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artiststarme · 1 year

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Just Another Miscommunication

Based on a prompt given by @i-less-than-three-you! I hope it met your expectations! I hope you guys like it and please leave your thoughts in the comments!

~*~*~*~

Steve had never been so hurt and offended in his life. After several months of dating Eddie in secret from the rest of the Party, they’d decided to tell them. Things were starting to get serious and they knew it would only be a matter of time before someone found out and spilled the beans to the rest of the group.

Eddie had been a little nervous to come out, this was his first serious relationship in the middle of Nowhere, Indiana, he had a right to be worried. But Steve knew that everyone would take it well, they’d dealt with literal monsters so being gay in comparison had to be a smaller deal than that.

What Steve hadn’t anticipated was how many shovel talks he would receive. He expected the one from Wayne (although that one still hadn’t come), maybe even one from Dustin. However, the rest of them had been a bitter surprise.

His first shovel talk came from Robin. They’d been in the middle of a slow shift at Family Video when she decided to break the comfortable silence.

“Hey Dingus, you know that you have to be careful with Eddie, right?”

“Robin, he’s a great guy. He’s not going to hurt me or whatever else you’re afraid of-”

“No, no, no. I’m saying you have to be gentle with him. This is his first relationship so you have to be gentle with him. You have experience from dating half of the girls in Hawkins, he doesn’t have that. Just, be careful not to break his heart, okay?” She looked at him imploringly until he nodded.

“I’m not going to hurt him, Robin. We’ve been dating for months and we’ve never had a problem before. I’m not going to hurt him.”

“Okay, I just… wanted to make sure. Now, go rewind the tapes. We just got some more returns.” He groaned for good measure but moved along regardless.

The next one later that day was Hopper. He was leaning against the Beemer in the staff parking lot behind Family Video waiting for Steve to get off work.

Steve smiled at him and pranced over to give him a quick hug that wouldn’t impact either of their street creds. “Hey Hop, what’re you doing over here? Did I forget plans we had?”

“Nah kid, I'm just checking in. The kids said that you were seeing Munson now?” He cleared his throat and continued in a whisper. “You know, romantically?”

“Yeah, we’ve been dating for a few months. Why do you have a problem with that?” Steve glared at him while he waited for his answer.

“Of course not! I just wanted to check in with you. And uh, I wanted to remind you that the Munson kid has been through a lot. Just, just don’t hurt him, okay?”

Steve sighed and shook his head. “You’re the second person to tell me that today. I’m not going to hurt him, alright? I love him.”

“Yeah but things change, kid. You feel like that now but you might end up hurting him later. Just be careful, alright?”

“Yeah, fine.”

“Good. Do you want to come over to the house for dinner tonight? I know El and Will would love to see you.” Hopper smiled and nudged his arm.

With his mood thoroughly dimmed, Steve shook his head. “Nah, I have to run some errands and then I’m just going to run home. I’ll see you around though.”

He said his goodbyes to Hopper and ran over to Melvald’s to pick up a prescription and a couple of snacks for his place. While he was there, he saw Joyce and decided to make some friendly conversation.

“Hey Mrs. Byers, how’s Will doing? Is he glad to be back in Hawkins? I know the kids like having him here to DM their nerd game.”

Joyce gave him a tight smile as she rang up his items. “Hi Steve. Yeah he likes it, I think he missed the boys, you know? Him and El weren’t big fans of California.”

“Yeah, I get that. Max always says it’s a lot hotter so I can’t even imagine. How’re you doing?”

“I’m doing well, thanks,” she said while scanning his various chips and snacks. “What’re all of these for?”

“Eddie. He can never choose just one flavor to munch on so I just keep a bunch on hand for him to choose from,” Steve answered, smiling at the thought of his boyfriend.

“You know, I've been meaning to talk to you about that,” she said, glancing around the empty store.

“Have you?” Steve asked apprehensively. He and Joyce didn’t get along super well so he was a little nervous for her to judge his relationship.

“Yeah. I want you to know that I support you guys and you both always have a safe space with me. But I just wanted to make sure that you took it easy with Eddie. That boy’s been through a lot and I know you didn’t always feel… accepting of queer relationships. Eddie is sensitive and you could really hurt him. So just, be gentle with him or I’ll have to send Hopper over to get your head on straight. Are we clear?”

Honestly, Steve was kind of lost but he nodded in spite of that. “Yep, crystal. I’m not going to hurt him, Mrs. Byers. Have a good day!”

Jesus Christ, did everyone think he was going to hurt Eddie? He knew that he made some questionable choices in the past as King Steve but he’d been trying to be better. Why couldn’t anyone see that?

When he got home, he saw various bikes laying all over his front lawn. Now, the kids could just want a pool day to get out of this disgustingly warm summer weather. However, if they were looking to give him yet another shovel talk, Steve might just lose it.

As expected, all of the kids were situated on his couch and turned to look at him when he walked in. They looked like they were staging an intervention for him.

“Okay look, I’m really not in the mood for this. If you want to use the pool, fine. But if this is yet another shovel talk to warn me not to hurt Eddie, you can leave.” Steve crossed his arms as he looked at them and only Max was brave enough to go against him.

“If you hurt Eddie, we’re going to have El open another gate to the Upside Down and feed you to a demogorgon,” she said in a deadpan voice with a blank face.

El snapped her head to look at her then back to Steve. “Steve, I will not. Max, Steve is like my brother. I will not feed him to a demogorgon.”

“What they mean to say is that we don’t want to see Eddie get hurt. If you hurt him, we’ll have to take matters into our own hands,” Dustin continued diplomatically. Both Lucas and Mike nodded but Will just shook his head in panicked confusion.

“Dustin, I thought we were coming here to congratulate him and tell him we supported him! Why are we threatening him? Steve won’t hurt him!”

The other kids argued that he definitely could and actions needed to be taken to prevent that. Will and El just kept trying to jump in and defend Steve.

And Steve just stared at them. “Okay, thanks so much for the threats. Everyone besides Will and El can leave. You can come back when you stop planning different ways to murder me when I hypothetically hurt Eddie.”

Steve gave all of the kids, besides Will and El, one last glare before he walked into the kitchen to make himself a coffee. Maybe that would ward off his approaching headache. He could hear muffled arguing from the living room where Will and El, his new favorite kids, were no doubt defending him. But alas a few moments later, he heard the noise stop and saw El pop her head into the kitchen.

“I am sorry Steve, Will and I thought that we were coming to congratulate you on dating Eddie. We did not know that they would threaten you. Friends do not threaten to kill other friends.”

“It’s alright El, it’s called a shovel talk. Usually a family member gives one to the boyfriend so they know not to hurt them. I got a lot of them today so I’m annoyed,” he explained to her gently.

“But, you will not hurt Eddie. You love him so why do people keep telling you not to hurt him?” She asked him in confusion.

“They care more about Eddie and they think I’ll hurt him,” his words visibly angered him so he backtracked a little bit. “It’s fine El, really. I’ll get over it.”

She moved towards him and pulled him into a hug. “I love you Steve and I do not think you will hurt him. Even if you do by accident, I will not feed you to a demogorgon.”

He barked out a quick laugh in surprise, “thanks El, are you and Will going swimming?”

“No, we are going home to paint miniatures for Will’s new DnD game. Would you like to come with us?” She pulled back from the hug enough to look up at him.

“Nah, I’m just going to relax here but thanks for the offer. Have fun, okay?”

“Okay Steve, thank you!”

Then, Steve was alone. He was emotionally exhausted and hurt. How could everyone, besides Will and El, believe he’d hurt Eddie? He’d changed so much over the years and now he felt like he was right back where he started. How could they have such little faith in him?

~*~*~*~

Eddie was expecting to spend a nice night with his boyfriend after a few long days without seeing him. Between work, spending time with the kids, and practicing with the band, it felt like forever since he’d gotten to spend any quality time with Steve. But when he walked through the ajar door of the Harrington home, he didn’t find a boyfriend that was happy to see him. Instead, he found Steve sitting on the kitchen counter with a troubled look on his face.

“Stevie, you alright? I hope it’s okay that I came in, the door was open,” he stepped closer to Steve and pressed a gentle kiss to his forehead. “What’s going on?”

“Has anyone given you the shovel talk about dating me?” Steve asked him, his eyes staring into his eyes desperately.

“Um no, why? Should they have?” Eddie asked, confused.

“I don’t know, I guess not. Nearly everyone in the Party has given me one. Robin, Hopper, Joyce, the kids. Why haven’t any of them told you not to hurt me?”

“You want me to get threatened?” Eddie didn’t understand why Steve was so upset. Did he think that he was going to hurt him?

“No! I just- why does everyone automatically assume you’ll be the one to get hurt? Why won’t they tell you not to hurt me? That’s just as much of a possibility as me hurting you!”

“You think I’m going to hurt you? And you’re mad that no one else thinks so?” So Steve expected him to fuck this up?

“Yes!” Steve nodded at him.

“I would never hurt you Stevie and I’m upset that you think I would. Why would I do anything to ruin this? You’re so perfect Steve that I would never do anything to mess this up.”

“Ed-”

“No! What’s the point of dating at all if you’re just waiting around for me to break your heart? That’s all I do though, right? Eddie the Freak, destroyer of all things good. Is that it?” All of the happy feelings that Eddie felt when he first walked through the door were long gone now. What, Steve was just waiting for Eddie to ruin everything like he always did? What the hell.

“Eddie, that’s not what I meant!”

“Whatever Steve, I’m sorry that you’ve seen this coming the entire time and I’m sorry you were right. I should’ve known that I would fuck this up too.” With that, Eddie marched out of Steve’s house and directly to his van. Admittedly, he shouldn’t have left. He should’ve stayed and worked this out with Steve.

However, he didn’t want Steve to see the angry tears that streamed down his face on his drive home. He knew deep down that this was all a misunderstanding but Eddie couldn’t get over the fact that Steve was just another person that saw the worst in him.

~*~*~*~

Wayne walked into the trailer to find it completely dark and silent, both unusual for Eddie. His nephew constantly left all of the lights on regardless of whether he was in the room or not, a quirk that took a toll on both Wayne’s annoyance and the electricity bill. And silence was not a commodity often associated with Eddie. The boy was loud in all senses of the word so for the trailer to be quiet, devoid of guitar riffs or excited rambling, was worrying. With a peek out the door, Wayne saw that Eddie’s van was out there which meant that he was home.

When he looked into Eddie’s room, he saw a pathetic lump hidden under the covers with only an unruly mop of curls poking out. The covers twitched slightly as the lump sniffled. “Eds? Y’alright?”

“No,” he muttered, hiding his face deeper into his pillow.

Wayne sighed and kissed all thoughts of coffee and a nap goodbye. Nonetheless, he sat at the edge of the bed and pulled at Eddie’s shoulder until he turned over. His eyes were red and irritated and his skin was flushed. “What the hell happened to you? I thought you were spending the evening with Steve? He do something?”

Eddie’s face screwed up in sadness as more tears welled up in his eyes. “Why do you automatically assume Steve did something? I’m the one who always fucks everything up, Uncle Wayne. Me! Why is everyone threatening Steve not to hurt me?”

Wayne looked at him in bemusement for a moment. “So you did something?”

Eddie made a muffled noise of outrage and pulled the covers back over his face.

“Boy, I can’t help ya if ya don’t use yer words. Tell me what happened and we’ll fix it,” Wayne tried to reassure him.

“Everybody has been giving Steve the shovel talk and telling him not to hurt me. But no one has given me the shovel talk to tell me not to hurt him. So Steve was upset and told me that I would be the one to hurt him and he was offended that no one else thought so. And then he said that I would be the one to hurt him!”

Wayne just looked at him for a long moment before lightly smacking the side of his head.

“Hey, what the hell!” Eddie yelled in surprised anger as he yanked the covers off of himself.

“Don’t be a dumbass then! Steve was trying to tell ya that he was hurt and ya turned it around on him! The kid’s not saying that yer gonna hurt him, he’s saying he wants people to stop assumin’ he’ll be the one to hurt you when he feels so much for ya.”

“So he’s not saying that I’m going to fuck everything up?” Eddie asked quietly.

“I think he’s sad that everyone else is taking your side and assumin’ that he’s going to be the one that ruins things. He just needed ya to listen.”

“What have I done?! How do I fix this? Uncle Wayne, help me!” Eddie jumped out of bed and started pacing in front of him.

Wayne sighed again, he didn’t ask to be roped into these situations. “Look Eds, go to him and say that you’re sorry and you took it the wrong way. Then tell him that I gave you a shovel talk cause if you hurt that kid again, I’m gonna do more than smack ya upside the head, ya hear me? Now get goin’. Ya best stay over there so I can get some rest, alright?”

Eddie laughed and jumped off the bed, “thanks Uncle Wayne! You’re the best! I’ll go fix it and then tell you about it over carry-out later! Love you!”

Wayne shook his head as he watched Eddie run out the door, “love you too, kid.”

Both boys came back to the trailer a few hours later with takeout in tow. Eddie’s smile was beaming once again and Steve looked relieved. He gave Wayne a quick hug and a whispered thank you over the burgers and Wayne knew that they’d fixed things. There would be many miscommunications between the boys in the years to come but as long as they had Wayne to play interference, they’d be alright.

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