says, leaning forward to accept the keys from Robin, and Steve grimaces, before he swallows the expression down, turning back to face them. Not well enough, he thinks; Robin does look genuinely hesitant, and Eddie–
Eddie turns to grab his duffle. He must be aiming for nonchalant, Steve thinks, because when he swings himself back around, he overcompensates, and nearly clips the edge of the van, wincing as he does so.
“It’s fine,” Steve finds himself saying. “We’ll figure it out. Tomorrow at four?”
“Steve,” Robin starts, eyes narrowing. Eddie takes a step back, and turns away. He forces a smile after Robin.
“It’s fine. Tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow,” she agrees, carefully.
He turns to follow Eddie, and tries not to read too much into the set of his shoulders.
–
A poor decision, as it turns out.
Eddie isn’t looking at him as he slings his duffle down, and says, lightly, “just let me wash up, and I’ll grab the couch.”
Which: Steve had seen the way that Eddie winced climbing out of the van, and he knows for a fact that his bad leg has gotta be cramping up to hell and back after a sixteen hour drive. Tomorrow, he’s gonna be cranky, and it’s probably gonna wind up being a cane day, which they could avoid making a crutch day if they just–
“Don’t be dumb,” he says, and hovers on the other side of the bed. “We can share. You don’t even drool that badly.”
“It’s fine, ” Eddie says, and Steve draws up short at the edge that Eddie doesn’t often pull out on them. Eddie’s still not looking at him, toeing off his boots with slow, careful motions, and Steve runs a hand over his face.
“Dude. If sharing spazzed you out that bad, it’s fine. I’ll take the couch. Your leg’s fucked up.”
“And your shoulder’s fucked up,” Eddie snaps back, before he pulls up short. “The fuck do you mean, spazzed me out? ”
“You’re the one acting like you’re walking to the gallows,” Steve points out. “ Have been.”
“You literally looked like you were about to swallow nails,” Eddie says. “There’s only so many hints a guy can take.”
“What hints, ” Steve says, and then takes a deep, calming breath. He’s trying to get better about it; not biting, when he feels like he’s a page, a book behind. “Look. Take the fuckin’ bed, dude. You can take the edge, stretch out. I’ll take the wall. That way we’re not useless tomorrow, because Nance will kill us if we fuck up the finale’s filming schedule.”
“Right,” Eddie says under his breath, and then shakes his head. “Your funeral, dude. Or mine, I’m not sure which one. I’ll call first dibs on the hot water.”
He’s gone before Steve can say what?
–
Here’s the thing. Steve does not do well with stewing, is the thing. It’s a byproduct of his– upbringing, Robin says. He’s more used to not looking at it head-on, and the minute that he sees the problem for what it is–
Well, he’s the tank of their outfit for a reason. He’s good at butting heads with a problem, not skirting around it.
So when Eddie steps out, swearing softly as he tries to untangle his hair from the low, messy bun it’s in, Steve’s already forming a plan of attack.
Sort of, anyways. He’s gotta figure out how to word this without spooking Eddie off, without spooking himself off, and it takes the better part of a twenty minute– and somewhat cold– shower.
Which is fine. It’s a wake-up call, in more ways than one.
He steps out, and the room is dark. Eddie’s curled into himself on the edge of the bed, like he’s trying to take up as little space as possible, and Steve hesitates, because he– as normal as it sounds– knows what Eddie asleep looks like, and the way his leg is hitched up is too tight to speak to any real relaxation.
So he climbs in. Carefully, because Eddie’s not gonna get any better if he gets smacked around, and waits until he’s settled, until Eddie’s less a vibrating line of tension, before he decides to say, “I didn’t mean it like that.”
Eddie doesn’t respond at first. Steve can almost see him debating on whether to respond, the muscles in his back shifting under his shirt. That’s fine; Steve sighs a little, and says, “I know you’re not sleeping, Ed.”
“Christ,” Eddie mutters under his breath, and still doesn’t roll over. “Man, what do you want me to say, here? It’s fine, Harrington.”
Jesus. They were worse off than he thought if they’re at last names.
“You’re aboutta bolt, ” Steve says, and lets just a hint of bite seep through. “How is that fine?”
“I’m trying not to overstep, like I did, last time, evidently,” Eddie finally snaps back; there’s a sharp intake of breath, like he almost regrets letting it slip, before he squares his shoulders, or whatever the equivalent is.
Steve blinks. Blinks again.
“Like last time,” he says, and narrows his eyes at the back of Eddie’s head. Wishes that they were facing each other, so he could at least tell what the hell Eddie’s expression is doing. “Dude, last time you ditched before it was even sunrise. ”
A moment of stillness, and Eddie says, “and then you looked like you were, I reiterate, swallowing nails at the thought of repeating that. ”
The longer he stays quiet, the more Eddie winds up, and the little Robin-voice that’s been suspiciously quiet up ‘til now says, maybe he was waiting for you to make the first move, because as far as he knows–
“Well, yeah,” he says. “Not exactly fun to wake up to a cold bed, du– Ed.”
“You had Robin,” Eddie says, terse as anything, and Steve snorts under his breath.
“Robin’s not the one asking to take me out,” he says. “I was waiting on a time, you know.”
“ What, ” he can hear Eddie say, so soft it’s almost a breath, and then, louder: “what.”
“You said, a date and time,” Steve says, because he knows what a no from Eddie sounds like, knows what his polite disinterest and vehement dislike sounds like, and this isn’t it. This is hesitation. This is caution. “I mean, we were interrupted, but…”
“Don’t make this a pity thing, Harrington,” Eddie says, and there’s a hint of warning. Steve sighs, and reaches out– slowly, carefully, like he’ll spook Eddie without the other seeing him– to sweep a thumb over the cresting points of his shoulder blade. Hesitates.
“Cards on the table?”
Eddie’s quiet. It’s not one of his shut up tells, so Steve forges forward. “I’ve been wondering if you meant it. Like, two years?”
“ Now you catch up,” Eddie says, almost incredulous, and Steve huffs out an indignant breath.
“ Dude. You’re like that with fuckin’ everybody. ”
“I don’t just take anybody t’meet Uncle Wayne,” Eddie says, and abruptly flips himself over– he grimaces at the sudden movement, and Steve grumbles under his breath.
“Dude, careful. Don’t tear your fuckin’ hamstring.”
“‘s fine,” Eddie says, and readjusts himself, slinging his leg over the pile of blankets. “Wayne called you his boy. ”
“He calls Robin his girl,” Steve points out, and Eddie snorts.
“Robin wasn’t over at my trailer almost every day, dude. And that’s not counting the Wheeler fiasco.”
“I told you about that trainwreck–”
“You were also higher than a kite,” Eddie volleys back. Steve rolls his eyes.
“Says who? Keg king?”
“You were giggling, dude. Half in my lap.” Steve stares at Eddie, straight on. Eddie, slowly, raises a hand to cover his face. “ Dude. ”
“Mixed signals,” Steve says, because he is, at heart, still a shithead, and Eddie peeks through his fingers to glare.
“Give me a second to process how stupid we both are, maybe? You’re the one who was sitting here for two years–”
“ Or, ” Steve says, because he knows they can keep going in circles, “we can put off the wait.”
“Is this the charm you used with all of the girls of yore?”
Eddie’s a big talker, when it comes down to it, a clever tongue, Robin says, and– no, he’s not gonna think about Robin right now, because he can feel the little Robin-voice glaring at being brought up when he was cupping a hand around the back of Eddie’s neck, threading his fingers through the soft curls there, and leaning in to catch his lips in a soft kiss.
He’s a big talker. A clever talker. He’s just as clever with his tongue as he is his words, Steve thinks, as Eddie makes a soft, surprised sound– surprised, but not unhappy – and parts so goddamn beautifully for him–
“Nah,” he murmurs, when they pull apart for air. “ That is.”
“Jesus,” Eddie says. It sounds promising, the way his breath punches out of him. It’s even more promising when he says, “message received, loud and clear, Jesus, ” and then pulls Steve closer, lips meeting once more.
–
Later, Eddie cracks an eye open from where he’s pillowed one cheek against Steve’s chest– there are some marks that Steve’s going to have to figure out how to cover in the morning– and says, voice full of wonder, “Robin really has fucking atrocious timing. We could’ve sorted this out, like– well, okay, only three days ago, but–”
“I mean,” Steve says. “I know we joke about the psychic thing, but that also extends to like. Cosmic irony. Anyways, we needed those three days.”
“Cosmic irony,” Eddie repeats, voice pitching up with amusement. “Wait, is that why she started making all those freaky exorcist faces at you last night?”
“We had a heart to heart,” Steve says. “By which I mean, I told her way too much about the last two years–”
“And she lectured you about– I can’t look Buckley in the eye again,” Eddie says, and covers his eyes with a hand. Steve laughs softly, and presses a kiss to the side of his hand, because that’s a thing that he’s allowed to do now, if only to feel the soft curve of Eddie’s grin against his chest.
“Oh. Not yet, anyways. I’m pretty sure she’s planning her blackmail in advance.”
“Is it to get date coverage with Wheeler? We’ll owe her so many,” Eddie mutters, then considers that. “Worth it, though.”
“Worth it,” Steve echoes with an amused huff of laughter, and then closes his eyes. Lets the soft swell of their breaths sink into the same rhythm.