#Steve is a recovering rescue dog and Robin is his thunder blanket
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What's Eight Plus Seven?
Part One🦇Part Two🦇Part Three🦇Part Four🦇Part Five
Pizza order successfully placed, Steve dials Robin's number next. He doesn't need to talk long, just... hear her voice. Maybe get some verbal support.
"Buckley residence."
"Thank God it's you," Steve sighs in relief to hear Robin's voice on the other end. There was a little bit of dread that her mom might have answered and then he'd be stuck on the phone while she tried to chat with him.
"Whoa. Was hosting the nerdfest that bad?" Robin asks, laughter in her voice.
"Uhh," Steve starts, because he's eloquent like that.
"Oh no. Was is that bad? What happened?"
He feels a flood of warmth for Robin's immediate concern. "No, no, nerdfest was fine. I, uhh, mostly I'm calling because Eddie and I are gonna, like, hang out and talk and I just- I dunno. Wanted to hear your voice, first."
"Oh. Really? Well. Here's my voice. This is you hearing it."
He laughs at that. "Thanks. It's just, I think it's gonna be, like, a bathroom floor kind of conversation, except in my living room on a couch."
"Oh! I can be there in ten if you need me."
"Nah. This is just- me needing to hear your voice, and also a warning that I might have to crawl through your window and fall apart on your bed later. Just don't know how this is going to go."
"I'm here if you need me. Are you going to talk about Freshman First Day?"
"We, uhh, already did. Mostly. There's been apologies and now we're gonna talk. Get to know each other. Play 20 questions, I guess."
Robin laughs at that. "Alright. Ask him if he's ever going to get me the sandwich he owes me from back in November."
"What?"
"You know, his whole cafeteria speech thing? Stepped right on my ham and cheese. It did make him slip and almost brain himself, and he did apologize. Told me he owed me a new sandwich. I never got it. Ask for me."
"We'll see. Okay, I'm going to go but, thank you. Love you."
"Love you, too. Window will be ajar."
Steve hangs up, then opens the fridge. He debates grabbing them beers but opts for soda. Back in the living room Steve finds Eddie sitting like a normal person on the couch, one leg bouncing relentlessly. Even with his superficial knowledge of Eddie, he can tell he's nervous. Not nervous Eddie would be perched on the back of his couch, ruining the cushions with whatever junk is on the bottom of his shoes. Probably.
"Soda?" Steve offers, plopping himself on the other end of the couch, hand outstretched for Eddie to take the beverage.
"Thanks." The bouncing of Eddie's leg pauses for a moment while he's opening and chugging half the can in one swift motion, then the bouncing starts again.
"Hey, man, relax. You didn't seem nearly as nervous when you were trying to sneakily hang out earlier."
Eddie lets out a big sigh. "Yeah, well, I didn't know you hated me then."
"I don't hate you."
"Oh, shit, no. Not what- I meant, like, past tense. Hated as in, used to hate. Not present tense."
"Ah. Well, I don't think I 'hated as in used to hate' past, like, three months into my freshman year. This is going to be the most self-absorbed shit ever, but, like, once I became popular, I couldn't be bothered to hate you. Didn't have the time to put towards that."
"Oh, of that I've no doubt. That was absolutely the read everyone who tried to interact with you got."
Steve ducks his head to hide his own embarrassment by fiddling with the can in his hands. "I thought you wanted to do, like, 20 questions or something."
"Oh. Serious? You'll do it?"
"Yeah."
"Right then. What even are the rules for 20 questions? Is it 20 questions each, or in total asked?"
"I dunno, man. I don't think people actually keep track. I think we just ask questions until we're done with talking. I guess the rules are don't lie, and if you don't want to answer a question, then don't. Pass on it, or whatever."
Eddie nods but he's still nervous, leg still bouncing. A look on his face so close to fear it makes Steve ache a little. He knows too well what far looks like on Eddie, experienced a week's worth of it.
Steve can start. Ease them into this. "Do you got a favorite color?"
Eddie shifts then. Turns sideways on the couch to lean against the armrest and face him. "Wait. One more rule. No mocking answers. You may laugh once at an answer."
"If you are about to tell me it's hot pink, I cannot follow that rule."
"It's not hot pink. Jesus. It's, uhh, brown, actually," Eddie says, rolling his can between his hands. "It used to be red but. I dunno. When I think of red, now, I think of the sky in the upside down and how that was almost the last thing I ever saw. I think of blood, and bleeding out."
And here he thought he was easing them into this with the most basic of questions. Eddie's already being vulnerable. "Follow up question, if you'll allow it. Why brown?"
"What's wrong with brown?"
"Nothing. Just thought you'd pick black or something," Steve gestures to all of Eddie.
At that, Eddie looks down at his mostly black outfit, the only part of it with any color is the DIO album art on his shirt, then back up. "Fair point. I guess brown just makes me think of home. The wooden porch, the paneling, brown dirt road that leads to the trailer. It's also, like, a good eye color. Exhibit A," He waves his hand in front of his face, batting his eyes exaggeratedly. It pulls a laugh from Steve.
"I can't argue that," Steve waves towards his face, where his own eyes have been described by many a girl as ranging from hazel to honey, but Steve just thinks of them as brown. "Your turn, man."
"You, tragically, had never heard of Ozzy before we met. What's your music of choice, and why is it the Top 40?"
"Like everybody didn't hear you singing along to I Wanna Dance With Somebody last week when it came on the radio at the Byers' Barbecue-"
"Whitney is a national treasure and I will not be slandered for knowing the words to any of her songs."
"Yeah, yeah. I guess it was just the Top 40, but really I don't have a preference. I just let other people pick the music. And, uhh, with the multiple concussions I don't listen to as much music as I used to. The migraines are brutal. It's never the music that brings on the migraine but like, it never helps, y'know?"
Eddie is nodding. "I do know. Like when you get sick and vomit, you avoid the last thing you ate, even when it turns out to be the flu and not food poisoning. Like, you know it wasn't the mango milkshake that made you throw up, but you avoid the mango flavor anyway."
There's definitely a full story in that somewhere. Maybe Steve will ask about it later. "Kinda? I don't avoid music but I don't think I've put a record or cassette in the player in months. Anyway, my turn. How'd you learn to play the guitar?"
"Wayne. He started teaching me before I live with him. Just a few chords when we'd visit every so often when I was little. Really got to learn after he took me in. I was eleven, if memory serves."
"Am I allowed to ask about your parents?" Steve interrupts.
"Yeah. Speaking of parents," Eddie's nervous again, bouncing his leg.
"It's your turn. Ask."
"I know the high school reputation. Big house, no parents. I might have even snuck over a few times to sale here when I knew a party was happening. Rich kids will pay whatever price you name, y'know? So, guess the actual question is, what's the deal there, with your parents?"
Steve would laugh except he has no memory of ever seeing Eddie at his house prior to all the fuckery that's gone down. He was too in his own head to bother with other people back then. And the real kicker? He probably bought from Eddie, at his own house, with his supposed grudge and all. God, he was such a dick. "Yeah. Lots of business trips, for them. The used to ship me off to spend a month with my grandparents when I was little, so they could take those trips. Guess once I was old enough to watch after myself, those trips started to happen whenever, instead of just over summer."
"What, they left you here alone as a kid? Even during the school year?"
Eddie sounds so scandalized it'd be funny if it wasn't so sad. Steve says, "I wouldn't say kid. I was fourteen, so, like, a teenager. But, yeah, gone a lot. More and more with each passing year. I mean, they've been back, but like, for a day or two. Mom switching out what jewelry she wanted and dad bit by bit emptying his office." He pauses with a frown, remembering now the last time he did see his parents face to face. "It was about halfway through senior year. The last time they were here. They didn't even come to my graduation."
Eddie sucks in a breath and Steve can visibly see him hold back some choice words.
"Anyway, long sob story short, I'm still just a rich kid with absent parents. They don't charge me rent or anything, but I pay to keep the lights on."
"That just adds so many more questions to my list."
"Well, it's my turn now, so. What got you into Dungeons and Dragons?"
Eddie looks surprised, and then guilty. "I've always liked fantasy. And, uhh, my Freshman First Day, the DnD booth was set up in the cafeteria, an okayish looking dragon drawn on the poster taped to the booth's edge. And, uh, I approached..."
"No one told you to fuck off?"
"I didn't tell you to fuck off."
"Might've hurt less if you had," Steve hadn't even meant that to be insulting, or insinuating, but it doesn't land. He'd been aiming for teasing and missed the mark, given the way Eddie jerks back, like he's trying to put more distance between them. "Oh, shit, Eddie, I didn't mean- I was-"
The doorbell rings out and both jump, turning to the front door like it might bite them. The bell chimes again, and it's then Steve remembers he ordered pizza. Wordlessly Steve gets up and deals with that. Pays for the pizza and gives a tip, stops in the kitchen long enough to grab some napkins, then folds himself back onto the couch, placing the pizza box on the cushions between them.
The time away from the couch, less than three minutes in total, Steve thinks, was enough to calm Eddie again, since he starts the teasing, "greasy pizza box directly onto the cushions! That'll never come out you know."
Steve shrugs and grins, flipping the box open to grab a pizza slice. "That's a problem for Future Steve."
Eddie grabs his own slice, and they just eat their first slices in silence before Steve breaks that, "I really wasn't trying to- earlier, I was trying to joke. About Freshman First Day. Not, uh, not like, pick a fight. So, if you still want to talk, I think it's your turn to ask a question. Any question. A big question."
"Alright. A big one. Who is Christopher?"
"Okay. Uh, just, give me a moment. I'll answer and I'm gonna be real honest right now with you, so just let me get through this, ok?"
Eddie nods, reaching for a second slice of pizza.
Steve gathers his thoughts, and speaks. "Christopher was my cousin. His family lives in Washington, so I don't see them much. You know that 'shipped off to the grandparents' thing I told you about earlier? Christopher, and his younger siblings, Amber and Robert, also came out to visit.
"I think my grandparents loved to have us all there. My cousins were there for family time, and I was there to just... not be in my parent's way, I think, but the reason why doesn't matter. The important bit. Christopher was two years older than me, and I thought he was the coolest person in the world. I wanted to be just like him. That last summer we spent together, he told me all about the game of Dungeons and Dragons he'd played with his club at school.
"It made me want to play. I was a kid who loved fantasy, too. I had to pretend to leave that behind when I got into middle school; too afraid of disappointing my dad for still liking make believe. I didn't know at the time that making him proud was just something I'd never achieve.
"Anyway, Christopher introduced me to the game, told me the entire campaign they'd run at his school, and then sent me those books. He's the reason I was at the booth that day. If Christopher could play sports and be a nerd, maybe I could, too? But, uh, that didn't go how I planned in my head. And, then. Then," Steve stops here, a knot in his throat but his eyes dry. It's not that he doesn't still mourn the loss of Christopher, it's just that the tears have dried up long ago. "Christopher committed suicide, that year. Halfway through the school year. I think... I think even if I had joined your club, if you had let me take that flier, I would have dropped out after the funeral. I'd wanted to join so bad so that Christopher would be proud of me."
The room has lost focus, now. Steve is staring forward but he doesn't really see Eddie anymore. It's like he's fallen into his thoughts and nothing else exists anymore. "It's a bit fucked up, but being older than me, I think I looked for approval in him that I didn't find in my dad, or maybe I wanted to be him because his parents were so proud of everything he did and I wanted that. Approval. I- it's- I think I used to confuse the two. Approval and love. Maybe I still do? I dunno.
"I guess I just wrapped all that up, the need for approval, Christopher's suicide, my love for fantasy, and shoved it in the same bottle deep down that I kept my anger at you in," Steve blinks himself back into the present. Takes in Eddie's face, a mix of sad and fond, like he wants to wrap Steve in a hug. Steve would probably let him. "That wasn't fair to you. I'm sorry."
Eddie shakes his head no. "You don't have to apologize to me, Stevie. I get it. You wore your jockness that same way I wear The Freak. Like armor. You weren't wrong, earlier, when you said we were dumb kids who learned to lash out and hurt first, so we couldn't be hurt. I was fucking, no, I am still like that. I mean, I just lashed back out at you when all you did was point out how I'd acted to you."
"Yeah, well, life gives everyone a shit hand sometimes. I used to capitalize on that. Kick people when they were down. It's- it's humbling and, like, awful, to unpack that. I know I'm still working on it, but I didn't have to do it alone. Robin and Dustin have been there for me. Great. They call me on my bullshit and it's easier to take then, hearing it from people I know who care about me."
"Guess I better ask find someone to call me out then."
"Haven't you already?" Steve asks, gesturing to himself.
Eddie barks a laugh. "I- yeah, I guess. You sayin' you care, Harrington?"
"Of course I do, man. We wouldn't be doing this -talking about deep shit and getting pizza grease all over my couch- if I didn't."
He watches Eddie turn red, and hide behind his hair. "Could just be doing it for the kids."
"I could. Guess you'll have to trust I'm not. That I also want a do over."
Eddie shoots him a big smile, dimples on full display, and Steve's happy to let go of his grudge if it means Eddie will smile at him like that more.
-
((Looks like there's going to be one more part. Thought this would be the last one but the boys wouldn't cooperate so next part.))
#steddie#my fic#what's eight plus seven?#platonic stobin#Steve is a recovering rescue dog and Robin is his thunder blanket#dialogue heavy. like. so heavy#they're 'playing' 20 questions so like the whole fic is just talking
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