Chapter Text
Eddie’s not much of a holiday kind of guy, if he’s being perfectly honest. His two exceptions are Halloween and Thanksgiving, because if there’s two things in this world he loves, it’s spooky shit and mashed potatoes. Outside of those, though, he doesn’t really see the appeal.
Christmas is fine, but he’s never been able to give his friends the kind of gifts they deserve, which makes him feel guilty. Plus, it’s so family-centered, and Eddie’s not a big family guy, either. He has Wayne, and that’s enough for him.
New Year’s Eve is all parties that he’s never invited to, and midnight kisses that he’ll never get. Plus, celebrating the passage of time is a strange ritual that Eddie just can’t get behind. Each new year is another year of aging, another year closer to dying, one more step toward the inevitable heat-death of the universe. Hardly worth celebrating, if you ask him.
Then there’s Valentine’s Day. Ugh. He’d love to say that he hates Valentine’s Day the most because it’s a meaningless capitalist money-grab of a holiday, but the reality is this: Eddie Munson hates Valentine’s Day because he is chronically single.
It’s pathetic, he knows, but he really is that bitter, lonely asshole who’s jealous of everyone else’s love. Forget just being a virgin – he’s never been on a date. He’s never even been kissed. In a tiny town where new is exciting, Eddie was the wrong kind of new when he blew into town and landed on Wayne’s porch. He’s too different, too weird, too queer. He’s about as far from coveted as anything can possibly be, and it shows. The modern day doesn’t seem to have touched Hawkins, or its citizens’ tiny minds.
And now, at the ripe old age of twenty-three, Eddie has decided that enough is enough. He doesn’t want to sit alone at home on Valentine’s Day next year. He doesn’t want to share his evening with a six pack of Coors and a bag of Hershey’s hearts. He wants to spend it with someone. He wants a date. He would like to have one, single year where Robin cannot refer to him as chronically bitchless.
The problem with that, though, is that Eddie can’t rely on the nonexistent chance that someone might ask him out this year. He’s going to have to take initiative, meet someone new. Meet someone who isn’t immediately put off by the way he looks. Then, he’ll have to make sure they’re not put off by his weirdo personality.
So, no one in Hawkins.
Eddie’s been up to Indy a handful of times, usually to buy new dice sets or bar hop with Steve and Robin. He’s never managed to work up the courage to cruise, or even make a real attempt to pick anyone up. Looks like now might be the time.
That leads to the second problem: since Eddie has never been on a date, he doesn’t know how to take someone on a date. Sure, he’s seen the romcoms and teen dramas, but Eddie has a feeling that the media may be working against him in this scenario. He suspects it’s not as easy as dinner and a movie, or a candlelit picnic on the beach. The amount of socializing required is daunting, and Eddie’s not great at pretending to be normal.
All in all, it seems he might be fucked before he even starts.
— — —
Becoming friends with Steve Harrington is a twist in the plot that Eddie could never have possibly anticipated.
It feels fundamentally wrong to admit that Steve is not, in fact, an old dog, and that he has, in fact, learned new tricks in the form of behaving like a human person with compassion and empathy. While Steve wasn’t the most heinous person in the popularity hierarchy in high school, he was certainly the most apathetic. He rarely did any of the bullying himself, but he seemed to revel in standing by to watch, with his arms crossed and that cocky, smarmy smile on his face. Like he gained some kind of sick pleasure from bearing witness to the crushing of freaks and geeks under the metaphorical (and sometimes physical) boot of those gracing the top of the food chain.
The once colloquially known King of Hawkins High is now just… a guy. He’s a nice dude who’s best friend is a former band geek, who’s still tight with the kids he used to babysit, who tells Eddie that his hair is cool, no matter what everyone else says. It’s a trip and a half that took a while to get used to.
It started with an apology – one that Eddie wasn’t sure needed to be made. Sure, Steve was always watching the bullying happen and not doing anything to stop it, but he didn’t actually do any of the dirty work. So when he approached Eddie around the end of June, saying he was sorry for the way things were in high school, Eddie was confused. Sorry for what? Goons like Tommy H and Jason Carver probably wouldn’t have reined it in even if Steve had told them to, and the grudges Eddie holds are against them, not Steve.
Anyway, the point is, Eddie and Steve have struck up an unlikely friendship, and what’s even more surprising, is that Eddie thinks Steve might be his closest friend right now.
Corroded Coffin kind of fell apart after half the members went off to college, leaving Eddie and Gareth behind in Hawkins with no interest in pursuing higher education after barely eking through their mandatory education. And Gareth is great, of course, but he’s just a kid, freshly nineteen as of last month. Maybe Eddie’s not in a position to be shoving his friends down the rungs of the friendship ladder, but now that they’re both graduated, he’s realizing that a lot of the common ground they held was related to high school.
So now, Eddie’s friend group consists of Steve, Robin, Jeff, and Wayne. Putting aside the fact that half of those people are away at college, and one of the other half is his uncle, it’s not too bad. Nancy used to be a more common fixture in his life, but she’s really got her nose to the grindstone at Emerson, so he gets most of his updates on her life through Robin. He sees the kids sometimes, too, but they’re all doing their own thing, mostly, and Eddie’s not too sad about it. It’s nice to see them out and about, bringing more people into their little party. They know that he and Steve are a phone call and a short drive away if they’re needed, but they seem to be needed less and less the older the kids get, which is fine.
He sees Jeff and Robin whenever they come home for holidays or long weekends, talks to them on the phone sometimes, texts them a lot. He’s in constant communication with his people, and it’s nice. What’s less nice, however, is being subjected to conversations about their love lives.
Robin is seeing some girl at Emerson, and he’s happy for her. She had a couple of short lived flings last semester, but this girl (was it Amanda? Angela? Shit, he sucks at remembering names) seems to be in it for the long haul.
Jeff has a girlfriend of just over a year, Lissa, who Eddie hears about everytime he catches up with his friend. Which, he asks, okay? He’s not so much of a sad sack that he’s pretending she doesn’t exist.
And Steve – well, Steve has been mysteriously single since last year. Eddie’s tried asking about it a couple times, but he’s mostly met with shrugs and vague responses about a dry spell. Eddie doesn’t think it’s possible for a guy like Steve to experience an involuntary dry spell, but he’s decided not to push the matter. That just means one less person’s significant other to hear about.
Selfishly, he’d rather have Steve to himself anyway.
— — —
“You know that thing you do, where you just talk nonstop, even if I’m begging you to shut up?”
Eddie pauses with his cereal spoon halfway to his open mouth, and tilts his head. Milk drips over the edge of the silver, splashes onto the worn, faded material of his sleep pants. He’s somewhere between offended and curious when he replies.
“Uhhh. Yes?”
Steve nods, and Eddie manages to navigate the spoon into his mouth, squinting.
“Yeah, so. Why are you not doing that?” Steve asks, tearing the crust off of one side of his piece of toast. He’s leaned against the counter in their shared kitchen staring down Eddie, who’s sitting at their little thrifted dining table just minding his own business. At least, Eddie was minding his own business. Now he’s minding Steve’s business, whatever that may be.
“I’m sorry, would you like me to cause you mental distress?”
“I mean. No,” Steve shrugs, letting the removed crust fall back onto the plate before he starts on another side. “But it’s weird that you’re not.”
“Okay, sure.” Eddie stirs the remaining honeycombs around in his bowl. “What?”
Steve cracks a smile, and it just makes Eddie more confused.
“You’ve just been quiet, is all,” Steve clarifies. “You doing okay?”
The idea of Steve being so honed in on Eddie’s level of talkativeness that he not only notices when he’s quieter, but assumes something is wrong makes Eddie’s chest tighten with fondness.
Another strange thing about becoming friends with Steve Harrington, is finding out just how much Steve cares about his friends. He puts 100% into every relationship, really gives his all to each and every person he loves, and to be on the receiving end of that care and attention gets a little overwhelming at times, but in the best way.
Because Eddie has never been given 100% by anyone, except maybe Wayne, and as much as Eddie loves his uncle, that familial love just doesn’t fill the void left behind by a lack of romantic and platonic love. He gets that from Steve, though. The platonic for sure, but sometimes it feels like he’s even getting a little bit of that romantic love, in a way. He’s not sure how to explain it, but sometimes Steve just says something or does something that makes Eddie feel this tension, like they’re about to kiss or something, even though Steve is straight.
The on-and-off nature of that feeling really operates alongside the waxing and waning of Eddie’s little crush on Steve. Most of the time, it’s a tolerable thing that Eddie can keep on the back burner of his mind. He can generally go about his day-to-day life without thinking too hard about it. But then Steve leans in a little closer than usual, or gives Eddie an earnest compliment, or sits pressed right up next to him during movie nights, and then that little crush grows. Steve’s actions fan the flames until the low heat of that back burner flares up into a house fire.
When that happens, Eddie aches for Steve in a way that feels dangerous. He’s consumed by a longing that he doesn’t think his body could possibly contain, and yet somehow, it always does.
And then time passes, and hormones stabilize, and that flame shrinks back down to a manageable size.
All that to say, Steve’s observation about Eddie’s talkativeness is making that flame grow again.
“I’m alright,” Eddie says, letting his spoon drop into the bowl. A few drops of milk splash up and over the lip of the ceramic, landing on the scuffed tabletop. “Honestly, I’m just a little bummed about Valentine’s Day.”
Steve pushes himself off the doorframe and shuffles to the table, pulling out a chair and taking a seat across from Eddie.
“You know Valentine’s Day is, like, six months away, right?” he asks, brows drawn together. Eddie sucks in a breath, and immediately feels like an idiot for saying anything at all. Steve must sense the mood shift, because he waves his hand through the air as though to erase the question from existence. “How come?’ he asks instead. “No date prospects?”
“No prospects, and no hope of securing one anyway, I’m afraid.” Eddie tries to insert some humor into his tone, but it comes out sounding just pathetic, he thinks. “I’m not really getting my hopes up for this next one, but…”
“But what?”
“I dunno, man. It’s not just Valentine’s Day,” Eddie admits. “It’s also, like – It’s the fact that I’ve never been on a date. Never taken someone on a date. How am I supposed to work on getting a date for Valentine’s Day when I don’t even know what a date entails?”
It feels stupid when he says it, but Steve nods along like he understands completely, which Eddie thinks couldn’t possibly be true. Steve is, and has always been, the one person in Hawkins who was just about always on a date. He has more experience than the whole of Indiana combined, probably.
There’s a pause, like Steve is thinking about what to say next, and Eddie can see the shift from yeah that makes sense to what the hell are you talking about. His brows knit together, he nods minutely, opens his mouth, then snaps it shut again, frowning.
“Wait, have you really never been on a date?”
“Says leagues about the rest of my love life, doesn’t it?”
“I mean, not necessarily,” Steve shrugs. “But you saying that sure does.” He says it with a smile, the corner of his mouth lilting up in an apologetic way. Eddie rolls his eyes, silently conceding the point. ”Is this a case of you getting rejected, or you not asking at all?”
“Which one is less pathetic?” Eddie asks, shifting his gaze to the ceiling and placing his chin in his open palm, like he’s legitimately thinking.
Steve barks out a laugh and leans back in his chair.
“I mean, you end up looking bad either way.”
“Damn. I was hoping you’d say something nice. Maybe like, neither is pathetic, Eddie, you’re so cool and attractive that you should have dudes lining up to ask you out.” Eddie laces his hands together, arms encircling his cereal bowl. “Now you try.”
“You being cool and attractive doesn’t make you immune to being pathetic,” Steve says with an exaggerated frown.
“Yeah, you would know, huh?”
Steve clutches his chest and gasps in horror. He shakes his head as he says, “Don’t take your severe lack of game out on me.”
Eddie blows a raspberry in response and crosses his arms. “You asked.”
Steve doesn’t respond right away, just stares Eddie down in a way that feels strangely heavy. His eyes flick between Eddie’s as he chews his lower lip, and Eddie would give anything to get a peek into his brain.
“Did you have anyone in mind that you wanted to ask out for Valentine’s Day?” Steve finally asks, his expression schooling into something a little more serious.
“Not really,” Eddie replies with a sigh. “I want to try, though. I want to meet people, get some experience under my belt. I’m kinda over being lonely, you know?”
He supposes it’s not entirely fair to say that he’s straight up lonely. He has friends that he sees regularly. He sees Wayne for dinner at least once a week. Now that he and Steve live together, he gets to experience what it’s like to almost always have someone around at the same time he is. And when Robin eventually graduates from college, she’ll add to that. It’s a two bedroom apartment, but they’ll make it work.
He’s not lonely in a broad sense, is what he means. He’s experiencing a specific brand of loneliness that shouldn’t eat at him the way it does, but it just, well – it just does.
Steve is silent for another stretch. This time, he’s tilting back in his chair, bringing the front legs off the linoleum and looking at Eddie through the lashes of his narrowed eyes. It kind of makes Eddie want to squirm.
When Steve finally speaks again, Eddie’s not quite expecting what he says.
“I could help you out, if you want?” Steve offers. “As someone with a lot of dates under my belt, I think I’m qualified.”
“What, you have a goldmine of foolproof pointers you’re sitting on?” Eddie asks, amused.
“I’m not talking about pointers,” Steve says with a shake of his head. “I mean something more like on-the-job training,” he clarifies, which doesn’t actually clear anything up for Eddie.
“You’ve lost me.”
Steve rolls his eyes, like he’s not the one speaking in code right now.
“I mean, you’ve never been on a date. You need to learn how to go on a date. Take me on a date to practice.”
Eddie blinks.
That flame is really heating up now.
“Take you on a date?” He repeats dumbly.
“Better yet, take me on multiple dates,” Steve says, and now Eddie’s really fucking lost. “Plan a few. You know me, you know what I like. Use me as your practice test, man! Plan some dates that you think I’ll like, pick me up, take me out, try out your best moves on me. I’ll tell you at the end how it was and what you can change next time. Why are you looking at me like that?”
Eddie has to mentally tell himself to close his fucking mouth and maybe blink again, instead of sitting there like a fucking bug, staring at Steve.
“I’m sure all that made perfect sense in your head, but to me, it sounded like me complaining for thirty seconds about being a virgin loser, and then you begging me to take you on multiple dates. Does that sound right?” Eddie taps his foot on the floor over and over, trying to expel the nervous energy that’s now filling his body.
“You don’t need to say it like that, but yeah,” Steve says with a shrug.
“Oh okay, yeah, sure,” Eddie says, hands twitching. “So, when you say try out my best moves, what does that mean? Light flirting? The yawn that leads to my arm around your shoulders? An awkward kiss on your doorstep?”
“I mean, I hope you have better moves than that.”
“Okay.” Eddie thinks his brain might catch fire and evaporate right out of his ears, the way Steve is talking like he’s fucking serious. Like it’s not a silly goofy joke. “So, I’m – I need you to like, be explicitly clear here, Steve. I genuinely can’t tell if you’re kidding or not.”
Steve cocks his head, a look of confused concern pinching his features.
“Why would I be kidding?”
Eddie has to guffaw. “Uh, well, for starters, you are straight,” he starts. “Second of all, even if you weren’t, I’m me and you’re you.”
“Uh, yeah. I’m me, and you’re you, and I think you’re pretty awesome and deserve to know how to take someone out,” Steve replies. He says it like it’s so obvious, like there’s nothing strange about what he’s offering. Maybe to him, it’s not strange at all, and it really does all make sense in his pretty little head. To Eddie, though, it feels a little bit monumental and insane, and he wants to say yes so fucking bad.
He’d be walking a thin, precarious line, though. Passively crushing on Steve is one thing, but actively playing pretend and taking him out on dates would kill Eddie a little, he thinks. But god, it would be good while it lasts.
“Okay. Let’s say we do this.” Eddie pushes his bowl away from himself and folds his hands together on the table. “What exactly are we talking about? What counts as a date? Are we acting like a couple, or are you gonna be in coach mode while we’re out? What kind of moves are you expecting? Basically, where’s your line?”
Steve takes a moment to think, but has an answer far quicker than Eddie expected.
“Whatever we do, that you present as a date, will count as a date,” he starts. “And we’re going all in. Acting like a couple, the whole deal. I don’t have a line, so pull out your best moves.”
Eddie puffs out his cheeks as he releases a long breath. He tries to imagine going out and about with Steve and acting like his boyfriend. Holding his hand and staring at him without it being weird. It feels forbidden, in a way. It makes his heart race, like he’s about to get caught doing something bad.
“That’s some serious dedication,” Eddie says. He sucks on his teeth and watches Steve’s face, trying to discern what he might be thinking. He doesn’t find what he’s looking for – isn’t even sure what he’s looking for.
“Yeah, well. I don’t half-ass anything,” Steve says with a shrug. Eddie nods, knowing that to be true in every aspect of Steve’s life. “What do you think?”
What does Eddie think?
He thinks that this is a little bit crazy, and that there’s an unspoken catch lingering somewhere out of sight. He thinks that Steve is being awfully generous with this proposition, especially when all he gets out of it is some – let’s be honest – mediocre dates and bad fake romance. He thinks that there’s no way this won’t go wrong, somehow.
Most of all, he thinks he doesn’t deserve to have a friend as good as Steve.
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but, what’s in this for you?” Eddie asks, chewing on the inside of his cheek once the words are out. Steve, bless his heart, cocks his head and looks a little taken aback.
“Uh… the satisfaction of knowing that you won’t totally blow it with whoever you end up with?”
“Steven, you are so, so deeply kind and wonderful, so please know that I think the world of you when I say that there’s no way you would degrade yourself by going on dates with me just because you’re a nice guy,” Eddie says with a huff. He feels like a bit of a dick, but he cannot wrap his head around Steve’s thought process here. Would Eddie do the same for Steve? Well, yes, but that’s because he has a big fat crush on Steve, and it would be one part good intentions and three parts selfishness. And Steve really is a nice guy, but nice enough to do this?
It feels unlikely.
Steve rolls his eyes, crosses his arms over his chest. The sleeves of his sweatshirt pull taught over his biceps, and Eddie curses whatever malevolent god put him in this life, with this friend, who has this body.
“Can I not just do a nice thing? Can I not just genuinely want to help out my best friend?”
“Don’t let Robin hear you say that,” Eddie grumbles, but smiles at the verbal confirmation that he’s one of Steve’s best friends.
“Seriously, dude. I just want to. Acts of service is my love language,” he adds, like that’ll surely be the winning point in this non-argument. “So I’ll ask again: what do you think?”
Fuck, Steve really is the best. And it’s not like Eddie is in a position to decline any kind of help on this front. He’ll have to do something in return, not because Steve would ask him to, but because Steve deserves to have someone all in for him the way he is for Eddie.
“I think I don’t deserve you,” Eddie finally says. “I also think that you’re top-of-the-line, as far as dating mentors go, so I hope you’re ready for a difficult student.”
Steve grins and leans back in his chair. “Trust me, I’m ready.”
Eddie blows a raspberry into the air and peers into his cereal bowl. He chases the last couple of Honeycomb pieces around in the milk with his spoon, scoops them up and shoves them into his mouth. He takes his time chewing, waits for Steve to say psych, but he doesn’t.
So, he swallows, drops his spoon, and leans back to mimic Steve’s position.
“Alright then. Let’s do this.”
Steve nods, punctuates the moment and taps the surface of the table as he stands up. “Let me know when our first date is,” he says, throwing a wink Eddie’s way, like he thinks he’s fucking cute. Eddie shakes his head, amused, and stirs his cereal milk. As Steve starts to walk away, Eddie reaches out and grabs his wrist.
“Hey, uh,” he starts, then clears his throat as he meets Steve’s eyes. “Thank you. Seriously. You’re a great friend.”
Steve smiles, looks down and back up, like he’s embarrassed.
“You’re welcome,” he replies earnestly.
Eddie lets him go, lets out a shaky breath as Steve heads to the back of the apartment, toward his bedroom. When he hears the door distantly click shut, Eddie stands up, takes his bowl to the kitchen sink.
“Holy shit,” he breathes, dumping the milk in the sink and rinsing the bowl.
What the fuck is he going to do for the first date?