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" i may not be wise / and i won't save the day / but look in my eyes / and know i'll always stay / and i won't run away / i won't run away. "
- Run Away, Ben Platt.
Growing up, your parents always told you that marriage was something meant for a man and a woman who loved each other. They would tell you that the man always proposed, that the woman needed a big diamond ring to seal the deal. You would only half listen, never fully invested in the conversation. You were ten and taught that love was something only meant for people who were considered normal. You wouldn’t need marriage when you couldn’t love.
Your viewpoint on love never swayed throughout high school. No relationships to pursue, no one interesting enough to chase after. There was no question that there weren’t any other gay guys in Hawkins. Not when Hawkins was home to people like Tommy H. and Jason Carver. Not when Billy Hargrove once roamed the halls. And at one point, not when Steve Harrington was considered king.
That changed dramatically when you had to watch a girl die by an unexplained force and you were pushed into a life you didn’t ask for. A life that sent you spiraling and wondering if you would even make it out alive. Not when you were surrounded by a group of misfits that seemed to always know more about it all than you did, left in the dust to flounder for explanations that would make any sort of sense.
Steve Harrington entered your life. At first, it was a fact that made you grit your teeth and avoid his eyes. At first, it was a broken bottle pressed against his neck as you stared him down as your fellow Hellfire club member yelled at you. Throughout that short amount of time full of running and defeating evil, however, your viewpoint changed dramatically.
In your mind, Steve Harrington was no longer the king of Hawkins High that said mean things to kids in the hallways. He was no longer a jerk leading a group of jerks, no – Steve Harrington was now grown up and taking care of people around him that he loved enough to stick around for. Steve Harrington was full of smiles and rushed out jokes, nervous ticks and expressive hand movements. He was everything you had wanted when you were younger, everything you dreamed about. All those feelings about love that you refused to hold inside you, all those beliefs you made yourself hold onto yourself, they fell apart. You left them on the ground of the trailer park, the one with the blue atmosphere and red lightning. You left them where you went down, where you got attacked, where he saved you.
He was a force of nature, Steve Harrington. He had you reeling constantly, feeling special enough to stay around. You invited him over all the time when things started to heal, when the world was no longer ending and you were no longer wanted for the murder of your classmates. You would sit with touching knees and fingers poking into ribs teasingly, learning more about one another. You let yourself become acquainted with him, let yourself getting swept up in the whirlwind he brought into your home.
You let yourself fall in love with him over time. From him saving you in the Upside Down to him checking up on you in your hospital room, you let yourself entertain the idea of earning the honor of having him by your side. Having him kiss your cheek when permitted, having him wrap his arms around you and hold you close, having him smile when you give him attention. You wanted him to stay. You wanted to prove your parents wrong, even if they were no longer around to see it. You wanted to prove your younger self wrong, too – show a young Eddie Munson that you could fall in love and have it mean something more than what you were told.
You watched him rebuild his life. You sat with him on days when he needed company, you listened to him talk about the kids and how they were holding up. You were his shoulder to cry on when things just became too much.
A little over a month after you were finally out of the hospital and cleared of everything, he got his own apartment. Or, well, he spoke about getting one and was actively working on it. You sat around in his parent’s living room with all of the other young adults, all talking about moving plans and goals for their lives.
Steve was so excited to move out. He told you all about his plans to hold hangouts for them, to be a safe space away from all the shit Hawkins still held. All the hate, all the accusations, all the glares and stares. He declared that he would take care of them until the day he died and your cheeks had grown warm because you knew you were now included. You knew that your family was no longer just your uncle, it was now a group of misfits that all melded together to create a beautiful mess.
He asked you to help him pack his things. He told you how his parents wouldn’t be home for another few weeks and he had already told him his plans. The anger in his voice reminded you of their rocky relationship, but you pressed a hand on his arm and gave him a smile to convey that you were here now, and you would care about where he went. He smiled back and it felt genuine.
The apartment wasn’t the greatest thing on the planet, but it would do for a first place. The kitchen window had a huge crack in it, running from one corner to the middle, branches of smaller cracks along it. His fridge had a distinct stink to it, but Nancy reassured him that he could easily clean it and she would help. Her mother taught her all she knew about things like that, she said, and she wouldn’t mind, especially if Steve was nice enough to let them spend time there.
You spent the first whole week with him, sleeping on his couch and helping him unpack. Days spent with his records playing music you weren’t fond of but appreciated because the way he whispered lyrics under his breath made your heart beat rapidly. You helped him organize all his tapes, helped him hang up all his stupid polos, helped him clean all his dishes to put them away in their respective spots. You watched movies with him every night, a cushion apart, but conversations louder than the dialogue being spoken by the actors.
During the entire time, you found yourself doing things to help him. Taking on dish duty when he seemed too tired from his shift at the video store, cooking meals you thought he would enjoy when money was too tight for takeout. You would load his clothes into the washer, make sure they got dried, and hang them up in his closet. You would remind him to eat breakfast, remind him to call Robin whenever he had a moment to, remind him to take a deep breath when he freaked himself out over being in a space that was now his own. A place without his parents, away from everyone, on his own. Only he wasn’t, because you were there, starting to dig your way into his life.
He didn’t seem to mind having you over so often. You weren’t always at his apartment, occasionally heading to your uncle’s to check up on him and make sure your stuff was kept together. Repacking clothes for your next few nights, grabbing things that could keep you busy when Steve was gone, checking in on Max since she was now home, too. Your uncle noticed how often you were gone now, but instead of chewing you out for it, he held you close and told you to stay safe and to call him if you ever needed it. If you ever found yourself in trouble, if Steve ever somehow hurt you, if you just needed someone to fix the damn sink in the kitchen, he was a phone call away. Your heart ached at it, but you told him that you would still come home. That you weren’t moving out. That you and Steve were friends, nothing more, and you would doubt it would get farther than that.
Until he kissed you first, under the dim yellow light in the kitchen. He had both of his hands on your cheeks, his body pressed close to yours. He shook underneath your fingers, a clear embodiment of anxiety. You kissed him back harder, cherishing the way he melted closer to you. It was easy loving Steve Harrington, you realized. It was easy to get caught up in his kindness and careful nature, easy to love his teasing personality and parental instincts. It was easy to appreciate him in front of you, hair falling over his forehead and unstyled.
He was raw, exposed and vulnerable in that moment, eyes blown wide and lips bitten from the fear he had felt. Dressed in one of the band shirts you had left on his floor the week before, boxers hanging loosely off his hips and socks bunched up at his ankles. Red blushed over his cheeks as he stared at you, waiting for one of you to speak. You tapped gentle fingers against his hips and hummed, loving the way he ducks his head in embarrassment when you coo at him.
“I really like you,” he had told you, letting you peek inside his heart and see what he felt. You held onto him tightly, like he could slip from your fingers. “I like the stupid mug you keep with my other mugs, I like that you have your own toothbrush here, I like watching movies with you. I like you, Eddie.”
You had laughed lightly, brushing a thumb over his cheek. You had never seen him like this. Not when he asked you to stay safe in the Upside Down, when you were still strangers. Not when he visited you in the hospital. No, this was a new look for Steve Harrington. He looked small, he looked like he needed to be wrapped up into a blanket and held close to your chest, to never be let go ever again.
“I like you, too,” you replied back, and it came out like it was meant to be spoken weeks ago, which it was. You wish you had told him sooner, but this was almost better. Late confessions in his small shitty kitchen, dinner cleaned up and you both standing in pajamas, the night stretching beyond you, a world of possibilities opening up for you.
He kissed you again.
You let him rely on you and come to you when he needed it, you let him curl up to you every single night. His bed became yours unofficially, a key to his apartment hung on your small keychain you carried around (a gift from Robin for your birthday). Your life with him slowly melted together, becoming full-on adults together and navigating through the start of a relationship. It wasn’t easy, to be someone’s first. It wasn’t easy for Steve, either. He was navigating through it knowing how you used to feel about love, how you used to hate the idea, how you were conditioned to believe you couldn’t have it. But he was patient with you, so you gave that back to him ten fold.
Giving Steve the love he deserved turned out to mean exactly what it entailed. It meant waking him up with soft kisses pressed into his skin, it meant ushering him into a shower and making sure to shampoo his hair while he leaned against you, still sleepy. It meant sitting him down at his little wooden table with rickety legs to give him a breakfast to energize him for the day. It meant laying him down to sleep every night with reminders that he was made to be loved the same way he loved you, that he was created by whatever God to exist to lay in your arms and feel safe.
Loving Steve meant seeing him at his worst and accepting it with open arms. You don’t necessarily agree with how his brain works or how he treats himself sometimes, but you’re there. You’re there and you’re not leaving, even when things get heated. Even when you fuck up, you come back to him to prove to him that you’re in it for a reason, that you’re here until he gets sick of you. That you’re here to fall in love with him as many times as they can, every single morning and every single night, even if Steve didn’t feel the same. You told him that your heart was on your sleeve for him and him only, that you would give up your entire world to see him flourish like a blossoming flower in the springtime. That you were going to be constant, that you were going to be on your side of the bed until it no longer held the shape of your body, until Steve no longer ached to be in your arms.
When he made himself curl up on the couch with a throw blanket tucked around his shoulders and his head buried in the fabric, it ripped your heart apart. You didn’t mean to hurt him the way you did with your ignorance, didn’t mean to make him feel like you didn’t love him the way he loved you. Your heart had pounded as you gently tried to pry him off of the cushions, his weak attempts of getting you to go away falling on deaf ears. You would rather sleep in a bed upset with you than alone on the couch with all his thoughts that had him sinking faster than the vine that pulled him into the Upside Down months ago.
You let him open his heart to you in the comfort of his bed, his comforter laying heavily over your bodies as you wiped his tears away and whispered everything he needed to hear.
You’re loved.
I love you.
You’re wanted and needed.
You’re everything I’ve looked for.
I would do it all over again to see you smile.
I would let you break my heart to be happy.
You mean everything to me.
His body shook in your hold as he whispered a mantra of, “Thank you, thank you, thank you ,” over and over, voice scratchy and broken but pleading. His hands pressed against your chest that night, his soft snores finally reaching your ears when he calmed down, falling into the first blissful sleep since a week ago. You wonder what he’s dreaming about as cuddles closer to you, searching for your warmth. You wonder if he’s dreaming about you as you run fingers through his hair, taking note of how greasy it had gotten from his stress. You wonder if he’ll ever believe you enough to never have to even think about sleeping on the couch ever again. You wonder if you’re good enough to even have him, and if you were, what you did to deserve such a fate.
Life with him was easier after that. Fights were rare then, and if they ever took place, it was calmly and without heat. The occasional snarky comment would slip and you would mentally slap yourself if it was you who said it, but you guys found a way to communicate healthily. You still bickered over the small things, such as the smell of candles to burn in the apartment or the flavor of toothpaste to buy. You let him guide you into his life to stay, and you started to really dream about forever with him. You could see it in his eyes how much he wanted the same.
Even if he struggled to tell you, you knew how much he loved you. The way he kissed you when he could prove it. The way he held your hand when your brain overpowered you, the way he told you how important you were to everyone's life. The way he reassured you that your uncle would never push you away no matter how convinced you were that he was upset with you, the way he offered you support through getting a job for yourself. He was everything bundled up into the body of a nineteen year old boy who was still discovering himself.
He asked you to move in with a subtle hint of forever being an idea to him and you fell further into what that meant. Your things now melded with his. The bookshelf where all his tapes were stacked now had more horror movies than before, his walls now had your posters tacked up. His kitchen now housed multiple silly mugs, his fridge now held pictures of you and your uncle. His bathroom now had your shampoo and conditioner on the shower shelves, his nightstand was now a place for your rings to lay every night. The left side of his bed was now yours, the right side of his closet was where all your shirts hung.
You dreamed of more. Showing him how much you loved him every day, showing how much you cared for him and wanted him.
What started out as a dumb idea to get it out of your brain became a full fledged plan with Robin and Nancy. Operation: Diamond became a go, and it wasn’t easy, either. Your heart was constantly pounding whenever you thought about what you were going to do, a year together now upon you, celebrations right around the corner.
Steve Harrington had ruined love for you. Nobody else’s eyes made you feel more at home, nobody else’s laugh gave you such warmth as his. Nobody’s lips could ever move like his, nobody’s touch could ever mean so much to you. He was all you wanted, he was your idea of forever, he was the person you wanted to wake up to every single morning without fail. He was the person you wanted to build your future around, he was the person who gave you hope that the world was a good place. Steve Harrington ruined love for you and you have never been so thankful for it, because you met him and you had love.
You were loved.
You called yourself a coward, always said you ran away. But when you were faced with saving their lives in the Upside Down, you barely hesitated. And when Steve had kissed you for the first time, you had let yourself fall victim to his powerful love, let yourself stay in his clutches. You didn’t run away from him, didn’t let yourself lose something good. You stayed. You stayed, you stayed, you stayed – and you loved every second of it.
The plan was simple enough at the beginning. Starting off with Robin talking Steve into a trip to a mall near Indy, talking about getting you a gift for your one year anniversary that was three weeks away. He had agreed easily, telling you that it was just going to be them, time for them to catch up and have some bonding time.
“Stay safe,” was all you replied, flashing him a smile as you kissed him silly, loving the way giggles escaped his mouth as he tried to squirm away from you. “And have fun, sweetheart.”
His cheeks shined pink as he slapped a hand on your arm, rolling his eyes in retaliation. “I love you too, Eddie.”
Robin managed to do the Lord’s work while they were gone, tricking Steve into trying on rings and figuring out his size. She relayed the information back to you in a hushed voice when they returned home. That night she crashed on your couch and you dreamed of engagement rings with Steve’s head against your chest.
Nancy was next. She tricked Steve into telling her about his ideal date, one that you had not taken him on yet. She slides you a whole list the following day, her handwriting curvy and neat, a smile on her face.
“You got this,” she tells you, voice soft. “Even if you didn’t do all of this for him, he would say yes either way.”
You give her your most stable smile back, hoping she doesn’t see your anxiety poking through. “You really think so? We can’t even legally get married, what if he doesn’t see the point –”
“Eddie,” she interrupts you with a hand on your arm, nails barely digging into your wrist. You exhale shakily and nod your head, lowering it so you can look at the floor. “Steve has been dreaming of the day he gets to marry someone. And if it wasn’t going to be, by God is it going to be you. You're the best thing that’s ever happened to him.”
The words do wonders for your confidence. You find yourself in a ring shop not long after, two weeks away from your anniversary. The money you had in your pocket almost burned you, a reminder that you were really doing this. You were really going to show him what it meant to be loved so fearlessly and so unconditionally. Steve asked you to move in, you would ask him to really stay forever, through thick and thin.
Robin gushes over the ring when you get to show her at an agreed upon lunch, a hand over her mouth as tears gather in her eyes. She seems so happy for the two of you, even if she teases you both endlessly over how cheesy and dramatic you were. You found yourself seeking her out for things like these, knowing her opinion was basically the same as Steve’s. Two halves of a whole idiot, or however the saying went.
“Eddie,” she breathed out, the velvet box held gently in her palm as she tilted it to catch it at all angles. It was a simple ring with a single diamond, all that your money allowed you to buy. But Steve liked simple things, he liked things that held meaning, and surely this would be enough, regardless of what your parents used to say. “It’s beautiful, Eddie. He’s going to shit his pants, oh my God.”
You laugh, snatching the box back from her. “I sure hope so. Cost me my entire savings account, actually. But between you and me, I’m shit at saving money.”
Another week passes, you hiding the box in the pocket of your leather jacket that hangs unused in the living room. You know that Steve doesn’t touch it, instead keeping out of the kids’ grasp whenever they are over. He said that it was your property and that they wouldn’t ruin something that held so much significance. You ruffled his hair at that.
Steve was beginning to catch onto your nerves. He voiced the fact that you were thinking more than usual, going silent more often in favor of daydreaming about how you would propose to him. You told him the same thing every time: you were thinking about him and how lucky you were, which wasn’t even far off from the truth. Plus, the groan he gave every time was priceless. You lived for such a reaction.
The night before your anniversary was one spent in pure panic, locking yourself in the bathroom to practice the small speech you wrote on a diner napkin. The one that came to you out of nowhere, a need to profess your love in the only way you knew how: through a series of rambled and barely thought out words, enough to make Steve smile and maybe even tear up. You knew how he handled feelings, with reactions that were either overdramatic or pushed to the side, and you were positive this would be one of the times he would be a sobbing mess.
“What were you doing?” he asks you when you finally slip out of the bathroom, napkin tucked securely in your back pocket.
“Usual bathroom business,” you lie, poking his cheek as you walk past him. “What do you want for dinner?”
He stands still, unmoving, from his spot in front of the bathroom door. He frowns at you, crossing his arms over his chest. “I don’t believe you,” he tells you, and you know that he’s communicating with you, trying to not start a fight, but you’re itching for him to drop it. Itching for him not to spoil the one surprise you were building for him. All he had to do was wait one more night.
“Steve,” you say as a warning, voice stern and stable, “can we let this drop just this once? I promise you that I’ll talk to you about it soon.”
“No, because if you’re upset with me, we need to talk about it before we go to sleep,” he says it like he’s trying to remind you of your own rule, voice getting quieter. “I don’t want you to be upset with me.”
“I’m not!” you exclaim, throwing your hands up in surrender. “Listen, baby, it’s nothing like that, I promise you. I will promise you a million times over that it’s not like that. I just need you to trust me tonight, okay? Let me have this.”
He shakes his head, running a hand through his hair. “I understand but… we aren’t supposed to keep secrets from each other. That’s how people fall apart. Believe me, it’s happened so many times, I’ve seen it happen so many times. Can you just… can you just tell me what it is? So that I don’t freak out?”
You know he’s not meaning to cause you to panic at the idea of telling him early, but by God is he making you panic. Your hands are slightly shaking as the napkin in your pocket seems to grow heavy, weighing you down. This wasn’t a part of the plan, the ring was still in your jacket on the hook just across the room. The plan was to take Steve on a picnic full of sunshine, summertime, and swimming at the lake. You would ask him when his hair would be dripping wet, when he was cold and waiting for your warmth. When he would melt into you and beg you to take him home, let you know that he was happy to be with you. He was meant to say yes tomorrow, not tonight. But you had no other choice now.
“Sit down on the couch,” you tell him softly, making your way to your jacket. He does what you ask, his brown eyes watching you shrug the jacket on. Now with the weight of the napkin in your back left pocket and the ring in your jacket’s right pocket, you felt more balanced out. He looks at you quizzically. “You need to be quiet and listen to me, alright?”
He nods enthusiastically, letting you find a spot between his legs on the floor. You crouch, resting your hands on his knees and looking up at him, taking in the way he looks at you like you hung all the stars in the night sky, like you created the Earth with a wave of a hand. It makes you know that maybe, it was supposed to happen this way all along.
“Baby,” you begin, hands now gliding up and down his legs soothingly, “you know how much I love you. I mean, you’re my first boyfriend. You’re the first person that’s ever let me live with them that hasn’t been related to me. You’re my first kiss. You are so many of my firsts that it kinda drives me crazy sometimes, because who gave you that much power?” Steve giggles at that, one of his hands falling on top of yours. “And because I love you, it got me thinking a lot. Nothing bad, so don’t even start thinking that. It just got me thinking about how much I look forward to seeing your face every single morning. How I can’t imagine my life without you in it in some way, whether that be as my best friend or the love of my life.”
He blushes something crazy, eyes turning glassy as you speak. His lower lip trembles at the confession, almost as if he’s never heard you ever say such things. In reality, it was a bunch of things you had said over time, just now it was all being put together.
“You’ve taught me what it’s like to be loved. To accept someone as much as I accepted you. To allow myself to have people who care about me,” you say to him, your own eyes filling with tears. You knew you would possibly cry, knew that he had that effect on you. “I just need you to know that. That you are the cause of so many good things in my life, and I’m never planning on letting you go. Not when you’re old, not when your hair turns white, not when you get too lazy to style your hair every morning. I won’t leave you when you cry, I won’t leave you when things get hard, I will not leave you, Steve Harrington. I won’t run away from you, and that’s a promise that I plan to stick by.”
Steve is crying now, tears cascading down his cheeks to drop onto his light blue polo, turning the material darker as it soaks in. You tilt your head at him, a tear slipping from one of your own eyes. You feel it slide down your cheek and dip into the cracks between your lips, the salty taste making itself known on your tongue.
“I love you,” you say as you cry together, fingers tightening around each other. “Which is why I need to ask you something.”
His eyes fly open wider than before, hands flying up to his face as you pull the box from your pocket. You’re properly shaking now, trembling under his gaze as a sob rips its way through you. The lid opens and the diamond glints with the lamp’s light. Steve sobs louder than you then, lunging off the couch to send you both tumbling to the floor of your shared apartment, tears mixing together as his face brushes with yours, lips pressing against your own.
“Yes,” he whispers. “Yes, yes, yes , Eddie, I’ll marry you.”
You laugh loudly through sobs, reaching a hand up to brush his hair out of his face. He looks down on you with intense joy, face glowing through his tears. He looks the happiest he ever looked, happier than the day he asked you to move in. He looks like a kid who was just offered free ice cream, giddy and young. You were both so young but so in love, and you would do it all over again if it meant he got to live the life he deserved.
“Every morning,” you remind him that night when he’s pressed against you, your arms wrapped around him. The cool metal of his ring sits against your bare chest, reminding you that you were now wrapped up together, a package deal. He was yours.
“Every single goddamn morning,” he replies back, yawning after. “I’ll hold you to that until we are both buried six feet under.”
“Wouldn’t have it any other way, baby.”