Dear You, Pt 1
For the miraculous amazing wonderful @artbean LEX I am SO happy I got to be your Valentine this year I am so excited for you to get to enjoy every bit of this story, and I can't wait to scream about it with you now that I FINALLY can. Also a very huge thank you to @hbyrde36 for being the worlds BEST beta and encouraging me every single day on this. I can't wait to watch this one grow
Link to AO3
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It all started with a dimebag.
Well, actually, it started long before that, not that Eddie had any clue back then.
For him though, it started with a dimebag.
“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” Eddie said, huffing out an incredulous laugh as he stared down Steve Harrington, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Despite what his new sheep seemed to think about the former King of Hawkins High, Eddie knew guys like Harrington. They didn’t change, or somehow suddenly evolve into not shitty humans. They were high school has-beens, losers, dicks who never had to grow up because daddy would always be there to protect them.
Steve coming to see him alone after Hellfire? The only way that was going to end was with a plastic baggie and cash exchanging hands, or some kind of fucked up prank that he would laugh about with his other jock douchebags for all of a week.
But King Steve hadn’t done either of those things. In an increasingly confusing turn of events, Harrington had apparently come to him to ask Eddie to sell weed to Jonathan Byers.
Jonathan Byers… the guy who stole his girlfriend right out from under him.
“Look man, he’s too nervous to come to you directly, and I wouldn’t give a fuck about buying for him, but I know you still charge me the asshole tax-” Steve said, running his fingers through his oh-so-perfect hair and sighing as he turned back to Eddie with an even more determined look in his eye.
“You earned the asshole tax, Harrington,” Eddie cut in, a bit harsher than he meant to. Steve almost flinched back and Eddie bit his tongue before he could start ranting. He didn’t really care about Steve’s feelings, but he wasn’t looking to become one of the bullies that he constantly railed against.
Besides, he wanted answers, and he wouldn’t get those from antagonizing Steve past the point of conversation.
“Regardless,” Steve continued on, “I told him that I can’t keep floating the extra cash and he has to start buying from you directly.”
Steve had repeated that same point about five times in this conversation, but Eddie still didn’t get it. No matter how he tried to rearrange it, he just couldn’t make it make sense.
“So you, Steve “The Hair” Harrington, have been buying weed for Jonathan Byers, and you’re just paying the extra money that I charge you for your high school jock tendencies out of the goodness of your ever-so-loving heart?” Eddie asked rhetorically, raising a brow.
Steve nodded anyway and Eddie crossed his arms, his brow furrowing at the completely innocent expression on Steve’s face.
“Why?”
That was the question wasn’t it? What did Steve get out of all of this? Having something to hold over Jonathan couldn’t be worth that much, the asshole tax was a pretty big hike after all. Besides, Will was one of the kids he drove around town all the time.
Were they…friends? Was that even possible?
“Will you do it?” Steve asked, bluntly avoiding the question with a look that told Eddie he wasn’t getting any answers.
“He knows where the picnic table is and what my hours are,” Eddie answered, starting to get bored of the cryptic conversation, “You didn’t have to come here for all this.”
“Look, Jonathan’s been through a lot-”
“You’re telling me that?” Eddie said, a sharp laugh exploding from his chest at the hypocrisy of that statement. Unless he was forgetting, it was Harrington that had beat Jonathan’s face in two years ago, not him.
This time Steve actually did flinch back, his entire body on guard and defensive, coiled like a snake and ready to strike. Eddie was ready for a blow, a punch to the gut or a new black eye to sport for the next few weeks.
But it never came.
Harrington just…stood there, walls high as can be, obviously uneasy but unwilling to leave until he got what he had come here for. The vicious little joy he had gotten at finally landing a hit on the impervious King Steve was quickly waning the longer they just stood there, looking at each other, regret pressing down on the deep buried wounds Eddie hid in his chest.
He knew better than most how much it hurt to constantly have your own failures thrown back in your face.
“Are you done being a douchebag?” Steve asked quietly when the silence had gotten appropriately uncomfortable. Eddie jerked his head upwards in a nod and Steve sighed again, looking away and letting his eyes wander around the drama room rather than look at Eddie.
“All I’m askin’ is that you don’t overcharge him, and don’t do your whole scary demon leader thing. ‘Kay?”
“And I should listen to you, why?” Eddie asked, leaning back and sliding up to sit on the table, faux nonchalance dripping from every pore. He wasn’t looking to be too mean, not anymore, but it was still fun to watch Harrington squirm a little bit.
“Because if you don’t I’ll sic our mutual children on you, and, trust me, you don’t want to be on Will Byers’s shit list.” Steve said with a wry little grin, obviously thinking about all the ways the kids would make Eddie’s life hell if he said no. “By the way, they don’t know Jon smokes, so don’t tell them.”
“All sales are sacrosanct, as you know,” Eddie immediately responded, his personal code jumping out.
Eddie was a lot of things, but he was no snitch. Munsons never turned, never gave up anything that they had been given to hide, not even on the threat of death. His father was shitty for many, many, reasons, but Al had taught him at least one good thing.
“Why does Byers need so much weed anyway?” Eddie asked, trying to turn the conversation casual again, “I thought you were smoking like every night for those migraines the brats are always going on about.”
It was a completely normal thing to say, nothing sharp or biting in the slightest, but the second the words were out of his mouth, all of the blood drained from Steve’s face, and his hand immediately shot up to rub at the side of his neck. He even took a step back, needing extra space between them for some damn reason.
“Nah, I don’t um-” Steve took a deep shaking breath, looking like he had seen a monster. “Drugs aren’t really my thing anymore.”
Drugs weren’t his thing?
Even before the concussions, Harrington was one of Eddie’s top customers. And after getting his head bashed in, Steve was at the picnic table making weekly transactions, always for the same exact amount of product. They almost had it down to a science- 40 bucks, two baggies, have a nice day.
But something about the way Steve was holding himself- the hunched up shoulders and the way his eyes looked about a thousand miles away- it just felt bad.
There was pain there, deep, unnerving pain, and it made Eddie believe every word he was saying.
“After-” Steve cut himself off again, forcing another deep breath in, this one more steady. Eddie could almost physically see Steve put himself back together, the mask of aloof uncaring King Steve coming over his face in a way that was comforting in its familiarity, but disturbing in its motion.
“Drugs aren’t my thing anymore,” Steve repeated, voice sturdy and walls ten miles high.
“Okay, no worries,” Eddie said, unable to keep all of the gentleness out of his voice. He didn’t exactly want to treat Harrington like one of his lost sheep, but he couldn’t help the urge to protect that came over him any time he saw someone in need. “Uh- tell Byers to meet me on Tuesdays. I’ll- um- charge him the friends and family discount.”
Eddie never had a problem overcharging rich jerks from Loch Nora, but he could swing a bit of an income dip for another kid with one parent and way too many bills on the table.
“Tuesday and Friday,” Steve countered, like they were in a fricken tennis match.
“Tuesday and Friday it is,” Eddie agreed easily, hopping down from his spot and walking towards the door patting Steve twice on the shoulder as he passed him, enjoying the way it made the other boy jump.
Some things would just never change, and freaking out a jock was still one of life’s beautiful little pleasures.
The two of them walked out of the school in an amicable silence. They weren’t friends, Eddie could never imagine thinking of Steve like that, but they weren’t exactly enemies. Steve was no longer who he had been, if the kids were to be believed, but that didn’t matter much to Eddie. He had still been that person, and that was enough reason to dislike him.
Was there a word for that? A word for a person whom you no longer hated, but still didn’t really care to know? There had to be people in the world who had dealt with this particular issue.
Eddie was so deep in his thoughts that he barely noticed walking out the door and down the steps. He only realized they were at their destination when Steve broke away, turning and going in the opposite direction.
“Thanks,” Harrington called out with a toss of his hand over his shoulder, walking towards his lonely Beemer in the other corner of the parking lot.
“Oh yeah, sure,” Eddie muttered, still distracted by the question.
Eddie cared about the brats, he knew that. He was handing down the legacy of Hellfire to those hellions, and he knew they would do well. And the kids cared about Steve, for some inexplicable reason. Henderson was desperate to make them best friends for god's sake.
Well, best friends they would never be, but maybe an olive branch would push them towards something better. If Harrington was going to be in his life more, Eddie at least wanted it to be bearable.
“Hey Steve?” Eddie shouted from across the parking lot, catching Steve’s attention and making him turn around.
“If you- um- ever decide drugs are ‘your thing’ again, I’ll cut your asshole tax in half,” Eddie offered, feeling inexplicably embarrassed and trying to hide his blush behind his hair, “For Henderson, you know?”
“Just be nice to Jonathan, that’s all I’m askin’ for!” Steve shouted back.
Jonathan.
Eddie shook his head, jogging over to his van and fumbling for the keys, nearly dropping them as he went to unlock the door.
“Jonathan fucking Byers what are you bringing into my life?” Eddie mumbled to himself, already sure that this was going to lead to absolutely nothing good.
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I think that Lucy would hold a certain level of protectiveness with Watevra.
....
Well at least in Rex's timeline I think she would
I mean once they get over the whole 'I thought you were brainwashing my friends to cause the end of the world' thing, Lucy and the others are going to be upset once they find out Emmet went to go find them and is now missing.
And after the wedding, when they come to the discovery that Watevra is kind of like Emmet/Rex's daughter, I think that Lucy especially will develop some thoughts on how she should help 'protect' Watevra, since she failed to do that for Emmet.
I don't want to make it like really intense and all, like to overprotective helicopter parent levels. But I think the guilt of losing Emmet would make her think she is responsible for keeping the last living reminder of her boyfriend safe. Especially after the last things she said to him were for him to change.
It's- uh- a bit like a grandparent that has to take care of a grandchild once the parents have died in some sort of accident really, just more of them being friends instead of a parent-child relationship.
Of course though in the altered timeline where Emmets is still there with Lucy and was never stuck in undar for years, Lucy isn't really going to have that guilt there, so I think she and Watevra will have a chill and friendly relationship. I'm fucking your dad ya know kind of relationship
Rambles for Au under the cut
For my Au, in Rex's timeline when they do eventually have that reunion, I want it to go in a very specific way.
Like, I'm trying not to spoil it too much, but Rex is going to reunite and have that talk with Watevra first before he even goes near Lucy and the others, and even then, it's going to take a while after interacting with Watevra for him to want to be near his old friends.
When the time comes for the big 'five years since i last saw you reunion', it's going to go... weirdly.
Or at least
The angst and yelling is going to happen like a while after they see each other again.
Because
Lucy and the others have no fucking clue that Rex was Emmet
They do in fact think that he is going to do something bad
Why?
Tough broody guy who looks like he wants to murder you?
Not exactly good impressions
Especially considering the fact that he has a criminal record
(I'll get into that another time)
Course they have no clue about the other things that Rex has done too, they're going to drag GC/BC into investigating this dude who showed up out of nowhere.
And so many wrong conclusions are going to be drawn
SO
MANY
once the fact that he's Emmet comes out
Pure
Chaos
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