#also just super bad at judging length. this is 1.6k. why.

[laundrybiscuits]

(purify our misfit ways tag | AO3)

So, Eddie goes back to Scoops. What else is he gonna do? He’s not sure if Robin's aware of it or not, but he’s not going to be saying no to her for a while; at least not until he stops feeling guilty about certain things that they’re not ever talking about again.

He looks at himself in the water-flecked bathroom mirror and says, out loud: “He’s just a guy. Just a typical…guy. You can be normal about this. Be fucking normal for once, Munson.” Then he grabs his keys and hurls himself out the front door before he can talk himself out of it.

It’s usually a twenty-minute drive, but he makes it in a tight sixteen. He thinks if he slows down enough to give himself any kind of excuse to weasel out of this, he will. Plus, the less time he spends thinking about it, the less likely he is to fuck this up for Robin somehow. Because—right, yeah, this whole thing is about Robin, and how Steve’s still the kind of asshole who won’t take no for an answer.

Actually, getting mad about that is helping Eddie get a grip on reality. It doesn’t matter how hot the guy is, if he doesn’t fucking listen when he’s told to back off. But it's not like Eddie can come roaring in like a jealous boyfriend, that’ll just make things a million times worse; he’d love to be able to follow Robin’s lead on this, but if he knows her at all, she doesn’t have any kind of plan aside from pointing at Eddie and going see? Not boyfriend material.

Which, yeah, obviously he’s not. He doubts Steve will see it that way, though—probably thinks Eddie’s a perfect freaks-and-geeks match for Robin, with her refusal to be any of the things that Hawkins High rewards. So, Eddie needs a plan, and he needs one fast, because he can't keep sitting in the parking lot like this, stewing in his own indecision.

Fuck it. He'll have to improvise, he's good at improvising. It'll be fine. It has to be fine.

He sidles into Scoops Ahoy, sees Steve and Robin bickering, and doesn't immediately tap out. That's progress.

"Robin," he says, nodding. "And…Harrington."

"Hi. Eddie." Steve looks really fucking uncomfortable, and why wouldn't he be?

The three of them stand there in a weird suspended tableau, until Robin throws her hands in the air. "Oh my god, just get over it already. Eddie got spooked last time when his high school nemesis appeared out of nowhere like a total psycho, and he was too embarrassed to come back until now. Okay? Everyone caught up yet?"

"He was not my nemesis! Christ, Robin!" Eddie sputters.

"Um, nemesis?" says Steve at the same time.

Eddie glances over at Steve, feeling a kind of kinship in the face of Hurricane Buckley.

"I wasn't…your nemesis, was I?" asks Steve. He sounds a little confused, and Eddie wonders uncharitably if he knows what the word nemesis means.

"No, Harrington, you were just generally a dick. My true nemesis is and always has been the collective insanity of Hawkins High itself. The esprit de corps, so to speak."

"God, I see why you and Robin get along so well," sighs Steve. Eddie suddenly remembers that he's here for a purpose, and he currently appears to be failing very badly at that purpose.

"Yeah, well…" he shrugs. "All I'm saying is, I'm willing to live and let live. It's a character flaw."

"So, what, we're just gonna forget high school and be friends now?"

"Whoa whoa whoa," says Eddie, alarmed. He's about to add nobody said anything about friends, but his Spidey-sense is going off. It doesn't actually take fictional-level superpowers to hear the way King Steve doesn't sound as disgusted by that prospect as he should be.

Robin had mentioned something about Steve being sort of a trainwreck, but Eddie had (unfairly, as it turns out) written that off as Robin blowing stuff out of proportion like she does sometimes. He does it too, that's why he knows not to take her at face value too much.

But it seems like maybe if anything, she was underplaying how fucked Steve's life must be right now, to have that poorly hidden thread of eagerness in his voice when he talks about being friends with Eddie "the Freak" Munson.

What the actual fuck.

All of this flashes through Eddie’s head in a jumbled rush, just quick enough to stop him from inadvertently completely crushing Steve’s spirit or whatever, so instead he just says, "I mean, forgetting high school's not so much an option for me. Buckley might not have mentioned, but you're looking at a genuine two-time total failure here, man."

Great. Real smooth move there, Munson. Never a bad idea to announce how much of a loser you are to cute boys as soon as possible. Once his obligation to Robin is discharged here, Eddie is going to move to Siberia and live in a hole in the ground. He bets it's nice and quiet there, with a minimum of indecently tight blue sailor suits that clearly have mind-altering powers.

But hey, on the bright side, he might be able to salvage his primary quest here after all. Maybe if he just leans into what a fuckup he is, Steve will stop seeing him as a viable match for Robin’s genius brain.

"You’re not—" Steve is starting to say, weakly, and good god does Eddie not want to hear how that sentence ends. He cuts Steve off by spinning around, arms outflung, only colliding a little bit with a nearby chair.

"Oh, but I am, Ser Harrington. Scourge of teachers, they call me. Object lesson to degenerate slackers everywhere. Blackboards quake and tender schoolgirl hearts break as I stalk the halls which have ensnared me lo these many years. Decades in the future, my agéd corpse will be found within the walls of Hawkins High while my spectral remains wail: run far away, lest the Munson Curse befall ye too."

Steve stares at Eddie for a second, then bursts out laughing. To Eddie’s consternation, it doesn't sound mocking or derisive at all. "Shit, you're funny, man. You remind me of—of a friend. You would like him. He's kind of a shit sometimes, but you'd like him."

"If you're telling me I remind you of Hagan, I'm gonna drown myself in the Raspberry Ripple," says Eddie, genuinely horrified.

"No! God, no. You're not anything like—no. I was thinking of my, uh, my friend Dustin."

"And…who is this friend of yours who is perchance my long-lost twin?" Eddie frowns, trying to scour his memory for any Dustins at Hawkins High.

"Not—" Steve's going suspiciously pink. He looks away in poorly feigned nonchalance. Eddie wants to dip him in chocolate and eat him with a spoon. "Friend isn’t, I guess…he's really just a kid I looked after for a while. Like as a favor, I mean. I was—it doesn’t matter. Anyway, he's a cool kid, that's all. Kinda hyper, like you."

That is…a lot to digest. Eddie doesn't really know where to start, but luckily Robin’s there to pick up his slack.

"Oh my god, are you comparing Eddie to one of the infants you let use the staff corridor last week? Is that what's happening?"

"No!" yelps Steve. "...he's not even in town right now."

"But he is in some way affiliated with those toddlers," drawls Robin, not really a question.

Eddie cocks his head. "I would like significantly more information about any alleged toddlers I may be accused of resembling, please."

"Christ, how are there two of you," groans Steve.

"Man, you keep comparing me to other people and I'm gonna start getting offended," says Eddie. "You've known me for about five minutes at this point. No," he adds, seeing Steve start to protest. "High school does not count. I will bet you a million bucks you don't remember me at all from high school."

Steve frowns. "Of course I remember you. You were kinda hard to miss."

"Fucking liar," says Eddie, rolling his eyes, but he grins so Steve knows it's not that big a deal.

"No, you were in the play, a couple years ago," says Steve. "You were…the magic guy, right? The, uh, elf king."

"Close enough," says Eddie, shoving his hands in his pockets and rocking back on his heels, a little dazed. Because yeah, he'd been Oberon that year, he just—really hadn't thought Steve Harrington had paid any attention to the drama nerds at all, much less remembered the specific part Eddie had played. "Shit. Guess I owe you a million bucks."

Steve smiles, bright and boyish and also kind of annoyingly smug, and leans his elbows on the counter. "Guess so. I'm willing to figure out an installment plan, if you wanna start coming around more often. Bet Robin would appreciate it."

“Right,” says Eddie. “Look. I don’t know what you think’s going on, but Buckley’s like a sister to me.”

“And Eddie’s like a sister to me too,” Robin chimes in, smiling all sweet and venomous.

“Okay,” says Steve. “You can still come visit her, can’t you? Free ice cream samples, man, you can’t turn that shit down.”

This is a trap, clearly, but Eddie can’t find it in himself to do anything but give in.

“Yeah, okay then,” he sighs. “Keep me sugared up and I’ll keep on coming around like a bad penny. You two are gonna be so sick of me by the end of the summer, that’s the Munson Guarantee.”