Or, the one inspired by one of the ridiculously *few* Steddie vids I've found on Youtube, where Steve and Eddie are clearly flirting with each other while Bad Habits plays.
(I watched that video some 20 plus times and had to find a second one with the full scene, y'know for ✨ vibes ✨)
I'm well aware Twilight didn't come out in the '80s and Iun care, we pretending that shit is on VHS at Family Video & that Steve's watched it with Robin a dozen times.
"You do realize Skull Rock is like a really popular make-out spot, right?" Steve says now, arms crossed over his chest and a smirk on his face as he looks at Eddie.
"Yeah, but not how I use it." Eddie says around a smile-smirk and that, combined with the casual, teasing tone, makes heat curl low in Steve's stomach and a flush warm his neck beneath the collar of his windbreaker and yellow cotton sweater. "Why, you looking to make-out with me, Harrington?"
And if he thought he was flushing before, then Jesus, he's a goner now as he forces out a quick, offended scoff and whirls around like he can't even bear to look at Eddie after that before he tries to cool his breathing, calm his shuddering heartbeat, and says, "Pfft, no, obviously not, I just-"
"Just what, pretty boy?" Eddie says now, voice a low murmur much too close for comfort. He shivers at the nearness of him, the clear teasing in his voice, and then shoves him away, muttering, "Nothing, nothing."
Clearly, it's something, alright - something he needs to talk to Robin about, fuckin' immediately, because he's always been straight as a ruler. Always, absolutely, straight as a damn…
Wait. Wait.
He thinks about how often he'd sneak glances at the other guys in the locker room without them noticing, or how he'd drunkenly think that Jake Miller looked really good when he was laughing, smiling wide and full, dimples on full display, or how he'd thought Jude Moore was the best basketball player in senior year and couldn't stop looking at him racing up and down the court, warm-brown skin of his muscled arms glimmering with a thin sheen of sweat.
Oh, fuck.
He absolutely needs to talk to Robin, stat.
A few days later, Steve gets dragged into the Upside Down through a pulsating red portal at the bottom of Lover's Lake. He'd been hoping that he could partner up with Robin or Nancy so he didn't have to deal with certain…revelations he'd been having lately. About his past. About other guys. And certainly about Eddie, though he'd never tell the guitarist that. He'd probably double over-laughing and call Steve a fairy, a queer, or worse- the sort of harsh, bitter insults his dad hurls at him when he's had too much scotch after a business trip to who knew where. Yeah, he certainly doesn't need any more misery on that front, that's for sure.
But the girls had partnered up together before he'd been able to reason otherwise. And it wasn't like he could admit to his newly developing feelings right in front of Eddie, Christ, or insist that he just really needs to talk to Robin about something super personal without unfair assumptions being made about their platonic relationship. So that means that for better or worse, Steve and Eddie are more or less stuck together for the foreseeable future, and Steve's just gotta deal.
He can be mature about this, dammit. He can be a mature, sensible adult with a slight crush, right?
His sudden and unexpected crush be damned, Steve casts a flashlight through the shadowy gloom and tries catching up to Eddie, his profile a dark silhouette against the eerie blue light. "Hey, Eddie."
The guitarist doesn't turn around and he tries again. "Eddie!"
He turns towards Steve and slows his gait a bit - probably so Steve can catch-up, because of course Eddie's a long-legged fucker who just so happens to walk through alternate dimensions unnaturally fast without stumbling over the hivemind vines or oozing black puddles of…whatever that creepy shit is, he doesn't like thinking about it honestly. "Hey, man. Listen, I just ah…"
"I just wanna say thanks." The low sound of monsters bellowing in the distance intermingles with a legion of demo-bats screeching at something unseen and he tries not to shiver in Eddie's borrowed denim jacket. "For savin' my ass back there." He hooks a thumb towards the general direction of where Watergate had spewed them out.
"Shit, you saved your own ass, man." Eddie says now, and Steve reaches out to clap him on the back in thank-you, realizes that might be a little overkill given they don't really know each other, and drops his hand as they keep following Nancy and Robin into the gloom.
"That was a really Ozzy move you pulled back there," Eddie continues, leaning into Steve's space a touch as Steve tries his best to maneuver over a moss-eaten fallen tree in his bare feet without touching anything. They've seen what the hivemind can do and it's baaad fuckin' news to touch most living (or dead) things here, just in case it leads Vecna to discover them.
"Ozzy?" Steve echoes now, brow furrowing in confusion.
"Ozzy Ozzbourne?" Eddie supplies like it should be obvious, and Steve supposes it is to guys like him. "Black Sabbath?"
But Steve isn't answering him, a bit more focused on not losing track of the girls in the deep shadows - the beam of his flashlight doesn't reach too far ahead of them and he is not losing anyone to this blue-filtered, cruel and eerie parody of the Twilight movies.
He can feel the heat of Eddie's hand on his back as the guitarist tries again, "He bit a bat's head off on-stage?"
"No, I don't, does it matter?-" Steve says at the same time that Eddie seems to give up and murmurs, "No, it's cool."
And then, their shoulders bumping as they walk over another fallen tree and narrowly miss avoiding the green, oozing vine hanging from a nearby, gnarled oak tree, Eddie finishes, "Very metal, what you did. That's all I'm saying" with his hand in his jeans pocket and a half-smile on his face.
"Thanks," Steve says now, feeling like he doesn't deserve the guy's thanks - he'd just done what he had to do to survive, to get them all to survive, and it isn't like he'd saved Eddie's life or anything. Really, it still feels like it's the other way around and Steve should still be thanking him.
They're walking at an even pace as Eddie admits to the fact that Dustin feels some sense of hero-worship towards Steve, and Steve gives a quick shake of his head in disbelief, incredulous smile on his face as he asks, "Wait, Henderson said that?"
"Oh yeah, kid worshipsss you, dude. Like, you have no idea. It's kind of annoying, to be honest."
And maybe it's the infection from the bat bites finally setting in, the sharp lance of pain making him a little delirious, or the fact that he's actually holding a conversation with none other than Eddie "the freak" Munson right now, but he can't help but smile at the guy, now - a real smile at that as a soft, disbelieving, "Pffft" leaves him.
"I mean, I don't even really know why I care what that little twerp thinks, but ah-" He thinks if they had a better relationship, a closer one, that Steve might take a second to reassure Eddie that Dustin's more or less the best person Steve knows - he's confident, one-hundred perfect himself, and like a ray of absolute fuckin' sunshine on the worst of miserable, rainy days. So his opinion of people matters, because he's the best kind of person.
"Guess I got a little jealous, Steve." Eddie finishes now, hands dug deep into the pockets of his leather jacket. It fits him well, and it coordinates oddly well with his facial piercings, custom Hellfire baseball-sleeved tshirt and long, dark head of wavy hair. Not that he's looking at Eddie for a really long time or anything, obviously not. He is absolutely not looking at Eddie with wonder and want and barely-concealed yearning. Nope, not even for a second.
"I guess I couldn't accept the fact that Steveee Harrington was actually," Eddie pauses in his monologue to look at him, really look at him, and he feels awfully warm all of a sudden and oddly, uncomfortably seen. Like Eddie understands some hidden part of himself that Steve's only tried incessantly hiding away. "A good dude. Rich parents, popular, chicks love him, and not a douche?"
And that gets Steve to smile. Eddie's smiling too, shaking his head and going, "No way, man. No way. That like- flies in the face of all the laws of the universe. And my own personal Munson doctrine."
Steve casts his flashlight around as they head through a deserted clearing, falling leaves cascading in the air around them in slow-moving waves that make time feel languid and syrupy. As if immune to the gloom or paying it no mind at all, Eddie leans in close to Steve's personal space and says, "Still jealous as hell, by the way."
"Fuck right off, dude." Steve says around a laugh as he pushes him away with his elbow.
"Which is why I would never have jumped in that lake to save your ass, not in any uh-" Eddie seems to lose his train of thought as Steve chances a glance at him. "Normal circumstances."
They aren't looking where they're going anymore, too caught up in the conversation to be watching where they're putting their feet. A twig snaps, either from them stepping on it or one of the girls a ways ahead, and they both stop dead in their tracks. Steve casts his flashlight around as a monster's deep bellow sounds in the distance - the beam of light illuminates gnarled trees, slow-falling leaves, and the hazy blue gloom all around them. A horde of demobats screeches from some unseen, distant place ahead again and Eddie continues as they carefully make their way across the clearing, "Nope, outside of D&D, I am no hero. I see danger and I just turn heel and run."
And Steve doesn't know why, but he reaches over and places his hand on Eddie's shoulder, firmly insisting, "Hey, I'm sure that's not true, man. You're here now, aren't you?"
He shrugs a shoulder and says, "Yeah, well, that's what I've learned about myself this week."
Steve gives him a light shove on the arm and murmurs, "Give yourself a break, man."
And then for whatever goddamn reason, they're suddenly talking about Nancy and the death of Steve's most meaningful relationship, which he really has no interest in re-hashing, for the thirteenth time this week, why he isn't keen on rekindling that particular flame again. It'd burnt out long ago, somewhere between the drunken mention of him being total bullshit and her cheating on him with Johnathan Byers while sober. "She didn't waste a single second. She just dove right in. Now-"
Steve turns to meet Eddie's gaze but he's distracted by the low-level gleam of his lip piercing in the gloom as he speaks. Eddie pays it no mind, as he's too busy saying something about getting Nancy back, how it's such an unambiguous sign of true love as his cynical eyes have ever seen, and then quietly, almost under his breath, murmurs, "I can only hope that someday, someone looks at me the way Nancy looks at you, man."
"Yeah?" Steve says around a suddenly dry throat as he meets Eddie's gaze. His eyes remind him of space, of stars, of warmth, and the dark, damp earth after it rains and leaves a hazy, humid mist lingering over the grass.
"Yeah." Eddie says now around a smile, not looking away from him for a moment. Then the earth suddenly begins to tremble beneath them, quaking, and Steve's composure is already a bit shaky given the demobat attack, no shoes, and all - so he stumbles on his feet and Eddie puts a steadying hand to his arm. The touch is all heat, all warmth, and Eddie's quick to ask, "Woah, you okay there, hotshot?"
Steve pretends he doesn't know why he's disappointed when Eddie drops his hand a moment later. "Yeah, yeah, I'm okay."
He thinks he's developing a bad habit when it comes to Eddie Munson. And if that bad habit leads to late nights ending alone, wide-eyes staring into space as he fiddles with the phone, well then.
No one else has to know but them. Especially when Steve really does dial the guitarist's number a few days after their return from the Upside Down and says, "So how weird would it be if I said I didn't wanna be alone right now?"
He's laying on his back in bed, thoughts drifting as he remembers the flicker of something in Eddie's gaze when they'd talked about wanting to be in love, how they'd just looked at each other for the longest time. Remembering himself now, Steve's quick to add, "I'm not trying to be suggestive or weird or anything, man, I just- Idunno."
"It's cool, Harrington. I get whatcha mean, it's kinda freaky coming back from that place. It's so…blue and gloomy and haunted , y'know?" Eddie makes a noise like he's miming an over-dramatic shudder for Steve's benefit and it makes him laugh.
"Yeah, it's a trip for sure." He says now, pressing the corded phone to his ear as he props himself up on his elbow and rummages through the record collection he's got by his bed. "We could listen to music, drink a couple beers. You cool with Wham! and ABBA, dude?"
Eddie sounds like he's trying and failing not to smile when he says, "Fuck no, man. But for you, I'll give it a shot. Be there in fifteen?"
"Cool, cool, I'll see you then." Steve says with a similar smile tugging at his mouth.
And he's totally not freaking out about the guy coming over in fifteen minutes, totally can't feel his heartbeat shuddering against his ribcage like it's trying to launch itself clear across the room. But he doesn't have fuckin' time to have a proper breakdown about his sexuality, nor call Robin for advice - as she's probably hanging out with Nancy and Johnathan and watching a horror movie with them or something. He can't remember which one she'd said it was - doesn't matter now.
He's just…minutely, absolutely freaking the fuck out. He thinks about changing his clothes or messing with his hair, decides against it because that feels like it'd become a date, and grabs a handful of VHS tapes and records from his collection upstairs just so he has something to do with his shaking hands. Fuck. He can't do this.
But he's gotta do this. He can't just…he can't just be content with never knowing if there's something between the two of them after all, if he's reading Eddie's slow stares, obvious teasing, and frequent touching correctly. (Is there a way to read someone's signals correctly? Like is there a set radio frequency for gay communications he's just been...missing, before? Huh. He wonders.) Before he leaves his room, he nicks his forgotten denim jacket from its spot hanging over his desk chair, shrugs it on over his shirt, and startles when the doorbell rings downstairs.
Fuck.
He throws the door open for Eddie and says, "Hey man, how're you?" trying to go for casual. "You look good, I like the-"
Steve gestures vaguely to Eddie's face, all glimmering lip piercing, winged, dark eyeliner, and the ghost of a smile on his mouth.
He doesn't remember how words work when Eddie brings him into a sudden, too-warm, too-close hug and says into his shoulder, "Hey, Stevie. Thanks for inviting me over, that was cool of you."
"Yeah?" Steve says as he hugs him back, sinking into the other's lean, warm frame and the comforting, strangely familiar smell of sandalwood, weed and the subtle remnants of cheap cologne.
Eddie pulls away after three, four long, stuttering beats of Steve's heart, gives him a slow smile that lingers in his eyes and brings out his dimples, and says, "Yeah. I'm uh- not used to having a friend like you, y'know?"
Steve shuts the door behind them once Eddie steps inside the foyer.
It's then that Eddie looks him over, says that he looks pretty good too, and then says around a smile, "Hey, wait. I recognize that jacket. You stealing my clothes now, Harrington? Aww, are you gonna be my little preppy girlfriend or something?"
Feeling caught, Steve flushes and goes to take the jacket off. "Nah, man, I wasn't trying to-"
He'd seriously forget it was even Eddie's, had been so nervous about the movie night that he'd just thrown it on figuring it was his, not noticing the various metal pins clipped to the front, a blood stain soaked deep into one of the pockets, or embroidered DIO logo on the back as he'd rushed down the stairs to meet the guitarist at the door.
But Eddie's quick to wave it away and murmur, "Hey, don't worry about it, dude. Think it suits you, actually. Looks very metal."
And he doesn't know who moves first, doesn't know that it matters, really, but suddenly, he's shrugging the jacket back on, stepping into Eddie's space and brushing a thumb over Eddie's cheek before he murmurs a soft, whisper-quiet, "Hey, sorry, you have a little-"
"Oh?" Eddie says now, his silver-ringed fingers coming up to rest over the back of Steve's thumb.
"Yeah, I'll just-" He runs his thumb over the spot on Eddie's cheek until the eyeliner's rubbed clean away, a shiver running down his spine when he feels the guitarist's breath leave him in a shuddering rush. "There, that's better."
"Thanks, man." The metalhead says, voice uncharacteristically soft.
"Yeah, anytime, bro." And if Steve's gaze moves from Eddie's deep brown eyes to the place where eyeliner had just been smudged over his cheek to his pink, parted lips as pretty as a girl's, well-
Maybe it isn't such a bad habit after all.
Especially when all the slow, suggestive once-overs get Steve a kiss by the end of the night - and it's not even a drunken one, either. There's no plausible deniability for it, or reasonable excuse either of them could make so that it loses meaning. And Steve's glad for it, grinning against the guitarist's lips and chasing the first kiss with a second one, longer, deeper, and all the sweeter. (The room feels like it's spinning when Eddie cups Steve's face in his hands and cradles him close until they're both breathless, though. And Christ, that's never happened when he's kissed a girl before, and he's kissed plenty.)
He feels drowsy and comfortably warm with Eddie here, the other's presence filling up the often too-still, too-large house. It's nice, actually - feeling like he shares Steve's feelings but isn't rushing him in any way. He'd actually insisted against sleeping in Steve's bed that night, even though Steve had gently shoved him in the shoulder and said he wasn't trying to go that fast, nerd. And Eddie had given him a decidedly wicked smile-smirk before he'd leaned in close to tease, "Mm, and who was the one who'd clearly had their head in the gutter that time I'd mentioned not using Skull Rock for a make-out spot, huh?"
"Oh, fuck off, that was-" Steve says now as he shoves him in the shoulder, but there's no heat to the gesture. "That was totally different, I was-"
"Obviously having a very apparent bisexual crisis, yeah, we know." Eddie murmurs around a teasing smile as he settles his head in the crook of Steve's shoulder.
They fall asleep on the couch together somewhere between the end of that conversation, ordering a pizza, devouring the entire thing, and half-watching Alien in the living room. Steve's legs are draped over Eddie's beneath the warmth of a throw blanket, the guitarist's arm curled around the back of Steve's shoulders. It's still new, delicate, and should probably be really fuckin' strange given everything Steve thought he knew about himself a couple weeks ago. But stranger things have happened than a couple of twenty-something guys sharing a kiss in the deep hours of the night. Clearly, whoever said nothing good happens after two was lying - because however new and unexpected, he thinks this thing between he and Eddie could certainly be a good thing.
lmao this was obviously not my best work but it's fun letting Steve speed-run his sexuality crisis, wish I had done that myself!
Applicable lines from Ed Sheeran's annoyingly catchy song I used in this fic include: Bad habits lead to late nights ending alone, bad habits lead to wide-eyes staring into space, it's true, nothing good happens after two