Chapter Text
Steve drove with one hand on the wheel.
His cassettes were all hand-picked and personally curated by Robin, and the windows were rolled down so that the gentle breeze kissed his face and threaded through his hair.
The beginnings of Midwestern autumns always seemed to be impossibly beautiful, all russets and warm golden browns, the air filled with a palpable kind of warmth in spite of the world dying, and for the first time since 1983 Steve felt content.
He was happy. The peace was blissful and he let it envelop his being, his body and soul and heart.
Afterward—
Afterward, the drive home was quiet.
Steve tends to get impulsive and flighty when he’s grieving and Robin knows this, so after Steve spills his blood guts and gore to her in the middle of his big stupid beige kitchen, she forces him to drive her to some house party being hosted by a fellow band geek she barely talks to.
It says a lot that it’s exactly what Steve needs right now. All he can do is thankfully squeeze her hand before they both disappear into the sweaty throng of chattering football players, cheerleaders, and band geeks alike. The music is loud and the alcohol flowing, and although Steve won’t drink tonight—not only is he playing designated driver, but he also hasn’t liked being under any kind of influence since July and Starcourt and the steel-cold room hundreds of feet below ground—he can appreciate the general rowdiness of the crowd.
It’s a high that he can control.
Someone touches him, a palm pressed flat to his side, and then the ghost of fingers brushes along his shoulder but when he turns nobody is looking his way. It’s glorious to be unknown in the heat of a moment, for just a solitary night, even when a few faces flash with recognition when they see the dethroned king of Hawkins slumming it at a high school house party. Someone whispers at him and he doesn’t turn. He doesn’t know who King Steve is anymore. Doesn’t answer to that name.
The passing hours melt by in what feels like minutes and after an indiscernible amount of time spent in the middle of the controlled chaos of the living room, he escapes quietly, steals a can of pop from the garage fridge, and sneaks out onto the back patio.
The sun has set and cicadas sing in the early autumn heat as the last dregs of summer die out. The music from inside still wafts out into the air, but it’s muted and the vibrations are no longer as mind-numbing. He hadn’t realized his ears were ringing again until now; he shakes his head, slaps at the side of his face like that’ll do anything to get rid of the noise. Tinnitus is a bitch. His left ear hates him, but so does the rest of his body, apparently, so it’s really nothing out of the ordinary.
He stops slapping at his head when he feels eyes on him. He turns around.
The only people out here are a few of the anti-social kids stretched out onto patio loungers nursing red solo cups, and another guy on the football team a little ways away smoking pot against the white picket fence, and Eddie the Freak Munson sat in a rusty deck chair, metal lunchbox propped on a rickety wooden table in front of him, eyes dark and imploring.
He’s chain-smoking cigarettes. Lucky Strikes. In the early September humidity he wears a sleeveless graphic t-shirt and ripped black jeans. He has tattoos all over, long wild hair, and a wicked smile that only widens when he and Steve lock eyes. His grin is sharp, tongue coated in silver, and Steve feels a bit like he’s looking in a mirror.
Eddie looks something like a bad idea.
“Hey,” Steve calls anyway.
He’s grieving. Sue him.
“Hey yourself,” Eddie says, not unkind. He almost sounds curious as his eyes trail over Steve’s body—not quite sizing him up or checking him out, but something else that Steve can’t identify. He looks kinda like how Jonathan does right before he snaps a picture. “Enjoying the party?”
“Sure,” Steve says. It’s not about that, but he won’t tell Eddie. He takes a few steps closer to see him better. Eddie raises an eyebrow and says nothing. “Are you?”
Eddie shrugs. Everything about him is casual and easy. Despite the hard lines of his appearance—the spikes on his black boots and the chains on his belt and the faded ink of his scratchy-looking tattoos—something about Eddie is disarming. His features, rounded and soft, and his voice, lighter than expected and lilting. All of it screams safety.
And his scent is nice, too, if a bit unsurprising. Leather and motor oil and other darker masculine things. Things that are distinctly alpha in nature, and even though Eddie’s a self-proclaimed freak, always going against the grain and swimming upstream when everyone else goes down, there was never really any doubt about his designation.
He stomps on cafeteria tables and calls out bullies and skips classes no matter what Principal Higgins has to say to him. Alpha in an unconventional way, sure, but he’s all confidence, assuredness. Posturing. Protection. Easiness again.
And his scent is nice.
Steve feels like it bears repeating.
Eddie says, “Just here for business. Never really been my scene.”
“Yeah,” Steve says, and that should be that, really, except he’s in this weird headspace where everything’s a little hazy, the lights blurry, and he can’t really control what comes out of his mouth. He just knows it’ll be honest. “Me neither.”
Eddie seems genuinely surprised by this. “Nah, c’mon. Keg King Steve Harrington, not a fan of parties? Be serious.”
“I am being serious. Usually I hate them. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, man, but me and the general public of Hawkins don’t exactly see eye to eye anymore.”
Eddie nods at this, lips pursed in consideration. “I have noticed you falling out of favor with your royal court jesters over the years.”
“Court jesters?”
“Carol Perkins and her asshole boyfriend. You know, he still tries to trip me whenever he sees me in public, even though he’s gone off to God-knows-where for college and is actually supposed to be a functional adult now. What was his name, again? Timmy?”
“Tommy,” Steve corrects, then cringes. “Sorry about them.”
Eddie huffs, eyes crinkling. “What the hell are you apologizing for? You never tripped me. And I got my revenge by overcharging him for shit weed, so who gives a fuck?”
Steve supposes he’s right. “I was still with them when they did all that shit, though,” he says. Then, before he can stop himself, “I don’t remember any of it. They must’ve bullied so many kids while I just stood there and did nothing. And I have no memory of it.”
Eddie looks at him, considering. Then he kicks at another deck chair with the heavy sole of his boot so that it’s open and facing Steve. “Wanna sit? I’ll smoke you out.”
“I don’t smoke,” Steve says.
He hates the way weed makes him feel, all woozy and lightheaded, bringing him right back to the grody woman’s bathroom at Starcourt. Cigarettes aren’t much better, in all honesty. He eyes Eddie’s half-empty pack, the ashes collecting in an old beer can.
He sits down anyway. He’ll deal with the dizziness of secondhand smoke to continue this conversation. It’s interesting. Takes his mind off of other things, bad things. He appreciates it. The kind distraction of it all.
Eddie hums. “Yeah, probably not a great idea to be crossfaded at a high school house party.”
“I’m not drunk, either.”
Eddie raises an eyebrow. “Well then what, pray tell, are you doing here, if not to get absolutely wasted?”
“My friend’s here,” Steve says, because it’s easier than the other explanation. The real one. The one about sickness and wrongness and grief. “She’s inside somewhere. Robin. Robin Buckley from band, if you know her.”
Eddie’s eyes go all wide and wondrous. “You’re friends with band geek Robin Buckley,” he states. It’s not really a question.
“Yeah. She’s actually my best friend.” She’s right up there with a thirteen-year-old dweeb, but Steve has probably embarrassed himself enough tonight and decides to keep that admission to himself.
“Huh,” Eddie muses. He fiddles with a large ring on his fourth finger. It looks like a tombstone. “You’re just full of surprises, aren’t you, Harrington?”
“Steve,” he corrects. “Just Steve.”
Eddie laughs. “Sure, sure. Why not? So what do you do for fun in this shithole of a town now that you’ve escaped the evil clutches of Principal Higgins, Steve?”
Steve and Eddie talk on the back patio for what feels like hours. Eddie never reaches for his lunch box. He finishes his current cigarette and doesn’t light a new one, and the realization hits Steve that he must be doing it for him. He’d told Eddie that he doesn't smoke just a few minutes ago. He’d been talking about weed, but Eddie seems to have caught on. It’s oddly considerate of him and completely unnecessary. Unexpected.
Eddie is a surprising person, it seems: he runs a D&D club and crows in delight when Steve reveals that he possesses some degree of knowledge of the game, however minimal; and as much as he bitches and moans about sports and the cult culture that the jocks at Hawkins High promote, he apparently is a closet baseball fan and loves the Chicago Cubs; and he reveals that a family of two has just moved into the trailer directly across from his own and that the mother looks bone-tired and the daughter always angry and Steve frowns, makes him promise to look out for the girl, to check in on her every now and then.
They’re in the middle of an argument about music and the only common ground they’ve managed to find is how much they both love Queen and Heart when Robin stumbles out onto the patio, drunk off of a single cup of jungle juice, overstimulated from the loud music and basically vibrating with excitement from the singular interaction she most likely had with whatever cute girl inside that isn’t involved in band or theater.
“Steve, let’s go,” she whines as soon as she sees him. “They’re playing Culture Club and Vickie isn’t even here—oh. Eddie?”
“Hey, Buckley,” Eddie greets. He stands up and brushes off his jeans. Robin looks at him. She looks at Steve, then looks right back at him. Her mind is racing, Steve can tell. She’s already jumped to about ten different wrong conclusions. “Was just about to head out, actually. See you on Monday?”
“You quit band last year,” Robin blurts. “You barely come to school and we’re not in any of the same classes. Why would I be seeing you?”
Eddie gasps, mock offended. “I’ll have you know that I am a model student. Nothing but straight A’s on my report cards. You’ll be sorry for having doubted me when I’m named Hawkins High valedictorian during graduation this year.”
“Don’t valedictorians typically need to get higher than an F in PE?”
“They really should stop requiring us to run the mile. Sweating any place that isn’t onstage is not very metal. Steve,” he turns, looks at Steve with those same dark eyes, assessing, careful, deep. He says, meaningfully, “Take care of yourself, okay?”
Steve blinks. “Yeah. You too.”
Eddie salutes, takes a bow, and says, “See you both around.” And then he grabs his lunch box and heads back through the sliding glass doors and into the house where the darkness swallows him right up.
Robin immediately turns to Steve. “What was that?”
“What was what?”
“Why were you hanging out with Eddie? You’re not doing drugs, are you? I know you don’t like the way that they make you feel, and that really wouldn’t be the best way to deal with this problem. I mean, I would support you either way, but—“
“Rob, no, Jesus. No drugs. We were just… You know.” She stares blankly at him. “Talking.”
“Talking. You and Eddie Munson? What alternate dimension have I wandered into where you and Eddie have enough in common to actually hold a conversation that lasts longer than two seconds?”
“He was nice,” Steve says defensively. “And we talked about a lot of things. And… I don’t know, I feel like he could tell something was up with me. He distracted me. It was nice.”
Robin gapes at him. “Steve,” she says, suddenly sounding very serious and a lot helpless in a way that makes Steve feel very small.
He stands, too, cuts her off before she can say anything that’ll probe too deeply. “Let’s go home, Robin.”
“Okay. Yeah, fine. Okay,” she says. A pause. “Can we stop for ice cream on the way? We should do that. Stop for ice cream on the way. Because today was hard and they opened that new place in town and I want ice cream and I think you probably do, too.”
Steve laughs, shaking his head. “Sure. Let’s get ice cream. Why not?”
There are moments where that night comes back in flashes that are just out of reach.
Snapshots of Eddie’s hair, so dark and long and wild, and his bizarrely gentle eyes, and the way he’d made room for Steve in his own private world on the back patio of some band geek’s dumpy ranch-style house. Ripped jeans and enamel pins. Patches whipstitched onto denim. Half-empty pack of Lucky Strikes.
His voice, low in the moment in comparison to all of the yelling he did during his lunch period, carefully lulling Steve back into the same comfort and security he’d been feeling before it all went to shit that very same day.
He was nice. More than that, he was kind. And Steve hangs onto the impressions of Eddie that still stick and lets them bubble up in his chest, warm and rosy and sweet like whipped honey.
The concept of male omegas has always been taboo in Hawkins; although, to be fair, many topics are out in the middle of Indiana, where they’re surrounded by corn fields and roving pasture and little else.
People just didn’t talk about male omegas openly. They were only given a sentence or two in health and anatomy classes if the topic wasn’t completely skipped over. The books about omegas at the library were few and far between. They really only contained general ideas, vague diagrams coupled with tiny text boxes of suggestions, never anything concrete. Never a full picture.
If Steve wanted to, he’s sure he could find essays out there, zines and self-published booklets chock full of information but that would require talking to people, and people in small towns are nosy. They’ll ask questions and assume things that they shouldn’t.
Not that they’d be wrong.
So Steve doesn’t ask questions and he doesn’t look for information. He buys pads and tampons every month and lets the cashier at Melvalds assume that he’s just being a doting boyfriend. He doesn’t let girls fumble around down there, doesn’t let them look or touch all too much, takes control of any kind of sexual situation for the sake of his own safety. And he drives two hours both ways every now and then to go to an OB/GYN in the city who specializes in omegas, just to make sure everything’s in working order and to avoid the prying eyes and ears of Hawkins’ nosiest. He pays out of pocket. His parents don’t know.
It’s all just in case, anyway. Just a precaution.
Some days he’ll lay in his bed and place a hand on his stomach and wonder. He’ll allow himself to hope that maybe he’d reveal this part of himself to someone who will accept it, and that one day soon something would grow there. That it would be okay. That this part of him isn’t alien and wrong, but something to be celebrated, because he can create life within himself and why would that ever be considered a bad thing?
He’s always wanted kids. He loves them. Loves to babysit, loves looking after his littlest cousins whenever he crosses paths with the rest of the Harrington family. Pups are soft and gentle and kind. He loves them even when they’re not, even when they’re being loud and throwing tantrums. They scent like clean laundry, like softsoap and sweetness. They always seem to know about him in this intrinsic way that only kids can. They trust him.
He doesn’t usually dream when he sleeps. But when he does it’s usually images of a child in his arms or a baby on his hip or his own belly rounded and full. It feels so real that when he wakes up in the morning he goes cold with distress at the glaring absence of everything he’s ever wanted.
Even so, he was born an omega. He has everything needed to have a baby, a child of his own. Maybe several. It’s a possibility that feels more like an inevitability: he’s Steve Harrington and he’s an omega and he can have kids and he will.
It’s a blessing.
It felt like pure luck.
That was before.
The reason for his visit that afternoon had been that his bleeding was irregular.
Robin told him that it wasn’t abnormal, really. Lots of people who have periods have heavy flows, or light ones, and sometimes they randomly skip a month, maybe two, and usually it doesn’t mean anything at all. She still implored him to get it checked out, though, whenever he had a spare moment. Just to be safe. Just to make sure.
The thing is, his bleeding has almost never been normal. Not since his early adolescence when it first began. It’s gotten even more sporadic and unpredictable in recent years, though, especially since 1983 and the Upside-Down and the trauma of it all. When he does get it, it’s concerningly light, and he started to panic when it’d been months and nothing was really happening at all.
So there he was, in Indianapolis yet again, wearing a paper-thin hospital gown and nothing else, sitting on an examination chair in a windowless room. He ignored the stirrups and the heavy machinery and the feeling deep in his body that something was terribly wrong. He was never particularly religious but he found himself praying anyway.
It didn’t take long for the prognosis.
“I’m so sorry, Steve,” his gynecologist said. Steve couldn’t remember her name in the moment, couldn’t search for it over the ringing in his ears and the dread snowballing from his stomach up into his throat. But she had clear blue eyes and crow’s feet that had completely flattened out into smooth skin.
That made sense, he thought absently. There was nothing to smile about now.
She rose from her chair to sit down next to him on the exam table.
He barely registered her proximity or her words as she continued to speak: “This condition is not uncommon in male omegas, especially those who experience severe levels of physical and emotional trauma. Your body is recovering, and sometimes that affects other parts of you. It’s impossible to rule out the possibility of this changing in the future, too. And there are always small chances, little miracles here and there. But for now…”
“Oh,” he breathed, and he felt the startlingly profound breaking of his heart within his chest, cracking in an instant and shattering into a million tiny pieces.