also for WIP Weekend I would looooove an excerpt from Conflict at the Table, I am a Sucker for Steve-as-Dustin’s-adoptive-brother fics
(no rush on these btw since I did just send you two asks in a row!!)
:D this I have a bit written, so. Thank you for the asks! This takes place at Steve's last rager before the shit hits the fan.
TW: General discussion of sexual assault, as a terrible thing.
--
“Got a favor to ask you,” Steve says flatly, and Eddie plants his legs on the ground, straddling the chair.
“I’m wrapping up,” Eddie says. “Just a few more sales and I’ll be out of your hair.” He smirks and adds “Hair,” addressing Harrington and pointing at his mane, which is the only part of him that doesn’t seem outright depressed.
“About that,” Steve says. He rubs his hands over his thighs, and Eddie realizes he’s out here in the freezing cold in just his jeans and short sleeved polo. “There’s a girl here. Marjorie.”
Eddie feels his blood freeze, and it’s not just the weather. “No,” he says sharply. He swings his leg over the chair and stands, walks right over to Harrington. He crouches down and puts his face in close. The only way to deal with these jocks is to adapt their posturing. To his own shock, he hooks a finger in the collar of Steve’s stupid shirt. Steve easily slaps it away but appears too stunned to do anything else.
“I told your friend Hagan,” Eddie says to a wide-eyed Steve. “You want to bed a girl, use your money or your sad attempts at charm and wit. I don’t dope up women so assholes like you can assault them. And anyway, aren’t you and Wheeler –”
Harrington spasms at the word assault, jumping to his feet and knocking over the end table. Great, now this dumbshit is going to argue that’s not rape. Well, another thing the rumor mill agrees on is Harrington is shit at taking a punch. Maybe Eddie can get a quick crack at him and get the hell out of dodge.
But Harrington rounds back in on him, and he looks furious. “Are you telling me–” he looks around briefly and then lowers his voice. “Are you telling me Tommy Hagan wanted fucking knock out drops? For a girl?”
“Not just him,” Eddie mutters. He scans Steve for any sign of an attack but he doesn’t see one coming. Steve turns to the pool, hands on the back of his head, then turns back to Eddie.
“Jesus,” he says. “Thank God I’m done with that asshole. No, I only wanted to tell you – Marjorie. Nancy overheard her friends trying to convince her to try coke, and she seems pretty drunk already and – Marji shouldn’t have that, alright? She has a heart defect. So if she tries to buy from you; if anyone seems like they’re buying for her, you’re out for the night, okay?”
“What – how do you know she has a heart defect?” Eddie can’t picture Marjorie Whomever but he’s pretty sure that’s the kind of thing people would know about. She’d at least be staying out of gym class, and folks around here will destroy you over any small deviance from normalcy.
And how would Harrington know? Right on time, Eddie's traitorous brain supplies a number of images of Harrington making slow, tender, accommodating love to Marjorie.
“We were friends when we were little,” Steve says. He rubs his hands across his probably chilled arms. “And my mom, she wasn’t her nurse, but she was a nurse. She explained it to me. She was probably terrified we’d have too much fun running around and something would happen and they’d get sued, knowing her.”
Harrington makes this face that is weirdly friendly, like he’s asking Eddie to commiserate over how shitty his mom is. Like he wants Eddie to understand. It’s unnerving, and this whole exchange has already depleted him of a bunch of nerves.
“Anyway. I’m asking, Munson.” Then Steve’s eyes brighten and he reaches into his back pocket, pulling out a wallet. That’s kind of weird, to walk around your own house with your wallet on you, isn’t it?
“I can cover the cost, if you want.” And Jesus Christ, Eddie lays off drinking when he’s dealing. It’s important to keep a clear head. But he needs to be drunk for something like this. Steve Harrington being earnest, trying to protect his ex-friend and make sure Eddie is equitably compensated at the same time. What the fuck. It should improve his opinion of Steve, right?
“Right, you’re going to cover the cost of one girl’s worth of blow?” Eddie says. How dare he, honestly, King Steve, Lord of the Ruinous Hellscape of Hawkins and Haver of Whatever the Fuck he Wants. Trying to be Steve the Benevolent. Steve the Kind. Whatever.
“If I’m out, I’m out for the whole party, Harrington,” Eddie says. He fiddles with the zipper on his jacket but it’s still done up. He wants to get out of here, and he wants Steve to know that.
Steve opens his wallet without missing a beat but his eyebrows scrunch down. He glances up at Eddie and rubs at his nose. “Party’s gonna move on soon,” he says and now it sounds like he’s trying to calm a bear, or bluff at cards. “But okay, I see your point. How’s 75 bucks?” he asks, and he starts counting it out.
$75 is too fucking much. Thing is, Eddie could bump the price to $100 and the guy would probably pay it. Crazy that what feels like fairness these days is the simple act of not ripping someone off even more than usual.
I’m amenable to that,” Eddie says, begrudgingly.
“That’s a yes, right?” Steve says, a little of that smarmy humor creeping in. But he holds the cash out.
Eddie huffs and rolls his eyes, grabs the stack away from Steve. He unzips his jacket and adds it to what’s in his inside pocket, keeping the bills in order by amount.
“I only had twenties, so you owe me five bucks,” Steve says with a smile like this delights him, but Eddie ignores him, extracts his coke and then feels around in his outside pockets for a joint.
“Nah, I’ll just top you off,” Eddie says because he doesn’t want to owe anyone anything, as a rule, if he can help it. He holds the two glassine packets out to Steve, who goes wide-eyed again and waves him away.
“No, keep it. You can still sell it. I shouldn’t be holding anyway.” Steve scratches the back of his neck awkwardly and nods, like that’s the end of that. He rights the overturned end table, then starts to walk back toward the sliding glass doors to the house. Eddie stands frozen for a moment, unable to process what just happened, but he puts the drugs back in his pockets and lets out a big breath. Behind him, he hears Harrington call out.
“Hey, Eddie?” Eddie turns to him, sees him in half-shadow between the lights around the pool and the shade of the house. “If Hagan or any of those douchebags ask you something like that again, you tell me. Okay?”
“Yeah, okay, Harrington,” Eddie says, and what’s weird is he can picture it. Going to Steve. Informing on those shitheads. The idea gives him a strange, dark feeling of excitement. At last, perhaps, some justice. Steve would do it, too. It’s not like Eddie likes the guy now or something, but he can see that.
“Pleasure doing business with you,” he calls back. He hears the vaguest noise, like Steve has chuckled at that, and decides he’s earned another cigarette as Harrington heads back inside.
As it turns out, Eddie doesn’t have to consider whether Harrington’s parties are worth fitting into his work schedule, because Steve isn’t having any more parties. The Wednesday after that pathetic Spring Fling, the news hits the Hawkins Post. By Thursday it’s picked up in the Indiana Star. Steve Harrington has filed a lawsuit against his parents for what’s called parental emancipation.
