5. Chapter 5

When Robin presses the tape into his hands, it’s with the advice to expect the unexpected. “It’s wild, I’m warning you now,” she says, and he takes it apprehensively.

“You’ve warned me of that, like, several times by now. I think I get it.”

She shakes her head with a grin. “You definitely don’t. But you will.”

He pinches the bridge of his nose. “Sure you can’t watch it with me?”

“Family dinner, remember? My mother will shoot me if I’m not home all afternoon.” She sighs dramatically and leans back against the counter. They haven’t bothered to turn the lights on, not wanting any stray customers to wander in on their day off, so she’s little more than a dim silhouette against the daylight outside. “As much as it would give me an insane amount of joy to watch this movie completely change your life, you’re gonna have to watch it on your own. God, this is such a travesty, you and I are definitely going to a midnight showing some day–”

“We don’t even know if I’m gonna like it yet.”

She looks at him. He thinks she’s blushing a bit. “Oh, yeah, sorry, I’m just– really excited, I guess, because I was so scared that this would be something I couldn’t share with you at all and now–”

“Now maybe you can.” He feels a little lightheaded. Which he’s felt since this morning, since longer, actually, if he thinks about it, so he’s not going to think about it.

Avoidance only lasts so long, however, especially when the Rocky Horror tape is burning a hole in his pocket. When he gets home he puts it on the kitchen counter and thinks about going for a swim to clear his head. Then he thinks about Barb dying in that very same fucking pool, and also about the inky waters of Lovers’ Lake closing over his head and the sudden realisation that he might be about to drown after all, swim captain or no, and thinks better of the whole thing.

He makes himself a sandwich and eats it standing up, eyes on the tape, which is just a tape, the same as he deals with every goddamn day at work. But it’s been talked up so much, is the problem. Like it’s this massive thing that’s going to fundamentally change who he is. Nevermind he’s already in the pretty clichéd position of thinking I’m not sure who I am anymore.

Instead of putting the tape in, he calls Robin. It’s not Robin who picks up, but some unidentifiable older woman, her grandma, maybe. “Uh, hi, can I speak to Robin, please?” he says, holding his breath.

“Robin! It’s your boyfriend!” the woman shouts, not bothering to get away from the mouthpiece so her voice blasts in Steve’s ear and he winces.

“Not my boyfriend, Nana!” comes Robin’s voice distantly, then nearer as she must grab the receiver. “Steve. Hey.”

“Robin.” He doesn’t really know what to say next. The VCR is staring at him accusingly.

He can practically hear her rolling her eyes. “Watch the movie, shitbird. It won’t bite.”

“I don’t–”

She hangs up. He glares at the phone, indignant, and then at the tape. “This is your fault,” he mutters at it, and then feels like an idiot for muttering at it. First sign of madness, and all that. Nevermind he feels like he’s already several signs in.

But there’s nothing left to do except put the tape in, settle down on the couch, and press play.

His first realisation is that this is a musical, which possibility never occurred to him, especially since Eddie apparently likes this movie so much. Why would a metalhead want to watch this, he’s thinking, as Brad and Janet twirl around each other between church pews to an admittedly very fun tune. The thought slowly disintegrates as they get into the Time Warp — he finds himself jigging his knee along to the beat, the tune something he can definitely imagine himself humming absent-mindedly later on — and is forgotten entirely with his second realisation, which has him pausing the tape to stare at the frozen screen in a silence that rings with the sudden absence of Sweet Transvestite.

Okay.

Maybe Robin was right.

He’s looking at Tim Curry sprawled in a silver throne, legs long in those obscene suspenders and those heels and that corset and the makeup, what the fuck, and more than that it’s the confidence, it’s the oozing dramatic sex appeal and the not-giving-a-flying-fuck and the careless sensuality of it all, it’s the way Tim Curry in heels and a corset should not be making Steve feel the way he’s feeling right now and it’s the second realisation, the realisation that maybe he’s a little bit gay after all.

(The third realisation is that this movie is not just a little bit gay, it’s a lot gay, it’s Gay with a capital G and it’s also the best thing Steve’s seen in a long, long time.)

He watches Frank N. Furter seduce both Janet and Brad in quick succession and thinks about what Robin said, about You can like girls and not be straight, about the option of liking both. He watches Janet flirt with Rocky and finds them both hot, both thrilling to look at, though the thrill is overtaken when Frank comes back on screen in a punky leather jacket that wouldn’t look out of place in Eddie’s wardrobe, which is a thought that makes his throat dry up.

Then the doorbell rings.

He pauses it there, on Frank in his jacket and suspenders and makeup, and huffs as he goes to answer it. Maybe if he’s rude enough he can get whoever it is to go away stat, so he can get back to the movie, which seems to be calling out to him from the television. A girl scout or a neighbor or a Jehovah’s Witness or something.

Unfortunately, it’s none of these things. It’s the kids.

Dustin pushes past him without so much as a hello. Steve has to do a very rapid adjustment of mindset, from oh no Tim Curry is hot and I’m possibly definitely a little bit homosexual at least to oh fuck the kids are here time to be a respectable babysitter, as Dustin and then Max, Lucas, and Mike all troop into his living room. Dustin is already in full flow: “–got so weird when I brought you up, even though I knew you were going to the party with him so I don’t understand why he–” He stops, standing in the middle of the room in front of the TV. “Uh, Steve, what are you watching?”

Steve dives for the VCR and turns it off. “That’s none of your business,” he says, which is definitely the worst way he could have handled that, because now they all look extremely interested.

“Ohmygod, was it porn?” Dustin asks. “Were you watching porn?”

“Gross,” Lucas says, as Steve splutters out an adamant “No!”

Max is smirking. “It wasn’t porn, you guys, it was just Rocky Horror.”

Lucas and Dustin thankfully both look mystified. But Mike’s eyes light up: “Rocky Horror! No way, Eddie loves that movie!”

They all stare at him. Steve because how come Mike knows that, and the others presumably because they’re jealous Mike knows that and they don’t. The boys, at least. Max’s stance on Eddie is as yet unclear. “Since when?” Dustin says, sounding miffed.

Mike shrugs, looking pleased with himself. Steve narrows his eyes as Mike says, “I don’t know, he mentioned it a while ago.”

Given all the revelations Steve’s just had, there’s no way Eddie talking to Mike about Rocky Horror doesn’t mean anything. But he’s pretty keen to stop talking about the movie at all right now, so he folds his arms over his chest and frowns. “What are you shitheads doing here, anyway?”

“Eddie,” Lucas says, and Steve resists the urge to groan. Of course it’s about Eddie.

“The plan was to get lunch together as Hellfire, to welcome Mike back and plan for the new semester and everything, except Eddie showed up late. Which he never does, not to Hellfire stuff. And he was acting really weird, like, really weird, and I know he went to that party with you last night but when I brought it up he got weirder, and he was wearing this bandana around his neck which was totally covering something up–”

“My money’s on a hickey,” Max cuts in, and Dustin glares at her.

“–and when I tried to corner him to ask what was going on he just kind of snapped and left, which, like, rule one of the Upside Down stuff, if someone’s acting weird they have to be honest about it otherwise who knows what all it could be, like what if he’s being curse-of-Vecna’d and we just don’t know? So we came here because you were there last night and if anything happened–”

Steve rubs his forehead. “Yeah, it’s not Vecna or anything. It’s nothing like that.”

“So what is it, then?”

“I don’t– can’t you just let the guy be weird? Isn’t that, like, your whole schtick with him?”

“Not this weird.” Mike has crossed his arms. He’s wearing that stupid Hellfire t-shirt. “Like, he freaked out when Dustin mentioned you.”

Max nods. “You’ve definitely got something to do with it. You’re acting so cagey, anyone would think the hickey was you.”

Wait. What?

Mike whips around to stare at her like she’s just let out a deadly secret, but Lucas and Dustin don’t seem perturbed by it. Steve’s knees have gone weak, so he slowly backs into the couch and sinks down. She can’t be serious with that. The ease with which she said it proves she can’t be serious. Right? She’s smiling, but Max’s smile can mean anything, he’s learnt.

“I’m kidding,” she says finally, after a too-long silence. Her eyebrows crease together as she looks at Steve, like she’s trying to puzzle him out, and he’s had enough of that today to last a lifetime, thank you.

“He got some action at the party, okay, is that what you wanted me to tell you? Jesus, you’re such nosy shits.”

“Holy shit, really? So he really was covering up a hickey? What was she like? Was she cool? Was she a babe?”

Steve wrinkles his nose. “First of all, Dustin, never use that word again.” Dustin nods, looking shamefaced even as he said it. “Secondly, it’s absolutely none of your business, any of you, so why don’t you leave the guy alone, okay?”

“But, like, this is huge, we’ve never even seen him with a girl before–” This comes from Mike, which is surprising only in the context of the last few minutes.

Max opens her mouth and Steve can sense what she’s about to say, he can fucking feel it in the air — what if it wasn’t a girl? — and it’s a perfectly innocent question, sure, but he also knows for a one hundred percent certain fact that Eddie doesn’t want that speculation out there, not even among these adorable, annoying little freshmen. So he cuts her off before she gets the chance: “Enough. I can live with a bit of nosiness, but this? If Eddie Munson doesn’t kiss and tell, no way am I doing it for him.”

Okay. That came out weird. He pinches the bridge of his nose — all their overlapping voices have made his headache return with a vengeance — and then remembers what Mike said.

“Wait, Eddie freaked out when you mentioned me?”

“Yep,” Dustin says, popping the ‘p’.

“Yeah, you know what he’s like usually? Like, big and all over the place and cool and not afraid of anything?” There’s a touch of worship in Mike’s voice. But Steve doesn’t know Eddie like that, is the thing. He knows him small, and scared, and desperate and bitter and mocking and all the ugly shit you don’t ever want anyone else to see. “He was totally the opposite.”

“It was kind of freaky, actually,” Max mutters.

“Which is why we were worried, and came to you,” Lucas says, and it’s kind of sweet, actually, even if it is pretty terrible timing because Steve is in the middle of his very own gay crisis.

“Okay,” he says. “So, uh, what do you want me to do about it?”

They all look at him. It was a rhetorical question, but they’re looking at him like it very much was not, because of course they are, because of course this is his life. “Apologise,” Dustin says bluntly.

“What? But I haven’t–” Okay, he has definitely done something wrong. But it was a misunderstanding, and he’s out here having an identity crisis, and what the hell does Dustin know about it? “Apologise for what?”

Dustin shrugs. “For whatever you did that upset him. He, like, totally flinched when I said your name. You one hundred percent did something, and now you’re going to apologise, and everything will be back to normal.”

Steve feels vaguely hysterical. He’s reminded of that stupid joke he and Eddie had, about being Dustin’s divorced parents, and never has it felt more accurate. “Jesus Christ, are you kids ever going to stop meddling in other people’s lives?”

“Uh, it’s meant that we’ve saved the world, like, four times by now, so, uh, no?”

Right. He walked into that one. He throws his hands up. “Fine, I’ll talk to Eddie, Jesus.” Nevermind that he was already planning on it. “Besides, I don’t understand why you’re so intent on us getting along all of a sudden, like the other day you were pissed we were ganging up on you and now–”

“You matter to him,” Max says suddenly, quietly.

“Yeah,” Dustin agrees, and for once his voice isn’t full of boisterous condescension. It’s just plain, and honest, like the truth of Eddie’s feelings is something everyone knows, a simple fact of life. Suddenly Steve remembers something Robin said earlier, about how Eddie’s maybe possibly a tiny bit or a lot into you too, and his gut flickers with something unfamiliar.

Or, rather, well-worn, just like the pull of jealousy. The flicker is something like warmth, the warmth of Nancy smiling at him when he smiled at her, the warmth of knowing maybe the person you like likes you back.

Which, okay, ten steps back right now. Who says he likes Eddie? He’s– attracted to him. In the way he’s attracted to Tim Curry, all world-defying smug charisma and curly hair. Only– Eddie has soft edges. Nervous eyes. A tic where he picks at his hands, adorned pale hands that Steve wants to hold when they tremble, and okay. He’s taken those ten steps forward again.

“I’ll apologise, okay?” he says more softly, and the kids look mollified.

“Good,” Dustin sniffs. “We’re never gonna get a good campaign again if he spends the rest of the year moping.”

Mike whips around to glare at him. “Moping? Eddie doesn’t mope, Dustin, that’s just grossly–”

“You’re just upset because you missed–”

“I’m not upset, I’m just–”

“Face it, Mike, you’re pissed because we got to spend a week bonding with your favorite older male and you missed it.”

“That is seriously so gross,” Steve says, as Mike turns a very interesting shade of pink. “Also, favorite? Hello?”

“It’s different,” Mike mutters, looking at the floor, and wait. Holy shit.

Steve has to clamp his jaw shut to prevent himself blurting it out right there and then: Holy shit, Wheeler has a grade-A crush on Eddie fucking Munson. Not that Steve can really talk. About liking boys and girls both, or about liking Eddie fucking Munson in particular. Which is a strange rush to think about, and he feels lightheaded again.

He wonders if Mike knows this about himself. He’s a lot smarter than Steve, that’s not in doubt, but somehow Steve doesn’t think booksmarts play a role in all this. He wonders if the kid’s got anyone to sit him down and talk him through it, and then realises that he’s probably the most likely candidate — or else Eddie has done it already, Rocky Horror and all.

Christ. This day just gets stranger and stranger.

He convinces the kids to leave by promising to drive immediately to Eddie’s, but when they’re gone he sits in the silence for a while and twists his hands together, wondering what he’s going to say. He’s pretty sure he’s over the sexuality crisis’ steepest hill, though that dread is still coiling in his belly and threatening to strike like a goddamn snake. But the kids are right, is the thing. He can’t put off talking to Eddie for too long, because Eddie’s the one who had a shitty night who thinks Steve hates him who deserves better than that. The kids don’t know the whole of it but they’re right.

It’s late afternoon when he finally gets in his car. The Cure is on the radio, Boys Don’t Cry, and he finds some long-buried knowledge of the lyrics in the back of his head, so he dredges them up and sings along. Maybe it resonates a bit, he doesn’t know.

When he gets to the trailer park, Eddie’s van isn’t here, which isn’t a great sign. But it’s not total defeat, because there is another car here, some beat-up brown thing that probably dates from the seventies. Eddie’s uncle, Steve guesses. Maybe Wayne can tell him where he’s gone.

When he knocks on the door, it is indeed Wayne who answers — answers with a switchblade in his hand, and Steve takes a rapid step back. (Now he knows where Eddie gets it from.) Wayne’s eyes scan his face searchingly, the blade held steadily in his grip. “Who are you?” he says, roughly.

“Steve,” Steve manages. “Steve Harrington? I’m a friend of Eddie’s, I’m just looking for–”

“Yeah, heard that one before. Harrington? I’ve heard of you, you’re one of those rich folk down on Cornwallis.” He’s bristling, and as much as Steve admires his fierce protective streak over his nephew, that knife is looking alarmingly sharp.

“I just wanna see him, Mr. Munson, I’m a friend. I promise. I promise.”

Wayne looks at him for another painfully long moment, so painfully long Steve debates surrendering before that knife can get any closer to him. But then Wayne nods brusquely, the switchblade falling to his side, and bids Steve to enter. Warily, he does.

The place is almost exactly the same as it was this morning — overflowing ashtrays, a half-brewed coffee pot, dim light through semi-shuttered blinds. Wayne makes a sweeping gesture, as if to emphasise the lack of Eddie in the room, and then falls to leaning against the wall. It reminds Steve of Eddie, suddenly, the looseness of the movement.

“Sorry about the–” Wayne closes and pockets the blade. “Had a lotta trouble, lately. People can be so cruel — not only cruel, but sadistic, real sadistic. And they wanna talk about Eddie like he’s the psychopath.” He shakes his head as he lights a cigarette. “You got a decent look about you, kid, that’s the reason I let you in. Can’t afford to turn away anyone who’s willing to be decent to him.”

“It’s okay,” Steve says, barely above a whisper.

“You said you’re a friend?” Wayne considers him frankly, too frankly. Steve feels rather dissected under his eyes. “Good. That’s good.”

“I don’t know what–”

Wayne waves a hand at him, wafting smoke from the cigarette between his fingers. “No need for that, kid. I know damn near most of what there is to know about him. You got nothing to fear from me.”

Steve looks at him for a moment. The words bring a sudden rush of relief, not for himself but for Eddie, for the fact that Eddie has someone who gets it, and then he’s thinking about his own parents, and what they’d say about all this, and the relief is swallowed up in that dread and he finds he doesn’t want to think about it anymore.

“The quarry,” Wayne says at length. “Pretty sure that’s where he went, anyway.”

“Thank you.”

Steve turns back to the door, but then Wayne speaks again: “I said you got a decent look about you, and you do, but I swear on that poor girl Chrissy’s grave that if you hurt him–” He doesn’t need to get the knife out to demonstrate what he means. Steve gets it clearly enough.

“I won’t, Mr. Munson. I swear.”

Wayne nods gruffly. “See that you don’t.”

Steve has a lot of time to think about his words, on the drive over. How Wayne is actually a pretty damn great guardian, and the corresponding anxiety about how his parents almost certainly won’t behave the same. And the reason for that anxiety, the feelings that twist and turn in his chest and make him want to both grab onto Eddie and never let go and also run away from him as far as he can. With the result that the mire of dread climbs a little higher and swirls around behind his eyes.

He parks on the road by the quarry and just wanders, searching. He doesn’t shout — doesn’t want to startle him off. Last time he did that, he got a broken bottle to the throat. So he just– wanders.

It doesn’t take long to find Eddie. He’s sitting on the very edge by the treeline, legs dangling down over the watery abyss, leaning back on his hands. A blunt is poking out from between his teeth.

Again, Steve is wary of startling him, especially so close to the edge. He approaches slowly, with his hands held up. “Eddie?”

But Eddie doesn’t flinch this time. Just looks up lazily, like he knew Steve was there the whole time. “Harrington,” he says, and the careless bravado with which he says it makes Steve’s stomach sink. It’s the way he’d have said it a month ago, when their paths rarely crossed: a hint of mockery, a self-defensive strain of please-leave-me-the-fuck-alone.

“I know I, uh– I know I really made a mess of things, earlier. Like, huge. And I’m sorry.”

Eddie scoffs and takes another slow pull from the blunt, exhaling a full cloud of smoke. He isn’t as calm as he appears, though; Steve can see his fingers faintly trembling. “What’s there to be sorry about? You didn’t beat my skull in, which is what I’ve come to expect, so really a little bit of disgust is actually a blessing.”

“It’s not–” Steve drags a hand through his hair, desperate. “It’s not disgust, man, Jesus, I told you–”

“See, your tone and your words said two very different things, and of the two? The tone wins.”

“That’s not what the tone was.” He feels his heart thudding in his chest, each beat swooping before it lands hard against his ribs. His knees have gone weak again, so he surrenders to the urge to sit down heavily beside Eddie, who doesn’t move. The quarry’s lake is a huge dim blue spread out before them. “Trust me. It wasn’t–”

“How am I supposed to trust you, O King Steve, paragon of high school douchebag-ery and all around terrible person, by all accounts, until maybe two and a half years ago — how am I supposed to trust that those two and a half years are enough to erase the arrogant stink you’re born with, the stink just rolling off your Merc and your polo shirts and your goddamn fucking princess castle house–”

He’s taken on that sardonically bright melodrama again, the tone he uses when he’s trying to freak someone out, the tone that pushes everyone away to create its own little private space in the middle just for him and Steve can’t take this, not now, not today. “Enough, okay, man? I really– I just need you to listen. Please.”

Eddie opens his mouth and then closes it again. More surprising than that, he carefully stubs out his blunt and spreads his now empty palms. “I’m listening,” he says quietly, and the melodrama is gone.

Steve looks at the water, instead of at him. “You’re right. I used to be a douche. Like, majorly. Everyone knows that. And– I also know I’m not, anymore, and people know that too. Still doesn’t erase what I was. And yeah, maybe once upon a time it would’ve been disgust. I’m– like, I’m honest enough to admit that about myself. But now– it’s not even that. And maybe– I don’t know, maybe that disgust is still in there, somewhere, but it’s directed somewhere else.” He exhales shakily, and his voice drops to a whisper. “At, like, myself.”

Eddie is looking at him very intently, those big dark eyes never leaving his face, not once. “What are you saying, Steve?”

“I’m saying– Tim Curry is really stupidly fucking hot.”

There’s a silence. Then Eddie splutters something, something that could be a laugh or else a snort of derision, and he moves like he’s about to get up. “If you’re just gonna sit there and fuck with me, I–”

Steve grabs his arm. Eddie stills, and doesn’t shake him off. “I’m not fucking with you.” Steve laughs, suddenly, faintly hysterical, faintly free. “Tim Curry is fucking hot, and so is Susan Sarandon, and so is– so is Nancy, and so are you.”

“But you’re not–” There’s something like fear in Eddie’s eyes. “But you’re not like that. You’re not like me. You’re not–”

“–gay? Not quite. But maybe–” Steve swallows. “Maybe something like it.”

There’s a silence. What he’s just said — is it the first time he’s said it out loud? — settles into that silence and deepens, until he can’t take it back. And suddenly he doesn’t want to. Suddenly he knows it might be the realest thing he’s ever put into the world, and he gets what Robin means, about a part of himself that’s only for him. Uniquely his.

“Oh,” Eddie says. Steve still hasn’t let go of his arm.

They stare at each other for a while. The revelation is enough to have shocked them both into silence, Eddie uncharacteristically quiet, stricken, almost.

“I just assumed,” he says finally. “King Steve, Hawkins’ darling, ladykiller, all that — and Robin, I mean, she said you were cool with it but it’s– it’s different with guys, sometimes, like they think I’m gonna hit on them and then–” He goes quiet again. “And you were acting so–”

Then he shrugs off Steve’s touch, jolting to his feet and pacing a rapid, anxious circle. He’s fiddling with his hands again, the way he was the first time they had a solo conversation, Nancy and jealousy and very metal, what you did, that’s all I’m saying. Steve wonders at that conversation, at where they are now from there, at everything that’s happened since.

“When you said–“ Eddie stops and turns to him, a pained look in his eyes. “When you said so are you, what did you mean?”

Steve swallows. Here it is. “It means I wasn’t, uh, disgusted, when I saw you with Danny last night. It means–“ His stomach does another weird flip. “It means I was jealous. Of Danny. Because I wanted it to be me who you–“

Eddie lets out a long breath, hissed between his teeth, and then drops into a crouch, steepling his fingers together at his forehead and pressing the heels of his hands against his eyes. “Well, shit,” he says, a little breathlessly. “Holy shit. I’m gonna– I’m gonna need you to give me a second, here, ‘cause I’ve, um, been spending a lot of time running from this — you know me — and now, um, looks like I’ve reached the end of the road–“

Steve somehow knows what to do without thinking. He kneels before Eddie and carefully, but firmly, takes his wrists and guides his hands away from his face. “This is real. I don’t– I mean, it’s fucking terrifying, like, I’m scared out of my mind right now, you don’t even know, but– it’s real.”

“Jesus Christ, I feel like I’m dreaming right now. I feel like– do you know how much I’ve wished– fucking hell, Harrington. I haven’t been able to think about anything but you and your stupid fucking hair for weeks.”

Steve allows himself a smile. “And here I thought you hated me.”

Eddie’s eyes grow big. “Shit, man, I just– I just couldn’t handle it. Couldn’t handle you being so you, so fucking nice all the time, so stupidly brave and honourable and all the shit that makes you so goddamn attractive — all the shit I’m not, by the way — so I just ran away from it. From you. Because I’m– because I’m a coward.”

Steve shakes his head. “I don’t know, I think– I think you’re a lot braver than, like, you say you are. Like, you don’t care what anyone thinks. At all. You’re just– you, and people judge you for it and I think– I don’t know, maybe it’s just because they’re jealous. Because you can just be you, and they can’t, like, be themselves.”

“Can’t they?” Eddie says quietly, with a sideways glance, and it’s pretty clear they’re not talking about a general people at all.

“Maybe not. Maybe that’s why they’re the cowards, and you’re– you’re the brave one. In the end. I don’t know.”

“I don’t know either,” he admits, and that’s a step, at least, that he isn’t calling himself a coward so assuredly anymore.

Steve’s hands are still on his wrists. His pulse is fluttering against Steve’s thumbs, like some flighty desperate bird is trapped beneath his skin. Steve wants to calm that anxiety, ease it down, but then he looks in Eddie’s eyes and sees his pupils are blown and his lips are parted and this isn’t anxiety at all, not this time. Not the kind of feeling Steve can ease.

And Steve is meant to be good at this. This is his thing, the moment, the electricity. Knowing when to go forward and when to pull back. Knowing what he wants and knowing what the girl wants, and where to meet in the middle — but this isn’t a girl. This is Eddie. This is a guy who smells of smoke and skunk and the woods, no pretty perfume to cover that up, no daubs of foundation on the dark circles under his eyes, no attempt made at being anything other than what he is, and Steve doesn’t know what to do with that. With someone who isn’t pretending.

But then Eddie says, “Steve,” and he’s leaned in so close that Steve can see each individual eyelash, each stray hair drifting across his face, the groove in his lip where his teeth worry at it, “It’s like you’re asking me to lose my mind here, like, if you don’t–”

So Steve kisses him.