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Steve Harrington comes to school on a random Monday in November with his face beaten black and blue. He also has a new smell that is distinctly omega in quality, velvety light and airy like laundry detergent: all soft clean things.
“What the hell,” Gareth says. His eyeballs are damn near popping out of his skull as he openly stares at Harrington. Pretty preppy Harrington who is also apparently an omega, sitting all alone on the bleachers during lunch and looking kind of like a kicked puppy.
They all pass him on their collective way to the parking lot. Steve doesn’t look at them. He doesn’t really look up from his lap. It’s a shame, Eddie thinks distantly. Someone as beautiful as him shouldn’t be looking down.
“I totally called it,” Grant says once they’re out of earshot.
This is pure nonsense; Grant is perhaps the most oblivious person in existence. There is no chance in hell that he ever once looked upon Steve Harrington in all of his handsome jock glory and thought yeah, this dude’s definitely an omega.
“No you absolutely did not,” Eddie grumbles.
“I think it makes sense,” Jeff contributes thoughtfully. “His designation, I mean.”
“How so?”
He shrugs. “He’s way too pretty to be anything other than omega.”
Gareth starts fuming about how that’s kind of a sexist thing to say and then the three of them get into an argument about secondary gender politics and presentation and by the time they get to Eddie’s van they’ve pretty much entirely forgotten all about Steve Harrington in favor of listing conventionally attractive omega celebrities.
Eddie could not give less of a shit about any of that. His head feels like it’s been stuffed full of tissue paper. His thoughts are so loud and he can’t think about anything other than Steve Harrington. Steve sitting alone at lunch, Steve with a black eye and busted lip and a jagged cut on his forehead sealed with butterfly tape. Steve scenting of omega beautifully, but of a lonely one. Soapy sadness, almost a little salty. Bittersweet. It’s nice but it could be better.
Eddie thinks about him until he feels sick.
According to Gareth—who heard it from Grant, who heard it from Buckley from band, who heard it from Heather who heard it from Carol Perkins who is the beating heart of all gossip within the boundaries of Hawkins High School—Billy Hargrove is the shithead alpha who’d decided to put his hands on Steve.
Eddie’s never really been one to pick fights. He loves to antagonize any jocks within his immediate vicinity, as he is well within his right to do, but he never really picks fights in a physical capacity. He likes riling people up and then immediately fleeing the scene. He likes standing up on lunch tables and yelling at the dumbass preps because he knows they’re too chickenshit to do anything about it. He likes drawing attention away from the freshie nerds and geeks who would otherwise be getting their heads dunked into toilet bowls.
If the right people are looking at him, then his fellow losers at Hawkins High can breathe a little easier. It makes him feel like a better person and all.
Cornering Billy Hargrove in the back alley by the gym where he likes to smoke cigarettes makes Eddie feel—well. A lot of things. Maybe not necessarily like a better person. It’s kind of hard to tell.
Despite what his actions may lead others to believe, Eddie’s not stupid. He knows Billy Hargrove vaguely in the way that everybody living in a small town just knows each other. He knows the guy’s at the top of the food chain as a meathead alpha with an eight-pack and nothing to lose. They have a little bit in common. They’re both poor and angry and like to listen to metal music.
The difference is that Eddie listens to Metallica and writes D&D campaigns while Billy Hargrove listens to Metallica and lifts weights and fantasizes about bullying people, probably. So they’re not very alike at all in the long run.
Eddie couldn’t give less of a shit about him as a person, is the bottom line. Maybe that’s why he feels comfortable cornering him.
It also doesn’t hurt that he’s not afraid. Eddie’s generally pretty afraid of most things: of becoming an adult, and of disappointing his uncle, and of being in the wrong place at the wrong time and winding up locked in a prison cell right next to his dad. He’s afraid of never getting out of this town and of never doing anything with his music. He’s afraid of forgetting his mother’s face and scent, always warm and soft and beautiful regardless of the things she’d been going through.
He’s afraid of a lot of things.
But he’s not afraid of Billy Hargrove.
The guy’s a ball of insecurities and abysmal self-worth masked by hairspray and unbuttoned shirts. His scent is horrible and he pumps it out in droves and refuses to wear a scent patch because he’s the worst kind of alpha jackass, all false bravado and machismo. He can say and do whatever the hell he wants but Eddie knows that he’s probably too afraid to look at himself in the mirror, and Eddie’s never been like that. He’s never been so transparently ashamed of himself like that.
So he hears from Gareth that Billy’s beating up on omegas and his vision goes red and he finds himself stalking to the gym. He doesn’t remember the lead-up, really. He just sees Hargrove leaning against the wall all casually and everything goes hazy.
Then all of a sudden the moments slow down, filtering through his mind like the sand in an hourglass, and when he blinks he’s got Hargrove pinned up against the brick with his fists.
Hargrove is momentarily too stunned to do anything about it. He’s still got a cigarette dangling from his mouth. He is also sporting a hell of a shiner, which makes something like satisfaction coil up like a snake in Eddie’s belly.
Apparently Steve doesn’t pull his punches, either.
“The fuck did you do to Harrington?” Eddie asks, his voice so low it’s practically a growl.
Hargrove isn’t quick enough to mask his surprise. “What?” he sputters. “What the hell do you even care, freak?”
Eddie’s may not be the most traditional-looking alpha. He’s not super bulky or big or tall, but he is scrappy as hell. He’s got a pocket knife tucked in his boot and he’s not above using his talons. He’s also not above biting, and he’s definitely got the sharpest teeth out of everyone in Hawkins all thanks to daddy dearest, who regrettably didn’t leave him with much else.
He bares his teeth and snarls. Billy’s eyes go a little wide like he’s only just realizing that Eddie isn’t just being his usual brand of deranged and that he’s actually serious as a heart attack about this. Good. The gravity shifts and settles. Eddie’s heartbeat slows to a crawl.
“You like beating up on omegas? Is that the kind of alpha you are?” He jostles Billy a bit, grips the lapels of his dumb jacket and shoves him further into the wall. “Fucking piece of shit. You pull something like that again and I’ll kill you.”
Billy’s lip curls. His canines are sharp, sure, but Eddie’s are much sharper. He flashes them again just to do it.
“I don’t beat up on omegas, jerkoff,” Hargrove says, his voice a little lower. “Harrington wasn’t even an omega before.”
Eddie knows that it’s probably true. There’s the nebulous timeline of the weekend, impossible to parse without a firsthand account: Harrington was unpresented and unscathed before, and then over the course of two days he got beaten to a pulp and was sent into a presentation heat, and the latter probably occurred after the former, maybe even as a reaction to it.
He doesn’t care. It’s the principle of the thing, of being a good alpha and not using the qualities they’ve been gifted—strength and teeth and the ability to command others—to take advantage of other people.
And anyway, Harrington has always been delicate in the same way that a teacup is, all hard ceramic exterior but incredibly susceptible to cracks. From what Eddie can tell, he’s kind of an airhead, kind of a douchebag, and he’s zoned out more often than not. But his eyes have always been kind and now they’re just sad. Eddie can’t stand for that shit.
It reminds him too much of his mother.
“I don’t actually give a shit,” Eddie seethes. “I don’t give a single shit that you’re new here, that you hate your life, that you hate living in this shit town. We all do. Cope better. And if you put your hands on Harrington or any omega again, I swear to God it’ll be the last thing you do.”
He lets go of Billy. Steps back a bit. His own scent is strong and sour with the anger of it all. He wants to claw Billy’s face up. He wants to send a punt right up between his legs with his studded shitkickers. He wants Billy Hargrove to feel the same fucking humiliation that Steve is probably feeling right now, newly single and freshly presented and eating lunch all alone because his friends from before are either ignoring him or laughing at him.
Hargrove squints. Then he laughs. It’s an ugly kind of laugh, all loud and uneven, purely for show. “He’s not gonna fuck you, Munson. You know that, right?”
Eddie doesn’t dignify this remark with any kind of acknowledgment. It doesn’t warrant one.
“Buy your weed from someone else, asshole. You’re on my list now.”
There’s a tense moment of eye contact. Billy looks about ready to snap and tear Eddie a new one. Eddie’s ready to fight back. He wants a reason to sink his teeth down into flesh and rip. He’s a hair’s breadth away from flying into a feral rage and he can feel it in his lungs and chest. They both know it.
Impossibly, Billy scowls and looks away, an act of deference.
“Whatever,” he mutters.
In a way, it’s something of a miracle that Hargrove decided not to launch a huge fist at Eddie’s face. Something’s clearly changed in him. He looks a little skittish now, eyes moving like he’s looking for something but doesn’t quite know what. He doesn’t give a shit about Eddie’s threats, or maybe he does but not enough to fight him about it.
Eddie wants to provoke him again. The smarter part tells him that he said his piece and now it’s time to leave, and for once he listens to it, if only to prevent the very real possibility of Wayne having to bail him out of jail with blood that isn’t his own staining his hands.
He scoffs and stalks off, rounds the corner and of course Carol Perkins is right there, standing up against the wall. Her hair is big and she’s wearing a puffer vest and dark jeans, and her eyes are clear blue and sharp and Eddie knows by this time tomorrow the whole school is gonna know. They’ll all be talking about how he pushed Hargrove up against a wall and threatened to kill him if he so much as looked in Steve Harrington’s direction again.
He only hates it for how it’ll put Steve in a terribly awkward position, because Eddie went and tried to defend his honor like the stereotypical alpha asshole in those horrible movies that he hates, and the two of them had never even had a conversation with each other.
“Billy’s right,” Carol says, chin lifted and eyebrows pointed because she apparently can’t help herself. “He’s not gonna fuck you.”
“Fuck off, wench,” Eddie mutters, and she huffs and takes her leave back inside the gym. He heads in the opposite direction just because, stumbling along the gravel path and wondering how different his life would be if he just left some things well enough alone.
Eddie skips first period the following day and slinks into the halls during third. He’s all kinds of off and annoyed, generally grumpy as all hell. Nicole, one of Carol’s many flying monkey minions, keeps staring at him and wrinkling her nose like he’s the germy piece of gum stuck to the bottom of her shoe.
It’s not just her. It feels like everyone’s staring, heads turning in the halls and whispers licking at his back. Nobody actually comes up to him and says anything, though, the fucking cowards. They all just stare and whisper and usually Eddie can ignore it but this time it feels distinctly different, charged with something he can’t put a name to.
He supposes he understands. Nobody had ever really taken him seriously before. They might not have messed with him beyond a small shove or a snide remark, but they probably all thought his lunchtime tangents were just for show, that he had no substance to back it up. They probably all just assumed he was crazy or delusional or weak in both his build and his will. It’s a little satisfying to have proven them wrong. It’s mostly annoying, though.
He likes attention when he can command it. He doesn’t like the feeling of eyes all over him, the back of his neck prickling like a cactus and his ears burning when he catches whispers of his name followed by Steve’s.
It goes on like this all day, this ceaseless build-up that swells into fifth period PE.
Eddie doesn’t change out, accepting the F for the day in favor of sitting on the bleachers and stewing in his own simmering irritation and watching as everyone else walks lazy circles around the sad track field.
It’s too cold for this shit. PE is stupid as hell. He leans back and looks up at the grey sky and continues to wish that he were anywhere else but here. A cloud in the sky looks like a heart. This, too, is mocking him.
He’s just about decided that he’s going to head home and deem this day a lost cause when someone speaks up.
“Hey.”
Eddie looks back down.
Steve Harrington is standing in front of him. Steve Harrington is not in Eddie’s PE class. They do not have any of the same classes; how he knew to find Eddie out here is a mystery. He’s wearing a yellow sweater and Nike sneakers to match and also perfect light-wash blue jeans. He shifts on his feet and he doesn’t keep his eyes on Eddie, like it would be too much to look at him for longer than a single fleeting moment.
He’s gorgeous as ever. It would be annoying if Eddie wasn’t himself. As it is, Eddie can feel his hackles actively lowering. His shoulders fall and his face relaxes from where it had been pinched and he finds his hands fidgeting awkwardly in his lap.
“Uh. Hi,” he says awkwardly.
“You got a minute?” Steve asks. He crosses his arms over his chest. “I wanted to talk to you.”
Eddie cringes, already hating himself for the next ten or so minutes of painful conversation he’ll have to endure. “Yeah. Not like I’m doing anything else.”
Steve nods and climbs up onto the bleachers. He sits next to Eddie. He puts enough distance between them that it’s not weird, but Eddie can already see the way the metaphorical vultures are circling, the popular crowd eyeing them and beginning to gossip to one another from where they round the track in cliquey clumps.
Eddie digs a canine into his lip.
“I heard what you did,” Steve states. “Carol told Nicole who told Heather who told Robin Buckley who told me.”
He just says it. There’s no lead-up. No illusion of niceties. Steve just dives right into it. Eddie can respect that. He can’t imagine exchanging small talk with Steve just so they can work their way up to discussing the reality that Eddie went near-feral and threatened Hargrove with first-degree murder for putting his hands on an omega that he’s never actually talked to before today.
“Jesus, I hate small towns,” Eddie remarks lightly. “Why can’t everyone just mind their own business?”
“Why’d you do it?” Steve asks. He doesn’t sound upset or angry. Just curious.
Eddie chances a glance at him. He’s not looking back, instead gazing out where the edges of the football field fade into the woods, the trees all golden brown in late autumn.
Most of the bruising on his face has faded. He hasn’t really done much to style his hair but it’s perfect anyway, all artfully messy and a little fluffy. His jawline is sharp, his lips pursed like there’s a million things he wants to say but he’s trying not to be too much. There’s a little beauty mark by his eye because of course there is.
Eddie really likes the look of him. He feels kind of gross for it. Mostly he feels justified in his actions. Like he did the right thing for once, maybe. Protected something that needed protecting.
“I don’t know,” Eddie lies.
Steve turns to look at him. “Not sure I believe that.”
Eddie shrugs a shoulder. His gums itch. Steve smells too sweet today, all caramelly, golden spun sugar. Eddie cannot imagine ever putting his hands on Steve regardless of his designation. He’s too nice, too soft, too everything. He’s too good. Hargrove’s going to hell. Eddie will surely meet him there. Then they can fight for real.
“You know, I just had the worst two weeks of my life,” Steve says casually. “My kid brother’s pet lizard went missing, and my girlfriend broke up with me and started dating Jonathan Byers, and then Hargrove beat my face in. I had the most intense presentation heat that Hawkins Memorial has ever seen, and they called my parents about it but they didn’t even come, just sent a basket of flowers. I had to call Hopper to drive me back home. Isn’t that sad? The chief of police had to pick me up from the hospital because I didn’t know who else to call. Then I had to come back to school a few days later and pretend like it was all just normal, that nothing happened to me at all, but nobody would talk to me. Nobody would even look at me unless it was to stare and gawk like I’m some kind of—some kind of—”
“Freak?” Eddie supplies.
Steve blinks, stunned. His eyes are so big and brown and deep. Then his lip twitches, ticking upward. Eddie finds himself smiling too. It’s a strange moment, this shared solidarity, a pearl of humor found in an overwhelming sea of dark blue.
It’s nice.
“Yeah,” Steve confirms softly. “A freak.”
Eddie’s head is buzzing with all of the new information Steve has just dispelled. For one, he apparently has a kid brother; this somehow explains a lot about him. Also apparently Nancy Wheeler is dating Byers, which doesn’t make much sense but also kind of does in a way that Eddie doesn’t care enough to analyze. Steve’s parents are the fucking worst. Hopper is maybe alright. He’s a cop and Eddie hates cops more than anything else but clearly he cares about Steve in some capacity, and it’s definitely strange but at least Steve’s got someone in his corner.
For some reason, everything Steve has said just makes Eddie like him that much more.
Eddie leans back onto the bleacher behind him, propping himself by his elbows. Steve kind of shifts to be facing him. It’s affirming, the openness of his posture. It tells Eddie that he feels safe. That’s a nice thought, Eddie being someone that people feel safe around. It’s nice to know that he can provide that.
“It’s not so bad, you know. Being a freak. I mean, I’m sure it was nice to be at the top, but all of your old friends suck. They’re, like, major assholes.”
Steve laughs. It’s a beautiful kind of sound. “Believe me, I know. Carol won’t stop spreading rumors about me. Tommy Hagan used to be my best friend. Now he’s writing things I can’t repeat on my locker.”
Eddie sits up a bit. He cracks his jaw. His fingers flex. His scent spikes in something that could very well be rage. It’s hard to tell in the familiar haze he feels coming on.
He asks, “What did he write?”
Steve jerks, taken aback at Eddie’s sudden shift in tone and scent. “What? No, it’s—don’t worry about it.”
Eddie stares at him.
He deflates. “Seriously, it’s not a big deal. Higgins is making him clean it up in addition to serving, like, two weeks of detention. So it’s not so bad.”
Eddie doesn’t know if he accepts that, but he eases down a little, lets his fangs sink back into his mouth from where they’d dropped down unwittingly.
“One thing you should know,” Eddie begins. “Since you’re a self-proclaimed freak now. I look after my own. So if anyone gives you shit, tell me, okay? I’ll take care of it.”
“I don’t need to be protected,” Steve says, indignant and a little exasperated. “Just because I’m an omega now—”
“Hey, hey, I never said that. I would do the same if you were getting shit for presenting as anything else, man.”
“Really? Is that why you cornered Billy and told him you’d kill him if he ever laid a hand on an omega again?”
Eddie doesn’t really remember saying that. And even if he did, fuck Carol Perkins for telling everyone and their mother about something that Eddie had said in the heat of an adrenaline-induced near-feral moment.
He doesn’t answer.
Steve huffs. “Seriously. I kinda wanted this whole thing to blow over. You threatening Billy like that is only drawing everything out.”
“Sorry,” Eddie says genuinely. “I wasn’t really thinking about that.”
“It’s okay, I guess,” Steve allows. He pauses. “What were you thinking, though?”
He figures Steve has overshared enough. Now it’s his turn. “My mom was an omega,” he says. “And she was the best woman around, but everyone was always taking advantage of her or pushing her around. And when you’re a kid you don’t really know what to do, or what you’re allowed to do to help. So I did a whole lot of sitting on my ass and doing nothing and feeling generally helpless, and then she died and I feel like I’ve gotta—I don’t know. Make up for it or something.”
Steve is quiet. The breeze is nice. Just a little too cold, but he has layers on. Steve is in only a sweater but he doesn’t look cold at all. It suits him, autumn. He looks like he belongs here, in the warm colors and cool winds.
“You were a kid,” Steve eventually says. His voice is firm. “I mean—okay, I’ll be honest. I don’t hate it, knowing there’s someone looking out for me that isn’t Hopper or a pack of useless twelve-year-olds—”
“What?”
“But you don’t have to do this because you want to make up for what happened with your mom. I’m sure she wouldn’t want you to be agonizing over it. I don’t think any mother would want that for their kid.”
It’s a shockingly wise sentiment from a guy that Eddie had thought was all hairspray and no substance up until maybe a week or so ago.
“Yeah,” he agrees with a hum. “Maybe.”
“You’re still gonna find Tommy after this, aren’t you?” Steve asks, resigned. “I can see it in your face. You’re already plotting some kind of revenge.”
Eddie side-eyes him. “Maybe,” he repeats. “Two weeks of detention isn’t a big enough sentence for his crimes, Steve. Was thinking I’d throw a pee-filled water balloon at his humongous head.”
Steve barks a surprised laugh. “That’s crazy.”
“Yeah, well. I’m crazy.”
“Yeah, yeah. I’m getting that.” When Steve grins his eyes crinkle up at the corners. His teeth are stark pearly white. He has cute little canines that sit a little unevenly in his mouth. There’s a dimple below his bottom lip.
“You have a pretty smile,” Eddie blurts, thoughtless. He immediately feels regret rising up in his throat but he shoves it back down. It’s the truth, of course. But he probably shouldn’t have said it.
Steve goes still and his cheeks go pink. It’s beautiful, his flush. So much color.
“Really?” he asks.
“Yeah.”
“Thank you,” Steve says. He looks down. “This is weird.”
“Sorry.”
“No, no, just—I just feel like up until now I’ve been living my life with my head up my own ass, and now that everything’s changed I can see the world in the right light, you know, and nothing is how I thought it was. Nothing. Like, I’m an omega, which is okay. Fine. It’s great. But also all of my old friends are assholes, and Robin Buckley from band is my new best friend, and I’ve always been kind of scared of you, but you’re actually really nice.”
Eddie’s throat is kind of dry. He swallows. His voice still scrapes out of his throat. “Like I said. I look out for my own.”
“Your own,” Steve echoes. “Does that mean we’re packmates now?”
Eddie honestly cannot process this question for its sheer absurdity, and yet Steve had said it so earnestly, face lit up with what can only be described as hope. Eddie absolutely short-circuits for about ten seconds or so before stuttering out a choked, “What?”
“You smell nice,” Steve tells him simply.
“What?”
“Maybe you can scent me?”
“What?”
“Oh my God, stop saying what,” Steve laughs. Then, slowly and sincerely, “Do you think you could scent me?”
“Uh,” Eddie says.
It’s not that scenting is all that uncommon between packmates, but this is quite literally Steve and Eddie’s first conversation, and if Steve goes back into Hawkins High smelling like Eddie’s fragrant smoke and ash then everyone is going to think that they’re fooling around, which would in turn only drag out the shitshow that Steve has been wanting to pass for a few days now.
Eddie is horrible. He is wanting. He is most definitely a weak man. He wants to scent Steve immediately, intimately, until every square inch of his warm skin is drenched in Eddie, Eddie, Eddie. People would probably leave him alone then. They’d still be terrible and relentless and gossip behind his back, but they wouldn’t be stupid enough to directly disrespect someone who has been claimed so obviously by a pack alpha.
He’s not gonna fuck you, Billy had said, the same sentiment that Carol had echoed just a few moments later.
“Please?” Steve asks, and then he tilts his head to bare his neck.
You two don’t know shit, Eddie thinks viciously, as his heart lurches into his throat so fast he worries he might faint.
He doesn’t hesitate again. He leans in and rubs his nose and cheek into Steve’s neck, soft and gentle. His wrist slides along the length of Steve’s arm, his scent leaking warm firewood onto the fabric of his sweater.
Steve does the same. His scent spills out slow and sweet, molasses. He smells so good. It makes Eddie’s teeth ache. He wants to drown in him.
When he reluctantly pulls back, Steve’s cheeks have gone from pink to crimson and his pupils are dilated as hell. He looks blissed out, a little hazy, not quite scent drunk but almost certainly buzzed. With the unhinged smile he can feel tweaking at his lips. Eddie’s not certain he’s faring any better.
“Thanks,” Steve says, voice all light and airy. “Hey. Let me know if you do decide to terrorize Tommy, okay?”
“So you can stop me?”
“So I can join you,” he replies. He reaches over and squeezes Eddie’s wrist in his big warm hands. “I’ll see you around, Eddie.”
Steve gets up and leaves then, stepping down off the bleachers and making his way back to school. Eddie watches him, stunned stupid and rapt; his eyes trace the contours of Steve’s body, the square of his shoulders and his general wideness, his swooping hair and also his jeans. The fit of them. They look like they fit good. Good jeans.
He looks back once and catches Eddie staring unabashedly. He grins, something toothy and genuine, and then turns back around and keeps walking.
“What the fuck was that,” Eddie asks nobody at all, and he stays rooted to the spot until the bell rings, signaling the start of seventh period.
Eddie has biology with Gareth. He has no idea what unit they’re on or if there was homework due today. He honestly couldn’t give less of a shit.
When he walks back inside he reeks of omega. He smells sweet like Steve. Everyone in the hall is staring at him, eyes wide, disbelieving. Carol Perkins looks like she might be having a stroke, jaw dropped and eye twitching something fierce. He absolutely does not make pointed eye contact with her and grin. This would be a petty move on his end, and he is not a petty person, thank you very much. He merely walks to biology without looking at her once because he is very mature and graceful and forgiving.
“What the hell,” Gareth says the minute he walks into the classroom. Again, Gareth’s eyeballs are damn near popping out of his skull. This is a common theme with him.
Eddie falls into his seat and sighs.
“How?” Gareth asks at length. Eddie would honestly be a little offended by his complete lack of faith if the circumstances were even a little bit different. As it is, he’s still reeling in the scent of Steve and the impression that his smile had left behind, bright like the sun and blinding, golden.
Eddie shrugs, hunches over the desk and hides his smile into his arms.
“I don’t know,” he mumbles. His cheeks are warm. His shoes tap at the linoleum. He can’t wait to see Steve Harrington again, even if it’s just in passing. He can’t wait to exchange scents again.
They are packmates, after all.
“Guess I just did something right.”