Archive of Our Own

Robin was looking at Steve through squinted eyes, as if she was assessing him. They were sitting on the floor of Steve's living room, the four of them. It was how they always ended up, whenever they were hanging out together, after the kids left: Eddie wasn't one to sit still and liked walking around, clambering over the couches and luxurious armchairs every now and then, and Robin seemed to prefer the floor to furniture in most places for some reason Steve still couldn't figure out. Nancy and Steve himself mostly ended up following her example after they had a few drinks and Eddie would sit down with them when he got tired of his endless moving around. There was something cozy to it, Steve thought; the carpet of the Harringtons' living room was very soft, making it a more comfortable place to sit than the designer furniture that was more about upholding a certain look than about actual usability.

Steve knew exactly what Robin was trying to do: she wanted revenge on him for daring her to hold Nancy's hand for the further duration of their game. After his sixth beer of the evening, Steve had thought it was a great idea to give his best friend an excuse to do what she had been wanting to do for weeks, maybe even months, now. Robin had been less happy about it, rudely unappreciative of his brilliant setup scheme.

'I dare you to...' She paused to build up the tension. Nancy, who was still holding her hand, looked up at her full of expectation.

An unsettling grin started growing around Robin's lips and Steve prepared himself for something real bad.

'To play a game of gay chicken with Eddie.'

Steve shifted his gaze to the other guy in the room. He wasn't sure if he was just imagining things, but Eddie suddenly seemed to look a few shades paler than usual. His big eyes looked into Steve's slightly taken aback.

Silence stretched out for a few seconds, only the voice of David Bowie in the background disturbing it.

When you're a boy, other boys check you out // You get a girl

Then, Eddie started grinning his familiar devilish grin.

'You gonna take that dare or no, Harrington?' he asked, wiggling his eyebrows.

'Um, yeah, of course I'll take that dare,' Steve blurted out.

He more or less crawled over to the place where Eddie was sitting with his back against the couch and his legs pulled up in front of him. During the couple of seconds that took him, he decided to go for it completely, if he had to. He wasn't planning on losing a game of gay chicken against Eddie Munson, no way, even though the prospect of what might happen made him nervous as hell.

Boys, boys, David Bowie sang.

'You're gonna lose, Stevie,' Eddie whispered as Steve settled himself down beside him.

Steve flashed him a smile, trying to seem cocky and self-confident even though his palms were getting sweaty.

'Didn't think so, Munson.'

Uncage the colors, unfurl the flag

As he leaned into Eddie's space properly, the other guy didn't move; he didn't come closer, of course, but he also didn't lean back, didn't show any signs of chickening out. So without thinking too much about it, Steve pressed their lips together, and automatically closed his eyes in the process.

It wasn't actually that different from kissing a girl: Eddie's lips were just as soft and warm, only there was more stubble involved, prickling against the skin around Steve's mouth. Eddie smelt like cigarettes and beer and something nice underneath that, something Steve would also expect to smell whenever he kissed a girl. Still, neither of them chickened out. Eddie even kissed him back, sucking slightly on his lower lip, exactly the way he liked it. Almost unconsciously Steve's hand reached to rest on top of Eddie's knee, which was poking through his ripped pants, and he tangled his other hand into Eddie's curls; also just like kissing a girl, he vaguely established. There was some tongue, subtle enough that Steve barely even noticed it –

'Hum-humhum.' The loud, emphatic throat-clearing sound Robin made, caused both of them to jolt away from each other like they had been electrocuted.

Eddie looked at Steve wide-eyed, his lips more prominently visible than usual.

I did that, was the only thought in Steve's brain, emerging through some kind of haze, while he kept staring at the other guy's lips.

Eddie parted his lips slightly, as if he was searching for words; then, he started grinning again and the weird tension between them dissolved.

'So who won?' he asked Steve.

'Um... I think we stopped at the exact same time.'

'So no winner?'

Steve grinned back at him, realizing that Eddie was apparently just as competitive as he was.

'Guess we'll have to keep playing, then,' he said.

'Alright, big boy, in that case you'd better prepare yourself for the full Munson-experience.'

'I'm pretty sure the Munson-experience is nothing compared to the patented and infamous Harrington-charm. Watch out or you're gonna get your heart broken, baby.'

Still without really thinking, Steve brushed a hand through Eddie's hair, not breaking eye contact with him for one moment, before he leaned back to return to his own spot on the carpet.

He didn't quite know how to feel about what had just happened; he had played the game before, but this was the first time it had come this far. The guys he used to play this with – mostly dudes from the basketball team – would always turn their face away at the last second, laughing nervously; just like he himself had done, multiple times. But he was surprised by how normal it had felt to lock lips with Eddie.

Steve shifted his gaze away from Eddie and looked at Nancy and Robin, who were both giving him weirdly intense stares. He suddenly felt self-conscious about the whole thing and cleared his throat.

'Truth or dare, Nance?' he asked, back to business.

Nancy opted for a truth – probably the safest option, taking into account that their game had already led to the girls holding hands for almost an hour and the guys basically making out with each other – and Steve asked her if she still had the clothes she used to wear for Mike's D&D campaigns when they were younger. His distraction tactic worked perfectly: Eddie launched himself onto this new piece of information and asked her a dozen questions, which obviously ended in a rather intense – and futile – plea for her to come cosplay at the Hellfire Club sometime.

After Nancy had told him in the strongest words available that there was no way in hell she'd ever be doing that, and brusquely cut off the conversation by asking Robin truth-or-dare, Eddie turned his head to look at Steve – and winked at him . Steve, who had just taken a sip of his beer, choked in surprise, causing a loud laugh to escape from Eddie's throat.

'Chickening out already, Harrington?'

After some coughs, Steve looked back at Eddie, tears in his eyes. 'No way, honey,' he retorted, deadpan, this time causing Eddie to be the one choking on his drink.

'I can't believe you kissed a guy when I haven't even kissed a girl yet!' Robin yelled the next day at Family Video, just before opening time. 'And you don't even like guys, do you have any idea how unfair this is?!'

Steve flinched. 'Can you maybe not scream at my hangover like that please?' he asked her. 'And I did it on your dare, remember, so you really have only yourself to thank for it.'

'Well, I mean, I didn't exactly think that you'd actually do it.'

'Why not?' Steve shrugged, like it was the most normal thing in the world for him to kiss somebody like Eddie Munson. 'It wasn't that awful; he has long hair and soft lips and he smelt kinda like some girls do. And, objectively, he's a good kisser.'

Robin looked at him with an expression on her face that Steve couldn't quite place; there was something slightly worried in it, perhaps.

'What?' he asked.

'Um. Nothing.'

Steve shrugged, too preoccupied to really care much about Robin's weird looks. He was busy thinking about how he had kissed Eddie on his cheek when they said goodbye the other night, and how Eddie had replied with a dramatic 'I'll never stop missing you, my darling!' in a posh British accent.

He could barely suppress a smile at that memory. He didn't worry about it too much; he was actually curious to see for how long they could keep this up, and he knew it was all in good fun. It was just Eddie, after all.

After only a few hours, Eddie showed up at the video store, grinning widely upon seeing Steve. He leaned over the counter to give him a peck on his lips; it caught Steve by surprise, even though he really should've seen that one coming, and it took him a few seconds to recover.

'Hey angel,' he finally greeted Eddie, hoping the smile on his face looked cool and casual.

'Good afternoon, my love,' Eddie replied. A mischievous sparkle was lighting up his dark eyes. 'I wanna take you on a date. What do ya think?'

Steve laughed at that and leaned closer to Eddie. Okay, so this is what we're doing now, he thought.

'A date with my beautiful dove? I'd love nothing more,' he said in a low voice, even grabbing Eddie's hand and lacing their fingers together. The other guy's rings pressed slightly into his skin, but it wasn't uncomfortable.

Eddie's eyes flashed to their hands on the counter and Steve saw a slight blush creep onto his cheeks, but he still didn't chicken out: he averted his gaze back to Steve's eyes and grinned at him again.

'I am delighted to hear that, but you gotta come up with a better nickname than “beautiful dove.” That one makes me wanna vomit.'

'Note taken, sweetheart,' Steve answered.

Eddie just rolled his eyes. 'Alright, shall I pick you up after your shift tomorrow night?'

'I'm a busy man, my darling, already have plans with Henderson. How 'bout Wednesday?'

'I wouldn't dare come between you and your son. Wednesday's fine, too, baby.' And after another peck on Steve's lips – one he was prepared for, this time – Eddie disappeared.

The way he had called him “baby” left Steve with a strange knot in his stomach.

As promised, Eddie was waiting for Steve outside the store when he finished his shift. He was leaning against the bumper of his van with a cigarette between his fingers and wearing a black leather jacket that looked way too warm with the summer sun shining down on them.

Steve walked up to him and casually pressed a kiss on his lips.

'Good afternoon, sweetheart,' he said, before he snatched the cigarette out of Eddie's hand and took a drag himself.

'Well hello darling, how was your day?' Eddie asked, that provoking grin on his face and a twinkle in his big brown eyes.

'It was torture. I could only stare at the clock waiting for my shift to be over and my love to show up in his chariot.' Steve threw some extra drama into his voice, suspecting Eddie might like that.

'Glad I'm finally here to end your suffering.' Eddie winked, pressed his cigarette out on his bumper and started walking over to the driver's seat. 'The chariot's ready, hop in, honeybee.'

Eddie chauffeured them to the woods. His questionable driving style turned what should have been a ten-minute drive into a five-minute rollercoaster ride, but they made it to their destination alive, even though Steve felt quite dizzy when he got out of the car.

'I know a nice quiet spot for a picnic,' Eddie said as he took a big bag and a blanket out of the back of his van and started walking.

'Sounds romantic,' Steve remarked, following right behind him. He stretched out his hand to take either the bag or the blanket from Eddie, but instead, Eddie shuffled both of them into his other arm and used his now empty hand to grab Steve's.

Steve opened his mouth to tell Eddie that that was not what his gesture had been for, but closed it without saying anything when Eddie winked at him, thinking it might look like he was chickening out if he would. Instead, he gave an extra squeeze in Eddie's fingers.

It took them another ten minutes to get to Eddie's secret picnic spot, where they laid out the blanket and started unpacking a whole assortment of sandwiches, fruit, cold juice, and even a bottle of wine.

'Woah, you're really trying to impress me here, Munson,' Steve said.

'Is it working?'

'Big time.' He reached out his arms to wrap Eddie in an embrace and gave him another quick kiss on his mouth.

Eddie grinned as they pulled apart, seemingly not too bothered with the fact that their little game was really getting overtly exaggerated by now. He took off his jacket before he went to sit down on the blanket, revealing his lean arms and quite a big part of his ribcage in the oversized tank top he was wearing underneath it.

Steve decided he might as well do this properly and ignored all the empty space on the blanket, instead snuggling up to Eddie to keep things cozy; he even felt brave enough to feed Eddie some raspberries directly into his mouth at some point – all to prove he wasn't about to chicken out, of course.

But it was fun; he enjoyed spending time with Eddie. It was something easy, something that barely took an effort. They could talk about anything and everything, and Eddie never failed to make him laugh, and yes, maybe it also wasn't too bad to finally have someone to cuddle up to again, even though it wasn't a girl and this wasn't a real date, and they were only playing some dumb game.

When the sun started setting and the evening chill came creeping into the woods, Eddie gave Steve a ride home. They shared a comfortable silence as they were driving through the quiet streets of Hawkins and Steve tried his best to hold back on his comments on Eddie's maniacal driving.

When they stopped in front of Steve's house, Eddie leaned over to give him a goodbye-kiss on his cheek, as if it was something completely natural to do.

'Hey, you wanna come in?' Steve asked. 'It's not that late yet, we can watch a movie together?'

'Already trying to get into my pants on the first date, Harrington?' Eddie asked, wiggling his eyebrows suggestively.

Steve felt his cheeks flush, but tried to laugh away the awkwardness he was suddenly feeling.

'Obviously; you know me,' he answered.

Eddie looked at him as if he was trying to figure out some confusing and difficult math problem.

'Alright, I'll watch a movie with you,' he finally said. 'But I have one rule: all our clothes are staying on.'

Steve grinned. 'I'm just gonna have to wait 'till our second date, then.'

They settled down on the couch and snuggled up to each other again. It was actually quite nice, the way Eddie's body was pressed against his own, warm and relaxed and safe, already beginning to feel familiar. He pressed a kiss onto Eddie's curls without even giving it a second thought. Their breathing aligned with each other and Steve wouldn't be surprised if even their hearts were beating in the same rhythm. Every now and then, Steve shot a quick sideways glance at Eddie. The guy looked pale in the dim light of the tv, his eyes as big as ever and practically glowing.

When the movie was over, Steve walked Eddie to the door, but before he could open it, Eddie pulled him closer by the collar of his polo, pressing their lips together again.

Guess we're doing this now, Steve thought. He still didn't really mind, though, and he definitely didn't want to chicken out, so he just rolled with it and kissed Eddie back. He slightly opened his mouth and felt Eddie's lips part as well, their tongues flicking against each other, tasting each other, exploring the shapes of each other's mouths... Eddie's arms around him felt strong and safe, as if they would always be there to catch him. It felt less soft than it did with any girl he had ever made out with, but it was still surprisingly good, even though it was different, even though they were only messing with each other.

There was no Robin to interrupt them, this time, and Steve allowed himself to get lost in the moment. He ended up pressing his whole body against Eddie's, taking another step to basically slam the other guy against the door.

Eddie produced a gasping sound, and for a moment Steve feared that he had taken it too far, but then he felt Eddie's hands tighten onto his shoulders, fingers pressing into his skin through the fabric of his polo, as if he wanted Steve to continue kissing him. He's impressively good at this game, Steve thought as their kiss got more heated and Eddie's fingers traced their way up to the hairline at Steve's neck, sending a shiver down his spine.

Steve lost all sense of time; it could have been hours before he finally broke off their kiss, ending it with a sweet peck on Eddie's lips to make clear that he didn't stop kissing him because he was chickening out.

He couldn't help but notice how pretty Eddie looked; there simply was no other word for it. His soft curls were ruffled by Steve's hands, his lips were bright and shiny, and his eyes were shockingly wide. If he had been a girl, Steve would have fallen like a goddamn brick right now. But he wasn't: he was a guy and this was all just a game, so they said goodbye and when Steve crawled into bed later and that feeling he'd gotten from making out with Eddie just didn't go away, he closed his eyes and helped himself out by thinking about Heidi, who he hadn't seen in months but still worked well enough in his imagination to get him where needed.

The summer holidays finally came around and Eddie graduated, along with Robin and Nancy and most of the other people in their thinned out class. The ceremony was sober, with everyone still mourning classmates and loved ones, the shadows of those who should've also been on the stage looming over the ones who were actually standing there. There was a small graduation party at the Wheelers' house, however, and Steve secretly enjoyed holding Eddie's hand throughout most of the night. It didn't escape his notice that Robin and Nancy also spent pretty much the whole evening with their hands glued together. He gave Robin a suggestive wink when he saw Nancy whisper something in her ear, to which she reacted by sticking her tongue out at him.

Two days later, Jonathan and his friend Argyle came to spend the summer in Hawkins. They all hung out together to welcome them: the younger kids and the older ones, chilling in the grass in front of Eddie's trailer. Steve could only join them later, after his closing shift at the video store. He couldn't help but smile softly at the sight of all his friends sitting there together when he drove onto the trailer park. They were all basking in the last bit of warm sunlight, wrapped in a warm orange-red glow, and they seemed happy and carefree, right at the beginning of what would hopefully be a wonderful summer without any monster-related Upside Down-ish shenanigans.

Steve walked up to them and dropped down in the grass right next to Eddie.

'Hey, sweetheart,' Eddie greeted Steve with a kiss on his cheek.

'What's up, babe,' Steve replied with a kiss right onto Eddie's lips.

None of the others batted an eye, now that this game had been going on for weeks, but when Steve looked around him, he saw Jonathan stare at him open-mouthed.

'Did we miss something?' he asked, completely perplexed.

Robin laughed at his reaction. 'Oh, no no, they're just playing a game, no biggie,' she explained.

'What game?' Argyle asked.

'It's called gay chicken.'

Argyle looked at her in confusion; Steve supposed they didn't know the game back in California.

'The point of the game is for two guys to pretend to be gay together for as long as possible, and whoever chickens out first loses,' Robin explained matter-of-factly.

'And how long has it been since they are, uh... pretending ?' Jonathan asked. Steve didn't particularly like the weird intonation in his question.

'Three weeks,' Robin said.

Argyle and Jonathan exchanged a confused look with each other.

Nancy leaned over to them. 'They're pretty stubborn,' she said in a low voice.

'I'm winning,' Eddie chimed in.

Steve snickered. 'And what makes you say that, honey?'

Eddie leaned closer into him, dropping his voice to a suggestive whisper, his lips almost touching Steve's ear and his breath warm against the skin of Steve's cheek. 'If you come inside with me, I'll show you.'

'You think that scares me, baby?' Steve whispered right back. He had something to prove and he felt a certain kind of determination as he got up and took both of Eddie's hands to pull him to his feet.

As soon as the trailer door closed behind them, Eddie basically launched himself at Steve, eagerly finding his way to Steve's mouth. There was something purposeful about it that was slightly overwhelming. If this was Eddie's new tactic – scaring him away with a whole new level of intensity – it wasn't working. It didn't scare Steve one bit.

'I like where this is going, babe,' he murmured as they pulled apart to catch their breaths. It was all part of the game, of course, but it wasn't exactly a lie either.

Eddie exhaled a shaky breath, resting his forehead against Steve's.

'Keep it in your pants, Harrington, there are children sitting right outside.'

'Chickening out?'

Eddie pressed a kiss on Steve's lips before he took a step back. 'Hell no, my love,' he grinned.

Another two weeks passed; two weeks in which Eddie came to bother Steve at the video store almost daily now that he had vacation, two weeks in which they went on more “dates” with each other and regularly ended up making out in Steve's living room or the Munsons' trailer. It was surprisingly easy for Steve to get used to that dynamic; he had a lot of fun with Eddie, and even though he'd never admit it out loud, he also enjoyed kissing him way more than he would have expected to.

On one particular night, when the four of them were all hanging out at Eddie's, Steve stayed behind after Nancy and Robin left together. They had had a few drinks, and even though he didn't quite understand why, he wanted to stay there without the girls present. He told himself it was because he didn't want to be a third wheel now that there had been some interesting developments between Nancy and Robin, but he knew that that wasn't the whole truth. He wanted to kiss Eddie again. And he did.

They had done this often enough by now to know exactly about each other what they liked. But this time, Steve lost himself into the kiss even more than usual. They had shared hungry kisses before, they had shared intense kisses, sweet kisses, drunk kisses... But this one was different. It was all of that at the same time.

They ended up lying on the couch, something they had never really done before while making out, and he could feel Eddie's weight on him. It made his blood stream faster, made him grow hard underneath his jeans, made him want more of Eddie's skin. A moan escaped Eddie's lips as Steve placed a hickey at the collar of his Metallica shirt, a moan that sent shivers all the way through Steve's body. He tugged at the fabric of the black tee, and Eddie pulled back to let him remove it, and he didn't stop to look at Eddie's bare skin and the tattoos on it, because maybe then he'd actually have to think about how that made him feel and that wasn't something he wanted to do, so he kept kissing Eddie and took his own shirt off as well and reveled in the feeling of skin against skin and let his hands explore more of Eddie than he'd done before, until they reached the front of his pants and felt that Eddie had also gotten hard in there and –

And Eddie brusquely pushed him away.

Steve was panting, trying to steady his breath as Eddie crawled back and pressed himself into the other end of the couch.

'Eddie, honey, are you okay?' he asked.

'Stop calling me that.' Eddie's voice suddenly sounded cold; there was no trace of the usual sardonic grin on his face.

Shit. 'Fuck, sorry, Eddie.'

Steve lowered his head into his hands, taking a few seconds to try and get his mind to work properly again. When he looked up, he noticed that Eddie was white as a sheet, his big eyes opened wide in a sort of shocked reaction to what had happened between them.

'I went too far, didn't I?'

Eddie nodded, but didn't say anything.

'I am so sorry, Eddie, seriously. This whole game just... got away from me, for a bit. I'm sorry.'

Eddie cleared his throat, still staring at Steve with those shocked eyes.

'Yeah, I guess the game got a bit out of hand,' he said. His voice didn't really sound like his own, with all its playfulness and bravado gone away.

Steve nodded, not knowing what to say except how genuinely sorry he was.

'Look, dude, I really didn't mean to...'

'I know. It's okay.' But he didn't look like it was okay.

'I'm truly sorry, Eddie.'

'I think you should leave.'

Steve nodded, again. He reached for his polo and pulled it over his head, feeling embarrassed by the movements of it, by the physicality of what they had been doing; it felt like he was covering up something dirty.

Eddie looked tense and scared and like he was about to cry. Steve wanted nothing more than to comfort him; to hold him, hug him, tell him he had never meant to make him feel that way. But he knew it wasn't his place, not right now, right after he had crossed that blurred line and broken Eddie's trust, right after he had changed what was happening between them from a game to something that felt like an assault. So he left Eddie there, a bare-chested puddle of shock and pulled-up legs pressed into the corner of the couch. It was the only decent thing he could do, but it made him feel more awful than he had ever before felt in his life.

How could he have ever let it come this far?

'Well don't you look terrible,' Robin greeted him cheerfully when he came into Family Video ten minutes late the next day.

'Don't,' Steve warned her. Apparently that single word was enough to betray to her how he was feeling, because her suggestive smile faltered immediately.

'What happened?' she asked, worried this time, but the door of the store opened before Steve could answer.

He slipped into the back to let Robin handle the customer. He had driven home last night knowing that he had too much to drink to be entirely safe, but made it back home without getting pulled over, and, more importantly, with both his car and himself still in one piece. He had gone to bed right away, but not been able to sleep except for a few hours when the sun already started to rise and birds began to chirp outside his window. He felt dirty; not even about what he had let happen with Eddie, weirdly enough he still didn't mind that. No, he felt dirty about the way Eddie had jolted away from him, about the shocked look in his big brown eyes, about the snap in his voice when he had told Steve not to call him honey. It still made him feel nauseous.

He looked into the mirror in the backroom. Robin was right: he looked like a corpse, white-faced and with puffy eyes. Even his hair was weirdly flat.

He walked back into the store and grabbed some tapes from the counter to re-stack while Robin was wrapping up with the customer. Two other people had come in while he was in the back, so he had to accept that he would have to wait a while until he could tell Robin about what happened. He felt like he might burst if he didn't talk about it with someone soon.

Steve ended up having to recount the events of the night before in short episodes during quiet moments, with new customers interrupting them at the most inconvenient moments.

'I fucked up, man,' he said to Robin after he finally managed to get through the events from start to finish. 'I don't know what came over me... I was just... tipsy, and living in the moment, I guess, and it actually felt good to be with him like that, and now I – I basically assaulted him, Robin. I crossed so many lines for that stupid game!'

Robin looked at him with wide eyes.

'Steve. Um... Are you sure that it was still about the game, when you – touched him?' Her voice sounded weird; she should be angry, but she talked to him softly, earnestly, which caught Steve off-balance.

'What do you mean?' he asked, not quite understanding her question.

'Um... Well.' Robin sighed. 'Do you think it's possible that, maybe, perhaps, you enjoyed that game so much and let it get that far, because you're actually into Eddie?'

'What?' He stared at her, dumbfounded.

'It's just...' She paused, biting her lip. Steve knew that look all too well: she was about to start rambling.

'Look, I didn't wanna overstep and I thought this was something you should figure out on your own, but obviously that's not happening, so what I'm trying to say is – the way you describe it, you keep saying that it felt so good to make out with him, and that you enjoyed spending all that time with him... It kinda sounds to me like you're falling in love. Or at least like you have a major crush on Eddie.'

This conversation was taking a very unexpected turn. 'Robin. I'm into girls, remember?' he said, weakly.

'Yeah, I know that. But... Maybe you're also into boys?'

He kept staring at her. 'What the hell are you talking about? Are you on drugs?'

But Robin didn't look like she was on drugs, and she definitely didn't look like she was making a joke. Her wide-eyed gaze was full of care and honesty.

'You never heard of bisexuality? Being attracted to both?'

He stared at Robin for a good ten seconds, trying to figure out what he should say, or even what he should think; it felt like his brain had turned into jelly right on the spot.

Then, they were rudely disturbed by a new customer walking through the door.

'Take your time, I'll handle this one,' Robin whispered at him under her breath.

Steve went back to pretending like he was dusting off the shelves. It felt like the earth had just shifted its course through the universe. All this time, the knowledge that he liked girls had been the one thing reminding him of the fact that what he and Eddie were doing was only a game. That simple fact made it impossible for him to actually have feelings for Eddie, after all. But now Robin just told him that wasn't how it worked. Apparently, there even was a word for it. He felt like his brain might explode, but at the same time, it somehow made a weird amount of sense. It was like he had finally found a logical explanation for everything that had been happening over the last few weeks. He was into Eddie. It made his heart lose its steady rhythm, that thought. He could suddenly view everything in a different light: the dates, the pet names, the kisses; the exhilaration of it all, the way in which his body responded to Eddie's proximity... How could he not have realized this earlier?

The customer left and the store stayed empty for a few minutes, silent except for the sounds of the film playing on the big screen in the background. Steve just kept blindly staring at the shelf full of tapes in front of him.

After a while, when no new customers showed up, Robin walked over to him and dropped down to the floor beside him, her back against one of the shelves and her legs pulled up in front of her.

'Steve... Did you just OD over there?' she asked, hesitant.

Steve couldn't help but smile at that question, that echo of a conversation which felt like a lifetime ago by now.

He put down the tapes he was still holding and let himself slide onto the carpet too, across from Robin, mirroring the way they had been sitting in those gross mall bathroom stalls last summer.

'I'm still alive,' he answered. 'Just thinking.'

'Okay.'

Her looked at her; her face was full of patient expectation.

'I think you're right,' he finally said. 'I'm into both – I'm into Eddie.'

The confession left a silence that stretched out for seconds, almost half a minute. Robin gave him all the time he needed to figure out what he was thinking exactly.

'I fucked up, Robin, I fucked up so bad yesterday. I completely overstepped. I didn't even realize what I was doing until it was too late, and he probably hates me now. I mean, the lines between what we could and couldn't do were totally blurring, and I thought it was just a game, but it wasn't really, not for me, at least, and I completely crossed his boundaries and he's my friend and he looked so scared of me and – '

'Steve,' Robin finally interrupted him. 'I don't think he was scared.'

'You weren't there, Robin, I saw how he looked at me. He was scared, and angry.'

'I don't think he was angry because you... touched him.' Robin sounded nervous.

He frowned at her, incredulous. 'Don't make up excuses, man.'

'I'm not making up excuses. Look, I...' She took a breath, looking slightly panicked. 'I didn't wanna tell you this, because it really isn't my place to do that, but now that I know you actually have feelings for Eddie...' She took a breath and squeezed her eyes shut for a second before looking at Steve again.

'He's gay, Steve. And that stupid game... It's my fault, I'm the one who started it, remember? I only wanted to embarrass you because you made me hold Nancy's hand all night. I figured that Eddie wouldn't chicken out because he's actually into dudes, and I thought it'd be funny for your straight ass to have to decide between kissing a dude and having your fragile ego shattered into pieces. I never expected it to become... this whole thing.'

Steve's heart was hammering in his throat now. 'Eddie's gay?' was the only thing he could ask.

Robin nodded.

'So... Why did he push me away, then, if he was into it?'

'I guess it all got a little bit too real for him,' she said quietly. 'Maybe he developed some feelings for you along the way, as well.'

When Steve went back to the trailer park that evening, his heart was beating loudly in his ears and his mouth was dry as sandpaper. The whole day at the video store had passed by him in a kind of haze. Robin had been doing most of the work, even without complaining about it; she probably understood that Steve's brain was completely preoccupied and basically had to be rewired after the ungodly amount of new information it had to process. He hadn't been able to think about anything else for the whole day, and by the time their shift was over, he was pretty sure that he'd lose his mind if he didn't talk to Eddie as soon as humanly possible. Robin had sent him to Eddie's with a tight hug and an encouraging smile on her face.

As he walked up to the Munsons' trailer, he tried to take steady breaths to stop his heart from running itself into cardiac arrest. His hands were sweaty and his stomach was twisting violently.

He knocked, and his relief to find Eddie at home when the door swung open was soon replaced by worry: the guy looked like he hadn't slept at all and his eyes were puffy and red. Steve knew the kind of red that Eddie's eyes got from weed, and this was no doubt a different kind of red. It made the guilt rise up in Steve's stomach like a quickly spreading poison.

But he got a shaky smile from Eddie when he saw that it was Steve who had come knocking on his door.

'I'm glad you're here,' he said, and it sounded like he meant it. 'I've been wanting to apologize to you all day.'

'You wanted to apologize to me?' Steve asked, confused.

'Yeah, obviously.' Eddie stepped aside and gestured for Steve to come inside, but kept talking. 'I let you leave yesterday thinking that you had, like, harassed me or whatever, but that wasn't true, Steve.' He sounded nervous, Steve realized; his voice was slightly shaking.

'The truth is, I wanted you to touch me. I've been wanting you to do all the things you did yesterday, I've been wanting that for months. I know it was just a stupid game for you, that it was all about your masculine pride or whatever, and I took advantage of that because I've had a crush on you for months and I just wanted to take what I could get, even though it wasn't real.' There was a bitter edge to his voice. 'I am so sorry; I just figured I should be honest with you after what happened yesterday, and I totally understand if you hate me now – I should've chickened out back when we first kissed, that would've been the right thing to do, but I didn't and I just kept going and all those lines kept blurring and now I completely messed up and – '

'Eddie. Sweetheart,' Steve finally interrupted his spiraling ramble, stepping forward to take both Eddie's hands, that had been fumbling with his rings the whole time, in his own.

There was a startled expression in Eddie's brown eyes. Damn it, those eyes were fucking gorgeous, how on earth was it possible that he hadn't realized sooner just how hard he was falling?

Steve swallowed; his mouth felt drier than sandpaper, now. But he had to say it.

'It wasn't just a game for me; I just didn't realize it. Apparently, I'm bisexual, according to Robin. I didn't even know that that was a thing; I didn't even understand what you were doing with me, what I was feeling for you, but I knew that I liked what was happening, I liked it so much that it was driving me crazy. I don't wanna blur the lines anymore; I wanna be on the other side of that line, with you. It really isn't a game to me, Eddie. I promise.'

Eddie only kept staring at him, completely perplexed. His mouth was slightly hanging open, and that tiny gap between his lips was doing all kinds of things to Steve.

'Can I kiss you?' he whispered, already bringing his face closer to Eddie's. 'For real, this time?'

Eddie didn't say anything; he simply closed the last inches of distance between them.

Steve was afraid that it would feel no different than all the other times they'd kissed, that nothing would have changed between them. And it did feel exactly the same, but in a good way, actually. It was warm and familiar and it just made so much sense to him. The one thing that was different, was that he actually allowed himself to feel everything he was feeling, this time: he allowed himself to revel in Eddie's taste, to feel the way his own heart started jumping and singing in his chest, to notice the pleasantly hollow feeling in his stomach, to fully appreciate the sensation of Eddie's body pressed against his... He wrapped his arms around Eddie tightly, giddy with the feeling of holding him because Eddie was his now, and he wanted so much more of it, not to win a game or to prove a point, but because he wanted Eddie, wanted all of him. And when Eddie guided him to his bedroom without breaking away from their kiss, he knew that he didn't need any game to win the prize he wanted.