Steddie Time Travel Fix-it: Pt. 7
Ao3 Pt. 1 Pt. 2 Pt. 3 Pt. 4 Pt. 5 Pt. 6
Eddie is good at puzzles
Cryptograms, jigsaws, Rubiks cubes, mazes. For all the trouble he has in school, he’s always loved word search and crossword assignments. He finishes first; he saunters up to the teacher’s desk; he slaps it down in the assignment box. He grins as they grade it with grudging respect. The strategy required for D&D was just as appealing, initially, as the escapism.
So. Eddie is good at puzzles.
Until, of course, Steve Harrington appeared in the early-morning hallway of Hawkins high, apparently having turned over an inexplicable and very puzzling new leaf.
Steve Harrington is unsolvable.
And it makes Eddie crazy.
He’d written out a list detailing the nuances of the Steve Harrington Puzzle. That was the title on the piece of the paper he’d torn out of his campaign spiral:
There was the sudden friendship with Robin Buckley and the additional strange company he’d been keeping with Nancy and Jonathan and Barb.
There was quitting the basketball team and absolutely burning bridges to ash with his former friends.
The panic attacks, related to flickering lights and D&D monsters
The kids.
The walkie-talkie check-ins and mentions of gates.
Chief fucking Hopper’s involvement.
The weird obsession Steve seems to have with Eddie.
The flirting.
The baking.
Okay, the baking could be normal, but it’s still potentially out of character enough that Eddie doesn’t scratch it off the list.
Eddie's first hypothesis is drugs, even though that doesn’t explain everything.
As long as he’s not leaving town, there’s only one person Steve could be getting drugs from if he’s not getting them from Eddie. So Eddie walks to the gas station down the road and calls Rick from the pay phone outside.
“Hey. Weird question. Are you selling hard shit to Steve Harrington on the side?”
Rick laughs at him until he hangs up. That’s fair. It was a long shot anyway.
His second hypothesis is…
Well, that’s the problem. He doesn’t have a second hypothesis. Because nothing explains all of the everything going on with Steve and even drugs only explain like…half of it.
Eddie crumples up the paper and tosses it in the trash and the Steve Harrington Puzzle remains unsolved through Saturday night as he loads up his guitar and amp into Gareth’s mom’s car.
One of them really needs to buy a van or a truck or something. Showing up to your metal gig in a minivan is not the cool aesthetic they’re trying to embody.
Eddie has been trying not to have expectations. Just because Steve said, several days before, that he was going to come to their gig didn’t mean he’d actually show up. And unlike Eddie’s embarrassing, seat-saving hope from Friday, his anxious door-watching as they set up and then take the stage at Hideout does not pay off.
Steve doesn’t show.
Maybe he forgot. Maybe he changed his mind or something better came up or maybe he never intended to come at all.
It doesn’t occur to Eddie that there’s another potential reason until he gets home, hoarse and jumpy with endorphins to find a note from Wayne by the phone.
Steve called. Said he’d been in an accident and was sorry he couldn’t come. Sounded rough. Left his number for you.
Eddie calls the number, even though it’s late. It rings. And rings. And rings. They have an answering machine, because of course they do, but the woman on the recording sounds like a stuck up bitch and Eddie lingers, just for a moment, trying to think of something to say, before hanging up.
He tries again on Sunday, just past lunch. Still no answer.
By Monday morning he’s vacillating between annoyance and concern which takes a careening turn down the concern offramp when he catches sight of Steve in the hallway. His face is beat to shit and his neck––
His neck looks like someone tried to fucking hang him.
But despite the bruises and the line of stitches at his temple and the general signs of a thorough ass-kicking, Steve is moving through the tide of students around him with the unmistakable swagger of someone who won.
It really does make Eddie want to see the other guy.
Eddie isn’t thinking. Well, he is thinking, he’s thinking what happened and are you ok. He’s not thinking about optics as he pushes his way through the other students in the hallway, grabs Steve’s wrist and drags him into the bathroom. It’s empty, thank god.
“What happened?” Eddie says, tugging down the collar of Steve’s shirt so he can better see the—Jesus, the ligature marks on his throat. “Are you ok?”
Steve’s hands catch around his shoulders, pushing him back with an infuriating little smile that says he’s enjoying Eddie’s reaction. Enjoying Eddie’s concern about him nearly being killed, the sadistic asshole.
“Hey, easy,” Steve says, “I’m fine. Though that does hurt a little so maybe let go of my shirt, yeah?”
“Oh what, you can pull me into bathrooms and feel me up but I’m not allowed to return the favor?” Eddie snarls.
Steve goes delightfully pink. “Okay,” he says. “I’ve apologized for that.”
Eddie lets go.“And you still haven’t explained it.”
“I can’t.”
“And all of this?” Eddie gestures to encompass the entirety of Steve’s stupid, muscular, injured self. He’s wearing the same jeans and boots as he was on Friday, this time paired with a black T-shirt that is likely intentionally a size too small. “Can you explain this?”
“I––”
“Can’t.” Eddie finishes with him.
At least Steve looks cowed about it.
“Are these the worst of your injuries or are there more under your clothes?”
Steve opens his mouth and Eddie interrupts before he can say anything. “Don’t lie.”
Steve rolls his eyes. “My back is a little beat up, but it’ll be fine.”
“Let me see.”
“What, do you have a medical degree, now?”
“Let me see.”
“Fine. Fine,” he turns, bracing one hand on the sink and using the other to hike up the back of his shirt. “I forgot how goddamn annoying you are when you’re––”
He cuts himself off, going still. His eyes are wide where they meet Eddie’s in the mirror. “I mean. Sorry. Whatever. Look, I’m fine.”
Eddie looks.
“Oh my god.” He’s touching the mottled bruise down the left side of Steve’s spine before he realizes he’s going to do it and by then it’s too late. He tries to be gentle, at least. “What hit you, a truck?”
“Eddie.”
“Are you pissing blood?”
“Only a little. Honestly, I’ve had worse.”
“That’s not reassuring.”
Eddie drops the shirt and lets Steve turn to face him, but he doesn’t step back. Instead, he leans closer still to inspect the tidy line of stitches hugging Steve’s temple.
“At least everything looks clean,” he murmurs, pushing Steve’s hair out of the way. “Did you go to the hospital for these? Please say you didn’t do them yourself.”
He doesn’t get a chance to answer, though, because Tommy Hagan pushes his way into the bathroom. Where Eddie currently has Steve pressed against the sink, nearly hip to hip, with his hand on Steve’s face.
He’s going to die today.
“Oh, fuck off, Tommy,” Steve says with a degree of annoyance that Eddie finds commendable considering the circumstances.
“What are you––what’s going on?” Tommy says as the door slides shut behind him. “Did Munson do that to you?”
Steve scoffs and Eddie should probably be insulted. Steve slides around him, putting himself just a hair in front of Eddie as he half-turns to face Tommy. One of Steve’s hands is on Eddie’s chest and Eddie isn’t sure how it got there, but it’s steady and firm, like he’s holding Eddie back.
“No,” Steve says. “He’s just a concerned citizen. What do you want?”
“He was touching you,” Tommy says, low and quiet and weirdly hurt.
“He was,” Steve agrees easily. “But there’s nothing wrong with that. Friends touch each other all time, right? No reason to make it weird.”
The words land like a blow. Eddie watches as Tommy physically recoils from them.
“Steve.” Tommy sounds wounded.
“Tommy,” Steve answers, dispassionate.
Tommy’s eyes move to Eddie. Move to Steve’s hand on Eddie’s chest. He turns abruptly and shoves his way back out of the bathroom with a muttered curse.
Steve watches him go, and then, when he turns to face Eddie again, his mouth twists.
“Shit, I wasn’t thinking. I sort of implicated you, there. I swear he won’t tell anyone, though, even if he does think we’re––whatever. I can,” Steve exhales, shoving a hand through his hair, and then winces, either because of the stitches or his side. “I can tell him you turned me down.”
As if that would happen.
“No,” Eddie says. “It’s fine. I mean, a lot of people already assume that I’m––” he knows he shouldn’t ask but he can’t seem to help it, “––wait, are you?”
“Yeah?” Steve says, like it should be obvious. “I like both. Either. All.”
“Right.” Eddie says. Like his entire worldview hasn’t been shaken to the core. “And you and Hagan—?”
Steve leans back against the sink. “I’m honestly not in the practice of outing people, if I can help it.”
“Hey, I’m not going to tell anyone.”
“Yeah,” Steve says finally. “I know.” He’s got his hands braced on the lip of porcelain on either side of his hips. It makes his biceps look enormous. “We didn’t have a thing,” he murmurs. “Not really. I wanted to, which is embarrassing in retrospect, but––” he laughs and there’s nothing comedic to it. “Some guys are just fine with you giving them handjobs in the dark, but god forbid you ask them to kiss you in the daylight, you know?”
Eddie does know.
“Their loss,” he mutters.
Steve bites his lip. “Hey, so. I’m sorry I missed your show. Can I buy you dinner tonight as an apology?”
Eddie might not recover from the conversational whiplash. “What?”
“I can pick you up at seven?”
“Yeah. Sure.”
“Okay, cool. We should get to class.”
And then he’s gone.
Eddie has a quiet, 30 second, existential crisis before following him.
***
Steve takes them to the diner again: same booth; same waitress.
She doesn’t try so hard this time to get Steve’s attention, either because she learned from last time or because Steve’s face looks like it’s been put through a meat grinder.
Regardless, they’re mostly left to their own devices and Steve gets him talking about the Lord of the Rings and once again Eddie finds himself flailing his way through a long-winded rant while drinking a chocolate milkshake. Steve watches him fondly.
He keeps forgetting that Steve is a giant, potentially dangerous, puzzle that needs solving in the face of his fond looks. It’s really becoming a problem.
Eddie is trying to find an elegant way of inviting Steve back to his place when Steve’s ever-present overstuffed backpack makes a static noise and then Eddie hears the muffled sound of Chief Hopper’s voice saying: Steve, you there?
Steve is out of the booth, throwing money on the table, in seconds.
Eddie scrambles to follow him.
Steve unzips his bag and pulls out the walkie before he’s even out the door.
“Hop?” he asks into the receiver. He doesn’t hold the door for Eddie which Eddie will be bitchy about later.
Are you still at the diner? Hopper asks. He sounds out of breath.
“Yeah.”
I’m two minutes away, meet me in the parking lot.
“It’s happening now?”
It’s happening now. Sorry, kid, I know you probably haven’t recovered from Saturday yet but––
“No, it’s fine.”
Two minutes, Hopper repeats. Be discreet.
Steve starts running.
By the time Eddie catches up to Steve at the back of the parking lot, he’s got the trunk of his car open and he’s pulling basketball uniform shirts out of a giant duffel bag. Previously hidden under the layer of jerseys are—guns.
Holy shit, that’s a lot of guns.
And grenades? Probably. Eddie has never seen a grenade in real life but he’s reasonably sure those are grenades.
“What.” Eddie says.
Steve zips the bag back up, cursing, and reaches for a baseball bat wrapped in a towel. Except when he pulls it out by the handle, the towel falls away and Eddie realizes the top of the bat has been gored through with at least two dozen nails: Spiked and lethal and covered in a red brown patina.
It could be rust.
Eddie is pretty sure it isn’t rust.
“Steve,” he says.
And Steve meets his eyes with a disturbing degree of calm.
Neither of them has a chance to say anything else, though, because Hopper's truck is careening into the parking lot and literally screeching to a stop a few feet away from them.
Steve tosses his bag of guns and his murder bat into the truck bed with a degree of familiarity that Eddie does not want to think about.
“What the hell, Steve,” Hopper is saying through the open window, “what part of be discrete did you not––oh.”
Eddie turns and when Hopper’s eyes settle on Eddie’s face, he stops talking.
“Eddie,” he says.
And that is not a way that Chief Hopper has ever said Eddie’s name before.
“Hop,” Steve says levelly.
“Fuck,” he says, still staring at Eddie like—Eddie doesn’t even know. Like he’s a ghost, maybe.
“Right,” he says. “Munson.” He drags his attention back to Steve. “We need to go. Now. Is he—“
“No.” Steve says. “Absolutely not.”
“Am I what?” Eddie asks.
Steve is shoving something into Eddie’s chest. Eddie’s hand comes up automatically to close around—keys. Steve’s keys.
“Do you know where my house is?” He asks.
“Yeah? Everyone knows where your house is, dude.”
“Don’t go home. Wayne is working tonight, right?”
“Yeah, but—“
“I need you to trust me. Please. Go to my house and––wait, no. The pool.”
He looks at Hopper.
“Henderson,” Hopper says. “The Henderson’s house. The other kids are already there. No nearby gates.”
“Gates? What the fuck are you two talking about?”
“We don’t have time for this,” Hopper says.
“Where are you going?” Eddie demands. “What is going on?”
“Eddie,” Steve says, urgent and terrible and wild. “Please.”
There’s an undeniable supplication in his tone, in his eyes, that makes Eddie say: “Okay. Alright. Just––tell me what to do.”
Steve pulls out a sharpie and a butterfly knife from his pockets. He pushes the knife into Eddie’s hand that is already holding Steve’s keys. He takes Eddie’s other arm and turns it palm up, uncapping the sharpie with his teeth. He writes hurried instructions across his wrist.
“Ok,” he says. “There. Take my car. Go to Henderson's house. Stay with the kids until I come back, okay?”
“When will you come back?”
“Late. Early. I don’t know. Before school tomorrow.”
“Steve,” Hopper says.
“Just don’t go back to your house, ok? Don’t go anywhere near Forest Hills or Lover’s Lake. We’ll get a message to Wayne too, but. Don’t go back. Go to Henderson's. Wait for me.”
“Steve,” Hopper says.
He squeezes Eddie’s arm. He lets go like it hurts him.
Steve climbs into Hopper's truck and Eddie watches them pull out of the parking lot with a dread he can’t explain sitting like stagnant water in his chest.
Eddie’s pulse is loud in his ears and heavy in his stomach as he considers the black ink on his arm; the knife; the keys. There’s a thunderhead building, eerie and green, eclipsing the sunset in the distance.
He walks to Steve’s car, closes the trunk, and opens the driver’s side door. He sits. He cranks the engine.
Dio is playing.
He looks at the instructions on his arm, directing him left onto Main Street, and for a minute he considers obeying. He doesn’t. He puts the car in gear and turns right toward Forest Hills.
He’ll go to Henderson’s. But Steve is acting like the trailer park is going to get bombed in the night and there are things at the house that…there are things he needs. He still half thinks this is all some giant prank, but Steve’s injuries are real and the guns were sure as hell real and Hopper is real. If something terrible is going to happen tonight, Eddie has to save his guitar, his mom’s records, the t-shirt from the first concert Wayne ever took him to. He’ll need to get Wayne’s favorite mug and the rosary Wayne’s mother left him and their social security cards and other important documents from the drawer in the kitchen.
It’ll take five minutes. Guitar. Milk crate of records. One bag of assorted shit. And then he’ll go to Henderson’s.
Five minutes.
In and out.
It’ll be fine.
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🩷 ✨ aphrodite cabin headcanons 🪩 💌
aphrodite cabin headcanons bc the way rick wrote them was fucked up. let them be silly and hyperfemme and girlypop i am begging you.
they have a billion playlists for different occasions (getting ready in the morning, arts and crafts, capture the flag, etc.) that they share with the apollo cabin.
to clarify, they are not allowed to use the capture the flag playlist anymore because they are permanently banned from playing after a hermes kid almost lost an arm.
the clothes in the camp store are ugly as hell so they convinced chiron to let them set up racks of clothes they don’t wear or just bought specifically for the store, of course with low prices because everyone should be able to look hot. there are crop tops, bandeau tops, all different length skirts, rompers, and even cute shoes. the aesthetics range from y2k to hippie to coquette to fairy grunge to mermaidcore to goth, with sizes ranging from 3XS to 5XL.
they have huge storage units of makeup and hair stuff that they gladly lend out to other campers. they even have dye and bleach from arctic fox and salon-grade brands. don’t worry about how they got it.
they regularly have movie nights using a projector with blankets, popcorn, and cuddle piles. their favorites to watch are mean girls, legally blonde, clueless, jennifer’s body (a halloween tradition), enchanted, the house bunny, but i’m a cheerleader, tangled, mama mia, the sisterhood of the traveling pants, and all three high school musicals (they know all the songs by heart, ofc).
the whole “nico was the first person who ever came out at camp” thing is literally the dumbest thing i’ve ever read, so that’s just not true and the aphrodite cabin has organized every pride event at camp for years now. no one knows how they do it or where they get all that glitter, and no one is brave enough to ask.
you need love advice? you’re questioning your sexuality and need to talk to someone about it? you need a girltalk session and some hypewomen? you need to make sure the harpies don’t get you when you and your partner sneak out to a secluded spot on the beach? they got u, babes, don’t even worry about it.
they all have perfumes and colognes customized to their signature scents.
their support for the trans community could rival the dionysus cabin. also they worship dylan mulvaney like the goddess she is because i worship her like the goddess she is, and i make the rules.
no one has better halloween costumes than then. no one. if you look as good as them, it’s because you borrowed supplies from them.
insanely good matchmakers.
when one of them is sad, they all stop everything they’re doing until their sibling feels better. that means skincare, hair-braiding trains, manicures while watching barbie movies, and those frosted sugar cookies. no, they will not, under any circumstances, participate in camp activities until they’re sure their sibling is okay.
their favorite show is sex education. when they watch it, they send the younger campers into the big house with a hephaestus-cabin-engineered ipad to watch monster high and ever after high until they’re done. dionysus does not approve of having to babysit, but after he went to chew out the rest of the cabin and found them in tears with mascara trails because they got to season 2, he stopped interfering.
drew and will got the two cabins together to bribe and beg chiron for eras tour tickets. it did not work (much to nico’s delight, who would’ve been persuaded into going by his boyfriend). in retaliation, they put pink hair dye in his shampoo, and the apollo cabin cursed him to randomly sing what he says with no warning. dionysus has never been so entertained.
they have no tolerance for pick-me girls or slut-shaming.
piper apologized to drew once she matured and started dating shel.
they all have phones that they hide from everyone else, complete with protection spells from the hecate cabin. they all have a family group chat and facetime basically every day when summer ends. shel and valentina are best friends now.
being the only boy, mitchell used to get bullied a lot by insecure middle school ares boys. that is, until his sisters caught wind and gave them hell. now, no one messes with mitchell, and especially not with his sisters.
they absolutely lose their shit when they realize some of the younger campers are too young to know one direction.
they’re closer to the apollo kids (and nico) than any other cabin.
they have a bookshelf full of nothing but romance. red, white, and royal blue, the falling on love montage, pride and prejudice, cemetery boys, the seven husbands of evelyn hugo, like a love story, heartstopper, the list goes on and on (no colleen hoover, though, yuck).
their acrylics and press-ons are deadly.
they have bunk beds, but more often than not you’ll find them sharing beds like they’re at a sleepover.
the cabin is extremely maximalist, with little disco balls, pink and lavender everywhere, fake flowers, and full-length mirrors because no, they’re not sharing.
because their mom is the goddess of love, they all identify as either bi, pan, queer, or don’t use labels. they just love love.
they all have matching “free britney” crop tops.
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