Chapter Text
The first time, Eddie supposes, is on the boat.
Now to be fair, Eddie’s been on the run for like five nights now, hasn’t had a shower or a change of clothes in just as long (and it was a bit of time before that, to be honest). He’s cold, and damp, and scared, and exhausted, and just wants to go home. Except home now has the dead body of one of his classmates, and cops, and a monster from an alternate dimension, so that’s not really an option at the moment.
Needless to say, he’s a little on edge.
It helps, Eddie thinks, it really does, to be with people. People he knows and, for the most part, trusts. Robin’s good - Eddie knows her from his brief stint in band before he was heavily encouraged (read: forced) to drop it for a study hall, and though he hasn’t ever interacted with Nancy before, she seems nice enough. A little bitchy, maybe, but hey, Eddie would say the same thing about himself.
Granted, there is some unresolved shit with Harrington from before that Eddie hasn’t worked through yet, despite Dustin’s best efforts, but it all kind of seems silly in light of the world-shattering, reality-altering clusterfuck that has been these last few days.
So they’re not friends, not by any stretch of the imagination, but -
It’s good, Eddie thinks. Good to have them there.
Because in one moment Eddie is rowing the shitty little boat, brain going a million miles an hour trying to process what the fuck is happening and what it means about his understanding of the world, and then in the next the compass starts going absolutely haywire, and Henderson’s voice is crackling through the walkie’s speaker, and the group falls silent and Eddie realizes shit, this is it.
Panic seeps into his bones, colder than even the biting March air, and Eddie feels like he’s going to throw up, helpless but to watch the spinning of the compass needle, and see bodies lifting, bones cracking, lights flickering behind his eyes.
And then Steve Harrington is bending over, not skipping a beat, to pull his shoes and socks off as he volunteers to dive down into god-knows-what at the bottom of Lover’s Lake, and Eddie is overcome with relief. Thank Christ Harrington’s got the Prince Charming, Superman, Hero-to-the-Rescue death wish, the inescapable need to show off in front of Nancy and Robin, because Eddie sure as fuck doesn’t want to be the one to go down there. Distantly he hears Steve’s reasoning, the subtle not-bragging-but-definitely-bragging about being fucking swim captain which obviously leaves him much more qualified than the boat’s other occupants, but again - Eddie is one hundred percent okay with that.
Still, that doesn’t mean Eddie wants the guy to die down there. His gaze drops to the floor of the boat, where Steve’s abandoned his flashlight in favor of stripping down. Steve’s turning around while Eddie is fumbling with his plastic bag, struggling more than he probably should be to loosen it from his pocket, drops his cigarettes on the ground because his hands are shaking too much, but Christ it’s been a rough few days, cut him some slack.
All this is to say that Eddie’s a little preoccupied during the whole undressing bit, so when he finally gets his shit together and looks up, there’s Steve Harrington in all his half-naked glory. The skin on his back is pale, reflecting the light from the moon, and it’s covered in a scattering of moles and freckles that Eddie suddenly wants to trace with his tongue, which, where the fuck did that come from? The guy’s always been handsome, sure - Eddie’s got standards but he’s not blind. But any potential physical attraction had been snuffed out way back in 1984, the very second that Steve had opened his stupid little rich boy mouth to laugh along as Tommy H. and Alfie Zimmerman had knocked Eddie into his locker, kicked his bookbag across the hallway floor and, on one memorable occasion, stuck half-chewed marshmallows in his hair like fucking cavemen.
Not that Eddie even cares. Because he doesn’t.
Still, something about the insistence on being the one to dive (literally) head-first into danger has Eddie’s stomach lighting up with butterflies, and - oh, Jesus Christ - the way the light from the flashlight (that is definitely not shaking in his hands, thank you very much) catches the curls of Steve’s chest hair. Eddie shoves the pack of cigarettes in his mouth to keep his tongue from lolling out like a goddamn Looney Tunes character, and that’s an awful idea because ugh, the paperboard is damp and tastes like dirty lake water.
Eddie’s cool, he’s calm, he’s chill, he’s telling Steve, “Good luck” and, now that he thinks about it, this is only like the second time that he’s spoken to Steve directly since this whole shitshow went down. There’s about two seconds where Eddie feels bad about that before Steve balls up his sweater and throws it back into Eddie’s face and, oh yeah, he’s still an asshole. Still, Eddie keeps the sweater in his lap, hand wrapped firm in the residual warmth of it and goddamn Harrington must be some kind of space heater. He’s halfway to lighting up a cigarette when Buckley snatches it from his mouth and drops it into the lake, which - give a hoot, don’t pollute - but he doesn’t have time to call her out because Nancy’s saying something, all big eyes and pouty as she gazes up at Steve. Then Steve turns again and dives, dipping and rocking the boat and sending fucking frigid water splashing into their faces.
Then, of course, more shit hits the fan, because why not? Steve finds the gate, awesome, and then gets sucked down into the water by some unknown horror, less awesome, and then Nancy’s diving in after, and then fucking Buckley betrays him, following right behind, and then -
To be honest, Eddie blacks out for a bit. There’s the lake, freezing and dark and so goddamn terrifying, and then suddenly he’s out of the water but there’s shit flying at them from all different directions. Then there’s a lot of shouting, and grunting, and more physical exertion than Eddie’s given in his past three years of P.E. combined. He comes back into himself, though, when the bats (bats? They are bats, he thinks) are all dead and then there’s Steve fucking Harrington again.
Still shirtless, obviously, and the poor guy’s back is shredded to absolute bits. But Eddie’s got tunnel vision, eyes zeroing in on the line of bat blood dripping from his chin until it snaps, landing in the wet curls of his chest hair. It clings to the strands as it slides down, expedited by Steve’s heaving breaths, and then runs down the line of his abs to mix with the human blood leaking steadily from his side. It can’t be healthy - in fact, is probably pretty fucking concerning - but goddamn if it doesn’t have Eddie’s dick stirring in his jeans.
Eventually Eddie manages to scrape together enough of the brain matter that’s melted onto the floor of his skull to toss his battle vest in Harrington’s direction, maybe with a bit more force than is particularly necessary, but he gets a bit of satisfaction when Steve’s face bunches up in annoyance.
What Eddie fails to realize, however, is that Steve Harrington wearing Eddie’s battle vest over his bare, sweaty, bleeding, hairy torso carries with it a whole different set of issues, the main one being Eddie’s inability to function like a human being with more than one single brain cell. All he can see is Steve’s bare arms, his thick shoulders, hears Steve thanking him for having his back and has the insane idea to respond, “oh, no biggie - hey, just let me lick you from your belly button to your collarbone and we’ll call it square, deal?”
He just looks so good, so strong and thick and battle worn, and there’s slim pickings for eligible bachelors in the great, straight town of Hawkins (not that Steve would ever actually qualify, but hey, you can’t blame a guy for dreaming).
Both a blessing and a curse, Eddie is saved from his momentary lapse in sanity by a distraction in the form of an earthquake, followed closely by a series of other distractions greatly escalating in severity, and it’s safe to say that the whole “shirtless Steve Harrington” thing takes a backburner.
But it’s not the end, Eddie realizes soon enough, oh no.
It’s just the beginning.