Chapter Text
There’s something wrong with Steve Harrington.
It’s not that Eddie’s watching him. Not that he pays any special attention to him. But the guy is noticeable. He’s the closest thing Hawkins has to royalty: Rich. Star athlete. Attractive. He’s the cliche golden boy of every teen movie with his polos and letterman jacket and vacant, pretty smile as he walks down hallways with his arm around the girl-of-the-week. He’s a predictable staple; a static figure in the horror script that is Eddie’s high school existence.
So when Steve Harrington shows up to school on an otherwise ordinary Wednesday looking and acting really fucking different, Eddie notices.
Well, he doesn’t actually look all that different. The clothes are normal. But his hair is far from its typical careful coiffure, and there’s a frantic energy to him as he shoves his way through the double doors and jogs into the empty hallway.
He doesn’t see Eddie, tucked in the bathroom alcove.
The only people at the school this early are the marching band kids, wrapping up their hellishly early practice, and Eddie, waiting to sell to a tuba player with no concept of how much weed should actually cost. Eddie has no intention of enlightening him.
Steve Harrington, pacing in front of a segment of lockers, checking his watch, shoving his fingers through his hair, is wildly out-of-place in the bright-lit early-morning hallway.
And then, things get weirder.
Because Robin Buckley exits the band room and they both freeze.
“Fuck,” she says, “are you––”
“Rob,” Steve says, and it's the most gut-wrenching sound Eddie has maybe ever heard in his life.
She throws herself at him and they hug like—Eddie doesn’t even know. Like the people you see on the news from war zones who thought their family had been killed before a miraculous reunion.
“Are you ok?” she asks, voice cracked and carrying in the empty hallway. “I woke up this morning and my mom was just acting like everything was normal and I had to get to practice and I thought maybe it had all been some fucked up dream but even I’m not that creative.” She pushes away from him, tugging up the bottom of his shirt, “what about you? Are you––?”
He grabs her wrist, shaking his head. “No, I’m fine. I’m completely fine. I’m just…1983 me.”
What the fuck, Eddie thinks.
Well, he’s already been thinking that, but. What does that even mean? What else would Steve be?
“Are the kids ok?”
What kids?
“I don’t know. I don’t have a walkie or anything anymore it’s all––” Steve gestures, “reset. And if this is ‘83 then they’re all actual children again, El might not even be––and what if they don’t––”
“They have to. I mean, if we do, they have to, right?”
Are they on drugs? Is he on drugs? The blunt he smoked last night shouldn’t cause hallucinations, though. He pinches himself. Ow.
The band hall doors open again and Eddie shifts further into the alcove as several horn players walk past.
“We can figure things out after school,” Steve murmurs. “We just have to hold it together until then. I don’t know if we’re stuck here or not but if we are...”
“Right. Act normal. Just normal, 16-year-old Robin things. No problem.”
They grab each other again, a tight, desperate, embrace that is not at all normal, Eddie feels it’s important to point out. He didn’t even think that Harrington knew Buckley existed. It’s almost as strange as if Harrington decided to hug Eddie. Inexplicable.
They separate, Robin rubbing at her eyes and Harrington muttering something about not remembering his locker combination. Eddie’s customer arrives before he can decide if he wants to investigate things further.
Focusing in his first period is even more impossible than usual. Focusing on math is tedious enough normally, but when Robin Buckley and Steve Harrington are having some sort of shared nervous breakdown it’s even harder to care about logarithmic functions.
He sees Steve again in the hallway after first period and Eddie will admit he’s actively looking for him, now. Steve is talking in hushed tones to Nancy Wheeler and Jonathan Beyers of all people. His hair is an absolute wreck, and his posture is…Eddie doesn’t know how to describe it. 'Aggressive' isn’t quite right but it’s something close. It makes him feel on edge.
And then, like Harrington has some sort of intuition he’s being watched, he glances up and meets Eddie’s eyes.
His fight or flight instincts have been well-honed his 4 years at Hawkins High and there’s something about the feral-ness in Steve Harringon’s stance, the completely unfathomable emotion in his eyes, that has Eddie shoving his way around the corner and into the bathroom. He drops his lunchbox into the sink and pushes both hands into his hair with a quietly muttered: “fuck.” He feels like he might be going crazy.
The door opens.
“Eddie,” Steve says.
It sounds strangely similar to the way he’d said “Rob” that morning: full of something Eddie doesn’t understand.
“Harrington,” he says warily.
Steve takes two steps forward and Eddie automatically scrambles backward, running into the wall and bashing his elbow against the paper towel dispenser. Steve has never actually hurt him before, but some of the guys he hangs out with have and—
Steve freezes: both hands out, reaching for nothing.
“You don’t—?”
There’s a question, there, but Eddie has no idea what it is.
“Eddie?” he says again. This time, it’s desperate and Eddie has no idea why.
The only time he’s ever seen someone’s eyes look like this is when he was looking at his own reflection in the church’s bathroom mirror, clinging to the sink at his mother’s funeral.
“Yeah?” Eddie asks.
Steve’s jaw works. “You don’t remember,” he says blankly.
“Remember what? You’re kinda freaking me out, dude, which is impressive, considering,” he gestures expansively to himself, gives a little shake of his hips so the chains rattle.
Steve doesn’t laugh.
“You don’t remember,” he repeats, more to himself than Eddie. “But you’re ok?”
He’s looking at Eddie’s chest.
“Yes? Tip top. Hagan barely touched me yesterday if that’s what you’re talking about.”
“Tommy hurt you?” Steve says.
Well, shit. The crazy eyes are back.
“Man, why do you care?”
“Sorry,” Steve says. “I’m sorry, I know this doesn’t make any sense to you, but can I just–”
Eddie lets him approach, this time. Lets him reach out to touch. It’s just one hand, at first, tentative like Steve is expecting to be rebuffed, palm cupped to the ball of his shoulder over his jacket. “Sorry,” he says again, letting go only to reach for the hem of Eddie’s shirt, “Sorry, I know I probably sound crazy, I just––” he pulls it up, stares at Eddie’s side, and then lets out a hysterical little noise that sounds like a cross between a laugh and a sob.
“You’re ok,” he says.
His fingers are hot on Eddie’s skin, pressed light and shockingly reverent to the space between his hip and rib cage.
“You’re ok,” he repeats. It sounds like he’s trying to convince himself.
“Hey,” Eddie says. It comes out more breathless than he’d prefer but Steve fucking Harrington has him backed against a wall in a bathroom with his hands up Eddie’s shirt so he thinks a little lack of air is warranted. “Are you ok?”
The fingers on his abdomen flex.
“No,” Steve says. His eyes are wide and fathomless and the look on his face is terrible. “No, I’m not even remotely ok.”
It sounds like a confession.
Steve lets go of Eddie’s shirt.
He takes a studied step back but then stops, palm still splayed on Eddie’s side, free hand reaching for Eddie’s arm, for his elbow, to cling, like he can’t quite force himself to stop touching; not yet. He’s looking at Eddie like Eddie has broken his heart which doesn’t make any sense because they don’t know each other. They’ve never spoken directly to each other in their lives. So there’s no reason that Steve should be looking at him, like, like––
Like he is.
They’re breathing each other’s second-hand air and Eddie can smell him and there have only been a few times in his life when a boy has looked at Eddie with even half the want that Steve Harrington is looking at him with now. And never, never has a boy who looks like Steve Harrington looked at Eddie with anything approaching whatever the hell is on Steve’s face.
“Eddie,” Steve says, and he sounds so lost.
Eddie’s not proud of it.
He runs away.
He shoves Steve to the side, wrenches open the door, and runs without stopping through the hall, outside, down the sidewalk, and onto the main road. He runs until he has to stop because he can’t breathe and only then does he bend over, hands braced on knees, and look behind him. He almost expects to see Steve has followed him.
He hasn’t. Eddie can't decide if he's relieved by that or not.
And then he realizes he’s left his entire stash in the lunchbox in the bathroom.
“Fuck,” he hisses, straightening, hands on his head, lungs aching.
“ Fuck ,” he says again, just for the hell of it.
He has no idea what’s happening.
But what he does know is that something is seriously wrong with Steve Harrington.