Unsteddie since '86

Eddie is gathering up any supplies he can find, watching him out of the corner of his eyes, "We doing okay, buddy?"

Steve breaks his staring contest with the middle distance, "Hey."

"Hey," Eddie echoes back.

"I know you like. You look up to me an' ev'thing," Steve slurs. "But don't. You're like - you're great."

Eddie just.

Eddie...

"What?"

"You're great," Steve repeats, insists, almost turns towards him but his ribs are broken. "You're great jusssssss' like you. Jus' the way you are."

"Um..." Eddie says. "Thanks? You wanna get cleaned up now?"

"Yes."

So.

Eddie walks over. He uses what supplies they have to clean, disinfect, and bandage this fallen...sailor. He's about done when Steve breaks his suddenly gains awareness and pulls back. He looks at Eddie and frowns, "Wait."

"What?"

"You're not Dustin," Steve says. "You're Eddie Munson. I waz talking to Dus'in. Where-"

"Just me, Harrington. It's just been me."

"Oh."

"Dus'in shouldn't change," Steve reiterated. "You should change."

"Okay?"

"You're loud."

"Okay."

"And y'should use conditioner."

Steve: I was crossing the street and a car clipped me* but it's fine. I’m fine.

Steve: I even went to the hospital** as a precaution***. They said I’m fine. I even met a guy****

Robin: You have a date with a doctor?

Steve:

Steve: Yeah, sure. Something like that***

*flew over the hood

**by ambulance

***because he was unconscious

Eddie: I saw a man running with no shirt on and a hairy chest and then I hit him.

Eddie: With my van!

Eddie: AND HE DIED.**

Wayne:

Eddie: I have a date with him on Friday.***

*He did not

**Not dead

He's the last party member left in Hawkins. He gets it.

So the next time he's on a run, he tears up some of the weeds. The time after that, he cleans away the trash. And so on and so forth until the grave looks nice, taken care of.

He chats to the guy sometimes - sometimes this is the only conversation Steve has that day. He tells the guy about his run time, about his students, about his friends and meeting up at Robin's weird uncle's house every couple months because, "Every month was a little excessive, you know? It's, yeah. Quarterly is better and-"

"Excuse me?"

"Oh, shit," Steve startles. "Hi. I'm not trespassing or-"

The stranger that approaches doesn’t look like he works here. His leather jacket, long hair, and handfuls of rings doesn't exactly scream graveyard worker so, "Uhhhhh, oh! Do you know him?"

"Yeah," The guy says slightly amused. "He's my dad. Do you know him?"

"N-no," Steve winced, realizing how weird this is. "His grave was a little overgrown so I cleaned it up and, I don't know. He's a good listener. I’m Steve, by the way."

"Eddie," He says, gesturing to Al Munson's headstone. "That must've been a skill he developed beyond the grave."

"Oh."

"Yeah," Eddie nods. "Too busy hitting women and kids to listen to anyone."

"...Oh."

Steve frowns. He's been telling a total piece of shit about how lonely he is.

"But hey," Eddie perks up. "If you want a real good listen just step a few paces to your right."

Steve looks to his right at the next gravestone. He never really paid jt much mind because it was well kept and well loved. There were always fresh flowers for Elizabeth Munson.

"She got a lot of practice listening to me," Eddie adds. "I think she would like you."

Okay, so he's spent the last couple months talking to this woman's abuser and - "Oh, Jesus. Why am I still here? Let me get out of your hair and-"

The window is down, the air is fresh, and the wind is blowing through his dirty blood-tacky hair and, you know what?

“This is better than the last time I got kidnapped.”

“For the last time,” Eddie says behind the wheel of his van. “You’re not kidnapped. You got on my van. No one asked you to be here.”

“Okay.”

“What do you mean last time?” Gareth asked, poking his head up from the back. “When were you last kidnapped?”

Steve stares blankly ahead either not hearing or not caring to answer the question. Eventually, he asks, “Are you taking me to your lair?”

He has accepted that it makes him a bad person if he pulls up outside the emergency room and pushes Steve out of his van, but that’s what he wants to do.

Unfortunately, his friends are better people.

They want to stick around to make sure Harrington doesn’t croak so…Eddie drops them off. He parks the van.

He’s sitting in the driver’s seat, head resting against the wheel, giving himself a minute when - “Whoa, too loud.”

Eddie’s scream dies on his lips and he watches in disbelief as Steve ‘The Hair’ Harrington melts his sailor suit aas back into the passenger seat of his van. Again. For the second time tonight.

“What the f-“

“Can’t be in there.”

Despite the fact that his heart is jackrabbiting in his chest, Eddie is incredibly calm when he asks, “Why not?”

“Cause,” Steve slurs, eyes looking everywhere without seeing anything. “Bone saw.”

“Bone what?”

“I don’t want ‘em to rip of n’more of m’fingernails.”

Eddie frowns.

Steve finds Eddie on a crawl to the Upside Down. But something's clearly not right with him... For one, where's all the blood and wounds?

Tommy is about to turn this gas station into Chernobyl when he sees Steve lean into Eddie’s space and tease him about wearing his clothes. He says that he thinks Eddie looks good wearing his clothes.

But they’re not Steve’s clothes. They’re Tommy’s clothes.

There’s a T. Hagan on the inner tag.

Steve kinda disappears off the face of the earth when everybody leaves for college.

It’s not intentional.

He just doesn’t have anything to add when everybody is talking about their new college lives. It’s easy to say nothing when nothing is happening.

And then he drives into a ditch.

He slides on black ice, loses control of his car, and goes over the edge. He tells no one.

He climbs out of the wreckage, manages to flag down a passing car, and spends the night in the hospital with another concussion. And he tells no one.

He couldn’t if he wanted to. His phone is in his car.

Meanwhile, Robin is realizing they she’s halfway through the semester and hasn’t talked to Steve in a while so she checks his location.

It looks like he’s parked off the side of a backroad. She figures his parents are home and he can’t take his date there. She puts her phone down and doesn’t pick it back up until morning and…Steve is in the same location.

She calls. No answer.

She gives it exactly thirty-three minutes and calls again. No answer.

She calls Dustin and he calls. No answer.

Eventually, Erica agrees to go to Steve’s location and…a tow truck is pulling his car out of a ditch.

She bikes to Steve’s house but no one is there because he moved out a month ago to a trailer in Forest Hills and told no one about it.

Everybody is panicking.

It accumulates in Hopper driving to Hawkins, getting his new address from Mr Clark, and showing up at his door.

Steve barely asks what he’s doing there before he’s crushed in a hug.

I like this idea and I like the idea of Mike being the final hold out.

Eddie was kinda figuring that Dustin would be hard to win over (and he was) or maybe Max (and she was too) but Mike won’t budge.

Everybody thinks it’s because he doesn’t like Steve but it’s actually because Mike knows Steve too well.

Steve was over at their house a lot when he was dating Nancy so Mike has seen Steve when he’s not being The Babysitter, and honestly. He thinks Steve deserves better like, “You don’t even like the stuff he likes. What are you talking about?”

“Well,” Eddie jokes. “There wouldn’t be a lot of talking.”

“Oh, so you just want to use him for his body?” He asks. “Like that’s not one of his biggest fears? You wanna feed into the belief that he’s only a pretty face?“

“Wait, what fear?”