#atlantablack

Eddie’s guilty of freezing as well, despite how hard he tries to not care about any of the stupid school politics. His hand’s suspended in mid-air where he was reaching for….reaching for something. He doesn’t fucking know. 

The fever dream trio are still walking up the hall, whispering to each other so low Eddie can’t hear them despite how quiet it’s gotten. In fact, they’re doing such a good job of pretending to not notice the stares that they almost convince him they haven’t noticed at all. Such a fantastic fucking job that he almost misses the tension sitting tight in Harrington’s shoulders, the white knuckled grip Wheeler has on the strap of her bag, the anxious creases around Byers eyes as he presses against Wheeler’s side. They’re all painfully aware of the staring, they’re just doing a remarkably good job of ignoring it. 

Or at least they are, until Harrington glances around, real casual like, and ends up making direct eye contact with Eddie.

If you asked him later what he’d thought was going to happen, he’d have told you nothing, nothing at fucking all. Because Steve Harrington was a bully but he didn’t bother singling people out, that was a job delegated to good ‘ole Tommy & Carol. But this version of King fucking Steve, a boy who’s never paid a lick of fucking attention to Eddie past the dismissive glances he’s swept across everyone who was beneath him, this fucking version of Harrington goes bone white, flinching sideways into Wheeler, eyes wide with something Eddie doesn’t have the brain capacity to decipher at the moment. 

Eddie, Harrington mouths, silent and yet somehow louder than any shout. Eddie stares back, blank and uncomprehending (and something, he doesn’t know what, but something in Harrington’s eyes shatters). Wheeler grabs his arm, trying to pull him along, eyes darting to Eddie and away like she’s scared to let her eyes linger for too long. 

“You know we can’t, Steve,” she hisses, they’re close enough for him to hear this time. “Let’s go.”

Byers moves to Harrington’s other side and gently ushers him along, his gaze sweeping the length of Eddie —his falling apart shoes, the frayed ends of his jeans, the pins on his vests, his frizzy curls — eyes curious as he takes him in. He doesn’t know what Byers sees but his eyes go a little sad right before he turns away. 

He wants to call it pity but he knows the Byers are nearly as hard off as he and Wayne. So really, he’s still just as lost as he was five minutes ago. He’s just lost. He fucking hates feeling lost.

Eddie stays standing in front of his locker until the first bell rings, blankly staring at the spot where Harrington’s mouth had shaped his name like a prayer he’d forgotten the words to. It’s a Tuesday and that means math and English questions he doesn’t understand and history quizzes and PE and running which he hates. 

It’s a fucking Tuesday and the most interesting thing to happen in Hawkins in years somehow involves him and it doesn’t make any fucking sense.

Wheeler is a priss. She’s a straight-A student, on track to be valedictorian. A straight-laced girl who should fit into all the neatly labeled boxes Eddie had mentally placed her in years ago. But her voice as she’d hissed at Harrington had been tired and full of iron. 

Byers is a loner, an outcast just like Eddie. He’s always been alone though. No hellfire, no makeshift friend group that could fall apart at a moment's notice. But he’d been leaning into Wheeler like she was his last stand, the hill he would die on given half a chance and a sword sharp enough. 

And Harrington. Steve fucking Harrington. Well, he makes the least sense of all. If you’d asked Eddie yesterday if Harrington would be caught dead hanging out with Byers he’d have said not a chance in hell. 

But clearly, hell is high school and Steve Harrington is alive just to piss Eddie off. Because Harrington’s arm had been flung around Wheeler’s shoulder, loose and unassuming, his body language open and inviting except for the tension hiding in his shoulders. He’d smiled at Byers with teeth, bright and happy, right before he’d turned and seen—

Before he’d turned and looked at Eddie like he was seeing a ghost or an angel like the ones the preachers forgot Revelations described. He’d mouthed Eddie’s name like it was something that belonged in his mouth. Like he had some divine right to it when Eddie had never made him a prophet, had never made him anything at all.

Eddie doesn’t understand what’s going on but he’s never been one to let sleeping dogs lie. Far be it for him to start now.