Season 2 AU where the last person Eddie ever expects to see show up at his table in the woods is Nancy Wheeler.
He says exactly as much and she cuts to the chase, “Do you make deals for anything other than drugs?”
The answer is yes. Alcohol. Illegal fireworks. It may take some time, but he can even get you a passable fake ID but - “What is Nancy Wheeler looking for?”
Eddie blinks again, dumbfounded. He asks the question slowly like approaching an animal you don’t understand, “You…want me…to be your friend?”
“No,” She says quick and dismissive, dropping her binder of books onto the table and pulling out her neatly labeled English notebook. “You know Steve Harrington?”
“Do I know Steve Harrington?” He asks dully. “Is there someone in this town who doesn’t?”
“I want you to be his friend.”
“I…what?” He asks, baffled. Truly baffled. Even more baffled when she rips a page out of her English notebook and hands it to him. It’s a depressingly short list labeled Steve’s Favorite Things. “I- I need you to back up? What’s happening?”
“I’m making a deal with you,” Nancy says which isn’t how drug dealing works at all. “I want you to be friends with Steve and I’ll pay you.”
She opens her little pocketbook, pulls out her matching wallet, and holds out twenty bucks. She says, “I don’t have a lot but I can do twenty dollars a week. Thats a little under three dollars a day to be someone’s friend and you don’t even have to talk to him every day.”
Yeah, Eddie thinks. Sure. He’ll entertain this Twilight Zone episode for a second because, “Why would I be friends with Steve Harrington?”
“Because he doesn’t have any,” Nancy says and then sighs. She looks tired. “Steve stopped talking to his old friends last year which. That’s not a bad thing. They’re assholes. But he did that for me and now he won’t talk to me be-
“-cause you smashed his heart into a million tiny pieces?”
She gives him a look that makes him think twice about saying anything else, “Steve got hurt. I hurt him but he also got physically hurt. You saw him and I - We’ve been through a lot. All of us but he’s shutting me out.”
“He’s shutting everybody out,” She adds. “I’m worried about him.”
Okay? Edide thinks. That’s sweet and all but-
“What does that have to do with me?” He asks. “Don’t know if you noticed but I’m a freak.”
Nancy smiles, “You run Hellfire.”
“I don’t think Harrington is going to be up for some fantasy role playing, honey.”
“No, probably not,” Nancy concedes, “But it’s not about that. It’s about you and the effect you have on the people in Hellfire. Every year, you bring together people who probably never would have talked to anybody and gave them somewhere safe to be. That’s what Steve needs. He needs a friend.”
“He needs you,” She says, pushing the money across the table. “So, accept my offer.”
If Eddie thought more about this maybe he would’ve seen how this was going to inevitably blow up in his face but he wasn’t thinking about that.
He was thinking about eighty bucks a month and now many records that could buy. He was thinking about gas money and movie tickets, not about what Steve was going to think if he found out or how bad he’s going to feel about it so…
He sticks his hand out to shake, “Deal.”
