I'm (Not) Just a Notch in Your Bedpost, You're (Not) Just a Line in a Song
It starts with a hand on a sleeve. None of the other crewmembers would have minded--would have thought much of the gesture at all--but *no one* touches Izzy.Lucius, quite accidently, realizes he would very, very, *very* much like to touch Izzy. Intimately.
He’d thought the boy dead. Was glad for it, for a time, too. Murdering is one thing, but this — what’s happened to Spriggs now — it doesn’t sit right with Izzy.He can imagine how he’d spluttered his thanks, wheezing up half the Atlantic like he was wringing a cloth, when Calabran’s lot fished him out of the water. He can imagine how Spriggs would’ve said it all, in that lilting, dour way. He might’ve demanded a blanket, or a berth, or water. Can imagine that he didn’t stay thankful for all too long after. It’s not sentiment, Izzy tells himself. It’s just fucking morality.
“Okay.” Pete squares himself, holds Lucius’ elbows. “Tell me. You’re fucking Izzy.”
Lucius feels the blood drain from his face. “Well… it’s-”
“Wait.” Pete’s head whips back up. “What?"
“Oh god,” Lucius says, horror knotting in his stomach like so much sea gunk as it catches up with him. “You were joking. I thought- I thought you knew somehow.”
Pete’s hands leave him, one flying up to hover near his mouth like he thinks he might puke. Fuck.
“You’re fucking Izzy. Izzy Hands.”
“I’m afraid it’s worse than that, actually.”
Lucius and Izzy have returned to The Revenge together, Lucius back from the dead and looking to reunite with Pete, Izzy generally wanted dead. Also they're in love.This is a sequel to Same Time, Same Place
Jackie zeroes in on Lucius the moment she rounds the corner again. “You. You were with that man who broke my nose jar.”
Fuck. Lucius thought she’d forgotten him. “Ugh, yeah, but I don’t-“
“I didn’t ask you to speak.” She levels a finger at him. “That’s Captain Roberts’ quartermaster over there.” Was. Jackie motions towards the man now lying face down in a pool of blood, flies already gathering on his outstretched arms. “You think I want to have to answer for that? Izzy Hands never acted up like this before. The way I see it, this is your man’s fault. I don’t know how, but it is, and if I can’t find him, I’m gonna find you. So you better find a way to fix it. Understand?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Lucius and Izzy have separately washed up and gotten stuck in Nassau, Lucius aimless and having fallen in with another group of theatre kids, Izzy losing his goddamn mind. What's the harm in a little distraction?Alternately titled Izzy Hands and the Mortifying Ordeal of Being Known
“I could have killed you,” Izzy mumbles, and he doesn’t know why he’s still talking, why he keeps pushing it, as if trying to convince Lucius to let him apologize.There’s a tense beat of silence and Izzy can feel Lucius' assessing eyes on him as he pointedly stares at the floor. He feels so small under Lucius' gaze all of the sudden, vulnerable.“I knew you wouldn’t.”
It’s probably going to go down in history as the worst kiss Steve Harrington ever got, but Eddie doesn’t give a fuck. He isn’t going to get another chance so he’s working with what he’s got. It’s less of a kiss, and more of a slide of lips, wet with blood and tears but he feels Harrington’s grip tighten on the back of his shirt and he pulls back. He reaches up with the hand he can still feel and pushes back a strand of hair that had fallen in Steve’s face, smearing blood along his temple as he does. “Sorry. Couldn’t die without knowing what that felt like.”
No one has caught Steve Harrington’s eye in a while, and he’s not going to go looking. And with his tendency to get involved with interdimensional bullshit and the gaggle of teenagers that follows him around, it’s probably for the best. He quickly learns that the universe has other plans for him, and they come in the shape of a goofy, guitar-wielding nerd. In which Steve is just trying to live his life but Eddie is essentially hitting him over the head with a very flirtatious hammer.
Eddie has a test.It took some time to formulate, a few too many times with guys careless with his heart, who leave behind more heartache than happiness littered in their memory. It’s fucking hard to tell.More than once, there’s been a dude who promises between kisses 'i’m not going anywhere' and takes more than his fill during a night which Eddie desperately hopes is passion and not some misguided lust. Only to wake a familiar empty side of the bed, them gone — skipping town, back in the arms of their parent-approved girlfriend, or back to spitting his name out with the word freak.It’s what the test is for.
It’s 1991 and Steve is still in Hawkins, still living with his mother, still single, and still working at Family Video. At least he’s the manager now, for whatever that’s worth. But he’s stuck here while Robin and Dustin and everyone else have moved away. Moved on.Well, everyone except for Eddie.They're best friends, spend most of their time together, and it's nice to have a friend like that. But Steve is still looking for love with a capital "L". At least, he thinks he is.
Steve’s favorite holiday was Valentine’s Day.It’s stupid, he knows that, but he can’t help it. He loves love. Always has, always will, no matter how many times it’s burned him in the past. He wants to woo someone, sweep them off their feet, shower them in love and affection. That’s why Valentine’s Day was perfect, it was the excuse he was always looking for, a socialized norm for things Steve’s always longed for.Except, this year, he was dating Eddie Munson. And if there was one thing about Eddie, it was that he hated Valentine’s Day. Not because he hated love, but because he hated ‘selling out to the corporate big shots’ by buying their overpriced chocolate and stuffed animals. So, they weren't going to celebrate.That doesn't mean everyone else isn't going to, though.-------OR5 Times Steve Harrington doesn't get a Valentine, and 1 time that he does.
Laurel Hunsberger decides it is time to meet her maker.Or -- Philip Harrington's secret daughter shows up in Hawkins looking for her father. Instead, she finds a brother and an Eddie.
Steve had been having dreams. Dreams so vivid that he would wake up, look in the fancy-ass mirror next to his bed, and be surprised to find he didn’t have a ring of bruises around his neck.He’d never really thought about Eddie Munson in bed before, but once the thought had been planted, especially a thought of that nature, Steve’s imagination, however slow to start, didn’t really stop… imagining.Which was really quite a problem when they were just becoming friends.(featuring: eight pages of possibly the best smut i've ever written, a really quite unecessary plot development about bisexuality being a real sexuality that might be directed at the author's father, and a lot of focus on Eddie Munson's eyes)
It's been six years since Eddie died. Steve manages a sporting goods store at the mall, and everyone else has moved on and left town. He's twenty-five and he's tired and alone.But the Upside Down is shut away and he's alive and that's what really matters.Until Eleven calls and says she feels something. Something in Hawkins.And then Something shows up in Steve's living room and flashes sharp teeth.
All That You Ever Wanted From Me Was Sweet Nothing
“'I’m in love with you,' Eddie says, so casual, like it isn’t 3PM on a Tuesday in the middle of a Family Video in Bumfuck, Indiana. Like they’re somewhere else, like he’s someone else. Like it’s nothing extraordinary."Or:Five times Eddie tells Steve he loves him, and one time Steve lets himself say it back.
"Christ, you're gonna give me a complex.""What," Budweiser panted, "like you don't have one already?"Eddie laughed. "Cute, but you're gonna pay for that. Good boys don't talk back. Turn around and spread your cheeks for me, brat."- or -Steve and Eddie meet up regularly for anonymous sex, and Eddie gives Steve his first (official) experience as a sub. Steve fell first. Eddie falls harder.
Steve sputters, his cheeks going pink, before blurting, “Ahoy, Eddie. Would you like to set sail on this ocean of flavor with me? I’ll be your captain.”
There’s a beat of silence between them, during which Eddie surreptitiously pinches his thigh to make sure he’s not dreaming and Steve’s face turns an alarming shade of cherry red.
“Oh my god,” Eddie finally exhales, “are you serious right now?” He splays his hands out on the counter and leans toward Steve with a shit-eating grin. “Captain Steve—well it certainly has a ring to it.”
Five times Eddie sees Steve in his Scoops Ahoy uniform, and one time he sees him out of it.
Steve wasn’t really all that surprised to find himself here.He had never seen a gloryhole before. He’d chalked them up to a horny teenager’s pot at the end of the rainbow. Fantasy, and nothing else. A fat old man couldn’t squeeze down a chimney, and a guy couldn’t get his dick sucked in a public bathroom. But here it was, a small circular hole cut into the side of two adjacent stalls, as real and as terrifying as it could be.What surprised Steve about tonight was that he wasn't sticking his dick through the hole. Instead, he found himself sitting on his heels in front of it, hands wringing anxiously in his lap as he licked his lips and waited for someone to shuffle into the other stall.
When Eddie sees Steve in a gay bar, he decides to seduce him and break his heart as revenge for what an asshole Steve was in high school. Steve, who was only at the bar to support Robin, is taken aback by the attention but finds himself under Eddie’s spell. And Eddie, to his growing unease, discovers that Steve Harrington is actually everything he’s ever wanted.
“It’s about finding what you’re invested in,” Ms Kelley had said. “It will help with the process of recovery. You need to find it, and nurture it.”Whatever Ms Kelley meant, surely it wasn’t this: using Lucas’ binoculars to spy on Steve Harrington as he climbs out the window of the Munson trailer. (recovering in the aftermath of Vecna's attack, Max is stuck at home. Somehow, spying on Eddie Munson has become her number 1 hobby.)
“I’m not a ghost, man, I’m trapped,” Eddie says.“That’s what ghosts are,” Steve says back, annoyed. “In the Upside Down,” Eddie clarifies, and Steve pauses.“Oh.”
It was only once. They were teenagers. It didn’t mean anything.
The last one was a lie.
One summer changed everything—and then Eddie was arrested. When he gets out of prison, Steve takes him in, prepared to suffer through unrequited love. Eddie has other, filthier, ideas. Angst, BDSM, and domesticity.
It's December 1988. For the past two and a half years Eddie's been existing in a sort of codependent slobbery, sharing the Byers-Hopper basement with Steve Harrington, waiting for something terrible to rip the world apart once more. But something terrible never came, and now the kids are all moving on, and there's nothing left for him here but scars and memories and the guy he's pining after.So it's only natural that he starts thinking about leaving, too.
Eddie scans the street, his mind and body feeling fuzzy with pain. There’s no one around, the street is dead. He spins, feeling useless and slow and angry and he’s not going to die now, not after all that shit. He survived being half-eaten by demon bats, he was not going to die at the hands of some comically evil jock. The panic is rising in his throat, and just as he’s considering running in a random direction, he spots a familiar brown BMW parked two cars down.ORA few months after Vecna has been destroyed, an old threat comes back to haunt Eddie Munson. Steve does what he does best, and takes care of him in the aftermath.
“Hey,” Steve’s smile is soft, tentative. “Heard you were having a party over here.” “What are you…” Eddie swallows hard, mouth dry. He wishes every teacher that ever told him he talked too much could see him now.“I was hoping that invitation still stood,” his eyes are drilling into Eddie’s and he can’t explain why he needs this so much, but he does. Every beat of his heart is begging Eddie to open the door, to let him in.There’s a beat, a catch of their eyes and Eddie shifts, pushes the door open wide, whispers, “of course,” whispers, “always.” His heart is in his throat, he can’t pull his eyes away as Steve steps in, crowding him so close they share a breath. He can feel Steve’s gravity pulling him in and he’s never wanted to collapse so badly. OR: Eddie gets to have a good life.
"Steve 'the Hair' Harrington, a rage-filled barbarian, who knew?" Eddie says, like its a compliment, like Steve has ANY idea what that means."Uh, I knew. Obviously." Steve says, wisely, even though he clearly didn't. "Anyway, do you think we could eat a demobat? Or would we turn into some kind of monstrous freak? I'm starving, and Dustin's cheese crackers are not enough to get me on my feet again.""What difference does it make to me if I'm a human freak or a monster one?" Eddie shrugs, and Steve butts his shoulder up against Eddie. It's meant to be brotherly, maybe friendly, but it's too soft. Felt like something he might have done before slinging an arm around a girl's shoulders."You're not a freak." Steve says, and finds he means it.Eddie's eyes, when he looks at Steve, are curious. "No?""No."
And I walk these streets, a loaded six-string on my back
That’s the thing about dying in some fucked up, monster-riddled underworld: you don’t get a burial. You only get a friend so wrecked with grief he fails to notice you’re not quite dead. Eddie returns (kind of), acquires a cursed guitar, flirts with a boy, and has to deal with the consequences.(Meanwhile Steve is doing his best.)
"So how have the shows been going? Score any groupies yet?"Shit. Eddie's never going to get a better opening than that, is he? He laughs, high and breathless, his heart beating a stampede from his chest up to his throat. "Actually, that's an interesting question, Steve, and it brings me to an important point. Something I've been wanting to talk to you about for a while, some relevant information I should probably divulge, but I thought it might be prudent to wait until I was out of punching range.""Sometimes I can't keep up when you talk," Steve says. "You wanted to tell me something?""Yeah. Yes. I absolutely did, and I'm going to tell you. Right now." Eddie twists his rings around his fingers, takes a deep breath, and says, "I'm gay, Steve.""Oh," says Steve, and Eddie dies a thousand deaths, each more intricate and painful than being eaten by demobats. Then Steve says, "Boy groupies, then?" or: while on tour with Corroded Coffin, Eddie makes an important phone call to Steve.
“Not sick, not sick,” he slurs, and Eddie wants to see his face, wants to hold it in his hands, wants to look him in the eye when he says, “just sad. Sad. Fuck… fuck, sad.”“Why are you sad, big guy?” Eddie asks.Steve laughs again, but it’s sharper this time, it doesn’t last as long, because as soon as the words slip out of his mouth—“My mom’s dead—”—it walks that treacherous line between the two sounds and morphs straight to a broken sort of sobbing that reaches directly into Eddie’s chest and drags out his heart.-A friends-with-benefits relationship goes complicated when who Steve and Eddie are to one another shifts with the coming of a new sort of tragedy.
He turns, scooping up his sneakers as he goes, and climbs back over the rocks. Fifteen feet between them now, and their eyes meet. Steve’s got a paper bag of groceries under one arm, balanced on his hip like a sassy single mom, and he doesn’t drop them but he pales, looks like he wants to. Eddie sees his shoulders stiffen and he asks, hoarse, “Who died?” “You did,” Eddie tells him.
Ten years on, in a town in Nova Scotia, on the edge of the Atlantic, Eddie finds Steve again, and also maybe himself.
‘Please?’Eddie stops him again, this time by holding his face. Steve feels Eddie’s thumb moving over his cheek, he feels the cool metal of his rings. He feels everything except what he needs.‘I’ve never loved anything the way I love you, Steve Harrington,’ Eddie says, dark brown eyes moving between Steve’s own. ‘This isn’t the moment, sweetheart.’It’s not a rejection, but it’s not a kiss. Steve quietly cries, insides cut up on the broken shards of his stupid little heart and Eddie holds him, he holds him all night until they fall asleep together.
