Eddie starts wearing chapstick when he overhears Shelley Cormack in class one day talking to her friend

‘Yes! Steve Harrington! Can you believe it?! He said he liked how soft my lips were!!! I could have kissed him for hours!’

He doesn’t tell anyone that he’s been harbouring a crush on king Steve. Doesn’t plan to either. But still goes out and gets a silly little tube of chapstick to pretend to himself that maybe one day he’ll be told he has soft lips by the most popular boy in school.

Eventually the chapstick just turns into habit, Eddie forgets it’s origins (or tells himself he has anyway) and continues on with life. He kisses a boy in a back street but it’s shameful and secret and the boy pushes him away as soon as it’s over. Eddie doesn’t try again for a long time.

Some years pass, Eddie forms a band, becomes a dungeon master to a group of players he’s proud to call his friends, plays his guitar and saves the world from annihilation. Not that he’s allowed to tell anyone. During all this, Steve Harrington comes back into Eddie’s life in a big way. He’s kind, he’s caring, he’s funny, he’s somehow even hotter and Eddie thinks he’ll have to resign himself to nursing his long-standing crush. Except one night, he’s in Steve’s house, he’s in Steve’s bedroom, he’s in Steve’s personal space and then Steve Harrington is kissing him

‘Drives me crazy seeing you put that chapstick on all the time. Just knowing your lips would be so soft Eddie’

Eddie briefly considers sending Shelley Cormack a bunch of flowers but that thought flys out the window when Steve pulls him back in for another kiss