Chapter Text
No one, growing up, had really noticed Steve’s mom is Cuban. Her accent is muted and soft, her English much better than Steve’s Spanish.
Of course, Steve’s Spanish was leagues better than that of Ms. Fisher, his high school Spanish teacher—a sharp nosed omega with a Minnesota accent who’d held her post for almost four decades.
“I already speak Spanish,” he’d complained to the guidance counselor, “I spent last summer in Havana with my abuela—”
But there was a language requirement in Indiana Public Schools, and Hawkins wasn’t large enough to support anything more than the one, so—Spanish.
So he repeated the phrases and made the flash cards while pretending not to catch Mrs. Fisher’s weird mistakes. People don’t like an omega who behaves above themselves, or who corrects others. He did catch some new vocabulary, from the back of the textbook. Eventually, he even learned a little bit of the grammar he couldn’t pick up from conversations with family.
Good thing.
Yep, Steve may be a male omega; he may have been divorced at twenty-five; nothing to show for his years but most of a sociology degree with a minor in sports broadcasting, of all things, but at least he’s bilingual—and well connected—which is how he found himself replacing Mrs. Fisher as the shiny new Spanish teacher of Hawkins High School.
Go Wildcats.
His first year hadn’t been bad… It had been god-awful.
He spent all day wrangling teenagers who didn’t want to learn a foreign language and all night planning lessons that felt uninspired and fascicle; meanwhile he eschewed cooking and cleaning to attend Education classes just for the privilege of keeping his job.
It wouldn’t have been so insulting to use his free time taking these classes if he hadn’t wanted an Education degree in the first place, all those years ago. When he first registered at Indiana State, he pictured himself lined up with all of the other teachers-to-be, learning child development, giving each other tips about activities, organizing carpools to their internships. But it felt stereotypical—another omega in the Education building?
“Won’t meet any alphas there,” his mother had said, shaking her head. Let no one imply Mrs. Harrington didn’t look out for her son’s best interest.
He hadn’t had to worry about that too long anyway—he’d met Dan, a financial analyst ten years his senior, at a singles mixer outside of the city. His mom paid for his ticket. Let no one imply Mrs. Harrington didn’t look out for her son’s best interest.
Dan reassured him that there was no need to finish the pesky degree. It was a waste of time. Steve was always complaining about school. Was it really necessary? When all Steve had really wanted was to be a mother, raise a family, maintain a household of his own? His mother helped him with the paperwork to withdraw, just a semester left. Let no one imply…
Years later he found himself a few months into the job. The nerves of fall and the doldrums of winter behind him, he’d started to wear into the pleasant groove of a routine.
His coworkers were more interesting than he expected, always asking after him and offering their help. His students stopped trying to deliberately pluck his nerves and started to show themselves for the sweet, sensitive teenagers they are—all of them trying to get through the day, some more successful than others. Many seemed to want to irritate him on purpose, but were just testing him, searching for a reliable young adult, a role model who wasn’t their parents—parents who, save for those select few, grew more disappointing by the day.
Steve didn’t feel like a role model, until he did. He didn’t feel smart, or like he was a good teacher, until he did. Mostly because the kids liked him, and he found himself liking them right back.
His first year may have sucked, but as he found his footing he realized he kind of loved his new, entirely unexpected job.
His second year brought a greater sense of stability. Steve stopped feeling like a stereotype—another omega whose M.R.S. degree didn’t pan out, another omega at a pink collar job, another omega who went off to college just to end up working with kids—and realized the freedom that came from working alongside others of his designation.
There were very few alphas among the teaching staff. After his divorce, the paperwork, the lawyers—hell, even the judgment in his alpha father’s voice on the phone, Steve just needed some breathing room. And at the school—the principal? An omega. The head of his grade level team? An omega. Some younger teachers would announce their resignation after getting hitched and pregnant, but others had been there for decades. They had kids; they cooked; they probably did their partner’s laundry, and their authority was pleasantly free of that hormonal tinge, that social pressure that accompanied an alpha’s voice.
Steve really, really needed that.
Mrs. Harrington, ever vocal on the subject of his divorce, had asked about the few alphas on staff. It was probably that and a sort of desperation to prove himself that led to his pursuit of the one alpha teacher in Hawkins’ newly expanded language program: Ms. Robin Buckley. Robin recognized that rebound awfully quickly, and kindly turned it around into friendship—the best he’d ever had, actually.
So by the time his second year is wrapping up, Steve is pretty sure he’s found his lifetime career—he’s finished his degree; he’s working on a master’s, the days are fun, the benefits are clutch, and even the money is okay if you’re not trying to do anything fancy.
Of course, Mrs. Harrington is still insistent he’ll find another rich alpha to marry and take him away from this job, but Steve can’t think of what he’d even do with more money. His apartment is affordable already; he has no expensive hobbies, no shopping addiction, and as for travel—
One of the best things about being a foreign language teacher in Hawkins is the expectation that every two years, you’ll take the kids abroad. He was overwhelmed by the idea at first, but just kept making the phone calls and checking on the paperwork and now, suddenly, the trip is shaping up around him.
Robin is eating lunch with him, helping him plan the final information night for the kids and their parents, when they get the news.
Steve opens the email, and his stomach falls through his ass and onto the floor.
“Fucking hell!” he screeches, and Robin jumps, a lump of tuna salad falling out of her sandwich and smacking the linoleum.
“Jesus man,” Robin mutters, “What?”
“Jones is dropping out,” he mumbles, irritated. “He got the fucking fullbright.”
“Oh my god, that’s great!” Robin says. They’re friendly with Jeff, and have been following his application process.
“No, it’s fucking terrible!” Steve corrects her. “He can’t go to Europe! Something about a training?”
“There’s a training?”
“I don’t know!” Steve slams his laptop closed. “And I don’t care! The ratio of chaperones to kids is rough already; we can’t do this without Jones.”
“Okay, first of all, take a deep breath, princess,” Robin mutters through a mouthful of food, and swallows.
Steve makes a face. He’s talked to her about chewing with her mouth closed, as well as leaving salad dressing on his desks.
“It’s still two months away. You’re telling me there’s not a soul in Hawkins, Indiana who wants to go abroad, and cheap?”
Steve exhales in a huff.
“I’ve already asked all of the parents, like, twice, plus every teacher in the building. No one is going to be able to get a passport this late. I had to promise to plan and chaperone all of Cunningham’s field trips with her next year to get her to go, and that bitch likes to do evening trips, too—”
“What about Munson?” Robin says, suddenly.
Whatever Steve’s face is doing, he can’t help it.
“Don’t do that,” Robin chastises him. “It’s a good idea. The kids love him.”
“Fuck,” Steve says, because she’s right, actually; as he thinks about it, the pieces are fitting together.
He doesn’t want her to be right.
Steve hasn’t asked him. The kids do love him, but, well—
Eddie Munson is the last person from his graduating year that Steve would have anticipated working with.
Everyone had been really excited to get a new Special Education teacher this year, including Steve. They had one already who cotaught several classes throughout the day, but those class sizes were growing out of control, and with the number of students who needed extra help, kids were falling behind, they were acting out because of that; plus, the paperwork burden was falling over on to the general educators. So when it was announced they’d secured a December graduate, the staff had been over the moon.
When the principal introduced Eddie Munson at the January faculty meeting, you could’ve heard a mouse fart.
Most of the teachers remembered Eddie from not-so-long-ago: a jittery, inattentive troublemaker who’d graduated by the skin of his teeth, and a year late. To most of Steve’s peers, he’s been a long haired, black-wearing dweeb. He was a consistent source of illicit drugs, for the right price, but an empty chair in most of his classes.
His fucking hair was the same.
Steve silently hoped he wouldn’t have to work with the man, but with the high failure rate of Spanish I, Eddie was assigned to one of his classes.
And he was infuriating.
Steve tried to live and let live when it came to other teachers. Sure, he heard the kids gossip and complain, so he knew which of his colleagues were well known for being strict or being lazy. But it wouldn’t make any sense in the long run to pick any fights, or to be critical of his coworkers. After all, he’s new. He’s just started to feel like he knows what he’s doing.
Munson is different. He’s loud. He carries on off-topic conversations with the kids. He gives them hints that he shouldn’t, even during quizzes. He has visible tattoos up and down both arms, and he wears t-shirts and jeans, every day. Steve doesn’t know if he even owns a tie.
Steve has several ties. He hasn’t worn them since October of his first year, but he still owns them. It’s only proper.
And yeah, the kids like Eddie. Of course they like him; he’s barely a teacher—more of a weird friend who gives you the answers on your homework.
But this means he wouldn’t have a problem keeping track of a few teenagers. And because he’s new, Steve hasn’t asked him yet.
“You’re right,” Steve sighs. “But my group is going to want to switch chaperones to be with him, so we have to—”
“You don’t know that,” Robin says. “And if they do—”
“Actually, he can get his own damn group,” Steve mutters, stabbing his pasta. “They already eat lunch with him.”
It had hurt, when Steve’s usual group—two girls and four boys—had switched to eating lunch in the basement computer lab. Steve had had a particularly shitty day, featuring a voicemail from his ex—who was holding his abuela’s cookbooks hostage—and then a parent who’d threatened to report him to the school board for issuing a pronoun survey. When Will mentioned that Steve wouldn’t see them for lunch, his first impulse was to want to cry, which he quickly had to hide. A bunch of sixteen year olds don’t deserve the burden of an adult’s super-emotional state, but somehow he’d become close enough with them that they could turn around his whole day, and they did for the worse.
“You need to get over that,” Robin says, “Your little dorks have priorities, and games are like, number one. You can’t compete with a lunchtime gaming club.”
“Okay, but Dustin needs coach class,” Steve grumbles, “His quizzes haven’t been up to snuff since he stopped getting the extra help.”
“If that’s what you’re worried about, then why did you offer for them to hold the club in your classroom? You don’t care if they study; you’re just mad they turned you down!”
“I’m not mad!” Steve says. He stares at his side of kale, which seems to be looking at him reproachfully. “I’m not mad.”
He looks up.
Robin looks at him the way his kale looks at him.
“Okay, okay,” Steve relents, “but how do we know Munson would even wanna go? He probably doesn’t even have a passport.”
“Of course I have a passport,” comes a voice from the door. Steve instinctively cringes downward, as if he could hide.
Robin, who is looking over Steve’s shoulder, brightens.
“Hey Munson!” she says, like they’re best friends. Maybe they are. Maybe Steve has this all wrong. “We were just talking about your bright and talented self. Any interest in going to Spain and France this summer? For cheap?”
The first time Steve heard Eddie giggle at a misbehaving student, it was infuriating.
The thing that’s so exhausting about teaching, especially since Steve is new, is that he’s always on his toes. The kids all learn differently. It’s mind boggling. They’ve been in the same classes since kindergarten, but some of them can diagram a sentence while others don’t even know what nouns and verbs are. Some of them never look at Steve but remember every word he says. Others seem engaged but when they turn in their quizzes it’s like they were never here. It feels like he always has to be the bad guy; he always has to know everything about what everyone is doing at all times—and they’re never going to be able to learn unless he keeps them 100% focused.
So when Eddie cackled out loud in the middle of an important explanation it was like a spitball to the face—gross and humiliating, and Steve was filled with indignation. The words were on the tip of his tongue, Why the fuck would you do that?
But then Jeremy, the little shitstain, whipped around from where he’d been pouring Gatorade in the corner plant.
It wasn’t the fact that he stopped that was impressive. If Steve had yelled at him, he might have stopped.
Maybe.
…more likely he’d have kept going until the bottle was out and, afterward, been like, “What? I didn’t hear you!”
When Eddie laughed, Jeremy’s whole wrist tilted up. The Gatorade River stopped mid-flow and Jeremy looked around, like he wanted to see what the fuss was about. It was like he was shaken from his trance, which is when Steve realized: Jeremy—the garbage eating rodent, the little shit, the sperm that should’ve been a blowjob—had no fucking clue what he’d been doing. He’d just zoned out, took his bottle, and started playing, the way a hamster spins on its wheel. When he saw Eddie laughing, and at him, he looked—embarrassed? Like he just realized what his hands were doing, and without the consent of his mind.
“The fuck are you doing?” Eddie asked, and Steve tried not to wince at the cursing—so blatant and shameless, in like, the middle of class. The students’ quiet chatter ceased.
Jeremy smiled, like he was in on the joke, but he had the decency to look embarrassed. He’d stopped. Steve didn’t have to yell at him, didn’t have to watch him keep going despite the fact, didn’t have to admonish him for not listening. He just stopped, and when Steve saw Jeremy’s chagrin, so human and childlike, his annoyance instantly evaporated.
So, there’s that. The fact that Eddie wears jeans, and curses, and completely undermines whatever amount of professionalism Steve has managed to scrape together—and Steve can’t even complain, because he’s good. Eddie’s good at his job.
“It can’t be that bad,” Robin says.
“Easy for you to say,” he says, popping the top from his second beer that evening. “You have Piper.”
Ms. Piper has been teaching for decades. She is quiet, and orderly, and nods politely at Steve in the hallways.
“Half the time Piper is just telling me the same thing Eddie’s telling you,” Robin says, “You need to loosen up a little bit, or you’re going to implode.”
“How am I supposed to loosen up?” Steve says. “These damn kids, they tell me they need to listen to music, but then they don’t hear directions. They tell me they want group work, then their group tells me they don’t do the work—”
“Dude, this is what I’m saying,” Robin says, “It’s Friday night and you’re still thinking about this.”
“Well, if Munson would just let me—”
“You just said it was working out. Having him in the class. You just said that. Your failure rate is half what it was. And you’re always saying the numbers don’t lie.”
It’s true. His last data meeting of the quarter had been earlier that day. The class with Munson fared better than the rest for the entire third quarter, despite the fact they’d come dead last in the first semester.
“Yeah, but, Robin—He doesn’t let me collect their phones!”
“Because that policy was banana sandwich, Steve. You almost got suckerpunched. By a child.”
“Ricky isn’t a child; he’s hellspawn.”
“He absolutely should’ve been swallowed. Regardless—”
“I can’t believe he’s going to Europe with us. I was going to have the whole summer, not having to look at his stupid face,” Steve sighs, propping his feet up on the coffee table. Robin’s feet are already there, long and skinny and tipped in chipped purple polish. He feels the bizarre urge to scent her ankles, like a pup, to seek comfort
“Look,” Robin says, “I know you’re sexually frustrated—”
“Oh my god!”
“And I’m thinking maybe, ok, maybe you actually kinda sorta like seeing his stupid face—”
Steve huffs into his beer, trying to decide between righteous indignation and a laughing fit. Which would best convey how ridiculous the idea is—should be—to Steve right now?
Either would use a touch too much energy.
He stares at his beer, tiredly.
“Oh my god,” Robin says, her realization dawning with a brilliant smile, like a child discovering where the Christmas gifts are hidden. “I’m right.”
“Robin—” Steve starts.
She’s pointing at him with her beer.
“No, holy god, I’m right, I’m right! You don’t hate him; you want to fuck him!”
“Keep your damn voice down!” Steve hisses, loud. “The management already thinks I’m a slut, having you over all the time—”
“I thought they thought we were engaged?” Robin says.
“I can’t actually remember who thinks what,” Steve mutters, which is true. He should probably keep better track. Not every apartment building is willing to house a single omega, and for as cheap as he’s paying.
“Well, you’re going to have to clear it up, if you’re gonna have Eddie over.”
“We don’t need to talk about this,” Steve says.
“Oh, but we do. How long has it been?”
“Since I’ve gotten a decent knot?” Steve laughs, relishing the strong buzz of his second beer. “College? Junior year.” he muses out loud.
“Jesus, Steve,” his friend reflects, “That bad?”
Steve rolls his eyes, silent. “With the job, and the degree, I haven’t been too focused on.. Y’know. Getting any.”
“What about your ex?” Robin asks, and Steve can feel a flush creep over his face and neck. “Was it ever good?”
As much as Robin and Steve hang out, as much as they basically live in one another’s personal space, however many times they’ve been called school spouses, however often they’re asked when they’ll just get hitched already, Steve has never shared that much with her about his love life. She knows about the divorce, and the brief history of his dissatisfaction. There’s just been this little barrier around all the stuff that’s too real, a clingfilm that’s wrapped all that up where no one, including Steve himself, can touch it.
“It’s embarrassing,” Steve says.
She’s quick to probe. “Why embarrassing?”
“I don’t know, Robs,” Steve says, “I was married. We had sex like, all the time.”
“You told me,” Robin says, “Every night from nine to nine-oh-five, unless he couldn’t get it up.”
Steve groans. “Do you see?”
“Not really,” Robin says. “So you went through the motions, but you weren’t attracted to each other. Lots of people wind up in that boat after a while.”
Steve reflects. Dan had certainly been attracted to Steve, and he did try, at the beginning, to do everything he should have. There were gifts, dinners, social media posts. Steve had been excited for his wedding, and the wedding night. He had been. But after just a few months of being married…
“I mean, I could’ve tried harder.”
“What?” Robin says, “No. There’s no try harder. You like someone or you don’t.”
“Like, I didn’t pick him, sure, and he was kind of a dick, but I wasn’t much better. I could’ve acted happier about the whole thing. Maybe it would’ve helped.”
“Ew, don’t make me gag,” Robin says. “Steve, listen to yourself. Would you be sitting here telling me to act happier about it? If I were married to someone I didn’t like, and I didn’t want to have sex with them?”
“Fuck. No,” Steve says, glum.
“Right! You’d never say that to me. Probably because I’m an alpha, too, which is it’s own brand of fucked up, but, y’know, society.”
Steve thumbs the label of his beer. “Why do you have to put it like that?”
“Because I’m right,” Robin says.
“You’re the only alpha who can get away with talking to me like that,” Steve says.
“Hell yeah I am,” Robin says, “Unless you like that. Which, to be clear, I don’t want to know.”
“Well, you’re the one asking about my sex life,” he mutters.
“Just how long it’s been! Wait, so is this about, like, wanting to break the dry spell, or do you actually like Eddie? Oh my God, do you like him?”
Steve scoffs and rolls his eyes.
“It’s not like that. It’s not that bad,” he says, but something in his voice gives him away. He can tell from the way he’s acted and reacted that Robin knows something is up.
“I should’ve known,” she says. “You’re not the type to love ‘em and leave ‘em.”
“There will be no—Robin, nothing’s going to happen,” Steve says. She looks at him, and she doesn’t even have to acknowledge it. He knows she knows.
Steve does like Eddie. He does like him, and his personality, which makes it so much worse, the fact Steve wants to climb him like a tree.
It’s confirmed with the lilt of her voice in the next question.
“So how long have you been into him?” she asks.
Steve thinks of a way to avoid the question.
“Just, y’know, the whole time,” Steve says.
“That bad, huh?” Robin asks.
Steve sighs, “Yeah.”
She doesn’t ask about high school, when all three of them attended Hawkins High as students. That was a long, long time ago.
The thing about going through a traumatic experience is that it doesn’t seem, at first, like it changes you at all.
As soon as you’re out of it, you just want to barrel back toward normal: set up a new routine, and act like nothing happened.
You’re the same! just a little more scared, a little less sure.
But, over time, it catches up with you.
After a drunk driver ran the town’s only stoplight and totaled Steve’s BMW junior year, and after Barb Holland was pried out of the rear passenger seat already dead, Steve kept things “normal” for a little while.
It was the social thing that finally gave way.
He’d always considered himself a people person. He loved a little chat, a little catch up. He tried not to gossip—most of the time—but even that was natural to him. He just liked people, liked knowing what they were up to.
But the small talk he used to love? It was suddenly impossible. The accident was like a knife sticking straight out of his chest; it stood between him and everyone else, and everyone had to address it—hey Steve, oh shit, what’s that knife doing there? Are you okay? What happened?
Everyone he talked to, they kept telling him: it’s not your fault. What kind of piece of shit drives through Hawkins, wasted, at 8pm? Barb’s death was a horrific tragedy; it could’ve happened to anybody.
Everyone kept telling Steve it wasn’t his fault, real solemn and serious, and then they’d say, hey, what beautiful weather we’re having.
Meanwhile, all he could think: it was his fault. He’d been driving. If he’d just waited for another second at the green light, the way his mom said was absolute best practice, just in case, everyone would have been fine.
There was a shame that clouded Steve constantly, but he couldn’t explain it to anyone. So he smiled and nodded and he tried so desperately to get back to normal, like the knife sticking out of his chest, it just wasn’t there.
It’s not like he didn’t want them to acknowledge it. He just couldn’t stand it, either way.
He couldn’t do it. He stopped being able to process the small talk. He couldn’t look at someone and talk about the weather. He couldn’t hear about exciting weekend plans when someone was dead because of him. So he didn’t.
The rest of Junior year was strange. Steve was still friends with Nancy and her new boyfriend, Jonathan, who helped her heal from the broken heart—and femur and collarbone. Steve was still friends with Tommy and Carol, who’d also been in the car and managed to walk away, just like him.
Senior year, he didn’t see almost anyone after school, or on the weekends. He dropped all of his sports clubs, and he didn’t attend parties.
Steve was dreading the moment an adult would catch up to him. His parents, his teachers. He was so scared of being confronted about everything in his head that he wound up disappointed when no one said a damn thing—no one but his drug dealer.
“Back already?” Eddie asked. Steve couldn’t help but pick up a little judgment. What was it to Eddie if he was smoking more? If he was smoking all of the time, every night, and most mornings?
“You think you’d be happy for the business,” he said, sitting at the familiar picnic table, staring at the whorls and knots.
“I do plenty of business,” Eddie said. “You’re most of it, these days.”
“I haven’t been able to get as much booze,” Steve explained, just a little ashamed to be getting a lecture from the school dealer. “Can’t have a weekend without something,” he murmured. Or a weekday.
“Hmm, sure,” Eddie agreed passively, already doling out Steve’s usual gram.
“Do you not drink?” Steve asked.
Eddie glanced up. “Nope,” he said with a pop. “I’m too good at it. Mom was an addict. Runs in the family, I guess.”
Steve shuffled around the ideas in his head, wanted to fit this odd little detail about Munson somewhere it would stick.
“The only thing my mom’s addicted to is status,” he said.
He always did that, in those days. He’d just be chatting with someone and suddenly get all weird and intimate. Couldn’t just talk about the weather. Couldn’t just do the small talk and move on.
Eddie snorted. “Can’t say I’m surprised,” he said.
Steve worried his lip, suddenly bursting at the seams with a history he wanted to tell someone who would listen. Wanted to tell Eddie.
“She just can’t let it go,” Steve said. “It’s a drug, to her. I think she’d change anything about me, if it made someone else happy.”
Eddie’s hands had stopped moving in the periphery of his vision.
“D’you wanna change?” Eddie asked.
“What?”
“Do you want to change? To make someone else happy?” Eddie clarified.
Steve shook his head, answering before he even realized it was the truth.
“No. But… it’s not like I even know, y’know, who I am. I’ve been changing for so long…”
“You don’t know what’s real and what’s not?” Eddie asked, bringing a lock of frizzing, soft-looking hair to his mouth. It’s a disgusting habit, Steve’s mother’s voice said, in his head, but Steve’s mouth was open and his heart was thudding in place.
Steve kept seeing Eddie. Eddie kept doing it. He kept reading Steve like a book, and Steve got to know him too—his habits, phrases, his mannerisms. More of that bizarrely intimate conversation, and whenever Steve visited, he’d be sitting there for an hour, or more, even sticking around while Eddie met with
other people, doing his homework at the table while Eddie dicked around on his guitar.
It got cold, and Steve started inviting himself to Eddie’s. Some nights Eddie’d insist on packing a bowl to share, so Steve would bring food, something unique Eddie couldn’t or wouldn’t make for himself—roasted garlic jam, basil pesto, fresh baked bread with meat and cheese from his uncle’s deli. They’d spend evenings together watching movie or three, or Eddie would explain the campaign he was putting together, or Steve would regale him with gossip about Eddie’s customers, people he’d known for years and never talked to anymore.
Steve stopped smoking as much. He woke up feeling closer to normal. He didn’t feel normal like he used to feel; it was an adjacent type of normal, whole and improved. Instead of getting up and thinking about how he’d avoid it—everything that happened—he would get up and think about class, and movies, and Eddie.
It wasn’t just Eddie, his friend, either. He thought about Eddie’s hair, and his hands, and his body, what he kept under his jeans. He thought about kissing him, sitting in his lap. He thought about the way their arms would touch while they sat together and he made a decision.
When Steve gave Eddie a courting gift, Eddie didn’t talk to him for a week.
Steve was crushed. He knew he’d been taking a chance; he knew it was unusual for an omega to give an alpha something like that—but it was simple, masculine, just a strip of leather with his initials pressed in, Steve had agonized about it for weeks, he thought Eddie would like it.
Stupid, stupid, stupid, he told himself, crushing his head under his pillow, trying not to cry. He thought they had something. He thought Eddie would like it, would think it was non-conformist: Steve the omega courting Eddie the alpha, instead of the other way around.
“I’m not that person,” Eddie said, finally, when Steve gathered up the balls to see him at his trailer. He was clad in sweatpants and wore stubble on his strong jaw and chin. He was beautiful, and he smelled like heaven should smell, probably came right to the door from his bed where he slept without blockers, wrapped in the warmth of his own scent.
What person?
“What person?” Steve asked.
“That alpha you want,” Eddie said, crossing his arms, his shoulders hunched, “Your Prince Charming. I’m not that. And I’m not—I’m not someone you can use to piss off your parents, either. I’m sorry. I just—I’m not gonna be that, for you, okay? So you just—”
He breathed in, and Steve got the sense he’d been practicing this in the mirror, that he’d been preparing this for a long time.
“You need to stop slumming it,” Eddie said, “You need to stop slumming it here in the trailer park, with the bad alpha, okay? You need to get back to your regularly scheduled program. Get back to your life.”
Steve’s jaw worked, his mouth forming around words that wouldn’t come out.
Eddie had the decency to look doubtful, chagrinned as he closed the door in Steve’s face.
Part of Steve wanted to walk away. The omegas he’d always known, the omegas he’d always wanted to be, they’d have walked away, gone home, and waited for their Prince to realize his mistake, to come calling with apologies, and gifts, and declarations.
Steve knocked on the door, and when Eddie finally opened it, Steve didn’t bother talking.
Eddie smelled perfect, still wrapped in his sleep-warm, natural scent. Steve inhaled the taste of it on his way to Eddie’s mouth. He kissed him in the doorway, and Eddie was halfway through saying something, the words dying as Steve pressed his open mouth to Eddie’s face, Eddie’s tongue catching his, wet and welcoming. Anybody could’ve seen them—straight laced and proper Steve Harrington, all but declaring himself for weed dealing ne’erdowell Eddie Munson. His groan vibrated Steve’s entire body; Steve sagged against him as he fell backward toward the wall.
Steve kicked the door closed and heard the metallic sound of his belt buckle undoing falling from between them, both of them fumbling to touch the other—up and down arms, waists, Eddie’s hands going from yanking his belt undone to pulling Steve to him by the shoulderblades, Steve’s fingertips searching for the waistband of Eddie’s sweatpants so that the warm skin of their stomachs could press together.
“You prick,” Steve said into Eddie’s mouth, not letting him pull away, not letting him go, “Don’t do that. Slumming it? Don’t say that.”
“Okay, fuck,” Eddie said, “come here,” pulling Steve’s face onto his, the stubble of his lips dragging against Steve’s. He tasted so good, and Steve was still so angry.
“I’m not fucking—slumming it. Slumming it? Eddie, don’t fucking say that.”
“Okay,” Eddie said, giving in so easily, “Steve, fuck, I’m sorry, baby.”
“That’s right,” Steve said, so for the rest of the school year, and all that summer, Eddie called him baby, baby, baby.
Eddie was wrong, of course. He thought he wasn’t Steve’s ideal. He said, I’m not your Prince Charming, but Steve stopped wanting that stereotype right about when he realized Eddie had been there instead: careful, and sweet, and so goddamn romantic that Steve knew he’d be ruined for anyone else. There were no courting gifts and no titles. He couldn’t tell anyone that he and Eddie were dating, because there were no dates, not really—not unless you counted the handful of places Eddie would park his van so that they could look at the lake, or the ridge, or the night sky, not unless you counted the bed where they slept every night or the table where they ate together, where Eddie wouldn’t start eating until Steve was there, where Eddie reached across the table to hold his hand.
Anyway, Steve didn’t have a soul to tell in the first place, no one who would believe him and definitely no one who would approve of the way Eddie loved him.
Eddie had a lot of canned tirades against the way people were supposed to be with each other. It would be easy to hear him grunt at the idea of courtship and box him in as cynical, but in reality he was the most loving type of person Steve had ever known. Steve didn’t have a scrap of jewelry or a single restaurant check to show for their short relationship—just the memories of the way Eddie would hold him while he cooked, feed him forkfuls during dinner and do the dishes after. In place of courting gifts, Steve had a box of trinkets Eddie’d given him—pebbles, feathers, a bottle opener, a keychain, a Stephen King paperback with tiny purple flowers pressed between the pages.
When they were alone, which was almost always, Eddie would scent him desperately, ferociously licking into Steve’s neck without regard for propriety, with a pressure Steve believed would bruise, every time. He fucked Steve—and they absolutely fucked, held out for mere days before breaking that social taboo—he fucked Steve like he needed it to live, a first round that was hard and intense, then second rounds, so slow and so close that Steve could’ve counted Eddie’s eyelashes.
They looked into each other’s eyes and Steve knew he had it bad—so bad, so low and helpless with it that he could only mewl and groan and sometimes even cry, tears slipping out with the drool whenever he was pressed face down into Eddie’s mattress.
He wanted Eddie so much; it was something that was part of his blood, visiting his heart and brain and dick with every course through his body.
It’s a miracle Steve made it through that summer without becoming pregnant, with the number of times he’d let Eddie fuck him raw, desperate for a closeness that culminated in sticky liquid heat inside his body, the thrum of Eddie’s heartbeat in the pulse of his dick.
Eddie would shove torn pieces of notebook paper into Steve’s hands as he was leaving, or when they passed each other in the halls at school. He’d hide behind his hair and try to hide his smile, but Steve would grin back at him as he pocketed the notes—notes about Steve’s eyes or his body or the way he spoke. Eddie was an excellent writer, as far as Steve could tell a melodramatic but genuine poet, and when they were apart Steve would spread the notes over his bed, looking at them altogether like they were evidence, like if he stared long enough they’d be written on his soul, proof that someone good loved him with a strength no one else could deny.
Indiana State was Steve’s idea. Eddie encouraged him. Steve talked about college and the classes he’d take, the experiences he could have, the people he could meet.
He wouldn’t have ever wanted to go to college, but he saw no other way to move out of his parents’ house without getting married. College was a way out from under his parents’ roof, somewhere that wasn’t Hawkins, where everyone who looked at him saw that boy who had that terrible accident, the Harrington boy, the omega.
In his daydreams, Eddie was right there, living with him—an apartment off campus, where they could cook and smoke and sleep next to one another and have sex, like, constantly.
The fact he never actually mentioned Eddie coming along—at the time, he’d have said he didn’t talk to Eddie about moving with him because the plans for the future didn’t matter; they were living in the moment. In retrospect, he’d say he was embarrassed, and afraid of the rejection, the devastation Eddie could lay out as easily as a hand of cards.
Eddie lived inside of him, stared in his eyes while they both came, wrote some truly cheesy shit about warming his body and blood in the prismatic light of Steve’s eyes, but—they weren’t courting. They weren’t really, truly together.
And plus, Eddie had his own plans: a tour with his band, just as summer came to a close.
It was for the better, Steve reassured himself. If allowed to play out, it would never have stayed good. It could never have stayed good; Steve doesn’t get good things like that, especially not in the long term. Not even a relationship, he’d remind himself. In the back of Steve’s mind, he’d known it wouldn’t last, but he’d been made weak with the constant reassurance of Eddie’s regard.
The notes, the gifts, their places on either side of Eddie’s bed—it had all made him optimistic, too precious about himself. He had to remind himself constantly that they weren’t committed to one another; Steve’s mother’s voice rattled constantly in his head that they were just playing house, just faking something Eddie had never really offered. It made Steve reluctant to press the issue, lest Eddie correct him and proclaim firmly that they weren’t together like that.
So when Eddie pushed him away, that August, he stayed away.
It made the most sense to just break it off, he reasoned with himself. If Eddie meant to find his way as a musician, and he’d meant all along to do so without Steve, it made sense for both of them. Steve packed up and moved on and settled into school with the resolve that he’d cut it all off—the sex, the tenderness, the dashed dream that he’d found someone as fucked up inside as he was, and that they wanted him back. He’d enjoy what it was, what it had been, and cut it off.
Which would’ve worked out, he tells himself now, but—like a doll’s hair, knowing it wouldn’t grow back, he just couldn’t cut it off.
Steve’s first months with a coteacher slipped by in week-long chunks.
Eddie—Mr. Munson—was insufferable.
It had been Steve’s least favorite class the previous fall. Right before lunch, not as wild a time as it could be—Steve would sometimes imagine teaching them at the end of the day and feel a sheet of adrenaline cascade from the tips of his ears to his toes. No, his troublesome students traipsed and stumbled in around 10:45AM, often several minutes late, seemingly normal and human, but as it crept closer to noon his students’ teen brains and bodies truly awoke and Steve felt like he was watching a pack of werewolves at the ascent of the full moon.
Then Eddie happened, and it was worse, because he helped.
“Everyone good?” he’d ask, and Steve would barely suppress his eye roll. Of course they’re good, he’d think, I explained the activity. I went over the directions twice. And then four students would raise their hands for Eddie’s help and he’d feel so low, so embarrassed.
“It’s like… okay no, think of it like this,” Eddie would say, and Steve could hear him repeating the same goddamn thing he’d JUST said at the front of the room.
And when Eddie would cut him off? To explain something? In front of the kids? He wanted to scream.
You don’t even speak Spanish! he wanted to scream. Eddie would just listen to what Steve had to say about the topic, process it, and spit it out again. He had no idea what he was talking about.
This isn’t your class, he wanted to say, not really. You aren’t supposed to be here. I’m here. You aren’t supposed to be part of this life.
I finally made myself comfortable. I finally had a place where I don’t have to question whether I belong. I don’t have to wonder if I could be happier—because the answer is no. There’s nowhere else to go, nothing else to feel. No one to want. So why are you here?
Robin, as well, does not let it go.
Being a woman who prefers the company of women, Robin knows how to be discreet about a friend’s love life when conversing in public places. She does not utilize these skills with Steve.
“Where’s Mr. Hunka Hunka Burnin Love this period?” she asks during their department planning time, and Steve slowly drains of color as he processes her question.
“I’m sorry, what?” he asks.
She laughs as she leaves the room.
As they acclimated to teaching together that winter, Eddie’s value was most obvious on the days he had meetings and missed the beginning of Steve’s class. The class off the rails, Steve would be close to getting emotional, ready to stop the whole class and address them for their behavior. Then, Eddie would walk in, and slowly kids would slot into place.
Eddie's theatricality and history taking abuse from high school students leant itself particularly well to teaching. Just a few well timed remarks later, the mess would take shape: a controlled chaos Steve could be proud of.
It looked like kids were learning, and like they weren’t miserable doing it. Steve would be able to give one-on-one support to a struggling kid without worrying about what the rest of the class would do. Steve could progress, able to share an affirming smile with a student whose mother he’s called more often than his own this year.
The feelings he had in those moments were almost worse than the disdain. It would be so much easier if it were cut and dry—if Eddie were terrible.
Instead, Steve started to see—Eddie is good for his kids. He’s important to them. He’s making a difference.
It made him proud, to think about teaching these kids who normally had such a hard time, teaching them successfully.
But it was with Eddie—and that? Infuriating.
In addition to saving the day by volunteering to chaperone, Eddie is maddeningly helpful about the big trip abroad. He offers to distribute forms, and, more importantly, follow up about them. He sorts checks. He makes calls. Steve is fuming about it, but Robin seems grateful.
Steve and Robin coordinate a few big meetings with the kids and their parents about the trip. The other chaperones attend as well, and Steve sees a few parents giving Eddie the hairy eyeball.
He really doesn’t make it easy on himself, Steve thinks, looking at him. No one in a conservative small town expects someone like Eddie—hair, tattoos and all—to be teaching children. He’s not even ashamed about it, Steve thinks; he doesn’t even put up his hair. He’s got new tattoos in the years since Steve knew him—some near his hands, and Steve thinks with a grimace that he must’ve been interviewed at some point. Did he cover his tattoos? Or did he interview in a Metallica shirt and Reeboks?
He never did want to hide anything, not even when it was convenient.
He always had to prove himself.
“Could you open the bathroom next door?” one of the parents is asking, and Eddie turns his charmingly animated face on the man.
“Oh, I don’t have a key to that one, sorry about that.”
“Oh no?” the father chuckles, “don’t you usually have a big loop of them?”
Eddie’s eyebrows press together in confusion.
“That’s the joke right? A bunch of keys?” the dad is asking. He looks friendly enough.
“Oh,” Eddie says, “I’m not the janitor, man. I’m a teacher.”
“Oh!” the father seems chagrined, but Eddie is quick to pick up the conversation, not allowing him to sit in his embarrassment. Eddie, rather than taking umbrage like Steve expects, is so kind, so charming, the man doesn’t seem to realize he’s being led back to his seat so that Steve and Robin can get the meeting started.
Steve feels a warm pride, watching him move through the groups of families, clapping students’ shoulders, talking to parents. He shouldn’t be surprised—Eddie was always likable, when he liked you back. The teenage anger, something they shared once, has dissipated, and whereas Steve has developed a healthy varnish of cynicism Eddie seems to have found his way in greater society—making the students, the staff, the parents attune to him despite his appearances.
He doesn’t make it easy for himself, but Eddie never wanted to do things the easy way.