Work Text:
Steve Harrington loves Valentine's day, but for the third year in a row, he is dateless. Steve buys himself flowers and chocolates, and all the ingredients to cook his favorite meal.
On his way home from the specialty butcher outside town, Steve's car starts smoking. Steve has to walk about two miles before finding a payphone to dial the only shop he knows in Hawkins, Munson Auto. The man that answers says he's about to leave to have dinner with his wife and to call back tomorrow, he's not doing any more tows today
Steve is on the verge of tears when he hears what sounds like a bird squawking at first, but turns into muffled two men arguing and then there is fumbling and rustling.
"hello?" Says an out of breath voice.
"H-hi?" Steve responds.
"Where are you? You need a tow?" He asks.
Steve gives the man his location and hurries back to his car to wait.
One hour and approximately seventeen pieces of chocolate later, a tow truck pulls up in front of Steve's car and Eddie Munson hops out of the driver's seat.
Steve instinctively checks the mirror to make sure he doesn't have chocolate on his face, noticing that his hair is less than voluminous at the moment, but why did he care? Confused at himself, Steve got out of the car and gave Eddie a dumb twiddly finger wave he regretted immediately.
Steve shoved his traitorous hand in his pocket, "Thank you for coming to save me, I really don't know what I would've done."
"No worries, you just owe me big time now," Eddie winked, setting up the tow.
Eddie got Steve's car hitched to the back of the tow truck and Steve climbed into the passenger seat of the cab as Eddie got in behind the wheel.
"Fuck!" Steve suddenly cried, making Eddie jump in his seat, turning to Steve and looking at him expectantly.
"sorry, sorry! Just, fuck! This couldn't have happened on a worse day. Fuck!" Steve said, hitting his head with both palms.
"Sorry dude. You can call your date when we get back to the shop." Eddie said flatly, starting the truck and putting it in gear.
"d-date? No-No I'm supposed to drive my best friend to take the SATs tomorrow like an hour away. She doesn't drive and now my car is fucked. and sure it's fine if I don't go to college, I've got no future, but Robin is going places, she has potential, and I can't be the reason-"
Eddie's hand is over Steve's mouth and Steve has paused breathing.
Eddie turned the truck off. "Steve, Hey. Listen to me. Breathe. Listen to me breathe, breathe with me." Eddie removes his hand from Steve's mouth and puts it on his shoulder and they breathe together.
Steve relaxes and looks down at his hands fidgeting in his lap, "thanks. sorry."
"So no date for King Harrington tonight, eh?" Eddie grinned.
"No. Cooking for one tonight." Steve winced, not knowing why he felt like being so honest with this person he barely knew.
"How about I tow you to my place and you cook for two while I fix your car?"
Eddie Munson hated Valentine's day. Of course he offered to work that day, what else was he going to do? Lay in bed and eat a box of chocolates? Well, he was going to do that when he got home. Dale went to grab the ringing phone as Eddie shut off the lights in the garage
"listen, Steve Harrington, I'm about to go have dinner with my wife who is actually not mad at me for once, call back tomorrow for a tow."
Eddie's ears perked up and his heart leapt in his throat as he spun around and raced to the front desk, fumbling for the phone.
"what are you doing, loony!" Dale asked Eddie.
"You can't just leave someone stranded!" Eddie huffed.
Dale grunted and dropped the phone in Eddie's hand, stepping away from the desk.
Eddie was kicking himself the entire drive to Steve. What was he doing? Saving the King of Hawkins so he could go pick up whatever valentine's date he's now late for? Car trouble was a good sob story, though Harrington didn't need help getting laid.
When Eddie arrived, Steve all but fell out of his car in hurried excitement. Eddie saw the flowers and chocolate in the passenger seat and sighed to himself, hating that he always had to be right.
But once Steve got into the truck and had a complete meltdown about his best friend - a lesbian that Eddie had absolutely no idea Steve even knew- Eddie's whole world flipped.
Eddie made several decisions at once before he could change his mind.
Eddie decided that Steve was good. Steve was worth helping. Worth taking care of. Worth loving. Eddie got the feeling that Steve was lacking this in his life. So Eddie was going to show him in any way he could. Starting with his car.