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It’s July and Steve is sitting in a sticky booth at the very back of a diner that his mother would’ve patronizingly called cozy, if she’d ever found herself outside the white-picket boundaries of Loch Nora while in Hawkins. It’s called the Moonbeam Diner and it proclaims so very loudly with a neon blue sign hung crooked in the window, decals of stars slapped haphazardly on the glass around it. The Moonbeam sits on the edge of town, just far enough from all of the Upside-Down shit to be safe: a ray of salvation when Hawkins feels like it’ll chew him up and spit him out and his house feels too big and empty, like it might swallow him whole.
It’s better to be here, surrounded by hushed activity, instead of staring blankly at his plaid bedspread and letting the past couple days play on repeat in his mind. Russians, green goo, LSD in his bloodstream, getting the shit kicked out of him. Robin. Dustin. Erica. Robin. Eleven. Hopper.
He knows that there’s other places he could go. Claudia Henderson adores Steve for reasons unbeknownst to him, and she invites him over every other day for dinner and jazzercise and games of Bridge. His friendship with Robin is new and good, still building upon a strong foundation, but it still feels way too soon to be crawling through her bedroom window to spend the night just because he’s too afraid to be alone. He used to be able to go to Hopper, too, because even though they didn’t know each other all that well, Hopper extended the invitation. Hopper got it. When it got bad, Steve would show up on his porch like a lost kitten and sit on his shitty moth-bitten couch while Happy Days played on the TV and they didn’t have to say anything at all. But Hopper’s gone now, has been for some days now, and Steve supposes he’ll have to get used to that, too.
So he goes to the Moonbeam.
Its patrons mostly consist of truckers and travelers. The interior belongs in the 50s. The waitresses all look bone-tired but they’re infinitely more kind than the staff at any other diner in Hawkins, and they all know Steve by name; and while they don’t ask questions whenever he slinks in with a new bruise or scrape, they do tend to slip him warm cookies, freshly blended milkshakes, or slices of still-cooling pie, and wordlessly glare whenever he tries to pay. So really, it’s easy to choose this place when he is in need of something different.
Regrettably, it appears as though this safe haven doesn’t just belong to Steve: a quarter after eleven finds Eddie Munson striding in through the front doors, loudly greeting the staff with erratic waving and a grin, and Steve stares like an idiot for several stupid reasons.
He knows Eddie, or knows of him, he supposes, since they’ve never had a proper conversation. Through no fault of his own, Eddie’s kind of always existed in the periphery of Steve’s life. He’s the loudest voice in the general din of the school cafeteria, heckling meathead jocks just for the hell of it; he’s the shadow in the corner of a patio at a party, pulling plastic baggies out of a tiny metal lunchbox; he’s the head of the school’s D&D club, and Steve only really knows this because Dustin had pleaded for Steve to scope it out for him, see if it’s worth it to join, and Steve had only taken one step in the old musty auditorium when Eddie had crowed from a prop throne, delighted and a little bit mean, “Sorry, King Steve, you must’ve taken a wrong turn somewhere—your domain’s right back the way you came.”
Run-ins with Eddie have been minimal. They’ve both kept it that way, whether intentionally or not. So the fact that they both seem to share a space like this makes Steve a bit uneasy. He pulls his hood down a little bit lower over his face so he can continue to stare unabashedly.
Summer is still in full swing but Eddie still wears long black jeans, only slightly ripped, and a worn gray t-shirt. His hair brushes his shoulders and he’s got all this jewelry, clanking and shiny and loud, silver rings and studs in his ears and a chain latched onto his belt loops. A black bandana is tucked into his back left pocket. He looks extremely out of place here. He belongs in a smoky pub, probably, tucked against the bar and talking to his friends that all look like him, layered in flannel and dark denim and a dose of nonconformity, sprinkled with an absurd amount of profane iron-on patches. Not in a neon 50s-style diner where the waitresses, all tucked into long skater skirts and full of motherly love that they’re itching to give away like candy, pat at his cheek and call him honey in exasperated voices.
Steve sinks further into his seat. Hopefully, Munson won’t see him. Hopefully, he won’t try to talk. It would certainly draw the attention of others, because Eddie’s prone to doing just that. Steve would prefer if tomorrow morning, the entire town wasn’t whispering about Steve Harrington slumming it at the Moonbeam with a beat-up face, mingling with a super senior drug dealer.
Steve’s luck has always been shitty, though, so that’s right about when the jukebox—an honest-to-God jukebox, tucked against the wall right beside Steve’s back-corner booth—decides to sputter out and die for no discernible reason. The ladies behind the counter groan collectively as if this is a regular occurrence.
One of them says, “Edward, honey, would you be a dear and take a look at that for us?” and Eddie nods enthusiastically, slipping from his stool at the bar to stride over to the jukebox. This means he passes Steve’s booth. This means he passes Steve. This also means that despite Steve’s best efforts, they wind up making direct eye-contact.
Eddie’s stride falters. Recognition dawns on his face but he doesn’t stop moving, instead turning around and calling, “Hey, Penny, you got a toolbox somewhere?”
About five minutes later, Eddie is tucked into the guts of the jukebox, stray screws scattered around his body where he sits on the tiled floor, legs criss-crossed, right next to Steve’s booth. He’s digging into a rusty red toolbox that looks like it’s seen better days. Steve watches him work from the corner of his eye. The way Eddie goes about fixing the thing is organized and methodical, completely contrasting his look of overwhelming chaos. It reminds Steve, startlingly and profoundly, of Dustin.
Steve probably should’ve gone to the Hendersons’ tonight.
He sighs and his body settles into the worn vinyl of his seat, no longer on edge. Maybe Eddie won’t try to talk to him. Maybe he won’t acknowledge Steve’s existence at all. Good. It’s better that way.
While Steve’s trying to decide how best to leave the booth without having to acknowledge Eddie’s presence, Eddie says, both loudly and apropos of nothing, “So. How does one Steve Harrington find himself at this lovely little rinky-dink establishment at,” he checks his calculator watch, “11:32 PM on a Tuesday night?”
Steve stiffens. There are a lot of reasons why he’s there. Namely, he has nowhere else to go. And the ladies behind the counter had taken one look at his haunted, beat-up face and started brewing him hot chocolate like they always do, despite the fact that it’s the beginning of July and blazing hot outside. The interior of the diner is nice and cool, though, with the A/C blasting right over Steve’s head, so the warmth of it is comforting. He wraps both of his palms around the mug. The care that the staff here express over him is something that he can’t get anywhere else; not without inconveniencing people. But he doesn’t need to tell Eddie that. He doesn't owe Eddie any answers.
“I come here all the time,” Steve says instead.
Eddie laughs like Steve just told a very funny joke. “No you don’t. At least, not on Tuesdays.”
Steve side-eyes him. “Does it matter that it’s a Tuesday?”
“Uh, yeah. Two for Two Tuesday is kind of a big deal around these parts, Harrington.” Eddie says his name in a way that sounds both condescending and patient. Steve doesn’t really know why. “This place may be run-down and a bit shady, home to many a drug deal as well as the town’s few and far between outcasts—hence why I am here—but the pie? The pie is quite literally to die for.”
Steve, who probably almost died a couple of days ago, doesn’t know how to respond to that, so he just nods. The conversation peters out. The jukebox is dead and the diner’s quiet save for the buzz of hushed conversation but Eddie hums loudly as he works. It's a song Steve doesn’t recognize.
Steve steals a glance at him. Eddie’s unscrewing something, his long fingers wrapped around a small screwdriver. He looks at the chunky silver rings, the way they sit just above all his knuckles. The sight of them does something to Steve: he wonders what they’d feel like slipped onto his own fingers. If they’d even fit. How they’d feel on Eddie’s hands, pressed against his skin, the chill of them searing.
He looks away with rapidly-pinking cheeks and takes a careful sip of the hot chocolate.
“So,” Eddie starts up again once he’s done. He says that a lot. He can never really be quiet or still, Steve realizes. Even after he’s finished fixing the jukebox, and everything’s put into the right place again, he stands up and flips through all of the songs, no doubt trying to find the most acceptable one. Steve has tried before. It’s very hard. “Any reason why your face is black and blue and red all over?”
Steve barely conceals a wince. He somehow keeps forgetting that he has a broken nose and a split lip and an eye that is entirely swollen shut, and then he’ll move the wrong way or someone will stare for a second too long, and he is painfully reminded of the fact. It looks worse than it did these past couple of days, too, which is saying a lot.
“It’s nothing,” he says lamely. He doesn’t have to explain himself to Eddie. He can't, legally, what with all of the NDAs he'd been forced to sign in the back of the ambulance after everything. And even if he did decide to tell Eddie, it’s not like Steve could say I got beat up by a bunch of undercover Russian soldiers who had a secret base underneath Starcourt Mall, the same one that is now in piles of rubble. Eddie is normal; he has no idea about any of the Upside Down shit. Eddie wouldn’t get it.
Eddie is also a little bit crazy, frenetic, brazen; he’s failed senior year twice and doesn’t give a shit about paying attention in classes that he deems utterly unhelpful to him in the long run. Steve knows this because he’d overheard him ranting about it once, tucked away under the bleachers during PE and surrounded by his other weird friends. School is bullshit and the teachers are ridiculous and Eddie could pay attention if he damn well wanted to. He just doesn’t care enough to. He could've been lying to preserve what little remains of his dignity, of course, but then again…
There’s this intelligent gleam in his eyes that tells Steve he’s probably smart as hell. The same one in Nancy’s and in Robin’s.
So when Eddie fixes his gaze on Steve, big brown eyes piercing and perceptive and glinting, Steve doesn’t look up. He’s afraid of what he’ll find reflected back at him.
“Did you get into a fight?” Eddie asks, haltingly. His voice is lighter, more tentative. Almost like he’s afraid of the answer.
Steve doesn’t really know what to say. Not really. He did knock that one dude’s lights out, but being tied to a chair and drugged and tortured by other more threatening Russians for an indistinguishable amount of time wasn’t really much of a fight. A fight implies that there are two active parties. It’s reciprocal, mutual. Steve was in a fight last November. Steve was not in a fight two days ago. Steve was tied down when they beat the shit out of his face and stomach, breaking ribs and pulling his hair out by the roots. He couldn’t fight back.
“No,” he answers. That much he can admit honestly.
Eddie nods, lips pursed, and slaps at a random button on the jukebox. A blues song from the 60s begins to filter out of the speakers, which was probably the best song on there anyway.
He then slides into the booth across from Steve without asking or waiting for permission. His arms are bare where they rest upon the tabletop and he has tattoos all over, scratchy stick-n-pokes. They’re well done, though. A little bit jagged and rough around the edges, but Steve thinks that just enhances their look, probably. The cluster of bats on his arm are cool. Steve sometimes wishes he could rock shit like that. That he could look like that. That he could be like Eddie in general. Wear silver jewelry and sketchy tattoos without giving a single fuck as to what other people think about him. It must be nice. Freeing.
“Harrington,” Eddie says again. The condescending tone is gone. He just looks concerned, now, which is wild and new and a little bit scary. Steve’s never seen Eddie Munson look like this: not at school, not at parties, and certainly not at him. “Are you—did someone…” He sighs, before saying, words jumbling together, “You can totally tell me to fuck right off, but I have to ask. Is someone putting their hands on you?”
Steve blinks at him. Eddie’s eyebrows are drawn and his expression is taut. A simmering something lingering just below the surface of his skin. Anger, maybe? Frustration. Eddie’s gaze is intense and imploring. He realizes, belatedly, what Eddie is actually asking. Is someone putting their hands on you?
“What? No! No, this wasn’t—“ he sighs, slumping a little further down. “No, definitely not. This was a one-time kinda thing.”
Eddie looks doubtful. He murmurs, almost to himself, “Sure. A ‘one-time kinda thing.’ ‘Cause this must be the third time I’ve seen you with a black eye and busted lip. Makes total sense.”
Steve feels an irrational sort of irritation rise up within him. Why the hell does Eddie even care? Nobody’s bothered to ask him this before. “Those were all different situations. Not connected.”
“So I’m just supposed to believe that on three separate and unrelated occasions, you got the absolute shit kicked out of you by completely different people?”
Steve wilts. It sounds ridiculous when Eddie says it like that. “Yes,” he says weakly. “It’s the truth.”
Eddie sighs. Then he scoots out of the booth.
Steve feels relieved and, bizarrely, a little bit upset that Eddie is leaving so abruptly, but whatever. The nightmares have been staved off for the time being, and the warmth from the hot chocolate has burrowed in his chest. He should be fine to stay here for a few more minutes and then head back home, fall into a fitful sleep in his shitty bed and ignore the way that the light of the pool reflects through his window, almost as if it's taunting him. The blue lights at the Moonbeam don’t do that. The blue lights at the Moonbeam are more of a gentle, soothing embrace than anything else, a beacon of safety calling out to him.
Eddie surprises him by not only coming back, but coming back with two steaming slices of pie.
“Strawberry rhubarb,” he explains, setting the plates down. He also deliberates before sliding the bigger slice over to Steve, which feels important. “I could only afford it ‘cause it’s two for two Tuesday, Harrington, so don’t expect me to be doing this again or anything.”
“I could’ve bought my own,” Steve protests. He’s always felt a little weird about people buying him things. Especially now.
“I’m sure you could, sweetheart. In fact, you live in Loch Nora and are almost certainly a trust fund baby, so if anything, you should be paying for mine instead.”
And Steve knows that yes, he was that person at some point. He hadn’t worked a day in his life until this summer, and if he ever needed anything, all he had to do was lift a finger. Now, though, he has maybe twenty total dollars in his bank account, and he's been paying for all of his own stuff with his meager savings since the start of the summer. His parents are hinting that they want to permanently reside in their high-rise in Chicago and sell the house here, meaning Steve has to get gone soon. They want him gone. He isn’t the same person he was in high school—hell, is he even really a Harrington anymore? He sure as hell doesn’t feel like it.
So he clenches his jaw, and apparently cannot stop himself from saying, tersely, “My parents cut me off. Thanks for the pie.” It’s weird to admit but he’s tired of people assuming that he has zero financial independence, with everything being fed to him on a silver spoon. It had been like that at some point. Just not anymore.
He had been avoiding the fact that he’ll have to get a new job if he ever hopes to stay, since Scoops Ahoy is now little more than a pile of ash. Right when he was beginning to like it, too, because that’s the way his life goes. He gets comfortable and then shit happens and now Hopper’s gone and the Byers are moving and he doesn’t have a job with his new friend anymore and everything fucking sucks.
Steve draws in a shuddery breath and fiddles with the sleeve of his sweatshirt.
Eddie blinks at him. Opens his mouth, then closes it. Laughs and runs a hand through his wild hair. “Well, shit,” he says eventually. “Now I feel like an asshole.” He still hums as he goes about slicing into his pie with the side of his fork. He shovels it into his mouth and continues to look at Steve, cheek propped on his free hand.
“Maybe it’s ‘cause you are one,” Steve grumbles, but he finds himself drawing the plate close to him, reveling in the aroma of the tart rhubarb and crumbling crust.
His mother used to make pies like this, once upon a time, when he was still a child and she enjoyed certain aspects of being a stay-at-home mom. She hasn’t so much as looked in his direction in months, though. Her tone over the phone when the paramedics had called her was distant, distracted. Uncaring. She used to call him my darling Stevie in a voice rich like velvet.
He misses his childhood so suddenly and fiercely that his chest aches. Then again, it could be the broken rib. Steve winces, shifts uncomfortably. Eddie tracks the movements with his bright brown eyes.
“It’s none of my business, and I realize that, and once again, you can tell me to fuck right off if this is weird or insensitive or whatever but, look—are you having problems at home?” Eddie asks, and when Steve looks at him questioningly, he gestures to Steve’s face. “If your parents—y’know, cut you off, and—well, your face—”
“God, no,” Steve says, horrified. Then, a little more quiet, “They wouldn’t hit me. It’s not like they’re around enough to, anyway.”
This does not seem to reassure Eddie. In fact, it just makes him look more upset, which is weird. Eddie Munson shouldn’t look like that. “Well, shit, Harrington,” he repeats.
“Just call me Steve.”
Eddie considers him. He’s nearly done with the pie and Steve hasn’t even started on his. He steeples his fingers and says decisively, “I don’t think I will.”
Steve raises an eyebrow.
Eddie just smiles. He looks out the window like he’s reliving old memories. “Reminds me of high school. You know, beware of King Steve and his troupe of court jester bullies. Tommy Hagan used to try to trip me in the hallways every other day. Carol Perkins got me landed in detention more times than I can count, just ‘cause she could. Prefer not to be reminded of those two, if I can help it, even if their bullying was relatively light in comparison to Billy Hargrove quite literally shoving my head in a toilet and flushing.”
God, it makes Steve’s stomach turn. They were such assholes back then. His old friends’ names make Steve wince and Eddie must pick up on it because he doesn’t say much else, even though he knows both of his old friends used to do way, way worse.
“Well, Harrington reminds me of my parents,” Steve protests, the implicit sentiment being and I really don’t want to think about them right now.
Eddie hums. “We’ll figure something out,” he tells Steve, like they’re friends or something. Like they’ll see each other somewhere after this and won’t just let their eyes skip over one another’s faces—like they’ll actually call out to one another, sit down, and catch up. Steve knows better. Knows their tentative alliance doesn’t exist outside of this mediocre 24-hour diner, at nearly midnight a few days after the Fourth of July. They both know it, Eddie’s just pretending not to.
Strangely enough, it doesn’t stop Steve from saying, “Sure.”
Eddie looks at him, big brown eyes roving all over his face. His eyelashes are really long. Steve looks back, and a few seconds pass and he feels weird for looking back so he looks out the window instead, eyes tracking the occasional car zooming by, headlights illuminating the pitch black midwest landscape.
“Did you at least take care of all of that? Like, disinfect your cuts and shit?” Eddie asks, gesturing to Steve’s face.
“Yeah,” Steve says. He doesn’t say: a few days ago, kind of, on the floor in Robin’s bathroom, still hopped up on adrenaline and the drugs that may or may not have lingered in their systems for a long, long while after everything went down. It’s been hours since then but Steve is still paranoid that it remained in his bloodstream, fucking up his inhibitions.
“‘Cause it’s really important to take good care of that shit if you don’t want it to scar.”
“I get it,” Steve huffs. “This isn’t my first rodeo.”
Eddie snorts again. “Settle down, sweetheart. Just figured you wouldn’t want anything to happen to that pretty face of yours.”
It’s funny, actually. Steve has gotten the snot beaten out of him on multiple occasions but the only scars on his skin are silvery ghosts of lines, mere suggestions of a past altercation, never anything more. The actual scars are inside of him. The rib that is definitely broken makes every deep breath he takes come out as a faint wheeze. His ears ring constantly and he gets these awful fucking migraines sometimes, so debilitating that he usually has to call out from work and tuck himself beneath his blankets with the curtains drawn to stave off the throbbing pain at his brow.
He looks over at Eddie. At Eddie’s face and body and skin. Eddie has a scar that cuts right into his upper lip, like he took a bite of something sharp and ended up regretting it. His arms cross over the tabletop. His fingers are heavily calloused and blistered, red and humming. There are some darker, circular marks on his forearms, random clusters which Steve realizes must be leftover burns of cigarette butts.
Oh.
Eddie sees him noticing and says nothing. He doesn’t move a muscle.
“I don’t have a pretty face,” Steve blurts after a moment of silence, for some reason. Like that’s the thing he’s stuck on, and not the way that Eddie’s scars paint a deeper picture of his backstory, one that Steve never would’ve stopped to consider before all of this.
It makes Eddie snort out a laugh. “Sure you don’t, angel.”
Steve asks, “Why do you do that?”
“What?”
“Call me those things.” Sweetheart. Angel. Such a direct contrast to everything else he’s ever been called, everything he's ever been known for, and making Steve’s inner self positively preen. It’s different to be called such gentle, lovely things; makes him feel gentle and lovely, too. His skin flushes with something other than discomfort.
Eddie looks distinctly caught. He pouts, his own cheeks rosy, and averts his eyes for just a brief moment before looking right back. “Well, we haven’t decided on a name for you, have we?”
Steve thinks on that. He pillows his face on his arm and ignores the way his cheek and eye burn at the movement.
He thinks he definitely had Eddie pegged wrong. He’s a weird guy, sure, but ultimately harmless. He has no filter or any sense of self-preservation, but he’s as sharp as a tack and all of the dumbass high school bullies feel threatened by that—by his wit and undeniable charm, by the way in which he doesn’t really ever stop making eye contact, especially in awkward situations. They don’t know how to interact with him, or they can’t in the same way they do with everyone else in this shitty town, so they push him away, place him on the outskirts of the Hawkins’ social hierarchy, mirroring this diner which lingers on the edge of town. Here but not quite. Apart instead of together, like it should be. Like he should be.
Steve has experience with this. The kids share in a lot of the same qualities, and if anyone tried to give them any shit Steve would—well, he doesn't know what exactly he’d do, but it’d probably involve his murder bat with the nails and it wouldn’t be pretty. So Steve looks at Eddie and sees a reflection of them and feels—he feels —
It doesn’t matter.
He offers an olive branch. “My mom used to call me Stevie.”
Eddie’s face softens. “Yeah? Like Stevie Nicks?”
“Yeah. She loves Fleetwood Mac. Or she used to, when she still had a personality. I liked being called Stevie, too.” Then, softly, more reflective, “She doesn’t really call me that anymore, though.” She calls him Steven over the phone, now. Like she’s trying to remind him that there’s more than one way distance can exist between two people.
“Well, that just won’t do. Someone ought to.”
“Yeah,” Steve repeats, and he believes it. “Yeah.”
Eddie mirrors Steve’s position, leaning further on the table; their faces are very close all of the sudden, and Steve tries not to think all that much about it, or look too closely at Eddie’s lips when he says, “My uncle forced me to learn Landslide on my acoustic guitar. It’s one of his favorite songs.”
That explains Eddie’s fingers, rubbed raw on the tips. He plays guitar. That’s really cool. Steve always wanted to learn, but his parents forced him into taking piano lessons during middle school and he was awful at it. He quit after two and a half years, which is about when they’d stopped going to the recitals, anyway. “It’s a good song.”
“I guess,” Eddie acquiesces. “It’s not the worst.”
He must get bored with being still for too long because suddenly he’s leaning back, letting his arm drape along the back of the booth. He pulls out a packet of cigarettes from his jean pocket, plucking one out and sticking it in his mouth. He offers one to Steve; Steve declines, trying to disguise a grimace. The thought of smoking right now makes him feel ill, especially after being drugged against his will and the way he still feels the wooziness wash over him randomly sometimes. Eddie watches him closely, slides the packet back into his jeans, and doesn’t light up.
“So… you play guitar?” Steve asks tentatively.
This makes Eddie laugh. He murmurs, teeth gritted around the filter of the cigarette in a way that is startlingly and almost unbearably attractive, “Baby, I’m in a band.”
“Oh,” Steve breathes. His thighs clench beneath the tabletop, for some reason.
It’s funny. They just decided on calling him Stevie and Eddie goes and calls him baby like it’s nothing. Like it’s no big deal. Like it won’t make Steve reevaluate everything he thought he knew about himself. He thinks of Robin sitting on the cool tiles of the movie theater bathroom, of her pale honest face as she admitted something she probably hadn’t ever admitted to anyone else before.
She’s so brave. He wishes he could be as brave as her.
He isn’t, so all he says is, “Um, cool. You any good?”
Eddie considers this, then says, grinning, “Nah, not really. It’s fun, though. I’m not, like, delusional or anything. I know we won’t ever take off or make it big or any of that bullshit. But it’s a distraction, y’know?”
It’s Steve’s turn to hum, thinking about what that means. “A good distraction?”
“The best one,” Eddie says, winking. Then he seems to sober up, “Look, Stevie. I know you’re you, and I’m me. And we’ll always run in two completely different circles, play in different leagues, live on opposite sides of the metaphorical tracks—you know what I mean. You don’t have to tell me jack shit about whatever the hell’s going on with you, if you don’t want to. Logically, I shouldn’t even care. Your old friends made my life living hell for the past four years, give or take a couple extra. But Jesus Christ, when I came in earlier and saw your face, I—” he cuts himself off, fumbling, withdrawing the cigarette from his mouth and stubbing it out in the ashtray on the table even though he never even lit it up. Then he looks directly into Steve’s eyes, imploring. “If someone is—if they’re doing anything to you that you don’t like, you can always, always tell me. Got it? I’ll help however I can. ‘Cause the police in this town don’t know how to do their damn jobs, especially now that Hopper’s—you know. And nobody deserves that shit. Nobody.”
Eddie is not what Steve expected, to say the least. He’s smart. He cares, even though he shouldn’t. He’s sweet. So sweet, in all of the strangest ways: buying Steve pie and sitting with him to keep him company and asking if he needs help. Steve gets the sense that he’d drive halfway across the state just to confront a theoretical person who may or may not have smacked Steve around a couple of times. And it’s not even because he knows Steve, or particularly likes him—they were virtual strangers before tonight. Eddie’s just like that. Considerate, caring, good down to the marrow of his bones. Steve forgets that kindness exists like this in people, so intrinsic that it overwhelms invisible boundaries, urging someone like Eddie to want care for someone like Steve.
Steve, for reasons completely unbeknownst to him, reaches over the table and grasps Eddie’s hands in his own.
Eddie blinks at him. He opens his mouth, closes it, and blinks some more. His eyes flit from Steve’s face to his hands and back again; his cheeks are pinking by the minute. Cute.
He’s really cute.
Steve says, “That’s—listen, I really, really appreciate it. But please trust me when I tell you that it’s not—nobody’s hurting me or any of that stuff. I can’t explain it. The first time, I deserved it. The second—well, Billy Hargrove was being a piece of shit, so I couldn’t not throw a punch, you know? And it escalated from there, kind of. And this time around, I signed an NDA, so even if I wanted to talk about it—”
“Hargrove did that to you?” Eddie interrupts, looking horrified. His eyes swim with confusion. “Wait, an NDA ?”
Steve ignores Eddie’s second question, hoping to skate right by it. “The second time, yeah. It’s—not that important. He was threatening one of the kids and I couldn’t let myself stand there. Not like I did in high school. I was the worst, Eddie. And… I’m sorry I never told my friends to fuck off. I regret it every day.”
Eddie just looks at him. “You know my name.”
It’s the last thing Steve expects him to say. They’ve been talking for who knows how long, and Eddie’s—well. Himself. Of course he knows Eddie’s name. He almost laughs at the ridiculousness of the question. “Uh, yeah. Of course I do.”
“Of course you do,” Eddie repeats, cowed. “Um, did you mention a kid?”
“I babysit some middle schoolers,” Steve says, and he can’t help it when a grin pulls at his split lip and aching nose. “About six of them, actually. Or maybe seven, now, I guess? It doesn’t pay well at all and they all have attitude problems but, uh—I don’t know. They all mean a lot to me.”
Eddie stares at him for a long time, mouth slightly open, eyes round and wide. “You… are probably the weirdest person I’ve met. And I’m me. You’ve managed to surprise me multiple times tonight, which is not easy. I—” he seems like he’s about to say something, but then his eyes flick from Steve’s hands, back up to his face, and he clearly decides against it. He sighs. “I have to go, now.”
“Oh,” Steve says. He’s disappointed. He draws his hands back slowly, carefully. The places he’d been touching Eddie suddenly feel numb for some reason. He smiles and feels it stretch like cling wrap across his face, thin and plasticky. “Okay. Yeah. That’s fine. I’ll, uh, see you around, I guess?”
Eddie smiles back, suppressed and small but real. “You most certainly will.” He stands up, makes to go, but turns back around, hands shoved deep in his pockets and says, quickly, “Don’t be a stranger, alright? And, uh, I’ll be here. At the good ol’ Moonbeam. Every Tuesday night. Loitering around and bugging Penny and eating all the pie. If you need anything at all, for whatever reason—yeah. I’ll be here.”
“Okay,” Steve repeats. “See you, Eddie.”
“Bye, Stevie,” Eddie says, before digging into his pocket, dragging out a couple loose bills, slapping them on the table, and turning to leave.
Steve watches him say goodbye to the ladies and clap another regular on the back. He leaves a couple more bills in a mason jar by the register and exits through the front doors without looking back once, which is as disappointing as much as it is exciting. Steve tracks his movements through the window until he climbs into a white van, backs it up, and disappears into the black of the night.
When he’s gone all Steve can see is his own face reflected back to him in the dark. His hood had fallen down around his neck at some point and he hadn’t noticed. His hair is loose and floppy and his face is still fucked up, swollen and ugly.
He has shit to do. He has to deal with the fallout of Starcourt. He has to find a new job, one that won’t be looking for any sort of experience beyond a month and a half as an Associate Scooper at a kitschy ice cream store. He still has to deal with his father’s distant disappointment and the sudden death of the only man who could call him son and not send waves of anxiety crashing through his chest like a tidal wave. He still has to call his mother and hear her call him Steven; he still has to cope with the fact that Joyce Byers and all of her motherly, indiscriminate warmth is leaving to go live on the other side of the fucking country, taking her family and Supergirl with her.
There’s a lot he has to deal with.
But then he thinks about Dustin and Max, the way the both of them bother Steve just to bother him, radio him when absolutely unnecessary, pester him for rides and money and arcade trips and movie outings for no reason other than the fact that they can. He thinks about Lucas asking to play basketball one-on-one sometime, and his sister who has no qualms bullying the shit out of multiple young adults. He thinks about Robin, the freckles on her cheeks and her gentle blue eyes and the way her hand felt clasped in his, the way she trusts him so dearly, so closely. He thinks about Eddie and the back of his head, his hands fiddling with nuts and bolts, his smokey voice, his glinting brown eyes.
And Steve thinks maybe it’ll be okay.