Chapter Text
Eddie Munson is leaned back sideways in a plastic chair, hair sticking to his face, skin bare and flushed and damp, and he's sucking on a cherry popsicle, and Steve is actually, most certainly dying.
He drags his tongue out along the popsicle to catch every drop, the juice staining his lips bright red, and Steve thinks, hysterically, the demobats have nothing on Eddie Munson’s tongue, because only one of those things is going to successfully keep him from breathing, is going to make him actually have a heart attack and die. Like actually.
Eddie’s still wet from the pool, and water is running down his throat from his long, soaking hair. Steve watches, unable to look away, as droplets scour their way across the black ink of the sword on Eddie’s ribcage, following the lines before rolling over the ridges of his bone and dripping onto the chair below him. His bathing suit is black, because of course it is, and it’s clinging to his hips, his thighs, his—
Robin presses a beer to the side of his neck, causing him to jump and yelp like a puppy that’s had its paw stepped on. She stares at him. He knows she knows what he was doing, and he knows she’s absolutely teasing him despite the way her facial expression is painfully, seriously blank. She’s still holding the beer where it’s dripping on his shoulder arches one eyebrow when he doesn’t immediately take it.
She got that eyebrow thing from Nancy, Steve thinks bitterly, and snatches the beer. “Thanks.”
“Welcome,” she says, dry as wine, and then she shoves and pushes at him until there’s enough room for her to sit beside him in the same lounge chair. They stick together all along his left side and her right side because they’re tacky with sweat and both in bathing suits, and if she sits there for long they’re going to have weird tan lines, but Steve doesn’t bother to complain.
Much.
“This is why everyone thinks we’re dating, Buckley,” he mutters as he pries open the can in his hands, and she shrugs.
“You could do worse,” she says, and then sips at her fruit punch with a prideful little smirk. She elbows him in the ribs, and he does it back, and then they jab at each other until he accidentally catches her in the boob and she yells and shoves him off the chair. He scrapes his knee and his palms on the concrete and flips over to give her two aggressive middle fingers.
He cannot bring himself to look at Eddie, because he can hear Eddie laughing, and the mental image of his head thrown back with it, baring his long throat even more, is already making Steve feel way too hot, hotter than the stupid July sun has managed, and he’s sick of it.
“Are you done, children?” Dustin asks, amused, from where he bobs along in the pool in the one floaty that Steve owns. It’s a green donut-shaped floaty, and Dustin hogs it every single time he comes over.
“Shut up, Henderson,” he and Robin chorus, perfectly in sync, and Dustin grins at them both, delighted as always.
“Yeah Dustin, shut up,” Lucas shoves Dustin, for some reason. It capsizes the floaty, and Dustin goes under. He comes up sputtering, and the kids break out in a war with a lot of yelling and splashing.
Steve ignores them and climbs to his feet, hissing like a feral cat as he rubs the gravel out of his palms and frowns at the tiny patch of blood on his knee. “Ouch, Rob,” he complains sullenly, and Robin sticks the side of her red solo cup to his knee, as though to ice it. He rolls his eyes, snatches up his beer again, and drops into the other lounge chair, away from her.
Nancy drops down to sit on the end, which makes the whole thing bounce a little, and he blinks in surprise. He hadn’t even seen her arrive, honestly, and wow isn’t that a frightening thought, being so caught up in Eddie Munson eating a popsicle that he doesn’t notice Nancy Wheeler showing up in his backyard. But sure enough Will and Jonathan appear from his house, clearly having arrived with her. Steve guesses people are just letting themselves in now, apparently, which is fascinating, truly. His parents would simply ascend into Heaven at the thought of the Byers walking into their house unannounced, much less Eddie Munson drying up his hair with one of their good towels.
“Sunscreen,” Jonathan calls out, like he’s the responsible one. Steve tries to think ‘worrywart’ but he can’t actually justify the thought when the word had also been like, on the tip of his tongue.
Will ignores him, dropping his shirt at the end of Robin’s chair and running towards the pool. He doesn’t jump in, he just leans over with his hands on his knees. He’s leaning over to talk to Mike, his eyes big and excited. “Did you ask him? Did he say yes? Do we get to go?”
Steve cocks his head to the side, attention suddenly on the kids.
“Shhh!” Mike hisses, “We were getting Dustin to ask, because he likes Dustin best!”
“Everyone likes Dustin best,” Max announces, climbing out of the ladder of Steve’s pool and moving towards the diving board. “Dustin is the only one of you nerds that has any other friends.”
“Not true!” Lucas protests, and Max gives him a scathing look.
“Oh? What? Like the basketball team, Lucas?” she sneers, and every single person hanging out in Steve’s backyard winces really hard. Eddie snarfles his drink and starts laughing again.
So they’re probably broken up again, Steve thinks, still kind of with his face screwed up as Lucas just sort of sinks under the water, defeated, and like she can read his mind, Robin starts laughing too.
Her laughter cuts off when Nancy stands up off the end of his chair, undoing the tie on her skirt and letting it fall to the ground before stripping off her top. While her face is blocked by fabric, Steve rips the tab off his can and throws it at Robin. It bounces off Robin’s forehead, and his best friend has just enough time to swipe the drool from the corner of her mouth and look away before Nancy drops her t-shirt on the ground by her skirt.
Nancy bounces over to Jonathan to get her floral-printed bag, and Robin gives Steve a thumbs up. Steve nods, because that is what they do now, he guesses. Snap each other out of ogling their friends.
Nancy sits on Robin’s chair when she returns, rummaging through her bag and pulling out sunscreen. She stretches out her legs, all sun-tanned skin in a small pink and blue bathing suit, and Robin looks a lot more sunburned than she had a moment ago. Steve grins to himself and shakes his head.
“So did they ask you?” Nancy asks, bright and sunny as she rubs sunscreen into her legs and sends Robin into a seizure, or something.
“Nancy!” Mike yells, and flops backward into the water with a loud, very dramatic groan. “You’re ruining it!”
Nancy makes an ‘oops’ face, but can’t stop looking amused as she rubs sunscreen into her elbows and shoulders and clearly tries not to laugh at him. He glares at her. She can’t see if through his thick-banded sunglasses, but he hopes she gets the gist.
“He’s mad because I told him you’d say no,” Nancy says, and then looks at Robin while holding out the bottle of sunscreen. “Hey, could you get my back?”
Robin’s eyes glaze over and she fumbles the bottle twice, despite just needing to take it out of Nancy’s hands, and really, Steve thinks, he should have caught on to Robin being gay as all hell sooner.
As he’s rolling his eyes at her antics, he catches Eddie also watching the scene from his chair by the cooler. Eddie meets Steve’s gaze, gestures at Robin and Nancy, and then makes a really crude gesture with his fingers that involves two peace-signs interlocking and wiggling. Steve wrinkles his nose and shakes his head and laughs.
“Maybe we should wait until she gets in the pool,” Lucas whispers in a whisper that isn’t all that quiet at all. “Robin too. Maybe if he’s distracted by wet girls he won’t remember to say no.”
Steve’s mouth opens and he’s offended for a moment, trying to think back and see if the old Steve that was kind of a douche might have fallen for that sort of trick. Maybe? He kind of doubts it. Maybe when he was in love with Nancy?
Eddie stands up, slides the rest of the popsicle in his mouth, and tosses the stick in the trash. The caveman idiot that lives in Steve Harrington’s brain says, Whatever he wants, give it to him, and he decides that Lucas’ statement was probably not too far off anyway.
“Okay, ew, don’t say wet girls,” Erica says, and bops her brother in the head with her unicorn floaty’s horn. “And anyway, not everyone is a pervert like you, dude.”
“I’m not a pervert!”
“Okay, for the third time, do you want me to tell everyone what I found under your bed? Because it was really gross, Lucas, and I’m not too young to know why–”
“Okay! Okay, what? What is it, what do you want to ask me? Spit it out you little gremlins, I’m losing patience here.” Steve slams his beer down on the table and spins to face the pool, “It’s clearly important, just ask me.”
Immediately, all the kids look at Dustin. Dustin looks back at them all and then looks up at Steve. He looks a little bit like a drowned rat with all his curly hair sticking to him and his front teeth chewing on his bottom lip. “Uh,” he says, and then squints, thinking.
“Jesus Christ,” Steve says, pushing his sunglasses up into his hair so he can look Dustin in the eye. “Is it the Upside Down again?”
“No!” Dustin says quickly, waving his hands as if to physically bat away Steve’s fear. “No, no, it’s nothing bad. Just a favor.”
“A favor.” Steve repeats, and then waits. Dustin purses his lips and squinches his nose, stalling.
“Henderson, the DC to succeed gets higher for every second you’re wasting here, buddy.” Eddie pipes up as he finishes his popsicle. “Just tell the good King Steve what the hell you want already, and I’ll help you persuade him if needed.”
Steve gives him a dirty look, but gets distracted because Eddie’s tongue is now licking bright red juice off his inner arm. Eddie notices him looking because Eddie grins at him, all sharp teeth and big brown eyes. He brings his thumb up his mouth and chews on the edge. He doesn’t have his rings on because he’d been swimming and his fingers look bare and stark without them. Steve tears his eyes away, but it takes more effort than he’s really proud of.
“I think the Freak helping is more a negative than a positive,” Erica points out from where she sits on a unicorn floaty that she brought herself. Eddie flips her off, and Lucas splashes him for flipping off his little sister.
Erica is very wrong. Steve is a bit of a pushover for his crushes. Eddie could ask him to go back to the Upside Down and he might consider it.
“Just ask me for the stupid favor!” Steve yells, to ignore that thought. “What do you want!?”
“Oh god, it’s a sex talk, isn’t it?” Robin gasps, covering her mouth, “You want to bang your little Mormon girlfriend and you’re asking St–”
“Wha – No!” Dustin yells, horrified, “God, no, no no, no sex talk! I want Steve to drive us to Indianapolis so we can go to the Renaissance Faire and LARP event that happens next week!”
There’s a beat of silence except for the gurgle of the water in the pool and the laughing coming from Nancy. Then Steve runs a hand down his face and sighs heavily.
“That’s it? All that, and that’s it?”
Dustin’s eyes brighten, “So you’ll do it?”
Steve flips his sunglasses back onto his eyes and reclines in his pool chair again. “No.”
Chaos, again, as all the kids start yelling and talking over one another. They’re whining is what they’re doing, Steve thinks as they all start begging and pleading, giving reasons it's a good idea and offering him every penny of their allowance in gas money.
“I’ll set you up with Mike’s cousin!” Erica offers, “Y’know, Stacy!”
Steve ignores him, and then also ignores the blubbering and sounds of drowning as Lucas shoves Erica’s floaty, knocking her under the water just as he had Dustin. She comes back up shrieking and he ignores that too.
“No,” he repeats, sing-songy and untroubled as he reaches for the remote and turns the radio up. Bon Jovi isn’t his usual jam, but he’s enjoying the sound of the guitar over the sound of his kids all offering him various favors.
“We’ll never ask you for anything! Ever again!” Mike offers, still partially drowning Lucas.
“Yeah, right,” Steve says, not even looking at him as he idly picks at a scab on his knuckles.
“We’ll lay off you about dating Robin!” Dustin tries, and Steve just rolls his eyes.
“What if we did that anyways?” Robin recommends, and Steve points at her, says nothing, and lounges back again, closing his eyes.
“Kids!” Eddie’s voice cuts through Erica’s offer of not beating Steve to death, “That’s enough! One more word, and it’s Tomb of Horrors for every one of you!”
The kids fall remarkably silent. Even Erica seals her lips together, covering her mouth with one hand and staring at Eddie with wide eyes. Whatever Tomb of Horrors is, it’s clearly enough of a threat that even the bravest of the children are taking it seriously.
“Steve sucks,” Mike complains, and Steve snorts and picks up the empty can at his elbow to take inside. He scoops up Robin’s cup as he passes to refill it and she blinks at him over Nancy’s shoulder and then grins, thankful.
The ice in the cooler is running low, and they need more juices for the kids anyway, so he makes a quick mental checklist of things he needs as he gathers up a bit more trash and heads inside. He’ll fetch Eddie another popsicle, too, he decides, as reward for helping him. And because Steve is, evidently, a masochist.
He crushes up the cans and pulls the two-liter of fruit punch out of his fridge to pour it into the fresh ice he’d added to Robin’s cup. One moment he is alone in his kitchen and then Will Byers is standing across from him, on the other side of the kitchen island, his brown eyes wide and fixed on Steve.
“Jesus Christ,” Steve jumps about a foot in the air and sloshes juice across the counter, which Will immediately grabs paper towels to help clean up. Steve caps the bottle and sets it aside to help the kid mop up the spill, but Will has it handled. Will seems to handle a lot of messes, if Steve is honest.
“Sorry,” Will says, frowning, “I should have said something, I guess.”
“It’s fine,” Steve says, waving him off, “But I’m taking up Eddie’s offer to get you a little portable speaker that always plays music, or a bell or something. You’re like a cat.”
Will grins, “Yeah. I used to be able to sneak around the house without anyone hearing, because dad–” He trails off, and then shakes his head. “Can I… talk to you? About this trip thing?”
Steve frowns. If the kids are the ones that sent Will in here to negotiate, they’ve grown smarter and more dangerous in their tactics. Will is the one Steve has the most trouble saying ‘no’ to, other than Dustin. Will just always looks so much older than the others, tired and worn in ways Steve understands and hates to see reflected. And he’s smart, too. They all are, but Will has an uncanny ability to know exactly what people need to hear, exactly when they need to hear it.
Also, he’s pretty sure Will notices him checking out Eddie. If only because Will is also checking out Eddie, which makes Steve kind of growly in his chest, but whatever. No reason to be jealous over a kid.
“You’re not going to convince me,” Steve says instead, and it is a lie. He knows it's a lie as soon as it leaves his mouth, because Will just looks a bit saddened, but resigned.
“Yeah. But I thought I’d explain, a little, at least.” Will says, throwing the sopping wet paper towels into the trash and then leaning on the counter. His posture indirectly blocks Steve from heading to the backyard. Steve doesn’t think he knows this, but if he does, he’s impressed Will’s willing to go that far.
He sighs and waves a hand. “Go ahead, Baby Byers.”
Will grins a little at the nickname and seems to gather his thoughts for a moment. “I don’t know how long mom will let us stay here, this time. And I know the others think it's permanent, but it isn’t. Mom hates Hawkins. She thinks the longer we stay here, the more likely it is I’ll… I don’t know. Disappear. Die.” He shrugs, like those aren’t very real concerns, and Steve admires his courage, really, he does. “Whatever. And El doesn’t like it either. I know she and Mike want to run away to some dreamland together, and Dustin is going away to science camp with Suzie in July, and Max and Lucas spend every single day together now, and…”
Will pauses to catch his breath, and Steve wets his lips.
“You feel like you’re losing them all.”
Will nods. “I already felt like that. When I left, I gave Erica my books because I knew I’d never play with another party. They joined Eddie’s D&D game immediately upon getting to high school. And that’s fine, I’m happy for them, and I like Eddie. I just…”
“You want something that’s for you.” Steve finishes. He thinks of the way Thursdays are always for him and Robin to watch movies and eat ice cream and only ice cream, and neither of them plan dates or family gatherings on Thursdays because those days are for him and Robin. “Look, I get it, but you’re asking me to take a week off work and go to some nerd fest that I don’t even like, and–”
“Aren’t you wondering why we didn’t just ask Eddie?” Will points out, meeting Steve’s eyes again knowingly. “Eddie has a car, and it’s way more his scene than yours. We know that. In fact, I’m pretty sure he’s already going.”
Steve hesitates. He feels like his foot is slowly lowering onto a bear trap, and he sees the trap, and is knowingly putting his foot in it anyway. He hesitates a second longer, and then gives in. “Alright. Why ask me, then?”
“We want you there.” Will says, and his eyes are honest and his smile is dorky, and Steve hates him. “We were all talking about it, and planning out our costumes and which events–”
“Costumes?!”
“ – we were going to and everything, and everyone kept saying your name. It’s probably a little codependent, but I think we all just… really wanted it to be the full group. You included.” Will’s smile slacks off a little, and he frowns, “Also, to be honest, like, thinking about it now. I don’t think my mom would let me go if it was just Eddie going. She… likes when you’re there too. She knows you take care of us. Not that Eddie doesn’t, but you do it differently.”
Steve sighs heavily. He knew letting Will talk was a bad idea.
He turns around, wrenches open his fridge, and digs through shelves of frozen dinners before emerging with one of his coveted possessions - a Nestle Drumstick. He slams it into Will’s hand, points between his eyes, and opens his mouth.
Then he closes it, snatches a box of bomb pops for Eddie, shuts the freezer, and grabs Robin’s juice.
He storms back out into the yard, throws the popsicles into Eddie’s chest, and glares at all the kids that are staring at him for his abrupt, aggressive entrance. Eddie calmly removes a popsicle and tosses the others into the cooler at his side. He watches Steve expectantly, and Steve avoids his curious brown eyes to the best of his ability.
“I’ll take you to your stupid faire thing,” Steve grumbles, “But don’t expect me to get on any rides.”
“Oh my god,” says Robin, but Steve doesn’t hear her, because Eddie is beaming like sunshine.
Eddie reaches out with the hand not holding his popsicle and pokes his stomach, right above the jagged lines of scars on either side of his abdomen, and his finger feels scorching hot. “Softy. Knew the good one would get you.”
“Eddie’s coming too, though,” Steve decides, and Eddie barks a laugh,
“I was already going, but do go on with your demands, Your Highness.”
“And Robin.” Steve adds, just to be a shithead.
“What?!” Robin yells, her head popping up from where she’d been diving for bomb pops in Eddie’s cooler. “Steve, I’m poor! My job! Our jobs!”
“You can take Mike and Lucas’ allowance for all of June as payment,” Steve tells her, and Mike and Lucas, wisely, do not protest.
Robin seems to contemplate, looking between Mike and Lucas and thinking.
“They make good money,” Nancy offers, “More if they mow the lawns this week instead of having Steve do it.”
Robin nods, appeased.
“Is that a deal?” Steve asks, looking out over the swimming pool full of damp faces that are all looking at him with glowing, excited eyes. Even Max, who doesn’t give a shit about D&D and all the nerd stuff, looks like she’s fighting off a smile.
“I get to dress you up.” Eddie interrupts, “No party of mine is showing up to a Renfest not in proper garb. I get to dress you up, or this whole thing is off.”
Steve wrinkles his nose, already protesting loudly that he was not going to be wearing whatever weed-smoke-smelling trash Eddie wanted to put him in, but Robin hops up, covers his mouth with her hand, and nods.
“Deal,” she says, “We’ll do it.”
The kids all start screaming and cheering and leaping out of the pool to hug Eddie and Steve and jump all over the place. Mike is hugging Will, and Will looks almost too happy about it. Dustin and Erica are performing some sort of complicated hand-shake. Lucas is bragging to Nancy about succeeding where she thought they’d fail, and Max is hugging her arm and grinning, at ease with the chaos in a way she clearly never thought she’d be.
“Steve Harrington, you surprise me every day,” says Eddie, throwing an arm around his shoulders and shaking him a little. They’re almost the same height, and the jostling movement brings their heads close together. “I cannot wait to wrap you in leather.”
Steve’s mind blanks, it just shuts off. He looks at Eddie. “Huh?”
Eddie just grins, looks him up and down, and nods. “Maybe some chain, too.”
“Huh?!”
Eddie unwraps his arm from Steve’s shoulders and holds his hands up as if to take a picture. Steve rolls his eyes and Eddie makes a loud clicking sound. He pretends to check out the photo, whistles, winks at Steve, and then he pockets the invisible polaroid. Steve shakes his head, grinning despite himself.
Steve catches Dustin around the shoulders, tackling him into the pool. The kids are all louder now, absolutely shouting over one another as they wrestle and play fight and swarm around the adults. Steve feels a bit like he might be getting dragged underwater, because he’s dizzy and doesn’t really know what’s going on, and everyone keeps yelling D&D and fantasy words at him that he doesn’t fully comprehend, but everyone is so happy and excited that he simply cannot bring himself to ruin their excitement.
“You are down bad for Eddie Munson,” Robin informs him, and Steve sighs and shakes his head.
“Like I didn’t already know that.”