Eddie gets Steve’s pickles when they go out to eat. Steve gets Eddie’s tomatoes. The transaction is seamless; it requires no words
Most of Eddie’s t-shirts have done time as sleep shirts for Steve. Eddie steals Steve’s hoodies without remorse. Neither of them remember which pair of sweatpants originally belonged to who at this point
No one bothers saving them more than one seat at any kind of movie night or other get-together; Eddie spends more time sitting on Steve than on the couch
They become an interchangeable taxi service at some point. The kids will say they’re getting a ride from eddiensteve, but it’s anyone’s guess if it’s going to be Steve’s beamer or Eddie’s van that rolls up (the only real difference is if they have to listen to Steve complaining about providing rides and then asking how their activities are going, or if they have to listen to Eddie’s music at deafening volume)
It feels so easy, the way their lives mesh, when they finally get together, and maybe it isn’t strictly healthy, but anyone who wants to throw around the word “codependent” must first survive at least one Upside Down Event. In any case, no one else really seems to mind–
“Y’know, when you two got together, I thought it would be weird. Like seeing your two older brothers make out,” Dustin mentions one day.
Steve’s face screws up in disgust. “Ew. Henderson–”
“But,” Dustin cuts in, “I’m actually kind of relieved.”
“I’ll bite,” Eddie drawls. “Pray tell: why?”
“Because you’re not going to make me pick a favorite anymore. You’ve basically melded into the same person.”
There is a beat of surprised silence before Steve and Eddie, almost simultaneously, burst out with “Oh my god, no we haven’t.” – “We have not.”
There is another beat of silence in which the two of them blink at each other as a grin spreads across Dustin’s face.
“See?” Steve finally says, recovering and looking at Dustin but pointing towards Eddie. “The way we said that was completely different.”
“Totally different,” Eddie agrees with a nod of his head.
“And we were never going to make you pick a favorite. What the hell, man?”
“What do you take us for, recently divorced parents?”
“That would’ve been petty.”
“Juvenile, even.”
“Exactly!”
Eddie shakes his head, clucking his tongue. “Where do you get these ideas, Henderson?”
Dustin, who has been watching their exchange like a tennis match, shakes his head right back. “It’s like you have two mouths but only one brain.”
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The thing is, while Eddie loves an audience, he hates crowds.
He doesn’t like feeling penned in, surrounded on all sides by people with unknowable intentions and carelessly jabby elbows. He doesn’t like not having a clear way out.
His claustrophobia predates the whole “hiding in a shack for three days while being hunted by a mob” incident, but that certainly hadn’t helped.
He’ll brave crowds anyway, if the cause is good enough (so usually just for concerts), but he doesn’t enjoy it. He spends the whole time slinking between bodies, on the alert for flying limbs, acting like he had when he’d been everyone’s favorite target in dodgeball for six years straight.
But then Steve happens.
Beautiful, broad-shouldered Steve Harrington, for whom crowds just seem to part.
He makes his way through masses of people like it’s second nature, like they don’t bother him at all, and he reaches back, takes Eddie’s hand, and tugs him along in his wake.
Steve interlocks their fingers, holding Eddie tight so they don’t get separated, and Steve’s hand wrapped strong and sure around his own grounds Eddie like nothing else ever has.
Like he has some kind of sixth sense, Steve catches elbows before they fly too wild and firmly nudges away the people who get too close, and he leads Eddie through the crowd until they find a miraculously clear spot, a break in the chaos where they can actually see the stage.
Even once they stop, Steve doesn’t release Eddie’s hand, and Eddie isn’t about to let him go. They can get away with it here; they have an excuse, and who’s really going to notice them, anyway? They’re just two people among many.
Eddie squeezes Steve’s hand, and Steve immediately squeezes back, glancing over and flashing Eddie a smile that shines brighter than the stage lights.
And suddenly, Eddie doesn’t mind the press of bodies around them; with Steve by his side, he’ll never be lost in the crowd.
[Prompt: Intertwining fingers]
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