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Eddie is surprised to see Steve Harrington at a dive bar as grimy and uncivilized as The Hideout on a Saturday night. He’s even more surprised when Steve Harrington approaches him to buy drugs outside, in the even grimier and less civilized alleyway.
He has the decency, at least, to not flaunt his polo collection in a place with approximately one bathroom stall door that’s actually attached at the hinges. The blue sweatshirt isn’t much better–still too neat, too obviously expensive from the perfect way it fits on his shoulders. His pristinely white Nikes are practically blinding on the stained cement outside and Eddie watches the way he carefully avoids the puddle collecting right at the fire exit door. Eddie must have some sort of look on his face, because Steve immediately glares at him.
“What?” Steve snips, somehow already annoyed before Eddie’s even had a chance to make proper eye contact. When Eddie gives a helpless shrug that he hopes indicates he’s entirely lost before they’ve even started, Steve clarifies, “You’re smirking. Is something funny?”
Wayne does often say Eddie’ll make a terrible poker player. No mystique, he’s often said, which made Eddie quietly stress for weeks afterwards that he’s accidentally been giving away the twists in his campaign with unconcealed facial expressions. Beleaguered, he has no choice but to be fully and completely honest with Steve, which, he’s found in their lengthening interactions lately, Steve does not like.
“I thought it was funny how you very carefully calculated how long of a stride you’d need to take to avoid that puddle.” Eddie answers, and Steve’s brows predictably furrow, the way they always do when he regards Eddie.
Because the entirety of their run-ins up until now have been with the freshmen around, Eddie thought maybe Steve was putting on a whole show of not liking him, trying to subliminally pull Dustin Henderson back to his side. He’s apparently very jealous, Mike Wheeler reported gleefully, that Dustin has a “replacement Steve” now, who “actually knows shit”, although Dustin immediately shot that down.
Now there’s no pairs of little freshmen eyes on them, no one around at all, and Steve is clearly still irritated by Eddie’s mere presence. Despite being the one to approach him, interestingly enough.
This dynamic is very odd, very new to Eddie. Now that he’s spent around two months seeing Steve off and on when he picks Dustin up from Hellfire and he feels rather confident that it won’t devolve into physical violence, he’s admittedly kind of having…fun? Ribbing him, getting under his skin, observing his rich boy behavioral patterns up close with an almost scientific curiosity.
“What an unexpected treat.” Eddie says when Steve apparently decides not to comment on the previous observation. “Steve Harrington, alone at a dive, sidling up to little ol’ me. What can I help you with?”
He’s hoping Steve might offer some defensive explanation of what he’s doing here tonight, but no luck. Instead, he fishes a twenty out of his wallet and asks, “Will this weed be discounted, since we’re not at a high school party?
“As if you need a discount.” Eddie tuts, accepting the cash and reaching into his own wallet for the joints he’d stashed in between his few remaining fives.
“Worth asking.” Steve shrugs, bizarrely fine with being denied a discount while somehow pissy that Eddie accidentally looked too pleased five seconds ago.
Steve’s business is much appreciated, honestly, after a night of several bars and no luck. He still has a lot of inventory left to get rid of before the end of the week if he wants to keep up with his usual schedule.
In fact, these joints were actually intended for personal use, but he knows Steve likes them pre-rolled. He’s known this for four years, ever since they first met and a smaller freshman Steve asked if he could just take the one that was already halfway to Eddie’s own lips. At the time, he was disgusted by the blatant rich kid effect taking place before his very eyes. Butler, please roll my joints for me–my own delicate hands can’t be bothered. Now, though, Eddie thinks about how Steve trusts him enough to smoke something rolled beforehand.
Before he can hand them over, though, the fire exit door directly behind Steve opens with such force that it fully careens into the brick, producing a metal BANG! loud enough to make Eddie’s entire body flinch and the joints to unceremoniously fumble from his hand and into the puddle below.
“My weed!” Steve complains, but Eddie didn’t miss the way Mr. Cool also flinched and now eyes the offenders, two Hawkins High alum from Steve’s very own class, if Eddie isn’t mistaken.
Eddie feels himself stiffen, his body somehow getting the memo before his brain that these are the kind of guys to avoid avoid avoid at all costs. Eddie has a biological sense for it now, the way birds know which types of snakes to avoid swooping down on based on their flashy colors. These are the types of guys that force Eddie to be aware of every movement, every glance, every word that comes out of his mouth if he can help it. And he was having such a nice night.
Even worse, these two (Collin and, uh, maybe David? Drew?) are very clearly wasted beyond their mental capacity, if the way they’re both swaying and cackling like opening a door is the funniest thing they’ve ever witnessed is any indication.
“Harrington!” The one that might be David greets Steve jovially after a moment of trying to keep himself upright. “Long time no see!”
“Hey man.” Steve gives him the cool-guy nod, the simple upward jerk of his chin, but there’s nothing behind his eyes but flat indifference, maybe a hint of disdain.
“What’re you doing?” David asks as Collin stumbles a little ways down the alley to piss, and maybe Steve’s calculated steps make more sense all of the sudden.
“Buying weed.” Steve nods towards Eddie. David’s eyes flicker over to him, immediately taking on that suspicious glimmer that everyone in Hawkins sort of automatically regards him with. It makes his skin feel too tight around his bones in situations like these. At school, whatever. There’s teachers who at least care enough about job security to not let him get absolutely beaten to shit. But here, in grimy dark alleyways, it’s almost like David and Collin type guys can’t resist beating him to shit.
He should really stop standing in alleyways. But tonight had seemed so calm, and it’s a lovely 75 degrees, perfect weather to smoke and take a break from the current band’s shitty mic feedback. He watches the suspicion in David’s eyes flicker, ignite, and he really wishes he’d just called it quits an hour ago when he struck out at Handlebars.
“Harrington, is Munson bothering you?” David asks suddenly. Guys like David really just beat Eddie up to feel and look tough, for their own entertainment and fulfillment. Poor guy’s a high school graduate now, seven months out, and he’s probably never gotten into a bar fight. His entire post-grad life thus far has amounted to nothing beyond working at Rite-Aid, and he’s hoping for a bit of glory day reliving by falling back into a high school hierarchy.
And now he’s hammered, has Eddie cornered in an alley, and best of all has Steve Harrington as a witness, who he definitely regards as much cooler than himself and is likely hoping to impress.
No dice, though, because Steve shakes his head and repeats, “I’m buying weed from him.”
“He’s bothering me!” Collin yells from twenty feet away, somehow still pissing. “Fuck, he creeps me out.”
“He is fucking creepy.” David says, addressing Eddie directly despite talking about him. He’s hoping to elicit a response so he has an excuse to throw the first punch. Which, again, at school Eddie would happily play along. He loves to say just the right thing to get these psychos red in the face, especially in an environment where they’re forced to walk away pissed off and unfulfilled when the watchful eyes of a teacher intervene before it can get physical.
But here, he’s keeping his mouth shut.
“You really gotta be careful, Harrin’ton,” David slurs out Steve’s name and swivels back to look at him with a shit-eating grin, “creeps like this, you never know what they might try.”
And maybe he didn’t even mean it like that, and maybe Eddie should stick with his steadfast decision from two seconds ago to be quiet in the name of self-preservation, but it’s right there. He can’t pass up the opportunity. So he blurts, “I’m not the one who came out here with another guy to take my dick out.”
David looks predictably shell-shocked, like someone just stabbed him in the fucking gut, and at least when Eddie is in the ER in an hour with a broken jaw, he can proudly say he took absolutely all the fun out of it for this asshole. A fist is coming towards him before he can even try to angle himself away, so Eddie closes his eyes and braces himself and feels…absolutely nothing.
Somehow, by the time he opens his eyes again, Steve has David on the ground. It seems almost inhuman, how fast he did that, but sure enough he’s got his knee on David’s back while the idiot sloshes around in the dubious puddle, now with added weed, yelling unintelligibly.
Eddie barely has time to process the fact that Steve just put himself between Eddie and an attacker before Collin comes barreling their way, apparently having had time to put his dick away, to push Steve off with all the coordination of an enraged five-year-old.
Ten minutes later, when they’re sitting on the curb swathed in red-and-blue police lights while Steve holds an icepack to his cheek, Eddie finds himself feeling guilty not about the wasted weed, or his inability to shut the fuck up, or even just kinda standing and watching Steve fight off two drunk pitbulls at once. No, he finds himself feeling bad about Steve’s nice blue sweatshirt, now covered in dirty puddle water.
“Sorry.” He sighs, watching a total of three cops, including Chief Hopper, wrangle David and Collin into the back of one police cruiser. This is the first second they’ve been left unsupervised, by Officer Callahan, who very unconvincingly threatened them to stay put, no funny business. “And thank you. I shouldn’t have–ugh, fuck. I just hate standing there and taking it.”
“It’s fine.” Steve says, and it’s truly unfathomable how he’s using the gentlest, softest tone he’s ever spoken to Eddie with. All traces of the customary bitchiness completely gone, for whatever reason, in this moment. On an exhale, he adds, “David’s a loser. Always trying to play the tough guy. I think most people at school wanted him to get his lights punched out. Even Collin.”
Eddie laughs, and Steve might even be laughing, or maybe grimacing in pain, but they both shut up immediately when Chief Hopper walks back over. He towers above them for a good five seconds in silence, looking between them somewhat confused, before he kneels down in front of Steve specifically and clicks on a small flashlight from his front pocket.
“Can we not?” Steve groans, as if this is something he’s done a million times before with Hopper.
“We’re going to.” Hopper responds, already shining the flashlight directly in Steve’s eyes. Steve makes a pitiful groaning noise that Eddie, very valiantly, does not comment on. As repayment.
Once the flashlight is clicked off and put away, Hopper makes Steve follow his finger. Seemingly satisfied, he then spares Eddie nothing more than a sidelong glance before standing again.
“Well fuck my brain, I guess.” He huffs, minutely embarrassed that Hopper must have been able to take one look at him and deduce that he had no part in the fight.
“Up.” Hopper instructs, offering Steve a hand on his elbow that Steve squirms away from. Unperturbed, Hopper nods towards the second police cruiser. “In.”
“Come on, Hop.” Steve protests immediately, and Eddie vacantly repeats Hop? in his head. “It was self defense!”
“Mhm.” Hopper hums, already walking towards the driver’s side. “And notice how those lethal weapons of yours aren’t cuffed. You’re not under arrest, don’t be dramatic.”
“You’re being dramatic!” Steve insists. “I can drive myself home.”
“You can, but I’m telling you that you’re not going to.”
“Why is that up to you, exactly?”
Eddie is a little impressed by this. He knows, from personal experience, that you can mouth off to Chief Hopper or really any of the guys on Hawkins PD and face absolutely zero repercussions. They’re all too apathetic to really give a fuck. Still, Eddie never really imagined Steve to be the type to test that limit. It seems he and Hopper know each other pretty well.
“Look, Harrington.” Hopper is visibly losing patience. “You can get in the car now and get a ride home, or I can cuff you and let you sit in the station overnight.”
With an alarmingly quick response, Steve very certainly says, “You won’t do that.”
Hopper’s jaw clenches. Fascinated, Eddie is too caught up in catching the next response in this tennis match to realize that Hopper’s eyes suddenly landing on him is probably not good.
“Well,” Hopper sighs, full of faux-regret, “selling illicit substances, getting into fights. I’ll at least have to arrest Munson. I can’t exactly let one of you off the hook and not the other. Corrupt police work, that’d be.”
Eddie’s mouth falls open, his brain overriding the knowledge that he’s being used as a pawn in this weird little exasperated father-rebellious teenager routine that Steve and the fucking Chief of police seem to have for some reason.
He seriously cannot break his miraculous record of never being taken into the station. Wayne will kill him. Even if he’s only sitting in a holding cell for one night, even if there are no real consequences, Wayne absolutely cannot get a call from any sort of jail.
“Steve,” Eddie rounds on him immediately, prepared to have to get on his knees and beg, but Steve simply rolls his eyes and heaves a deep sigh.
“You owe me, man.” He mutters as he slides into the backseat of the cruiser. When Eddie hastily follows suit, just catching missing self-satisfied grumbling from Hopper, Steve looks at him across the seat and adds, “Twice.”
Though preferable to being arrested, the ride is awkward once they’re on the road. It’s hard to tell in the dark, but Eddie’s pretty sure they’re going in the direction of Loch Nora first, meaning he’ll be stuck alone with Chief Hopper to receive the same nondescript lecture about drug abuse that he receives bi-annually. They sit quietly, Steve facing his window in an act that can only be described as sulking, before the car is suddenly stopped and put in park at neither of their homes.
Eddie blinks in the neon light being cast directly in his face, confused when Hopper nonchalantly unbuckles, grabs his keys and what looks to be a milkshake from the cupholder beside him. A milkshake that’s probably in the perfect, delicious stage of soft meltiness, if the condensation on the styrofoam is any indication.
“Are you serious.” Steve doesn’t even phrase it as a question, just an annoyed statement, as Hopper shuts the door without a word and strolls up to the entrance of Melvald’s.
“So…” Eddie may be speaking at an inopportune time once again tonight, but he’s too curious to contain it. “Are you and Chief Hopper, uh, like, friends?”
Steve looks at him like he’s insane, possibly rabid. “Friends?”
“Well you seem to know him pretty well, is all. And vice versa.”
Steve is quiet for a moment, looking down at the torn upholstery in apparent contemplation before saying, “He’s sort of like…a family friend. Except he doesn’t know anyone in my family, not really. And it feels weird to refer to him as a friend.”
“So not a family friend.”
“Still sort of the same idea.” Steve insists. “There are people who are like family, and then there’s Hopper, and they’re all sort of in the same…zone.”
He seems to be choosing his words very carefully, and struggling a bit with it. A year ago, Eddie would be disgusted with the current version of himself for finding someone like Steve Harrington so interesting, for wanting to understand these small details in his life. A year ago he didn’t think of Steve as anything more than an extra in a bad movie, only brought into existence for one singular scene, to sneer out some badly written dialogue and then cease to be.
But Eddie feels pretty stupid for ever thinking that, now. Would a nameless background character be given such random, unexpected details such as being best friends with a geeky fourteen year old? Or apparently having a whole family outside of his actual family, including the Chief of police? Or being willing to take a punch only a minute after bitching Eddie out?
If he thinks about it too hard, he starts to spiral a bit. If Steve has these unforeseen depths, do the other jocks? Is there really anything beyond their shallow, loosely-grasped view of the world? Are guys like David and Collin also capable of these unexpected realizations?
“He’s in there talking to Ms. Byers.” Steve says, oblivious to Eddie’s deep contemplation. He’s scooted over on the seat just enough to look out the windshield and into Melvald’s, where Hopper does appear to be leaning on the counter and talking to, apparently, Ms. Byers. All he can see is the back of her head.
“They a thing?” Eddie asks. Steve scoffs.
“You have no idea.”
“We’re gonna be trapped in here all night, then.”
“Oh, yeah, that was always the point.” Steve looks at Eddie like he should’ve picked up on this all being some sort of elaborate ploy by the chief of police. “He’s punishing me. For rattling my brain around in my skull again.”
“Punishing you by making you spend time with yours truly? I have been known to be fairly obnoxious.” Eddie asks, feeling himself start to smirk despite himself. Steve has really, really helped him out twice tonight already. He shouldn’t purposefully torment him. He just can’t help it. It’s endlessly amusing to watch Steve Harrington cycle through reactions in his proximity.
“No, he doesn’t know you’re obnoxious.” Steve dismisses, so blithe that Eddie isn’t sure if he even intended the insult. It makes Eddie smile wider. “He’s putting me in time out. He does this with his daughter all the time, she hates it. I think he hopes that she’ll get so bored and desperate to do something other than silent reading time that she’ll see the error of her ways.”
“And how did you acquire this extensive background knowledge on Chief Hopper’s parenting techniques?”
“I…babysit his daughter sometimes.” Steve says, taking a suspiciously long time while he seemingly chose the right word. It echoes the same way Lucas first explained why Steve was picking them up after school all the way back in September. A long pause, then the carefully chosen word babysitter. It immediately evoked a shrieked rebuff from Dustin, who insisted Steve chose to be their friend, thank you very much.
“Like you babysit Lucas and Dustin?”
“Mm, kinda. Lucas and Dustin–they don’t really need babysitting anymore. They’re still little shitheads, don’t get me wrong, but they’re mostly fine on their own at this point. Maybe babysitting isn’t the right word for El, either. Maybe more like…” Steve appears deep in thought, chewing on his lip as he contemplates, “Tutoring? That seems wrong too…”
Eddie thought he was just gonna sell Steve some weed tonight. Engage in some typical ribbing and leave with the satisfying knowledge that he once again managed to get under his skin. And now in the span of like, an hour, he’s watched Steve violently stick up for him, receive an impromptu medical examination from his friend slash ally Chief Hopper, and reveal that he’s constantly doing some sort of Big Brothers Big Sisters solo project.
Eddie’s always been something of a scholar. More inclined towards reading and writing than science, but the pull of natural curiosity will end up getting him engaged in all sorts of experiments and observations.
Talking to Steve Harrington sometimes makes Eddie feel like a zoologist who’s discovering a new genus of insects. Like, he wants to publish his findings in a journal, ask the greater intellectual community, ‘Does anyone know about this?’ He wants to become an expert on the topic, the leading scholar in the subject of Steve Harrington, wants to write an entire thesis on some obscure little five-year stretch of his life and how it affected his current behavioral patterns.
And being in the back of a cop car while their chauffeur has abandoned them, while not ideal on most occasions, is giving Eddie a chance to further this research. Do a proper case study. He shifts in his seat, facing Steve full-on, and asks, “What do you tutor her on?”
“Again, not really the right word.” Steve grimaces. “It’s not that formal. And I’m not like, getting paid. I just like to help her out a little. She’s, uh–she was homeschooled. So she’s got a lot to learn.”
“Okay. Like what?”
“Like right now we’re kinda talking about etiquette. Table manners and shit like that, y’know? My mom made me take etiquette classes when I was eight, so I know the way all the forks go or–what?” Steve’s voice is suddenly accusatory. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Like what?”
“Smirking. You’re smirking again.”
“No, no, I’m just–” Eddie can’t use accurate words to describe his current state. Fixated, obsessed, ravenous to know every little detail about the life of Steve Harrington for some godforsaken reason. “Curious.”
“Mhm.” Steve’s brows are arched, his lips pursed with suspicion, but for all his bitching he sure is doing a lot of talking. Displaying a lot of willingness to give Eddie a good amount of insight. Maybe, perhaps, Steve enjoys their back and forth just as much. Maybe that’s why he was coming to buy weed tonight. Maybe that’s why he’s not getting out of the very unlocked and unsupervised cop car.
“So tell me, Steve,” Eddie leans forward, props his chin on his fist. There’s no telling when Steve will ever be this willing to talk to him again. Maybe this is a rare window, the one day a year the temperature hits the perfect stasis during the perfect hour when Steve will emerge from his usual underbrush and decide to allow himself to be captured in full color. “Which way do the forks go?”