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Gareth’s mom doesn’t allow the band to smoke in the house, not even the garage because she says the smoke seeps through the door into the kitchen, so Eddie, Jeff, Gareth and Grant sit on the curb in front of the house while Eddie smokes a cigarette and Jeff and Gareth argue about the proposed set list for Tuesday’s show and if their new song is ready for its debut. At the sound of pounding feet, Eddie looks up while exhaling and immediately chokes. Steve Harrington is running at him. Shirtless. In little green running shorts. He’s been running for awhile, he’s wearing a sweatband around his head, but his chest is glistening with sweat, his chest hair is damp, and Eddie. Can’t. Stop. Staring. Steve makes eye contact, gives a little wave and a half smile and then he’s past, and Eddie stares at the retreating short shorts bouncing as Steve continues on his run.
“Eddie! Guys! Hey!” Eddie somehow manages to tear his eyes of Steve’s bouncing ass to see Mike Wheeler and Dustin Henderson jogging toward them in matching t-shirts. Mike is panting and waving at him as he comes to a stop a few feet away. Dustin bounces in place, antsy beside Mike but also waves. Eddie throws another look back at Steve only to finally notice that Steve wasn’t running alone, Lucas Sinclair is on his left and Eddie’s redheaded neighbor is on his right, and another girl on a bike is keeping pace. They are all wearing matching grey t-shirts, the back of Sinclair’s says STALKER and the back of the redhead’s says MADMAX (Max Mayfield if Eddie remembers correctly) and the girl on the bike, presumably Sinclair’s little sister, her shirt says Coach Lady Applejack, Future President of Earth, which, wow.
“You guys run with Steve Harrington?” Eddie tunes back into the boys in front of him at Jeff’s question. Sure enough the front of Mike and Dustin’s shirts say, ‘Harrington’s Upside Down Training’, in a circle around a baseball bat (with nails?) and crossing over a scoop (an ice cream scoop?).
“Oh yeah, Steve’s the best.” Dustin answers Jeff enthusiastically, he’s not out of breath like Mike is.
Mike’s eyeroll is so big it’s practically audible, “he is not. This is torture.”
“Maybe if you skipped less then you wouldn’t be so out of shape!” Dustin retorts.
Mike doesn’t get a chance to respond, because at some point the others turned around and noticed Dustin and Mike stopped and headed back, Steve Harrington scoops Mike into a fireman’s carry over his shoulder and continues running. Mike is yelling and flailing wildly, and Steve only makes it six or so steps away before he collapses onto the lawn. “You’re never gonna be able to outrun a Demogorgon, man!” Steve yells while laughing.
Coach Lady Applejack, Future President of Earth, stops on her bike in front of Eddie and has a clipboard with a pencil and is writing something down, “I’m deducting points from both you and that dumbass for stopping.”
“What? No! I didn’t stop, we paused to greet our friends from Hellfire Club!” Dustin objects.
“Losers,” Madmax calls out.
“Hi guys!” Sinclair greets with a big smile, he and Madmax are barely winded, they continue jogging past and Madmax tackles Steve in a move reminiscent of WrestleMania. Steve laughs and groans all at once, and Madmax cackles and shoots back to her feet to run and Steve stumbles to his feet to chase her.
Eddie’s brain is clearly on a fifteen second delay because he blurts out, “did Harrington say ‘Demogorgon?’”
Jeff confirms, but the rest of Harrington’s running club are chasing after Steve and Madmax. Eddie shrugs, moves on, and thanks Satan and Demogrogons both for the new spank bank material.
“So, how much does Steve charge for his training class thing?” Jeff asks at the next Hellfire Club meeting. Eddie sinks back in his chair to fondly recall sweaty, shirtless Steve Harrington. He should find out what their schedule is and make a habit of taking smoke breaks along their running route. Would that be too obvious?
“Charge?” Mike snorts.
“Or is it a community service thing? Like, too many DUIs or something?” Gareth snarks.
“He doesn’t charge us anything.” Lucas huffs.
“Yeah, like I keep telling you all, Steve is our friend, he’s my best friend.” Dustin gestures loudly. Eddie raises a skeptical eyebrow, maybe the kids’ parents pay Steve on the downlow so that they don’t know that Steve Harrington would never hang around a bunch of nerd kids, it’s probably supposed to help their self-confidence or something.
“And you guys, like, workout with him? What’s this Upside Down training for?” Grant asks skeptically.
“It’s not really training, it’s an inside joke-“ Lucas starts to say.
“Yeah, you know, he’s training us to runaway from bullies!” Mike interrupts. “Ya know, only in an upside down world would a jock train us nerds to run away from other jocks, right?”
“Oh. Well. Can we join too?” Jeff asks.
“What?” Eddie laughs in disbelief.
“Well, I could use some pointers myself to avoid Carver and the rest of those assholes.” Jeff shrugs. Gareth nods in agreement, Grant looks horrified, and everyone turns to look at Eddie.
Look, Eddie has had a crush on Steve Harrington for, like, four years. Steve Harrington is the only reason Eddie passed gym last year, because the grade was for participation and Eddie showed up every day that semester to watch Steve Harrington get all sweaty and all that glorious hair flop around. Eddie is but a man. Who is he to pass up another chance to watch Steve get all sweaty, perhaps shirtless this time? And maybe proving to his freshman pupils that Steve Harrington is truly an asshole would be the cherry on top.
So that’s how Eddie finds himself the next Saturday at Loch Nora Park wearing sweatpants and a t-shirt with the rest of the Hellfire Club, plus Max Mayfield, Erica Sinclair, and Robin Buckley from the marching band. The four upperclassmen of Hellfire are the only ones not wearing a matching Upside Down t-shirt. Steve is unfortunately also wearing a matching shirt today, which, what the hell, this is not what Eddie signed up for.
“Hey guys, uh, welcome!” Steve greets enthusiastically as he places a cooler on the picnic table. “I hear you want help running away from bullies?”
“What, you’re not gonna teach us to fight the bullies?” Eddie asks.
Mike snorts loudly, “only if you want to learn how to lose a fight.” Max punches Mike in the arm, pretty hard judging from Mike’s wince and then cradling of his arm.
Dustin, even louder, interjects, “I told you guys, Steve totally won that fight over the summer!”
“Dude, no reliable witnesses means there’s no proof,” Lucas argues.
“I am a reliable witness!” Dustin shouts.
“He won against one guy, but then that guy went and got his friends and Steve did not win that round, so I guess it depends on what you judge the fight as, like was the whole encounter one fight, or was it several different fights culminating in a battle that ultimately Steve lost?” Erica lays out, and who is this tiny, bossy child? And what the hell happened over the summer?
“Uh, I didn’t lose the battle, I got all of you twerps outta there without a scratch! Well, except me,” Steve tries to defend himself.
“You got us outta there?” Erica turns her unimpressed gaze on Steve.
“She’s got you there, dingus,” Robin agrees.
Anyways,” Steve huffs, and it is not adorable, nope, “Welcome to-“ Steve points to his shirt, “-my Upside Down Training. It’s mostly running, we’re working on building stamina and endurance.”
“And how much do you charge?” Grant asks, suspicious tone, as he should.
Steve frowns, “Charge? There’s no --”
“Five dollars a session.” Erica interrupts.
“Whoa, Erica, that’s, like, way too much-“
“Steve, you provide shirts, snacks, bottled water, and expertise. You are providing a service, this is America, nothing is free.” Eddie thinks he understands the ‘president for life’ title now for this impressive child. He briefly wonders if he should ask her to manage the band.
“I’m going to send you to work for my dad one of these days,” Steve grumbles, “Okay, ten dollars a month and the first month is free. Don’t give me that look, that’s a standard gym membership deal.”
Erica rolls her eyes, “Fine, but I get fifty percent of your earnings.” Okay, so no managing the band, Eddie muses, watching the surreal exchange of a small child bossing around Steve Harrington.
“That means no more ice cream for life,” Robin tries to add.
“Child endangerment. Ice cream for life,” Erica is glaring at Robin now.
“Yeah, yeah, Ice cream for life. Scoops Troop for life,” Steve agrees, grinning and then flicks Erica’s braided pigtail. “Okay,” Steve turns back to his gathered subjects, “I like to start with some warmup exercises.”
Steve leads them into a bunch of exercises, starting with simple heel lifts and knee lifts and ending with jumping jacks. Steve is still wearing a shirt, so Eddie is pouting, and Grant leans over to hiss, “Hey, you could have put a stop to this, but you agreed.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Eddie pants.
Steve then leads them around the park, but the running is way easier than Eddie expected. Steve only has them run in fifteen-second intervals spaced with one-minute walks in between. Erica is back on her bike and has a stopwatch that she uses to call out the intervals. Steve runs with them, and he stays with his new additions’ slower pace instead of showing off like Max and Lucas, who use the fifteen second runs for all out sprints and mini races that they heckle each other over. Steve has them do the intervals ten times, and then they do a five-minute cool down walk back to the picnic table they started at, and Steve leads them into cool down stretches. Eddie is beat, even though the work out was clearly tailored to beginners and Eddie thought himself moderately fit, until he watched Dustin Henderson do all the same exercises and still have plenty of energy to bounce around and run his mouth non-stop updating Steve about his last radio date with his girlfriend Suzie. Steve should be annoyed, Eddie adores Dustin but that kid can talk, and Steve just has an indulgent grin as he interjects with the occasional comment or question.
After the stretching, Steve opens the cooler and starts handing out water bottles and snacks consisting of bananas, clementine oranges, baby carrots and fruit snacks. Erica apparently also keeps track of their stats and assigns points arbitrarily (mostly to drive Mike, Dustin and Lucas crazy, as Robin and Max get extra points for things like good hair. Robin didn’t even run and she has more points than Mike somehow).
While Mike defends his own growing hair, Eddie sidles up to Steve, mouth full of fruit snacks, and asks, “So you really don’t charge the kids for any of this?”
Steve grins at him, Eddie’s heart does not skip a beat, nope, and replies, “Oh no, this started as a tit for tat thing. Like, for every nerd-shit thing we do we have to do a non-nerd thing. Like, we watched Clash of the Titans, and I had to sit through a forty minute lecture on all the inaccuracies, like that stupid two headed dog thing-“
“-it’s supposed to have three heads! Cerberus! Literally everyone knows that-“ Dustin hollers but Steve ignores him.
“And so, I made Dustin run with me the next morning, and then Lucas asked if he could join, and anything Lucas does Max can do better, and you get enough of the shitheads together and Mike just, like, appears, and Robin and Erica because we’re Scoops Troop for life, so yeah, then it became a thing, and we had Baby Byers design the shirts, he and El both have shirts too even though they’re in California now.”
“Cool,” Eddie responds because he has no idea what else to say. Steve Harrington seems to genuinely like hanging out with nerdy kids. What is the world coming to? Maybe Eddie is in an upside-down world. “How did you guys even meet?”
“I met all the kids when I was dating Nancy, Mike’s sister?” Steve says as if Eddie does not know about Nancy Wheeler, and how she tamed King Steve only to dump him for the social outcast Jonathan Byers. Eddie just nods. “-But it wasn’t until after the breakup that I actually got to know any of them. Dustin asked me to help look for his lost cat and it all quickly snowballed into a shit show of Billy Hargrove beating my face in and then Dustin and I were bound together for life,” Steve says with a fond smile. Eddie remembers Steve missing a week of school for a concussion that left him in the hospital and then showing up with still healing bruises, and apparently, Steve remembers that time fondly. Clearly Steve is leaving out important details.
“Huh,” Eddie again doesn’t know what to say. How the hell did finding a cat end up with Steve getting beat up and a gaggle of loyal kids?
Eddie and the other upperclassman show up again the following weekend. Eddie has a free month of ogling Steve Harrington after all. Steve has matching t-shirts for them already, and instead of nicknames it has their Dungeons and Dragons’ classes. Eddie’s says, ‘The Bard.’ Eddie has completely normal feelings about the shirt, okay, just don’t ask him about them. The rest of the guys think they are really cool, and Steve just smiles bashfully and says the nicknames were Dustin’s idea, like getting customized t-shirts made within a week was just a normal, not-a-big-deal thing.
The exercises are mostly the same, except the running is in thirty-second intervals now. Steve is surprisingly a good teacher, he throws lots of encouragement and cheers everyone on, and he’s genuine, not a hint of condensation. During their cooldown walk Steve gets in a conversation about music with Jeff and Gareth, who tell Steve about Corroded Coffin and Steve is nice, no teasing or fake enthusiasm as he talks music with the nerdiest kids at Hawkins High.
Eddie glares at his traitor friends’ backs as Steve lists his favorite bands, “Oh, Tears for Fears, Depeche Mode-“
“Depeche Mode? I love Depeche Mode!” Gareth interrupts.
“Since When?” Eddie gapes.
But Gareth ignores him, “Just Can’t Get Enough is fun, of course, but my favorite is Blasphemous Rumors-“
“Mine too!” Steve agrees with a bright grin that Eddie can’t tear his eyes from.
And then Jeff starts singing, “I don't want to start Any blasphemous rumors-“
And, oh god, Steve chimes in, and his voice is actually pretty decent, and Eddie wants to die. “But I think that God's Got a sick sense of humor And when I die I expect to find Him laaaaauuuuughing.” They end the verse with a high five.
“You have to come to our next show,” Grant demands eagerly. Grant. That turncoat. His bandmates are all officially starstruck with Steve Harrington, what the hell.
“Yeah? Sounds fun! When’s your next show?” Steve asks genuinely, no mocking tone nor eyeroll.
“We play Tuesday nights at The Hideout,” Gareth tells him.
“Yeah, it’s not Depeche Mode,” Grant says with an apologetic tone. Grant. Apologetic for not playing pop shit, “we mostly do metal covers, but we have a few originals.”
“Dudes, that is so awesome!” Steve’s grin shows off his perfect teeth and Eddie can’t decide if he wants to punch or kiss his pretty face.
“You really think so?” Jeff asks, and Eddie swears he has stars in his eyes.
“Of course! You’re still in high school and you’re already living your dreams! That is, like, so cool. I have, like, no dreams or know what I want to do with the rest of my life. Seriously, you guys are awesome.”
Gareth is honestly puffing out his chest at Steve’s words.
Steve shows up to their next show at The Hideout, and he brings Robin Buckley. Robin is disappointed her newly acquired fake ID didn’t get a chance to be used, the doorman and bartender didn’t even blink at them, and Eddie is pretty sure that Steve gets charged double for their beers. But they have fun bopping around, clearly fish out of water, and the rest of the band freaking preens at having King Steve and his girlfriend at their show.
Eddie is starting to worry that Steve is actually a good guy.
They show up for a third weekend.
Robin hasn’t joined any of the running, she does the warmup exercises and then slouches onto the picnic table to jeer at them. Today, she is next to Erica and both girls heckle the boys as they run by. “Hey man, just because Robin’s your girlfriend doesn’t mean you can go easy her!” Mike whines as he collapses into the grass after Robin tells him he runs like Gumbo, which sends Erica and Dustin into uncontrollable laughter when Max corrects them it’s Gumby. Eddie collapses next to Mike, he’s pretty sure he’s never been sweatier in his life and Steve is still immaculate looking. And wearing a shirt. Where is the shirtless Steve he signed up for?
“She’s not my girlfriend,” Steve objects with an eyeroll, ignoring Erica’s hiccupped, “pretty sure it’s Gumbo, right Stevie?”
“Yeah, dingus here is clearly in training to be Tammy Thompson’s trophy husband after she makes it big in Nashville.” Robin adds. She then high fives Steve without either even looking in each other’s direction.
“How else will I afford my haircare routine?” Steve adds with a grin.
The problem with Eddie is that he has no filter. And he’s kind of mad that everyone thinks Steve is so great. Yeah, Steve Harrington is very attractive, but he’s an asshole. He was King of the Assholes. And now he’s being all nice to Dungeons and Dragons nerds and band geeks and Eddie just want to show everyone that Steve hasn’t changed, he’s still the same old asshole, so he just blurts out, “What about when I’m a big rockstar, Steve, I’ll be able to afford your haircare routine, would you be my trophy husband?” He waits for the recoil, the frown, the fear, the hissed ‘Freak!’.
Instead, Steve Harrington barks out a laugh and lands a friendly smack on Eddie’s shoulder, “Sure Munson, you make it big and I’ll be your trophy husband instead.”
And, well. What the hell?
“C’mon, Munson, my future husband needs more stamina than that,” Steve calls out to a panting Eddie, who’s bent over and breathing heavily.
“Steve, what are you doing?” Robin asks quietly.
“It’s a game of chicken, Rob, and I’m not losing,” Steve says with a determined grin.
“Chicken?”
“Eddie joke flirted with me to get a rise out of me. But I’m the king of getting a rise out of people, I used to be very good at being mean if you remember, so now we’ve entered into a game of, like, flirting chicken, and I’m not going to be the first one to break.”
Robin just blinks at her lovable but dumb friend. Only Steve would take a guy flirting with him as a challenge to flirt back. Robin thinks if a girl flirted with her, joke or not, she’d just kick into flight or fight and run the hell away, and she’s a lesbian, she wants girls to flirt with her of course but it’s still terrifying to think about and here’s Steve flirting with Eddie in front of a large group of people. “Dingus. What if it goes past flirting? What if he kisses you?”
“Then I’ll kiss him back.”
“WHAT.” Robin shrieks and then looks around to make sure no one can actually hear their conversation. Eddie is theatrically arguing with Erica about the points he’s earned this session and it draws everyone’s attention instead.
“It’s just kissing, Rob, all kissing is good. Boy or girl, lips are lips,” Steve says all matter of fact.
“I’m sorry, have you kissed a guy before?”
“Of course! Truth or dare, spin the bottle, and the occasional kiss a friend so they aren’t afraid to kiss their crush.”
Robin isn’t sure she can even process that last one. “Wait, what? You didn’t just, skip or forfeit or something?” And how has Steve never told her this before? Does he truly think kissing another boy is no big deal?
Steve scoffs, “there’s no forfeiting, do you know what the toll is for backing out of a dare or refusing a spin? It was usually drinking something super gross, like grape juice mixed with pickle juice and mustard. So yeah, I know kissing a guy is just like kissing a girl.”
“I’m sorry, drink what? Shouldn’t it be like drink a beer? No, wait, don’t sidetrack me. I don’t think that’s right. Like, just the thought of kissing a guy, any guy, even like a pretty guy like Rob Lowe, just grosses me out, like, I’m getting nauseous right now just mentioning it.”
“Drinking beer isn’t punishment Robs. And don’t lie, who doesn’t want to kiss Rob Lowe?”
Robin has not response to that.
Robin pesters Steve enough about it that Steve brings it up in horrifying fashion after the next Corroded Coffin show they attend. Robin and Steve are at a sticky high-top table with the four band members crowded around when Steve brings it up, non-sequitur. “Okay, so you guys have all kissed girls before, right?” Steve blindly asks the group of nerds who definitely don’t look like they’ve kissed anyone before, and judging from the scared expressions that flash over their faces, it’s an accurate assumption. Robin loves blunt Steve, but she knows his heart is gold. These poor dudes do not. Steve does notice the expressions though, and asks instead, “Or maybe you’ve kissed guys?”
“What are you trying to say, Harrington?” Eddie asks, face blank and tone neutral.
“Okay, let me try this again,” Steve holds up his hands like he’s showing them he’s unarmed. Adorable dingus. “I have kissed both girls and guys, while Robin here has not, and she doesn’t believe me that kissing is just kissing, it’s good regardless of gender.” Steve is met with four disbelieving stares, so he blusters on, and maybe he and Robin hang out too much because he is definitely picking this up from her. “Like, sure sometimes a dude’s lips are too dry but sometimes a girl’s lips are sticky with cheap lip gloss so any ick factors usually level out.”
“Steve, maybe this is the wrong crowd for this discussion?” Robin suggests diplomatically.
“Well, most of the people who I know for a fact have kissed both are either away at college or-“ Steve pauses, clears his throat, gets a look that Robin associates with Star Court, “-or not around anymore. Oh, and things are still super weird between me and Nancy so I wasn’t going to ask her.”
“Wait, prissy Nancy Wheeler?” Robin squeaks. “How do you know so many people that are kissing everyone else all indiscriminately!?”
“C’mon, seriously, middle school sleepovers? Those first few awkward girl and guy parties? Seriously, none of you were ever like, I’m too nervous to kiss Mandy B., and your friend is like, why don’t we practice instead?”
“Oh my god, suddenly Tommy H.’s behavior after you guys stopped being friends make so much more sense,” Robin mumbles.
“Uh, Steve, as someone who has also kissed both guys and girls, I have to agree with Robin on this one. It’s not good regardless of gender.” Eddie says, tone careful.
“Wait, what? Really?” Steve asks, genuinely surprised.
Eddie, still with his low, soothing tone, asks further, “Steve, did you ever admire other guys in the locker room? Maybe want to touch smooth muscles or something?”
“Well, sure, doesn’t everyone?”
He’s met with a lot of different expressions, none of them are in agreement. Steve’s face falls.
Robin recognizes Steve’s expression, it’s one she used to see in the mirror a lot before she came out to Steve. Steve, who she could confide in, who never made her feel abnormal or freaky, who helped her accept herself. Steve Harrington should never wear such a broken expression. Robin panics, finds herself blurting. “I’m a lesbian!”
The guys look shocked at her, but they look between themselves and then all stare at Steve, like they are waiting for Steve to react badly. Steve notices their attention and quickly his protect-at-all-costs expression takes over his face. He glares at the guys, “and if any of you have a problem with Robin I will beat your teeth in.”
The guys clearly didn’t expect Steve to defend Robin. It’s Eddie that speaks up first, “None of the guys have a problem with Robin, because none of them have a problem with me.”
“You’re a lesbian too?” Robin tries for a joke.
“No, uh, I am, ya know, the guy equivalent. I’m gay.” Eddie’s expression is pure panic and Robin’s heart pangs with sympathy, but also excitement.
“Oh, well, that’s cool then,” Steve says with an easy smile.
“And buddy, maybe you’re bisexual?” Eddie prods, tone gentle again.
“Wait, that’s a real thing?”
“Why wouldn’t it be real?” Robin asks incredulous.
“My dad says—nothing. He’s an asshole.” And Robin watches as Steve unlearns toxic behavior in front of her eyes. “I think I’m bisexual.”
“Whoa, wait, so you guys really aren’t dating?” Jeff asks.
“I don’t know why nobody believes us,” Robin says as she sprawls into Steve’s space and Steve wraps an arm around her shoulder.
“Your mom left a box of condoms in my shoes when I was over last week.” Steve shudders.
“Man, I wish I was bisexual,” Gareth sighs.
“What?” Steve laughs.
“No reason!” Gareth clearly didn’t think he said that out loud, or loud enough for Steve to hear. Robin smothers a laugh in Steve’s shoulder. The atmosphere has been restored and everyone is back to joking and smiling, Steve included.
And Steve really does enjoy kissing, Robin gathers later, when Steve has been in the bathroom too long and she goes to make sure he hasn't been kidnapped by Russians. Eddie has Steve pressed against the wall beside the bathroom door, and they are doing their best to devour each other.
“Oh my god, Steve Harrington, you better not get a boyfriend before I even kiss a girl!”