Steve had not agonized over his reflection to this extent since he was a teenager. After his shower, he had spent hours carefully arranging each strand of his hair as purposefully as possible before mussing it all up and starting all over. It must have been three attempts in when he finally decided it was good enough, not perfect, but good enough, and set to agonizing over his clothing instead. He must have laid out twelve outfits before he, once again, settled on something good enough. Not perfect. But good enough.
He felt foolish. He felt like a child. He felt vain and shallow and stupid.
But none of that stopped him.
Steve went ten over the speed limit and ran at least three stop signs.
Steve also didn't care about any of this.
Ever since Eddie slipped through the window of Mike's basement, his nerves had been on fire and his blood had been singing and there was a cord wrapped around his heart that was pulling him towards Mike's house. And following that was all that mattered.
He was the first to arrive that morning, around 6, and noticed that even Mike was not yet awake. Mrs. Wheeler, fully done up because of course she was, was busy at work at the stove, flipping pancakes while Holly watched cartoons in the living room. Mr. Wheeler was being useless on his recliner and Steve tried to recall if he'd ever seen him anywhere else in the house. Or outside of the house.
There was already a mug of coffee on the counter, finished exactly how he liked, and a small stack of paper plates next to a growing pile of pancakes.
Because of course.
"I figured with school canceled the troops are going to rally here," she offered and Steve wondered if she didn't know more than she let on. But then she smiled and turned back to the stove and Steve knew that he would never know the answer.
"If you could pull the juice out and set it on the counter," she tossed over her should, "that'd be lovely."
"Which ones?"
"All of them. We're going to have a lot of hungry teenagers here today."
Apple, orange, grape, and grapefruit were all set out, which Mrs. Wheeler took the time to arrange in chromatic order.
Because of course.
She considered the lineup for a moment before she went to the pantry to rummage, returning with an unopened bottle of some sort of blend of juices. She placed it off to the side of the counter, almost as an afterthought and Steve tucked it under his arm and grabbed a small stack of three plastic cups.
Was it an afterthought?
"I think I'll be down there for a while," Steve covered for himself, piling more pancakes than one man could eat alone onto a stack of three paper plates. "Nancy didn't know what box the cardigan she wants is in, so I'll have to go looking." If Mrs. Wheeler noticed anything, she said nothing. Only smiled and nodded, saying, "of course."
Mrs. Wheeler then patted his cheek with a smile and called him a good man.
He tried to believe her as he slipped down the steps as quietly as possible, despite the way the steps creaked and groaned under him. About half way down, he heard whispering, and wondered if he weren't intruding on some kind of lovers interlude. For the millionth time in the last 24 hours, Steve's heart hit the soles of his feet. If he already felt so stupid primping and preening himself like a prima donna that morning, and he was going to feel a million times worse if what he was hearing was correct. Steve swore that if he came down and either of them were in any state of undress he would have no choice but to launch himself into the sun.
But instead of sweet nothings, Steve arrived downstairs to see Chrissy leaning over Eddie's sleeping form. He had been in the bed with her, albiet over the covers, and Steve almost choked. He watched with a mixture of envy and shame as she pressed a gentle kiss into Eddie's cheek and lingered there longer than necessary. She ran her hand soothingly over his mussed hair, smoothing down what she could of the wild black mane.
She stood, turned, and jumped when she saw Steve. Steve forced a smile and returned to his descent down to the steps.
"Sorry to intrude," he muttered, setting the plates around what he assumed to be the kids' old DnD table. "but I thought maybe you'd be hungry, so..." he gestured to the spread, ignoring the gnawing feeling in his gut. It wasn't Chirssy's fault that Steve was nothing more than a lovesick puppy. She shouldn't be punished for it. And the way that she smiled at Steve made it hard to stay mad at her. The smile he returned was genuine.
"Are you," he asked, gesturing to the food. "Hungry, I mean?"
Chrissy seemed to consider the food for a second, touched her stomach, and looked back at Steve, her face splitting into a smile.
"Yeah... I guess... I guess I am."
"I imagine being dead for two years works up an appetite, doesn't it?"
Chrissy laughed and Steve sort of understood why Eddie would choose her. Hell, he'd choose her if he were younger and less aware of his... preferences... She was pretty, sweet, and seemingly all smiles. When she sat down, she crossed her ankles delicately and smoothed down her uniform, even though, Steve noticed, it was still caked in blood. He winced and realized that they should have had them both change last night. But aside from the gore dried onto her clothing, Chrissy was the epitome of delicate femininity.
And on top of it all, she was nice. Steve wanted nothing more than to dislike her, but she was looking at him like they'd been friends forever and took her plate with an emphatic "thank you." And she laughed when he told jokes. They were awkward and hesitant because Steve was nervous as hell and still confused, but her laughter was genuine.
"You know, I get it," Chrissy nodded suddenly, slicing her pancakes into delicate pieces. Steve cocked his head but Chrissy didn't elaborate right away. She flicked a drop of syrup away from her lips with the pad of a finger first, cleaning her face further with the corner of a napkin, seemingly drawing out Steve's anticipation endlessly.
"I get why Eddie likes you so much," Chrissy finally grinned.
Steve only huffed through his nose and nodded.
"Yeah, well," deflecting was what Steve did best, after all. He rubbed the back of his neck as he spoke, dodging all of the implications that couldn't possibly be true, no matter what that cord that seemed to be anchoring him to Eddie was singing to him. "We've been through some shit together, I guess. I'd never counted him as a friend while we were in school but... he's a reliable guy. I'm glad he feels the same about me."
Now it was Chrissy's turn to cock her head to the side, her delicate little eyebrows pulled down low over her confused expression.
"Anyway," Steve changed the subject artlessly, "people should be showing up here any minute. Then we can start working on a plan."
"Oh, um..." Chrissy glanced down at her empty plate, "actually, I was going to go..."
It stunned Steve into silence, his own breakfast only half finished. He glanced behind her at Eddie, still asleep on the bed, sprawled out on his stomach like a child.
"I know," Chrissy answered the question that Steve hadn't asked. "It's just... I don't know how long he'll sleep and... my parents must be frantic... I need to go."
She twisted her hands together and Steve was suddenly finding it easier to dislike her again.
"If he wakes up and you're not here..." he began softly.
"I know," she repeated, her face downturned as though to hide from Steve's accusations. "I'll come back, I just need to go home first. Change out of these clothes. Take a shower. I need to see my mom and dad."
Steve didn't like it, but not liking it didn't mean that he didn't he understand it.
And not like it didn't mean that he had any excuse to keep her here against her will, either. So when she stood and made for the window through which both she and Eddie had slipped the night before and watched as she hurried down the street and out of sight. He stood there for even longer, wondering what he was going to tell Eddie when he woke up.
Sorry, your girlfriend abandoned you? That seemed callous and meaner than Steve wanted to be. She's only doing what she thinks is best? Kinder, and definitely more rooted in the truth, but it felt deflective and coddling of Eddie in a way that Steve didn't think he'd appreciate.
Behind him, Eddie made a sound that interrupted his thinking. It sounded familiar and rooted Steve to the spot. He knew that sound. The sound of blood and spit and fear. It haunted Steve when he slept, more nights than not, as he replayed his own terrible footage of that night whether he wanted to or not.
And why the hell would he want to?
Why would he want to remember the way Dustin clung to Eddie like he could revive him? The way Steve had hauled him onto his shoulder, where Eddie's blood oozed instead of poured over his clothes? The way they tried to get him through the gate but he was so heavy and the gate was in such a shitty place and Steve had never understood the meaning of the phrase dead weight before that moment and they had to leave him? The way they had tried to make him look like he was sleeping, but Steve knew he just knew that Eddie Munson didn't sleep on his back with his hands folded across his stomach?
The hardest part was learning that closing the eyes of the dead was not the way it was in movies. It wasn't a simple pass of the hand and suddenly they were at peace.
The last image Steve had of his friend was looking up and seeing him lying there his eyes still open and mouth still agape and his face still stained with his own blood and there not being a damn thing any of them could do about it.
The second hardest part came directly after that when Steve had to hold Dustin for at least an hour while he screamed Eddie's name. Steve had forced himself to keep his own silence, breaking it only to soothe the younger boy with gentle words and it had been so painful because he'd kept all of that horrible, aching sorrow inside when all he wanted to do was join Dustin's chorus with his own agony. No. Steve had saved that for home, where he was all alone. He crawled back into his bed, broken, bleeding, and afraid, and mourned the man he could have loved all by himself until his throat was sore and his voice was gone.
But Eddie was still asleep. His face was knitted with terror and pain, but he was asleep and untouched. Eddie made another pained sound and his hand flexed, as though reaching for something. Steve wanted to take that hand and soothe its grip on the sheets. He wanted to take Chrissy's place. He wanted to fold himself into the hollow of Eddie's body, or else fold Eddie into the hollow of his. Whichever, it didn't matter. All that mattered was soothing Eddie. Eddie, who had just come back and was lost in a nightmare anyway.
If Chirssy hadn't left, would the nightmare have taken hold?
Steve was trying to hard not to hold things against the poor girl that she didn't deserve, but it was hard when Eddie was whimpering and there were tears squeezing from his tightly shut eyes.
"Come on, Eddie," Steve urged gently, curling his fingers around Eddie's hand as it lay on the mattress. "Come on, man, stay with m... us. Stay with us."
It seemed to work. Or at least well enough that the heart-wrenching sounds stopped issuing from Eddie's lips. Steve let him go and took up his position as people began arriving for the day above him. Will woke first and slipped downstairs with El like a pair of shadows. They almost startled Steve who hadn't even heard the steps creaking. He was followed closely by Robin, and then Jonathan and Nancy. They also dropped in to check on the sleeping man, Nancy going as far as to check Eddie's pulse. Lucas and Max woke next. Max, whose face was set in a deep frown but refused to talk about what was upsetting her. Lucas, who refused to tell a story that was not his to tell. Dustin was... well he was Dustin, bursting in with his usual hurricane of energy. Steve had to shush him because he didn't want Eddie waking up until he was good and ready to do so.
Almost everyone was awoken and amassed before 9 in the morning, save for Mike who was still sleeping in his room, according to everyone else.
Steve was alone when Eddie finally stirred, reaching out to the side of the bed. Searching for Chrissy. Steve tried not to let his mood sour, forcing an overly bright, "morning," as Eddie rose to awareness. Eddie's unbrushed and slept-in hair looked... markedly the same as his normal hair. But it made Steve smile. He'd seen men with their heads far more up their own asses than Eddie Munson try and look half as unaffected and fail.
Eddie had just rolled out of bed and looked breathtaking.
Breathtaking and brainless, Steve almost laughed. Eddie's gaze was a million miles away, there was a trail of dried spit on his cheek from where he had drooled in the night, and the impression of the sheets was red across the side of his face. Steve wanted to cross the distance and curl himself around Eddie, clean his cheek, and press feverish little kisses all over his sleep-numbed face until he woke up all the way.
But instead, he said "Chrissy left a while ago," failing to keep the edge from his voice. "She said she had to check in at the station."
It took Eddie a moment, but eventually, he blinked, a stupid, lazy smile spreading itself across his lips. He sat up and popped his shoulders in a way that sounded so satisfying and in a way that lifted his shirt just enough so that another thin band of pale flesh peeked out from beneath.
And then he began scratching at an itch on his stomach, hoisting the hem up almost to his chest as he did so and Steve thought he was going to die. Eddie was pale, he knew that, but at least his arms and face had the kiss of occasional sun. His abdomen, perpetually hidden from the world, was marble pale and had the lightest dusting of black hair that trailed from his belly button and lower, drawing Steve's eyes down below his belt of ridiculous bullet casings. He tried not to blush, not to stare, not to imagine the shape and texture of what lay beneath those jeans that had ruined Steve's life the second he saw them on Eddie's hips... but Eddie was stretching like a cat in the sun and it was so languorous and elegant that Steve couldn't just not look.
"Well, at least she didn't leave because of me," Steve distantly heard over the sound of his own blood in his ears. Somewhere, in the back of his mind, Steve wondered why Chrissy would have left because of him. Had Eddie done something? Not done something? Said or not said something? The cord around Steve's heart twanged painfully at the thought of Chrissy doing anything to upset Eddie, because if Eddie wanted her that was fine, but Steve was going to make damn sure Chrissy worked to deserve every inch of that man.
"I... didn't handle last night so well." Eddie's voice cut through the wondering but failed to jog his mind into full function. He knew that he was supposed to respond, but he had suddenly forgotten how to. Not just the mechanics of making his voice and mouth create the shape and sound of words but the concept of language itself had all but flown the coop of Steve's mind. He watched Eddie like the sole speaker of a dead language and gaped at him, his jaw flexing slightly as he tried to form words like help me and talk to me and kiss me but failed at every turn. He saw Eddie's perfect lips turn down in a frown and Steve felt his face growing darker and darker as he struggled for one single coherent thought.
Damn Eddie.
Damn Eddie straight to hell. Steve had worked so hard to make himself beautiful and Eddie had just woken up and stolen Steve's voice right out from under him.
Eddies arms snaked around his own chest and Steve nearly had to physically restrain himself. The cord that had tied itself around Steve's heart last night tugged him forward, toward Eddie, and begged Steve to press himself into his chest because if Eddie was going to hold anyone it was going to be Steve because he was happy to see him and not himself because he was afraid.
He remembered the feeling of Eddie's arms last night, like a home he'd never known and yet had always remembered existed.
He wanted that again.
"Kissing Chrissy... not a good look, man,"
Chrissy.
Her name was quickly becoming a bucket of ice water tossed over Steve's head. At least this time, he supposed, it was in conjunction with an apology. And at least now he was free of whatever had shackled his cognitive functions and allowed him the gift of speech and thought once more.
Eddie rolled off the bed and it was the clumsiest, most unacrobatic, most endearing thing Steve had ever seen. He looked down at his own food when Eddie flopped into the chair across from him. He passed Eddie a plate, asking "why should I care," with more force than he wanted. And he knew Eddie heard it because he could feel Eddie's dark eyes boring into him, almost trying to will something out of Steve.
Eddie didn't look like a scalpel, but he was. He was a thin, trained blade, slipping wherever he needed to be to get the answers he wanted. He was exacting in ways that no one expected him to be. He was nuanced and fierce and glinting in the light before you even knew what was happening. He was a survivor, and as such, he knew what to look for in people who may pose a threat. He was a surgeon, carefully peeling back layers to see what lay underneath in order to tell friend from foe. And Steve knew that was what Eddie was doing to him. He could feel Eddie carefully slipping the knife edge of his perception along Steve's skin, searching for an opening, however small, to slide the point in and begin digging.
Steve glanced up in time to see Eddie cut a pancake directly in half and shove the whole section into his mouth, shoving it artlessly into his left cheek like a child.
"Dude, seriously?"
Steve hadn't even expected to speak, and he certainly hadn't expected his voice to sound so natural. Eddie looked up with eyes so wide and so dark that Steve wondered, not for the first time, if he wasn't one of those fair folk that his crazy aunt knew so much about.
"What," Eddie asked around the pancake, half chewed and sitting in the pocket of his distended cheek. A dribble of syrup glistened on Eddie's chin and Steve had to fight away the temptations that posed. The force of Steve's smile shocked him as much as his voice. His cheeks hurt as it stretched across his face, but there wasn't time to be worried about that, because Eddie could look so much like a man begging to be taken, but he could also, a second later, look like nothing more than a child experiencing everything for the first time.
"I said last night, you're going to choke."
"And I said that I'd only come back."
"Yeah well, let's not push that luck. Here."
Steve watched Eddie begin to reach for the napkin in Steve's hand and then stop. Please don't be petulant, Steve begged. I'm not certain I can take you being a brat right now.
But it didn't matter, because Eddie didn't care what Steve could and could not take. He never had.
Eddie pushed his plate to the side and leaned bodily over the table, presenting his face to Steve like he knew what he was doing. Steve could feel his expression slip again into incredulousness and he once again cursed Eddie to eternal torment because there was no way that this wasn't calculated.
"If it bothers you so much, Harrington," Eddie's voice was a challenge. A threat. A promise. It was pitched down to something Steve more felt than heard and the sensation traveled down his spine to settle in his lower back like a lump of smoldering coal. "Fix it."
Steve wasn't without options. He could drop the napkin and shrug, telling Eddie that he could fix it himself or be a mess, he didn't really care. Or.
Or.
Or.
He could rise to Eddie's challenge.
"Want me to lick it first?"
Steve had not officially approved that statement, but it slid out of his lips anyway, as confidently spoke as anything he'd ever said to a girl in his whole life. More so. He'd almost never been that forward, having been painfully aware that almost any girl he'd said that to would fade away from embarrassment.
Not Eddie Munson.
Eddie Munson didn't have a shameful bone in his body.
Eddie Munson leaned forward and purred, "Only if you want to, Big Boy."
The moniker sent another bolt of electricity down Steve's spine and he could feel his expression twitch. It was more than a name. It was another gauntlet Eddie was throwing at Steve's feet and he would never know why. He laughed like he'd been hit in the gut because he didn't know what else to do, and tried to bring his eyebrows back down to a reasonable position on his forehead.
"You need to stop calling me that," he muttered with a shake of his head.
Steve could feel the stubble of Eddie's beard rasping under the napkin. It caught the fibers like sandpaper and Steve wondered what that felt like on the soft tissue of his lips. He'd only just realized... what he was... after Eddie's death... and Eddie had left such a high standard that Steve had never gotten that far with any guy before. Never got past the first date, to be honest. He'd even left a few early, taking the out Robin always laid for him, calling the venue ten minutes into the date with an "emergency."
No one had ever been quite as feral as Eddie. Quite as unhinged. Quite as much.
Or else, they had absolutely been those things, just never been those things in the absolutely stunning way Eddie had been.
Eddie was pressing into Steve's cleaning, the corners of his lips twitching up when Steve had to use his nail to peel off the more dried-on portions of syrup. He avoided Eddie's gaze as he worked, afraid to meet that precious and earnest expression when all Steve was thinking about was kissing him. Because he might actually do it if Eddie caught his eyes.
"Dustin keeps calling me that," he answered automatically, able to feel the tickle of Eddie's breathing on his face. Like a calm ebbing of the sea or the reliable breeze in the early spring air. He didn't realize the mistake in his answer until Eddie very innocently breathed, "So you do like it."
Steve stopped his cleaning, his mind coming to a screeching halt. Eddie's lips, still covered in sugary syrup and the faintest glimmer of saliva, curled into a smile to rival the Cheshire Cat.
"What," was the only word he could make himself say as Eddie closed the already minuscule distance between the two of them, his smile only growing more and more wicked by the second. He was like a predator as he spoke, and Steve had never felt so deliciously cornered in his life. Heat began to spread from the bridge of his nose all the way across his face towards his ears.
"I asked 'you don't like it'," Eddie's voice was a growl and his razor-sharp gaze sliced through Steve's veil-thin facade of concentration as he continued to clean Eddie's already very clean chin. "And all you said was that Dustin keeps calling you that."
Eddie's lips needed cleaning, but there was no way in hell Steve was putting himself in that position.
Eddie's fingertips rested like four little birds on the inside of Steve's wrist and he froze. Fireworks erupted where their skin made contact and spiderwebbed electricity up Steve's arm.
"You didn't say that you didn't like it." Steve could feel the way Eddie's lips and the muscles in his face worked as he formed the words that Steve felt all the way up his arm rather than heard.
"Of course, I don't like it."
There was absolutely nothing behind Steve's voice. It sounded weak and unconvinced but Steve couldn't devote anymore of his faculties to speaking because they were all currently focused on keeping his heart rate down so that Eddie didn't feel the thrumming of his pulse in his wrist. And he didn't move away from Eddie. Moving would mean that he would move his hand from Eddie's face and dislodge Eddie's fingers from the soft underside of his wrist, which seemed like a crime, or a sin, or both.
And then Eddie's tongue. His wicked, quick, horrible tongue flicked out to catch a sugar crystal on his lips.
What else can that tongue catch?
It made something strange and heavy settle in the pit of Steve's stomach. Something he felt while walking through the Upside Down with the man as he talked about acts of love like it was nothing as Steve wore his denim vest and imagined if his hands were that rough. Something he'd been chasing in other men since then and had never found.
Steve yanked his hand away dipping his head low over his remaining food, muttering an admonition to take smaller bites in a voice he did not recognize as his own.
Eddie said nothing, letting the expectancy linger in the air between them. No tension. No worry. Just something unspoken and important... but patient. Steve wondered if he even knew what was really thickening the air between them. He knew he wanted Eddie. He knew that like he knew so many other natural things about himself. But that wasn't what hovered between them. This was heavier than that. More resounding. More... more.
Steve noticed Eddie taking smaller bites and he smiled.
"I'm..." Steve struggled to find his voice again. "I'm glad you're back."
A sigh fell, heavy and unsatisfied from Steve's lips and he shook his head. Eddie hadn't just been on a trip. He'd been dead. For two years. Steve wasn't glad he was back he was swollen with joy that he was alive. He was unspeakably elated. There wasn't a word for what Steve felt. It was lighter than air and bigger than anything he'd ever felt before. And it was mingled with confusion and that terrible unspoken confession because Chrissy had been in the way of his voice.
And when Eddie looked into his eyes, Steve knew that he understood. Because Eddie's gaze was a magnifying glass and he knew the picture that Steve painted between them with his exhalation in perfect detail. He could read the dialogue in Steve's eyes like a letter he'd written just for Eddie. Steve knew that he was an open book for the other man and he could almost feel Eddie's fingers glancing over his pages.
"I'm glad to be back," was Eddie's blessedly simple reply.
Steve smiled and he could feel Eddie's finger pausing on his page, backtracking to find a word he didn't recognize or a phrase he'd missed, skimming back over a part he wanted to read a second and a third time. The bright red cord around Steve's heart sounded another longing twang and almost broke Steve.
He could feel those fingers on his soul, sliding down the length of the red cord that bound them, closer and closer.
Did they feel as rough on Steve's face?
On his shoulders?
In other unspeakable regions of his flesh?
Was he a surgeon-poised tool at all times, or would be turn into something more relentless and howling if...
If...
If...
"You're awake!"
Steve almost flew back at the sound of Mike's voice, uncertain of when he had leaned forward himself. He forced the heat from his face and the pit of his stomach and Eddie greeted Mike the same way he greeted everyone else. Like they were the most important thing in his world.
Steve tried not to be jealous of a child, but Eddie was holding him at arm's length with a smile and Steve wanted those eyes on him like that at all times.
Eddie hugged Mike again and Steve realized how touch-starved the other man was. Steve wanted to feed him. Wanted to gorge Eddie on sensation and touch until he was more satisfied than he'd ever been. Steve didn't want Eddie to ever hunger for contact again. He never wanted to be more than an arm's length away for the rest of his natural-born life.
"Anyway, I brought you down some clothes. I figure we're the same sizes now." Steve could hear the tears in Mike's voice. He knew the sound of tears in everyone's voice by now. Knew it better than he wanted to. The only blessing was the smile attached to the sound, and the way Mike was still clinging to Eddie's shoulders like the older man might fade away.
Steve would be lying if he wasn't worried about the same thing.
They were both crying and Steve wanted to cry along with them. Instead he busied himself with his breakfast, finishing the food in order to supply the two friends with some level of privacy, piping up only to provide the date when Eddie asked.
"Wait, shit, no, you're 17?" Eddie was doing the math clearly on his own face and Steve thought it was adorable. He knew everyone was catching up to him. They were all nearly his peers, by Steve's reckoning.
"Hang on, so that means that you're like what... 21, Harrington?"
Steve smiled and assumed a posture as familiar to him as his own skin or favorite jeans.
"Not until the 29th."
"Aww. I love a younger man."
The smile slid onto his face as easily as the posturing and Eddie mirrored it. His gaze wasn't a small dangerous knife this time. It was a mirror. It caught the light of Steve's expression and reflected it back at him, blinding him in the process.
And then Eddie was taking off his shirt and Steve nearly choked on the last bite of his breakfast. Thank god for Mike Wheeler and his offer of a shower because Steve wasn't sure he could be held responsible for his actions if Eddie had gotten that shirt that much higher on his skinny body.
Upstairs, Max and Lucas were conspiring, heads together and voices low. They were worried, he could tell, but not so much as to worry the rest. He tried not to pry. He tried not to read the way their lips formed around words. He tried not to recognize a name that made his body run cold and his hands itch. That made him see a halo of blond hair and a face the color of blood. Made him remember long legs all in denim and the absolute worst attitude he'd ever encountered. A voice in the shape of the dagger that hung from his ear, cutting the shape of his jaw into dangerous shards.
But that name hadn't died in the Upside Down.
Steve had never been any good at reading lips anyway.
The knock on the door cut Steve's thoughts short and everyone went still and silent. Another knock, this time louder, accompanied by Hopper shouting that he knew they were all in there.
Steve was the one who moved, opening the door enough for Hopper to see him, but nothing else. He was in uniform, of course, but Steve knew this was more than just an obligatory outfit choice. Steve knew about posturing, maybe more than most from his reign as a teenager. He could clock it when he saw it.
"Hey, any luck," Steve asked as casually as he could, leaning against the doorframe with his arm propped up above his head, the other resting on his hip. But his leg was bouncing. Hopper looked down and noticed too.
"None," Hopper said, his voice at a calculated volume. "But I came here to ask you the same thing."
Steve shook his head with a shrug, his face approximating the best facsimile of resignation that it could.
"Nope. No Munson yet. Working hard to keep morale up, though."
Steve jerked his head backwards at the full living and dining room of the Wheeler residence. Almost on cue, the group inside took up their chatter again, this time a little too loud to be something natural.
Hopper was quiet for a long moment, nodding gently at Steve. He clearly didn't buy it. But it wasn't about getting Hopper to believe that they didn't know. He wasn't stupid, and Steve didn't think he was. This was about giving him nothing and keeping him away, even if he knew Eddie was inside.
And from the look on Hopper's face, he did know that.
"Is El in there?"
Steve glanced over his shoulder as though to check. He knew El was huddled in close with Will, almost exchanging notes over what was going on.
"Yeah."
And then Hopper pushed his way into the house.
"El," he boomed, the affection in his voice not exactly false, but also clearly sitting alongside something else. El's head snapped up, a smile on her face but her hands all full of nervous energy.
"How was your sleepover, kid?" Hopper wasn't looking at El. He was looking at the entryway, searching for some sign that they were hiding Eddie Munson. Like Steve hadn't been militant when he came up to clear up every trace of the man he could, right now to a stray strand of hair that fell out of his scalp and landed on the steps. It had been too long to pass off as Mike and too dark to say it was Karen's and Steve had no clue how far Hopper's powers of observation went but he also knew that he couldn't have survived what he survived without damned good ones.
"It was good," El replied, nodding to reinforce her answer. Mike was behind her nodding too, like that's not suspicious. The kids have never been great at lying or hiding, Steve knows. He remembers the night Billy caved his face in because he saw them peeking through the window.
"Yeah? Did'ja... eat a lot of popcorn?" Hopper's voice was distracted and his eyes were everywhere but his daughter. He picked up a jacket and shook it out to see if something of Eddie's would fall from the bundle. No such luck, of course.
"And pizza," Will supplied, following Hopper with eyes far too intelligent for his own good. Hopper made a sound like he was interested but he was peering up the staircase, making Steve's blood run cold. He tried to hide it by leaning on the wall across the way from the door, his arms crossed in front of his chest.
"Mrs. Wheeler's taking a shower." Steve detected no question in Hopper's voice, but Nancy still nodded with a strained smile.
"Her car's not in the driveway."
Everyone came to a dead, silent halt and stared at the entryway. Steve stared at Hopper. Hopper stared up the steps. In the silence, Steve could hear every breath and step of the man upstairs. So could Hopper. When the water stopped, Hopper leaned back on his heels and adjusted his face, hooking his fingers into his belt in what Steve supposed would have been a casual stance were certain things not at stake. It made him bristle, watching him set that trap for Eddie.
All he could do was pray that Eddie had heard Hopper's voice and was either hiding or running.
And if he ran, Steve would find him again before anyone else.
"Hey guys, guess what!"
Hopper's expression settled, something smug in his eyes despite his smile. Steve wanted to hit him but he was frozen, his blood cold as Eddie bounded down the steps. "My tattoos are gone, so I guess that means..."
"Munson," the warmth in Hopper's voice belied the growing smugness in his eyes. "Good to see you again."
On the steps, Steve watched Eddie's vision narrow to just Hopper. Like that was all he could see. In this throat, with his blood pumping so freely from the hot shower, Steve could see Eddie's pulse thrumming like a panicked animal.
"You used to be fat."
Steve had to contain his laughter and nearly failed. Hopper either didn't hear his choked snort or didn't care. Probably the latter given how trained on Eddie Hopper's eyes were. Like a hunter with cornered prey.
Steve tries not to be furious when Hopper tells Eddie who ratted him out. He fails, even if rationally he knows that Hopper is right, and Chrissy just wants Eddie to be safe. It didn't stop the feverish flush from climbing Steve's chest and coloring his face. And it certainly wasn't helping that Eddie was back up the steps, searching for a place to run and hide again. And Mike weighing in on the fight, though well-intentioned he was, did nothing to quell the rising panic Steve could see in his eyes.
Another step back up as Hopper mentioned the town being after him. Steve realized with a wince that it hadn't been two years for Eddie. It had been moments. The town searching for him held very different meaning. Steve wanted to run over and ease the white-knuckled tension from Eddie's hands, cover them in his, and rush Eddie back upstairs to safety. But Robin did that for him, searching for and holding Eddie's eyes as she gently worked his grip looser on the railing.
"Everyone just shut up!"
The shout sounded painful in Steve's ears as it clawed its way out of Eddie's throat. He winced and saw Hopper take a surprised step back. Steve could see Eddie weighing his options on the steps, large brown eyes flitting this way and that, but never landing on anything.
Not until Steve spoke up.
"What if I drove him?" Steve could feel Eddie's gaze on him like one of his long, spindly arms across his shoulders. "And I stay with him, so he knows he has backup if anything goes wrong." He glanced at Eddie, found his eyes almost on accident, and then looked away, willing the blush from his cheeks.
Hopper was silent, his eyes moving back and forth between the to men, before he finally sighed and nodded.
"Put a hat on him." Hopper's voice was back to the gruffness that Steve recognized, and he physically relaxed against the way it cut through the tension.
"Hide his hair. I don't want people swarming the station trying to get a look at him."