#the thought of steve in a cheap cowboy costume has been plaguing my brain

[shares-a-vest]

Steve takes one last look in the mirror and frowns at his store-bought cowboy costume. He looks positively lame, more like a spoilt child rather than a Wild West outlaw. But Robin insists he wears an actual costume because, "putting on sunglasses and saying you are a Tom Cruise character isn't a costume, Steve".

Eddie says as much when he heads over to the new trailer to pick him up. But he has no clue Eddie practically stumbles down the front steps because he's too busy staring at the cow-print chaps that frame his butt in the best way possible.

Steve chooses to ignore Eddie's outfit: a homemade vampire bat costume he had been threatening to wear for weeks. They already argued about its tastelessness when Steve walked into the trailer last week to find Eddie sewing clumps of black furry material to the shoulders of a sweater and sculpting felt ears. But hey, if this is how Eddie wants to deal with them almost dying from the undead Upside Down equivalent... Steve just has no intention of defending him against a gaggle of teenagers when they are all supposed to be enjoying a Halloween party in the safety of Steve's house. 

Robin and Nancy have finished the party planning, dressed in a failed couples costume (Robin's neon green jumpsuit and inflatable alien head far from complementing Nancy's impeccable Ellen Ripley). And Nancy is genuinely pissed about it because Argyle and Jonathan are dressed as a zombie bride and groom and look fantastic.

Steve stubbornly spends far too much of the night manning his parent's liquor cabinet for fear the kids will sneak a drink. And Eddie's smart enough to not tell him he saw Dustin (dressed as Gandalf the Grey) and Max (similarly controversial as Freddy Kruger) take a drink from a rogue beer can, gag and set it down on the Harrington's expensive coffee table without a coaster.

Eddie eventually drags Steve away to the downstairs bathroom, intertwining their pinkies, with a "come on cowboy" he'd waited all night to say. He managed to convince him that Will (aka Luke Skywalker) would take over as resident party-pooper at the liquor cabinet - even though Eddie did have to relinquish one Hellfire campaign to the kid so he could finally show off his Dungeon Master skills. Plus, it gave the kid a distraction from pining over Mike (who somehow managed to make Dracula look pathetic).

"You wanna kiss me, bat boy?" Steve asks with a little liquid courage and a blush as he closes the bathroom door and crowds Eddie against the vanity. 

"Yes," Eddie says, suddenly completely panicked.

He didn't think they'd get this far considering they had almost kissed countless times before now, but were always interrupted. By Eddie's recollection, the last time was about 78 hours ago outside his trailer when Steve looked like he was about to kiss him goodbye until Max came running over with candy to share.

He leans in but Steve holds up a hand in protest. 

"Um, Eds? Your fangs."

Eddie remembers his plastic vampire teeth and claps a hand to his mouth, utterly mortified. He spits them clean out into his palm and dumps them in the sink. 

"Dude, ew," Steve says, screwing up his nose.

Eddie wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and rubs his spit-covered palm on his jeans. He then removes Steve's cowboy hat and combs his non-spitted-on fingers through his flattened hair. They look at each other for a moment before Steve leans in and places a soft kiss on his lips. They separate and sigh with utter relief.

They proceed to furiously make out and forget the party outside until someone comes banging on the bathroom door, at which point they exit, entirely flustered and awkwardly duck their heads out of view of whoever it was at the door and head for Steve's bedroom with lightening speed. Days later they find out it was a traumatised Lucas (he dressed as Maverick from Top Gun) who of course, blabbed to everyone before the party was over.