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atmilliways · 1 year

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Part Three: Shame On Me

(part one) (part two) (part four) (part five) - complete as of 4/4/23

Rating: Mature Word Count: 2183 Ships: Steddie Major Tags: Jealousy, Casual sex Additional Tags: Pining, Slutty Steve Harrington, Pre-relationship, Landline phones

Author’s Note: Banner by @xirayn.

Read it on Ao3

“—And he’d been pissy about something the whole way here. I mean, if he didn’t want to walk me home, maybe don’t let the bartender take my fucking keys? So that’s on him, not me.”

”What was he mad about?”

“Fuck if I know, man,” Eddie sighs, then takes a long hit off the joint in one hand and jams another chipped-off spoonful of not-at-all-thawed strawberry milkshake into his mouth with the other. The room is still dark—the entire apartment is, the only light he’s bothered with since coming home was the one that automatically comes on when opening the freezer—so the only illumination to see by are the streetlights filtering in through the windows and the cherry end of the roll-up. “He’d barely talked to me all night, too busy rubbing his ass all over half the guys on the dance floor.”

Nancy hums. “Didn’t really need to know that about my ex, but thanks.”

Swallowing down on a mouthful of brain freeze, Eddie smirks bitterly into the phone where it’s pinched between his face and shoulder. “Oh, I’m sorry, did you think the chicks Steve flocked with in high school were the only slutty ones in that equation? I thought you were a feminist, Nancy. Equal opportunity and all that shit.”

“Asshole,” she retorts, but with a hint of amusement. “So, everything was totally normal until you had your . . . encounter. . . .”

“Hookup, Nancy. Say it with me: hooook . . . up.”

“Shut up. That was the only thing out of the ordinary though? And he’s never acted like that before? And then he called you Munson, and slammed the door.”

“Yes, no, yes, and yes.” Another hit, another bite of ice cream. “So, you tell me. What does it all mean? Translate for me the mystery and enigma that is Steve fucking Harrington.”

“I don’t know, but I can tell you that Steve hasn’t moved out,” she says, not unkindly. “Robin said he turned up on the early morning bus and didn’t even bring a change of clothes.”

“That doesn’t mean he won’t decide to later,” Eddie points out.

“No, but it does mean that your kneejerk worst assumption wasn’t actually his first impulse, so maybe take your own catastrophizing with a grain of salt.”

And there it is: that razor-sharp slice into him that Nancy is so good at. He’d never imagined that he would end up genuine friends with Nancy Wheeler of all people, but she’s good at calling him on his bullshit and doesn’t know how to take fuck off as an answer.

“Fiiine.” Eddie sighs dramatically, but . . . okay, she has a point. Expecting the worst is kind of his thing, because that way the surprises he does encounter are usually pleasant ones. (He’d gotten even better at it since the spring of ‘86; perspective’s a bitch, and the worst he can imagine is now pretty damn terrible. Bad news first, always.)

But this? He can’t imagine he’s going to be pleasantly surprised by any of this. That would go completely against his own personal Munson doctrine. He’d told Steve fuck you very much and sent him off like an errand boy, for fucks sake.

“What am I supposed to do though, Nance?” he asks, voice low because he’s running out of steam. It’s been a long thirty-six hours, and a long ever since he met the real Steve Harrington. “First of all, I can’t take back shit I said or did while I was drunk off my ass. Second, am I just supposed to ensconce myself in a non-horny chrysalis to eternally preserve my virginal integrity? All while watching Steve slut it up with every eligible bachelor across town except me?”

And Nancy—perfect, practical, prissy Nancy Evelyn Wheeler—has the audacity to laugh at him. “Oh my god. Eddie, think about it. This is Steve we’re talking about here. He’s kind of a show-off when it comes to . . . matters of the heart—”

“Matters of the dick,” Eddie mutters through a heavy exhale of smoke.

“—And he doesn’t always think things through. He likes for people to see what they’re missing out on by not being with him. I didn’t even realize I had a crush on him until I realized I was jealous of Laurie W. of all people—do you have any idea how embarrassing that was?”

“Uh, not as embarrassing as the Freak having a crush on the King of the Jocks. Sorry babe, that trophy has my name written all over it.”

“Well, still. There you go,” Nancy says, as if that proves anything. “Everything he’s been doing has certainly got your attention. So?”

Maybe he’s smoked too much, because that makes no sense. Eddie blinks, frowns, and asks, “What? Why would he be pissed that I got laid when he didn’t and want my attention?”

Nancy sighs. “So close,” she mutters, and then refuses to explain what she means.

“Eddie?! Eddie!!”

This is how Eddie wakes up, reeling and flailing into a crablike crouch because where the fuck is he (fell asleep on the couch) and why is it fucking dark (never actually turned the lights on) and why is Steve fucking Harrington yelling his name like the building is on fire (it’s not; there would be more light, or at least smoke).

Stumbling footsteps come to a halt in front of the couch, and he hears a shaky exhale, a possible muttered there you are.

At a more normal, inside-voice volume, Steve says, “Oh, uh. Eddie. Hi.”

“Wha’ time’s it?” Eddie asks blearily, sounding and feeling like he’s gargled sand.

“It’s two,” Steve replies, leaving Eddie’s sleep-addled brain to wonder two what. “I took the late bus back from Robin’s,” he adds, which is only just barely helpful, context-wise. Flicking the lamp on the side table next to the couch on—and temporarily blinding Eddie, who hides behind his hair with a hiss—Steve leans over the couch by Eddie’s feet. However much of a rush he’d been in when leaving the other night, he’d still taken the time to change into one of his dorky polos and jeans that do his ass slightly less justice (and yet, in Eddie’s opinion, he could still qualify as a walking wet dream).

There’s a sudden plastic click followed by the curious absence of a background noise that, until now, Eddie had tuned out. Which . . . huh.

Fell asleep with the phone still on the couch, and the sound had been that funny little frantic beep of a handset left off the cradle for too long. Right. He must have kicked it off in his sleep or something.

Eddie rubs at his eyes and tries to stretch surreptitiously, but it’s hard when Steve is still standing over him, staring at him with wild eyes and hair that’s been tugged out of its usual expert coif into something the Bride of Frankenstein might be proud of.

“What?” Eddie grumbles petulantly, stifling a yawn and easing slowly into more of a sit than a crouch.

“The line was busy,” Steve replies. The tone is weirdly at odds with how he looks, sounding even and surface-level calm.

“So?”

“The last time a line was busy for multiple calls, El got arrested and the Byers’ house in Lenora got shot to Swiss cheese by a goddamn military strike force,” Steve reminds him, almost pleasantly. It’s eerie.

Eddie processes that for a moment, then screws his face up in something between chagrin and incredulity. “So did you think I got arrested, got shot, or just ripped the cord out of the wall so I wouldn’t have to talk to you?”

“Yes,” Steve all but shouts at him.

It’s way too fucking early for this.

Grumbling under his breath, Eddie clambers off the couch and snags the empty milkshake cup on his way to the kitchen, rinsing it in the sink and filling it with water that he gulps down and immediately refills. He’s desperately thirsty, but it’s also something to do while he tries to jumpstart his brain into dealing with everything—Steve being here, yesterday, the night before that, the tangle of emotion in his chest that he doesn’t know how to begin to unwind.

And Steve follows, because of course he does, and blinds Eddie again by turning on the kitchen light.

“Jesus H. Christ,” Eddie grumbles. “You’re something else, you know that, Harrington? All this concern for my well-being, suddenly. Where was this when you canceled movie night last week because of some guy you wanted to ‘hang out’ with?”

The words echo weirdly in the paper cup that Eddie is staring fixedly down into. He wishes he could have just been left on his own for longer—he’s taken the first step in trying to get over Steve, and it hasn’t gone very well so far, but it’s a start. It’s something, and shouldn’t he get credit for trying? Steve isn’t exactly making any of this easy, with his bitchy yet dogged hovering.

Complaining and distracted but still walking him home, getting him his favorite flavor of milkshake just because he asked for one while wasted, rushing back from Robin’s in an apparent panic to make sure he isn’t dead or something. . . .

“I, uh,” Steve says, and when Eddie looks up he’s surprised to see that the guy is blushing. He’s blushing, all the way down to where chest hair peeks out of the top of his polo, and it’s unfairly attractive because Eddie can’t catch a fucking break apparently. “Yeah, Robin kind of bitched me out for that.”

Eddie has the sudden irrational urge to either tear all his own hair out or call Robin to snap at her for getting involved, because this . . . thing he has for Steve is supposed to be a secret. If she sniffed it out like some sort of lesbian truffle pig on the hunt for gay secrets and then decided to barrel in and do something about it, he thinks he’s well within his rights to do a little yelling.

“Great,” he replies flatly. “Glad you had someone to point that out to you after approximately—” he makes a show of checking his watch “—the twentieth time you’ve done it.”

Steve runs both hands through his hair. “Fuck—I know, man, I’m sorry.” He sounds a little hysterical, which, okay, really seems unnecessary considering Eddie is the wronged party here. “I fucked up, Eds! I didn’t mean to but I fucking did, just like I always—” Stopping, he shakes his head like an Etch-a-Sketch, hands still on his head. He drags them down over his face and groans into his palms. “What did Nancy tell you?”

“Uh, no, I think we’re still on what Robin told you,” Eddie challenges.

And Steve—Steve fucking Harrington—drops his hands, looks him directly in the eye with a despairing expression on his stupidly handsome face, and answers, “She told me that you can’t kick me out for being an asshole while my name is still on the lease. But I was an asshole and it was bullshit the way I treated you last night, so if you want me to go I’ll, I’ll go. I can still kick in on rent until . . . if you want to find a smaller place, or a new roommate.”

‘Your kneejerk assumption wasn’t actually his first impulse, so maybe take your own catastrophizing with a grain of salt,’ Nancy’s voice reminds Eddie. Because his first thought, when Steve offers to go, is to call her back with a vicious didn’t I tell you, but.

But.

It’s an offer. The guy looks like a kicked puppy, like this is the absolute last thing he wants to be saying but necessity is dragging the words out of him. And describing his behavior as bullshit, which. Which. Eddie has heard the Halloween party story, hiccuped into his shoulder once at the end of a long evening of smoking it up in their new apartment. ‘Bullshit’ isn’t a word that Steve uses lightly.

The prospect of Steve actually moving out makes Eddie feel like he’s been gutted, completely hollowed out. It’s not worse than watching Steve with other guys . . . but it’s not better, either.

“I’ll probably leave my bed and the rest of the big stuff, at least until I can figure out where I’m going—”

“Steve,” Eddie interrupts, louder than he’d meant to, and Steve’s mouth snaps shut. “Just. . . . You live here, man. You don’t have to worry about that. Relax, okay?”

Steve hesitates, watching him carefully, then softly says, “Okay.”

In the uncertain silence that follows, Eddie turns back to the sink and refills his cup again. After a moment he hears Steve shuffle around in the background, the fridge open and close, glass clinking on the kitchen table. Eddie doesn’t even turn around before gathering up their standard midnight snack fare: a jar of peanut butter, two table knives, and an unopened sleeve of Saltines dangling from between his teeth.

It’s an olive branch, just like the second beer Steve has waiting already open for him on the table.

#i meant to post this earlier but it's been a long day and i still have (checks watch) 4 minutes in it #stranger things fanfiction #steddie #steddie fanfiction #eddie and nancy are friends and no one can take that away from me #my fanfiction #stranger music anthology #lie one more time come on fic

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