“You should’ve told me you were coming by. I could’ve been a better host.”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself, Munson. You’ve always been great at hospitality, from what I hear. Is that marijuana I smell?”

Crouching in the closet, Steve winces at the sound of that voice. It’s not some kid from school here to buy weed — the cop knock had told them both that much, and the sound of somebody’s fist banging on the trailer door had sent Eddie scrambling bare-legged and driven Steve to his current hiding place. Which is no great shakes, all things considered — the trailer Eddie and his uncle share isn’t in too bad shape, but the closets aren’t exactly spacious walk-ins and stuffed in what feels about four square feet with a jumble of mismatched shoes and dirty laundry. But Eddie’s playing it cool, which typically for him, means toeing the line into out-and-out insolence. Steve’s gotten to like him a lot over the past few months, but even he has to admit that Eddie’s an acquired taste.

“So what seems to be the problem, officer?”

Steve can picture it — Eddie spreading his hands, ever the smartass. The stereo switches off with a click, Queensrÿche on cassette cutting out mid-solo. You’d have to be stupid not to smell the weed, though Eddie’s uncle does a pretty good job of playing innocent even when the kitchenette smells like Woodstock and there’s empty pizza boxes on every flat surface. The two of them had been sharing a joint and listening to music, nothing special, and Steve had been perilously close to closing his eyes when the interruption came.

“Why don’t you tell me?” This guy’s a cop —a young one, by the sound of him. “Look at you. If I didn’t know better I’d think you were expecting somebody.”

Eddie, grinning — “Wouldn’t you like to know, stud.”

Steve wants to scream. Eddie’s got no business mouthing off like this, not with the amount of absolutely brutally illegal contraband stuffed into every hiding place a suitably inventive and depraved mind can come up with. Two open cans of beer next to the bed, not even finished yet, a pair of Steve’s shoes kicked off in the corner. He can hear the bedsheets rustling, Eddie kicking one of the knit blankets off of the bed.

There’s the sound of heavy footsteps not far off, someone flicking a lighter like they’re starting up a cigarette but they can’t get the flint to strike, like they haven’t done it in a while. Another cop? Why does it take two cops to hassle a high schooler about weed?

Steve reaches out, as carefully as he can, with just the fingertips of his hands — and pushes the closet door open, just an inch, just the tiniest amount. The reddish-colored light creeps in through the crack and illuminates just enough of the room to disclose the corner of Eddie’s bed. (Eddie likes to put a girl’s scarf or something over the lamp when they’re getting high, he’d called it a prize of war and waggled his eyebrows and Steve had laughed. But then, it’s really easy to make Steve laugh when he’s getting high.)

Eddie’s still sitting on the bed, still bare-legged in his gray briefs. The cop is a sandy-haired man with a shitty mustache, and he’s stubbing out a cigarette in the ashtray on the bedside table. Steve wants to get closer, wants to shift forward for a better look through the gap in the door, but the rickety folding door looks about ready to pop off its hinges if he so much as bumps into it, and then they’re all fucked.

Real cops don’t bust the door down at nine PM without a warrant — he’s here to shake Eddie down, to rob him. He knows he’s just gone to Reefer Rick’s to pick up some stock and he’s here to clear him out. Or else he’s here to — procure my wares, Eddie would say with the kind of lurid flourish that makes Steve feel so massively weird.

“Got anything good for me, Munson?” The man looks — normal, almost excruciatingly clean-cut, like one of the highway patrol officers at the school drunk driving assembly, like that’s the worst thing anybody in Hawkins has to worry about. Hell, he looks like ten years ago he’d have been running-back for the Tigers. Clean-cut, boring, normal. It gives Steve a creepy feeling just to look at him.

Eddie, digging something out from a drawer: “There’s a Peruvian quarter-ounce with your name on it. That should get you through a couple boring office parties.”

“Yeah, right, I bet it’s half baby laxatives. But it’s good enough for the football team, huh, small-timer?”

“Take it or don’t, why do I give a shit? If you don’t want it, go find somebody else.” Eddie is bristling, you can hear it in his voice, but he’s trying to keep a lid on it — he’s defensive about the shit he sells, and half of it is the same stuff he uses anyway. The other weekend he sat up late talking Steve through how to tell the difference between Mexican pot and domestic strains — he knows his stuff, or maybe Steve just likes to listen to him talk.

“Are you on your period or something? Just fucking relax. I was joking.” The blond guy scrapes out a little bit of cocaine on his fingernail and there’s the gross sound of snorting as he turns his head. (The few times Steve’s done a line or two at a party he’s pretty sure it wasn’t as nasty as this. Is this guy doing it extra gross on purpose?) He clears his throat noisily and laughs. “There we fucking go.”

Eddie’s fishing around in the black tackle box under his bed — for drugs, Steve thinks, or his driver’s license, or something that makes more sense than what he ultimately pulls out, a little black bottle with a gold label. Pills, or some kind of other weird drug Steve’s never heard of — there’s a lot of stuff Eddie’s mixed up in that makes Steve feel like a complete virgin, and it’s not like he can tell him about the Soviet truth serum.

Eddie straightens up and slaps a hand against his thigh. The sound is a little too loud, a little too jovial; from the closet, Steve winces. “So that’s the pleasantries over with. Time to cut the bullshit, wrap it up, and get to the action. You know how it is with me: safety first.”

Eddie’s knees are splayed apart, the soles of his feet pressed together. He’s brazenly adjusting himself through the front of his briefs — except he’s palming himself, in one raunchy movement that makes Steve’s throat go dry.

The cop’s not having it. “Aw, you know I fucking hate that. Can’t feel shit with those things on.”

“Not the way I do it,” Eddie says, with his voice all bravado. “Them’s the rules. If you don’t like it, you can hit the road.”

“Forget it just this once. When I get my dick sucked I want to feel it. You’re going to choke on it, Eddie-boy.”

What the fuck is he talking about? What the fuck is he even saying? Steve wants to say something, wants to stop this, but he’s frozen in his spot. If an earthquake would just completely obliterate him right now, that would be great. What does Eddie think he’s doing?

“The kid’s right, man, give him a break and put on a fucking rubber. I’m dying here.” The other man speaks for the first time — he’s got a deeper voice, with more authority in it, even if the whiskey slur of it has Steve terrified. Steve knows that voice, drunk or not, he knows that voice, he’s racking his still-stoned brain for where the fuck he knows it from —

“Listen to the nice man,” Eddie says dryly, and pats the mattress beside him.

The guy with the sandy mustache, the cop, climbs onto the bed — he’s got a blue checkered shirt on and jeans but there on his shiny leather belt there’s that fucking badge. Eddie had better pray there’s not a holstered gun there too. Eddie looks at him for a second and it’s like he’s sizing him up, waiting to see what he’ll do next. He’s biting his lip. If he was a girl, looking at you like that, you’d kiss him — but this guy’s not interested in kissing Eddie or even touching him. He’s looking at him like he’s worse than dirt, like he’s nothing but dogshit on the bottom of his shoe, but the way he talks is mortifyingly clear. He’s talking to Eddie like he’s a hooker.

The other man must be standing there with them, just beyond Steve’s line of sight — he can hear boot leather creaking, and something like the teeth of a zipper sliding apart, metal parting from metal.

“Guess it’s showtime.” Steve does know that voice — it’s Hopper. Jesus Christ, it’s Sheriff fucking Hopper. Why he’s here, and what he’s doing watching some guy make a pass at Eddie, God only knows, but it’s not right. It’s not right for Steve to be frozen like this, just crouching on his heels in with all the flannel shirts and busted-down sneakers, but he can’t stop watching. He can’t help but look.

“Time’s a-wasting.” Eddie tears the top off of a blue foil condom wrapper with his teeth, and grins. “Show me what you got for me, big boy.”

The words big boy give Steve a painful throb of arousal right in the pit of his groin, followed just as quickly by shame. He’s really going to do it. This is all really happening.

The other man’s cock is already stiffening, standing out thick and red from the fly of his jeans with his underwear tugged aside — Eddie rolls the condom onto him with one hand, like he’s practiced it a thousand times, then lowers his head like he’s going to take the latex-wrapped head of the guy’s cock in his mouth.

It feels like the breath is stuck in Steve’s throat, just watching them — Eddie’s tongue flicks out for a second, devilishly familiar, and he spits right on the guy’s dick.

The sandy-haired guy laughs, a filthy wasted laugh. “That’s right, cocksucker. I know how much you love this. Probably spend all week with a hard-on just waiting for me to come by.”

Eddie raises his head, and grins. His hand starts to work up and down the shaft of the guy’s dick. “When you’re right, you’re right. I’ve been waiting up for you all night, just dying to get my hands on that meat torpedo of yours.”

More laughter, like this fucker doesn’t know he’s the butt of the joke. “Hey, Chief! You hear that? This guy’s funny.”

“Yeah, he’s a real card.” Hopper’s sucking on a cigarette, like he needs to psych himself up. Like he’s not happy about the whole thing, or he’s having a hard time getting a hard-on — God, that’s something Steve never wanted to think about in his entire life. “Gimme a minute and I’ll join you.”

“Get ready, freak. Looks like it’s your lucky night.”

“Hang on, hot stuff, give me a second here.” Eddie unscrews the cap on the black bottle, holding it to his face in one long-fingered hand and huffing — like how kids sniff model airplane glue, except the look on his face isn’t dopey intoxication but something darker and sharper, hungrier. Eddie breathes out sharply and shakes out his hair. He looks — dangerous, a little lost, wild. “All right, now, come on over here and screw me before I change my mind.”

He can’t mean that. The only thing more fucked up than watching some cop try and make Eddie suck his dick is watching Chief Hopper get in on the action. Steve wants to do something, to yell stop or to kick down the closet door, but somehow of all the shit he’s done in Hawkins it’s this that terrifies him — not just the prospect of getting the shit beaten out of him by two grown men with badges and hard-ons but Eddie getting hurt, Eddie going to jail, Eddie getting caught — like this. Hopper’s supposed to be one of the good guys, isn’t he?

Eddie circles the man’s dick with his hands and takes him into his mouth — the way he swallows him down it’s like he’s practiced, like he loves nothing more in the world than sucking guys’ cocks. Steve’s never seen what a blowjob looks like from this angle, and everything about it is so shockingly dirty that it feels like the first time — not just the fact that it’s two guys, but that it’s Eddie, watching his fast clever mouth go flushed and red wrapped around a mouthful of dick. Seeing him like this is so fucking wrong, so violating, and it’s worse because Eddie knows he’s there — Steve hopes to Christ that he’s not thinking about it now, that he doesn’t realize what Steve can see from behind the folding closet door.

The guy rises up onto his knees, grabbing the back of Eddie’s neck with one hand like he’s scruffing a kitten — Eddie visibly bristles at it, ducking his head down and bracing himself against the bed, but he doesn’t say a thing.

The clean-cut one calls out to Chief Hopper: “Hey, Jim, don’t leave me hanging here. Come get a piece of this.”

For that split second, Eddie’s eyes flash open to shoot a look toward the door and it’s like he’s looking directly at Steve — directly down the crack in the closet door, like he sees him too just as clear as day. His dark eyes look shiny and wet, and all the bravado is gone from his face in an instant. He’s not buzzed anymore, or playing tough. He just looks scared.

The message is clear: Don’t make a sound. Don’t even move. Stay where you are or this is about to get a million times more fucked up.

The little black bottle isn’t the only thing Eddie pulled out of that tackle box. There on the knit bedspread, there’s a little blue-and-white plastic tube that can only be K-Y or something like that — not that Steve’s ever had any need for that kind of stuff, he’s never had a girl who’s needed it and for hand stuff or jerking off it’s always been less embarrassing to stick to regular old Jergens. What Eddie’s doing now is a lot more, uh. Advanced than all of that.

Eddie turns his back to the door and squeezes some out on his fingers, sliding his hand between his legs — from this angle it’s hard to see what he’s doing but it’s impossible not to know. Steve’s watched those nimble fingers do a whole range of questionable things; Eddie can roll a joint one-handed, like nothing he’s ever seen before, and he absolutely shreds on the guitar. It’s one thing to know he jerks off just like every other red-blooded male on the planet and another to listen to him touching himself.

Steve’s not completely clueless about ass stuff — but he’s never tried it either, not even during one of those marathon spank sessions when his folks are out of town and none of the girls he knows are picking up the phone. It must feel good, or homos wouldn’t be so crazy about it, but it’s like his brain won’t register what he’s seeing. It doesn’t register that Eddie likes it, that the sounds he’s making are logically sounds of pleasure. Like he’s putting on a show. But not for Steve.

Hopper growls a little, like he’s impatient, or else like it’s doing something for him watching Eddie finger himself. Hopper’s tan uniform shirt hangs unbuttoned, revealing the hard swell of his belly and an expanse of dark chest hair; he’s heavy but he’s thick with muscle underneath it and the way he’s cupping himself through his open zipper leaves very little to the imagination. The size of that dick makes Steve’s mouth go dry — not just the length but how thick it is, how it fills his hand through the straining tented denim.

Chief Hopper kneels at the edge of the bed — Steve still can’t see what Hopper’s packing but he hears the filthily delighted chuckle Eddie makes when it rubs against him, hears the slap of flesh and the pop of a plastic cap.

“Goddamn,” Eddie laughs, “you’re gonna kill me. That thing’s going to split me in fucking half.”

“I’m not going to hurt you. You’re a tough kid,” Hopper says, his voice real low. “You can take it. Come on and take it for me.”

Hopper rolls Eddie’s underwear down past his hairy thighs, and Eddie spreads his legs for him — his bony knees dig into the mattress, and he’s back to rubbing his mouth all over the guy in front, like he can’t quite take him all the way in his mouth and take what Hopper’s pushing at the same time.

The Chief’s so much bigger than him — he covers him with his body, even braced there at the edge of the bed, and the weight of him makes the already beat-up mattress start to buckle. Sure, Sheriff Hopper’s kind of hot in a Marlboro Man kind of way, looking like he eats unfiltered cigarettes and bathes in whiskey, but he could ruin Eddie’s life even worse. After everything that went down at the Starcourt Mall, people think he’s a fucking hero. If Mrs. Byers saw him like this, if anybody—

Eddie grunts at the first hard press of Hopper’s cock against his ass, wriggling back like he can make it better, but the whole line of the muscles in his arms radiates effort — like it’s more than he can stand, but he won’t tap out, he wants to ride through it. The cop in front shoves his head back down onto his dick, hard enough to make Eddie choke, fucking himself with Eddie’s mouth — Steve’s balled enough girls that he doesn’t think of himself as hard to shock, but if he tried to treat a girl like this she’d give him a black eye. The trouble is, it’s not like Eddie has a choice.

Eddie raises his head, spit trailing from his mouth and his long hair in a tangle, and all Steve can see is the pain on his face — each thrust that slams into him makes his body shake and the mattress rattle against the shitty bedframe. But then Hopper holds the bottle to Eddie’s face for him to sniff and the way he cups his face is almost gentle — Eddie’s eyes flutter shut and it’s like he slumps into what’s happening to him, like he lets himself open up to it even more until there’s nothing to stop him.

“Fuck,” Eddie gasps, like a prayer. “Oh, fuck me.”

“C’mon, here.” Hopper shoves the scrunched-up pillow under Eddie’s hips, like he’s steadying him, and then he pulls back and — Steve can’t see it happen but he sees it on Eddie’s face, the moment Hopper’s cock presses into him and goes deep. It’s almost religious — all that dark hair tangling around Eddie’s face and his mouth flushed and red, and his eyes starting to roll back with the convulsive overwhelm of it,

Hopper’s big hand rubbing at his side, bracing him for the next thrust — Eddie mouths at the guy in front of him’s cock, not quite fitting it in his mouth but rubbing his spit down the latex-wrapped length of it, and the guy moans. Him and Chief Hopper don’t even look at each other. It’s like both of them are lost in what they’re doing, like they’re both so completely subsumed into fucking Eddie — filling Eddie up — that they barely give a shit about each other. It’s better than the alternative — two grown men tag-teaming him, hurting him, even hurting him bad — but it’s unsettling, watching them go at it so shamelessly when they have no idea they’re being watched or who’s watching.

Steve feels too-hot, there surrounded by the smell of Eddie’s laundry, the smell of Eddie; his jeans feel too humiliatingly tight. What if it were him there hanging off of the bed, taking some guy’s dick in his mouth like there’s no tomorrow, getting screwed — or what if it were Eddie beneath him, grinding against his cock? Completely abandoned to it all, completely filthy, and loving it.

Eddie rolls over onto his back — somehow through all of this Steve’s managed to avoid thinking too much about his dick but it’s just there, blushing and wet and curving back against his belly where the thin black tee shirt is hiked up. His throat is blushing like a girl’s — the young cop rubs his hand up and down over the Adam’s apple there while he’s busy fucking his mouth and for a split second Steve thinks he’s going to grip down hard and squeeze, but he’s more interested in feeling the muscles there jump as Eddie struggles to take his cock deeper in his throat.

The hot blush is spreading from Eddie’s neck down to his chest, down past the neck of his tee shirt — who knows how far it goes, if his nipples are stiff through the fabric, if they’re pink or if they’re brown. It’s hard to watch him like that — just getting used, like a fucking thing. Hopper’s hand pressing into his low belly, like he can feel his cock inside of him, and Eddie pressing against him like he’s desperate to get off.

It’s like they’re going to split him in half, like he’s just a thing to fuck. Hopper’s thrusts slam deep into him, with the sound of skin slapping against skin — Eddie’s bare legs knot around him tightly, his narrow bare feet jostling with every strike.

“Please,” Eddie pants. “Please, chief, please.” Please stop. Please don’t do this to me. Please what?

Mr. Clean-Cut up in front is close to losing it. “That’s right, take it like a girl. Just like a girl, Munson.” He grips his hair and gives another rough thrust past Eddie’s rubbed-raw lips, jostling him from both ends. “Take it like a fucking slut.” The sandy-haired cop fucks into Eddie’s mouth, not even giving a shit when his angry-red cock slips loose and batters him — he’s eye-wateringly rough as he uses his mouth like just another hole, and Steve’s arousal and fear are tempered by a hot electric jolt of anger.

Something is really wrong. Eddie chokes, come and spit spilling out of his mouth, and his whole body jerks — the young cop makes a brutal grunt of satisfaction, yanking Eddie’s hair hard.

Behind the shuttered doors, Steve mouths what the fuck, and the sentiment seems to be shared. Eddie grimaces and sputters, dark eyes massive with surprise.

“I told you to use a fucking condom, jackoff, you don’t know where I’ve been!” Eddie’s hoarse and slurring, like it hurts to talk, and the sound of it makes Steve’s heart hurt even as the anger in his voice is petrifying.

The cop raises his hand like he’s going to hit him, open-handed, a slap. “I’ll take my chances, freak, how about you take yours with a felony charge? You wanna go to jail tonight?”

Hopper snaps. “Shut the fuck up, both of you. You, Carter — put your dick in your pants and leave him alone. I’m not finished.”

The younger cop complies with the chief’s order, pressing his back to the wall and resting his head against one of Eddie’s posters, making it crackle; under his breath, he hisses, “Faggot.”

Steve prays that Eddie doesn’t hear him.

His friend is squirming against the mattress, still wiping the cum from his mouth; Hopper grips his hips tightly, tight enough to bruise. His voice is rough and heavy, but warm, hot like liquor. “I’m going to pull out, you understand me? I’m going to take the condom off. Take it easy.”

Eddie gives a pained nod. There on his back, the light catches the vulnerable line of his throat, down to the little hollow at the center of his collarbone. His legs are pressed wide apart, and Hopper is right there between them — belly to belly, his heavy strength against Eddie’s leanness, his ink-marked arms clinging tightly.

Hopper slides the condom off of himself — whatever he’s doing he’s a shitload more careful than the other guy, and his cock is even bigger than Steve had pictured, a thick heavy monster trailing fat pearls of come against Eddie’s trembling thighs. He jerks himself off with a few quick strokes, and shoots his load against Eddie’s chest — some of it even splatters onto his neck, like a broken necklace.

Eddie is taking these big snorting breaths like he’s on the edge of hysteria, half-laughing and half-crying like it’s all too funny to stand. Like these guys broke him.

“You’re all right, kid. You’re all right.” Hopper’s hand buries itself in Eddie’s hair, groping ineptly — like he wants to cup his cheek, but he’s not coordinated enough for it, he’s just messed up enough that he doesn’t give a shit about being sweet to him.

“It hurts,” Eddie moans, and from the sound of his hitching breathing he’s not lying. “You fucking hurt me. I can’t fucking take it, man.”

The chief hauls Eddie onto his lap, shushing him and playing with his dark curls. The fingers on his other hand are playing in Eddie’s fucked-out hole, teasing and rubbing like a guy with a girl — like he’s finding whatever thing inside of him that makes getting fucked in the ass feel good, but he’s stretching him in the process, the thick knuckles of his hand grinding against the hypersensitized rim of his asshole. Eddie’s making little sounds like it hurts too much to speak, and his whole body twitches with little jerks of pain — his hands squeeze Hopper’s thigh with a white-knuckle grip.

“Fuck,” Eddie whimpers, with his eyes screwed up tight. “I’m gonna come.” He grabs at his cock helplessly, grinding his hips and fucking himself desperately on Hopper’s fingers — the muscles of his soft belly fluttering with every urgent breath, his skin wet and shiny with Hopper’s come.

When he comes he practically sobs— shooting his load against his own belly in a hard convulsive jet, his dark hair falling heavy and tangled over his face. Steve can’t look away. He wants to be sick.

*

Afterward, Eddie lies there with his chest heaving, staring up at the ceiling — come-covered and slick with sweat, he looks ruined. His thin black tee shirt is hiked up past his nipples. He trails a hand up his chest like he’s in a daze, to the guitar pick necklace still hanging around his neck on its wet, gummy chain. Slow and sensual, almost drugged, but nobody could still have a high going after all of that.

“You got what you came for,” Eddie says quietly.

“Sure did.” The young guy, Carter, is doing up his fly and stuffing his shirttails back in — he pats his breast pocket, the half-pack of cigarettes and the quarter-ounce of coke. “It’s been a pleasure.” Before he leaves he turns the ashtray over, dumping out the ashes on the bedside table. Like Eddie’s things are just a bunch of trash — his tapes and playing cards, his magazines, his silver rings. Just another fuck-you.

Hopper lingers, like he wants to say something, but he doesn’t. He’s fucked-out or else he’s just coming down off whatever pills he washed down with bourbon out in the parking lot — when he gets up off the mattress he pats it uneasily like there’s some kind of etiquette for this situation. But he leaves too, in the end — he leaves Eddie behind, and he doesn’t even say sorry.

It’s a long time after that before Steve says anything, a long time after he hears the front door thud closed. He’s too stunned, sitting on his ass in that rickety plywood closet, too scared to breathe. His legs are starting to cramp, or maybe they’ve been cramping up this whole time and he’s just been too distracted by his own agonizing boner to think straight. Steve’s face is still burning, but his arousal is cut with a sickening feeling of cold shame.

“Eddie? Eddie, are you there?

There’s no answer but the sound of ragged laughter. Eddie lies curled up on his side, skinny legs drawn up — his bare back is facing the door and he hugs his filthy tee shirt to his chest, and he’s laughing. Everything smells like bleach and cigarettes, like sex, like chemicals. He’s never been in Eddie’s room so long without music playing on the stereo, and the silence feels obscene.

Steve clambers out past the folding doors, knocking a couple hangers to the ground in his haste. “Are you okay?”

“Get the fuck out, Harrington. You just get the fuck out of my house.”

He winces backward, trying not to look, trying not to seem like he’s looking. “Look, man, I’m sorry—“

Eddie drives his arm down into the mattress, hard. “Out!”

Steve trips over himself on his way out, barefoot, but he runs as fast as he fucking can — still expecting the cops to be there the whole time, hesitating at the trailer door with his heart pounding in his chest. What if they’re still out there, waiting for him, or they’re just waiting out in the gravel lot ready to fire up the cherry lights and sirens — he knows people who live around here, he could go to Max’s mom’s place for help or just start banging on trailer doors, but what can he possibly say? It’s too fucked up to say anything at all.

He sits in the dark behind the wheel of the BMW, breathing hard — his throat is tight, and his eyes are stinging. The urgency of his arousal has subsided to a dull pain but the trembling racks through his body like he’s fighting for his life. Like he’s going to be sick — there’s a fucking baseball bat in the backseat, he shouldn’t feel like he’s going into battle against dark forces and he definitely shouldn’t have a fucking hard-on. Sick, sick, sick.

In the dark gravel lot, Steve rests his forehead on the steering wheel and tries not to cry.

*

Eddie doesn’t call him after that. Steve hangs back by the telephone, waiting to hear his voice — not hoarse and broken but raunchy and bold, telling him about something outrageous or ready to bully him into coming to see Corroded Coffin rehearse in some shitty garage. But Eddie doesn’t call. When Steve finally gets up the cojones to call him, nobody picks up, and it’s not like they have an answering machine.

However pissed off and humiliated Eddie must be, Steve feels like a fucking ghost. Like he’s sleepwalking through work, food, driving — it’s not like he can tell Robin what the problem is, he can’t tell Nancy, he can’t tell anyone without racking up an even worse betrayal. It’s like what he saw is playing on loop in his head — comedy, tragedy, horror, porno.

If the kids know something’s up, they keep pretty quiet about it. Shuttling a bunch of combat-ready rugrats from place to place isn’t how he saw himself spending his free time after high school, but for them it’s like nothing’s different — maybe parents are a little more cautious about letting their offspring bike everywhere after dark, talking about stranger danger, but kids are still kids and they’re all wrapped up in the stories they’re telling each other. Only Eleven’s quieter than usual, a little more withdrawn, and Steve can’t bring himself to look at her.

Hawkins hasn’t changed — it’s the same stores, the same buildings, the same cold rain and taped-off rubble. It doesn’t seem possible that so little has changed.

When he sees Eddie next he’s cutting through the bushes outside the public library like a dark blur — Steve pulls up to the curb so fast he’s pretty sure it does something to his wheel alignment. He’s supposed to be buying his mom some D-cell batteries and a thing of toilet paper but the thought of that vanishes from his mind pretty fast.

Clambering out onto the pavement, Steve feels uncoordinated and dizzy, almost drunk. “Hey, hey, Eddie — slow down, I need to talk to you.”

That’s the wrong thing to say, because Eddie definitely starts walking faster. The parking lot’s out front, but wherever he’s going he obviously doesn’t want company.

Eddie’s whole body is on alert the line of his shoulders tensed and tight. “What’s your problem, man?”

“I need my tennis shoes back!”

“Too bad, Harrington, I’m keeping ‘em. Spoils of war.”

It’s been raining, and the pavement underfoot makes his boots squeak. “What are you doing here?”

“What does it look like? Getting books, it’s a library, pretty sure you’ve heard of them.”

Bullshit — not empty-handed, and Steve knows for a fact that Eddie doesn’t read anything that doesn’t come with a weirdly detailed map of a fake country right inside the front cover. Eddie’s got his collar turned up and his hands thrust deep in his jacket pockets, unmistakably broadcasting don’t talk to me, and he’s moving fast — Scott has to do a weird little jog to keep up with him, and he feels absurd.

“I asked Dustin if he saw you at school. He said you canceled this week’s Hellfire.”

Eddie stalks past the dumpsters. He won’t even look at him. “It’s senior year, man, third time’s the charm. I’ve got a lot of work to catch up on if I wanna graduate and not spend the rest of my life shelving tapes at Family Video.”

He’s just saying it to piss Steve off, but it still stings. You’d figure that with their shitty grades that’d be the one thing they could have in common besides weed and the kids, but Eddie’s never going to see it that way.

“Stop dodging me, all right? I have to see you.”

Steve grabs his sleeve, and it must be the exact wrong thing, because Eddie rounds on him, bristling.

“Why, you still can’t get laid? There’s no more trim down at the video store, so you figured you’d try your luck on the other side of the street?” He’s putting on a show for him now, with that inflammatory lilt in his words that threatens to raise his voice to a shout.

Steve takes a step back, holding his hands up. “That’s not it at all, Eddie, I’ve been scared shitless about you. Look, I know you’re mad at me, I know I fucked up.“

“You think you fucked up? Come on. King Steve, fleeing the scene of the crime? You heard the man.” When Steve steps back, Eddie steps forward; he’s dangerously close to him now, gripping the lapels of Steve’s jacket like he’s going to shake him hard. “I’m a slut now, can’t you tell? I do all kinds of slutty stuff.”

His leg nudges between Steve’s knees, half provocative and half threatening, and the brush of Eddie’s thigh against his own practically makes Steve swallow his tongue.

It’s like his brain’s gone and completely whited out. (Eddie with huge dark eyes in a dead pale face, Eddie looking terrified, Eddie with some man’s hand making a fist in his hair.) “Look, I don’t care if you—“

“If I’m a fucking fag? Is that what you were going to say, you don’t care if I’m a fag?” Eddie jostles him hard, and Steve has to stifle the reflex to hit him right back. Right now he wants to hit him, he wants to settle this like he would have five years ago. Part of him still wants to make him bleed. (Eddie with cum in his mouth, Eddie making little breathy groans, Eddie with his fingers in his own asshole. Eddie underneath him—)

“I wasn’t going to say that! You know I don’t give a shit if anybody’s that way, I’ve got friends who are—“

“Friends who are fags?”

“Friends who are gay, Jesus, I’m not a caveman.”

“Where do you get off acting like such a good guy anyway? Because if memory serves me, there was some guy named Steve Harrington back in tenth grade who used to call me a fudge-packer in gym class, and everybody thought he was the height of fucking comedy. Stop acting like you give a shit.”

Jesus, had he really? Was it really Eddie, or had he called enough people enough nasty things that he can’t remember who’s who any more? Back in school he thought being popular had meant people liked him — he thought he got along with people, or at least he wasn’t a giant macho dickhead like Billy Hargrove. Some day he’ll have to tell Eddie what really happened to Billy Hargrove, but not right now.

“I’m not like that any more. I had to learn a lot. I did a lot of shit I’m not proud of and if I could undo it all I would. I’m not — jeez, this isn’t about me. I wouldn’t have said it if I knew it were true. If I knew how it hurt people.” Steve swallows. “What I saw was really fucked up. I didn’t want to see you that way. I tried not to look. I didn’t even really see that much.”

I wouldn’t have said it if I knew it were true? As soon as it’s out of his mouth Steve knows that’s the wrong thing to say, that’s the wrong angle entirely. And it’s not even so much what Steve saw as what Steve heard — the way Eddie whimpers, the way he sounds when he comes.

Eddie raises his voice: “You didn’t see shit. What you saw doesn’t mean anything about me. You don’t know me at all. If you knew me you would hate me.”

“I know you’re my friend.”

I know you smoke Camels and you wear your dirty socks for way too long. I know you love your uncle, and Dustin, you love Heavy Metal magazine and putting vodka in your Cherry Coke. I know you’re smarter than your grades. I know you’re braver than you think you are.

“When people look at me, they think they know everything about me. Sometimes they’re right. It wouldn’t be so bad if they weren’t such fucking assholes about it.”

Still loud, still angry, but Eddie rubs at his eyes, blinking furiously. His nose is unmistakably reddened and his eyelashes look dark and wet. Steve wants to reach for him — to do something, anything, to stop Eddie from crying. He doesn’t even like it when girls cry. But then Eddie really will punch him and they’ll have a whole different problem.

He has to be careful, be cautious, start slow. “Those guys who came to see you, have they done that stuff before?”

“I guess. A couple times. Most of the time Chief Hopper just wants to score some benzos and get jerked off. Carter won’t bust me if I give him a good time. It’s not normally like that. He shows up when he knows my uncle’s working nights, and the rest of the time the cops leave me alone. It’s not a bad deal.” Eddie giggles wetly; his nose is starting to run.

“How is—“ Steve tries to lower his voice, even if it means yanking Eddie in closer. “How is getting double-teamed by the cops not a big deal?”

“Look around Hawkins some time, do you see a lot of other options? Do you see a big gay parade going down main street?”

“But you didn’t want to do it! It’s fucked up!”

“Yeah, but I liked it, didn’t I? It happened before ‘cause I wanted it to happen. I’m a pretty sick puppy, Harrington.”

“You didn’t want it to happen like that, I’m pretty goddamn sure. I’m not going to let them do this stuff to you.”

Eddie laughs hopelessly, jostling against him. “Look at you. Big man Steve, all this ‘cause you got a free show.”

“I really like you, Eddie. I don’t want you to get hurt. We’re going to figure this out.”

Steve holds him against his shoulder, feeling his chest tremble against him. His throat feels tight. Once he’d have rather gnawed his own arm off rather than hug another guy in a public place, but it’s not like there’s anybody around and after everything he’s learned about the town they live in there’s a lot of things that scare him more than that. There’s scarier things than cops too. Steve’s going to make them sorry.

There in the parking lot Eddie smells like Old Spice and cigarettes, a little weed, a little gross funk. He smells the same way as all of his shirts, as the blankets on his bed, as the tapestries tacked up on the walls of his bedroom. Steve smacks him on the back uneasily as they come apart — he’s not going to start treating him like a girl just because he’s seen him take a dick now — and Eddie snorts.

“You really tore out of the trailer park, though. It left these massive tire marks. Discretion is not your strong suit.”

“Maybe you should start hanging out at my place more often. I think I would’ve gave Max’s mom a heart attack, running around after dark like a chicken with its head cut off.”

“You’d be surprised. Mostly people mind their own business.” Eddie fumbles for a cigarette; Steve lights it for him, watching his hands steady.

“Where are you headed after this? I can drive you.”

Eddie shakes out his hair, pulling it out from under the collar of his jacket. “I don’t know, man, I was just going to go home and lay low. There’s this movie playing at the Hawk, I already saw it but that’s how you know it’s good. It has a shitload of sword fights.”

“I thought that place went out of business.”

“Some lady bought it, I guess, after the mall blew up. I don’t know. There’s better atmosphere and they don’t charge you five bucks to see Police Academy.”

The mall really messed everything up — not like they didn’t have problems in Hawkins before, but they definitely got worse. How far into a friendship is the appropriate time to tell the other person about the time you and your best girl friend got the shit kicked out of you by a bunch of Soviet goons? Let alone everything after that. Everything Steve’s done, and didn’t do. There’s some things that Eddie knows and some things he would probably rather not learn.

Folded into the passenger seat of the BMW, Eddie looks pensive. He’s tugging at the ID bracelet he wears, like it’s bugging him.

“Penny for your thoughts.” He means it as a joke, but it comes out a lot dorkier than intended. Eddie presses his lips together for a moment before he answers.

“Is it Will?”

“What?”

“Is it Will, your friend who’s gay but not a fag?”

Steve’s in the middle of backing up out of his parking spot; he almost swerves into a fire hydrant. “No— what are you even talking about? Will’s not gay. He hangs out with girls all the time.”

“Right. If I were you, I’d check in about that.”

“Can you just be serious?”

“I know these things, man, it’s like I have radar. Freak to freak communication. You know what, forget I said anything.”

Highlander is pretty good, though Eddie enjoys the sword fights and decapitations more than Steve does — it’s fine because it has Sean Connery and a bitching soundtrack, and because Steve can just sit there in the dark with Eddie right next to him and feel something other than tortured nausea. Eddie slings his elbow over the armrest so it’s resting right next to Steve’s and it almost feels like nothing happened, like he can just sit and bask in the pleasure of his company.

After the ending credits they sneak across the lobby into Chopping Mall. The mall thing is a little close to a nerve after last year but mercifully it’s too stupid to even be a little scary — he doesn’t spend much of it looking at the screen anyway, but watching Eddie, watching him bite his fingernails and uncross his legs and chew his plastic straw. This is going to be a problem. Steve can tell.