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Eddie was fully convinced that he lived in the most boring place that could be found on earth. Hawkins was a small town in the middle of God knows where and nothing ever happened in the entire area. All of its citizens knew each other, had known each other for generations and generations in fact, because no family ever left Hawkins. To add to the misery, no new families ever came to Hawkins. Eddie couldn’t blame people for not wanting to move to Hawkins, it’s not like they had anything to offer. They only had some grocery stores, an arcade, a video store, and a handful of other stores that had just as little to offer as the rest of the town. The whole town lived like they were ten years behind on the rest of the world, completely isolated and detached. No family in their right mind would move here. That is, until one family did. It was the talk of the town.
The first thing that the people of Hawkins noticed was the construction workers. Big trucks drove through the richest neighborhood Hawkins had to offer, which still wasn’t that rich to be completely honest. Real rich people didn’t tend to choose Hawkins as their residence. Nonetheless, the trucks made their way to the outskirts of the neighborhood, where there was only a big open space with trees around it. After months and months of work, a house was built. And what a house it was, it was by far the biggest and most luxurious house Hawkins had ever seen. Calling it a house almost didn’t seem to do it justice, no, something of this majesty should be called a villa. No one had seen its owners yet, but an air of luxury already hung around the villa that was partly obscured by the ring of trees encompassing it. The townspeople of Hawkins were buzzing with curiosity, wherever Eddie went, he could hear people talking about it, but it was all still speculation. No one knew what kind of family to expect, only that it would surely have to be a rich one, but that didn’t quell their curiosity. It kind of did the opposite. People were entranced by the mystery.
The next thing that had the citizens of the small town in their grip was a name. A kid was signed up for Hawkins High’s senior class. S. Harrington. A new crumb for the people to focus on. A new piece to the unsolved puzzle that was this new family. Eddie almost rolled his eyes at the antics of the people of the town. Almost. He didn’t want to admit it, afraid to tarnish his reputation of being unbothered by anything and being above all of the towns gossip, but he was just as curious as everyone else to meet the new family. So he called one of his friends from school, Robin, and invited her over to smoke up. He knew that whenever Robin got high, she got chatty. And she always knew all of the gossip, could pretty much relay it in chronological order, complete with sources and references.
She had agreed, of course, she always did, and half an hour later they were both laying on the carpet in Eddie’s room, passing a joint between them. If it weren’t for the fact that they were both as gay as they come, it could have seemed shady that Eddie was trying to get an underage girl high in his bedroom. Eddie chuckled to himself at the thought of him trying to seduce Robin and trying to get into her pants. Yeah, that would never, ever, ever happen. He almost shuddered at the thought, which Robin noticed. She passed the joint to him again, giggling as she almost dropped it, and focused her big eyes on him.
“What are you pondering about Munson, c’mon, share it with the class,” she giggled again while making a big flourish with her hand as if she was pointing to a big audience. She wasn’t only a chatty stoner, she was also a giggly one. Eddie loved it.
“Just thinking about how hot you are Buckley, and trying to restrain myself from kissing you,” Eddie joked. He wasn’t afraid of making jokes like that with her, she knew like no one else that he didn’t mean it in the slightest.
As predicted, Robin just rolled her eyes before striking a dramatic pose, “Yeah, honey, like what you see?”
Eddie pretended to fan himself, “Please, have mercy, I can only handle so much.”
They looked at each other for a second before bursting into laughter.
A few hours later, Eddie saw Robin out when her girlfriend Chrissy came to pick her up. They had been together for a few months now after a long time of circling around each other and they were sickeningly cute as a couple. Robin had been so happy to see Chrissy again that she practically skipped all the way to her car. Just for reference, they only hadn’t seen each other for a few hours. He shook his head in amusement at her antics, closed the door of the trailer and went back to his room smiling to himself. As usual, Robin had started gossiping when she got increasingly high and she had told him the family Harrington were apparently moving in next week. There were three of them, a married couple and their kid. The kid, a boy, would be starting school a week after their move so he could settle in first. So, Eddie had to be patient for a bit. He could do that, he was the most patient person to ever exist. Okay, okay, maybe Eddie wasn’t as patient as he would like to believe. He was just so curious to see what the Harringtons looked like, in particular the son. Hey, no one should blame Eddie. No new people ever came to town, and now a boy his age was moving here, who was also going to be in the same senior class as him. Sure, there were enough guys in Hawkins, but none of them were really Eddie’s type, so Eddie didn’t exactly get much action, unless he was willing to lower his standards exponentially. Which he wasn’t, he wasn’t that desperate. Yet. He had seen the looks both Tommy H and Billy had thrown at him during parties and in the hallways of the school, but he avoided their eyes every time he caught them looking. Both boys basically screamed ‘red flag’ and Eddie was not one that was in for drama, thank you very much. Hard pass. So yeah, Eddie was impatient to meet someone new. He hoped the guy was hot, and moreover, he hoped the guy was queer, or at least open to experimenting. Eddie wouldn’t mind being his test subject. Eddie shook his head, no, you’re not going to thirst over a boy you haven’t even met yet, calm yourself, he chastised himself sternly. He could be calm, he could wait.
After what felt like years, but was only a week and a half, Eddie finally caught a glimpse of the Harringtons. He was walking around town with Gareth, one of his best friends and band mates, when it happened, and they looked at one another for a second before focusing back on the family. First, he saw the parents and yeah, they definitely looked like they were rich. The woman was wearing an expensive looking dress and she had on a pearl necklace and many golden rings and bracelets. She took quick strides crossing the street on her stiletto’s. The husband was walking beside her in a three piece suit, his wife’s hand on his arm. They looked like the perfect power couple. Walking a few steps behind them was the boy. Eddie’s breath stilted and he immediately took a double take. Eddie usually wasn’t one for sappy proclamations, but this boy looked like an angel. He was tall and well built, definitely a sports player. His hair looked like it came straight out of a shampoo commercial and he was wearing relatively basic clothes in comparison to his parents, but they worked on him like they were high couture fashion pieces brought to him straight from the runway. The boy’s big, and frankly beautiful, eyes were roaming over the street before him to take everything in, when they met Eddie’s. He jumped slightly, probably not expecting someone to already be looking at him, before giving Eddie a polite smile. And not to be dramatic, but Eddie felt like he melted on the spot. This guy was unreal, literally sent from heaven, he thought. He barely managed to smile back before turning around to Gareth, who was looking at him like he found the whole endeavor immensely amusing. He probably did, the asshole. Gareth always reveled in Eddie’s misery, Eddie pouted to himself. While Eddie was struggling through his internal monologue, he felt himself being dragged away by the arm by Gareth.
A few minutes later, they were sitting in the back of Eddie’s van. They were looking out over the empty parking lot for a few quiet moments before Gareth turned to look at Eddie with a raised brow.
“Okay, what was that?”
“What was what?” Eddie tried to sound innocent and confused, like he didn’t know exactly what Gareth was aiming for. He wasn’t going to give in immediately.
“What do you mean ‘what was what’, you were staring at that dude like he was a brand new and undiscovered Dio album! I’ve never seen you look at someone like that, it was almost like you were hypnotized,” Gareth exclaimed, gesturing passionately as he spoke.
Eddie avoided his eyes and kept staring at the deserted parking area in front of them instead, “Well… I mean… I don’t know! I was just, uh, I just zoned out. Yeah, that was it, I just zoned out! It had nothing to do with that guy, calm your tits.”
Eddie thought he did quite a good job of acting like nothing was going on, and he gave himself a mental pat on the back for it. I’m such a good actor, he thought smugly. That was, until Gareth started laughing hysterically.
Eddie sighed, immediately defeated, “What?”
“Sorry man, but you don’t actually expect me to believe anything you just said, right? Fuck dude, my three year old niece can lie better than that.”
Eddie bristled, “You did not just compare me to your three year old niece!”
Gareth tutted and said, “Hmm, I actually think I did, and she came out of it better than you did. Also, you should actually fucking thank me for dragging you out of there. You didn’t exactly look very metal, standing in the middle of the street just gawking at that poor dude.”
Eddie cast his eyes to the heavens above, begging any god that might be up there to end this awful conversation. He finally turned to Gareth and said, “Whatever man, let’s just get to band practice.”
Band practice was HELL, Eddie sulked. When they had walked in together and greeted the other guys, Gareth had immediately taken the opportunity to fill them all in on who they had just seen in the city center and how Eddie had acted and made a fool of himself. Eddie had simply turned his back to all of them to unpack his guitar with a slight pout on his face.
“Gareth is just exaggerating, just so y’all know. Now, this is not a book club where we giggle and gossip, let’s start practicing guys, c’mon.”
Jeff just smirked at him with twinkling eyes. Uh oh.
“Sorry Ed, but we actually do need to giggle and gossip for a bit. It’s not everyday that you hear that the reason you don’t busy yourself with anyone in town is that your actual type is preppy rich boys,” he cackled.
Eddie sputtered, “Now that’s just not tr-“
“It isn’t? Then why were you practically drooling the moment you laid eyes on our mister S. Harrington? And why are you almost drooling again just thinking about him right now?” Gareth interrupted him.
“I’m not drooling! Shut the fuck up,” Eddie muttered. He also casually wiped his face, just in case. The boys all just laughed at him before they relented and they finally started practice. Eddie let out a relieved sigh. He was saved, for now.
The following weeks were filled with teasing remarks from the band and from Robin anytime they encountered the boy. Steve Harrington, Eddie had learned was his name. They had a few classes together and Eddie was steadily becoming obsessed. Steve didn’t have to try hard to become popular among his peers, he was nice and witty and had an air of nonchalance about him that Eddie had never been able to fully create himself. Steve seemed confident, but not arrogant in the slightest, and everything about him drew Eddie in like a moth to a flame. He knew that nothing would ever happen between the two of them, with Steve so much higher on the social ladder than him, but a boy could dream, right? And at least Steve had talked to him a few times. Sure, he was just asking for the directions to the science lab, but it was something! He could’ve asked anyone, like one of the pretty cheerleaders that all seemed way too keen on following his every step, but he chose to talk to Eddie. Eddie had happily shown him the way and Steve had thanked him with a blinding smile and a hand on his arm before entering the classroom. And if Eddie’s arm had tingled for the rest of the morning, that was no one’s business but his own. The next time he and Steve talked, they were sitting next to each other during English class. The teacher had to copy some assignment papers and left the students to fend for themselves for a few minutes, and Steve had turned around to chat to Eddie. He asked Eddie about life in Hawkins, his hobbies, and he genuinely seemed interested in what Eddie had to say. He even laughed a few times when Eddie made some, honestly pathetic, attempts at cracking a joke. When he asked Eddie right before class was about to start again if he wanted to hang out with him and some others after school, Eddie had almost fallen out of his chair in shock. Of course he accepted immediately, and the rest of the day, he counted the minutes until the last bell. In the meantime, he begged Robin and Gareth to tag along this afternoon, because he didn’t trust himself not to make a fool out of himself in front of Steve.
A few months later, Steve was fully ingrained into their group of friends. He had met Gareth and Robin at that first hangout after school, and after a while he was also introduced to the rest of the band and to Chrissy. Steve and Robin had hit it off particularly well, and they were practically joined at the hip these days. Steve spent a lot of time in the company of at least someone out of the group, since his parents were almost never in Hawkins, and basically left him to take care of himself in the big house. Steve also often invited the whole group over, just to make the house feel less empty and to have someone to talk to. On one of these hangouts, when they were all slightly buzzed from either weed, booze or a mixture of both, Steve had let slip why his parents were never home. He explained that his parents basically viewed the big Hawkins house as a cute cottage in the woods that they could use sometimes as a vacation house to relax in when they were sick of their multitude of business meetings they attended when they flew across the whole country. The group had been flabbergasted by this first indication of how rich the Harringtons actually were. Hawkins was so cut off from the rest of the world that they had no idea what a household name Harrington actually was, but the group would find out soon enough. In the meantime, Steve had noticed the wide eyes of everyone around him and explained hurriedly why he usually downplayed how rich they were. He didn’t want to be treated differently by everyone around him. At his last school, they had looked upon him like he was a king, just because he had parents who were rich and had a lot of influence in the city, and he had hated every minute of it. All of his friends there had only acted nice to him for his money and status, not because they actually wanted to get to know him or genuinely cared about him. So, when his parents told him they were building a house in Hawkins, he grabbed his chance and begged them to let him move and finish his school there. They let him and so he could finally start over, this time with the power in hand to build his own reputation without the influence of his parents’ wealth. Everyone in the group had hugged him and let him know that they understood his reasoning. They wouldn’t view him differently because of who his parents were, he was still just Steve to them, and the rest was history.
Because of all of this, Eddie saw Steve on a daily basis and he couldn’t be happier with this. They also regularly hung out with just the two of them now, and Eddie always had a persistent smile he couldn’t wipe off his face for about an hour after they would part. He still insisted to himself and to the rest of his friends that he wasn’t in love with Steve. He reasoned that he just considered Steve as a good friend who he had a tiny meaningless crush on. Nothing harmful, nothing to stress about. Eddie had it all under control. He wouldn’t fall for someone he knew it wouldn’t work out with in the end.
Eddie might not have been aware of it, but the rest of the group wasn’t convinced by him in the slightest. They were just going along with the excuses for Eddie’s sake and they were all silently biding the time until Eddie would finally confess his true (and quite obvious) feelings for Steve. Eddie was also painfully unaware of the fact that Steve’s eyes wandered in his direction more often than not whenever they would be near one another and that Steve had started to tentatively flirt with Eddie, something that didn’t go unnoticed by the rest of the group. They collectively rolled their eyes at Eddie’s obliviousness while they placed bets together on how long it would take for the two boys to finally get together. Steve wasn’t exactly subtle with his adoration for Eddie, but he seemed to be too afraid to take the first step without any indication from Eddie’s part that he was interested.
This didn’t deter Steve from acting very protective of Eddie anytime that a bad situation arose, like the one they were in right now. Eddie’s band, Corroded Coffin, had been gaining popularity, and they sometimes managed to book small gigs in clubs in Indianapolis. They had booked such a gig today, and the band had traveled to the club a few hours before so they had enough time to set up and do a soundcheck, while excitedly chatting in the van about the upcoming show for the whole drive. Robin, Chrissy and Steve were also coming, tagging along as the three biggest supporters of the band. However, when the three of them turned up to the venue, they could see that Eddie was in a heated discussion with the venue manager, gesturing wildly. The rest of the band was standing a few meters away from Eddie and the venue manager, looking put out and disappointed. Steve and the girls looked quizzically at each other and made their way over to the band.
“Hey guys, what’s going on?” Steve asked.
Jeff was the first to talk and nodded towards Eddie and the venue manager, “The venue manager is an asshole, that’s what’s going on.”
“Yeah… So the thing is, the venue manager is suddenly saying that we don’t have enough of a fan-base yet to play here, even though he already agreed to book us for the night, and he called a more popular band to come play in our place instead“, Gareth added with a defeated look on his face.
“So, we just have to go home again. Sorry guys, I know you drove all the way out here, but they won’t let us play. We can give you some money for the gas you wasted on the drive,” the other band member added.
“Yeah, let’s just get Eddie and go, he’s wasting his time, they’re not gonna let us play anyway. The venue manager is a prick and he clearly cannot be reasoned with, I mean, he already called Eddie every name under the sun in the first five minutes we got here,” Gareth said, and he started walking towards Eddie before a hand stopped him. He looked up to see that it was Steve’s hand.
The others noticed that Steve had gotten a weird glint in his eyes the moment that Gareth had mentioned that the venue manager had cussed out Eddie.
“No, no, none of that. No one is leaving the venue, you had an agreement and you are playing tonight. Let me just talk to the venue manager for a minute.”
Jeff looked incredulous, “I really appreciate it man, but I think we should just give up, Eddie has been trying for twenty minutes already and that dude is just not budging.”
Steve just shrugged, not deterred in the slightest, “Believe me, I got this.”
They all held their breath as Steve walked over to Eddie and the venue manager. He looked like the face of confidence and power, shoulders set back and a stony look on his face. The rest of the band, Robin and Chrissy moved a few steps closer so they could overhear the conversation.
Steve gave Eddie a tiny smile when he arrived at the counter and cut into the conversation, “Hey, what’s going on? Is there a problem?”
The manager just huffed and rolled his eyes at him, “Mind your business, preppy boy. Why don’t you go back to the country club and play around there instead of bothering me.”
Steve also rolled his eyes and chuckled, “I really don’t think you want to be talking to me like that.”
The manager’s eyebrows shot up and he looked even more agitated than before.
“And why not? Who the fuck do you think you are?”
Steve laughed bitterly. “My name is Steve. Harrington to be exact.”
The venue manager visibly paled and his hands began to shake a bit. The group couldn’t believe their eyes. What was happening?
“Harrington? Did you just say Harrington?” The manager sounded slightly panicked now.
“Yes,” Steve smiled sweetly, “Are you familiar with the name?”
“I’m so unbelievably sorry sir, there must have been a problem with the bookings, but I will fix it immediately. I’ll call the other band off, if you could just excuse me for a moment.”
“Perfect, I knew we could figure this out together. Can you send an assistant here to show the band the way through the building so they can start setting up? And of course reduce their booking fee, as you cost them some of their precious time.”
The manager was now nodding his head fervently, easily agreeing with the reduced fee and already half on the phone to get an assistant out here. Behind Steve, the band was quietly cheering and thanking Steve profusely. Steve just smiled at them and said that it’s nothing.
“Might as well use my rich kid privilege for some good sometimes,” he whispered cheekily at them, “My parents are big investors for not only this venue, but for the whole umbrella association. Loosing their support would mean filing the company for bankruptcy, and something in me says that this venue manager doesn’t want to be the one responsible for that to happen.”
Eddie was watching the whole interaction unfold with an open mouth. Fuck. It all hit him in that moment, with Steve stood there at the counter defending the band, while looking all bitchy and mighty and influential. And the triumphant look on his face now he had won the discussion. Goddamn, Eddie couldn’t deny it anymore. He was so in love with him. He was so unbelievably, incredibly, fucked.