Chapter Text
The rain has progressed from a steady drizzle to more of a real downpour by the time Eddie manages to find a spot to cram his van into that’s actually west of Halstead. The droplets hitting the window over the sound of Mötley Crüe are a nice backing track to his evening and the sound the clutch makes when he releases it, old thing. He’s got a copy of Nightlines sitting on the passenger seat, some blonde twink staring up at him like he’s judging Eddie for not bringing an umbrella.
“Yeah, yeah,” he mutters to no one while killing the engine. Eddie’s got just about everything else he needs in the van to crash a couple nights unless he can actually find a couch or something tonight – blankets, tapes, clothes. So sue him for forgetting a goddamn umbrella.
He holds his vest over his head as he opens the door in lieu of one anyway; it’s July and it’s muggy out and his well-loved jacket is hung up neatly on one of the hooks lining the walls of the Ram. Not that he would risk getting the leather wet or anything.
The name of the club he’s looking for, the one splashed on one of the pages of the zine, is called B-Side. Eddie squints into the rain, the yellowing light of the streetlights bouncing off the water and making the numbers on the buildings harder to make out than usual in the semi-dark. He stumbles upon it eventually though, tucked between two nondescript buildings with foggy glass shopfronts, and shoves his way through the door. Eddie’s ID has the California design on it, very decidedly not Illinois, and the bouncer raises his eyebrows at it and says, “Long way from home, son?”
Eddie shrugs. He isn’t, not really; Hawkins is only a few hours away and Los Angeles had never really settled into his bones. Too sunny. Too warm. Too many people, honestly; Chicago is still a city and he’s barely seen any of it, but it already feels better.
“You hear me?” The bouncer is a bear and a pretty hot one. He’s always had a bit of a thing for body hair, though he wouldn’t say he had a type. He hadn’t slept with anyone in LA since everything went down and before that it’d been a myriad of people who frequented the same haunts that he did. In high school he’d slept with one metalhead chick who used to come to Corroded shows and sucked face with a lot more boys that would’ve called him faggot anywhere but under the bleachers. And mostly those boys were anybody who looked at him twice; preps and nerds and everything in between. Sheesh, maybe Chicago was too goddamn close if he was thinking about high school.
“Sort of,” Eddie finally answers. “I’m sort of far from home.”
The bouncer stares at him but doesn’t make another comment, just nods and lets Eddie through while he slips his vest back onto his shoulders. The denim is wet and despite Eddie’s best efforts, so is his hair. It’s still long; he’d considered cutting it after everything back in LA but ultimately he was goddamn loyal to the metal scene and just because he had changed didn’t mean he had to change his hair. Resisting the urge to shake it out, he throws it in a bun, nods back at the bouncer and heads in.
B-Side is sweaty as fuck. As muggy as the air outside, filled with bodies dancing and drinking and standing around talking. Just like any other gay bar really; Eddie had a few in LA he frequented and some had a better vibe than others but more than anything they had been a good place to find a fuck or some drugs (if he were lucky, both) and if nothing else, the go-go dancers were hot. B-Side has a pretty good vibe so far, Eddie thinks, even though Madonna is playing. That’s club music and now that he’s gotten his head slightly less lodged up his ass he can at least admit that it’s good for dancing. Yeah, he prefers harder shit and always will, but not every opinion of his has to go against the grain.
Anyway, B-Side is sweaty but the vibes are pretty good and Eddie needs a drink or at least something to hold in his hands. He can feel the way his eyes frenetically dance around the space, taking it all in, but he’s always been jittery even if he’s not uncomfortable, which he’s not. It’s good, this feels good. Chicago. A new start, a fresh start, closer to Wayne.
The literal bar is unsurprisingly crowded, a lot of pretty men leaning up against the old wood grain, but although Eddie will allow himself to admire, he’s not looking for anyone but a bartender who can give him something to hold. Peering over the head of an otter who looks maybe just on the other side of legal and who stares at him appreciatively, Eddie scans the bar hoping to catch somebody’s eye. There are a few bartenders fluttering around, pouring drinks and shots and scooping ice, one bending over to pick up a keg. He lets his eyes look appreciatively at the ass of the latter, tight little acid wash jeans curving over it nicely.
Eddie wonders what’s on the shirt he’s wearing, if anything. It’s a tight tanktop, which is appropriate for trying to get tips on a Friday night, Eddie can dig it. Maybe there’s a band emblem on the front, or some little pattern; maybe there’s some hair sticking out from the presumably deep neckline. The guy’s got a pretty great head of hair at least. It’s a little slicked-back heartthrob number like he’s goddamn Johnny Depp in Cry-Baby.
Shit, Eddie thinks, if he’s got a face to match the back maybe he will try some flirting. It doesn’t have to go anywhere, but maybe he’s still got game. He doesn’t really want to be one of those annoying customers who flirts with the bartender – everyone is flirting with the goddamn bartender – but then the guy stands up and puts his hands on his hips and turns around. And it’s Steve Harrington.
Sometimes, Eddie wonders why the hell he gave up heroin.
“Eddie?” says Steve Harrington, which pretty much shoots Eddie’s plan of running the fuck away in the foot. He’d made his whole big speech six years ago about not running away anymore and shit, but fuck if he wasn’t still a coward sometimes. He’s clean, he thinks. He’s allowed to be.
“Uh,” he says dumbly, and Steve probably can’t even hear it over the music. Which unfortunately probably means he’s going to move closer, and he does.
“Eddie Munson?” he asks. “Is that you? What the hell?”
Shit, Eddie thinks, but he’s still just as cute as he was in ‘86. He’s cute and – he’s cute and he’s here, in B-Side, a gay bar. In Chicago.
“Steve?” Eddie says it like it’s a question even though he knows the answer; it’s only been six years and even if it hadn’t been Steve doesn’t look all that different.
“What the –” Steve laughs nervously, and runs a hand through his hair. It’s a nervous tic that Eddie recognizes from their monster fighting days, from Steve’s days at his hospital bedside when Eddie would wake up hazy as fuck on morphine and turn to see who was sitting in the chair that day. “What are you doing here, man?”
Eddie can tell the smile that he gives Steve in return is a little crazy, reminiscent of the way he used to be. Eyes a little too wide, teeth showing a little too much. The armor he put on in the lunchroom in school when he would get up on the table and fuck, is it seeing people from your hometown that makes you act like you’re in high school again? Or is that just Steve?
He knows he’s…faded in appearance a little since Steve last saw him, he owns a goddamn mirror. Eyes sunken in, skin stretched tight on his face, but he’s gained some of the weight back since he got sober at least.
“I think I’m doing exactly what you’d expect me to be doing here, dude,” Eddie says, and he just means it to come out neutrally, joking even, but it sounds a little mean when the words go from his brain and sit on the air. And they hang there like that, making Steve’s mouth fall open and his eyes do that little thing that they do when he’s thinking too hard. Christ, he’s really exactly the same. Only he’s bartending in a fucking gay bar.
Like all things, the words fall from the air eventually, and Steve straightens up and kind of seems to remember what he’s doing, slinging a towel over his shoulder like this is a townie bar and Eddie is a regular and they’re in some 60s film. “Right,” Steve says. “What can I get you? You still drink shitty beer that tastes like piss?”
Eddie snorts. “Nah. Soda and lime.”
“...and…vodka?”
“Just soda and lime.”
To his credit, Steve doesn’t ask why Eddie isn’t drinking and Eddie doesn’t offer an explanation, just takes the glass and lets the cold drink be a breath of fresh air in the sticky building. When he fumbles for his wallet, Steve waves him off.
“It’s cool, man. Old friends, right?”
Eddie can feel his face do something and he hope’s it’s positive. Old friends or something, yeah, Eddie supposes. If “old friends” means fucking the hell off the moment you’re cleared to leave your hospital bed, leaving everyone who went through a traumatic experience with you behind, and burying yourself in a k-hole several hundred miles west. A k-hole to start, at least.
Whatever Eddie’s face does, Steve nods but the smile on his face looks a little forced. Kind of a half-smile, he looks sort of nervous and a little annoyed. It’s not an unfamiliar expression, even though it’s been a long time since Eddie’s seen it. It’s kind of comforting, even, but he doesn’t like being on the other side of it.
“So, uh. What brought you to Chicago?” Eddie asks Steve, not desperate to keep the conversation going, but not wanting him to walk away, either. It’s like it hasn’t totally clicked that Steve is here, in Chicago, in B-Side, which is a gay bar. Working. Not even just like, here, where he could say he’s here with a friend if a guy tried to hit on him.
“Robin,” Steve says simply, and yeah, okay. Eddie had kind of figured Buckley for a lesbian, but if she was into guys it makes sense that she’s into Steve, he guesses.
“Yeah? So what’s a straight guy like you doing working at a bar like this?”
Steve laughs, but there’s no real joy behind it. Eddie can feel the cheeky grin on his face go wonky as Steve does, the lines on his face morphing into confusion.
“What?” Eddie asks. “You are. Right?”
“Eddie,” says Steve, placing his hands on the bar and leaning forward. “Are you serious? Do you really think I’m straight? Working in a place like this?”
“I –”
“I have customers, Munson,” Steve says, jerking his head down the line, where several guys are looking vaguely pissed off in Eddie’s direction. “But I opened tonight, I’ll be first cut. If you can hang around till like 1:30, 2? Meet me around back and we can catch up. You have a place to stay?”
Eddie shakes his head and Steve nods, his face doing the thing again.
“Well then, see you then.”
Steve finds Eddie loitering against a wall near the restroom when it’s nearing quarter till 2, a cigarette dangling from his lips.
“Hey,” Steve says, jerking his chin forward, snatching the cigarette out of Eddie’s mouth and sticking it in his own. “Sorry to keep you waiting.”
“It’s alright,” Eddie says, and it is. He danced and smoked and made out with a few guys, and it beats trying to sleep in his van while rain beats on it like an angry mob. “Yeah, I had an alright time.”
“Yeah? You pull trade?”
“Well, well, look at you with the community slang.”
Steve rolls his eyes. “I came out six years ago, Eddie, you’re the one who wasn’t around. Don’t act like I’m so different from you.”
Okay, he’s got a point. It stuns Eddie into shutting up for a second, even, before he’s opening his mouth and trying to diffuse the situation.
“Okay, no, I didn’t. Just danced with a few guys. Sucked face with this hot ginger, but nothing further. I had fun. Your bar’s a nice place, Harrington.”
Steve snorts. “I don’t own it, come on.” Without waiting to see if Eddie is following him, he turns around and heads out a back entrance, pushing the door open into what is unfortunately still a stormy night. “Aw, fuck.”
“No umbrella?”
“No, and it’s like, a fifteen minute walk to the L.”
Eddie grins, can’t help it. “Sorry, I don’t have an umbrella. I do have my van, though? Although truth be told, I’m kind of reluctant to give up my parking spot, so…”
Steve looks back at him. “I think we’ll be okay, I’m not the Wicked Witch of the West.”
“Nice reference.”
“Well, I did work at a video rental retail chain for many years,” Steve says drily, and Eddie lets out a chuckle before wondering just why Steve doesn’t work there anymore. Maybe the bar is better money, but definitely worse hours. Either one sounds kind of terrible; Eddie has no desire to work retail or industry. Dealing had been alright until he’d done the stupid thing of trying his own stash. The factory job had been good before he’d squandered it by leaning a little too much too many times on the line. He’s good with people, charming when they’re not afraid of him, a good talker, but the idea of dealing with entitled customers is downright exhausting. Steve never seemed to love it much either, but Eddie guesses maybe Robin kept him around. He considers asking, but when he looks up he sees that Steve is more than a couple steps ahead of him.
He walks fast; he still has the stride of a former jock who had clearly been graded on how well he could run, and Eddie has to half-jog to keep up. He doesn’t bother commenting or asking him to slow down; there’s a weird wall around Steve and Eddie knows why, obviously. Supposes he deserves it, even.
“Where do you live?”
“Off the O’Hare line; why, you familiar?”
“Nah, man, I’m just making conversation,” Eddie says, and he can feel the crooked smile that slides onto his face as he says it. “Listen, I’m sorry, or whatever –”
“Save it,” says Steve, cutting him off. “I don’t…we kind of all moved on, yeah? That was six years ago.”
“Yeah, you were straight then,” grins Eddie before he can help himself. Feels kind of stupid letting the sentence even come out of his mouth, saying the quiet part out loud. He tenses, a reaction that comes with knowing you’re a faggot from the age of eight and growing up in bumfuck in the Midwest. Ready for Steve to throw a punch and say this is all a big joke, and he’s just working a gay bar to make some money off his good looks, or whatever.
But none of that comes out of Steve’s mouth. Instead he turns around and lifts an eyebrow like he’s so above it all, and yeah, alright, this was the most popular guy in high school once.
“Yeah, and I’m a fag now. Crazy how times change, right?”
It startles a bark of laughter out of Eddie, and he tilts his head. “Can’t say I’d have guessed that, Harrington.”
Steve huffs. “Yeah. You and most people, probably. But that was – that was a long time ago.”
Eddie doesn’t respond even though the opening is there, if Steve wants to tell him what that means then he can, but Eddie isn’t going to ask. Instead he follows Steve to the train station, and the ride passes in relative silence even though it isn’t short. It’s a Friday, so the train isn’t empty, but it’s not very crowded either; too early for those closing down the nightlife – be it partygoers or industry – to be riding it, and far too late for anyone to just now be going out. But Eddie lets his eyes rake over the others on the train regardless; a couple of goths sitting in the corner huddled around a shared clove cigarette and a few tired UChicago students. A single mother with a crying baby. Steve has produced a Walkman from a bag Eddie didn’t see him carrying, and music that’s loud enough for Eddie to hear but too low to make out flows from the headphones.
“Come on, we gotta switch,” Steve says eventually, jerking his head toward the door. “We’re only a few stops from here. Robin and I, I mean. And she might be asleep when we get in, so, just. Be quiet, yeah? I’ll make up the couch and we can talk in the morning.”
Eddie nods, amenable. Gives him plenty of time to figure out something to say other than yeah, I ran away and became a junkie. Ain’t that just predictable?
He can tell the truth about why he came back for the most part – Wayne’s getting older, Eddie wants to be closer, that’s all true – but he can probably leave out the I wanted to get away from all my old friends bit. It’ll come out in time, obviously Steve knows that Eddie doesn’t drink. Or at least Steve knows that he wasn’t drinking that night: Harrington was always a little dumb and there’s a pretty high chance he hasn’t worked it out.
“Yeah? What’s she do for a living?”
“She’s a teacher, so she needs her Saturdays,” Steve says, sliding his headphones around his neck. He lets them keep playing. Completely unpredictably, it’s I’ll Be There, because Steve is a big top 40 type bitch, but that’s okay. Not everybody can have taste. “Real salary and everything. Got her degree, god yeah, I’m proud of her.”
“Yeah?” asks Eddie, following him through the turnstyle and onto the train. “That’s great that you guys are like –”
“Best friends?” asks Steve, arching an eyebrow. “I don’t know what kind of ideas you have, Munson, but yeah. Still very much platonic between us.”
“Well, you never know. Really thought you were gonna marry Wheeler, man.”
Steve gives him a weird look. “Yeah. So did I. Until, you know, everything.”
Eddie shrugs. “Not really.”
Steve opens his mouth like he’s considering, but before he can say anything the rumble starts up that signifies a train pulling into the station, and Steve gives him a look, mouthing ‘sorry’ and jerking his head toward the train.
There’s plenty of seats available, but Eddie just holds onto the pole instead, musing. Public transportation in LA had fucking sucked. There were no trains until just last year, an entirely unhelpful Blue Line. It’s kind of nice to stand and feel the rush beneath his feet, to watch as Steve spreads out on the seat. It’s nice to see, he doesn’t curl in on himself or anything. Not that he ever had, really, but Eddie had changed after running away and Steve looks…looser, somehow.
It’s a much shorter ride on the O’Hare line, and Steve beckons Eddie toward the door when they pull into Damen. The apartment he lets them into is in a small building, a bit run down but not terribly maintained. Already nicer than the shithole Eddie had lived in in LA from the outside alone. Steve jams the key in the lock and wiggles it before hitting the door with his hip, Eddie raking his eyes over Steve’s ass in those acid wash jeans appreciatively. Not that he has any intentions of, like, anything with Steve, but he’s a red-blooded American faggot, okay, he can look.
Steve puts his fingers to his lips when they make it inside, motioning to the lumpy couch mashed up against the wall.
The apartment is well-loved, it’s easy to see just from glancing around. Eddie hadn’t gotten to know neither Steve nor Robin very well before fucking off, but from what he remembers the space suits them pretty well. Robin’s movie posters on the wall – Ghost and Fatal Attraction – a few record covers from Steve – INXS’ Kick and George Michael’s Faith. Not really Eddie’s taste, but yeah, extremely tracks for Steve. There’s a piece of art on a brick wall that Eddie thinks is probably Robin’s curating, a tiny tv and a coffee table with a pair of glasses and mismatched coasters on it. There’s a small kitchen behind a counter that separates it from the living room and a hallway with some god awful carpet and three doors. Steve waves his hand awkwardly.
“Not much to show, I guess, but here it is.”
“Nah, it’s nice,” says Eddie, and Steve’s lips turn up. “I’m for real, man. You should have seen the dump I lived in in LA.”
“You were in LA?” Steve asks. “Sorry I – I never asked. LA, huh?”
“It was far away,” is all Eddie offers, and Steve accepts it for the subject ender that it is, for which Eddie is grateful. It was a decision that he made and now it’s over. Chicago is another decision, Eddie hopes it’s the right one.
“Did you ever…uh, you never met Will Byers I guess, huh?” Steve asks.
“Nah, but I knew Jonathan. I mean, he was in our grade. At one point. After my first failure. And like. You know.” Eddie waves his hand vaguely.
Steve did know, Eddie supposes, because he nods.
“Yeah, well he’s at SFAI. Doing great. Finally out of the goddamn closet. Did that painting, actually.”
“San Francisco is…not near Los Angeles, but that’s cool, man. You still talk to all those kids?”
Steve lifts a shoulder. “Few of ‘em. Max and Lucas both go to DePaul, so we see ‘em pretty often. Dustin’s in Boston, same as Nancy, we talk on the phone every once in a while. Dustin more than Nancy, but… Yeah, it was kind of touch and go for a bit, after everything. But most everybody has come around.”
Eddie can’t ignore the way his heart leaps at the mentions of Lucas and Dustin. When you’re jonesing for smack 24/7, it’s easy to forget the people you love; even Wayne was stuck in the periphery for a bit. But these were his little sheepies; Dustin was the little brother Eddie would have died for. Almost did. And he feels like a giant dick for not asking sooner. For not calling once he got clean.
He sighs, and doesn’t point out how Steve didn’t mention Mike. Eddie doesn’t say anything, but it’s not a hard guess what happened there. Eddie remembers the Reagan-Bush sign in the Wheeler yard. Sounds like Nancy is cool though, which is nice. She always was too good for Hawkins, he thinks. The conversation feels kind of stale as he does, the air dead between him and Steve like this is all a bit of a sore subject. And it probably is.
“Gotcha,” Eddie finally says, rolling his head toward the couch. “So, it’s kind of 3 in the morning…”
“Oh!” says Steve, and then he melts into a host persona so fast Eddie is kind of startled. There’s all those years of being raised right – capital R, capital R – coming out. He wonders if Mommy and Daddy Harrington are still in the picture, but based on the tiny apartment he supposes probably not. Steve’s fretting, pulling blankets and a pillow out of a closet and laying them out on the couch all proper like Eddie is worth it. Kind of bizarre to watch.
“Thanks. For real.”
“No worries,” says Steve. “We’ll just…yeah, we can talk more in the morning. Bathroom’s through there. I have spare toothbrushes in the cabinet so just take one. You can shower if you want. Goodnight.”
It’s abrupt but not unkind, and Eddie watches as Steve disappears down the hallway. The light Steve had flicked on when entering is still on and way too bright for a night so late, so Eddie turns it out and falls on the couch without even bothering to shower. Before he knows it, he’s dead asleep.
Robin wakes him up in the morning.
“Steve!” she hollers, and Eddie startles awake at the shrill tone of it. “Is there a reason fucking Eddie Munson is on our couch?”
When his eyes flicker open, Robin Buckley is standing above him looking fairly different than she had six years ago. She’s still freckled and dirty blonde but her hair is shorter – a lot shorter, in a bedheaded pixie cut. She’s wearing sweats and what is undoubtedly one of Steve’s shirts, an old Hawkins High swim team shirt, and she was definitely not on that. Eddie had done marching band for exactly one year before fucking off and deciding he didn’t give a fuck about making an effort in school, but marching band kids were a respectable clique at the very least, so he knew of them.
“Hey, you’re a sight for sore eyes,” Eddie mumbles, trying to inject something light into the mood.
“Can it,” Robin says before hollering again. “Steve!”
Steve comes stumbling down the hallway in an eerily similar outfit to Robin and they look like strange twins like that, both of them with their arms crossed and staring at Eddie creepily. He sits up.
“Sorry, Rob,” says Steve. “But you’ll never guess who was at work last night!”
“Eddie?”
“Yeah,” Steve says, deadpan. “Right out of the blue at B-Side. Without a place to stay.”
“In Chicago.”
“In Chicago,” Steve confirms.
“Where the fuck did you go, asshole?” Robin asks, staring at Eddie now, and he winces.
“Los Angeles,” Steve supplies before he can answer, and Eddie nods.
“But I’m here now,” Eddie jumps in. “Listen, I’m sorry for fucking off for six years. But – yeah, I don’t know. It was a lot, okay, and I just needed to get away from it all. Wayne is getting older and there’s a lot of things and people I needed to get away from out there, so…yeah, I’m still a runner. But Chicago is closer to Hawkins and so here I am.”
“Here you are!” says Robin in a strange voice that Eddie can’t quite make sense of. “Well, I guess I’ll make breakfast.”
“Pancakes?”
“Yeah, pancakes, loverboy,” Robin says, ruffling Steve’s hair and squeezing by him to get into the kitchen. Eddie starts to get up, feeling like he should ask if he can help, but Steve slumps down into the couch next to him and he stops himself.
“So, you guys have been living together for…”
“Uh, four years,” answers Steve. “Robin was in the dorms for two years, and then we got an apartment together.”
“Yeah, a fag and a dyke. Match made in hell,” Robin smiles sweetly, peeking at Eddie over the counter. He’s glad he found Steve in B-Side so they didn’t have to dance around the obvious, even if he was still kind of shocked to see Steve there still. It just didn’t make sense with everything Eddie knew about…everything. It’s a weird and shitty fucking time to be a queer, and if Steve likes girls too, then Eddie can’t really figure out why he’d give up his picket fence life to come to Boystown.
“Ain’t it just,” sighs Eddie. “Still – uh, yeah, I’m still shocked by that, Harrington. If I’m being honest.”
Steve angles a sideways stare at him. “Yeah, it’s this new thing called bisexuality, you know, I’m not sure if you’ve heard of it –”
“Alright, okay,” Eddie acquiesces, shoving Steve. That’s a conversation closer if he’s ever heard one. Still, he presses on. “Just surprised, is all. With everything going on.”
Robin and Steve share a look.
“Yeah,” Robin says, mouth tight, and that’s the look of someone who’s lost someone. Steve’s wearing it too, when he looks to the left. Eddie’s used to it. Between smack and AIDS he’s lost way too many people, and the funerals have just gotten exhausting when they’ve actually happened at all.
“Yeah,” Steve nods. “Yeah. My coworker Andrew – just last week, actually, the latest.”
The mood that sweeps over the apartment is somber, which is pretty much how it feels all the times that Eddie doesn’t feel like he’s living to live. He’s known he’s positive for two years now, and he’s doing okay, but fuck if it doesn’t make you feel your mortality.
“Anyway, Eddie,” says Robin quickly. “Uh, are you going to be staying here?”
“Uh –” he starts, glancing back at Steve, who shrugs. “No? I don’t know. I didn’t really have the opportunity to find a job or a place, you know, I figured I could find some couches or just crash in my van until I do.”
“Of course you’re staying with us,” says Steve firmly, in a voice that brokers no argument. It’s a little weird, because both of them have been what Eddie would call delicately frosty, but the way Steve’s lips quirk up at the edges is real. “I mean –”
“Yeah, no, of course you’re staying with us,” Robin agrees to Eddie’s relief when Steve glances at her. “We’re all we’ve got, right?”