enter the players
Steve Harrington stares blankly at the drama club poster that is currently being shoved into his face. He’s drawing blanks, wondering just what unforsaken road he went on during his sophomore year to get where he is now; leaning against his locker, tuning out Robin’s pleading and cursing Dustin Henderson’s name, he fights a sigh. If he had never helped him find mews during that cursed fall, he would probably still be King Steve, ruler of Hawkins High and creator of anguish. But he wouldn't be half as happy as he is now with his little gang of misfits.
High school is much more entertaining with those twerps running around and herding after him and Rob. However, he’s run into some competition in the last few weeks. Eddie Munson and his gaggle of dice-slinging-coolios have stolen their little fantasy-fueled hearts and they can't get enough. It's almost infuriating. But Steve would never admit it–think of the repercussions of expressing his genuine enjoyment for babysitting! It would mean he didn't have a life! Which he really didn't- but nobody needed to know that but him.
He looks at the poster more closely. SHAKESPEARE’S TWELFTH NIGHT, directed by Johnathan Byers.
Of course, Johnathan was directing a Shakespeare play, rubbing his smarts in Steve’s face. Not intentionally, of course, but it had to take a scholar to understand what he was saying half the time! He couldn't even begin to grasp what it would take to direct the show. Hell, when they read Romeo and Juliet in freshman year, He spent the first thirty minutes of reading thinking about this guy’s stupid earring. He lets go of the sigh he was keeping in, feeling it carve into his lungs as he watches Robin bite her lip in anticipation.
“You want to audition for the school play.”
“Want us to audition for the school play.” The poster drifted further away from his face as she corrected him. He appreciates the distance.
“Absolutely not Rob.” It's a simple answer. One she should have seen coming but something still punches him in the stomach when she visibly deflates. Man, he really hates being the bad guy. She groans, loud and annoyed, throwing her head back.
“Think of all the things I’ve done for you, Steve!”
“No, Robin!” He scratches his neck and blinks in irritation. There was no way in hell he was auditioning, no way in hell he would embarrass himself like that and yet Robin trekked on. She stares at him pointedly and he sighs, leaning against his locker for strength. It was always difficult to say no to her, even now an inkling burned in him to give in, to run around in poofy pants swinging fake swords and speaking in fucking tongues. Yeah, he was washed up and all that, sure, but he was not going to add to his humiliation any further. He takes a breath. “I appreciate everything you’ve ever done for me, you know that. But I won’t do this.”
His finger meets the flimsy of the paper, making it crack and shake a little.
“Why not?” She looks like she's about to stomp her foot in a childlike fit, eyebrows furrowed, and shoulders tight. Almost like she just ate a lemon.
“I would embarrass myself, Rob.” Steve shakes his head and holds his binder close. With all this time on his hands from when he isn't with the kids or working with Robin, he’s been pouring more effort into his academics which is exciting because, for the first time in a very long time, his dyslexia isn't getting totally in the way. Of course, it's still a struggle but it's a familiar one and without his shining status, he can ask questions in class without the teacher trying to find an ulterior motive. Learning actually makes him very happy and pouring love into his future makes him even happier. But he wasn’t ready, he knew it. Robin looks at him with a slightly disgusted face and he immediately understands where her mind goes. But she doesn't understand–is thinking too shallowly.
“I thought you said King Steve was dead.” She crosses her arms and Steve fights an urge to scream in frustration, clenching his jaw. “It's not that Rob, I wish it was–” He shuffles a bit closer to her and holds a hand up to her ear. “ I’m not confident that I’ll be able to read it. The language is too hard.” When he steps away it's his turn to take his lip under his teeth and sit in anticipation as Robin sighs. A few months ago she would’ve slapped him on the shoulder and started laughing uncontrollably at his expense, but now that he’s grown on her rather fondly, she can't help but understand the courage it took to admit that. Especially when it was Steve.
“Me and Nance can help you!” She says, putting her hands on his shoulders. The poster lightly scratches his neck and Steve slightly pushes his head away from it.
“You just want to do it because Nancy is stage managing.” He rolls his eyes and she sputters, red-faced.
“No! I just–It's my senior year!...I–You–You know what? I don't need to explain myself to you!” Her hands promptly shove themselves back to her sides in her flustered-ness. Steve fights a giggle as his light-weight, bubbly admiration for his best friend resurfaces. She takes an annoyed huff of a breath and hands him the bright yellow paper. “Auditions are next week. Think about it.” Her voice is serious and after the bell rings for their next class, it's the only thing playing in the back of his mind. Other than that portrait of Shakespeare with the earring. He spends the rest of his Chemistry class wondering if he should get one like that.
Work was tenser than usual and it was difficult to get Robin to stop staring at him. He’d turn and she’d be behind him, eyes locked right at his head. He would bump into her while squatting down to shelve a film or two in their places and blink anxiously while she watched him answer the phone with razor-sharp eyes. It wasn’t until after he took out a copy of The Outsiders and found her eye on the other side that he decided to give in.
“Fine.” He sighed and she cheered, jumping and hooting and hollering in her relief. She almost knocked over a whole hall of films but Steve can’t help but smile back at her. “So…” He cheekily backsteps to the counter and she follows before jumping on it to sit. He leans against it. “What’s the plan?”
“Plan for what?” Rob asks like she has no idea-like she doesn’t know he knows.
“Operation Snatch Nancy Wheeler’s heart?” He wiggles his eyebrows, she slaps his shoulder. Moments like these were always his favorite, talking shit instead of doing work, being shunned for not having her same pretentious movie tastes, things like that which always made his heart swell. He gives her a know-better look. She rolls her eyes and Steve’s heart swells again. “Well let’s make sure we get the parts first, kay big boy?” Rob taps his shoulder and he shrugs.
“Eddie!” The rasp in Jonathan Byers’ voice gets deeper as he tries to grab Eddie’s attention over the blubber and spits of his piece of shit van, in the strenuous process of starting. He’s flailing his hands in the air and basically jumping to get closer. Eddie smiles and honks his horn to let him know he’s waiting. When Byers steps up to the car, he rolls the driver’s window down, Jonathan takes it as an invitation to lean and catch his breath on the rims.
“About-” He heaves, clutching the car for dear life. “The play…”
“Okay?” Eddie asks. He’s seen the posters around—it’s hard not to miss twenty of the same bright yellow papers taped up on almost every wall in the school. Except for the one in the lunch room with only nineteen. It bothers the hell out of him.
Jonathan takes a deep breath, pushing his chest out with it as he lifts himself from the window.
“Could you be my costume designer?” He asks, fidgeting slightly.
Eddie wants to refuse—like really wants to refuse but he knows he can never say no to Jonathan. Hell, Jonathan knows he can never say no to him! It’s exactly the reason why he asked! He could really use the volunteer hours, though.
Eddie sighs.
“Fine. I’ll call you later for the concept, kay?” He tries to keep his expression soft, knowing his voice comes out sweetly sour. Jonathan lights up, grinning.
“Thank you so much, Eddie. There was no one else I wanted more than you for this! Thank you!” He pushes right on his soft spot—hard. And knowing this, Eddie still relishes the flattery— becomes beguiled by it even.
“Anything for you Jonathan,” Eddie says through closed teeth while Byers looks just about ready to jump through the door and kiss him.
Before Jonathan can ask for anything else, Ed starts to change the gear and sticks a cassette into the player. His own personal pre-dnd session mix. “I’ll call you later, kay creep?” He smiles and as he drives off, under the blast of Black Sabbath’s Neon Knights, Eddie could read later, freakoid! on Jonathan’s lips.
Eddie fumbled a bit during this last session, he’ll be the first to admit it. It was bad enough that Jeff and Gareth pulled him aside afterward to ask him how he was feeling. He didn’t really know what to say—he couldn’t just go out and tell them that his mind was in a different, Tudor-y century because that would make them think he was even weaker than before. So he said something stupid like too much homework and almost sprinted up Mike Wheeler’s stairs.
That’s when he caught Nancy Wheeler and Robin Buckley in the kitchen together, making cereal.
“How was the session?” Nancy asks, pouring milk into a bowl. She most likely was already gifted an overexaggerated account of the night's failures from either Dustin or Mike, but here she was, smiling at him. Her hair was up, defined and well taken care of tendrils slipping out and framing her face and neck in this messy type of efficiency he felt so entirely jealous of. She was in purple and pink plaid pajamas. He smiles back at her.
“I sucked but other than that it was fine.” Eddie shrugs while Nancy frowns, Robin tilts her head before shoving a spoonful in her mouth and swallowing it down.
“How could you suck? Aren’t you like a dnd god or something?”Rob asks, earning a small slap on the shoulder.
“I was distracted so the experience wasn’t as immersive. Plus, I let Erica get away with a few insults and that’s what really fucked me up.” He shakes his head, trying not to laugh at how seriously the girls take it. It’s not like he threw up all over the table, he just didn’t try so it didn’t come out great. There was always the next session.
“Don’t tell me you’re letting those twerps soften you up.” Another voice comes in from behind him and he finds the one and only Steve Harrington in sweats and a bright pink Blondie shirt that seems to be a couple of sizes too small for him. Eddie had to hold in a cackle, looking at him wide-eyed.
“My liege!” He exclaims, making a show of bowing. Eddie knew that Steve wasn’t the high and mighty prodigal son of Hawkins High anymore—it was made painfully obvious by his new hobby of running around with Robin and the “twerps” in question. According to Dustin and Mike, he was a changed man but he knew better than to believe any of that. At the end of the day, if little Stevie ever got the chance to, he’d swap any of them for his spot at the top of the world again. It was obvious.
Because he doesn’t get an answer, Eddie turns to Nancy.
“What’re y’all doing here?” He asks, Robin sticks another spoonful in her mouth, Steve comes in behind her and takes some from her bowl. Typical.
“Oh me and Rob were helping Steve with his-“
“We’re picking monologues for the Twelfth Night auditions!” Rob rushes to interrupt her, he sees Steve’s hand squeeze her shoulder. “…And—and Nancy told us she’d help because she knows what Jonathan is looking for!”
“Oh…well…” Eddie looks at Nancy’s confused face and then back at Robin.
“I’m designing the costumes now…apparently.” Nancy lights up at this news, jumping up slightly, a rogue Frosted Flake flying off of the spoon in her hand.
“That’s so wonderful, Eddie! Jonathan has been talking about you designing since the very start!” He fights the wave of excitement that passes through him. Flattery, man—always gets him.
“Thank you.” He ducks his head and hears a whisper of an awe! come from Robin. Eddie contemplates jumping at her. He’s already been humiliated enough times today.
“Do you wanna stay here for the night? We can all nerd out together about it.” Nancy offers with a smile and little Stevie scratches his neck. Eddie picks up on the sign.
“Uh I would love to,” He pushes himself forward and back, needing to move. “But I’ve gotta call Jonathan about the concept and all that. I’d feel more comfortable being in my own little abode for that.” He shrugs, Nancy nods, Steve seems to breathe again, and Robin gulps down cereal milk.
Bless her heart.
“This is the air! That is the glorious sun;/ This pearl she gave me, I do feel—what?” Steve gripes with venom in his whisper. He’s alone, standing in front of Nancy Wheeler’s full-length mirror in one of her stupid Blondie shirts. A couple of years ago he’d be standing in front of her mirror, buckling his jeans and admiring an especially red hickey on his chest. The thought kind of gives him a shiver down his spine. Maybe some of it came from the inherent humiliation of flailing your arms and confusedly fumbling through Shakespeare’s convoluted text in your ex-girlfriend’s bedroom, but most of it definitely came from the thought of who he was during that time. He suddenly couldn't stand the mirror.
When he reaches the living room of the Wheeler residence, the deep thrum of Eddie Munson’s voice oozes through the hall in this smooth, wave of terror. Then he gets close enough—in the kitchen, to see the back of his little dnd get up. It's simple, somehow even comfortable. His frizzy, unkempt hair is in a low ponytail, he’s wearing an old tattered black cable knit and jeans. For some reason, Steve feels less thwarted by his presence. Probably because Eddie is standing considerably still, there isn't a loud obnoxious series of chains clipped to his sides or the squeak of his fake, cheaply-made leather jacket. He’s more human right now than Steve’s seen in all the years he’s known of him. It's strangely comforting.
“Don’t tell me you’re letting those twerps soften you up.”
Maybe that's why he assumes the babysitter's camaraderie with him, unaware of whatever they were talking about before and not really bothering to put any thought into it. This quickly fleeting comfort, however, was squashed to anxious mush the second Munson laid eyes on him. Wide and surprised while he bows and chants some odd kingdomly talk. It makes Steve want to run, hide, forget about the exact reason why he came down here. His past wasn't supposed to find him. He vouches for gently rolling his eyes and sauntering towards Robin. He steals her spoon and picks from her cereal.
The rest of the conversation goes by in a daze of Steve trying his best to calm his nerves. Especially when Nancy invites him to stay and Eddie decides to stare at him straight in the eye, sharp, overwhelming.
The relief that passes through him when Munson refuses is no joke and he finds himself being cornered once more by Robin and Nance when he leaves, cooly stepping out of the front door and letting it slam shut behind him in this desperate need for a grand exit. The world felt a bit quieter in the wake of Eddie Munson.
“Steven.” Robin starts but Nancy doesn't let her finish.
“Eddie’s dressing you.” She states plainly before pushing herself upstairs with her cereal in her hands. It was a simple reminder with enough venom to make him shake and enough layers to make him crumble into a bottomless pit of anxiety.
“Hey! Dingus!” Robin snaps in front of his face, he turns to face her.
“What the hell was that?” She asks with a hand against her hip, hogging the cereal spoon. Steve starts to blink, slowly drifting back to reality and trying his hardest not to look like he’s as far in his head as he is right now. He could be dazed and confused for Nancy, but Robin needed him to be present. So he would be present.
“I’m sorry?” Is all he can really ask—yeah he was anxious but that wasn’t obvious was it?
“Steve! Do you not know manners, bro?” Now she’s flailing her arms in the air. “I don’t care if you don’t like Eddie. That’s your own kingly problem, but there’s no need to be an asshole about it.” She crosses her arms, expecting an immediate answer but all he can do is gawk confusedly.
“I-” A deep breath, a scoff. “I’m sorry, I was anxious and that wasn’t cool of me.”
Robin looks at him with a relief that says that she’s gained all hope in him again. It supplies a soft comfort for the fear of how obvious his apparent “dislike” for Eddie was. He hopes that Munson didn’t notice.
“Why would you be anxious? It’s just Eddi-you know what?” She points the spoon at him, milk drips onto his socks. It’s fair karma.
“I don’t wanna know. Let’s just get back to running our monologues, hm?” At this point, she’s stepped past him but Steve is lost in his thoughts again, takes him a moment to catch up with her.
He always assumed that Eddie made everyone a bit nervous.
Hm.