Steve Harrington and Eddie Munson do not get along. They’ve been sniping at each other since saving the world from Vecna and everyone is tired of it They would fight at the bar. They fight in Family Video. They fight over music, over movies, over whether Eddie’s van is “a death trap”.
But what nobody knows is Steve started it. And Steve keeps starting it. Because the first time Eddie got really mad like red faced, voice cracking, gesturing with those rings and hair all wild from running his hands through it Steve’s brain just short circuited. God, he’s so hot when he’s pissed. He would think to him self.
So now Steve has a system. He says something dumb about his music choice and Eddie explodes. Steve wins. Not the argument. But just to see him.
Eddie doesn’t get it at first. He just thinks Steve’s an asshole who peaked in high school and never learned to shut up. Until one night Steve’s baiting him about “real music” and Eddie shoves him hard against the brick wall outside the Hideout, and Steve smiles.
Oh.
“You absolute freak,” Eddie says realization dawning and devastating. “You like this. You like when I—”
Steve cuts him off by kissing him, because since he’s been caught he might as well give in.
Graham was a homophobe and was seen as one of Trump's closest allies in the Senate. His death will not meaningfully impact the partisan balance of the Senate, as South Carolina's Republican governor can immediately appoint a replacement to serve out the remainder of his term.
Graham's death, which was unexpected, comes as the nation is expectantly waiting for the death of former Republican Senate Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell — who was hospitalized weeks ago and has mysteriously not made any public appearances, statements, or updates since.
Robby doesn’t have time for this, literally there is no time. He’s still got three patients waiting on labs and Abbot is waiting for the hand off to night shift. He’s not even going to address whatever is going on with Dana. She’s pissed at him for something and he’s not sure if it’s about the Dennis thing or the motorcycle thing or the sabbatical thing. Well, probably not the sabbatical thing anymore since he admitted that he canceled the trip and stayed home watching bad television for three months.
And fucking Dennis Whitaker. Not that he admitted that part. Dennis was so much better than the stupid fucking road trip he had planned. Everything had felt so overwhelming, he’d been so desperate to get out of the hospital and onto the road, to run away, to be away. Then Dennis had been there.
He’d opened the door to show Dennis around the house and what he needed him to do but found he couldn’t talk. He couldn’t do anything but stare at Dennis, who looked so tired and so beautiful backlit by fireworks. Suddenly he hadn’t wanted to be anywhere but with Dennis and as suddenly as he had the realization he had another. That is all he’d wanted for months. He’d been so desperate to get away to a place where he wasn’t Dennis’ boss, where he wasn’t the boss of anyone and he could look and teach and touch Dennis in all the ways he couldn’t inside the hospital.
What the hell had he been thinking? Getting Dennis alone in his house, it was reckless. This whole thing was irresponsible and generally a bad fucking idea. What the hell did he know about motorcycles? Sure, he’d been hanging around Duke’s for a while but this was another way of pushing people away and oh my god Dana was right. So he’d stood in his doorway and had a panic attack while Dennis surely thought he was losing his damn mind.
He’d become aware again some undetermined amount of time later laying on his couch with his head in Dennis’ lap and wanted to die or disassociate again at the very least. Dennis had looked down at him when he opened his mouth to apologize and just stuck his hand over Robby’s mouth to shut him up and so Robby had just laid back down and shut up.
That had just been the beginning. Robby had let Dennis put him to bed and the next day he’d let him watch shitty tv with him on the couch again and somehow he failed to talk to him about how any of it was inappropriate until he’d been there for a month and Dennis had kissed him. Then he’d enumerated the many reasons they could not make anymore stupid decisions but he’d let Dennis do whatever else he wanted in Robby’s house so Dennis didn’t take it that seriously and he had let Dennis kiss him then. And then again in the kitchen, and in the shower and since they’d already showered together he hadn’t really been able to come up with a reason why he shouldn’t let Dennis climb on top of him and fuck himself on Robby’s cock.
So now Robby was stood in the middle of the pitt and Dennis was acting weird and Santos was noticing and Abbott was nosy and Robby had absolutely no fucking time to think about it. Right, labs, he’d go check on the labs.
“Denny, please tell me something real right now. I don’t know how to react because you aren’t and I can’t do this alone.”
Dennis sucked in a breath and closed his eyes to brace himself and then he resolved to try and have a real conversation. “It’s Dr. Robby’s. We’ve been sneaking around and seeing each other for months. I think Dr. Abbot knows because Robby tells him everything and I think Dana saw Robby grab my ass last week because she’s been watching me but I don’t know if it’s because she thinks I’m a sexual harassment case or because she suspects us.”
“If Dana thought Robby was sexually harassing you she would run him down with her car, not watch you. He’s not harassing you right? This whole thing was consensual? Because if he pressured you into anything I’ll cut his brakes or tell Dana or buy a gun or buy Dana a gun.”
“I pursued him. He tried to put me off with all the very real reasons this could blow up in our faces but I didn’t care. I wanted him, I still want him. Funnily enough an unplanned pregnancy was not one of the reasons.” Trinity looks relieved and it hits him that she really had been prepared to fuck up their boss on his behalf. God he’s lucky to have her. He squeezes his eyes tight to stop the pricking he starts to feel at the corners because he feels pathetic enough, he really doesn’t want to ugly cry right now.
“So are we baby trapping him then?” And then she says some shit like that and he questions why he likes her. He opens his eyes to glare at her but she’s already grinning so he knows she was trying to make him laugh. That’s why he likes her. “For real though, what’s the vibe with you guys? Just fucking? Secret boyfriends? Angsty and pining because you’re in love but too idiotic to realize it?”
“Angsty, pining and knocked up on my end. Not sure where he’s at. We've not really talked about it explicitly but we moved past just fucking months ago. He cooks for me and folds my scrubs and lets me wear his favorite hoodie. Last week I woke up in his bed and he was just like, looking at me and running his fingers through my hair.”
Steve is just on a jog one day at the park when someone zooms past him. Steve instantly recognizes Eddie as there aren't many with long curly hair, skinny jeans, and chains in Hawkins. Steve is shocked that Eddie is running that quickly and also a bit annoyed that Eddie ran faster then him.
The spirit of competition overtakes Steve and he's picking up his pace to match Eddie's. Steve waves and says hi, but Eddie barely glances at him and keeps running- which, rude?
They run the rest of the path until they reach the parking lot. Steve slows down, taking a few steps in place so his muscles don't lock up. "Good pace man!" Steve goes to clap his hand on Eddie's shoulder but-
Eddie is wheezing, hangs on his knees, bent over. "Holy shit- you okay?" Steve gently touches Eddie's back as the man wheeze. "What's wrong?" Steve asks.
Whooo! We are just chugging away on the new fic train! This one is my favorite! When I first put the idea to paper (here) I knew I had to do it!
This is going to be so fun!
Summary: Washed up former child actor is given the opportunity of a life time to stage the comeback of the century by starring in "Dancing in the Dark' a Dustin Henderson penned horror movie directed by Robin Buckley. Or at least it would be if it wasn't for his co-star. Media darling and scream king, Eddie Munson, who takes one look at Steve's preppy charm and makes all the wrong assumption about him. Enemies to friends speed run, then friends to lovers slow burn.
~
Steve Harrington was washed up. Everyone in the industry knew it. From directors and producers all the way down to gaffers and boom mic operators. He had gotten his start in Hollywood as the youngest kid in a family oriented sit-com and was suddenly in everything.
Then he was caught drunk, high on god knows what and sucking a dick in the back of a producer’s limo at some kid’s award show when he was seventeen.
Then the truth came out. His parents had been the ones to first push him into taking every audition and every job then drugging him out of his mind the rest of the time. Steve had started drinking at fourteen to cope with the non-stop lifestyle.
His one solace in all this mess was his co-star on some teeny-bop rom-com who had played his quirky best friend, Robin Buckley. She had been come all that and more in real life.
It was her parents who had given him a soft place to land after rehab, who had gotten him into rehab in the first place.
It had been years of therapy, off-Broadway plays, and literal blood, sweat, and tears to get to the place where he felt comfortable in front of a camera again.
Which is good, because Dustin Henderson who wrote the book and the screen play for “Dancing in the Dark” Robin’s directorial debut had written the character Sean with him in mind. Sean Maitland was a closeted bi-sexual who was charming, popular, on three sports teams, and a known ladies man but was secretly dating head freak, metalhead, D&D playing, fantasy loving nerd, Evan Harcourt.
The problem?
The actor they had hired to play Evan.
Eddie Munson was a former teenaged scream king. Having stared in several horror films from his mid-teens on. He had managed to slide neatly into adult acting due to the sheer force of will by his uncle Wayne. His uncle had taken him to a talent agency looking to get him signed for his music when former scream queen turned director, Joyce Byers had seen him waiting in the waiting room. She had him signed to her movie by the end of the week, he had been that good.
The rest, as they say, was history.
He had gotten away from horror movies, and “Dancing in the Dark” was to be his comeback into the genre as a thirty year old veteran. But now he was sitting in the middle of the table read absolutely seething with barely contained rage.
Because sitting across from him playing his love interest and co-serial killer was Steve Harrington. Even worse when he found out he had gotten the job sight unseen because his best friend was the director and the writer had ‘written the part for him’.
If he hadn’t had an air tight contract, he would have quit right there on the spot. But he had to grin and bare it and it fucking galled.
Steve as Sean, “Come on, Evan, you know that I want to spend time with you, but I do have a basketball game that night or you know I’d be there.”
Eddie bit on his lip as Robin read the action parts and then with barely contained rage as Evan, “That’s bullshit and you know it. Look, I get you aren’t out yet, but you aren’t even starting this year thanks to your concussion, you could totally skip it and no one would bat an eye!”
“Ooh...” Robin said, clapping her hands excitedly. “I’m loving the energy, Eddie! Keep it up.”
Steve gave him a dopey grin when he glanced over there. That just made his insides boil even further. How dare he think that Eddie was being supportive?
The rest of the table read went forward without a hitch, but afterward everyone one was buzzing about how much chemistry Eddie and Steve had.
~
“Chemistry! Chemistry I tell you!” he ranted to his best friend, Jeff that night. “I couldn’t believe it. That was the opposite of what I was trying to go for!”
“Well oil and water is technically chemistry,” Jeff pointed out. “Just the very explosive kind.”
Eddie snorted. “Well, you’ve got that right. It should have gone to you or hell I’d even take Billy Hargrove over Steve Harrington. Like what even has he been in in the last ten years?”
Jeff pulled out his phone and began scrolling through Steve’s IMDb page. “Most theater work according to this. Some guest spots on police procedurals. He was in a very short lived TV series for Netflix, but it got canceled after one season.”
“Him and literally everyone else on the planet,” Eddie huffed, sitting up to look over Jeff’s shoulder. “What was the TV series about?”
Jeff clicked on the link and began to skim through the summary. “It’s a magical school shenanigans... Oh interesting. He actually plays one of the teachers instead of one of the students, which surprised me considering how young he looks in this.”
Eddie frowned. He did look super young. “When was this?”
Jeff went back up to the top of the page for the release date. “Last year, actually.”
Eddie and Jeff looked at each other for a moment.
“You’re not going to watch it, are you?” Jeff asked with a heavy sigh.
“Nope!” Eddie replied with a grin.
Jeff set down his phone and then ran his hands over his face. “I really think you should. It’s his most recent shit. You’ll get a better idea of what you’re dealing with other than his kid and teenage shit.”
“If he wants to show me what kind of actor he is,” Eddie growled, “then he better bring it on set next week.”
“Eddie...”
“No, Jeff. Come on. You know he only got the job because of who he knows and not because of how good he is.” Eddie got up and walked to his fridge. He pulled out two beers and padded back to the sofa.
“Or and here’s an actual fucking though instead of an assumption,” Jeff snapped, “he’s actually damn good, he just needs someone who’s willing to put him in something. Like Robert Downey Jr. after his arrest and rehab.”
Eddie glared at him.
“Just don’t been too hard on him before you get to know him okay?”
“No promises!” Eddie replied, sing-song.
“Eddie...”
~
“Well, that could have gone worse,” Robin huffed, topping up Steve’s wine glass as they curled up on her sofa.
Steve took a sip of his drink and then snorted. “It also could have gone better. If looks could kill you’d have resurrect me to finish the movie. Then I’d turn into a zombie, eat everyone’s brains and you’d have to shoot me in the head.”
Robin smacked his knee. “And people call me melodramatic!”
“I’m an actor,” Steve huffed rolling his eyes. “Melodrama is what I do!”
“Yeah, yeah,” she said and took sip of her wine. “I picked Eddie Munson because he had the perfect dark tone for Evan but what I didn’t expect was the latent hostility about your casting.”
“He probably thinks I’m some nepo baby wannabe washed up hack,” Steve grumbled sinking further into the sofa and his dark mood.
“You can’t be a nepo baby,” Robin said rolling her eyes. “You’re parents aren’t in the industry at all.” She pointed at herself. “I’m the nepo baby. Like both of my parents are such famous actors everyone clocks me as their kid in two seconds. Mom because of how much I look like her and Dad because of my last name.”
He kicked her thigh. “You know what I mean. My parents were rich and could put me in all the best acting schools, hire the best vocal coaches, and get into to all the auditions.”
“Yeah,” Robin agreed. “But you paid too high a price for it.”
She set his wine glass down along with hers and pulled him into a hug. “You deserve to be on that set as much as he does. You are a Tony award nominee! And the only reason you lost is because you went up against Lin Manuel-Miranda in his own fucking show!”
“I liked being Sir Percival Blakeney, baronet!” Steve said with a shy smile. “I got to be the first super hero! How amazing was that?”
“I still get chills listening to your version of ‘Into the Fire’,” Robin said. “And your chemistry with both Tammy Thompson and Billy Hargrove as Marguerite and Chauvelin respectively was off the charts.”
He snorted. “There was a reason they called me the show bike.”
She smacked his arm. “You were not! That’s a gross exaggeration.”
“Maybe,” Steve admitted with a shrug. “But you can’t deny that there were rumors I was sleeping with everyone on the cast. Like the only person I wasn’t paired with was the girl who played the girl in the prison scene.”
Robin winced. Yeah okay. He had a point there. Some of them were even people in committed relationships, but the press didn’t care. As long as Steve was part of the show, he was sleeping around.
“Well,” she said after a moment. “We can only hope he does his research and realizes how amazing you are in the week before we start filming.”
“Maybe.”
~
Robin wanted to bury her head in her hands. Either Eddie hadn’t done his research or it just made him more antagonistic, either way, she was going to murder her lead actor.
“Look Princess,” Eddie sneered. “Maybe if you hadn’t gotten in my light, I wouldn’t have had to call for second take, now would I have?”
“It’s not your light asshole,” Steve snapped back. “The stage directions literally say that I cross your bedroom in front of you.”
“And that right there is the problem!” Eddie said snapping his fingers. “You still think you’re on Broadway, but this is film. We do close ups here!”
“Are you saying I look too old to be playing a high school student?” Steve growled. “That’s really rich! You’re older than I am and they have you on an all chicken diet to keep slim enough to look like a student!”
“If the shoe fits,” Eddie snipped back, “then you best run home Cinderella!”
“That’s not how the fairy tale works, asshole!” Steve yelled. He rubbed his eyes with heels of his palms. “That’s it, if I’m needed for, you know, actually doing my job, I’ll be in my trailer!”
He turned on his heel and marched off in the direction of the trailers.
Robin turned around and slowly let out a sigh. “Eddie, maybe you should take a break too and then come back with a cooler head, yeah?”
“Whatever,” Eddie huffed and stormed off too.
Robin called out to the crew. “Take a break! Fifteen minutes!”
The crowd dispersed and Dustin came trotting up to her. “This has been one hell of a first day. Is it always like this?”
She rubbed her temples. “No. This is like Joan Crawford/Bette Davis levels of drama, man.”
Dustin’s jaw dropped. “Well, shit. This isn’t going to turn into ‘Whatever Ever Happened to Baby Jane?’ is it?”
Robin looked in the direction they had gone. “God I hope not.”
Dustin snapped his fingers. “I know! Film it in order! That way all the tension between them will be up front and with any luck, Eddie will see how good of an actor Steve is and by the end it’ll be a different kind of heat.”
Robin blinked at him for a moment and then turned to her cinematographer, Jonathan Byers. “Hey, Jon! What would you say to filming it order?”
Jonathan walked over to them. “Is this about that very...expressive display just now?”
She nodded. “Dustin suggested it in hopes that there would less fighting by the end.”
He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “I mean it would be easier to film all the bedroom scenes together. But I even I think trying to film the scene where Sean comes to Evan after accidentally killing Jasper right now is not going to work.”
“So we go back to the beginning,” Dustin said. “We start at the school. We’ve got three months of filming in while it’s out for the summer, anyway, so that shouldn’t be a problem.”
Robin licked her lips and frowned. “Okay, I’ll talk to the owners of the house we’re using for Sean’s house and see if they’ll let us use it for longer.”
“They might ask for more money,” Jonathan pointed out cocking his head to the side with a grimace.
She winced. That would be a problem. They were are already stretching the limits of her meager $40 million budget on this thing. Nepotism could get her in the door but it didn’t open coffers for an untested director.
“Well,” she huffed out. “We’ll just have see if we can’t make other arrangements with them and keep our fingers and toes crossed and hope this doesn’t blow up in my face.”
Will, who notices that Steve and Eddie are closer than normal friends and who knows they are both cool about Robin, decides to take a chance and come out to them and ask for advice about Mike.
“…so I just thought maybe you guys could understand and maybe you know how to get over a crush on a straight friend?” Will finishes.
“Sorry man, Eddie was like my straight death…”
“Gay awakening.” Eddie clarifies.
Steve continues, “..yea that. I didn’t really like any guys until Eddie and then I told Robin and she told me to shoot my shot with him even if I thought he was straight and he wifed me up that same night.”
“Stop telling people that! I do know what you’re going through baby Byers but unfortunately there is no magic solution. In my experience it will fade naturally or you’ll develop feelings for someone new and move on that way. Unless you’re prepared to have a potentially awkward conversation with him, and that’s always an option and we will support you in whatever way we can.” Eddie adds, a bit more helpfully.
Will looks like he’s considering it for a moment before he shakes his head. “I just really don’t think he’s ever questioned his sexuality. He decided he was in love with El and then never considered anything else.”
“Wait, your secret crush is Mike? Mike Wheeler, the most annoying friend you have?” Steve sounds like he’s in physical pain to consider it.
“I take it back, we can’t support that. He’s objectively terrible.”
“What about Dustin? He’s got such great curls now and he’s so smart. He’s a much better option than Mike.” Steve suggests.
“Oh my god yes! Dustin is the best of your party options. I would absolutely support that.” Eddie agrees.
“Dustin isn’t gay either! Why would you suggest Dustin?” Will asks.
“Neither is Mike!” Eddie points out.
“Yea the criteria now is not about choosing a realistic option, it’s just about not being Mike Wheeler.”
Will wants to be surprised but Robin did warn him they would roast him if they found out who he had a crush on.
Dustin would have comforted her but Max would have “yes, and” already and they’d be in the desert hiding Angela’s body before they even met that fbi agent
