The real reason Steve never really dates anymore is this: the nightmares and the secrets behind them.In the middle of the night, reeling from bad dreams, Steve properly starts on the mixtape Eddie made for him. Master of Puppets made Eddie feel invincible once. Maybe Steve can borrow that feeling for one night.
Steve is incapable of not taking care of the people he cares about. And against all odds, he cares about Eddie.Eddie has never been taken care of. Not like that. Or: Eddie & Steve fall in love, before Christmas but not too fast.
it’ll be fine by dusk light (i’m telling you, baby)
The van is running, Steve realizes, and Eddie wouldn’t start it if he was just coming out to smoke. It sobers him up almost immediately. “You leaving?”Eddie gives him a smile, sad around the edges where it reaches his eyes, says, “Yeah,” and Steve knows he doesn’t just mean for tonight.
He actually wants to watch the Fellowship of the Ring, has actually been waiting for this for uhhhh, what, like, twenty years of his life? Problem is, there’s another thing he’s been waiting for for almost as long, and it’s sitting right next to Eddie, making little soft impressed noises at Gandalf’s fireworks, flashing quick smiles his way when he offers him the tub of greasy popcorn.He's not going to be able to remember any of the movie, he’ll just remember this: the white-hot screaming bliss of sitting next to the love of his fucking life, and not knowing if it’s cool to try and hold his hand or not.(Or: the second date fifteen years in the making)
“Is he whining about Eddie being mean to him again?” Robin is leaning in the doorway, eating a leftover slice that’s probably cold by now. “You talk about him more than you talk about girls, Steve, it’s getting concerning. Anyone would think you had a crush.”or, steve is pretty convinced eddie now hates him. turns out eddie has the opposite problem.
A spatula from the cup of utensils next to the stove floats into the air, hangs there a second, and then smacks him directly on the forehead.“Ow! Fuck, okay. I guess that’s a yes. Are you haunting my house or me specifically?” Him, it’s definitely him, but it doesn’t hurt to have confirmation.The spatula waggles in his direction, and then smacks him in the head again.“Fuck! You can tell me things without violence, you know!” The cold feeling he associates with it (her) goes through him again, and it feels like laughter. “Are you…is it…is it Barb? Are you Barb?”There’s a long moment of silence—or, well, it’s all been silence, but a long moment in which nothing happens—and then the spatula goes hurtling through the air like it’s being thrown and smacks him in the eye, before falling to the ground.
He had gone through the whole attracted-also-to-men crisis in the years before, so even though he still hadn’t managed to tell Robin, or even find the courage to say the words to describe himself aloud, the attraction wasn’t a surprise. It had occurred to him when Jonathan had won over Nancy that while he was mostly jealous of Jonathan because he was pretty sure some part of him would always love Nancy, orbiting back to her at any given opportunity, sometimes he was jealous of Nancy, of the way she let Jonathan kiss her, his big hands resting on her face, and actually, in retrospect, the whole hand thing should have become apparent to him way earlier than it had.All that to say, Steve was well aware he was attracted to Eddie and occasionally dreamt about sucking on Eddie’s fingers, but it didn’t have to mean anything, and moreover, couldn’t. The whole thing with El and the Upside Down derailed his life, but eventually he was going to get his shit back together and back on track, and he couldn’t be doing that and also bringing men home on the weekends.--A Steve recovery steddie slow burn. This fic is finished at 110k and currently being beta'd. Tags apply to the entire fic (but some tags may be added).
They beat Vecna. They saved the world. Everything was fine. And then the Harringtons sell their house in Hawkins, and Steve has to confront some things about himself that he doesn’t know if he’s ready to face. Or: Steve, Eddie, and Will go on a big gay vacation.
“Look, I’m just asking, okay? Not– I don't mean anything by it. But, uh.” His eyes darted back and forth, then he leaned in close to Steve. Steve had gotten used to that, kind of. The guy had no concept of personal space. “Are you flagging?” Eddie finally finished. Steve shook his head slowly, eyes narrowed. He had no idea what that meant. He had no answer. “What?”Eddie leaned away from Steve, facing forward again and nodding. “Okay, got it. That answers my question. Carry on.”-------------------------------------------------A (mostly) innocent question leads Steve Harrington on a journey of self-discovery, friendship, sex, and romance.
“Oh, haven’t you heard? Steve Harrington doesn’t cry.”
In which Steve Harrington breaks up, breaks a few hearts (including his own), breaks free, and finally gets to break down.or: 5 times Steve didn't cry, and 1 time he did.
"This time, do it right. This time Eddie won’t bleed out in his arms, in anyone’s arms. This time, Steve will do it right."
— or, steve relives the day they try to kill vecna over and over, and eddie just can't seem to stop dying. steve finds this totally unacceptable.
Eddie Munson’s no hero. Too bad the universe—or whatever’s gonna be left of it—didn’t get the memo.[or, eddie is going to save himself and his friends or die trying. many, many times.]
The One in Which a Time Loop is Fucking Exhausting.
It’s the first time in a while that he doesn’t know what comes next. He’s dove into the water hundreds of times. Screamed as his flesh was torn apart, heard Master of Puppets in the distance and held back tears. Felt Max’s cold, small hand in his as she laid in the hospital bed. There are things that always happen, no matter how hard he tries: El doesn’t arrive in time. Eddie dies. Max is put in a coma. Steve fails. They lose.“Steve, how many loops have you been through?”His head is nodding, and his eyes are watery, and Eddie has approached him like a spooked animal.“I lost count.”AKA: The one where Steve Harrington is stuck in a time loop, and Eddie Munson is really fucking hard to save, or: fuck Volume 2, these bitches are in love.
The only reason Steve volunteers to keep a journal to track Eddie Munson’s skim-milk memories, is because of the twerps.They have school, they can’t commute to the government-protected hospital that’s all the way in the city. That, and they gave Steve this well-rehearsed, tearjerker performance about how grateful they would be.About how grateful Eddie would be.Pfft like shit on a stick, he’ll be grateful. The dude doesn’t even remember how old he is, how the hell is supposed to be grateful for Steve Harrington jotting down notes in binder?But those kids have been through Spielberg-level disaster shit. Steve has too, but they’re just kids.So he’ll do it. He’ll do it for them and only them.
Loop 6 - SteveEddie bleeds out in his arms.Loop 27 - SteveEddie bleeds out in his arms.Loop 304 - SteveEddie bleeds out in his arms.Loop 368 - SteveEddie bleeds out in his arms.
when you shine, you’re a hilltop mansion (so how’d you lose the light?)
Steve left everything behind after Vecna. He’s living on his own, struggling to navigate life with no friends, no family, no one to lean on or to ask for help, and he has no one to blame but himself. But he’s fine. He doesn’t have any other choice; he’s made his bed, and now he has to lie in it. He’s fine. And then Eddie Munson walks back into his life, and Steve is forced to confront all the decisions he made for real this time.
“What the fuck just happened there?”“I could ask you the same thing, Harrington,” Eddie hisses, jabs a finger into Steve’s chest. “Did you honestly bring me along as your plus one? To a date? With a guy who really thinks the Sex Pistols were on to something?”“What,” a date? Plus one? Steve doesn’t even know where to start. “What is a sex pistol?”“What,” Eddie says, parroting Steve’s confused tone back at him in a way that sounds unfairly boneheaded, “am I doing here,Steve?”(Or: Steve has good intentions, but does not realize that punks and metalheads are natural enemies)
Even though Eddie's name has been cleared legally, he's still very much on trial in the court of public opinion. Dealing drugs isn't a lucrative occupation anymore, and getting a legitimate job in a town who still considers him a killer isn't much of an option, either. Eddie is beginning to think skipping town and starting over somewhere no one knows his name is the only chance he has left. Steve has another idea. AKA: Steve gets Eddie a job as an anonymous columnist at a local newspaper.
Steve jerks awake, sitting up so quickly that Robin almost topples over and staring wildly around the room. When his gaze lands on Eddie, he blanches visibly.“Oh, shit,” he mutters. “Come on, no. Come on. Not again.”“Harrington?” Eddie asks slowly. He does not love the way that Steve is staring at him right now. He really doesn’t. Steve looks like he’s staring at a ghost, a bloodied monster, like Eddie is something that should not exist in the light of day. “You good, dude?”
The slow but inevitable queer awakening of Steve Harrington through the pursuit of casual make out sessions and pointed guidance from his friends, followed by his eventual realisation that the boy he wanted was in front of him all along.OrFive times Steve drunkenly made out with a boy that wasn’t Eddie + one time he soberly made out with Eddie instead
After everything that happened during Spring Break, life for everyone in Hawkins returned to somewhat normal. Well, aside from Steve's new friendship with one Eddie Munson.The gang decide they all deserve a break and head to Steve's family beach house for a week, featuring copious amounts of fluff, found family bonding, blurring (or completely ignoring) the line between platonic and romantic, and bullying being considered flirting.
Eddie won't stop touching anyone and everyone, except for Steve. He has a plan to change that.*“You can touch me.” That was not how Steve intended for it to come out. He opened his mouth and closed it a few times.Eddie had frozen with his fingers halfway to his mouth. Smoke curled from his cigarette between them. He raised his eyebrows, then frowned, then bit his lip.“I can-” Eddie said slowly, his face still rolling through several emotions without landing on one- “touch you?”
Steve’s striking out. It’s the summer after his graduation, he’s working 9-5 at Scoops Ahoy, and hey, did you hear? He’s striking out. Enter Robin, her ‘you rule/you suck’ board, and a promise to romance the next girl through the door. Except, that’s no girl. That’s Eddie Munson. Or: One double scoop of pining, please!
Eddie Munson’s new government-issued trailer gets burned down by paranoid conspiracists in 1987, for the second time. One cold night in April, as quickly as he’d arrived into Steve’s life, Eddie disappears, driven away in an unmarked government van with nothing but his uncle by his side. Steve would be lying if he said he’d really tried to move on. He hasn’t. He still looks for Eddie in every room he walks into. Still can’t bring himself to say out loud how long it’s been since he’s seen the love of his life.It’s 1998 when the mysteriously anonymous M.W., latest voice to disturb the metal charts, gets his first magazine cover. The picture cuts off before we can see his face, but Steve doesn’t need it to figure out exactly who M.W. is. He doesn’t need to see his hair, his mouth, or his eyes, because M.W.’s resting his hands on his leg in the picture, and Steve sees the rings. He recognizes the rings.
“Vegas, Kinn said you used to deal with the Brits, a guy named Jack who comes to buy heroin from us?”
Vegas didn’t react to what Porsche said for a moment, he was sure he hadn’t reacted. His fingers didn’t tighten on his glass, he didn’t flinch. He just tilted his head very slightly and said, “Sure. He’s going to be in town?”
One of Vegas’ old contacts is coming to Bangkok. But does he want to use sex as a tool or a weapon anymore? And did he ever want to in the first place?
“Beautiful,” Pete hears, and it takes him a second to realize it’s not his own voice. Vegas is the one who spoke while looking at Pete, and suddenly Pete is no longer having a good time.The compliment curls around his ears, through his mouth and down his throat and it burns like acid on its way. It sits there like reflux, heavy and pressing and stinging. He feels seen, and he needs it to stop, because this isn’t the part of him he wants Vegas to look at. Vegas can say things he doesn’t mean when they’re fucking, but not when they’re just living their every day lives.
