#Barbara Perkins | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

carolperkinsexgirlfriend · 12 days ago

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happy, safe, and warm - a steddie upsidedown au oneshot

Or: the prom fic exactly one person asked for

|| Steve Harrington/Eddie Munson || Carol Perkins/Barbara Holland || ~5k, complete ||fluff || established relationship || prom || romance ||

“Why do you have to do this?” Eddie whines.

He’s been whining since Steve had picked the tulips up from the shop. They’re a bright orange on the edges of each petal, slowly fading into a pale yellow, then green closer to the stem. There’s eight of them, all bundled together with a matching orange ribbon.

Carol’s going to hate them; they’ll clash with her hair.

“It’s tradition,” Steve says, fussing with the ribbon from the passenger seat of Eddie’s van. He’d made the mistake of untying it to rearrange the flowers, and now each attempt at retying ends with a lopsided bow.

“It’s tradition,” Eddie mocks. When Steve glances his way, he finds Eddie glaring out the windshield, bottom lip jutted out in a pout. “You could ask me, you know.”

Giving the bow up as a bad job, Steve reaches his hand out to pat Eddie’s thigh. “I can’t ask you to prom, Baby,” he says, watching in real time as the furrow between his eyebrows lessens at Steve’s use of a pet name.

It’s something he’s noticed. Eddie gives out pet names like they’re going out of style, but every time Steve uses one, his ears tinge pink and he ducks his head, a pleased smile on his face. He gets shy. Steve’s been weaponizing them accordingly.

“The ‘close-minded denizens of Hawkins’,” Steve starts, almost dropping the tulips as he tries to make air quotes around Eddie’s own oft-repeated words. “will start a lynch mob in town square.”

Eddie’s still pouting, but it’s put-upon now, his eyes downright twinkling at Steve parroting his own words back at him. “You still could’ve asked,” he says, but there’s a dimple popping in his cheek.

Steve lets go of his thigh, to tweak his cheek, trailing his fingers against soft skin as he brushes a loose curl behind Eddie’s ear. Eddie shudders the way he always does when Steve’s gentle with him.

“You’re who I’ll be going home with,” Steve says, smiling as the flush on Eddie’s ears travels down the sides of his neck.

He clears his throat and rasps out, “you better be.”

When they pull up to the school, Eddie trails them through the halls, fingers stuffed in his pockets and slumping around like the sad sack he is. Steve pays him no mind; he’s on a mission.

His mission ends when he finds Carol rifling through her locker, talking to Barbara who’s leaning on a closed locker to its left. Carol doesn’t notice Steve’s arrival, but Barbara does, and her eyebrows go up, one after another as she notices the bouquet in his hands and the pouting boyfriend at his side.

Just as she nudges Carol, Steve drops to his knees, flowers raised in supplication. Carol spins around, face dropping into a scowl as she catches sight of the tulips.

“Carol Perkins,” Steve starts, loud enough to be heard over the gossiping that’s already going on around them, “will you go to prom with me?”

Carol’s scowl turns into a downright glare, but then she looks behind Steve’s shoulder and her face drops into something sickly sweet and foreign on his best friend’s face.

“Oh, Steve,” she says, reaching out to grab the tulips Steve knows she hates. “I’d love to!”

Steve stares at her, absolutely flummoxed as he stands back up. But then she pulls him into a hug, the tulips getting crushed between their bodies, so she can whisper, “Tommy looks absolutely pissed.”

She pulls back far enough to kiss him on the cheek, still smiling that foreign smile that makes Steve marginally queasy. The tulips are as misshapen as the bow now, all squashed into each other, petals crumpled.

Steve was right; they do clash with her hair.

Steve opens his mouth, ready to pour more drivel onto the honeyed pile, but Eddie waylays him by reaching between their bodies and snatching one of the crumpled tulips from Carol’s bundle.

He ignores her indignant, “hey!” to spin around and drop to his own knees in front of Barbara where she stands, forgotten against the lockers.

She’s looking down at him like he’s a bug beneath her heel, but that doesn’t seem to deter Eddie at all. He shuffles closer on his knees, damn-near clutching at the hem of her jeans. He leans forward, and for a second, Steve thinks he’s going to kiss the floor at her feet, but all he does is bow his head and ask, “my lady, will you do this humble bard the honor of accompanying him to prom?” like the fucking nerd he is.

Eddie doesn’t look away from the scuffed linoleum of the dirty hallway until Barbara plucks the tulip from his hand with a simple, “you’ll do.”

Barbara turns her back on him to come toward Carol, missing entirely when Eddie leaps up off the floor and pumps his fist like he’s the romantic lead in a coming-of-age movie and he just scored the girl.

The hallway fills with snickering, but Steve’s just standing there smiling, reluctantly endeared.

As Barbara tucks the tulip back into Carol’s bouquet, Carol says, loud enough to carry to Eddie, “I think I got the better end of that bargain.”

Barbara looks Steve up and down, slow enough that Steve freezes like a deer scenting prey. “I don’t know about that,” she says before looping her arm in Carol’s and dragging her laughing girlfriend away.

Eddie shuffles toward Steve, looking somehow shell-shocked. “Girls are scary,” he says, and Steve turns to stand shoulder to shoulder with him, both watching their prom dates walk through the crowded hallway as students part around them.

“I don’t think it’s most girls,” Steve replies, smiling as he watches Carol toss the tulips into the trash, shaking her hand out like she can still feel their stems against her palm and hates it.

God, Steve fucking loves her.

***

Steve’s ass is smudging up her counter as Carol brushes a light dusting of blush against her cheekbones. It’s a familiar feeling by now: Steve’s eyes on her as she primps and primes. He’s done it since she’d started wearing make-up in middle school.

Tommy’d never been interested, but Steve always watches each step of the process like it’s the first time he’s ever seen it, swatching eye shadows against her hand gets the same fascinated attention as applying lipstick. She’d asked him once if he wanted to try it.

He’d shrugged, scooted over on the counter, and closed his eyes as she went through all her usual steps on the perfect canvas of his face. He leaned into each of her touches, let her mascara wand glide against his lashes, puckered his lips for some gloss. But, once she’d finished and he jumped down from his perch to see his new look, he’d grimaced and wiped it all away.

She’d never asked again, but sometimes on special occasions, Steve steals her mascara and shimmies it up his lashes with the same motion she’s sure he’s seen a hundred times by now.

No one ever noticed, but she knows Eddie will. He’ll take one look into Steve’s eyes and lose his fucking mind. The suit won’t hurt either.

“You could’ve gotten ready at your own house, you know,” Carol says, not looking away from her own reflection as she touches up the corners of her lipstick. “It’s not like we’re brides hiding away lest we see the groom before the wedding.”

Steve laughs, jumping down from the corner and standing by her side. He slings an arm around her waist, and tickles beneath her waist the way she hates. “We’re pretty enough to be brides,” Steve says, puckering his lips like he’s posing for a photo, eyes twinkling as he meets her gaze in the mirror.

She rolls her eyes, shoving him aside. They look good together; her in a teal tulle number they’d picked out together, and Steve in his black suit, bought last year on the Harrington’s dime. They’d bought him a teal pocket square to pull their looks together.

“If you ignore the whole groom swap we’re pulling,” Carol mutters.

Steve laughs again. He does that a lot now, more than he ever had before, when it was just her and Tommy and whatever petty bullshit they were on about. She wants to bottle each laugh and hoard them. Proof that Steve Harrington had crawled out of his grave and is still here, happy and whole at her side.

“Well, you want to swap again, just let me know,” he says, smiling.

Carol wrinkles her nose as she asks, “you mean back to you or with Munson?” Sure, they’re friends now, or whatever, but his hair’s a monstrosity and his clothes are even worse. “Doesn’t matter, either way’s trading down.”

“Hey!” Steve elbows her in the ribs, but the doorbell rings before she has time to retaliate, sending them into an all-out brawl.

They rush from her bathroom, all elbows and limbs, racing down the stairs to be the first one to answer the front door.

No one else is here to do it, her Mom off God knows where. There won’t be any cringey pictures taken along her staircase to be looked back on fondly years later, smiling as she goes down memory lane.

They’ll just have to get pictures once they’ve arrived. Jonathan Byers is going to be there with his fancy camera, and she plans to make him earn his keep.

Steve beats her to the front door by just a second.

There, side by side on her front porch, are Eddie and Barb. Eddie’s in ill-fitting suit pants and a button up shirt, both of which she’s sure he stole from Uncle Wayne. His hair’s up in a cute little bun, but any brownie points he might’ve won by taming his curls is lost entirely by the stupid jean vest he’s wearing and the bulky black boots on his feet.

None of that matters, though. Not when Barbara Holland is standing at his side in a pale pink dress looking so beautiful that Carol’s heart does something embarrassing in her chest. She’s got red lipstick on that Carol looks forward to messing up later.

“You look…” Carol starts, letting her gaze travel up and down Barb’s body, smirking when she sees the way her cheeks have gone blotchy red at her scrutiny. “–gorgeous.”

Barb clears her throat and replies with a sincere, “you, too,” even as she doesn’t meet Carol’s eyes. It’s something Carol’s noticed. Compliments fluster Barb faster than anything else. Carol wants to spend the rest of her life making the other girl flush, wants to spend days in bed finding out just how low the color travels.

Barb clears her throat, and holds out a cluster of flowers. It’s a corsage, twisting together pink, white, and blue flowers and ribbon around a pin. The same ones already on Barb’s wrist. “So we can all match,” she says.

She glances toward the boys, and Eddie’s got a similar arrangement pinned to his vest. She trades a look with Steve and can read the same thought flashing behind his eyes: it’s gaudy as hell.

Carol resigns herself to an evening of ruined aesthetics as she watches Barb bite her lip shyly. She’s going to wear the stupid fucking thing, no matter how ugly. Still, she leans around, eyeing her neighbors suspiciously before ushering everyone in and slamming the door.

It enrages her sometimes, the way something as good as her relationship with Barb has to be hidden behind closed doors and misleading words. She sees the same anger in Eddie’s eyes. But, Barb’s fingers are delicate as she slips the corsage around her wrist, and Steve’s blushing as Eddie leans in unnecessarily close to pin the brocade to his suit jacket without snagging the fabric too badly.

And it’s worth it, to have these three people.

It’s Steve’s side she walks by out to the van parked haphazardly in her driveway. It’s Steve who rushes to open the van’s passenger door for her to slide in, ever the proper date. But Barb just stuffs him into the seat and opens the back door, holding her hand out, palm open, to help her inside.

The van’s surprisingly tidy, all trash removed, and a new, clean blanket laid overtop the stained carpet, and the whole thing smells more like floral perfume than its usual odor of rotting fast food. It’s a nice touch, no doubt Steve’s idea.

She climbs in and settles on the blanket. Barb sits improperly close, thighs touching as Eddie peels out of the drive, something softer than his usual shit pumping from the van’s shitty speakers.

Barb takes Carol’s hand and something giddy churns through her stomach. Sure prom’s stupid and high school’s a waste of time, she was there for that particular Munson rant, but she’s excited to dance with her stupid boys and sneak whatever bits of intimacy she can with her girlfriend.

No matter how ugly her corsage is.

***

As he suspected, prom is an atrocity of the senses. There’s tinsel, and streamers, and a goddamn balloon arch, all in a metallic silver and a muted baby blue, like that’ll make it somehow tasteful.

Because he’s a gentleman, he keeps his arm linked with Barb’s, leading her through the stupid arch into the monstrosity they’ve turned the gym into. But, because he’s smart, he stays behind Carol and Steve so he can look at his ass as they follow them in.

“You’re not subtle,” Barb mutters, digging her nails into Eddie’s arm hard enough that he hisses.

“You’re a terrible witch,” Eddie hisses back before smiling congenially over at her and asking, “Barb, dear heart, should we get our picture taken?”

“Of course, darling,” she drawls back, letting herself be led over to the photo area: a black square marked out with tape on the ground, and an even gaudier balloon arch for couples to stand within.

Jonathan, of all people, is standing there, camera settled around his neck, already looking sleepy despite the night having only just begun. Eddie stands slightly behind Barb, letting his arm settle around her shoulders as they both face Byers, waiting for him to finish fiddling with his camera and get on with it. “Where’s your worst half, Johnny Boy?” Eddie asks, grinning when Jonathan glares at him.

In clear retaliation, Jonathan doesn’t warn them before clicking the shutter on his camera, blinding them both with the sudden flash. “At the punch bowl,” he replies before shooing them away with a wave of his hand. “Now, go bother her. I’d like to go home sometime tonight.”

Eddie gasps, and says, “But Byers, this is supposed to be the best night of our lives!” but doesn’t resist as Barb pulls him out of the way, making room for Carol and Steve to take what will no doubt be a much more photogenic picture.

Just watching the smile bloom on Steve’s face, picture-perfect and gleaming white, makes Eddie’s heart tremble in his chest. He wants to reach out, wants to smooth the lapels of his suit down just as an excuse to touch. He plucks the ties that bind, and smiles when Steve turns toward him just as the flash goes off.

He loves Barb, she’s like the younger sister he never, ever wanted, but as Steve makes his way toward them, he wants to shake her off. There’s just something about Steve in this suit that makes him desperately glad he’d rescued it from the Harrington house after the great disowning of 1985.

“You did that on purpose,” Steve accuses, brushing their shoulders together and smiling as he pulls their connection right back, but harder, so Eddie stumbles just a little toward him.

“Who, me?” Eddie asks, barely noticing as Barb lets go of him to go talk to Carol. Eddie’s leaning toward Steve, can’t even help but tilt forward, a flower trying to leach out every bright beam from the sun. “I would never do that, Stevie.”

And it’s only then, faces improperly close, that Eddie realizes that Steve’s already lush eyelashes are darker and longer than ever, making his eyes pop. Eddie bites his lip and takes a step back before he does something monumentally stupid like kiss him.

“You? Of course not,” Steve replies, still smiling that dangerous smile. Eddie’s blood boils in his veins.

“Uh, Barb dear?” he calls, holding his hand toward her without breaking eye contact with Steve. “Shall we dance?”

He doesn’t look away until Barb takes his hand and bodily pulls him toward the dance floor, brushing past gyrating bodies until they’re in the thick of it. “You’re going to get yourself killed, Munson,” she says, her arms going around his shoulders, his around her waist as they shuffle, keeping enough room for Jesus between them.

“I know,” Eddie whines, leaning closer to whisper to her, probably barely audible past the noxious music blasting through the room. “But he’s wearing mascara, Barbie. Mascara.”

“Oh, mascara, you poor baby,” she snorts, slapping at his shoulder hard enough to sting. “Did you see Carol’s dress?”

Frankly, Eddie hadn’t–too caught up in Steve’s eyes, and Steve’s perfect hair, and Steve in that fucking suit. But he dutifully cranes his neck around the dance floor until he finds Carol and Steve over by the punch bowl. He gets a vague impression of blue before his attention’s caught by the hold Wheeler’s got on Steve’s arm as she laughs.

“Hold that thought,” Eddie says, dropping Barb like a hot potato to march over to the punch table and do–something.

“Wheeler,” Eddie says, interrupting whatever the hell she was saying mid-word. She glares as he shoves himself between her and Steve, dislodging her hold on Steve as he wraps his arm around his shoulders in a passably platonic manner. “Fancy meeting you here.”

“At prom?” she demands, no longer smiling. She takes a sip out of whatever horrible concoction is in her cup, and by the way she grimaces at the taste, a few more swallows and she’ll be three sheets to the wind.

Eddie ignores her, turning his back and taking Steve along with him as he ladles a cup full of his own spiked punch before offering it to Steve. He takes a sip–the liquid paints his lips a tantalizing red that has Eddie’s brain flashing danger signs in his head.

“Well, this has been fun,” Eddie says, not looking away from Steve’s mouth, “but I’ve got to talk to Stevie here for a second.”

“Do you?” Steve asks, smirking as he takes another sip, Adam’s apple bobbing obscenely in his throat.

“Yah,” Eddie says, eyes trained on Steve’s neck. Carol clears her throat pointedly and Eddie shakes his head like a dog, and finally looks away from the delectable sight before him, dropping his hold on Steve’s shoulder to shuffle back over to Barb. “Uh, no? Of course not, that would be–” He trails off, making the mistake of looking back over to Steve just in time to watch Steve bite his lip, “–uh, weird? It’d be weird.”

Barb sighs, but loops her arm in Eddie’s as if she’s going to keep him in place. “Carol, control your date.”

Carol laughs, reaching up to pinch Steve’s cheek. “This date?” she asks, meeting Eddie’s gaze as she reaches up on her tippy-toes to plant a dry kiss against his cheek. “There’s no controlling him.”

Steve smirks right along with her–two, evil peas in their evil pods. Eddie just wishes the look on Steve’s face wasn’t working on him.

“Barb, please,” he begs, clutching her for all he’s worth.

She sighs again, but dutifully pulls him away. “You’re a mess,” she says, leading him over to one of the vacant tables on the outskirts of the dance floor. “I can’t believe you thought this was a good idea.”

Eddie settles into a chair, pouting across at Barb as she sits on the chair to his left, arms crossed over her chest to really show how dissatisfied she is with him.

“I didn’t,” he whines. “I’ve met myself! This one was all Steve.”

“What was me?” Steve asks, and Eddie jumps. Steve settles into the empty seat on his right, immediately hooking his ankle with Eddie’s and playing footsie with him beneath the cover of the gaudy silver tablecloth.

Eddie groans and lets his head drop to its inexplicably sticky surface. It’s going to be a long night.

***

Barb should have known she was destined for babysitting duty the moment Munson had asked her. Overall, the boys are pretty good about keeping at least the illusion of friendship shrouding their romance, but this is different–Steve’s in a suit. Apparently that’s all it takes to unravel him.

As if Carol isn’t wearing a dress that swoops low enough to show a tantalizing window of cleavage, and a split up the side of the skirt that shows a teasing amount of thigh when she drags Steve away from their chosen table to dance.

“You’re just as bad as me,” Eddie says, and it’s only then that she realizes they’re both slumped into their chairs, watching their respective partners dance.

“No one’s as bad as you, Munson.”

He snorts, nudging their shoulders together without tearing his gaze away from the dance floor. She can’t even blame him–Carol and Steve are very clearly putting on a show now, with how close they’re dancing.

“They look good together,” Eddie says, something undefinable in his voice. She thinks it might be jealousy, but when she glances over at him, he’s smiling, small and soft. “Don’t you think?”

She looks back at the pair. The top of Carol’s head barely reaches Steve’s shoulder, so it’s tipped up against his chest so she can smile up at him. He’s looking down at her, all hard lines as he holds her close.

They’re beautiful, put together perfectly and outshining all the glitter in the room.

“Can you imagine them dating?” Barb asks, grinning as Eddie throws his head back and laughs, finally looking away so he can lean over and smack her in the shoulder.

“Right? They’d kill each other over a hairdryer on like, day one.” he says gleefully.

“And that’s different than usual?” Barb asks, smiling over at him just so she can watch him snort.

“Nah, they’re like cats scratching out each other’s eyes at every sleepover.”

Barb throws her head back and laughs, feeling light, bubbly, happy. As if summoned by the sound, Carol’s arm slips down her shoulder, running over the bare expanse of her arm lightly enough to make her shiver.

“You two look cozy,” she says, leaning into Barb’s face so she can wriggle her eyebrows suggestively at her.

Barb nods, schooling her features into a grim line as she says, “it’ll be a summer wedding,” just to watch Carol cackle.

“See, Steve?” she cries as Steve trots over, precariously holding refilled cups for each of them. “Groom-swapping, just like I said!”

“Does that make me a groom?” Barb asks, smirking when Carol’s face flushes ever so slightly. It’s not easy to fluster her, never has been, so every little tell is a victory.

“Does that make me a wife?” Eddie asks, grinning as he apparently skips through the wedding entirely to land somewhere on happily married. As someone who’s spent more than ten minutes in their presence, she isn’t surprised.

No matter how much Steve’s evolved since that fateful house party, deep, deep down, he’s just as much of a shit-stirring prick as Carol is. So, she’s not surprised when he waits until Eddie’s mid-sip to reply, “husband, actually.”

Eddie chokes on his punch; Barb reaches over and smacks him on the back repeatedly until he coughs it all down. He’s staring at Steve like he’s never seen him before, cheeks splotching an unbecoming red. His voice’s all raspy when he says, “Should we go?” he looks between them all, eyes beseechingly wide. “I think we should go.”

Barb glances over at the giant clock on the gym’s wall, partially obscured by the streamers tacked to the ceiling. “We’ve barely been here for thirty minutes,” she says, squinting to try to make out where the big hand is pointing.

“You didn’t even want to come!” Eddie hisses, which isn’t strictly true. She’d wanted to see Carol in her dress, had wanted to hang out with her friends. It’s just all these other people she wasn’t happy about.

“We haven’t even finished our drinks,” Steve cuts in, lip pouted out.

Eddie, not to be deterred, snatches his cup back up and drains it in a few quick swallows before smacking it down on the table and wiping the punch where it had dripped down his chin with the back of his hand.

“Get a room,” Carol mutters, and when Barb follows her line of sight, she sees Steve, pupils blown as he watches Eddie like he’s a predator about to pounce on its prey.

“Time to go,” Barb says, standing up before grabbing Eddie’s arm and hauling him out of his chair.

Everyone else falls in line, and they all rush through the gym into the warm night air. Aside from a few burnouts smoking, the parking lot’s deserted, the only sound the music still audible even through the closed doors.

“I’m driving!” Carol calls, and then she’s off, cackling as Steve chases after her.

“You don’t even have a license!” Steve cries, trying to snatch the back of her dress, but even in heels, she beats him to the van and they scuffle in front of the driver’s side door, trying to push each other away from it.

“Does she really not have a license?” Eddie asks, still walking beside her. When Barb nods in confirmation, Eddie squawks, “she drove Stevie to the hospital!”

And with that, he’s chasing after them both, leaving Barb alone in the parking lot, walking sedately up to three of her favorite people scuffling like children after a truncated prom. By the time she reaches them, Eddie’s holding his keys above his head and laughing as Carol jumps to try to snatch them from him, never quite getting enough height.

Barb grabs them instead, pushing past all of them to unlock the door herself, sliding into the driver’s seat and cranking the engine as the trio scramble to jump in before she leaves them there. Eddie bitches, but dutifully settles on the blankets in the back with Steve, the pair’s giggling making her decide she won’t be checking her rear-view mirror no matter how many pedestrians she might hit.

Carol slumps in the passenger seat, legs propped up on the dash, making the slit in her dress gape obscenely. Barb doesn’t look that way either—she just drives the familiar streets until she’s pulling into Carol’s driveway.

She doesn’t turn off the van, doesn’t say anything as she rounds the front of the van to yank the passenger door open and scoop Carol out by the waist as the other girl laughs. She puts her down immediately, conscious even now of eyes that could be peeking through their neighbors curtains.

“Bye, Barbie dearest, best prom date in the world!” Eddie calls before she hears the sound of both doors they’d left open slamming closed and the van peeling out of the drive with Eddie’s usual reckless abandon.

“I guess you’re coming in then,” Carol says, unlocking her front door and stepping through.

Barb follows her in, and barely closes the door behind them before she’s on her, arms wrapping around Barb’s waist, pulling them flush from the toes of their feet to where Carol’s face ends up tucked into her chest.

“You wanna slow dance?” Barb asks, already encircling Carol in her arms and pulling her even closer, swaying to an imaginary beat neither of them can hear.

“I can think of something else slow we could do,” Carol whispers, tilting her face up to smirk at Barb as her fingers trail slowly up Barb’s thigh, barely a tickle through the silk of her dress. “We’ve got all night. Might as well make it special.”

In the safety of Carol’s empty house, Barb scoops up her laughing girlfriend and hauls ass up the stairs, ready to make this a prom night they’ll both remember, and never ever ever be able to tell Steve and Eddie’s kids about.

Across town, she’s sure her favorite boys are doing the same, but as she drops Carol onto her unmade bed, Barb elects not to think of them for the rest of the night. There are better things to focus on, right here in front of her.

***

They’re quiet as the van trundles away from Carol’s house. Steve curls in his seat, turning to watch Eddie tap against his steering wheel along to the beat filtering quietly from the tape deck. His rings glint every time they drive under a street light, hypnotizing Steve.

“See something you like?” Eddie asks, looking away from the road long enough to throw a sideways grin Steve’s way.

He reaches out across the distance between them—these scant inches still too far, and runs his chilled fingers over Eddie’s rings until Eddie lets go of the wheel and links their hands, their rings clacking together. Steve kisses the back of Eddie’s hand because he can, because it always makes Eddie blush, even if the interior of the van’s too dark for him to see it right now.

“Always do,” Steve replies, curling up further in his seat, pulling his legs up to his chest.

All the buildings blur past out the window, casting an unreal haze over Hawkins until Eddie pulls into Forest Hills and parks in front of the dark trailer. Everything comes into focus again, as Steve unlinks their hands to follow Eddie up the stoop, and into their home.

Home.

It still takes Steve by surprise sometimes at the most unexpected times. Home is a place with people in it. People who accommodate all the oddities that have piled atop him since his time in the upside down, whether it’s nightmares, or body aches, or the way he still gets tired quicker now than he had before.

Eddie shrugs his battle vest off, leaving him just in his suit, and it looks odd, somehow, like he’s playing dress-up in Wayne’s clothes now that he’s removed his own personal touches to the outfit. Steve smiles, charmed. He steps up to Eddie until their shoes knock together, winding his arms around Eddie’s waist beneath the suit jacket, only the thin fabric of his button up separating them.

“Did you have fun, Angel?” Eddie asks, wrapping his arms around Steve in turn and pulling them even closer together.

“Mmmhmm,” Steve hums. And he had. Even if they hadn’t stayed long, he’d got his picture taken, danced with his best friend, had all the stereotypical prom experiences. Except—“We didn’t get to dance.”

Eddie jumps back like he’s been electrocuted, smiling manically at Steve before rushing into their bedroom. Before Steve can even complain, he hears the quiet whir of the tape deck beginning to play, and Eddie’s metal music—is it Dio?—begins cranking out of their bedroom.

Eddie rushes back over to Steve, already shaking his head like a wet dog as Steve laughs at him but bops right along.

“I was thinking more like a slow dance,” Steve says, but he can’t even pretend he’s not having fun as Eddie finally arrives back at his original place in front of Steve.

“You want slow?” Eddie asks, arms around Steve’s shoulders as Steve clutches at his waist, drawing them flush together. “We can go slow.”

“To this?” Steve asks, laughing, as Eddie rocks them incrementally back and forth, jarringly off from the upbeat tempo of the song.

“C’mon, Stevie,” Eddie croons, nuzzling his face into Steve’s neck and nipping at the skin there just to make him laugh. “Dance with me.”

Steve sways along with him, always ready to follow Eddie anywhere he leads. Eddie hooks his chin over Steve’s shoulder and pulls him even closer, like he’s going to hollow out a place in his ribcage and stuff Steve inside.

There, in the safety of their home, Steve Harrington dances with the man he loves, sheltered in his arms—happy, safe, and warm.

#steddie #carol perkins #barbara holland #steve harrington #eddie munson #carol/barb #my fic #steddie upside-down au

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