Steve Harrington's Guide to Fake Dating, my contribution for the 2025 @steddieexchange, a gift for @seacowabunga
Steddie | Teen | Fake Dating, Season 5 rewrite (I speedrun a lot of things) | 5K
Steve has a plan. It involves a boyfriend, Eddie Munson, and getting his friends off his back for a bit. Maybe, eventually, a happy ending.
Eventually happens a lot more quickly than he expected.
"Besides, I'm dating someone else." Jonathan made a noise like he knew Steve was lying. "Oh yeah? Who? Robin?" And the thing was, Robin would have play acted his fake girlfriend if the circumstances were right, but he wouldn't do that to her or Vickie, and even if he did, there was no way Jonathan would actually buy it. Robin and Vickie weren't officially out to anyone but Steve, but it was a pretty open secret, at least among the older teens at that point. He was pretty sure Eddie knew, at least, and Nancy. And, Steve hated to admit it, but Jonathan was pretty perceptive. But that did leave a complication on who exactly could be the fake girlfriend. Or. He supposed it didn't have to be a girlfriend, did it? He could be reasonably certain no one would be outright disgusted at the alternative, and it wasn't like Steve was opposed to the idea of a boyfriend. He'd made out with Argyle last summer, and he'd finally admitted to Robin that maybe there had been something weird between him and Tommy and Carol before their friendship breakup. (Actually, it was probably weird to think of a friendship falling out as a breakup in the first place, but that was another problem for another time.) But Steve couldn't name Argyle, even if they had made out before, because Argyle was hardly ever in town, usually off on supply runs with Wayne or Murray, and anyway Jon was as weird about Argyle as he was about Nancy, so a fake relationship would be, well, hard to fake. So that left him with only one choice. "No, asshole. Not Robin," Steve said. His heart was beating painfully hard in his chest, and he realized with sudden clarity that he wished he wasn't lying about this. Fuck. He was an idiot. This was going to blow up in his face. He hadn't thought any of this through. He was the worst at plans. "Eddie. I'm dating Eddie."
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