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Eddie has long since stopped riffling through his classmates' heads while bored in class.
He has rules. Rule One: Don’t peek unless they ask.
The week after Steve first approaches him, Eddie determinedly ignores O’Donnell and his first rule for fortune telling and flips through the scenes of Steve’s entire life, starting now and working backwards, then forwards. It's a real trip, and Eddie's saying that as someone who's been on some good ones. He learns a lot. He keeps quiet about it.
People get defensive about their secrets.
Eddie used to peek all the time. It wasn’t hurting anyone, he figured. It was a lot more interesting than learning the order of operations, that’s for sure.
Back in sophomore year, Eddie’s hair grown to a floppy ear-length and his role as DM still new, Tommy Hagan sat in front of Eddie in pre-algebra. Tommy spent most classes making barbed comments about everyone else in class to Carol as some sort of bizarre cannibalistic mating ritual.
Eddie peeked. Of course he peeked. He was developing a Munson Doctrine whose first tenet was that popularity was rotten at the core, and it was nice to remind himself of that fact after a long week of being shoulder-checked into lockers and called names he wouldn’t repeat to his uncle.
He idly perused Tommy’s previous weekend and saw a party Eddie hadn’t been invited to, a hangover, and a screaming fight with Tommy’s dad. He was quieter than usual in class. Eddie should have appreciated the break from his commentary, but despite himself, he watched with concern as Tommy ignored Carol’s attempt to start a nasty whispered conversation.
Tommy came by the picnic table later for party supplies, like he did nearly every week. Eddie, on impulse, pulled out his mother’s deck of cards and shuffled them ostentatiously. “A little fortune telling on the house for my best customer?”
Tommy rolled his eyes. “What, am I going to die horribly? Get what’s coming to me? Grow up, loser.”
Eddie raised an eyebrow, maintained eye contact with Tommy, and flipped a couple of cards without looking. Tommy didn’t walk away.
Eddie glanced down at the revealed cards curiously. He didn’t need them for this, but it was always interesting to see what showed up. The Emperor reversed, the Five of Cups, the Knight of Swords. A petty tyrant, a lost fight, seeking justice.
Cards were fickle, but—these were encouraging. Tommy could make a better ending for himself than Eddie ever had with his own father, if he only had a nudge in the right direction.
He leaned forward and brushed his knuckles against Tommy’s shoulder. “Hey, it’s alright, man,” he said. “My dad’s a dick too.”
Tommy blanched, looked Eddie right in the eyes, and sneered. “Everyone knows your dad’s trash, Munson,” he said.
Eddie flinched. “I meant—”
“You’re pathetic. You’re not worth the dirt on my dad’s boots, you got that?” Tommy said. “And what would you know about having a good dad, anyway? At least my dad is there.”
Eddie watched him huddle with Steve and Carol in the hallway, after, with a sinking feeling in his stomach.
By the next day, it was all over the school that Eddie’s dad sucked more than anyone ever knew. “I heard he hits him,” Eddie heard, from someone ahead of him in the lunch line and barely troubling to keep her voice down. “I heard he doesn’t even know who his real dad is,” said someone else. Eddie fumed and held the best poker face he had, the one he’d been working on so that he didn’t give away twists in future DnD campaigns.
Melissa McGinnis asked him about the rumors herself. “Harrington said—Is it true your dad is best friends with an actual serial killer from jail?”
Eddie turned to her, completely blank-faced, and let a smile crawl up his cheeks without reaching his eyes. “Do you really want to find out?”
By the end of the day he heard that his dad was a serial killer.
Eddie shouldn't have said anything. It's just, Tommy could have made a couple of choices and Eddie can’t shake the hope that he could actually help someone someday.
That's the only thing the fortune telling can't promise him: a happy ending. He can't read his own future, can't flip to the last page to know if he makes a difference before the end. If he's alone when he dies. If anyone ever finds it in their heart to love him.
All he has is a cynical guess, watching the futures of everyone around him tumble into picket fence dreams.
He’s a little bitter, sure. Sue him. But he tries not to be angry. That’s Rule Two: Don’t get mad at someone for something you saw in their future.
He fucked that one up with Wayne first thing when he moved in. “I'm going to run away,” he announced, all twelve-year-old brashness, duffel bag dumped on the floor by the TV, not even unzipped.
Wayne said, “Are you now. How nice of you to give me a warning. Can I pack you a lunch?”
Eddie had never had someone pack him a lunch. He ignored this offer, which was clearly a front. Instead, he said, “I can see it, like my momma. You're gonna make missing posters when I run away.”
Wayne swallowed, sat down hard on the lumpy couch. “Like your momma, huh,” he said. He still wasn't yelling.
“So you can't be that great,” Eddie concluded. “If I run away. You must do something horrible.”
Wayne nodded his head slowly. “Eddie,” he said. “Have a seat.”
Eddie wasn't going to play games here. Might as well get Wayne to show his true colors right away. “No,” he said, and stayed standing.
Wayne nodded his head again, slow, in the way he had of seeming to keep a beat while he thought. “Seems to me,” he said slowly, “That you're not sure why I'm putting up those posters.”
“Well, yeah, it doesn't work like that,” Eddie said dismissively. He couldn't see his own future and he couldn't see the thoughts in someone's head, so how was he supposed to know? Just because he didn't see a big fight didn't mean it wouldn't happen, things got clearer the closer they got. There was plenty of time for this to go sour.
Wayne said, “Let’s make a deal. You don't have anywhere else to be tonight. You stay here tonight, and we'll see if I do anything that makes you wanna leave, and tomorrow we worry about tomorrow.”
“That's how it goes anyway,” said Eddie. “Of course I stay here with you tonight. Where would I go?”
Wayne gave him the kind of look Eddie didn't know to be familiar with yet, the kind that said, I see you, or maybe I care about you, or maybe those were the same in the end, anyway. “The future's not always what you think it's gonna be,” he said. “Sometimes things look different by the time they get to you.”
Eddie laughed outright. “Yeah, sure, old man, I haven't been wrong yet. Don’t worry, you’ve got me for tonight, you don’t need to try that hard.” Wayne looked at him steadily, seeming to disagree without even saying anything, and Eddie dug in. “Trust me, I know all about fate. Can’t outrun destiny, right? Just let it happen.”
Wayne pursed his lips, silently bent to pick up Eddie's duffel, hauled it over his shoulder, and took it back to the bedroom to drop on the bed. Eddie trailed after him.
“I’ll clear out those drawers for you tomorrow,” Wayne said. “We can go pick up anything else you need this weekend. I’m glad you’re here.”
Eddie blinked. “Okay?” he said.
Wayne hummed, knocked his knuckles against the dresser a couple of times and turned to leave. He paused in the doorway. “Eddie,” he said. “Don't live your whole life just waiting for things to happen to you.”
But fancy words and all, Wayne believed him about the missing posters. Eddie knows, because every morning when Wayne gets home from his shift, before Eddie hears the creak of the sofa bed unfolding, he hears his own door crack open, just a little, just enough for Wayne to know that today's not the day he's missing from his bed.
Rule Three: Don’t tell them too much.
Prophecy isn't perfect, and people trying to force the future to turn out a certain way have been screwing themselves over since the beginning of time. He should have expected this to be a problem based on, oh, every story out there about a prophecy, but never say Eddie Munson isn’t currently on his second round of senior year for a reason.
By the tender age of eleven, Eddie was a seasoned professional at telling his father whether this particular criminal venture was likely to land him in trouble with the cops.
He could see that something coming up wasn’t going to work.
He pulled his dad back from the door. “It’s coming,” he said, and asked his father for the only thing that had ever mattered. “It’s not going to work. You’re going to jail for this one. Don’t go.”
His dad, though many were his flaws, always took Eddie’s future thing seriously. He turned, knelt, and looked Eddie in the eyes. His own eyes were serious, deep, and greedy. “Tell me everything you see.”
Eddie thought maybe he could convince his dad not to leave this time. Maybe if he knew the dangers, he wouldn’t take the risk. Maybe Eddie could change things. He told him about the car alarm that triggered at the wrong time, the flashes of blue and red lights, the panicked flight, the cop lying in wait around the wrong corner.
He begged his dad not to go.
His dad drank it all in. He squeezed Eddie’s shoulder bracingly. “You’re a good kid, Eddie,” he said. “You’re the reason this is going to work.”
Eddie didn’t put himself to bed that night. He sat cross-legged on the couch and watched the door his father had walked out of, listening for his step or the pulse of his future returning.
Near dawn, the neighbor’s dog went off in a crying, howling warning of strangers at the door. A set of thumping boots marked the creaking steps outside. Eddie climbed off the couch and opened the door before the police knocked.
The next time he saw his dad, he was in an orange jumpsuit.
These days, Eddie has rules.
He’s never made a rule against faking the future just to mess with people, though. He's told a lot of jocks they're going to lose games.
Speaking of jocks: The inside of Steve’s head is a fascinating place. The flashes he can get don’t fit together in a way that makes sense, and no one else has ever managed to break the magic.
He’s just curious, that’s all. Steve is more interesting than he expected.
He thought it was just gaps in the timeline, when they first talked, but after a couple of days spent examining the whole thing more closely, he finds a bunch of weird staticky spots fuzzing up points in the timeline that aren't entirely blanked out. It starts, he realizes, sometime around the party Barb Holland never returned from.
He can get something about Steve, Nancy Wheeler, Jonathan Byers, a baseball bat, and a fire inside a house. Wild. It sounds like a fascinating game of Clue, but it’s not very helpful as far as understanding the blank spots. It's the same for whatever happened more recently around Halloween, except that this one has a full blank spot and not just the static. The static comes first, and around it: flashes of meat, a school bus, and that damn baseball bat again. He gets a whole vivid image of Billy Hargrove smashing Steve’s face in, but that's not news, that went around the school within a day. Then there's something about pumpkins—what?—that gets very fuzzy, and the whole timeline blanks out entirely.
Eddie keeps spinning back and forth past it like he’s flush with quarters and putting the same song on repeat in the jukebox in the diner. It doesn’t make any more sense the third time, or the eighth.
He doesn’t realize O’Donnell has asked him a question until she raises her voice. “Will you be joining us, Mr. Munson?”
The class snickers.
Tommy, a few rows over, snickers. “Why would he? You don’t need Trig in prison.”
Steve twitches his shoulder like he’s shaking off a bug. “Give it up, man.”
Eddie feels, with a wave of affection, like he has an ally for once in the horror show that is Hawkins High. He doesn’t know what he did to deserve this. He lounges back lazily in his creaky plastic chair and grins up at O’Donnell. “I’m here, I’m here. Speak, fearless leader, and we your loyal servants shall listen.”
O’Donnell stops just short of outright rolling her eyes and, because Eddie has long-since mastered the skill of making teachers give up on him, she moves on. He ponders the back of Steve’s head, the way he glances again at Tommy and bounces his knee.
O’Donnell is warning them that the next test is going to be a doozy. Eddie tunes her out to get back to the surprisingly complex inner workings of Steve Harrington’s mind.
Forward in time, everything is less solid because it hasn’t happened yet. The feedback loop that has Eddie’s brain slotting him into Steve’s future doesn’t start until the spring.
Eddie has so rarely seen himself as more than a bit part in someone’s future. He gets lost in a daydream, wishing it was real: the laughter, the cat they might get together, the late nights sprawled over each other talking about nothing in particular.
Eddie lets his eyes trace the path of the wispy hair curling at the nape of Steve’s neck and promises himself he’ll get to the bottom of whatever this is. There’s an obvious opportunity: the next weird static thing is coming this summer. That's easy enough. He'll bide his time, and go investigate it himself.
He’d break a couple of rules to get some key test answers out of O’Donnell at this point, except that Eddie thinks Wayne would be ashamed if that's how he graduated. He has integrity, dammit.
That, and it's never specific enough for that kind of thing anyway, so the existence of his integrity is a moot point. Eddie doesn’t need to see the future to know that this test is going to be a problem. At the moment, he could recite all of Steve's birthday presents for the last five years, easy. (Some highlights: a whole swimming pool, pocketknife with some kind of inlay, fancy car, fancy watch.)
The trigonometry, on the other hand, is going to be a challenge.
Steve looks up, catches him staring. Eddie feels his face flush hot, and he glares determinedly down at his notebook. He taps out the beat to an entire verse of For Whom the Bell Tolls with his eraser and chances another glance up. Steve, still looking at him, smiles faintly.
Eddie doesn’t tell anyone they’re going to lose a basketball game for the rest of the season.
Eddie saunters into Scoops Ahoy, home of the dumbest ice cream flavors of all time and the temporary host of the most confusing future of all time, and tries to keep pretending to himself that he's only there to figure out the magic thing.
Steve is balancing a scoop in a cone for a small child. He’s wearing a synthetic knockoff of a sailor’s uniform that looks like it wouldn’t be out of place in a music video. His scarf is lopsided and stained with a drip of what looks like Beach Peach Pleasure.
Someone definitely should have been in charge of audience-testing these flavor names.
At the register, Robin Buckley is wearing a matching outfit, apparently condemned to the same sentence of hard labor.
“Ahoy there matey,” says Steve, not looking up. “How can I serve—oh, it's you.”
What a welcome. “Tis moi, signore, gracias, si vous plait,” says Eddie grandly, and bows, just to see if he can wind Steve up.
Robin slams the cash drawer shut with a ding and turns away from the child, ice cream safely delivered. “You…definitely do not speak those languages.” Killjoy.
“Who, moi? Mwah!” says Eddie, and this time he makes it into a kiss, which he blows theatrically at Robin. She ducks.
He turns back to Steve. He’s heard plenty about what has Steve working a full-time job serving sticky children. It’s surely not that he likes ice cream that much. Eddie personally believes it’s a part of a long con to become a D-list celebrity advocate for the dairy industry.
“What do you want, Munson?” sighs Steve, scoop at the ready.
“You,” says Eddie brightly. Robin's eyebrows shoot up.
“I meant what flavor,” Steve says, and Eddie manages to restrain himself from repeating the same answer.
“I’m not here for anything so mundane as an iced cream concoction. I'm here to see you.”
“Why?” says Steve. “And how did you know I worked here?”
Eddie stares at him. “How do you think, Harrington?” And to think he's told Steve’s future right in front of him.
Steve gives him a snide look. It drops as the answer dawns on him. “Oh, right,” he says.
“Riiiiight,” says Eddie, hoping that his expression is effectively conveying “duh” at very high volume.
“Well, what are you doing here?”
Eddie leans in. “The next thing I saw is coming up this summer, and you and me are going to figure out your weird brain before then.”
Steve drops the scoop. “You said it's not until next year!”
Robin says, “Steve, we have to wash those properly if they hit the floor, be careful.”
“I looked again,” says Eddie. It occurs to him, belatedly, that given how worried Steve was about the blank spots, he probably would have appreciated a heads up about the static, too. Well, better late than never.
Steve rears back. “You missed a whole—? Dude. You're not actually very good at this future thing, are you?”
Eddie is very good at the future thing, thanks. He turns to Robin. “Is this the kind of attitude he has with all of the customers?”
She snorts. “Oh, no, you're getting special treatment.”
Eddie preens, and it's only mostly a joke.
Steve slumps to the counter. “Sorry, I didn't mean—I just, you said before—what is this summer?”
“I have no idea, man. The whole deal is that it's blank. Well, this summer isn't completely blank, it's a weird static, you know, like you need to whack your television a couple of times. I figured we could start with doing that to your head and see if it helps.”
“I think Hargrove tried that already,” Steve says darkly. He ducks to retrieve the scoop he dropped, and Robin reaches out without looking to stop him from dropping it straight into the rinse water with the other scoops that are ready for use.
She leans forward on the counter. “You can actually see the future? Don't you need cards for that? Or like—a crystal ball, or tea leaves?”
“Nah,” says Eddie. “I could do it in leftover ice cream sludge if I wanted. I don't need anything extra, just a volunteer with a brain, and the brain may be optional.”
Robin raises her eyebrows. “I bet you’ve seen some nasty stuff.”
“Hey, I don’t judge,” says Eddie. “I could be reading your future right now.”
She tilts her head. Squints at him. “Okay,” she says.
“Okay what?” says Eddie.
“Do it. Read my future. Here, have my palm, you can get the lines from that or whatever.”
“Why does everyone always act like I’m some lady making stuff up at the county fair?” Eddie grumbles, doing the mental twist to flip through her timeline and find something small to tell her about. Much as he complains, the classics about finding love and fortune are classics for a reason. He can spit out something vague that fits and she'll remember it later and laugh. Meanwhile, the rant is one he's given before, and it's easy to give on autopilot. “It’s not some circus act—” there's a missing piece in her life, just like Steve's. “Holy shit, what the fuck is wrong with your—wait, Harrington, come here.”
“What's wrong with my what?” Robin says.
Steve looks at him, wary, and doesn't move. “Why?”
Robin looks between them, eyes narrowed. “What the hell is wrong with my future, Eddie?”
“I want to compare—never mind, I don't need you to do anything, let me just—”
“Munson,” says Steve suspiciously. Eddie ignores him.
He takes a spin through the scenes of Steve's life and there they are, the blank spot and the static. Robin has the same thing, a blank spot sometime next year along with something staticky in, oh, maybe a month?
“You both have it,” Eddie says blankly. “You have gaps, you don't—where are those coming from?”
Steve's face fills with horror and he backs into a corner. “Stay away from me,” he says.
“You want to fill me in, here?” says Robin.
“There are these…gaps,” Eddie says. “It's hard to explain and Harrington won't tell me what causes them, but there are certain spots where I can't see his—well, his life, I guess, his past or his future. There are pieces missing and he gets spooked about them, which I guess makes sense given the number of bruises he has every time they end.”
Steve’s face has gone white. His stupid hat has slipped down and he doesn’t bother to fix it. Eddie’s fingers tingle with the urge to fix it himself. Steve says, “You both need to stay the hell away from me.”
“Sure, no problem, I’ll call corporate,” says Robin. “I’m sure ‘he fell and broke his future’ will go over well. It’s probably covered by their insurance.”
“I'm serious,” says Steve. “It's not safe. I shouldn't have come here.”
Robin takes a step towards him and he squawks, trying to fold himself farther into the corner. She flings her hands up. “Did you or did you not spend the entire shift yesterday complaining about how you have to show up to this job so your dad doesn't disown you?”
“Okay, yes, but he wouldn't really…you should still avoid me. We aren't going to be friends outside of work.”
“As opposed to how I've been choking to spend time with you outside of work up to now,” says Robin.
“I'll switch shifts,” says Steve.
She levels a particularly dry look at him. Eddie’s kind of impressed. Robin says, “What, and spread whatever this is to someone else?”
Steve is still in the corner, but he loosens up a bit. “Okay, but what if—yeah, just—maybe—you might still be safe. Maybe you're still safe. Eddie, these things, does the future always happen the way you see it?”
“Dude, I told you before, I've never seen these things before and I think it fucked up the rest of what I see. It's an art, not a science. And I think my brain is still doing that feedback loop thing, trying to fill stuff in; I see myself in Robin’s future too. Along with you, for some reason.”
“Ew,” says Robin.
“Wow, thanks,” says Steve drily.
“Thanks a lot,” says Eddie, at the same time. She’s having essentially the same reaction Steve had back in January, when Eddie told him about the feedback loop. They make eye contact. Steve shrugs and grins sheepishly. Eddie looks down to hide his own smile.
Steve says, “The gaps coming up, where are they? How do they start?”
Eddie has a rule against this kind of thing for a reason. On the other hand, the bruises he’s seeing are nothing to joke about and Steve seems genuinely freaked. He doesn’t have to tell him details. It’s not like he can see that many details, regardless, this far out in time and with the fuzzy spots blocking him.
Maybe Steve will do something different, if he knows more. Eddie wants to believe things can change.
“Anything at all?” Steve adds.
Turns out Eddie hasn’t learned much since the tender age of eleven. He caves. “It's not that specific, man. I can’t give you instructions, it’s just—it’s an impression. Flashes. One of them’s got a bunch of concrete, looks like. No windows. Maybe underground.”
“The lab,” Steve says under his breath, as though that explains anything. “Okay, what's the other one?”
“The other one's—” Eddie tries to focus on it, and it slips away from him. “It’s in the spring. It's a bigger blank spot and it flickers in and out. I can't see much around it. There's water, Skull Rock, and around there my brain starts trying to fill in—it’s doing the feedback thing, so I’m not sure after that, but that's the next one.”
Steve stares into the middle distance, mumbling to himself. “Okay, okay, we deal with that later. I just have to keep everyone away from those.” He slumps against the wall.
“You're going to have trouble scooping ice cream from all the way over there,” says Robin caustically.
Steve says, “It's better this way.”
“Yeah, for you and your lazy rich person arms,” says Robin. “I don't care what bullshit Mr. Cassandra over there is spouting, I'm not doing twice the work for the rest of the summer.”
“Aw, you're too sweet, but Mr. Cassandra is my father,” says Eddie. “Call me Cass.”
Steve looks sharply over at him. “Wait,” he says. “You don't have to work here.”
“Sure don't.” Eddie bats his eyelashes. “With my actual job, I could probably get you something to make it a little more interesting, though.”
“No, no, you're not listening. You don't have to be here. So don't be. Get away from me.”
Eddie’s smile drops. Sure, maybe it is only his brain filling in blank spots, but he just saw himself right there in Steve’s future. He has a right to be here in his present, too. His lip curls. “Aw,” he coos. “Don’t tell me you’re worried about little old me.”
“Go away,” says Steve flatly. “You’re staying out of this.”
“I’ll be back,” threatens Eddie, wiggling his fingers spookily. “Let it be foretold…I’ll get into this whether you want me or not.”
“Go home, Munson,” Steve says, giving him nothing.
Eddie broke rule one with Steve ages ago. He just broke it again today. At this point, it’s not worth asking if Steve is okay with him looking, especially if he’d say no.
Eddie’s brain may be filling things in strangely, but at least he can look ahead and imagine that he actually will be in Steve’s future. He looks Steve in the eye and flips forward a few weeks into his future, just past the fuzzy spot.
He gets flashes: Robin, Steve, a movie theater, something about love.
Stupid broken future breaking his stupid hopeful heart.
Eddie bounces on his toes and steps away from the counter. “Okay fine, King Steve, fuck you too. I'll leave you and your lady to your kingdom.”
He flees.
The mall is burning, smoke is on the wind, and Steve Harrington is on his doorstep. He’s sporting bruises Eddie saw coming a month ago.
“Munson,” Steve says, and stops.
Eddie pushes open the screen door and Steve more or less falls into his house. This is, to be honest, not exactly how he wanted to get his arms full of Steve Harrington. Also, he’s getting blood on his shirt.
“You said to stay away from you,” Eddie says, because he’s still holding that grudge and his mouth moves faster than his brain.
“Shit,” slurs Steve. “You’re right, never mind, I'm going.” He makes to turn around, and Eddie tightens his grip.
“Nope,” he says. “You’re here now. Sit down.”
Steve pulls away for another moment, sighs, and gives in. He slumps to the couch with a groan. There's clearly been some attempt at first aid, with gauze spotted red taped to the corner of his mouth. His hair is matted with sweat. He tips his head back and closes his eyes.
Eddie stands, watching him, unsure of his next move. Should he get a washcloth or something? Only it looks like Steve already got cleaned up, at least a little, but he could probably still use a bag of frozen peas.
Steve says, slurring, “I shouldna come here.”
Eddie says, still debating the merits of peas, “I want you here,” and it comes out a little too honest. He opens his mouth again to make a joke out of it.
The corner of Steve's mouth lifts. “I don’t hear that every day.”
Eddie gives up on the joke and the half-formed washcloth idea and drops onto the cushion next to him. “So,” he says. “What happened this time? You go ten rounds with a car?”
“I only crashed one car,” Steve mumbles. “And it’s not my fault, I had to.”
Eddie leans sideways to get a look out the front door, trying to see where Steve parked. “You crashed your car? Didn’t you drive here?”
“It wasn’t my car,” says Steve, which only raises more questions. “It wasn't the lab, it was the mall, I was staying away from the lab. You said it was the lab.”
“I really did not,” says Eddie.
Steve tips sideways, his head falling onto Eddie’s shoulder. Eddie freezes. “Hopper's dead,” Steve says into his shirt.
“The chief of police?” Eddie says, and he reaches out instinctively. Hopper's a couple miles away, so details are unclear, but the pulse of his future is there. “No, he's not.”
“What?”
“I said he's not dead.”
“Mrs. Byers saw him die,” Steve insists.
Eddie knows Mrs. Byers a little, mostly because when Will Byers went missing, Wayne got pretty involved in the recovery efforts. Wayne walked Main Street stapling missing posters to utility poles, and Eddie tried not to think about whether Wayne was trying to build up goodwill for the future.
Wayne asked Eddie once, on his way out to join a search party, if he could look for Will. Eddie couldn’t get a sense of him at all. He was either very far away or he was dead, and Wayne was watching him with barely veiled hope, and Eddie just shook his head. Wayne dropped his eyes shut in a single long blink, steeled himself, and left to join a fruitless search.
Will turned up later whole and apparently undamaged. Eddie should have been able to tell if he was alive.
Eddie’s gaze narrows. “Wait,” he says. “Do the Byers—who else has blank spots?”
“I can't tell you,” says Steve.
Eddie says, “What do you mean, you can't tell me?”
“I'll get in trouble.”
“Harrington,” says Eddie, “I hate to break it to you, but if this isn't you in trouble, I don't know what is.”
Steve sighs. He rolls his head sideways enough on Eddie’s shoulder to look up into his face. “How far away can you tell if someone’s alive?”
Damn. Eddie's not used to begging people for explanations, but Steve is not getting any less cryptic. “What, are you too chicken to tell me your secrets?” Eddie needles him.
“Bawk, bawk- baawwwk ,” squawks Steve, in a surprisingly good imitation of a chicken.
Eddie chokes on a shocked laugh. “Where the fuck did that come from?”
“We used to do it at the other teams at basketball games,” Steve says, still talking into Eddie’s shirt.
“Wow,” says Eddie. “Hidden depths.”
“Or something. Really, though. Can you tell if someone’s alive?”
Eddie says, “Dunno. Depends if you want me to do it properly. I can't get anything more than a sort of future, you know, proof of life—basically a pulse, it’s just whether someone’s there—if someone’s more than, uhhh, say a room away. But if someone's just standing in front of me I can get a decent amount.”
“Can you check if everybody's okay?”
“Everybody who, Harrington?”
Steve closes his eyes again. “There are some people who—you said the next one, the big one, it's still coming. Can you just check, you said before, I have a long life after the blank spots, and if everyone who helps fight it is okay, maybe it won’t be so—can you look for me?”
Eddie shifts uncomfortably and Steve’s head slides down on his shoulder, sweaty hair falling forward. Very gently, Eddie reaches across and tucks his hair behind his ear. Steve isn’t really asking him for details; a long life is a simple question and it’s one of the oldest fortunes to offer for a reason. But if he looks and there isn’t a long life waiting—
Eddie says, “I um—technically I can tell, I mean, it seems like the blank spots break it and I don’t know what the hell’s going on—but I can tell, more or less. But I don’t know if this is a good idea. I’ve never been able to change anything. If someone’s going to die, and you don’t know if it can be stopped, do you want to know? If they’re, you know, dead already, you just don’t know it?”
“Maybe you’ll be wrong, then. But I have to try,” says Steve.
“But if you can’t change it?”
Steve levers himself to sit straight up. Eddie’s shoulder is cold in his absence. “Eddie, please. For me?”
Eddie looks at him for a long time.
One eye is swelling shut, and his bruises are the angry pink that means they’ll be mottled a gruesome black and purple in a few days.
“Okay,” he says finally. “Introduce me.”