Chapter Text
“He’s going to tell them what?”
“Steve, look,” Dustin says, with all of the exasperated candor of a parent, “it’s not like he has a choice.”
“Like hell he doesn’t!” Steve shouts, and, sucking his teeth, shucks his Family Video vest and ditches it below the counter.
“Woah, what?” Robin asks, sounding bored, looking bored, and a little high actually, but that’s just her face when it’s relaxed.
She’s not high.
High was last night, when she and Steve split a heavy joint between them and laughed through at least two reruns of MASH and four of Star Trek before passing out in a jumble on the squashy couch in her den.
High was thanks to Eddie Munson, who regularly dealt him overpriced but decent pot, and who is about to blow up Steve’s whole spot, shatter his whole reputation with the cops, overturn his whole, tenuous, stable-but-only-just relationship with his asshole dad for… what reason?
“I’m taking my break,” Steve grunts, and Robin shrugs, accepting.
Dustin scrambles to follow Steve as he charges toward the door, slamming the glass doors open with a delightful jingle of the bells overhead.
“Hey, wait,” Dustin says.
“Absolutely not,” Steve says. “I can beat him to the station if we leave right now.”
“Okay, but—“ Dustin dashes from under Steve’s elbow to his passenger door. “I’m coming with you.”
“Whatever, shrimp,” Steve grouses. “Buckle up.”
“Fine,” Dustin grunts, turning toward Steve as he lands in the driver’s seat. “But Steve, you gotta listen—“
“I don’t have to do shit!” Steve says, “I don’t care what this burnout wants to do with his life, but mine is hanging on by a thread, and if I get busted…”
Steve trails off as he slings an arm around Dustin’s seat, looking over his shoulder to back out of the parking lot.
“Fuck,” Steve mutters, shaking his head.
“I mean,” Dustin sighs, “not to throw stones, Steve, but maybe you should’ve considered the implications before buying drugs from a known drug dealer—“
“Oh thanks, Henderson, you’re right, maybe next time I’ll head on down to Mrs. Delaney’s bakery and pick them up from a respected business owner—“
“And burnout? Eddie has a job, and hobbies, unlike some people I could mention? And that’s on top of being a full time student—“
“Because he flunked all his classes! More than once!” Steve shouts, feeling the strain in his voice, his neck. “Fuck, Dustin!”
“Dude, at least listen,” Dustin says, pinching his brow with the energy of someone decades older than he is.
Steve exhales through his nose, his mouth a straight line. The station is five minutes away on this road; he just has to get there without speeding, or at least without being arrested for reckless endangerment.
“He has a job at Steinem’s,” Dustin is saying carefully.
“What? The supermarket?” Steve asks. “Well, explains why he wanted to meet there.”
Eddie had told Steve to meet him behind the giant new grocery store to do their little deal, and Steve just figured it was because no one would be back there. It’s not like Eddie had been wearing a uniform, just a pair of unlabeled coveralls and heavy boots.
The idea of Eddie in that green Steinem’s apron… it’s ridiculous. It’s heinous. It’s.. a little cute, but it’s not the time for that chirping little voice in his head, the one that thinks Munson is a little… compelling, sometimes.
Steve shakes his head, tamping it down. He wouldn’t wanna be Munson, not in a million years. But something about him…
Steve is a little jealous.
Not because Eddie seems to be Dustin’s new best friend, even? although Dustin certainly seems to have accepted that narrative with an almost eager confidence.
Eddie just seems so… happy.
Dustin would scoff, he’s sure. Eddie is constantly making a nuisance of himself, apparently. He’s always screeching or protesting or tossing a table during their games. He would yell at school too, when Steve was there, in the hallways and in the smoking lounge and once on his knees in the middle of the courtyard, covered in fake blood for who knows what reason.
But even when he’s yelling, even when he seems pissed off, Eddie is smiling. He cares about kids’ games and about pot, sure, but he also has opinions about stuff that matters, and Steve will find himself turning over the arguments in his head, hours or even days after he’s heard them.
None of this makes Eddie’s plans to turn himself in even remotely acceptable to Steve. In fact, it just
makes the whole thing worse.
“Yes, he has a real job at Steinem’s—his uncle was worrying about him having a future, so he works in the big freezer in the back and stocks the frozen section—“
Steve snorts. “And he’d throw it all away to come clean to the cops?”
“That’s just it, Steve!” Dustin says, “I’m trying to explain, just—!”
Dustin gives a big exhale, closing his eyes in this bitchy way he’s been doing. Steve wonders where he picked it up.
“Steve,” Dustin starts, “someone—exposed himself to Chrissy Cunningham while she was in the refrigerated section.”
Steve blinks.
“What?”
“You heard me the first time,” Dustin says, sounding embarrassed. “She saw it behind the food, but not his face.”
“And Munson did it?”
“No!” Dustin spits, face wrinkled with disgust.
“This isn’t becoming any clearer, Henderson.”
“It was John Carver!” Dustin yells. “He’s the only other guy who was working yesterday.”
Steve pulls into the station parking lot. He’s beaten Eddie. He doesn’t leave his seat; he doesn’t move a muscle.
“But he’s—“
“Jason Carver’s older brother. Home from college for winter break.”
Steve props his forehead on his fist, says, “And Jason and Chrissy are—“
“Dating since the dawn of time? Yeah.”
Steve blinks, staring at the shiny leather of his steering wheel.
“How do you know it wasn’t Eddie?” Steve asks, affect flat.
Because, really, Steve knows it wasn’t Eddie. He doesn’t know how he knows, but he knows. Eddie loves to be known as a freak—but he isn’t that kind of creep.
“Because—“ Dustin sighs. “Because he’s a good person.”
“Yeah,” Steve nods. “And—“
“And he’s gay,” Dustin breathes, defeated.
“What?” Steve asks, looking at Dustin; Dustin isn’t joking. He seems serious, and tired.
It’s not like it’s unbelievable. Steve just—he never thought it would be confirmed or denied, not where he could hear it.
“He—“ Dustin starts shaking his head, “even if he were that kind of guy, Chrissy just—I mean, you know what I mean.”
Steve looks ahead again. The gears in his head are turning.
“What did they say?” Steve asks. “When he said it wasn’t him?”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to explain,” Dustin sighs. “They’re not going to believe it was John—Jason’s brother? And a jock? And—“
”A real choir boy,” Steve says.
“They'll never believe it was him. Not when Eddie is there, instead.”
“Shit,” Steve breathes.
Dustin shrugs, looking supremely uncomfortable. “And the only alibi he has…”
“Is me,” Steve says.
“They’ll believe he wasn’t the guy if he has a good alibi! But they won’t believe he was just—playing hopscotch.”
Steve thinks maybe Dustin is just repeating Eddie. He can see it: Eddie telling Dustin he might be going away for a while, explaining the whole thing.
“I mean, if he comes clean about this, Hopper might even be able to—“
“Are there cameras?” Steve asks.
“What?”
“Cameras,” Steve says, “Proof?”
Dustin tilts his head, considering.
“You don’t know,” Steve confirms.
“How would I know?” Dustin asks.
“If this gets back to my dad, I’m screwed. Royally.”
Steve looks ahead at the station.
“Imagine what Eddie must be feeling,” Dustin says. “He can disappoint his uncle and mess up his own future by confessing the truth, or? He can have everyone think he’s the type to—do this! It’s gross, Steve.”
“Yeah,” Steve sighs.
He imagines what everyone would say. It would confirm everyone’s worst ideas about Eddie, and Steve isn’t an idiot; he knows what everyone thinks about Eddie. The guy is harmless, truly; his best friends are barely out of their short pants and he wouldn’t hurt a fly—but because of how he looks, everyone would be so quick to think he’s the type to pull out his dick and show it to Chrissy Cunningham—to ruin her day, or maybe even her year? For what? Just for kicks?
Owning up to the truth versus taking the fall for a lie? Eddie’s choice must be clear.
Steve shakes his head.
“Dude, I’m in a tight spot,” he says. “My dad is already pissed I’m still at home and not in some.. fancy college. I swear to God I can’t even put a fork in the drawer right, he finds any reason to just—scream?”
Steve turns toward Dustin. Dustin looks at him grimly.
“Eddie’s dad is in prison,” Dustin says, and yeah, okay.
“Fuck,” Steve says. “Can’t he just tell them he’s gay?”
Dustin’s eyebrows rise. “Would you?”
“I mean, if the other choice is being an actual criminal?”
“Would they even believe him?” Dustin asks, “or would he just be making it worse?”
Out of the corner of his eye, Steve clocks movement. The door to the station just opened and closed.
“Fuck, was that him?” Steve jumps, opening the car door.
He looks back. Dustin is still unbuckling his belt.
“Steve, fuck, wait!”
Steve runs to the door.