Chapter Text
It all starts on a random Tuesday afternoon, while Eddie is lounging across the sticky plastic lawn chair on the slab of cracked, uneven, discolored concrete outside the trailer, chain smoking cigarettes and trying to plan the next campaign. It's so warm that he can feel sweat sliding down his back and onto the chair, but he's too invested to move.
Well… it doesn’t exactly start there, but that’s the best example of a single moment that Eddie can point to; it’s the one singular instance where Eddie had been able to actually identify the feeling swelling up through his chest and making his stomach clench in emotion. It had been weeks of building a friendship, of finally being comfortable enough to hang out with one another one-on-one, and not just because they were friends by proxy of Dustin, but because they actually wanted to. It was a strange thing, to be friends with someone that used to genuinely terrify Eddie in every way; someone that was once the representative of everything that was anti-Eddie. Peeling back those outer layers did nothing to abate the feelings that Eddie had shoved down and packed into neat little boxes never to see the light of day again; no, spending time together only threatened Eddie even further. Maybe he’d been fucked all along, Robin certainly seemed to ask a lot of questions and turn away with sly little private smiles when it came to this sudden and overwhelming friendship in his life.
He and Steve... they actually had a lot of fucking fun together. It made Eddie's head spin a little, when he thought about the fact that he had now spent countless nights at the Harrington residence.
Well, all that aside, this balmy Tuesday afternoon was going to be the reason that today was officially named Eddie Is Totally Fucked Day. Put it in the history books, ladies and gents.
Steve was across the road, his BMW parked diagonally across Max’s gravel driveway, and he and Max were standing out at the spot where the pavement met gravel in the trailer park. Just a ten or fifteen foot expanse of road that was still poorly maintained, but long enough for Max to skateboard on without being hit by a car; Eddie had seen her actually skate on the road more times than he could count, but it wasn’t likely that she had told Steve that much.
She was still unsteady on her feet; her crutches had been finally retired, after three long months that had directly followed two in a wheelchair and holy shit had it been almost six months already? Physical therapy had helped, but Max was still struggling with endurance and balance when it came to anything other than walking; she had her sights set on riding a skateboard before the six month mark. She had bad days and good days, easy to identify based on how much she limped on a given day.
Eddie placed his notebook to the side, once he caught on to what they were doing, and he watched as Steve held onto Max’s arm and pulled her slowly along on the bumpy asphalt to try and regain some of that familiarity. She wobbled back and forth, once or twice slamming a foot on the ground to gain balance once more, but the grin didn’t leave her face. After a few laps, when some of her balance and familiarity seemed to return, Steve stepped back with a few whoops, watching as she attempted to take off on her own. She started strong, her lead foot looking stable as her right leg swung back and rooted on the ground for a moment before pushing off. The right foot clambered for the board as she shot forward, and Max’s arms flew out in an attempt to find her balance, but the board shot forward and her body shot back, hitting the ground with a sickening thud, hard enough that Eddie nearly jumped up and out of his chair, hovering over his seat and waiting with held breath.
Steve was already rushing forward, pausing mid-step as Max’s arm flew up to stop him and she screamed something that Eddie couldn’t hear. It made him grin, how stubborn she was, even more so how much power she had over Steve when he was mothering. It was really no secret that Max and Steve held a special sort of bond, one that had only bloomed in the summer months since... everything.
He could see even from his vantage point that her elbow was bloody, but she clearly didn’t care as she jumped up to both feet and went after the board to try again. Steve finally did step forward and crouch next to Max, after the third time she hit the ground and her head had been terrifyingly close to catching her fall before her shoulder could. They bickered for a moment, Max sitting up and gesturing to the board, while Steve’s hand hovered over her knee; he looked outwardly calm, but Eddie could tell he was worried, probably trying to convince her to take a break.
Max stood angrily, kicking gravel in the direction of her skateboard and then whirling around to Steve as he stood as well. A short little arm flew out to hit Steve on the arm, and when he didn’t react, just slumped his shoulders, another and another hit him as well. She was hitting him fully now, slapping his arms and chest and stomach wildly until all at once she seemed to collapse.
Her arms flew around Steve, her face buried into his chest while her shoulders heaved. Steve’s arms wound around her within seconds, and Eddie felt physically sick as he watched Steve press a cheek against Max’s red hair, pulled into a wild ponytail. They stood perfectly still for a moment, and Eddie’s own eyes felt hot as he watched the exchange.
Wild, mad, independent Mad Max was burying her face in Steve’s chest, her shoulders heaving with sobs that Eddie couldn’t hear. Steve had a vice grip around her shoulders, his mouth moving with words of comfort that Eddie was glad he couldn’t hear; they weren’t for him, that moment wasn’t for him. He blinked back his own tears, stubbed his cigarette out on the concrete, and moved frantically inside.
It wasn’t just the emotion of watching Max work for something, through numerous setbacks, or watching her hard exterior shatter in the presence of someone else. It also wasn’t the knowledge that Max had someone she felt safe enough with to break down. It was… god, it was the knowledge that Steve fucking Harrington, basketball star, Hawkins’ darling boy, reluctant and sarcastic mother hen to a fistful of asshole preteens– he had the fucking hidden depths that Robin had joked about before.
He wasn’t just a pretty face and a charming smile all wrapped in an honestly funny package– he was sweet. He was so goddamn sweet that Eddie wanted to kick the wall and break some glass. Steve Harrington was so sweet and so nice that it made Eddie want to scream.
“I’m fucked,” he told Robin on the phone later that night. “Like, I’m totally and completely fucked. It’s not enough that he’s just like– everyone in Hawkins’ teenage crush, a fucking star athlete, part of my fucking gay awakening,” he yelled into the empty trailer, “now he’s around all the time, being funny and the kids adoring him and killing alternate dimension creatures with fuckin baseball bats,” Eddie was twirling the coiled phone cord around his finger so tightly that it was turning purple. “And now he has to, like– he has to be super fucking nice on top of it. And I'm so mad and I'm so fucked.”
“Aw, Eddie,” Robin sighed through the phone, full of empathy. “You were fucked long before today, baby."
“Fuck off, Buckley,” he pulled the receiver back to scowl at it, before throwing it back on the switch and hanging up on her.