Chapter Text
Hawkins Indiana, January 1985
The moment the basketball players walked into the gym, all hell broke loose.
Curses were spat. Teenagers whispered in scandalized tones as their nikes squeaked over the polished wood floor. Prayers were chanted. Somewhere across town, a baby probably cried.
Eddie Munson grinned.
Showtime, he snickered, and hiked up his green and gold tube socks.
Laughter trilled beside him, melodic like bells.
“Oh, we’re so bad, Eddie.” Chrissy Cunningham giggled. She bumped their hips together, her skirt swishing next to Eddie’s head as he laced up his boots. He swatted the green pleats like a cat. “They’re totally freaking out. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Coach Riley’s face that purple, do you think he’s okay?”
Hopefully not, Eddie thought, feeling uncharitable. But when had that jackass ever been charitable to Eddie? At least Eddie had the justification of being a stupid teenager. He had a scientific reason to be immature. Riley was a grown ass adult with a wife and a mortgage. Shouldn't he have better things to do with his time than torment teenage misfits?
Eddie stretched from side to side, glancing at the balding coach as the man tried and failed to reign in the panic of his varsity basketball team. He really was impressively purple. Eddie smirked. “For a fifty old high school wash-out coaching basketball at his alma mater so he can relive the glory days? Spiritually, I think he’s thriving.”
Next he stretched his hamstrings, copying Chrissy as she lifted a leg onto the lowest bench of the bleachers and bent over to touch her toes. Eddie couldn’t quite reach that far, but he did his best. No use doing any half-assed, right?
Yeah yeah, pretty fucked up sentiment from the guy on his second round of senior year, right? Whatever, Eddie never claimed his priorities made sense.
But Chrissy still looked worried, those big ole emerald eyes of hers glossy with concern as she chewed her pink lips. Eddie knocked their shoes together. “Look, he’s fine. I think he’s just one of those people who turns red really easily.” On a more serious note, he continued. “But do you know how many times Coach Riley has caught one of his boys sticking some poor schmuck’s head in a toilet and looked the other way?” He waved some jazz hands and grinned with all his teeth. “Hint hint: you’re looking at one of the schmucks.”
“Oh, Eddie.” She turned those huge eyes on him now, the power of their unbroken focus making him feel a bit like a bug under a microscope. She looked seconds away from crying, like Eddie had just told her the saddest thing she’d ever heard in her life.
As unsettling as that felt, it was also not surprising. Chrissy would probably tear up if someone swatted a fruit fly out of the air. “I’m sorry, you’re right. He’s not very nice, is he? He always looks at me kinda funny whenever I pass him in the halls.” She squirmed and plucked the hem of her cheer top further down her stomach compulsively. “At least what we’re doing is harmless, right? We’re just having fun.”
“Absolutely,” Eddie agreed, tucking the flash of protective rage he felt away for another moment. He looked forward to plotting a much more… appropriate revenge for Riley after hearing that. A solo quest, of course. No need to get Chrissy and her cotton candy rainbow sparkle heart involved.
But back to the matter at hand. “Now, what say we give them a real show?” He spun to face the rest of the Hawkins High cheerleading squad, all of them giggling behind their hands as the boys continued to lament the death of traditional American values across the gym. A mischievous smile teased at the corner of his lips, and Eddie let it unfurl slowly. “Ladies!” he called, putting his fists on his hips in a power pose. “Who’s ready to get their cheer on?!”
The girls screamed riotously.
Eddie leaped in the air and whooped, his emerald green cheer skirt flying up around his hips as he tucked his legs up and threw his arms above his head.
Welcome to the Hawkins Cheerleading Squad, Eddie Munson.
The squad clapped, cheering like he was Ozzy fucking Osbourne. Eddie preened and accepted friendly nudges from some junior girls on the team, wondering if he should reconsider his stance on hanging out with popular kids after today.
Eddie’s personal high school philosophy had always been very firm on the subject of Populars, but maybe it was due for some revision? The Cheerleader Clause, maybe.
While Chrissy called the girls into formation for their first drill, Eddie took the time to scan the gym and take in the chaos he’d created. Hargrove’s band of merry psychos was heading up the charge against Coach Riley, leveraging threats to call the sheriff department while the ringleader himself glowered at Eddie like he wanted to strangle him with his own entrails (and yeah, Eddie would be steering clear of him in the near future, holy shit). The cheerleading coach, a hyper lady who insisted the squad call her ‘Margie’, had already declared herself a staunch supporter of so-called "cheerleader rights", and was firmly shutting down all attempts to escalate the situation.
Eddie striked up the tally in his mind:
Eddie Munson, Cheerleader: 1
Bigots: 0
A few of the other members of the team had recovered from the shock of Eddie in a skirt and seemed eager to get on with practice, starting in on their own warmups and folding themselves into far less graceful stretches than Eddie’s cheerleading companions had performed. Eddie objectively preferred the male form, but what could he say? Jocks didn’t really do it for him.
He reminded himself of this fact very firmly as he continued to scan the crowd of faces, definitely not looking for anyone in particular. And if his breath caught as he spotted one particular senior standing oddly still among the rest? That was his business.
Light brown eyes the color of melted caramel studied Eddie up and down. Tracing the v neck of his borrowed cheer top and the exposed tattoos dotting his arms like graffiti, roving over his torso where the knit stretched taut, HHS scrawled like a brand over the widest part of his chest, down down down to the flare of the mini skirt over his hips. When the eyes reached the hem of his skirt, so high on Eddie’s thighs that he could curl his fingers under the gold trim with his hands lax at his sides, they froze.
Color blossomed over the sun-kissed apples of Steve Harrington’s cheeks.
Then he snatched a basketball up from the ground and shot it directly at the nearest hoop. It missed, and he ran to chase it down.
Eddie collapsed with relief as the weird spell was broken. For reasons he was not prepared to acknowledge or own to in any way, he’d been ready to run like a wild deer from the gym at the first sign of disgust in Harrington’s face.
But there hadn’t been, so everything was cool. Super cool! Nothing uncool to see here.
Eddie didn’t give a shit what the populars thought about him. That was the whole point of this dumb prank to begin with. Everyone had already decided Eddie Munson was the freakiest kid at school, so why not lean into it and have some laughs of his own along the way?
Hence, a trade had been struck: Chrissy Cunningham’s cooperation and spare cheer uniform in exchange for a 15% discount on all her future “business” dealings with him.
(To reiterate: cheerleaders? Cool. Crushing on jocks? Uncool.)
But no part of this plan involved ogling Steve Harrington in his threadbare gray tee. He needed to knock some sense into himself, and quick. If the wrong person (read: any person) clocked him panting after Harrington like a dog slobbering over a bone, he’d be hunted down and roasted for dinner quicker than you could say sodomy.
Like some kind of mind reader or possible harbinger of doom, Chrissy was watching Eddie when he finally shook himself back to this plane of existence. Shit. It wasn’t that Eddie thought Chrissy would be a dick about it. In fact, Eddie had the weird feeling that of all the people in Hawkins she might be among the least dickish over a little homosexuality, even if she was Queen of the Preps. But Eddie still wasn’t ready to out himself right now in front of god and the combined judgment of the varsity cheer and basketball teams.
Eddie was here to dance and traumatize some fragile male psyches. Duh.
He searched for a way to divert her attention. “Looks like I’m already behind,” he winced as the rest of the squad ran their drill. “I don’t suppose you have a remedial cheerleading squad?”
Chrissy raised her spangly, dark-lashed eyes to the heavens. “Oh, Eddie. We have a strict policy on my squad.” She set her arms on her hips, trying to look stern and failing. “No cheerleader left behind.”
Eddie laughed. He did his best to follow her instruction for the next few drills, as he didn’t actually want to disrupt their practice. Eddie Munson was a lot of things, but above all he was a purveyor of the arts. A couple of days ago he might have said that cheerleading was as mindless as throwing a ball into a laundry basket, but after walking a mile in their pom-poms, he was having a change of heart.
Cheerleading was really hard.
Like, the stamina of these girls. The sheer pep in their step. That part of it was instinctual to Eddie, reminiscent of his more theatrical rants in the lunchroom and his Dungeon Mastering in Hellfire Club. But the physicality was different. Eddie’s version was less structured, more flailing and unhinged. But cheerleading was rigid and precise. If the entire squad wasn’t performing in sync, the routine was ruined.
And Eddie was decidedly out of sync. The girls beside him seemed to get a kick out of his attempts at a square-dance-style move, so he hammed up his poor balance for them and pretended to almost trip.
Zing! Heat shot down Eddie’s spine, the familiar sensation of eyes watching him from across the room.
Apparently, his antics had caught the attention of more than just the squad. Harrington, now sweaty from scampering around the gym, was huddled shoulder to shoulder with his teammates and blatantly ignoring Coach Riley in favor of looking at Eddie.
Oh, Eddie’s ego swelled. Just his ego, mind you, because Eddie had a very well developed sense of self-preservation and if anything else started swelling in his current get-up he would be publicly stoned on the spot. Not stoned high, stoned biblically.
With Harrington’s eyes on him, Eddie’s confidence shot through the fucking roof. He stopped clowning around and put twice the amount of effort into the next drill, clapping and stomping in place before he shifted his balance onto his back foot and kicked the other as high as he could into the air.
He landed the combo, hands raised in a V above his head like a goddamn superhero. Chrissy had this cute look on her face, a combination of shock and pride, and Eddie shot her a wink.
“Watch out Chrissy, I’m gunning for your spot at the top of the pyramid!”
She covered her smile with a pale hand, a momentary fracture in her perfect cheer composure that just added to Eddie’s sense of accomplishment.
Did he like cheerleading? What the hell was happening right now?
He was sweating like a pig regardless, so he held the pose for a minute and tried to catch his breath.
The zing of eyes raking over him burned hotter.
Oh. How could he have forgotten his admirer?
Eddie wasn’t even embarrassed by how quickly he picked him out of the crowd at this point, because there Harrington was, all lean legs and tan skin and Disney Princess fucking eyes blinking at him as he crouched on the floor and fiddled with the laces of his sneakers.
God, those shorts were tiny. What had the American public school system come to, dressing nubile young men in mini shorts so they could run amok and throw sweaty balls at each other for entertainment? And people called Eddie gay.
Harrington didn’t even have to fling his shirt off like some of his lesser evolved teammates to be the most tantalizing thing in the room. The suggestion of his shoulders in the gray tee was enough, coupled with the dark stain of sweat sweeping down from his collarbones in deep vee. He looked like a walking GQ cover spread.
Harrington unfurled from the ground with all the grace that his teammates lacked and lifted the hem of his shirt to dab his face, revealing a mouthwatering display of packed muscle and sweaty skin trailing into his shorts.
Jesus H. Christ.
Eddie wanted to lick the sweat off his skin, wanted to follow the rivulets with his tongue and sink onto his knees and –
Bad Eddie, very bad Eddie! Skirts weren’t built for boners, you horny motherfucker.
But the churning heat in his gut wasn’t even the worst of Eddie’s problems. The worst was that when he finally gathered the willpower to drag his eyes away, Harrington was already looking right at him. Smiling. Almost taunting, like he had Eddie in the palm of his hand and knew it.
Yes, please, Eddie wished.
No, stop, fuck! Bad Eddie. He shipped his brain off to horny jail: do not collect $200, do not pass go.
What kind of game did Harrington think he was playing, anyway? Was he trying to throw Eddie off or something? Eddie came here to freak out the jocks, not the other way around. Was this something straight guys did, like a fucked up game of gay chicken?
Well then, fucking game on.
Still holding his landing pose, he curved his arms from a V until his fingers met in the crown of his hair, palms cupped to form the two rounded points of a heart. Then he cocked his hips and wiggled them from side to side, puckering his lips in a kiss.
“Oh, Tigers, you’re so fine!”
Harrington’s Hollywood heartthrob face went slack with shock.
It was a classic Hawkins cheer that Eddie knew from all the mandatory pep rallies over the years, set to the tune of “Hey Mickey” by Toni Basil. Granted it was normally used as a war cry to encourage the Hawkins team to victory and less often as a way to heckle cute boys in the gym, but it was all in the name of school spirit, right?
It might have blown up in Eddie’s face, a critical hit as the entire gym went horror movie silent, if Chrissy - angel among men, goddess divine, the platonic love of Eddie’s life - didn’t swoop in with the save, clapping, “Five, six, seven, eight!”
Right on cue, the whole squad mimicked Eddie's heart-pose and finished the cheer, "You’re so fine you blow my mind, hey Tigers!”
Okay, it was official. Cheerleaders ruled.
The basketball team exploded into wolf whistles and catcalls. The squad tossed kisses and provocative hip wiggles their way, Eddie’s stunt quickly forgotten in the midst of this more enticing distraction.
All except for Harrington, whose gaze hadn’t strayed from Eddie for even a moment. He was still smiling, but the cocky edge had softened into something Eddie might call sweet on anyone else.
Eddie felt like he was losing his mind. This feeling only intensified when moments later, Harrington cupped his hands around his mouth and called back, “No, you’re so fine!”
The squad took this as a general endorsement and burst into flustered giggling, but Eddie was dumbstruck. He felt heat scorch over his cheeks, like he was staring into the sun. He’d always heard that Harrington had the kind of charm that supposedly made girls go weak at the knees, but now he could confirm it. One hundred percent. Eddie’s bones felt like fucking jell-o.
It was outrageous. To think that a cute boy was finally giving Eddie the kind of attention he’d always dreamed of receiving, and now that he had it he had no fucking clue what to do about it.
All he knew was that Harrington couldn’t have the last word, no matter how much Eddie wanted to scream into his pillow and scribble in his imaginary diary that Harrington smiled at me today! So Eddie did what he did best: he put on a show.
He clapped a hand over his heart, splayed the other across his forehead like a delicate Hollywood starlet, and swooned against the girl next to him. She was quick enough to catch him as he let his entire body go lax and limp.
Harrington laughed. Not the perfect, boisterous laughter often heard echoing around the halls as he strutted around with his crowd of admirers. This was soft, almost awkward as it got caught in his throat, totally pure.
Eddie smiled so hard his cheeks hurt.
“Harrington!” Coach Riley shouted. “I’m sorry, are we ruining your dating life with our practice here? You can flirt with the ladies on your own time, get your ass back in gear!”
Eddie looked around, but no one else seemed to realize that Harrington had been laughing at Eddie. That was good. Less good was the fact that Harrington’s behavior had been clearly classified as flirting, because this was all just a joke, right? There was no way Harrington was actually flirting with him.
Harrington didn’t even look embarrassed to be caught out, just shrugged at Eddie like Gee this guy is a nag, right? and turned his attention back to the court. He was ever impervious to people’s judgment of him, which flew in the face of everything Eddie expected from jocks like him.
Then again, Harrington wasn’t like most jocks, was he? Not for a while. People liked to say that Harrington had lost his groove since getting knocked down as the reigning king of Hawkins High, but Eddie kind of thought the exact opposite.
A little over a year ago, Harrington had come back to school one week like this totally different guy. Banged up from what must have been a truly gnarly smack down with Jonathan Byers, if the rumor mill was to be believed, and brimming with a new lease on life. His grades picked up, he kicked his cronies to the curb, he walked the halls with Nancy Wheeler on his arm and a sunny smile on his face. Gone were the days of keggers at Harrington’s big empty mansion and vacant stares across the lunch room. Harrington in his junior year was all golden smiles and Sorry man, didn’t see you there ’s. He studied in the library, for fuck’s sake.
Then against all odds, things had only gotten even weirder last fall semester. Eddie wouldn’t forget the sight of Harrington and Billy Hargrove with matching black eyes, whatever contentious energy that had been brewing between them suddenly quieted. Hawkins didn’t have a true King after that day; there was no battle for the throne, no victor collecting the spoils of war. Just two guys who avoided the other at all costs, like some kind of Great High School Schism. To top it off, Wheeler strolled into school on Byers’ arm instead of Harrington’s, and Eddie was forced to re-think like, thirty separate clauses of his personal Munson Doctrine.
If the hottest boy in school didn’t end up with the prettiest girl, was there any order in the universe?
People had moved on to the next big scandal since then, but not Eddie.
Steve Harrington was a puzzle, and Eddie was determined to solve him.
See, the King Steve of the past had been sort of a benign evil, all the more because he hadn’t really been evil at all. More like a true neutral, accepting praise and adulation from whoever chose to throw it at his feet, but not going out of his way to make life bad for anyone who didn’t. By that same token, he didn’t make life good for them either. Too busy doing other Kingly things, surely, like charming ladies out of their clothes with a single smoldering look.
Steve Harrington today was just. Confusing. More chaotic, with the way he bumbled around the school oblivious to the tidal wives and tsunamis he left in the wake of all his personal drama. Still neutral, because it wasn’t like Harrington quit the basketball team to join Hellfire Club or something, but also good because of the way he sometimes smiled at nerds in the halls and helped underclassmen pick up their books when Hargrove's goons picked on them. He could still charm ladies out of their clothes, only now it was because he was actually kind of a good dude.
The kind of dude Eddie might dress up in a cheerleading uniform for, just to try and gain ten seconds of his attention.
Shit. Fuck.
Eddie should never be this honest with himself.
The rest of the hour passed in a haze. Eddie felt wrung out and shaky by the end of practice, wishing he’d had the sense to bring a water bottle. He’d moved more in the past fifty minutes than he had in the last two years of his life, holy hell.
Still, it wasn’t all bad. He'd never admit it, but he was kind of having fun. When he wasn't fighting back shivers from the stares across the room, that is. Stares he had to be misinterpreting for the sake of his own depraved delusions, because Harrington wasn’t the kind of guy who ogled boys like he wanted to devour them whole. For all that he had changed over the past year, he wasn’t that.
Practice ended with the dual whistle blows of Margie and Coach Riley. Both teams were dismissed with instructions to practice and memorize drills before the next meet, which sounded a lot like homework to Eddie, and filed out of the gym to wash up.
Eddie flopped onto the bleachers and groaned like a dying whale. “I know we did this as a joke, but I think that was the best practice we’ve had in a long time.” Chrissy sat down beside him. “You bring a lot of spirit to the squad.”
Eddie pushed his sweaty bangs off his forehead. It was cute that Chrissy lumped herself in with Eddie’s madcap plot, like it had been equally her idea. It felt a little like having a partner in crime. “You might be the first person to accuse me of having school spirit."
“Oh, stop.” Chrissy tittered and elbowed his ribs. “Just admit it, you had fun!”
“Over my dead body,” Eddie swore. Then he froze up, gave a full body twitch, and collapsed off the edge of the bench.
Chrissy scrambled forward. “Eddie?!”
Eddie laid there like a shrimp, trembling with aftershocks, then squinted one eye open. He grinned. “Well shit. I guess you got me, Chrissy. Cheerleaders do have more fun.”
She swung her legs over to the other side of the bench and swatted his shoulder, looking horribly cross. “Eddie! You scared me!”
Eddie puckered his lips and made his eyes as big as he could. “Sorry Chrissy, all that school spirit just–” he shivered. “Fried my brain for a second.”
Chrissy frowned, clearly wanting to stay mad, but as soon as Eddie started snickering she was quick to join in. “You’re nothing like I expected, you know.” She smiled, sweet and genuine. “I’m glad we’re friends.”
“Me too,” Eddie smiled back.
“Now budge over,” Chrissy shouldered Eddie as she slid down beside him and stayed pressed up against his side. She offered him her water bottle.
Eddie accepted the bottle with the reverence of a man wandering the desert for forty years. "Chrissy, have I told you that I love you?"
"No," Chrissy laughed. "But now is a good time to start."
---
They sat together, trading stories and laughter, until the gym windows rattled with the scream of Hargrove's car peeling out of the lot.
He stood up and offered Chrissy his hand. “My lady, shall we adjourn?”
Chrissy accepted. “We shall, good sir.”
They parted ways at the edge of the gym, Eddie offering a chaste kiss to her knuckles. “Thanks for the laughs, Chrissy.”
She batted him away gently. “You’re too much,” she laughed, something Eddie had heard a lot about himself, but for once it didn’t sound like such a bad thing. “Come back any time, Eddie, I mean it.”
He left without answering, honestly afraid that his mouth might agree faster than his brain could shut it down.
Crashing cheerleading practice once was a joke. Twice would be annoying. Any more than that would cross the line into something earnest, which was just plain dumb.
The locker room was mostly empty by the time Eddie made his way inside. Waiting for Hargrove to leave was like cutting the head off the snake. The rest of the meathead jocks might dislike Eddie, but most lacked the creativity and initiative to do anything about it.
In fact, the only soul in sight seemed to be a freshly showered Steve Harrington, dripping water down his neck and dressed in a polo so colorful it looked like something the Easter Bunny threw up on. There were multicolored stripes and diamonds. He looked unfairly hot anyway.
Harrington nodded in that cool-guy way dudes did sometimes. “Hey, Munson.”
Eddie attempted his own nod back. “Harrington.”
His borrowed locker was across the aisle from Steve’s, reserved for students in gym class usually. Eddie had scribbled the combination onto his hand earlier but it was slightly smudged now from all the sweating. He struggled with the lock a few times when somewhere else in the room, a locker slammed.
Tommy Hagan strolled around the corner, towel slung over his neck and a cruel grin on his face.
“Well well well, if it isn’t the Freak.”
It could honestly be worse. Tommy was an asshole, but he was strictly a lapdog for anyone higher up the food chain than him. Without Hargrove to bark orders, Eddie doubted he would attack.
“Hey freakshow, I’m talkin’ to you.” Tommy got right up into Eddie’s space. “Don’t you think you should be using the women’s locker room looking like that? I mean, that was your game plan, right? Dress like a chick so you can perv on them in the ladies room?”
It didn’t bear pointing out that if this had been Eddie’s plan, he obviously would not be in the boy’s locker room at that very moment. Logic didn’t get through to those too underevolved to understand it, so why even try?
Eddie spun the combination on his locker and shook his head in mock-defeat. “Oh drats, you’ve foiled my evil plan, whatever shall I do.” He shot him a flat, sardonic glare, to really lay it on thick. “I’m shaking in my tube socks.”
“You’re sick, man,” was Tommy’s brilliant rejoinder. “If you even are a man. Who knows what you’re packing.”
Eddie tried to bite back his laughter, but it was just too much. These fuckers made it so easy. “Why Thomas, I’m flattered by your interest in my genitalia, but I just don’t think it would work. Me, a wide-eyed rebel from the wrong side of the tracks; you, a red blooded American boy with mommy issues still banging the first and only girl who would have you? It would never work.”
Silence fell, the kind where you could hear a single drop of water fall, and then came the sound of laughter from behind them.
“You think this is funny, Harrington?” Tommy wheeled around, freckles stark against his red face. He lumbered over to Harrington’s side of the aisle, puffed up like an angry and unattractive bird.
Harrington shot a lazy look over his shoulder. “A little, yeah.” He turned away to finish grabbing his bag from his locker. “You gotta admit he pinned you pretty good.”
Tommy crashed his fist into the locker next to Harrington’s head. Harrington didn’t even flinch. He closed his locker, calm, then faced Tommy with one shoulder leaned casually against the wall, lids lowered in a haughty and unimpressed stare.
Totally unflappable.
Eddie chubbed up a little in his skirt. Just a smidge.
“I wouldn’t be talking, Steve-o,” Tommy spat, jamming his pointer finger into Harrington’s chest. Harrington grimaced, but stayed planted like a mountain. “We all know you haven’t gotten any since Wheeler started putting out for the weirdo instead.”
Danger flickered in Harrington’s eyes. “Don’t talk about them like that.”
“No? Owie, did I hit a nerve?” Tommy pretended to soothe over the spot where his fingers had just been. “Don’t worry, maybe Munson’ll put out for ya. Maybe I’ll leave you alone in here with him, see what he does to you. Pervs like him like it when they fight back.”
Eddie clicked his tongue behind his teeth, irked, but didn’t get a chance to speak up.
Because suddenly, that flicker of danger ignited into a bonfire. Harrington pulled himself up to his full height, stretching tall and terrifying like a shadow in the afternoon sun, and towered over Tommy. “I’d worry more about yourself, Tommy. It’s a shame that broken nose of yours is gonna stop you from playing in Friday’s game.”
Tommy shifted backward a half-step. “What the hell are you talking about? My nose is fine.”
Harrington followed him. It was like he had become a different person in the blink of an eye. He nodded, scanning Tommy’s face for injury. “Would you look at that?” He smiled, cold and mean. “That’s lucky.” One more step forward, and the smile dropped. “Let’s hope your luck sticks, right? Plus I mean, it’d be a shame if Coach found out you bombed your trig test today. That would put you back on probation, right? Three strikes and you’re out.” He knocked his thumb in a slicing motion over his throat.
Oh, this was definitely the weirdest boner of Eddie's life. It wasn't even the threats that gave him chills - it was the look on Harrington’s face.
Sharp. Tempered, like steel.
Dangerous.
Harrington’s words weren’t threats at all.
They were a promise.
Some part of Tommy’s puny walnut brain must have recognized a predator when he saw one, because even as his temples throbbed with rage, he withdrew toward the door. “You’re insane, Harrington. You know that? You’re fucked in the head. You and your pet Freak.” He reached the door. “Whatever. You two deserve each other.”
Eddie tensed up, waiting for Steve to lash out. It was one thing to defend Eddie from allegations of being pervert and another thing entirely when his own reputation was called into question.
But Harrington didn’t break out into a violent rage or start beating his chest to prove his masculinity, or whatever it was straight guys did. “Yeah, run away, Tommy,” he called after him. “And have Carol make you some flashcards for math, they really work!”
The door swung shut behind Tommy and the locker room plunged into silence. The kind of silence where you could hear a –
“Uh,” Eddie burst like a balloon under pressure, “What the hell was that?”
Harrington looked over, blinking like he forgot he was there. Eddie raised his eyebrows. “Well, Tommy is kind of a dick. I mean, I was just guessing about the trig test but it looks like I was right.” He shrugged, like that explained everything. Like that explained anything . “I thought it was cool what you did, but Hargrove was riling them all up over it during practice. Real piece of work.”
Eddie Munson, riling up the boy’s basketball team. Be still, his beating heart.
Then his brain registered the rest of that sentence, and there was nothing sarcastic about the way his heart leaped in his chest in response. “You – I’m sorry, you - King Steve,” Eddie paused, because it seemed important to remind the guy just who he was in case he had forgotten. Who knew what all that hairspray did to brain activity? He might suffer memory lapses. “Think it’s cool that I stole a cheerleading uniform and crashed their practice.”
Harrington rolled his eyes. “It’s just Steve,” he said, striking this bizarrely stern pose with his hands on his hips like he was moments away from scolding Eddie for tracking dirt into the room. “And yeah, I do. I don’t think you can really say you crashed though, I heard Coach Margie defending your, uh ‘right to cheer’?” He relaxed against the lockers now, the force of his undivided attention suddenly intense. Eddie pulled a piece of hair over his face. “I never really thought about it until you walked out dressed like that, but it’s kinda weird that there are no guys on the cheerleading team. It’s just dancing, right? Anyone can dance.”
“It’s, uh.” Eddie cleared his throat. “It was actually pretty hard.”
“Oh yeah, I bet. I just meant that guys can dance too, y’know? But not me. I could never do half the things they do.” He sounded impressed. “But I was watching you out there, Munson. You looked pretty good.”
Holy shit.
Harrington just - just said that.
“Where did you get the uniform, anyway?”
“Chrissy Cunningham,” Eddie answered on autopilot, tongue thick in his mouth and brain spinning a mile a minute. He felt high, like he was halfway through smoking a joint just from Harrington’s sheer dumb honesty.
Obviously Eddie had seen Harrington watching him. No shit he’d seen.
But Steve wasn’t supposed to admit it.
Just when Eddie thought he had unraveled the last piece of the Steve Harrington puzzle, he flipped the fucking board over and set all the pieces on fire. Threatening homophobes, rejecting traditional gender roles, openly admiring Eddie in a skirt.
Steve Harrington was a mystery. The kind that drew you farther and farther in, until you were trapped and drowning and the doors closed shut behind you.
“Really? Didn’t know you were friends.” Harrington chuckled. “You know what, I can see it, actually. She’s a real sweetheart too.”
Too.
Too.
“Too?”
And then Steve - Steve ‘the Hair’ Harrington - smirked. Not the vicious shark-like glean he’d nearly taken Tommy’s head off with, or the casual one he often bore when he cracked a joke; no, this was a specific smirk.
The smirk whispered and giggled about around every corner of Hawkins for making girls go weak at the knees and damp in their panties.
The smirk that said You look good, but you’d look better underneath me.
His flirting smirk.
Steve Harrington was flirting with Eddie in the boy’s locker room.
Eddie, like, transcended out of his body. He felt like he was floating above the earth and watching it spin like some kind of freaky dissociative Force Ghost.
Because. Because. If Harrington was hitting on him now, that meant that everything during practice -
the stares, the grins, the showing off -
That had been real.
Intentional.
Eddie had just assumed…well, he hadn’t assumed anything actually. He’d been waiting to unpack the day’s events until after he got home, trailer to himself while Wayne worked, to review the mental footage. Then he could ponder the meaning of it all with a hand around his dick, jerking himself off to Steve's smile and sweaty biceps until he passed out from exhaustion.
“Don’t act so shocked, Munson.” Shit, shit, did Eddie say any of that out loud? “I know you don’t actually sacrifice goats on the weekend.”
That was weird enough to pull Eddie back into his body. “Wha– Goats, really? Has anyone even seen a goat in Hawkins?” Eddie was disappointed in the quality of the rumor mill. “Who started that one?”
Harrington squinted in thought. “One of the Bible thumpers. Carver, maybe? He’s kind of a creep, if you ask me. He reminds me of, you know those Ken dolls?” He waited for Eddie’s nod. “Yeah, not sure what Chrissy sees in him.”
The Ken-doll description actually struck Eddie as familiar. Cold blue eyes and bleached white teeth flickered in his mind’s eye. “Ew, what? They’re together?”
“Surprised you didn’t know.” Harrington stared at him kind of intensely, a weird look coming over his face. “I can see the appeal, though. The jock and the cheerleader.”
And, slow down. There was too much to unpack there.
“First of all, Chrissy and I aren’t like that. We’re barely even friends, we’re just.” It felt too raw to acknowledge, despite what Chrissy had said in the gym. Eddie wasn’t used to making friends that easily. “Acquaintances. Associates?”
Harrington made a face. “What are you, partners at a law firm?”
“More to the point,” Eddie went on, “That’s such a cliche! That can’t be the only reason to date someone.”
“Not the only one,” Harrington agreed. He was oddly invested, growing more and more animated with every word. Eddie tried not to find it cute. “But cliches exist for a reason. They’re just, like, common things. You gonna tell me that being a metalhead outcast isn’t a cliche?”
Eddie laughed. He couldn’t help it, Steve was cute when he got riled up. “And you’re the lady killer, king of high school. Yeah yeah, we’re all actors in this play we call life, all the world’s a stage, I hear you.”
An adorable frown puckered Harrington’s lips. “I’m, uh, not sure what that last part means,” he admitted. “All I meant is, cliches can be kind of fun. Like, what if you really like someone? And you wanna ask them out, take them on a date, bring them flowers.” His eyes went liquidy and soft. “That’s all cliche, right? But it’s still nice.”
Eddie had kind of stopped breathing at some point, and only realized it in the silence following Harrington’s words.
He exhaled sharply through his nose. “You’re right.” He kept staring at Harrington’s mouth, perfectly shaped and saying such lovely, wonderful things. “Uh, yeah. Yeah, maybe Chrissy and Carver are good together, then.”
Something about that made Steve frown. His posture changed - Eddie hadn’t even noticed how relaxed and open Steve had been, smile soft as he described the perfect romance, until he was suddenly closed off. Standing straighter, almost rigid, eyes that had captured the warmth of the afternoon sun now dark and flat.
Eddie had fucked something up.
“Right.” Harrington raked a hand through his damp hair, strands wavy and loose without their regular dose of hairspray. The effect was oddly vulnerable. Eddie felt like he should look away, especially after crashing whatever mood had been brewing between them. “Maybe.” He looked down at his wrist and cursed. “Damn, it’s late. I gotta go, Dustin’s gonna give me so much shit if I’m late again.”
Dustin? Eddie didn’t know any Dustins at Hawkins High, or anywhere else.
“Kind of a tight leash, Harrington. Is Dustin your friend or a prison warden?”
He didn’t know what he’d done wrong, but he wanted desperately to fix it. Whatever it there was to even fix after talking to a guy for five minutes.
(Not just a guy, Eddie admitted to himself.
Steve.)
Harrington laughed. “Yes,” he said. “Yeah, that’s Dustin.” Eddie grinned back, all lit up with the satisfaction of making Harrington smile that he forgot to scale it down. Some of the earlier softness returned to Harrington’s face. “Hey, you good here?”
Eddie’s weak heart stumbled, b–ba-dum. When did Harrington get so nice? He was nice and funny and he laughed at Eddie’s jokes and called him a sweetheart and Eddie was never going to be able to jerk off again without imagining the sound of Steve's throaty chuckles. This was a new low.
“Yeah, I’m just. Gonna get changed.” He waved at the locker behind him that he had entirely forgotten about until this moment, too distracted by Harrington’s… everything. But he was officially playing it cool from here on out. “See ya, Harrington.” He turned back to the lock, just for something to do.
Even better, it meant he didn’t have to watch Harrington walk away from him.
“See you, Munson.”
Eddie gave up on the combination as soon as the door closed behind Harrington and immediately collapsed against the wall.
He was sweaty and confused and still half-hard in his skirt. “What the fuck,” he groaned, rolling his hot face against the cold metal. “This is the weirdest day of my life.”
Twenty four hours ago Eddie had been plotting side quests for his new D&D campaign. Today he was wearing a skirt and flirting with Steve Harrington in the locker room, and Harrington was flirting back.
Mutual flirting.
Eddie had never mutually flirted with anyone in his life. How did straight people do this all the time? Eddie’s nerves were shredded. He might be developing a heart condition. He might throw up.
Jesus.
He took a few deep breaths until the smell of sweaty gym socks threatened to make his eyes water, and then he gathered his wits. He copied the combination from his hand, sprung the locker open and,
Fuck.
It was empty.
Right where Eddie’s jeans and Metallica shirt had been folded at the end of sixth period was a great big steaming pile of fuck-all.
No one left a calling card or anything, but Eddie didn’t need one to know. He’d thought he was so clever, waiting out Hargrove and the rest of the team from the safety of the gym.
Maybe he’d saved himself a beating, but it had come at the cost of his best jeans, probably flushed halfway down a toilet somewhere.
This wouldn’t be the end of the world on its own. All Eddie had to do was make it to the van in the parking lot, and then he was home free.
Only Wayne had needed it today, because he was going in to the plant for an early shift, so Eddie had bummed a ride from Gareth this morning. And since there was no way Gareth would be at school this late, Eddie had planned on walking home. It was only a few miles, after all, and the weather had been unseasonably nice this week.
He had truly been played.
Eddie Munson would now be walking three miles through Hawkins dressed in a bright green cheerleading skirt.
Eddie Munson was going to get murdered.
Fuck.
He allowed himself a moment to mourn the fact that he was going to die wearing Hawkins Green and Gold, then slammed the locker shut. No use putting it off, then.
Getting out of school was the easy part. It was virtually empty except for Mrs. Humphrey, who shot him a nasty hairy eyeball but that might have been more about his attendance in chem this week than anything else, so Eddie just shot one right back. He made it all the way to the exit of the parking lot before the catcalls started.
A sleek convertible with a shiny new paint job was piled high with jocks. Eddie recognized their faces vaguely from practice. “I didn’t know you were taking your show on the road, Munson!” one of them called. “What’s your rate?”
The boy in the driver’s seat shook his head. Cold blue eyes, bleached white teeth. Carver. “Nah man, don’t even joke about that.” His expression was severe, like a marble statue. “What you are is a sin, you know that?” he told Eddie. “There’s no place for people like you here.”
Ah, so he was one of those.
Eddie wondered what sweeter-than-sunshine Chrissy Cunningham saw in this walking hate crime.
It went against every instinct in his body to let anyone else get the last word in, but Eddie could not shake the idea of someone coming across his body in a ditch somewhere, dead in a fucking cheerleading uniform. The headlines would be insane.
So Eddie walked away. It was the safe choice. He was proud of himself for about four seconds, until an engine rumbled to life behind him.
The car was following him.
All the way down the drive, turning right onto the main street, Carver and his cronies followed him, jeering and hurling obscenities all the while. By the time they had traveled a block down from the school, Eddie at a brisk clip and the car slogging at his side at a measly 5MPH, Eddie was ready to slash their fucking tires. How long would it be before they got bored and just ran him off the road? Or pulled over and beat him to a pulp? Three on one was never going to be a fair fight, but he might have stood a chance against one. He was a fast runner.
Stabbing their tires would ensure he got a good beating, but at least he could say he hurt them back.
Just as he had his fingers around the grip of his knife, a car honked behind them. Carver and his minions ignored it, but the driver honked again.
“Go around!” Carver waved his arms, but the second car - a burgundy BMW - gained speed until its front bumper was nearly kissing the back of Carver’s and blasted the horn again.
“Shit!” Carver yelled. “Dude, go!” another shouted. “Fucking psychos,” said the last. The second car continued to wail their horn as Carver waggled an accusing finger at Eddie, like Eddie and the mystery driver were in cahoots. “Watch your back, Freak!” He gunned the engine, only slightly less violent than Hargrove, and shot off down the road.
Eddie stooped over, hands on his knees, and tried not to collapse. The knife was shaking in his hand.
Carver might be gone, but how long would it be until someone else saw him minding his own business and took it personally? Someone armed with more than just bad manners.
The shadow of a car rolled up beside him.
Eddie sprung into a defensive crouch, knife held in front of his face, and swore. “I swear to Jesus fucking Christ, I will slash your tires, man.”
Steve Harrington rolled down the passenger window. “Damn Munson, where the hell were you keeping that knife?”
Eddie caught himself against the door. “Harrington?!”
Harrington leaned over the center console and pushed his sunglasses down his nose, eyes scanning up and down his body like he was looking for something. Blood, bruises, Eddie’s dignity, who knew. He nodded, satisfied, then his eyes floated back down to Eddie’s exposed legs and just sort of…lingered there.
Eddie flushed, hot and embarrassed and too twisted up for Harrington’s mind fuckery right now. He shoved the blade back into the hollow spot in the sole of his combat boot, which might have been shady as fuck but had also saved Eddie’s hide on more than one occasion, so who gave a shit.
“Can I help you, Harrington?” he asked, more snippy than he intended.
“Hm.” Harrington dithered, turning down his music and scanning their surroundings. “I’m glad you asked. As a matter of fact, yeah.” The car locks popped. “You can get in the car.”
Eddie floundered. “Uh, pardon?”
“Munson.” Harrington flipped his shades up into his hair. “Get in the car. You wanna be a feature on the 8 o'clock news tomorrow morning?”
“Dude, I don’t see how this helps you, unless you’re gunning to be the one that does me in.”
Harrington sighed and pulled the passenger handle from the inside, pushing the door outwards. “It’ll help my conscience, how’s that? I’ve got enough red in my ledger, I can’t handle anymore.”
Somehow Eddie didn’t think Steve was talking about the years he'd spent as the overlord of Hawkins High. There was a real weight to the words, deep and aching, that spoke of something much heavier.
So he could believe that the guy might feel a twinge of guilt if Eddie ended up getting hurt on his walk home. But guilt was a close cousin to pity, and Eddie despised pity.
“I release you from your guilt, Harrington.” Eddie nudged the door closed. “I can walk home, it’s not that far.”
He started walking. Steve shouted, “It’s like three miles!” and cursed.
For the second time that day, a car tailed Eddie like an irritating shadow down the road. For the second time, he ignored the words shouted out the windows at him.
“It’ll be dark before you get there,” and “It’s fifty degrees out, you’ll freeze to death,” and finally, “C’mon man, can you imagine the headlines if they find you like this?”
Eddie stopped in his tracks. He burst out laughing, clutching his ribs as they burned from exhaustion and his body shook from the cold. “Fuck, that’s what I was thinking too.” The beemer came to a stop beside him, Steve peeking out the window with a hopeful grin.
Still chuckling, Eddie pulled the silver handle and swung the door open. “God you’re weird.”
As soon as he was inside, Steve rolled the window back up and cranked the heat. “You said you were thinking it too!”
“Yeah, well,” Eddie shrugged. “I’m weird.”
Steve rolled his eyes, then flipped his shades back over them. “Buckle up, Munson.” Then he swung the car into a U-turn, heading back in the opposite direction they’d come from.
This proved that Steve had noticed the spectacle Carver and his goons were causing and went specifically out of his way to help, which made Eddie’s stomach twist in a funny way.
Still, what kind of precedent was he setting here? Rescued by King Steve twice in one day?
“Is this gonna be a pattern with you?” he asked, settling down in the BMW’s absurdly cushy interior. Damn, but the Harringtons were loaded. This car was lush. He nuzzled the leather headrest against his cheek.
“Picking you up like a stray cat from the side of the road?” Steve’s profile was handsome at this angle. He was always handsome, but seeing him behind the wheel of a car was really doing things for Eddie. His grip on the steering wheel was so strong, assured. Eddie barely felt the car moving at all as they glided through Hawkins in their gilded chariot. He didn't know how much of that came down to the car itself or Steve’s driving expertise, but he liked to think it was the latter.
It was one of those things that Eddie’s monkey brain went ga-ga for. Men who could handle their shit, who drove with confidence and fixed things when they broke and took good care of kids.
Heat pooled in Eddie's groin. Fuck, not again. It turned out that fearing for your life was a pretty great boner killer, but his libido seemed ready to get back on track now that he was no longer picturing himself in a body bag.
Eddie made up a new score:
Steve Harrington: 1
Eddie's sanity: 0
“It’s not like it’s a habit of mine. Strays just seem to have a way of finding me.” The school flew past them on their left as Eddie rejoined the conversation.
“I take offense at that!” he protested. “I’m no common stray. I’m more like the sad underdog in a teen movie with a tragic backstory and a plucky attitude you can’t help but root for.”
Steve laughed, the warmth of it heating Eddie up all the way to his cold, cynical soul. “What’s that make me then?”
And that was an invitation to flirt if Eddie ever heard one - which, historically he hadn’t heard a lot, but he was a quick study - and he leaned over the center console, batting his eyes. “Why, the dashing hero who swoops in to save the day, of course.”
It could have been a trick of the light, but Steve’s cheeks seemed to flush as he laughed. Giddiness rushed through Eddie like a hit of adrenaline. “Oh yeah?” Steve asked, stealing away from the road to send Eddie a coy little glance behind his shades. “You sure the underdog doesn’t wanna save themselves?”
Eddie twisted in the seat, getting comfy as he adjusted to face Steve more directly. “Self-reliance is important. But everyone likes getting swept off their feet sometimes, too. Even if it is a cliche,” he added, teasing.
Steve looked over again, lingering, and even with the dark Ray-Bans his satisfaction was clear as day. He hummed, lips curling, and came to some kind of conclusion. “I’ll be on the lookout for damsels in distress, then.” And he smiled. A glimmering, mega-watt, Steve Harrington smile.
Eddie refused to keel over like some lovesick idiot. “Okay, I said underdog, not damsel."
“Looks the same from where I’m sitting.” He sounded way too amused. “Don’t worry Eddie, your secret’s safe with me.”
Jesus, Harrington had no idea the kind of secrets Eddie was lugging around. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” he muttered, crossing his arms. And where did Steve get off, just saying Eddie’s first name like that? Curling his tongue around the letters like it belonged there, nestled behind his teeth, releasing it into the air between them as natural and easy as anything?
If Steve was going to play it like that, Eddie would have to step up his game. He remembered the face Steve had made at being called Steve-o back in the locker room. “Anyway, are you sure you’re up for the challenge, Stevie? That hero-ing is a full time gig. You already had to save me twice in one day.”
The nickname backfired. Big time. Instead of clamming up, Steve just grew warmer, brighter. “I think I can handle it.”
Eddie melted into the treated leather seat, just watching Steve. He was practically glowing as they took the next turn, it hurt to look at. His hair had dried soft and wavy over his forehead, curling gently around his ears. REO Speedwagon sang on the radio, you're a candle in the window on a cold dark winter's night, and for a moment it was all just too much. “I bet you could,” Eddie murmured.
Oh.
Oh, shit, he really said that.
Quick, quick change the subject you fucking moron –
A familiar yellow and pink sign whizzed past Eddie’s window, Dottie’s 24-Hour Diner lit up and blinking. It was the hottest spot in Hawkins for people of all ages to grab a quality burger and shake. All the kids called it Double D’s.
It was also located smack dab in the middle of downtown.
“Um.” Eddie pointed. “Steve. You know that you’re supposed to put bags over your kidnappees heads when you take them, so they don’t know where you’re going, right?”
Steve froze up. “Uh, what?”
Eddie gestured all around them. “I know it’s a little out of your tax bracket, but you have to know the trailer park isn’t anywhere near downtown, Steve. If you’re selling me to Carver for ransom, you should just tell me now. I won’t be mad.”
Finally, Steve got it. He cringed, guilt flashing over his face. For one single, sickening moment, Eddie worried that his joke had struck true. “Shit, I totally forgot to tell you,” Steve said. “Remember how I said I had to meet some people? Well, we have to make a quick stop and pick them up. And drop them off. It’ll only take fifteen, twenty minutes, tops. I’m so sorry, man. I’d tell ‘em to fuck off, but they kinda need me.”
Eddie relaxed and tensed back up in rapid succession. Fight or flight, his instincts screamed, and the answer was always FLIGHT. The walls of Steve's car were closing in around him. Maybe Steve was surprisingly cool about guys wearing skirts, but what about his friends? Eddie knew the kind of friends Steve made. Painfully well.
Some of his panic must have shown on his face. “I swear, they’re cool,” Steve assured. “Like, if you’re worried about the, uh, uniform. I don’t think they’ll even notice, because they’re gonna be like. Obsessed with you.”
Eddie twisted his hair and chewed on the split ends. “I find that hard to believe.”
“You shouldn’t,” Steve muttered, but didn’t argue the point further. “Here, hang on.” And then he took his hands fully off the wheel and reached behind Eddie’s seat into the back seat of the car, steering the car with just his knees braced on the wheel like some kind of action hero slash walking wet dream.
Steve dropped a blue windbreaker into his lap, and Eddie flinched at the momentary pressure on his hypersensitive dick. “There, you can cover up with that.”
Cover up what? Oh fuck, did Steve notice? It would be just like Steve to have some kind of built in sexual-attraction detector, sniffing out Eddie’s boner like a fucking bloodhound.
Then he remembered what they were talking about and blushed an even brighter red. Eddie might have to start an actual diary if this kept up. Steve Harrington gave me his jacket, can you believe it? he'd write. Next up, prom!
“Thanks.” He shrugged it on. He nosed into the collar and caught the smell of something sweet and faintly woodsy. Cologne? The famed Harrington hairspray?
“No problem,” Steve dismissed, like he’d give Eddie the shirt off his back if he asked for it.
Get a grip, Munson, he chided himself, and turned to face out the passenger window. He resolved not to look at Steve again until they arrived at their destination, wherever it may be.
---
'Wherever' turned out to be - “The arcade?" Eddie frowned at the familiar rotating marquee. "I haven’t been here in years.”
Steve pulled into a spot right up front and cut the engine. “Yeah, I was never one for games to be honest.” He honked on the horn and hollered out the window, “Anyone not in the car in the next thirty seconds is getting left behind!”
There was a thunderous roll of sneakers in the distance, then a troop of five pint-sized children came spilling out the arcade doors.
“You’re late!” one of them cried.
“Yeah, we had to call Nancy,” grimaced another, like he’d said a bad word.
“Good thing too,” Steve said. “Wheeler and Sinclair, you’re her problem today. Others, into the back.”
Christ, not Nancy as in Nancy Wheeler. There was no way on god’s cursed earth that Steve Harrington willingly hung out with his ex-girlfriend's kid brother. That was just – no. That was no.
Two of the boys made a break for the car while the other two hung back with matching sullen looks. There was something vaguely familiar about that prissy frown on the gangly kid’s face, but –
No. No way. Had to be a different Wheeler.
The last member of the group, a girl with flaming red hair, hovered and clutched her skateboard with uncertainty.
Something in Steve softened when he looked at her. His next words were gentler, the same way he’d sounded back in the locker room when he’d asked Eddie, eyes serious, You good here? “Hey Red, you need a lift?”
“I was just gonna skate home,” Red said, solemn.
Steve lifted himself partway out the window and waved his hands dramatically. “No way, you’re with me. You can’t leave me alone with the incoming nerd fest, I need someone with some sense to keep me company, alright?”
Red smiled. It transformed her face from somber to sunshine in a snap. “Bold of you to think you have any sense, Steve.” But she made her way over, apparently just as caught out by Steve’s good nature as Eddie had been.
And oh, was this what Steve meant when he had talked about 'finding strays’?
Suddenly, the idea that Steve was friends with a bunch of middle schoolers was less absurd and more… sweet.
Eddie was so doomed.
“Steve, who the hell is in my seat?” someone barked at Eddie’s door, scaring the daylights out of him. He shot the kid a twitchy smile.
“Henderson, we talked about this,” Steve sighed. “It’s my car, they’re all my seats.”
“But shotgun is always my seat!”
“Kid,” Steve’s voice rose sharply. “Get comfy with the others in the back, or I’m leaving all of you on the curb for Nancy to drag home.”
“Except for me?” Red piped up, already sliding into the backseat.
Steve nodded. “Except for Max.”
The kid at his window pouted ferociously and crossed his arms. “Fine, but I’m not sitting in the middle.”
The last kid sighed. He had a sweet face and a haircut like he was singing backup for The Monkees. Eddie, once the victim of a buzzcut, instantly sympathized with him. “It’s okay, I don’t mind.”
And without further adieu, the middle schoolers trooped into the BMW.
This seemed as good a time as any to say: “Tell me these are not the friends you mentioned meeting, Steve.”
Steve swung back into the driver’s seat and snorted. “Eddie, meet the band of meddling kids I look after. Meddling kids, meet Eddie.”
This prompted a series of loud and vehement exclamations from said meddling kids, ranging from “Aw, you called us your friends?” to “Eat my dirty gym socks, Harrington”. They listened when Steve barked at them to fasten their seatbelts though.
The whole exchange reminded Eddie of summers working at the local autoshop when parents would come with their kids into the lobby, simultaneously wrangling them into compliance while they paid for their tune-up.
“Eddie who?” spat the one sitting behind him. Geez, what a brat. The tone with this kid.
Steve tossed Eddie a look like, all yours. And well, Eddie did always enjoy a captive audience.
He twisted around in his seat to face the three curious faces of their new passengers. “Munson. Eddie Munson, humble bard in the service of King Harrington’s court. At your service, my good fellows.”
The weight of Harrington’s judgment was palpable from the driver’s side. Eddie was convinced he could hear the guy rolling his eyes. “Eddie’s weird,” Steve summed up. “Just like you nerds.”
“Hey!” the kids protested, a distinct “Don’t lump me in with them” coming from Max.
Eddie coughed to clear his throat. “What’s that supposed to mean, Harrington?”
“That dungeon game, you play it right?” Steve caught his eye briefly as he came to a stoplight.
“Wha- Dungeons and Dragons? How did you know that?”
“You’re president of the school club, aren’t you?” Steve made a little face, like duh.
And then before Eddie could close his gaping mouth, the boys went fucking bananas.
“You play?!” Curly suddenly beamed, poisonous glare swapped out for the sunniest smile Eddie had ever seen. He looked like an excitable poodle, all squinty eyes and floppy russet curls.
Bowl Cut stared at Eddie with stars in his eyes. “No way,” he whispered. “But you’re so cool.”
Eddie gaped some more. Cool? Him? Eddie Munson?
Luckily he was saved, as Curly launched into a spiel of mixed accusations for Steve and questions for Eddie at speeds that pushed the capacity of human speech to its breaking point.
“Woah, easy Henderson,” Steve chided. “You’re gonna talk yourself into a stroke. How’s Eddie supposed to answer if you don’t even pause long enough to breathe?”
“That’s not how strokes work, Steve,” the kid, Henderson, retorted. Steve snarked something back, but Eddie got kind of lost as his understanding of the universe once again slipped right through his fingers.
Steve didn’t just hang out with kids. He hung out with nerd kids.
Maybe they had entered a parallel universe. Some freaky alternate version of Hawkins where Steve Harrington was totally unhinged and had five adopted nerd kids and flirted with Eddie in locker rooms.
Anything was possible, right?
“Whatever!” Henderson banished further argument from the car. “Eddie. This humble Artificer stands before you, on a quest.”
Eddie raised his eyebrows. “A quest?”
“Yes,” he nodded, face gravely serious. “A quest for knowledge. Please, teach us.”
Bowl Cut nodded, shiny bangs bobbing. “Please.”
Eddie barely bit back his laughter. “Who am I to deny such inquisitive minds? What do you want to know? I can tell you about Hellfire Club, or the campaign we’re running—”
“EVERYTHING.” Henderson’s eyes bugged out. “Everything.”
Eddie let his grin loose.
Showtime.
---
Six minutes and several hundred questions from Henderson later and Eddie had come to two very important conclusions:
One: Steve Harrington was good with kids.
This was a devastating blow for Eddie, as it checked off the second box in his checklist of Dream Guys I’d Totally Lose My Shit For. As there were only three boxes, this was a significant gain. It could be argued that Eddie should raise his standards to more than three criteria, but in all fairness, no guy Eddie ever met had even checked off a single box before Steve, so.
The second conclusion was this: the kids were fucking awesome.
They were like three tiny tornadoes of energy, ricocheting off each other and bouncing off the fucking walls.
Henderson was easily the most excitable, boisterous and dramatic in a way that reminded Eddie of himself at a younger age. He shot googly-eyed looks at Steve whenever Steve so much as breathed too, which was something the other two - Bowl Cut and Max - also had in common.
It actually made Eddie feel a little better, to be honest. If all present company was a little infatuated with Steve, then at least he wasn't alone.
The funny thing was, Steve seemed totally unaware of how much the kids seemed to idolize him. Eddie might have expected some smugness or at least some lavishing in the attention, the way he used to get around crowds of his admirers, but in actuality Steve was just –
Nice.
Nice in a convoluted sort of way, granted. At least two parts snarky and one part exasperated, but all parts undeniably fond. He chided and indulged them in equal turns, dancing the line between the friend he wanted to be and the good role model he clearly aspired to.
“So, wait a second,” Steve chimed in while Bowl Cut and Henderson gossiped about one of the henchmen for the main villain in Eddie’s campaign. He had his sunglasses in one hand, waving them around as he illustrated his point. “This, uh, evil guardsman, or whatever. Why doesn’t someone just, y’know, convince him to join your team?”
“Seems doable,” Max shrugged.
This got Henderson’s attention. “What? Are you crazy, he’s a servant of the Clan of Mortus!” Henderson argued passionately. “It would never work! His soul is forfeit, they’re better off taking him down.”
Steve shook his head. “No way, it’s way more useful to have a guy on the inside. Everyone can change for the right reasons, you just gotta give him one.”
“Oh yeah?” Henderson challenged. “Like what?”
“I mean, sex is the easiest.”
“Ew, Steve!” Henderson cried.
Eddie snapped around to stare at Steve so fast he heard his neck crack. “I’m sorry, did you just advise that my party seduce Lord Kyrin, Captain of the Bone Guard and Wielder of the Sword of a Thousand Teeth?”
“Yeah?” Steve agreed, apparently clueless to the looks everyone was giving him. “I mean, think about it. He might be working for the villain right now, but whatever reason he’s doing that probably isn’t as strong as like, love. Love trumps everything. He falls in love with the good guys, he fights with the good guys, he tells you how to kill his boss. Boom, case closed.”
Boom, he said.
Boom, went Eddie’s heart, inciting yet another psychological crisis. He was really racking them up today.
Because that was as devastating an insight into Steve’s worldview as Eddie’s fragile heart had ever heard.
Love trumps everything.
The kids were spiraling too. “That is the lamest thing I’ve ever heard,” Max shook her head in disgust while Henderson burst out “For the last time, they’re CAMPAIGNS, not CASES, Steve–” and Bowl Cut said “I don’t know, he might be right.”
“Will, I swear to god–” Henderson turned the same shade of Max’s hair and launched into a detailed and vicious explanation of why Steve’s idea was the worst idea in the history of mankind.
Visions of Steve as a chainmail clad knight still danced in Eddie’s head. He’d have a broadsword maybe, something to play up his natural brute strength. Maybe he was an exile from his former kingdom, a rogue knight fallen from grace on a quest to reclaim his honor and save the world with the power of love.
Eddie’s fingers itched to sketch out the perfect character for Steve. His brain was broken. He couldn’t stop staring at the guy, but it didn’t seem to matter because Steve kept looking at Eddie too. Eyes sparkling with mischief, mouth set in a straight line but twitching at the ends.
Suddenly, Eddie got it.
“You knew you’d set the kid off with that!” he accused.
Steve’s smile broke. “It’s good for him to get some different opinions on stuff. Remind him he doesn’t always have all the answers. Besides,” he looked at the kids in the rearview as Max and Henderson bickered and Bowl Cut laughed, “it burns off some energy before he gets home to his poor Ma.”
Eddie’s smile matched Steve’s. “You’ve got a mean streak, Harrington.”
“You’re just figuring that out now?” Steve teased back. Eddie laughed, butterflies kicking back up in his chest. The urge to throw himself into Steve’s lap and taste his fucking smile had never been stronger.
“Steve!” Henderson yelped. “Are you even listening to me?”
Steve was still looking at Eddie, smiley and warm. “No.” Then before Henderson could go off again, he directed his gaze at Bowl Cut. “Thanks for having my back, Byers. I always knew you were smarter than Henderson.”
Byers. Like –
No way, no fucking –
“O-oh,” Jonathan Byers’ kid brother blushed beneath his bowl cut. “W-well, it’s a good idea. Emotional appeals work just as well as physical attacks, just in different circumstances. Dustin’s just mad because he’s never charming enough to make them work.”
Steve and Max both cracked up at this, but Eddie froze mid chuckle as he caught the look of tangled pride and awe on kid Byers’ face as he watched Steve.
Oh. Oh, Eddie knew that look. God, it was like looking in a mirror.
Eddie wasn’t the only one with an embarrassing crush on Steve Harrington in the car.
“You will rue the day you dared doubt my skills, Will the Wise,” Henderson grumbled. “Mark my words. Rue!”
The car suddenly pulled to a stop at the end of a dirt road. “Alright, the traveling circus has come to our first stop. Henderson, let Byers out.”
“Why me?” Henderson bitched. When Max just crossed her arms and leaned against her own door, Henderson cursed darkly. He shuffled out of the car, huffing.
Eddie rolled down his window as Byers walked by, offering him a fist-bump instead of the hug he wanted to bury the kid in. “Nice to meet you, Will the Wise,” he smiled.
“Y-you too,” he stammered back, then raised his voice slightly. “Thanks for the ride, Steve.”
Steve waved. “Tell your family I say hey.”
“Y-yeah.” Byers was looking pink again. Oh, to be the victim of a Steve Harrington flavored sexual awakening. If Eddie ever saw the kid again, he swore he’d reach out in some way. He deserved to know that there were other people like him out in the world.
It was all Eddie had wanted, when he was that age.
Henderson’s questions took a turn for the frantic as they continued on to his house, like a man on his way to the gallows. Steve and Max, allied in their apathy for D&D, kept each other company as Eddie was left to fend off Hurricane Dustin on his own.
The two of them seemed to be making plans to play baseball together this coming summer, matching grins on their faces as Steve promised to teach Max everything he knew. They giggled at some shared joke and Eddie was transfixed by the domesticity of it until Dustin shocked him back to reality with another rapid fire question.
“Man, you need to chill. Eddie’s not gonna turn into a pumpkin at the stroke of midnight,” Steve tried to soothe the kid as they approached his house.
“I don’t expect you to get it, Steve!” Henderson griped. “It’s different for you because you’re Mister Sports and jocks basically grow on trees, but Dungeon Masters don’t! This might be my only chance to talk to a living legend. ”
“Twenty minutes with the guy and I’m a tree and Eddie’s a legend?” Steve shook his head. “Absolutely no loyalty, man.”
Eddie cackled. Max was smiling in the backseat too, trying and failing to conceal it. Even Steve had this soft, secret smile on his face as he looked between Henderson and Eddie, but it disappeared as soon as the former looked at Steve.
“Besides, it doesn’t have to be your only chance, y’know.” The car rolled to a stop in front of a well-kept house. “You skippin’ town anytime soon, Eddie?”
Eddie caught Steve's pointed look and played along. “Nope, not planning on it, Stevie.”
Steve turned around in his seat. “You hear that, Henderson? Eddie’s not skipping town.”
Henderson boggled at him. "Meaning?"
“Meaning, you little turd, you could just invite him to one of your dungeon sessions. Jesus.”
“Campaigns.” The correction was robotic as Henderson unbuckled, then he was falling out of his seat as the full sentence registered. “Wait, really?! I mean, could I?”
Steve scrunched his nose up snidely. “I dunno, can you?”
“Eddie!" Henderson threw himself into the space between their seats. "Eddie, would you wanna come?!” he begged.
Everyone looked at Eddie.
“Whaddaya say, Munson?” Steve nudged him. His sneer softened into a real smile.
And Eddie was always going to say yes - an invitation to take on a herd of padawans and train them in the ways of nerdom, how could he pass that up? - but now that Steve asked him he was totally screwed. Like, Eddie didn’t know if there was anything he would deny those puppy eyes.
“I say, who am I to deny the call to adventure?” Henderson lit up like a firework. He prattled off names and times and addresses too quickly for Eddie to process as he clambered from the car, then stuck his head through the open door and beamed.
“Steve will let you know when we’re ready for you and he’ll give you a ride to our meeting house, okay? Okay, bye! See you soon Eddie!” Then he bound up to his front door without a backwards glance.
Eddie slumped down in the chair, slightly winded. It kind of felt like he’d just signed his soul over to a twelve year old. Was this how Steve had felt when they first met too? Eddie was dying to know that story, by the way.
Steve grumbled as they set off on the penultimate leg of their journey, but didn’t actually contradict anything Henderson had said. He quizzed Max for a while on a recent skateboarding move she was working on and rehashed what appeared to be a long standing and long ignored entreaty to wear protective padding.
This adorable bickering lulled Eddie into a false sense of security so he was entirely unprepared when out of nowhere, Max said: “So which of you dummies is gonna explain the cheerleading uniform?”
The car was silent.
Oh, Eddie had gone soft in his old age, so disarmed as he watched Steve needle and nurture his brood of mousey kids that he'd failed to recognize one very important fact: Max was no mouse. She was a snake.
“Uh,” Steve blathered, apparently a horrible liar. “He’s. A cheerleader?”
“Really,” Eddie and Max both said.
“I don’t know! I don’t really know why he’s wearing it either!”
And all this time, he hadn’t even asked. What a ridiculous man.
“Dude. It’s a statement to the man.”
Steve looked wary. “Like, Principal Higgins? Is the statement that you… want to be a cheerleader?”
“Shut up, Steve,” Max snorted, then sat up between them and looked at Eddie like he was about to reveal the secrets of the universe. “Who’s the man?”
“Well,” Eddie grinned. “Principal Higgins is the man. The jocks are the man. Hawkins High is the man. And to the man I say,” he paused, letting the tension build. “Fuck off.”
“Awesome,” Max breathed.
“Metal,” Eddie corrected.
“Wait, am I the man?” Steve frowned.
Max cut in before Eddie had the chance. “Definitely. I mean, look at your…” she gestured all around. “You know?”
Steve shot Eddie the saddest, most tragic pout. “She pointed to all of me, Eddie.”
It struck Eddie right in his marshmallow heart. “You’re kind of the man,” he said, just to pretend he still had the luxury of objectivity here. “But you’re more like the man on the inside, you know? Taking down the system from within.”
This seemed to gain Max’s approval, though Steve himself looked uncertain about the prospect of ‘taking down’ anything. “Alright,” he agreed anyway, because that was the kind of guy he was apparently. Happy to make others happy.
As they rounded the corner onto Cherry Lane, Max tapped Steve’s shoulder.
“You can drop me here, Steve. My brother should be home by now and if he sees your car he’s gonna lose it.”
Steve made a face. “If he wants to go another round he knows where he can find me.” But he peeled off the road into the shade of a nearby oak tree anyway and turned the car off.
Max snorted as she collected her things. “No offense, but I don’t think you’d survive round two.”
Eddie pretended to observe the sky outside his window instead of shaking Steve by his shirt collar and demanding answers. Who the hell was Max’s brother? Round two? Was Harrington some sort of street fighter now? Just how many people in Hawkins were going around beating the guy’s face in?
“Hey, don’t worry about me, alright? I’m serious.” And he was, twisting all the way around in his seat to look Max directly in the eye. Meanwhile Eddie was watching the grass grow on Mr. and Mrs. Oak Tree’s lawn. Impressive, very green.
“I know you can take care of yourself, but you don’t have to. Anything happens, day or night, you call me. Anything at all.” Steve’s voice was so soft now, brusque but earnest. ”Got it?”
He caught the reflection of Max nodding, shy as she tucked a long strand of hair behind her ear. “I got it.” She smiled again, the same sunny transformation coming over her face. “Thanks, Steve.”
Steve looked like he was barely resisting the urge to reach out and ruffle her hair. “Alright, don’t get sappy on me,” he chided, despite all evidence of him being the sappiest person Eddie had ever met. “Go do some homework or something.”
Max popped open the back door and slammed it shut after her. Eddie winced as the car rocked. “How many times do I have to tell you little shits not to slam the doors?” Steve grumbled.
Max rolled her eyes, looking so much like Steve as she did it that Eddie had to fight off a giggle. Did she pick up the habit from him, or vice versa?
She walked around to Eddie’s side of the car and nodded as he rolled his window down. “You’re cooler than Steve’s other high school friends,” she told him. “Maybe we’ll see you around again.”
Eddie had never been called cool so many times in one day. Maybe it was worth hanging out with kids just for the ego boost. “Right back atcha, Red. Between you and me, we might even make Steve cool by association.”
“Hey!”
“Fat chance of that,” she scoffed.
“What do you know about my high school friends anyway?” Steve demanded.
Max crossed her arms. “We know Nancy.”
“Nancy is cool!”
Eddie turned to Steve. “Wheeler?” This confirmed Eddie’s worst fears. He pursed his lips and shook his head. “Oh, Steve.”
Max cracked up. Steve flushed darkly, starting the car again and glaring at the radio as he changed the station. The sweeping voice of Steve Perry sang out over the speakers. “Alright, enough, I shouldn’t have introduced you two. We’re going now.”
“Bye losers!” Max called as she threw her skateboard down to the sidewalk.
“See ya, Red!”
Eddie poked his head out the window to wave her off with a flourishing bow as they drove past. He watched her for as long as he could, wondering if one of them should have made sure she got inside her house, what with her brother being an apparent lunatic.
Then again, anyone who’d apparently beaten Steve to near death probably wouldn’t be that much kinder to Eddie ‘The Freak’ Munson, so maybe not.
And about that.
“So.” Eddie plopped back down into his seat and drummed his fingers on his knees. “You join a gang in the last year or something Harrington?”
Steve had the nerve to look confused. “Huh?”
“I’m talking about the fights, man! One minute you’re all clean cut goody goody Steve Harrington throwing keggers at your big fancy house—“
“I don’t know if goody goody is the right word for — ”
“— the next you’re rocking up to school with your face rearranged once a year like some sick holiday tradition!”
“Alright, that’s, c’mon. That's not fair. You didn’t see what I was up against.”
Eddie stared. “What you were up against? Yeah, that sounds gang related. You’re definitely in a gang.” He threw his arms out with a flair. “Steve Harrington is in a gang!”
“Who, I meant who!” He fiddled with the volume knob like a nervous tick. Love's knocking on the door, the radio warned. Think I'll let it in--
Eddie twisted the volume back down.
“Pray tell, then," he cleared his throat. "Who dared to square off against our King? And why does Max’s brother want your head on a pike?”
“Charming image.” Steve pushed his hair off his forehead and bit his lip, looking thoughtful. “It’s Hargrove, man." He held Eddie's gaze. "Max's brother."
"Billy Hargrove is her brother?”
“Step, but yeah. He, uh. Look, don’t go spreading this around, alright? For Max’s sake.”
Once Eddie nodded, even tossing in a little criss-cross over his heart just to see the solemn look in Steve’s eye lighten for a moment, he explained.
“He got out of control a while back. Dangerous. Tried to hurt some people.”
People went unspoken. Max, Eddie heard. Henderson, Byers, all of them.
Horrified, Eddie felt the blood drain from his face.
“I stopped him,” Steve finished.
I gave him a bigger target to hit.
“That big fight, when the two of you came to school on Monday looking like someone had run you over in their truck,” Eddie breathed. Steve winced. “That’s what happened?”
Memories of Steve’s bloodied face flooded his mind. There had been stitches, Eddie thought. Steve had walked funny for weeks from broken ribs, had to sit several basketball games out on the bench.
“You were protecting those kids.”
Steve didn’t answer, but Eddie didn’t need him to. For what felt like the hundredth time today, Eddie’s entire understanding of the known universe was torn asunder.
This whole do-gooder shtick wasn’t a front after all. The guy was a certified hero.
Someone who fixes things when they break, Eddie reflected, and thought of Steve helping bullied kids pick up their books, bringing Eddie out of the cold and into his car, standing between his kids and the monsters they couldn’t protect themselves from.
That settled the score, then. Steve: 3, Eddie: 0
Game over, Eddie Munson.
---
By the time they rolled into the trailer park, the sun was just past the horizon, a dim afterglow of orange and purple still clinging to the sky. Steve turned off the car. “Here we are.” Dusk was a good look on him, soft on his mole-studded cheeks and sharp on the crisp line of his nose and jaw.
Eddie cleared his throat. “Thanks, Stevie.” He unbuckled his seat belt and gripped the door handle. Be normal. “I, uh, might have been in some real trouble back there without you.”
He might be tempted to get into more trouble, if it meant Steve would keep saving him.
“Anytime, Eddie,” he promised. The craziest thing was, Eddie knew he meant it. Steve said it with the same dedication he'd told Max to call him if Hargrove ever gave her trouble again; with the same steady determination he'd used to face down Tommy in the locker room.
Steve was never anything less than honest, and he didn't do anything by halves. No one else in Hawkins seemed to have noticed this about him, or Eddie was certain someone would have taken advantage of him by now.
Eddie hefted the door open, forced his legs to step out. His throat was parched, mind spinning with indecision.
“Say, Steve.”
Steve broke away from his intense staring competition with the windshield. “Yeah?”
Eddie bit his lip. “Would you wanna come in for a while? It’s just, Wayne always says you shouldn’t let kindness go unreturned, and I just got a new supply in from Rick.”
“Oh.” It took a few seconds for Eddie’s meaning to hit, and then he frowned. “Munson, I didn’t give you a lift to con free weed outta you. Really, it’s fine.”
Eddie rolled his eyes. “I know that, Harrington.” He unfolded from the car and faced Steve through the open door, leaving Steve’s jacket zipped up over his torso like a hostage threat. “If you don’t want free weed, just say so.” He let a hint of challenge slip into his voice, because Steve seemed like the kind of guy who had trouble backing down from a fight.
Sure enough, Steve was up and standing by the hood of his car in moments. “Lead the way, Munson.” He quirked his eyebrows, answering Eddie’s challenge with his own.
Eddie led him to the door, heart pounding in his throat.
Showtime.