STILES: "Hey-yy, Scott! Scotty-boy, Scott-ster, Scott-a-roni—"
ISAAC: "Please make him stop."
SCOTT: "We both know I can't do that."
STILES: "First of all, rude. Second, I need your help. Like, right now."
SCOTT: "What?? Is everything okay?! Where—"
STILES: "I'm getting there, dude, just hold on! So, Derek gave me this thing—"
ISAAC: "Was it mono? He seems like a carrier."
STILES: (glares at Isaac) "I think I liked you better when you were too scared to sass me."
(Isaac throws his head back and cackles, while Scott shoots Stiles a horrified look)
STILES: "Anyways, he gave me this leather hangy-thing that's supposed to glow when I'm in the presence of the ghost we're hunting—"
ISAAC: "Hold on, the what?"
STILES: "I know, right? It looks like a car air-freshener but there's this weird sigil—"
SCOTT: "Wait, wait, can we go back to the ghost hunting thing real quick?"
STILES: "Me and Der are hunting a ghost, what's not clicking here?"
SCOTT: " ... we'll just circle back to it later."
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'No no no Steve wait, don't throw that a...way.' The end of the sentence died on Eddie's tongue as the leftover lasagna, basically in slow-motion, tumbled out of the dish and into the bin. Eddie could almost hear a funeral march start to play over the dull thud and the sound of crushing eggshells.
'Fuck,' he said, emphatically.
'That was barely half a portion,' Steve remarked with a careless shrug while putting the empty dish back on the kitchen counter.
And Eddie groaned, tried to count to ten in his head but didn't even make it to two.
'I was gonna have that for lunch, man, add a slice of bread and an apple and I'd have a decent meal!'
There must have been something in his voice that told Steve that he wasn't just being overly dramatic but genuinely annoyed, because his face dropped and he shot a quick glance at the dish, as if that would magically summon the lasagna back into it, untouched by gross eggshells and coffee dregs.
'Seriously, that was perfectly good food, why would you throw that away?!'
'I can buy you lunch tomorrow?' Steve suggested sheepishly.
And, well, that hit a sore spot.
'That's not the fucking point!' Eddie exclaimed in frustration. 'I'm not your charity case or some shit, I can take care of my own meals – as long as you don't throw my food away!'
And again, it was like Eddie saw it happen in slow-motion: Steve flinched, took a stumbling step backwards, created as much distance between himself and Eddie as possible in the trailer’s tiny kitchen by bumping his back against the counter; something crossed his face that Eddie had never seen there before. And... shit.
All his frustration dissolved right on the spot and he immediately took another step away from Steve, even though everything inside of him wanted to cross that distance and hold him. He raised his hands in the air, cautious not to move too sudden.
'Steve, I'm not mad at you,' he said, forcing himself to sound as calm as possible despite his heart beating like crazy. 'I got annoyed, sure, but – it's okay. We're okay. You're okay. I didn't wanna hurt you, I promise.'
Steve swallowed, let his eyes dart everywhere except at Eddie's face while he tightly crossed his arms in front of his chest. The fear seemed to have disappeared from his face, replaced by something else; something expertly concealed within seconds. Anyone less well-versed than Eddie in the craft of noticing every little detail about Steve Harrington wouldn't notice; but Eddie did.
'You wanna talk about what happened there?' he asked, hesitant.
Steve didn't answer right away, his eyes still frantically darting around the trailer and his lower lip sucked between his teeth.
'What do you mean?' he finally said.
'Can I come closer?' Eddie asked. He felt like it would be so much easier to have this conversation if he could touch Steve; if he could smell him and have him in his orbit.
Steve nodded; Eddie sighed a breath of a relief and crossed the distance between them to rest his hands against Steve's sides; not quite an embrace, but something grounding for both of them nonetheless.
'I kinda recognized that look in your eyes, I guess,' Eddie quietly admitted. 'And the way you flinched. Like you were scared I was gonna do something bad.'
'I know you wouldn't –'
'I know,' Eddie was quick to reassure him. There was a beat of silence and Eddie wondered how much he should push. But he knew that he needed this conversation to happen, that it would keep gnawing at both of them if they didn't talk about it now.
'It's because of your dad, isn't it?'
Steve nodded, still looking slightly past Eddie.
'I'm sorry.' Eddie exhaled sharply, trying to keep his emotions under control; he knew that aimless anger at Steve's father wouldn't get them anywhere; not here, not right now. 'I mean, I knew he was bad, but I had no idea that it was... like that.'
He could hear Steve breathe out while he stared at some point just above Eddie's head.
'Sometimes I think all that crap is behind me now,' Steve quietly started to explain. 'But then something like this happens and it – it just catches me by surprise, is all. Like I'll never completely be free of the fear.'
Eddie nodded. 'Uncle Wayne, he... He looks a lot like my father - even though he's nothing like him. Took me years to fully trust him. He makes sure to never raise his voice, but still, sometimes when I see him make a sudden movement from the corner of my eyes, I just... freeze. Like it's some kind of instinct that’ll always stay with me.'
Steve finally looked Eddie in his eyes again, stunned and a little bit shocked.
'Your dad, too?'
Eddie nodded. 'Mhm.'
And wordlessly, Steve pulled him closer, until Eddie was enveloped in his warm arms and their chests were pressed against each other. Eddie let his eyes fall shut, breathed in Steve's familiar scent while he nestled his face in the crook of his neck and tightened his own grip around Steve's back.
They stayed like that for minutes, maybe even a whole eternity.
'Should we make rules?' Steve finally asked, in a hesitant voice and without pulling away from their embrace.
'What kind of rules?'
'Like, things to make sure that this doesn't – that we won't get scared. I know we can't promise not to fight, but...' He trailed off; Eddie could feel him shrug his shoulders.
He started slowly stroking one hand up and down over Steve's back. 'What was the thing that got you afraid, earlier?'
'Your loud voice – and the way you stepped into my space, I guess.'
'Okay.' Eddie nodded. 'So no yelling, and we try to keep our distance when shit goes sour. Sound good?'
Steve hummed against Eddie’s neck. 'Yeah. And for you? You mentioned the sudden movements, with Wayne?'
'Yeah, no sudden movements would help,' Eddie admitted.
'Okay, I can do that.'
Eddie squeezed Steve tighter. 'Thank you.'
Steve huffed. 'You're the one who started this conversation; I should be thanking you.'
Eddie lifted his face to press a gentle kiss against Steve's cheek, and another one at the corner of his lips.
'I'm sorry for startling you.'
'That's okay, you couldn't know.'
'Can you stop doing that, please?’ Eddie said with a chuckle. ‘Let me say thank you, let me apologize. Let me take care of you.'
Steve chuckled too; never before had Eddie been so grateful to hear that sound. 'I'll try.'
'You wanna stay the night?'
Steve shuffled, pulled back a little bit so that Eddie could see his face; there was a frown between his eyebrows.
'I'm not sure if I'm in the mood, after, you know...'
'Hey,' Eddie said, softly. 'You can stay the night for other reasons, too, you know. To have some comfort. To fall asleep together. To let me make sure that you're doing alright.'
'You sure?'
'Hell yes.'
Steve's head dropped down to Eddie's shoulder again, and Eddie lifted his hand to comb through his hair.
'Yeah, I'll stay.'
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thinking about Max and the Munson's living across the way from each other post s3 again, but maybe specifically Max living across the way from Wayne post s3.
Wayne Munson knows what a kid looks like when they hide behind well practiced and carefully crafted defense mechanisms, after all, and he recognizes a kid with too much responsibility on their shoulders.
He sees this teenage girl with the pigtails and the hard eyes who doesn't answer the door when her friends come to call even though Wayne saw her sitting on the porch twenty minutes ago; who is always the one bringing groceries home on foot even when her mom's car is there; whose bedroom light is too frequently on when Wayne gets home before the sun even has the chance to think about rising.
And he's not gonna overstep about it, he has no intention of making this girl uncomfortable because he is a stranger to her and he knows how both he and Eddie look on a first glance, wouldn't blame her for not being entirely trusting, but he keeps an eye out for her anyway.
Tells Eddie too-- "She's home alone a lot, you make sure no one tries takin' advantage, hear?"-- even if Eddie is mostly preoccupied with his own shit most of the time, because if Wayne can recognize a kid hiding, a kid carrying too much around on that skateboard of hers, then Eddie certainly can too.
"You adopting another stray, old man?" is Eddie's response, but he glances out through the blinds at the trailer across the way with a heaviness to his shoulders in understanding at the sight of that girl sitting on the porch with her headphones on and a school book in her lap that she's decidedly not paying any attention.
"Something like that," Wayne claps him on the shoulder, squeezes as he passes by, but he doesn't think anything will really come of it.
There's not much they can do except keep an eye out, carry the Mayfields' paper up to the porch on rainy days so it won't get soggy and unreadable, offer a wave and a kind word and a reminder that "if your Mama ain't home and you need something, you just give us a knock," despite the brush off he gets every time.
And then one night-- one morning really, before the sun is about to rise-- Wayne pulls up at home after his shift to find Eddie standing out in the snow, odd enough in and of itself made odder by the fact he isn't alone.
"--don't know what you think you're gonna accomplish here at four in the goddamned morning, Harrington, but--"
"I mean, that doesn't feel like any of your business."
"You're parked outside my home, yeah it's my business," Eddie gestures broadly at the unfamiliar BMW the two of them are standing next to as Wayne clambers out of his own truck on tired legs and overworked shoulders.
He needs a hot shower, a good, long sleep.
But Eddie is getting in this other kid's face and it's--
"I'm parked outside that home," Harrington, big coat and gloves but thin pajama pants poking out underneath it all, points at the Mayfield trailer with exhausted exasperation and something tinged with a bit more urgency too, "and I don't know you, man, nothing I do is any of your business--"
"Steve come in-- do you have visual yet, over?"
"Jesus Christ," Harrington reaches into the front seat of his car, yanks out a radio that has Wayne's eyebrows shooting up even as he approaches them, the impatient and anxious shift of Eddie's untied sneakers in the December slush. "Gimme a minute," he says into the walkie-talkie, "I told you I'd call when I did."
"Yeah, but it only takes you ten minutes to drive to her place and--"
Harrington shoves the antenna down and shuts the thing off, just as Wayne finally stops beside his nephew with a hand at his elbow.
"Everything alright here, boys?"
Wayne knows his kid, is the thing, so he knows the protective tension in the cross of those arms, the furrow of his brow, knows that Eddie is maybe seeing himself in Max Mayfield a little too fully on this night, dragged out of his bed by god only knows what to argue with a Harrington in the brisk wind of winter.
And Wayne knows his kid, so he recognizes the work of his jaw when he's about to burst out into a spiel to make himself the target instead of whoever he's put behind him this time around, but he doesn't get the chance to start before he's being interrupted.
"Steve, why are you harassing my neighbors."
Flat and unimpressed but shaky around the edges like she's not quite getting enough air, the orange glow of the light inside her trailer spilling out past her into the blue of night as Steve Harrington's legs all but give out with a breath of--
"Oh, thank god," he shuts the door to his car behind him as he takes a few steps closer to him, Eddie trailing like he's ready to literally put his body between them instead of just figuratively, "are you okay?"
"I'm not the one driving around town in the middle of the night, what are you doing here?" she crosses her arms, doesn't leave the cracked doorway at the top of the steps and Harrington doesn't try to climb them either.
And then it's a quick, well-punctuated punch of a conversation in which Wayne feels like he's missing about half the facts, standing by nonetheless.
"Lucas walkied."
"I told him I was fine."
"You called him at three A.M. and hung up on him without explanation," Steve points out surprisingly levelly.
"Yeah. After I told him I was fine."
"Max."
"I thought I wanted to talk about it and changed my mind."
"You know he'd listen."
"I can't-- you know I can't--"
"Yes you can."
"Not about him. Not to Lucas."
"To me, then," Steve throws his hands up in exasperation, and Wayne can feel something crackling in the air.
It's the same thing that had been there the first handful of times Eddie had picked a fight with Wayne after he first moved to Hawkins, looking for the line, looking for how far he could go before it all went to shit again.
Wayne knows this girl, even if he doesn't know her, because years ago he'd brought a boy with a buzzcut for a visit and he'd never left.
Which is maybe why he speaks up even though he knows how that boy would've reacted.
"If you need something, kiddo..."
"I need everyone to leave me alone," she snaps, striding out all the way onto the porch, only the bravado of it falters when the door slams shut behind her and she all but jumps out of her skin. "Fuck. God, shit, that door--"
She opens it again, yanks it nearly off its hinges just to slam it once more like she's trying to break the thing.
And now she's definitely not getting enough air. Now she's--
"Max, hey, alright--"
"Buddy, I dunno--"
"Back off, Munson, this is really not your business," Harrington shoves past Eddie and strides up the steps as Max slumps down onto the top one, arms wrapped around herself and Eddie looks ready to fight but Wayne just.
He doesn't know Steve Harrington, doesn't even really know his family beyond the way of small towns and knowing names and the neighborhoods in which they reside, but he knows a kid in distress leaning towards safety even if they don't believe they deserve it and Max Mayfield is leaning towards him.
Not Wayne, not Eddie, but this kid with the walkie-talkie and-- is he wearing two different shoes?
Wayne waits the compulsory moment to see Max really fall apart, right there into the fabric of Steve's coat as she keeps her hands tucked under her arms but catches her breath with that one point of contact-- forehead to shoulder-- as Steve speaks gently, words getting caught in the wind. As she stutters out rattling feelings right back.
"The door slammed when she left for work and I-- thought he was-- back again-- I thought-- and I shouldn't've-- not Lucas-- not for, for this--"
Wayne crosses the distance between him and Eddie, hand on his shoulder dragging him out of his own head, wherever it is he goes when his gaze goes glassy and tired like it does now in the gray glow of this place as the snow starts up again.
"You did good," Wayne murmurs, tugging Eddie back towards their own home, just across the way. "Good job, Ed, she's gonna be okay."
"She's..." Eddie clears his throat, looks so much younger than he is for a moment.
"Being looked after," Wayne says with a certainty he wouldn't have felt about the matter a day ago, Eddie following him listlessly back up the steps to the unlocked front door. "You did good."
"I didn't do anything," Eddie frowns, the pink of his cheeks and his nose practically glowing once they're inside.
"You showed her you've got her back," Wayne tells him without room for argument, pulling off his winter coat and moving to heat up water on the stove even as Eddie peeks through the curtains again, seemingly unable to accept that nothing bad is going to happen tonight.
Wayne can't be sure what put him in this state of mind, how he even got alerted to Harrington's arrival in the first place, but he knows he'll find his way back to solid ground soon enough.
Hot tea and warm clothes, when Wayne pulls Eddie away from the window, he catches sight of Steve speaking into the walkie with one hand and holding Max to rest against his shoulder with the other.
He'll make sure they get out of the cold before he goes to bed, but for now he has his own kid to sit with in the ghosts of past hauntings brought back to life for the night.
"We gotta keep an eye out for her," Eddie mutters as he accepts the mug Wayne hands him, feet tucked up under a blanket on the couch.
Wayne sits down next to him and props his tired feet up on the coffee table with a heavy breath.
"We will," he says, because he knows there's no discouraging Eddie now.
The kid learned his habit for picking up strays from somewhere, after all.
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