lesbianrobin fic scraps #5: you construct intricate rituals to be lifted by other men
"You do know that you have curly hair, right?"
"Uh, yeah," Eddie says, yanking a brush through his hair and wincing at the ripping sound.
"So you're destroying it on purpose? It's, like, a metal thing?"
"Huh?"
"Do you even use conditioner?"
"I didn't invite you here so you could heckle me in my own home."
Steve leans against the front door, all casual like he hangs out in Eddie's living room all the time. "You didn't invite me here, I came to pick you up and you weren't ready. Also, I'm not heckling," Steve says, "Just observing. You don't, do you?"
“Yes, as a matter of fact, I do,” Eddie says, “It’s called two-in-one shampoo and conditioner, asshole.”
Steve lets out a noise that's halfway between a groan and a gasp. "You're joking."
Eddie raises an eyebrow.
"Oh my God, you're not joking," Steve mumbles, eyes wide.
Eddie drops his hairbrush on the coffee table and grabs his keys. "Didn't realize I needed perfect hair to ride in Steve Harrington's fancy car."
"No, but you do need shoes."
Eddie looks down.
"Oh," he says. "Yeah, that would probably help."
-
"After this party, you and I are going to the store and getting you some real shampoo and conditioner."
Eddie's still tying his right shoe, seated in the passenger seat of Steve's BMW. "I shudder to think what overpriced garbage you consider the baseline for hair-care products."
“Whine any more and I'm buying you leave-in, too.”
“What's leave-in?”
“Jesus Christ,” Steve says mournfully, looking up at the sky as if asking the man himself to lend some strength before starting his car.
Eddie observes as they pull out of the trailer park. “So, O Great Master of the haircare arts, how did you acquire such knowledge on the demands of curly hair?”
“Did you miss when people called me 'The Hair' for four years?”
“Your hair isn’t curly.”
“What, I’m not allowed to know things?” Steve sounds agitated, and he looks straight ahead at the road, not even glancing at Eddie a little bit as he speaks.
"...Oh, there's a story here!"
"No, there's not."
"The lady doth protest too much," Eddie sings, leaning close to Steve's face. Steve glances at him, though he looks back to the road quickly, shoving Eddie back toward his own seat without looking at him.
"Don't laugh."
"I won't, swear on my life," Eddie lies.
"Alright… so, you know Lucas."
"Yes."
Steve sighs. "Well, you've seen me fuck with Dustin's hair, right? I do it to Max and even Mike sometimes if he doesn't look like he'll bite me, and Lucas, he used to have, like, shorter hair, so you could kinda give him a noogie and it was, like, whatever, but now he's got the flat top and I didn't know if I could, like, touch it without messing it up, yknow? So I went to the library—"
Eddie bursts into laughter.
Steve slams his hands on the steering wheel. "I knew you were gonna laugh!"
"No," Eddie struggles to say between laughs, "No, oh my God, that's the cutest thing I've ever—"
"I fucking hate you," Steve sulks.
He can just see it, is the thing, Steve walking into the library and ringing the little bell and stumbling over his words as he asks the librarian for help finding books about hair. Squinting at the spines of books, checking out a few, carrying them back to his car and dumping them in the passenger seat with a satisfied grin.
"I had to help Dustin with his hair for the Snow Ball, too, and his is curly, so you know, I started with him back then, and then Lucas, and then I just kept reading, and it was…" Steve shrugs. "I don't know, it was cool."
Steve says it nonchalantly. As if that isn't the most precious thing on planet Earth.
"You're so cute," Eddie says, and Steve rolls his eyes, but there's something there, Eddie thinks, something soft and fond in the slight curve of his lips. There's something.
-
This isn't how Eddie had imagined getting Steve's hands on him, but he really can't be mad about it.
“Alright, alright,” Dustin chants, as Robin hoots and whistles her support.
Someone begins pounding on the table repeatedly.
“Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve!” Lucas begins the chant and Max joins in, followed shortly by Robin and Dustin. Mike looms over Eddie with his arms crossed and a scowl on his face.
“No pressure, Harrington,” Eddie says.
“Man, shut up,” Steve replies, and starts to push.
Astoundingly, Eddie rises.
“Oh, shit,” he says, tensing his body as much as he can. Steve would never drop him, but Eddie might not have the abdominal muscles required to keep himself from toppling off to the side.
The Steve chant gets louder and faster, more hands pounding on tables and feet stomping on the floor. Mike is clearly trying so hard to look unimpressed, but his eyes just keep getting wider as Eddie rises higher and finally reaches the peak, Steve's arms extended as much as they can without locking out, and he holds Eddie aloft for a few seconds, and Eddie wishes more than anything that he could see Steve's face right now. Steve begins to lower him down, and god, this was all over too fast, and Eddie's heart is pounding like crazy, so loud in his ears that it almost drowns out all of their friends' raucous screaming.
“What in the hell is all this racket?”
Eddie startles, almost falling, but Steve digs his fingers in, and holy shit Eddie's going up again, and then he's coming down, and how is Steve this strong?
“Two,” Dustin calls out, “Holy shit!”
As Eddie goes up again, Nancy explains, “Steve said he can bench, like, two hundred pounds or something, and Eddie said he bet Steve couldn't even lift him and he's about one-seventy—”
“One-sixty, Wheeler,” Eddie calls out, and then he's coming back down again and Steve says, “I don't know, feels more like one-eighty.”
“Oh, screw you.”
“Three!”
"...Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve..!"
“Huh.” Mike's dad almost sounds impressed. “Well, keep it down, your sister's trying to do her homework.”
Mike snorts. “Holly's homework is coloring.”
“Hey, don’t knock coloring,” Eddie says. It’s hard to sound normal, with Steve’s hands pressing into his back and thighs, but he’s pretty sure he’s managing it. “It’s a noble and honored tradition, Wheeler, one of humanity’s oldest pursuits. Art is—”
“Four!”
"...Steve, Steve..!"
“—what makes life worth living, after all.”
Steve grunts with effort, making Eddie’s chest seize up, but he rises for the fifth time. Someone says, “Jesus Christ,” but Eddie’s not sure who.
“Mike, maybe you could ask Steve here to take you to the gym sometime.”
“Dad,” Mike groans.
“And five!” Dustin begins to clap as soon as Eddie’s back down. The hooligans abandon pounding on the table to cheer, hooting and hollering with all of the enthusiasm of an adventuring party confronted with a chest full of riches.
“Alright, get off of me,” Steve grunts, and Eddie acquiesces, rolling to the side and leaping to his feet. God, he could scale a mountain right now. Eddie turns to look at Steve, and holy shit, actually, he could not scale a mountain right now, because his heart would explode. Lying on his back, face slightly flushed, arms splayed out and hair messy, Steve looks utterly obscene. To be fair, Steve always looks obscene, but Eddie can still feel the phantoms of Steve's hands pressing against him, and he holds a hand out without thinking. Steve takes it, leveraging himself up in a way that nearly has Eddie toppling down onto the floor next to him, but they manage to both stay standing.
"What do I owe you, again?"
"You guys forgot to actually bet anything," Dustin says helpfully.
"Shit," Steve sighs, letting go of Eddie's hand to put his hands on his hips.
"Maybe you could get me that hair crap you were talking about earlier."
"I win, and my reward is that I get to buy you things?"
"Yep," Eddie says. He can feel himself smiling, so wide that it's almost embarrassing, but he can't help it. Steve is smiling, too.
Steve eyes his hair, and apparently he's distressed enough by what he sees to sigh and say, "Shit, alright. But you have to use it exactly how I show you, asshole."
Eddie puts one hand on his heart and the other in the air. "Scout's honor."
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