Work Text:
The last thing Eddie’s expecting on his Saturday night is to open the trailer’s front door to see Steve Harrington with a filthy face and even worse body. He’s standing like a weeping willow, hunched into himself, holding his own elbows. His usually styled hair is a stringy, wet mop atop his head—what must’ve resulted from the heavy rainstorm that just ended a few minutes ago. Considering his usual appearances, his outfit is out of the ordinary: grey pleated pants that look similar to sweats, bare feet that are equally as filthy as his face—possibly even more, that typical brown watch of his now with a cracked face, bandages around his middle that look more like t-shirt scraps, and a denim vest with pins and patches that are identical to the ones Eddie wears on his own—in fact, it honestly looks like his, which is impossible considering it’s on his dresser. There’s dirt caked around his hairline, lips, and cheeks. Red rash that spreads on the backs of his arms, just barely visible on the sides for Eddie to spot. And then there’s blood seeping through the scraps.
He’s unsettled, to say the least.
“Wha—Harrington? What in the actual fucking hell is happening right now? Who…Who did this?” He asks, gesturing vaguely at Steve’s outline. There’s something to say, too about his face. That it’s seemingly older. Aged in all these terrible ways—not smile lines and cute crows feet. No, Steve Harrington has dark shadows under his eyes and etches between his eyebrows from furrowing them, a tight bite in his jaw, and impossible to place little white scars. Nothing of what Eddie knows of pristine, well-off, douchebag Steve Harrington from the Family Video counter.
They don’t run in circles close to each other at all. But Eddie’s heard rumors. Heard about Steve’s asshole, overbearing parents—the lengths they take for that perfect “All-American” image of the modern family. About Steve and his prissy habits: positioning strands of hair with spray and gel in the men’s restrooms around town, reapplying sprits of cologne whenever he so damn well feels like it, and plucking every little fiber off his clothes.
The Steve Harrington in front of him looks like he was dished and served by fucking Mohammad Ali. He stands with a frightful panic in his limbs that typically belongs to somebody like Wayne, a veteran soldier. And…god, he absolutely reeks. Like sewer and metal and rot.
Rot.
Eddie takes a step closer, the screen door smacking his backside, but stops abruptly when Steve flinches and his eyes gain a level of clarity that Eddie only sees in psychedelics users. He stops. Gauging. Waiting.
“Eddie,” Steve breathes. “Eddie,” he says like he’s relieved.
He leans his weight away from Steve, putting it all on his back foot. Eyes wide and surely full of apprehension. Why would somebody like Steve Harrington be relieved to see him? “That’s me,” Eddie mutters skeptically, “what do you want? Who did this?”
“Doesn’t matter,” Steve brushes off. He takes a confident step forward, bypassing any movement Eddie makes to block him from entering the trailer. He’s standing in the center of the living room by the time Eddie actually turns around in the doorway and comes back inside. Eyes roaming around the entire room. Catching on the Garfield mug and the empty carpet below his disgusting feet and the huge water leak stain on the ceiling. Then, he looks back at Eddie. Wide eyes. Tears glazing them. A slight trembling working through all his limbs—not like he’s cold, more like a crash of adrenaline.
At a closer look, at a better look in the glow of light from the living space, Steve’s exhausted.
“You sell ketamine,” Steve states, “and you…you keep it here. In the trailer.”
“How do you”—
“This Friday, March 21st, you’re going to conduct a drug deal with the blonde girl on the cheer squad, Chrissy Cunningham. She…she meets you at your picnic table in the woods. And she’s jumpy, a very unusual thing for her. She’s startled by your presence and you’re going to be skeptical about her state of mind. You’re apprehensive about selling to her, but she insists that she’s okay. You”—
Eddie takes a striding step towards Steve, meeting him toe to socked feet on the carpet. His face hot and his eyebrows heavy above his eyes. He holds out a hand to stop Steve. “Are you fucking spying on me? What kind of prank is this? This isn’t fucking funny, man. Even coming from a clown like you.”
“I…I’m not messing around, man,” Steve quietly says. His voice takes on a timid quality. He holds onto his elbows tighter, fingernails clearly digging into his already fragile skin. The blood on his bandages is getting darker and messier, but he pays no mind to it. Eddie doesn’t really want to touch that topic either, even if he may have to help with whatever…butt ugly thing has happened.
A moment later, Steve takes a deep breath and continues, “She wanted weed from you. You weren’t sure why she’d associate with you, but you guys would fall into a quick and polite conversation. You invite her to a gig at the Hideout to watch you and the rest of Corroded Coffin play. But she…” Steve trails at that. Swallows hard, eyes going far away. His skin gaining a movie-made green tint.
“Woah,” Eddie murmurs, placing his hands carefully on Steve’s shoulders, dodging any exposed injuries he can see. He turns Steve around and begins to direct him towards the sofa—trying, with all his might, to ignore the Dio patch on the back of his vest. And to also ride-by the bright red marring on Steve’s arms, the blood prickling through the denim. He instead gingerly sits Steve down on one of the cushions, leaning him back to rest his head atop the back of the sofa. “Take it easy, Harrington. Don’t need you spilling your guts and passing out in my home.”
Steve closes his eyes and breathes out through his nose. Gives a quick, short nod. But he doesn’t completely relax into his position. Still holding his arms and rigid through the rest of his body.
Eddie swallows, and in a gentler tone, asks again, “Who did this? What are you doing here?”
“You won’t believe me,” Steve murmurs, “and I don’t want to tell you.”
“Well, I sorta want to know…considering you seem to know everything about my drug deal appointments. Did somebody set you up to this? Are there goonies waiting outside to fucking jump my bones?”
He shakes his head, damp hair sticking to the fabric of the couch. Sadly, he utters, “I’m trying to keep you safe. And I don’t have a lot of time. I just need you to hear me out, okay?”
Taking in that stillness to Steve’s whole body and the graveness in his tone, Eddie finally agrees. “Okay,” he says, “but for the record, if this is your way of making friends or whatever, you’re doing a piss poor job at it.”
Some of the tension in Steve’s shoulders melts away, a snort in response to what Eddie said. But then he forces himself to be serious again. Continuing in a terribly soft, weak voice, “She ends up wanting something stronger than what you have. Because she feels like she’s losing her mind. So you postpone the deal. You go to school. You finish the day. You have your Hellfire campaign—the curse of Vecna or whatever—with Dustin, Mike, Lucas’s little sister, Erica, Gareth, Jeff, and Freak. When you’re done, you drive Chrissy back here. You make her wait in the living room. You try and find where you put the ketamine.
“You find it in your bedroom. And when you come back from your room…” Steve visibly shudders at this point in his explanation. His chest seizes with his breath and he seems to swallow a golfball. Then, “She’s going to die in here. And you’re going to get scared and you’re going to run. Because you…you didn’t know what to do. So you get in your van and then you abandon it and then you stay in this boathouse…
“Long story short, you’re going to be wanted for murder. You’ll be on the run for several days. Before you eventually…You die.”
And the way Steve says that, of all things, finally sinks a stone in Eddie’s stomach. Something in that last sentence says it all.
Steve Harrington is not here for shits and giggles. He knows of something darker, stronger, and more evil than this world can comprehend. And this, in itself, is the warning of a life time. Because he knows. First hand.
“You know that…how do you know that?”
“There’s these creatures that fucking chew you up, like they did to me”—he states, while gesturing at himself—“but they get you worse. You run at them. You try and kill them. There’s too many. You die.
“I almost died, too,” he tacks on a second later. “But you’re going to die in Dustin’s arms. And he’s going to be so fucking distraught with you. And you don’t graduate high school, even though you kept claiming it was your year. And you don’t survive. You…Fuck. You’ve never survived.
“This is my last shot at stopping you. I’ve tried going to different iterations of you. Tried to get you to fucking slow your roll and look at the world in a bigger picture, but you always betray me—I mean, you always betray us. You always die. And I can’t let that happen.
“So here I am, before the storm.”
With that, Steve finally goes completely silent. Wheezing breaths through his nose, yes. But he melts into the couch. Eyes open and far away as they continue to eye that wretched water stain on the ceiling. There are tears ready to pour down his face. And sobs that threaten to crack from his still seizing chest. His cheeks are ruddy and still dirty, though a bit sunken and pasty. Like maybe it’s been a little while since he’s had a proper meal, proper sleep, a proper break.
And though this whole story sounds sort of like an excellent D&D campaign, Eddie knows it to be non-fiction, not fable. Because Steve Harrington has never been one to excel in the art of storytelling, as apparent by the fact that he nearly failed his senior English class alongside Eddie the one year they had together. Also because he can’t make a reference even if it was the thing to end all bad.
But knowing about Hellfire? Knowing the exact names of Eddie’s close friends, outside of Mike and Dustin and Lucas—who, admittedly, all talk about Steve like he’s some norse god. Him knowing the exact date and customer Eddie had planned to meet with, despite that being extremely disclosed information…Well, it’s hard to discount whatever Steve has said.
One thing sticks out to him, though.
The fact that Steve has tried and tried and tried to save Eddie. Even through his stubbornness. Even through his refusal to follow orders. Even though, considering who he is as a person, Eddie’s never thought of himself worth saving. But to Steve? The efforts he’s seemingly had to go to, make Eddie seem like some treacherous, tragic lover straight from a Shakespeare play.
Steve Harrington can’t quote Shakespeare to save his fucking life, Eddie knows this firsthand—English class, again, was very unkind to the both of them.
Fuck, Eddie finally thinks, he’s serious.
“Okay,” Eddie says slowly, absorbing, “you’re here to save me, supposedly. What should I do to help you?” He leans forward a little, looking at the front of Steve’s face, hoping that maybe he can get a little eye contact. Though, it’s sort of pointless, Steve won’t take his eyes off of that stupid stain. He isn’t judging it though, almost considering it as the monster that Wayne joked it was. “Because, I’ll be honest,” he quickly adds, “seeing you like this on my couch was not on the top of my fantasies list. This is uh…very alarming, if I may say. And I’d like it if you were not bleeding out and turning into some weird green goblin creature on my couch.”
“Gee, thanks,” Steve croaks dryly. It doesn’t really land as a sarcastic joke, though. More like a pathetic little thing. An almost hopeless endeavor.
Steve finally sits up a bit. Head lolled back down. Eyes still distant and foggy and glistening. But they’re looking at Eddie now, so he’ll take that as something. He opens his mouth, the inside blood red and noticeably dry. Murmurs, “Don’t sell drugs to Chrissy Cunningham this week. Don’t ever sell her anything. Pull her aside on Friday morning and tell her that the deal is off. Make up some excuse, doesn’t matter what, I don’t care what you say. But you have to keep her away. When you’re done with the Hellfire campaign, you come straight home. No ifs, ands, or buts. You come home. And you wait for Wayne. And you enjoy your weekend, okay?”
When he’s done, eyes imploring and wide, he reaches out for Eddie’s hands. Takes them in his own without asking. His skin is dry, sticky with something, and warm. There’s dirt caked under his fingernails. Blood on his knuckles, in the webs connecting his fingers. There’s blood and dirt all over him. And, yeah really up close, he’s about ready to drop off the face of the planet, fall into some dreamland and never wake up. Maybe, even, cry until his eyelids are red raw and sore.
He knows he can’t be the reason for Steve’s destruction, not like this, anyway.
Eddie breathes, “Yeah, okay.”
“Promise, Eds,” Steve states, straining and choked, “promise that you’ll be safe. I can’t—You can’t die on me again, please.”
Why couldn’t he just listen the first time Steve asked? He could upchuck at any minute from the desperation in Steve’s voice. He can’t deny him this.
He squeezes Steve’s hands tightly, so hard he fears he may break the bones. Fiercely, “I promise, Steve. I’ll stay safe. No drug dealing for me. You won’t need to worry.”
Another sharp, short nod. And then Steve is completely removing himself from the couch. Standing tall and looming, wincing in pain from whatever marks lay beyond those scraps of shirt on his torso. He doesn’t say anything else. Tracks Eddie’s eyes for a second longer. Then, in speeds too quick to really catch, he’s walking out the door.
The last thing Eddie sees of Steve Harrington that night is the denim vest slowly fade from his back, the rashes on his arms giving way to a more disgusting, bloody, deeper mess. The bandages disappearing, no longer existing, as if they weren’t there in the first place. Blood on his back. And his skin pale, translucent nearly.
It’s almost like…
Like the Steve Harrington that left him is dead.