Stevehharringtcns·:

colemontgomeryx·:

xx.

Cole’s eyes sparkled with amusement and curiosity as he searched his brain. Dorothy? Flagging? What was Eddie trying to ask him? And why was he speaking in this obscure code? At first, Cole wondered if it was a DnD thing, but then realization hit when Cole spotted a bandana in Eddie’s back pocket. He instinctively reached for the bandana he’d tucked in his own pocket and the amusement on his face morphed to something akin to wonder. 

At Eddie’s question, Cole nodded and held out the pack, though his eyes were still glazed over. As Eddie plucked out a cigarette, Cole offered his lighter. He wanted to say something, at least to put Eddie at ease, but he wasn’t sure if he was ready to say it out loud. No one knew yet… well, that wasn’t true, because there was Steve and then there was Max. What the hell?

“I am, too,” Cole said, abruptly. He lowered the cigarette from his lips and looked at Eddie, motioning to the flag. For some reason, he felt the urge to prove it. God forbid Eddie thought he was playing a mean prank. “Do you remember Adam Richards? Tall, broad, blonde? He was my… well, you know,” Cole stumbled through his words, feeling his cheeks heat up. He was never this awkward. 

+++

droplets of nervous sweat starting to appear above his brow, eddie’s eyes darted down to where cole pulled out that blasted bandana before he took both the cigarette and lighter from him. he clicked it a couple of times, no light appeared, eddie nervously glanced back up at cole, down at the lighter. violently shook it around for a moment, another attempt - it thankfully lit this time and he handed it back to cole.

he was a bundle of nerves. the previous pleasant buzz from the alcohol had almost entirely disappeared, he flicked  the cigarette’s filter repeatedly, fidgeted with his rings on his other hand. as if he was almost....waiting for cole to ridicule him. instead, however, he said something completely unexpected and eddie chocked on his own breath, sputtering cough.

he looked up to lock eyes with him. i am, too. the fuck did he mean? and ‘too’? was this some sort of trap? or was he literally genuinely saying what...eddie thought...he was saying? hadn’t he not gotten any of his surely widely popularly used phrases moments ago? he quirked a brow, took a drag once his coughing had subised. “you are....what?”, eyes narrowed, voice low in case this was, indeed, a trap.

adam richards was mentioned and, oh, jeez, it all made sense. eddie almost instantly felt bad, a guilty nauseau creeping up on him. way to go, munson, way to go. “your best friend, wasn’t he?” brows pulled together, lips twisted into a sympathetic smile. of course, max hadn’t been the only one who’d lost someone on the very ground they were standing on. “listen, man, i’m so...sorry - like, that’s gotta be rough, like, being here and everything. sorry. i can go and  leave you alone if you want to.”

stevehharringtcns·:

.

steve chuckled at eddie’s explanation on why he had thrown him the vest in the first place. at first he thought he was sort of jealous of the things between him and nancy, but he would have never figured it out that he was jealous of nancy. it didn’t matter, the past was in the past. he let out a small chuckle at the other, shaking his head slowly. “i’m sorry if my injuries bothered you so much, next time i’ll just bleed out in the upside down and then you won’t have to look at me.” he said in a teasing tone, tilting his head to the side as he stared at eddie’s lips for a couple of moments. “what was it that you said again? for your modesty?” he teased the other, biting his lower lip for an instant.

bringing eddie closer made steve take a deep breath, feeling a shiver down his spine once he felt eddie’s hands on his arms. he wished the two had been alone on this trip, at least they would have some more privacy and the chances of someone walking in while they were… well, like this, were way few less than right now. but still, he wanted to take his chances as he held eddie close to him.

looking as eddie took the vest, steve smiled as he mockingly wiped the other’s shoulders as he put it on, smiling as he looked at him up and down. “you know what, you definitely look good in it. but maybe next time you can wear it without a shirt on. like i did.” he said with a smile, as he kept looking at the other with the vest on. he did look good in that vest and there was no denying that. “oh, don’t sniff it like that, you… dingus.” he said, stealing robin’s nickname yet again. he did that too often. “if you’re good, then i’ll give you one of my shirts.” he said with another wink. 

the two really needed to talk, but being this close to him, it made it almost impossible to just talk. that’s why he didn’t waste any time in kissing the other back and pulling him even closer, the closest possible to him, as he held on to the other’s vest. he kept kissing the other for a few moments until he finally pulled away and sighed.

“are you sure…?” he asked, taking a moment to lick his lips and then looking at eddie. “it’s better if we talk… about… you know.” he said. he had never been good with words, not even when he was together with nancy and everything seemed to be easy. he was at a loss for words. “i just don’t know what to say.” he said, as he leaned forward slightly to kiss eddie’s forehead.

+++

he winced, groaned, sqeeuezed his eyes shut for a moment. "for your modesty", eddie echoed with a nod, digging his fingers further into the material of steve's shirt. "and to think you didn't know i was flirting with you, pretty boy. come on, that was like, shameless." really, in eddie's head the words 'for your modesty' had sounded more like 'stop flirting with your ex and kiss me already'.

feeling his cheeks flush and become hot, eddie quickly averted his gaze, cursing steve for that damn lip bite and pulled the vest back on. it still fit snugly, of course, though it didn't feel.... right anymore, in a way. like it was his anymore, at least not full, truly. "you know, steve, if you want to see me without my clothes on you could always just ask. slim to none chance i'll say no.", he grinned teasingly, mirroring steve's lip bite for a moment.

though his teasing, cocky demeanor quickly faded as he caught steve's wink and for a second eddie nearly let his eyes roll back in his head. "yeah?" sounding a little more breathless now, his gaze dropped to the other's lips for a split second. "so if im like, super good, you'll let me have that little yellow sweater of yours?" not that yellow was his colour, or any colour he'd ever seriously consider wearing, but the sweater was something so uniquely steve's that eddie truly wouldn't mind.

he sighed into the kiss, arms wrapped around steves neck as he felt him draw him closer by his vest. hands tangled into steve's hair, not caring whether or not he messed it up or if they got caught. let them, he thought as one hand came down to softly cup steve's face.

he chased after his lips when he felt the other pull away, pouted at the sudden loss of contact. sighing, he dropped his head a little, leaning into steve further. "what.... d'you want to talk about?", eddie muttered, lids fluttering shut as steve pressed a soft kiss to his forehead.

it was too nice, almost. being with steve, it felt too comfortable, too familiar. too nice. and nice things didn't just happen to eddie munson. he softly swiped his thumb across his cheek, basically clawing at steve's shirt with his other hand.

"you don't have to say anything, steve. i feel like I know what you're gonna say, anyway...", he muttered, pressed his lips together, as if that would hide the way his face fell. voice lower now, weaker. eddie sighed. "... so can I, like,... kiss you again before you push me away and decide that you're bored with and, I don't know, disgusted by me? listen i get it, im the freak and all, and im a guy, too, it's... a lot. but... one last kiss? please? and then i promise I'll get out of your hair, never bother you again."

eddie munson + being a lil spider monkey

zccming·:

.

if there were any men that max hated nearly as much as billy and his dad, they were named callahan and powell of hawkins p.d. her interrogation with them in the spring of ‘86 never strayed far from her mind. max recalled how they chose her first, probably thinking she was the weakest link. they must have thought it would be so easy to plop her into a chair and that she would tuck herself away into a corner at the first sign of intimidation, that she was merely some stupid, meek, little girl for them to scare and trick into fessing up. well, they were wrong, and frankly, not very intimidating either. from the moment she exited that room, max vowed to herself that if she made it out of this vecna bullshit alive, she’d make them pay. 

she made good on that promise for the years following that, wreaking minor nuisances and unleashing dishonorable displays at any chance she could. and she didn’t do it just for herself, she did it for eddie. while she might have initially bought into the idea that he could’ve been some psycho killer, her opinion of him changed swiftly and drastically. eddie didn’t do it and he didn’t deserve the complications from having it pinned on him either. this rivalry of sorts came to ahead earlier in the summer when callahan pulled one over on her by arresting her at the blue quarry mall. it hadn’t been fun while it was presently happening, but now that hawkins p.d was doing this shit to eddie again, giving them that grief felt worth it. 

max sat across from eddie, shoving the bowl of cereal into his hand and clutching her own close to her chest with no intention of eating. instead, she silently watched him, brows furrowed as she looked him over for any signs that she might actually set hawkins p.d ablaze when the dust settled. at the same time he spoke, max did too, “i’m gonna fucking get them.” she said, voice feeling raw and unfamiliar in the back of her throat. max got mad all the time, she’d learned to deal with it, but rarely did her rage scare her or feel out of control like this. she wondered that as she felt the aftershocks of what had happened at the carnival, she skipped ahead to the anger stage of grief, that this was misplaced. maybe she was upset, sure, that was always a possibility. or maybe, it was the best she knew how to show eddie she cared, how sorry she was that this had happened. she didn’t know and didn’t plan on figuring it out. 

poking at her cereal with her spoon, max mulled over eddie’s question she had spoken in time with. finally, she answered, “i’m alright, steve made me get stitches.” she said his name warmly, flashing it like a lighthouse, a beacon to eddie to indicate that not only was he alright, but so was steve. that was important to her to convey. “i busted it on some mirrors…” max added, then shrugged as if to say no big deal. it was a big deal, but everything was right now. quietly and flatly, max reminded eddie, “you didn’t answer my question….” a pause, “how fucked are you?” to max, it was her way of wanting to know how he was holding up and what was happening on his end. 

+++

eddie stared thoughtlessly into his bowl, tired eyes searching for something, he didn’t know what. something to say, maybe. something to think about other than shock, horror, disaster. life and death. the upside down. vecna. he weakly pushed the bowl a bit further away from him, like a defiant, sulky child. eating was the last thing on his mind. then again, eddie couldn’t even pin point one singular string of thought - it was a mess up there. more so than usual. it felt like the world was spinning. there wasn’t a fibre in his being that wasn’t aching or nauseaous.

he didn’t quite register max’s words, they accompanied the faint beating of his heart and loud rushing and ringing in his ears,  but there was ‘alright’ and ‘steve and that’ snapped him out of his momentary trance, drew a shaky, relieved exhale from his lips. “you’re good? you’re okay. you’re - you’re alright.” eddie whispered, more to himself, nodded. 

a couple of beats passed, the room silent except for their labored breathing and the sound his knee made as it the coffee table every now and then. he wanted to cry, he desperately needed to, to sob his heart out and draw max into a bone crushing hug. staying in the embrace until one of them would start whispering empty, reasuring promises of how ‘everything was going to be okay’. but eddie was exhausted, and ... god, he felt so... resigned to his fate. he barely managed to muster up the strength to meet her eye.

“i can’t do this.” was what eventually broke the silence. voice barely above a whisper, a fatalistic tone to it. “i can’t ... i can’t have everybody thinking i’m a monster again. hunting me down, i - no. “ he gave a weak shake of his head, drew in a ragged breath. “i’m not - i can’t run anymore. i can’t- i can’t do it. not again.”

backtowheeler·:

— ✎ —

Nancy clocked that. The nervous laughter. The same laughter anyone would use to cover up something. She chose not to say anything, though. It wasn’t her business and she wasn’t the prying type. Besides, Eddie wasn’t exactly what she would call debonair, so she didn’t want to say the wrong thing and have it turn out that nothing was going on. “I’ve seen you pass by a few times,” she pointed out to the hallway. Not that is meant anything, of course. She had also seen Adam, Max, Dustin, and Robin pass by her room on their way to Steve and Cole’s. “It’s sweet,” then she followed up with, “Steve needs someone like that with him,” with him meaning just spending time in his room. “He doesn’t get taken care of often.”

She let out a groan. Not from the pain, but because Eddie was completely right. “Fine. No breaking out of this place but,” she shrugged her shoulders. “I just want to get some air or something,” she wasn’t fully on bedrest anymore, but she just hadn’t gotten a minute to so much as just walk around the corridor. She planted both of her feet on the ground, slowly standing up. It hurt, but she had a feeling she’d be like this for the next few weeks regardless of how much ‘R&R’ she got.

And not the bring the conversation back around to Steve, but she brought it back to Steve. “Can I ask you something? And just promise me you’ll answer honestly and not tell Steve I asked you?” Now that was a loaded question. It was hard not to do, but she worried about Steve. He always had a smile on his face and was always helping out that she felt like sometimes he got shafted when it came to personal matters. “Has his parents come to check on him? Like, at all?”

+++

i’ve seen you pass by a few times. right, right, that made sense. eddie nodded idly, yet still unable to shake off the perpetual and persisting nervousness. growing up not-straight in the smalltown indiana, well, it was a habit hard to shake off. even after his move to the big city. eddie pulled his bottom lip between his teeth, eyes darting around nancy’s hospital room. a particular spot on the wall seemed to capture his attention but really, eddie was trying to look anywhere but nancy’s eyes. with him. he gulped. “yeah, yeah, he needs someone looking after him. someone - like you said, yeah, with him. i mean not - not that i, or we -like, when you say with him, i don’t - it - “ shit, fuck, bullshit. he stayed like that for a moment, forming his mouth around words that didn’t come. no, this situation was unsalvageable. so he pursed his lips, nodded again. “whatever.”

it was very much not ‘whatever’ but judging by how fast his heart was beating, if eddie spent another second talking to nancy about how he was sort of kind of really in love with her ex-boyfriend he was afraid he’d have to be admitted, too. he watched carefully and with a concerned wrinkle in his brow as nancy slowly got up, ready to rush over and steady her should she need it. thankfully she didn’t. “i - i can go out to the patio with you, if want to.” he shrugged. “like, if you don’t want any company i totally get it, and i’ll be out of your hair in a second. but if you don’t i’ll come with you.” lord knew he needed some fresh air of his own. maybe a glass of water, too. a bite to eat. a wink of sleep wouldn’t hurt either but then again, you couldn’t have everything, could you. a cigarette would have to do. “i - tell me if i’m, like, overstepping in any way here, but i could take a look at your hair if you want me to? i’m...sort of an expert when it gets to bedrest induced matting.”

just when he thought they’d been past the topic of steve harrington, his name fell from her lips again and eddie inadvertently tensed again. even more so when she hit him with the aforementioned question and he exhaled deeply, felt his stomach drop a little as he thought back to his conversation with steve. there was a sad, almost hurt look in his eyes as he met her gaze again, a soft shrug of his shoulders. “what do you think?” it’s a scoff and by the way nancy was looking at him, and the way she’d asked the question, he knew that that was enough said. still, he went on. “he said his mom swung by but only for, like, a half hour. his dad didn’t even show.”

Black Sabbath - Paranoid  ♰

where: blue quarry mall who: eddie + cole ! @colemontgomeryx​​

despite the inital apprehension, because he really didn’t need the hawkins police department all up in his business again, not when he’d been a murder suspect barely two years ago, eddie slowly felt himself relax, some of the tension slipping from his body. not all, ever since that upside down debacle he hadn’t been able to relax fully. but the beer helped - bless that kid who’d brought the keg - and the general air of...insanity that lingered amongst the party-goers and protesters.

the sounds of black sabbath filled the mall, eddie felt himself nodding along to the tune, and, hey, he really didn’t care that most of the people here had never heard of ozzy osbourne in their lives. they all seemed to have a great time, anyway. so he didn’t even need to whip out that tape of 1988′s top of the pops he’d recorded, just in case they’d want to burn him at the stake for seducing them with his evil satanic dnd music.

he leaned against a pillar, let his eyes wander among the crowed, took a sip of beer and - hey, there he was, that kid with the keg. definitely not a kid now that he got a proper look at him. eddie tilted his head, his mouth dropped open slightly and he craned his neck, pushed himself off the wall, because... wait a minute.

wait a damn minute. he narrowed his eyes, looked down and. holy shit. well, if his eyes weren’t deceiving him then that - yeah that - that was a bandana. dangling from his - cole’s - back pocket. on display. he nearly choked on his beer, coughed and, taking another sip to ease said cough, he booked it across the mall, tapped him on the shoulder.

“hey, man - cole.”, he said, held eye contact with him for perhaps a tad longer than was appropriate. cleared his throat, gestured down towards his own back pocket. a quick look left and right, they weren’t in hearing distance of anyone else. still, he lowered his voice. “hey man, are you... are you flagging?”

scribblcs·:

WHO: gabe diaz & @eddiemcnson· WHAT: gabe spots a familiar face WHERE: downtown hawkins

gabe was settling into hawkins nicely. sure, it was vastly different from chicago, but this small town quiet was something he might be able to get used to. he’d seen a few patients already, but he still had a lot of downtime. on an ideal day, he walked to downtown in the morning, tried some coffee, read the paper, then went to work. following sessions, he liked to walk the town again, try some more coffee, then return home. gabe was really making an effort to immerse himself with the civilians. he’d gotten tangled up in a deep conversation with an elderly gentleman inside of melvald’s late in the afternoon, and they strolled about town together for a while before they parted ways, leaving gabe to finish out his walk alone at dusk. 

at least, he’d thought it would be alone. a couple feet ahead of him, an unmistakable mound of hair veered around the corner and gabe curiously squinted. that bandana certainly looked familiar…tailing the other for a while, he remained inconspicuous until he stole a glimpse of the other and got confirmation that he was in fact, eddie munson, a client from back in chicago. laughing in disbelief, gabe cupped his hands together and warmly called, “eddie!” last he’d heard from eddie, he was taking another trip back to his hometown, how was he to know that it was hawkins? despite how in depth they had gone about how horrible it was for him there, they’d never gotten on a first name basis with the place. gabe knew he made frequent visits, but typically, they weren’t this long, and when gabe left town to take up this new job, he worried about how eddie might react upon his return to find out his therapist had up and left him. luckily, those worries were quickly erased as soon as gabe saw how well eddie seemed to be faring. approaching him, beaming, gabe went in for a hug. oftentimes his heart seemed to get in the way from successfully preventing professional bleeding into personal and such was the case with eddie. he was one of many clients that gabe took a personal liking too, worried a little more about, and hoped extra harder they’d have an emotionally rich future. pulling back from the hug, gabe laughed in disbelief, “i have to admit, i’m quite surprised to see you here. i’m sure you could say the same.” 

while this was all well and good, it gave gabe second thoughts about hawkins. if this was the town that was such a source of hurt for one eddie munson, maybe it wasn’t as nice as he was starting to believe. 

+++

today was ... weird, to say the least. having previously ridden the high of managing to make steve all flustered and blushed when he’d stopped by family video, eddie’s modd had been dampened significantly by his run in with mayor spencer, leaving with a weird feeling in the pit of his stomach as he turned the corner, made his way back to his car. maybe he should park closer to family video next. re-route his evening walks to go through the woods instead of downtown hawkins. lost in thought, he’d barely even taken notice of the figure that had started to follow him, jumping slightly, hand on his heart as he ehard someone call his name.

turning around, prepared to lock eyes with someone who was definitely not fond of seeing him around town, eddie found he was pleasantly surprised as his former therapist came into view. slowly, he lowered his hand, squinted. “.... dr. diaz ? what - what are you- “ doing here, he thought as he was interrupted by gabe’s arms puilling him into a tight hug. one that eddie eagerly returned, wide smile on his face. “yeah... well, my boss is travelling the states for the summer, gave everyone an advance and closed up shop. thought i’d stop by here, pay my uncle a visit, you know.” he shrugged, non-chalantly, as if he hadn’t described hawkins as ‘hell on earth’ to gabe during therapy sessions for the last, like, three years. “and you? what brings you to hicksville, indiana?”

stevehharringtcns​:

.

.

listening to eddie talk about their matching scars made steve let out a dry chuckle, nodding his head as he thought about it. he still remembered how much it hurt, feeling the demobat’s teeth sinking into his skin. the thought alone made his skin crawl, especially when he thought about the tail wrapped around his neck. he didn’t want to think about that right now, so he decided to shut off those thoughts and focus on what eddie was saying. “you’re right, we do have matching scars…” he said slowly with a nod of his head. “i think you got the worst of it though. sorry i wasn’t there to help you… you know, like you did with me.” he said as he thought back about that night and everything that had happened. it scared him to think that things could have been worse.

steve stared at eddie for a little longer as he shifted closer to him. he didn’t know much closer he could get. he was too quiet, which was weird coming from eddie. he talked a lot and seem to ramble, but steve liked that. but now he was quiet and it was making steve wonder if he was actually uncomfortable with this. after all, they were cuddling and this was the first time steve had been this close to eddie.

“are you sure you’re okay with this? we don’t need to cuddle… i just… i don’t know, i wat to help with the night terrors.” he said, but he wasn’t sure how cuddling the other would help with that. maybe it would, maybe it wouldn’t. steve didn’t want to make the other uncomfortable. maybe he should have gone to the guest room. maybe this was a bad idea. but then he looked at eddie’s face and every single one of those thoughts seemed to vanish. the other didn’t mind, right? if he did, he would have had a worse reaction then this.

“i don’t think you’re a freak at all… i think whoever calls you that, doesn’t really know you.” he said simply, as his eyes looked up from eddie’s lips into his eyes for a couple of moments and then back at his lips. it was like his brain was deciding on what to do next and couldn’t make a decision. he wanted to kiss him. was it wrong of him to think that? would eddie take it the wrong way? steve really couldn’t know what the other’s reaction would be, and that’s when he heard eddie say that he wanted to kiss him.

he immediately turned red when he heard those words coming out of eddie’s mouth and he felt his cheeks warming up. had he heard that correctly? he did. eddie wanted to kiss him, and steve wanted to kiss him too. “uh… i… uh… you can kiss me, if you want. i mean, yeah, you can kiss me.” he said, stuttering in his own words as he looked at eddie. the two seemed to be closer than ever. and steve couldn’t wait that much longer.

without warning, steve threw himself forward, his lips crashing into eddie’s for only a few seconds as he paused to think about what he was doing. he looked at eddie’s eyes, then back to his lips, before pulling him in closer to another kiss. this felt right. like something that was going to happen sooner or later. steve’s only regret was that it didn’t happen sooner. he brought one hand to eddie’s hip, only to remember that there was a bruise there. “sorry, sorry…” he pulled away from the kiss once he realized where his hand was. “was… was that okay?” he asked, wanting to reassure himself that he wasn’t kissing eddie when he didn’t want to.

+++

eddie frowned and quickly shook his head. “no, man, no, don’t...don’t go there. i think we kinda shared the worst of it, really.” thinking back to their first trip to the upside down via watergate, eddie admittedly had ... mixed feelings. as horrible as frightening as it had been, watching steve nearly get eaten alive by demobats - well, eddie was a simple man. and the sight of steve pulling that ozzy move, finishing that bat off by biting it’s head off - yeah, yeah, alright, even under the horrid circumstances, that might’ve been just about the hottest thing eddie had ever seen in his life. 

steve shifted even closer to him and eddie felt like he could just die, right then and there, cheeks burning, goosebumps all over his skin. he seemed top have that effect on him - everytime he was close to him, eddie felt like he was intoxicated. the air was static between them, heavily charged with something eddie didn’t dare think about, lest he jinxed it.

he nodded, quickly and perhaps a little too eager. heat pooling in his stomach. “y-yeah. this is fine, it’s... yeah, it’s, uh okay. ‘s good. don’t worry. helps. with the night terrors, i mean.” followed by a choked off ‘thanks’. he wondered if this was simply another act of king steve’s inexhaustible kindness. if eddie was the one making it weird by reading too much into it.

but steve’s gaze so obviously dropping to his lips every so often told him otherwise. a shiver ran down his spine,eddie felt his breath and heartbeat quicken. he was sure steve could hear how fast his pulse was going, heart hammering away in his chest, deafeningly loud in the brief silence that hung between them. “that’s...that’s good to know.” he swallowed, tongue darting out to wet his lips. “that might be, like, the nicest thing anyone’s said to me, man.”

then steve gave him confirmation and before eddie quite had the time to process it, to throw all caution to the wind and go in for a kiss, steve’s lips were already on his. lips crashing together in a quick, rough kiss, teeth clacking together - steve pulled back briefly, eddie’s heart sunk but before he could mutter any apologies, steve had connected their lips in another kiss. 

eddie gasped into it, cautiously wrapping his hand around the back of steve’s neck to pull him closer. it was exactly like eddie had imagined the kiss to be and vastly different at the same time. better. because this, this was real. eddie was awake. he was awake in steve harrington’s bed, kissing him. and he wondered briefly if this was some cruel joke. or if he had died back then in the upside down, if this was his personal heaven. sure felt like it.

another gasp mixed with a pleased hum as steve’s hand found his hip, next thing he knew the other had pulled back. leaving eddie breathless, panting. almost immediately, eddie’s grasp on steve tightened, he tried to pull him closer. afraid that once he let him go that that was the end of it - that he’d never have this again.

“yeah”, he breathed, licked his lips, eyes darting between steve’s, half-lidded. “yeah, it’s nothing, don’t worry. all good.” eddie quickly covered steve’s hand with his own, moved it up to his waist, before grabbing steve by the shoulder and pulling him in for another kiss. 

stevehharringtcns·:

.

steve could tell that eddie was clearly nervous, it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure that out. once they were both inside the house, steve plopped down on the couch next to the other, his eyes never leaving eddie as the other spoke. “do you need like a… water or something? you look like you’ve seen a ghost and that you’re about to throw up all over my carpet. please don’t do that, my mom would kill me.” he said, although by the time his mom returned, he probably would have had the time to buy a new carpet and replace it before she even noticed. it wasn’t that hard, considering he had done it before after he forgot to take away the carpet during a party.

he was hanging out with nancy? why was he hanging out with nancy? were they friends? they probably were, after everything that happened two years ago, but steve couldn’t help but to think that it was a little weird that they were hanging out. were they a… thing? no, right? nancy would have told him. eddie would have told him too. maybe that was stupid to think about. “i saw the newspaper about the attack, but why did you went and investigate? i thought it was just some… old ladies fighting over waffles or something.” he said with a small chuckle, a little too proud of his joke, before he got serious and looked at eddie.

steve looked at eddie as he stood up from the couch and started pacing around. he looked over at him as he talked about what had happened, shaking his head as he tried to process everything the other was telling him. “there was a fire? you were in a fire?” he asked, concern was clear on his face. he almost felt sick when he heard the words upside down. “wait, a monster? like… demogorgon? or… vecna? are you… are you sure?” he asked. “what the shit?” he asked, frowning at him.

his first reaction was to stand up again and walk towards eddie. he could see the other was clearly nervous, so he placed his hand on the other’s shoulders and looked at him. “listen, we’re… we’re going to be fine. whatever it is that’s… out there. i don’t know what it could be.” he said, shaking his head as he squeezed the other’s shoulders.

once eddie mentioned something about the cemetery, he frowned. there it was again. someone had seen him at the cemetery but he had been out of town for his great aunt’s funeral and had only recently returned. how come people were saying that they saw them. “i… i wasn’t at the cemetery… i just came back to town recently, but… who fell in the graves?” he asked, frowning at the thought, but his features quickly softened when eddie mentioned that he didn’t want to be alone. “you…uh… you can stay here if you want. my parents are out and probably won’t return for a couple of days.” he offered, hoping that the other would take his offer. “you’re safe here, eddie.” he nodded.

+++

he nodded, rushed, frantic. “yeah. yeah, water’s good.”, he said, chest still heaving. eddie clasped a hand over his heart where it was threatening to burst out of his ribcage at any given moment. edde glance up, frowned slightly as he saw the gears turning in steve’s head. probably shouldn’t have mentioned nancy, he thought to himself, chewed nervously on the inside of his cheek. perhaps it was still a sore topic for steve. he huffed. staying true to his nature, eddie had managed to say the wrong thing at the wrong time, as always.

eddie threw steve a sharp look, as if punishing him for his joke - certainly ill-timed- though he had to bite down on a grin. no, no time to swoon at steve’s loveable antics now, this was serious. his mind was still racing, thoughts running by too fast, unable to grasp a coherent string of thought. eddie dug his nails into the palms of his hand, the dull ache grounding him somewhat.

“yeah, a fire. whole fucking thing went up into flames, it was insane, man. but we, uh, we ran. all got out okay i think.”, he swallowed, hands absent-mindedly ghosting over his hip where a nasty bruise was forming. “i knocked into a couple of chairs and all but i’m fine. i’ll live.” 

a shaky inhale, he nodded again, muscles in his neck straining. “yeah, not...not vecna, i don’t think so, i...it was really dark...”, eddie trailed off, he had to stop for a moment, feeling his bottom lip tremble. “but definitely like freaky, hell-ish, upside down monster shit, steve, i’m sure. like, a hundred percent. we all saw it, it was...it was, bad, man. it was big.”

just as he thought that his looming panic attack was finally going to consume him whole, he felt the steadying, grounding weight of steve’s hand on his shoulder. and, before he knew it, eddie reached up to cover steve’s hand with his own. he was shaking, ragged breaths rocking through his body. “you think? ‘cause i don’t...i don’t know, man. i can’t go..through all that shit again, i can’t.”

his voice cracked, broke, forcing him to stop. “someone said...whatever. i don’t know who it was..”, he trailed off, though suspicious, he discarded that train of thought. he hadn’t been at the cemetery himself, after all. he couldn’t be sure - perhaps someone had simply thought that they’d seen steve there. it was a problem for another day.

he looked up through his lashes, met steve’s eye. “uh...are you sure?”, he asked cautiously, though, fearing that steve might take back his offer, he quickly continued. “yeah, yeah i - if that’s ok with you i’d..love to stay. i haven’t slept, not really. trailer’s a lot scarier now that that thing might be back”, he explained, the memory of chrissy cunningham floating to the ceiling made him grimace. “and i..i don’t know. wanted to make sure you were, uh, safe.”