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metalhoops · 10 months

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Everyone who’s touched grief knows it’s bigger than two hands can hold. The inexperienced try to string together the right words to lighten the load and those who grieve wear a momentary mask of comfort, feeling instead heavier. Those who’ve experienced grief know there are not enough words in the world to replace something as simple as a small action.

You don’t remember the platitudes and false virtues strangers assign to the dead, but after a long day when you find your fridge full of precooked meals, you’ll remember who dropped off the potato salad. Max was sick of people who didn’t know her, telling her how kind her brother was. How funny he could be. How talented he was.

No one, save the rare few, know what to do with complex grief. Max didn’t know how to unpick her thoughts, let alone put them into words and hold them up for someone else to see and understand. That didn’t mean she didn’t want to be understood.

She didn’t know how she could miss someone so deeply while being in some small part, glad they were dead. No one tells you what to do when your thoughts betray you.

By the time Max and her mother moved into the trailer park, people had stopped telling her how much they missed Billy, which was a small blessing. They’d also stopped dropping off food or offering to do their laundry. Max and her mother had been too proud to take anyone up on that offer, but she missed the thought.

Two months had passed, and it felt like everyone forgot Billy existed, that anything had happened. Lucas and the other boys had started asking her to hang out again. The unspoken grace period given to her and her mother for mourning had ended. Now it was back to business as usual. Her mother returned to work, and Max was left alone in an empty trailer full of boxes.

That was when Steve arrived with a Tupperware container under one arm and a fancy untouched toolbox under the other.

“Figured you’d need some help,” the boy muttered, kicking off his shoes, not waiting to be invited in.

He knew better. If he’d asked, Max would’ve told him to piss off. She couldn’t understand why Steve of all people was able to read her moods so well.

Steve hadn’t been much help rebuilding the furniture, but he’d supplied the Allen key and screwdriver so she couldn’t complain. He was good at unpacking boxes. With the two of them working, the task had taken a day, as opposed to the week it would’ve if she’d done it on her own. She was meant to be in school that day, but she couldn’t bring herself to go. She’d expected that to be the last she saw of the older boy but instead, he made a habit of checking in on her.

Steve kept dropping off meals. After a week he started driving Max around on the days the mere mention of school threatened to topple her. Sometimes she’d hang around the back of the video store. On other days he’d drop her off at the arcade and she’d play Dig Dug until her eyes burnt and her fingers cramped.

She didn’t know exactly when it’d happened but somewhere along the way, she found herself getting strangely attached to the guy. She’d lost one brother but gained another.

That was why when Steve stopped driving home at night, she’d sent Eddie to get him.

Max didn’t know much about Eddie Munson. His uncle and Max’s mother infrequently drank coffee together at the communal picnic tables. Nothing ever happened. Max knew her mother and how she acted around her boyfriends. This was different. They just sat together, mostly in silence, watching the sun go down. It kept her mother from drinking so much or so early. What Max did know about Eddie Munson was that he owed her.

One night when her mother was out, the cops came poking around the trailer park, asking her if she’d seen anything suspicious. Max wasn’t dumb, quite the opposite. She knew Eddie sold drugs. She also knew the cops wanted to pin something on him. She wasn’t altogether sure why, maybe there was some pressure to put someone behind bars from the kinds of places that had neighbourhood watches.

It was only when crime started to leak into the suburbs that people went searching for the culprits. Some rich kid spikes a girl’s drink in Loch Nora and the next thing you know, they’re looking for drug dealers in trailer parks. The guy will get a smack on the wrist, while Eddie? He’ll get thrown in jail and the people of Hawkins will sleep a little better at night, knowing all is right and just in the world. Until the same guy does it again. Then another trailer park kid is marched off to the stocks.

Max had learnt how the world worked young. It’d been out of some strange sense of solidarity that she’d kept her mouth shut about Eddie. When the cops split, she’d given him the heads up to keep his nose clean while there was blood in the water. She hadn’t done it for a favour. But if nothing else, she was opportunistic.

Steve wasn’t driving home most nights. Max knew because she’d take note when the Beamer shot past the trailer park. Some days it was in the dead of night, others, the early hour of the morning. He wasn’t staying over at girls’ places like she’d first thought. Even if he wasn’t the golden boy he’d once been if someone slept with Steve Harrington, the whole town knew within the week.

She’d followed him one afternoon, riding her skateboard at a safe distance. He’d drive around, past their houses, as though on his own neighbourhood watch. He’d finish his patrol and pull up at any number of odd locations, the train tracks, the junkyard, the woods. At first, she’d worried he, like Billy, was possessed. After long days of silent observation, she realised the kind of ghosts that possessed Steve were of his own making.

Max didn’t know what to do until she saw the light on in the Munson’s trailer past midnight. She stalked across the way, pounded her fists on the fly screen, and called in a favour. She asked Eddie to check on Steve. He’d looked at her like she’d grown a third head but agreed.

Eddie Munson didn’t do favours but Red was a good kid, so he’d made an exception. He began his quest by driving past the Harrington’s manor, hoping for his own sake to find the BMW parked in the drive but Max had been right, Steve wasn’t home, nobody was.

Eddie was tempted to check all the usual spots he’d go if he were a meathead jock with ample time and money. There was skull rock, the notorious Harrington make-out spot and a has-been jock party was going on in the next suburb over from Loch Nora, but Red’s instructions had been clear. If Steve wasn’t at home, she’d rattled off a list of places he might be, each one growing stranger.

That was how Eddie Munson ended up in the junkyard. The place was surprisingly well-lit, despite the late hour. He worked his way through an overgrown thicket, cursing himself for wearing his white Reeboks. He’d be scrubbing out grass stains with a toothbrush for the next week.

Mounds of trash and scrap metal shot out of the dried grass like rocks rising from the ocean. Amongst it all, burning bright as a lighthouse was a rusting yellow school bus. It stood in stark contrast against the blue, black night. A dull glow bled out of the vehicle’s shattered windows.

Eddie found himself drawn to the little island of light as a moth flocks to a flame. His feet moved swiftly, eager as a young child at the prospect of adventure. He slipped in through the half-open door of the bus and was greeted by another body slamming into his.

Eddie’s head cracked against the metal bus frame, making him groan. It wasn’t until he tried to move that he realised there was something sharp pressed against his neck. Against all his better judgment Eddie swallowed, feeling a broken bottle nip at his skin.

Eddie’s eyes flickered to the wielder of the weapon. A once mighty king had fallen like his surrounding kingdom, into a state of disrepair. Steve Harrington. Heavy is the head that wears the crown.

“Harrington,” Eddie spoke, keeping his voice soft and even, as though speaking to a wild animal that could startle.

There was a manic look in Steve’s eyes Eddie knew well. He’d never thought he’d see the ghost of himself dance across such a pretty and foreign face. The days before Eddie moved in with Wayne were better left alone. He knew the wide-eyed vigilance of people who’d grown used to fending for their lives. It was a look he’d never imagine Steve Harrington capable of.

A glint of recognition shifted over Steve’s face and the eyes of years long past were gone as though a trick of the light. The bottle disappeared from his neck, shattering as it dropped against the floor of the bus.

“Shit, Munson. Sorry,” Steve uttered, moving out of Eddie’s space.

Eddie was surprised Steve remembered his name. Across the six-odd years the two had gone to school together, Harrington had spoken to him a grand total of three times. The first, to ask for a pencil in Spanish. The second had been a disgruntled ‘hey, man’ as Eddie sidestepped his lunch tray on one of his biweekly jaunts across the jock table and the third, which Eddie only now recalled, had surprised him.

He’d gotten a D in history. It’d been the final nail in the coffin, solidifying the fact that he’d once again have to repeat his senior year. Eddie spent the rest of the class carving his name into the underside of his desk with his thumbnail until it was bloody and covered in splinters.

He’d almost lasted until the end of class before he had to excuse himself with little plan of where he was going or what he was doing. He knew he wanted to get away, that he needed to be anywhere but there. He wasn’t sure what’d tipped Harrington off but as he shuffled past the former king’s desk, his eyes downcast, a hand shot out to snag Eddie’s forearm.

“Hey, Munson? There’s always next year,” Steve muttered under his breath.

From anyone else, it would’ve sounded condescending, but Steve genuinely meant it. Eddie hadn’t known what to say. He’d felt a sudden lump rise in his throat. He took off, thinking it’d be the last time he’d see Steve Harrington. He’d wished he’d been so lucky.

“So, Harrington, what’s someone like you doing in a place like this?” Eddie asked when his heart rate returned to a regular rhythm. He heard a snort escape Steve’s throat as he leaned back against the opposite wall of the bus.

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

Eddie wanted to know when Steve had started to sound so world-wearied. Nineteen-year-olds shouldn’t sound so worn thin. The closer he looked at Steve, the more he saw. His eyes were chaliced with the kind of purple, blue bruises that came from weeks of sleeplessness. There was a pale pink scar, slicing a line from his bottom lip to his jaw. In time, it’d fade into obscurity, but for now, in the cold of the night, it stood out like a crack in fine china.

“What are you doing here?” Steve asked, sliding down the wall to a seated position, as though once again settling in for the night. Eddie heard glass tinkle and grind under Steve’s body.

Had his parents kicked him out? Was he hiding from someone? Eddie knew fuck all about Steve Harrington and he’d liked it that way. Screw not doing favours. Red owed him one after all this was said and done.

“Finding a new place to pedal goods. New chief of police has been riding my ass,” Eddie lied. It wasn’t as though he was going to tell Steve he was sent on a fetch quest by a fourteen-year-old.

A flicker of pain shifted across Steve’s face before disappearing. It was a moon sinking below the horizon line, leaving no trace of the momentary night as a false smile painted his face the colour of a sunrise.

“Can’t say I’d recommend this old rust bucket. Isn’t drug dealing in a junkyard a little cliche?” Eddie rolled his eyes and sank to the floor of the bus, nudging Steve’s foot with his.

“Keep giving me lip and you’ll have to pay double.”

Harrington never brought from him. The freckled asshat, he used to hang around with would buy weed once in a blue moon, but never Steve.

“You got anything on you?” He asked to Eddie’s surprise. He hadn’t exactly come prepared. He searched the depths of his pockets, finding two small ziplock bags and half a pack of rolling paper. He threw them Steve’s way.

“On the house. Looks like you need it,” He mused and watched as Steve’s fingers worked, quick and methodical. Hagan had obviously shared his stash with Harrington.

“Got a light?”

Eddie fetched his Zippo from his back pocket and leaned over to light Steve’s joint. The guy looked surprised. He should’ve handed the lighter over. Too late now.

Steve’s lips were poised so close to Eddie’s fingers. His face illuminated by flame, caused Eddie to shift closer. He lifted a hand to Steve’s cheek, acting under the guise of trying to shield the flame from the breeze filtering in through the broken windows and half-open door.

“You got anything stronger?” Steve spoke, breathing a plume of smoke into the night air. Eddie wasn’t sure it was wise, but he’d never counted wisdom as his strong suit.

“Back at my place.” Steve snorted, smoke billowing from his half-pursed lips, his eyes beginning to haze over.

“People’ll talk.”

People always talked when it came to Steve, but surely not in the way the boy was implying. Ramrod straight, Steve Harrington couldn’t make a gay quip, not about himself. Maybe he was embarrassed about what being seen with Eddie could do to his dwindling reputation.

“I’m pretty good at keeping a low profile,” Eddie supplied, and Steve nodded stoically.

“Stealthy, like a ninja,” Steve replied.

It was Eddie’s turn to choke out a laugh. Goofy had never been a quality he’d assigned to Steve Harrington. He supposed the trait had its charm. It worked on Eddie.

“Like a ninja,” Eddie echoed.

When he’d said yes to Red, he’d assumed he’d drag Steve’s likely-intoxicated, ex-jock ass home and call it a night, but looking at the boy across from him with the joint tucked between his lips and the thousand-yard-stare, Eddie had to admit there was a change of plans.

“Have you heard about the world’s best ninja?” Eddie asked, his once pristine shoes nudged themselves beneath Steve’s Born in the USA style blue jeans.

Steve shook his head, a flicker of curiosity dancing over his face, his stupid floppy hair, falling in his eyes.

“That’s why he’s the best,” Eddie insisted and felt his insides grow warm when Steve cackled. He was pretty when he laughed. He looked more like the guy he’d been back in high school, more carefree.

Eddie wasn’t a stranger to sitting with people and talking them down on their worst nights, but a relative stranger was new.

Eddie stood and extended a hand to Steve. The boy clasped onto his ringed fingers and pulled himself up.

“My van’s parked half a mile up the way, you coming?” Steve shrugged and followed close at Eddie’s side.

The two walked in relative silence, standing so close their hips played the role of balls in a Newton’s cradle, knocking against one another in a rhythmic pattern.

Back in the familiar landscape of his van, Eddie was once again hit with the strangeness of the situation as he watched Steve slide into his passenger seat, snubbing out the remains of the joint in the ashtray. He thought of their spit mingling in the little petri dish and pushed that thought aside. He’d always been good at holding back those kinds of thoughts. It came with the territory.

“Why do you need something strong?” Eddie asked as he turned the ignition.

If he’d learnt anything from his uncle, it was that hard conversations were best had behind the wheel. That way no one could storm out. He’d admitted to his uncle he’d failed his first senior year as the two sat at the juncture between Maple and Main. He’d come out to Wayne along Lakeside Dr.

“Why did you really come to the junkyard?” Steve countered. He was smarter than he looked, or at least, smarted than Eddie had assumed.

“I’ll show you mine if you show me yours,” Eddie quipped after a second, watching as a bemused smirk twitched onto Steve’s face.

“It’s been a hard year, man. Hard couple of years,” Steve confessed. Eddie wasn’t going to let him get off that easy.

“Is this to do with you getting unceremoniously shunted off the top of the Hawkins’ High totem pole?” Eddie asked.

He had a feeling whatever it was ran far deeper than just popularity, but this was Steve Harrington. Steve was pretty and popular. He wasn’t allowed to have real problems. That’s not how the rich and stuck-up operated.

“Honestly? No. Think that might’ve been a good thing.” Steve drummed his fingers against the passenger door.

“Then was it the thing with Wheeler?” Eddie asked, watching Steve cringe. Maybe he should leave it alone.

“Part of it. I don’t know.” What followed was a loaded silence.

Eddie kept casting glimpses from Steve to the road, watching as his face screwed in concentration as he searched for words.

“I feel like it’s my job to protect everybody,” He admitted, his voice barely raising above a whisper.

“And I don’t know how. I feel like I’m supposed to have all the answers but I just... I feel like a kid, who’s in way over his head.” Steve pulled his knees up to his chest, and settled his chin on them, not daring to look in Eddie’s direction.

He was a year older than Steve and he felt like a lost kid most of the time, as though he was an imposter masquerading as someone who knew what the hell he was doing. He wondered if that feeling ever went away.

“Red sent me to check up on you. The kid’s worried,” Eddie confessed watching as Steve’s head snapped to look in his direction.

“She’s got enough on her plate without worrying about me.”

Steve didn’t need to say what Max was dealing with. Eddie knew. Hawkins was a small town, and Billy Hargreaves was infamous. Eddie had a bad feeling about the guy from day one, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t feel sorry for him, dying in a mall fire. Hell of a way to go. He’d heard rumours Max had been there when it happened. Then again, he’d also heard talk of Steve slinging ice cream at the mall. Eddie could see a picture beginning to form. He didn’t like it.

The two didn’t speak for the rest of the drive back to Eddie’s trailer. There was nothing left to say. Steve continued to tap his fingers absentmindedly, so Eddie leaned over, turning on the radio. The tape deck played the thrashing guitar and pounding beats of the latest Slayer album. Eddie liked it well enough, but he cringed, preparing for Steve to chew it up and spit it out. He didn’t. He shut his eyes, rested his head against the passenger window and promptly fell asleep. Eddie would be damned.

Unsure of what to do with the sleeping boy and the blaring music, Eddie drove in circles around all the familiar back roads of Hawkins, steering clear of the potholes and dirt tracks. It wasn’t until Eddie’s eyes started to droop that he called it a night, pulling up outside his trailer, flicking his floodlights twice in the direction of the Mayfield’s, letting Max know he’d gotten Steve home safe. Well, he’d gotten Steve to his home safely.

Eddie was contemplating the logistics of getting Steve out of the car when the boy began to stir. His eyes fluttered open for a second to meet Eddie’s before he groaned and turned to bury his face into the car seat. Damn it all. Eddie had managed to go for years without developing a crush on Steve, it wasn’t goddamn fair he was about to do it now.

“Good morning, Starshine,” Eddie teased, walking around to open the passenger door for Steve.

“Welcome to my humble abode. I have drugs or you know... a comfortable bed. Pick your poison,” Eddie spoke as the two made their way to his trailer.

As they stepped into the main room, Eddie watched as Steve’s eyes scanned the place, lingering on Wayne’s collection of mugs and novelty hats, a ghost of a smile on his face. Eddie grabbed onto Steve’s wrist and led him down the hall.

“The drugs and the bed are in my room,” Eddie explained as they went.

Eddie nudged the door to his room open with a flourish of his hands.

“This is where the magic happens,” Eddie explained and watched as Steve quirked a brow.

“Mind out of the gutter, Harrington. I was talking about literal magic.” Eddie smirked gesturing to his stack of Dungeons and Dragons’ manuals, handbooks, and campaign notes.

“You’re such a nerd,” Steve grumbled flopping onto Eddie’s bed.

Maybe it was the high that’d made him seem looser, but Eddie liked a Steve who took charge. He crawled under the covers, making himself at home in Eddie’s bed.

“Demogorgons suck ass,” Steve uttered after a moment, his face muffled by Eddie’s pillow. He wondered if he’d fallen asleep on the ride home and driven them into a ditch, because there was no way Steve was in his bed, talking about D&D. Eddie liked demogorgons, something he elegantly articulated by muttering,

“You suck ass.” As he flopped beside Steve in bed. Steve snorted.

“That’s one thing I haven’t tried,” he confessed. Yes, he was high. Eddie couldn’t imagine a sober Steve making that confession openly.

Eddie settled on top of the covers, hyperaware a sober Steve might not be as receptive to waking up beside Eddie. He was in over his head.

“Are you okay with this?” Eddie questioned as he rolled over to lay on his side, propping his head up to get a better look at Steve, half smothered in his sheets. As much as people talked about Steve’s love life, they also talked less favourably about Eddie’s, or his lack thereof.

“You’re not going to punch me in the face in the morning?” Eddie concluded, voicing his concerns. His heart was tugging him closer to Steve, but he wasn’t willing to do anything they’d both regret.

He’d been shockingly open to letting the boy into his innermost sanctum. Maybe he had a saviour complex, but he wanted to know how much of a commitment the two would have, how long was the piece of rope that tied them together? Was it a momentary truce or the start of something?

“No,” Steve breathed after a beat, seeming equal parts understanding and offended Eddie had asked.

The two lapsed into silence. Eddie was left wondering if Steve had fallen asleep again, but the rise and fall of the boy’s chest was too shallow. Steve eventually let out a groan and rolled to face Eddie. Whatever momentary reprieve had allowed him to sleep in the car had passed.

Eddie’s gaze was once again drawn to the growing blue beneath Steve’s eyes. He had stuff that could help Steve sleep, but he knew from experience, drugs could only do so much. They were numbing jell on a knife wound, a momentary relief from pain without fixing the real problem.

“Can’t sleep?” Eddie spoke, trying to get inside Steve’s head, to unpick what was going on with him. Steve nodded miserably.

“Anything I can do to help?” Eddie wondered.

There were no guidelines for the strange turn the night had taken. Steve opened and shut his mouth, gaping like a fish on dry land. He had some thoughts, it appeared, but none he was willing to voice right away. Eddie felt strangely endeared to the boy in his bed. He’d give him anything he asked, even if he didn’t think it was smart.

“Is it true, what people say about you?” Steve asked after a long pause.

That wasn’t what Eddie had expected. He blanched and watched as Steve’s eyes swelled, his panic rolling off him in waves, crashing head-on into Steve.

“Never mind, don’t answer that. Christ, that was invasive. Sorry,” Steve fumbled, sinking further beneath Eddie’s sheets to hide his face. It appeared it was a night for confessions.

“Were you asking about the satanic shit or the gay thing?” Eddie spoke candidly, his fingers knotting in the covers.

You didn’t come out to just anyone. You sure as hell didn’t come out to someone like Steve unless you had a death wish, though Eddie was quickly learning the Steve Harrington that existed in his head and the one lying in his bed were two different creatures.

“Forget I asked,” Steve repeated, rolling over to turn away from Eddie, a faint flush dusting his cheeks.

“I don’t worship the devil and I’m not gay,” Eddie found himself confiding.

He watched as Steve’s body went still. Eddie couldn’t see his face, but he could tell his mind had kicked into overdrive.

“Oh, cool,” Steve spoke sounding suddenly distant, as though that hadn’t been the answer he was looking for. Eddie didn’t know Steve Harrington at all.

“But I’d be lyin’ if I said you were the first guy I’ve had in here, Steve,” Eddie continued, giving away more than he’d intended.

Steve peered over his shoulder and quirked a brow. He didn’t look shocked or disgusted as Eddie had anticipated. He looked relieved.

“Like Bowie?” He wondered aloud. Eddie couldn’t help but roll his eyes.

“Yeah, like Bowie- I mean, I have a preference. Guys suit me better, I guess. But sometimes a girl’ll surprise me.”

The conversation felt intimate, surprisingly more so than when he’d admitted it to the guys in Corroded Coffin. With them, there hadn’t been follow-up questions. The guys had been supportive, but they hadn’t known what to say. It’d been another fact about Eddie they’d taken in their stride without much acknowledgement. He hadn’t felt the need to explain himself. He didn’t know why, but when it came to Steve, he felt like he needed to explain the whole thing in intimate detail.

“Me too,” Steve muttered, sounding entirely unlike himself. He was quiet and unsure; two traits Eddie had never assigned to the Steve that lived in his head.

“I mean... for me, girls are easy. Guys are... new?” Once more, Steve sounded unsure.

“Maybe not new because it’s always been there but I just left it alone.” Eddie wondered what’d spurred on the change, whether it was a near-death experience or something else entirely. Eddie was good at reading between the lines.

“Steve, I’m going to ask you again, okay? What do you want me to do?”

Steve sucked air in through his teeth, gripped the sheets and finally let his shoulders sag.

“Can you just... hold me, for a bit?” Steve asked at last, sounding as though Eddie had placed a loaded gun to his head. Of all the things Eddie had been expecting, that wasn’t it.

Eddie moved closer, lining up his hips and Steve’s back, throwing an arm around the boy’s waist. It was different. Eddie was used to closeted guys wanting to have sex with him, but they didn’t hang around long after.

He thought back to Steve’s words. The guy wanted to protect everybody, from god knows what, but who was looking out for him? He hooked his chin on Steve’s shoulder. He smelled faintly of cologne and something chemical, hairspray.

“This okay?” Eddie clarified. Steve’s body felt stiff and unresponsive in his arms.

Steve hummed. It took him a moment to relax but when he did, he practically melted into Eddie. The boy pushed back, fitting their knees together. Eddie was thankful they’d decided to keep their jeans on, fearful of what any more skin-to-skin contact would do. Steve cradled Eddie’s palm to his heart and dropped his chin to his chest, so Eddie could feel the ghost of the boy’s breath dance across his fingertips. Steve was a renowned good lay, but the Harrington charm went deeper than that. The guy was good at cuddling, something Eddie hadn’t thought was possible until he had every inch of Steve pressed and curled against him.

“This okay for you?” Steve asked after a moment, his breath tickled against Eddie’s knuckles.

“Great for me,” Eddie confirmed sounding as breathless as he felt.

Steve’s heart beneath his hand thundered, letting Eddie know the boy wasn’t as cool and collected as he was pretending to be. He didn’t point it out. He did two things very out of character for Eddie Munson. He remained still and silent. Steve’s breath grew deep and even. Eddie leaned closer, pressing his face into the nape of Steve’s neck as the boy began to whimper in his sleep.

“I got you,” He assured.

“You’re safe. M’not going to let anything happen to you.” Eddie promised.

It took time, but Steve settled and at last, Eddie let the long night swallow him whole.

Max decided Eddie Munson was useless. She’d watched him pull up outside his trailer around three and she hadn’t heard from him since. She’d thought the idiot would at least give her a heads up on how things had gone with Steve, but it appeared she had to do everything for herself.

At 10 a.m. when there was still no sign of life from the Munson’s trailer, save for Eddie’s uncle pulling in around six, Max stalked over and wrapped her knuckles against Eddie’s bedroom window. After a moment a mop of curly brown hair popped into view.

“Wha?” The boy grumbled, still half asleep.

“How did things go last night?” Max asked, taking the tone of a scolding mother, talking to a very small, very dumb child.

“Good,” Eddie confided a goofy grin crossing his face. It confirmed Max’s suspicions. Everyone else, save her, was useless.

“Well, where the hell was he? Did you talk to him? Did he seem weird? Is he okay?” Max rattled off a list of rapid-fire questions only to be hushed by Eddie.

“He’s sleeping, Red. Keep the volume down.”

Max opened her mouth to ask what the hell Eddie was talking about when she caught a familiar glimpse of styled, sandy hair peeking out from beneath the sheets. Max, unlike most people, wasn’t an idiot. She’d grown up in California, she knew the way the world worked. She didn’t need anyone to spell it out for her.

“Gross,” She grumbled. Not because Steve and Eddie were both men but because Steve was like her older brother and Eddie was- she didn’t want to think about it.

Max let out an elongated sigh, squared her shoulders and spoke.

“You like scary movies, right Munson?” He seemed like the type.

Eddie nodded.

“Michael Myers hasn’t got a thing on Max Mayfield. You do anything stupid with Steve and I’ll show you how I got the nickname Mad Max.”

Eddie swallowed thickly and nodded. It was all for show, but someone had to say it. Someone should always be in Steve’s corner. Max had the feeling Steve wasn’t used to people looking out for him. She knew the feeling.

“Sir yes sir,” He breathed, faking a salute. Max rolled her eyes.

She had a feeling she was going to regret bringing Steve and Eddie together but when hours later, Steve showed up at her house with a Tupperware container full of spaghetti and a secret smile on his lips, she had to admit, for once she might be wrong.

#steddie #steve harrington #eddie munson #steddie ficlet #ficlet #stranger things #bi steve harrington #bi eddie munson #Fluff and angst #sharing a bed #Pre season 4 #post season 3 #alternative 'first' meeting #max mayfield #honestly bi 4 bi is my steddie headcanon #I know it's not as popular #maybe it's my own bias as a bisexual showing #but I feel like bi rep #it is always either someone who is generally #into someone of the opposite sex #who has an 'oh I like this person' moment and realises they are bi #or someone who 50/50 likes both genders #give me more 'well I knew I was into the same sex'#but wow every once in a blue moon I'm smacked in the face #with opposite sex attraction and thrown for a loop #because that's closer to my personal experience #anyway that's my rant #also Max and Steve's relationship is cool #so I wanted to explore it more #metalhoops writes

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