someone is finally taking care of steve harrington and to everyone's surprise it just so happens to be wayne munson.
they didn't seek each other out. not really. after eddie had... passed... wayne was lonely. he wasn't afraid to admit it, his boy was gone, and his home had been ripped in half by what the government called an earthquake. he didnt have much to do these days, spending most of his time at the relief shelter at the highschool, helping take care of those a little worse for wear after the earthquake. he just didn't expect steve harrington to be one of those people.
he noticed the boy wandering around the first few days, never really going home, always helping others, making sandwiches or just keeping himself busy. wayne though, he'd raised eddie practically, and he saw right through steve's attempts to be okay.
he'd seen the boy with those kids eddie played with and how he cared for them, hell he'd even offered wayne his condolences, tearful and wobbly, but sincere, and apologetic for the way the town had treated eddie, he he'd let his friends treat eddie. so the kid wasn't that bad, not really.
and when he watched steve slip into the bathroom when he thought no one was looking to have a breakdown, he knew the boy needed someone. he needed someone too. so he followed him one day, patting him on the back, rocking him back and forth gently.
"i don't know what y'all went through, kid. and i've heard ya talking to the buckley girl about NDAs and all that junk. i know eddie got mixed up in it, and those kids told me what ya did for him. it'll be alright, okay, steve? it'll be alright."
and the truth came out not long after that, steve had broken down after a nightmare and let the truth slip, too tired to care about breaking the NDA. and so wayne learned everything and couldn't help but feel a twisted sense of gratitude that eddie didn't have to deal with all that anymore. but here was steve, shaking and stuttering in his arms, incoherently begging for his mother who hasn't set foot in hawkins in the past 6 months. and from what wayne gathered, she and her husband had no intentions of coming back, especially not after their house had been destroyed.
their lack of care for their son made his blood boil, the whole situation felt too similar to when eddie first came to stay with him. he pushed down the anger though, and he and steve worked through their grief together.
it was an odd friendship, if you could call it that, but it worked out in the end. wayne knew what happened to his boy, and steve got a stable father figure that payed attention to the things he said, and even gave him a hug once in a while.
