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steddiehyperfixation · 7 days ago

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steve harrington's phone number

@steddiebingo prompt: van | 1.7k words | rated T

“Stupid- useless piece of shit!” Eddie barely manages to pull his coughing, spluttering van over to the side of the road before it chokes to a stop with a dying wheeze. “Fucking drama queen.” He gets out and gives the side of the van a good kick, chastizing it for its very loud and inconvenient death.

Just his luck it would decide to break down here, on a nothing stretch of road several miles outside of town. Too far to walk but not all that long of a drive if his stupid car could’ve just toughed it out a little while longer. “You really couldn’t have held on for like ten more minutes?” he grumbles, kicking the van again. The van, of course, does not answer and remains quite dead. Eddie mutters a few more curses and pulls his jacket tighter around himself against the late November chill as he wanders around to the front of the car to pop the hood.

It’s an entirely useless gesture, popping the hood. Even before he opens it he knows he’s still not going to have a single clue what’s broken or how to fix it. The inner workings of a car are utterly foreign to him, an alien language of metal and grease that he stupidly never cared to learn. He stares blankly at the incomprehensible jumble of machinery before him, cursing himself for all those times he’d evaded and complained his way out of Wayne’s attempts to teach him how to do his own auto repairs. His uncle’s boring handyman lessons would’ve really come in handy right now, if only he’d had the foresight to listen.

With a huffed out sigh, Eddie slams the hood back down. He’s going to have to call someone.

Thankfully he can see a roadside payphone not too far off in the distance, about half a mile out maybe. He rummages through his pockets and paws around the front seat of the van for any spare change he could use. He’d just blown through most of the money he had on him at a record store in Indy, but he manages to scrounge up enough coins for one call. Just one. So he has to choose wisely. He starts his trudge to the payphone while he runs through a mental list of options, feeling increasingly frustrated and hopeless as he crosses each of them off one by one.

A tow truck is too expensive. His uncle is at work. Half his friends can’t drive, and not a single one of them knows anything about cars anyways so they wouldn’t be much help beyond a ride home (and he’d really rather not have to just leave his van on the side of the road). He needs someone who’s free, can drive, and has enough of a working knowledge of cars to possibly be able to give his van enough of a second wind to make it home.

Which is how he finds himself in a dingy little phone booth punching in Steve Harrington’s number - a number he’s never called before yet somehow memorized, recalling it clearly in his mind’s eye in the scrawl of Steve’s handwriting on notebook paper.

“Harrington residence, Steve speaking,” Steve’s voice comes through the line, automatic and rehearsed.

“Okay, I’ll make fun of that weirdly formal greeting later,” Eddie decides, “but right now, uh- man, I really hate to do this, but do you happen to know anything about fixing cars?”

“Eddie, hey,” Steve sounds almost startled to hear from him. “Um, yeah, I mean, I’m no expert or anything, but I know enough to get by. Why?”

“My van just broke down on my way back from the city and I was hoping you might be willing to do me a huge huge favor and come out here and see if you can help me get her started again.” Eddie puts all the desperation he can into his voice, which really isn’t hard. His distress is 100% genuine. “Please? I’m desperate here, Harrington. I’d be forever in your debt, I’ll-”

“Okay,” Steve says before Eddie can start bargaining. So simply, so easily. He really wasn’t expecting it to be that easy.

“Okay?”

“Yeah, okay. I’ll help you. Where are you?”

Eddie breathes a sigh of relief. “Oh thank god- thank you. Thank you thank you thank you. I owe you my life, seriously-”

“Munson,” Steve cuts him off again, repeating his question, “where are you?”

“Right, yeah.” Eddie gives his best approximation of where he is and Steve promises to be there as soon as he can before hanging up. Feeling a little bit lighter now, Eddie treks back to wait by his van.

The sun has just dipped below the horizon, streaking the sky with pink and gold, when Steve’s BMW pulls up and he steps out of the car bathed in the orange glow of sunset, looking every bit the rescuing angel. A dashing hero straight out of a fairytale; Eddie can almost picture him with a sword in his hands instead of a toolbox, a noble steed behind him instead of a car.

He expresses only a satirized version of that sentiment, clasping his hands over his heart and gasping theatrically in greeting, “Harrington, my hero!” And he grins as Steve rolls his eyes in response.

“Hi, Eddie.” Steve approaches, plunks his toolbox on the front of the van and leans against it. “You know, I’m surprised you called me. It didn’t seem like you were ever going to.”

Eddie shrugs, hands in his pockets. “Yeah, I just- I couldn’t think of anyone else who’d be able to help me. I’m sorry if me calling you, like, freaked you out for a second there.”

Steve’s eyes narrow and his head tilts like a confused puppy. “Why would you calling freak me out?”

“Well, I mean, you only gave me your number in case something happened with the kids, right?” Eddie states. “So, I didn’t mean to make you worried at first that there might’ve been, like, a Dustin emergency or something.”

“Oh…” A number of emotions flicker across Steve’s face as he seems to come to some sort of realization, and his expression ultimately settles on vaguely amused. “Right, yeah. Totally.”

Now Eddie’s the one who’s confused, feeling like he’s missed a punchline. “Is that…not why you gave me your number?” It’s not like it had actually been explicitly stated, but they’d just been talking about the kids right before Steve had written his number down, so Eddie had just assumed that was the reason.

“No, it-” Steve shakes his head and smiles, a little bit fond, a little bit like he’s still sharing some kind of inside joke with himself. “It’s not important right now,” he decides. “Let’s just figure out your van first, alright? What was going on with it before it broke down?”

“Well, I don't actually know,” Eddie says, “but she was being very loud and dramatic about it.”

“Huh, I’ve heard of pets developing similar personalities to their owners but I’ve never heard of cars doing it.”

“Oh shut up.”

Steve grins, pushing himself off the front of the car so he can open the hood and take a look. He immediately starts to tinker around with some stuff. Eddie has absolutely no idea what he’s doing, but he sure looks good doing it. There’s a cold breeze in the air, getting colder by the minute with the slowly darkening sky, but something about watching Steve’s arms as he works a wrench into the machinery has Eddie feeling strangely warm.

Steve’s talking, probably trying to explain what he’s doing or what’s wrong with the van, though Eddie’s not catching a word of it. He couldn’t pay attention even if he tried, and not just because he’s distracted by Steve’s arms. The other half of his mind is still stubbornly stuck on the whole thing about Steve’s number, racking his brain trying to figure out why the hell else he would’ve given it to him.

He spends way too long replaying that moment, and all their previous and subsequent interactions, over and over again in his head before his memory finally starts to give notice to all Steve’s lingering glances, subtle once-overs, and suggestive smirks.

“Holy shit, you were flirting with me!” Eddie blurts out the realization as soon as it hits him. “When you gave me your number - you were trying to hit on me!”

Steve, who had been interrupted mid sentence, barks out a laugh. “Now he gets it,” he teases as he glances over at Eddie. “You know, I couldn't figure you out for a while. All this time you never called but would still say hi to me when I picked the kids up from Hellfire, I figured it was some sort of soft rejection. But you really were just completely oblivious, huh?”

“No yeah, I just have fucking rocks for brains apparently,” Eddie says, shaking his head self-deprecatingly as he rushes to reassure him, “I was definitely not rejecting you. Definitely, definitely not. Believe me, if I’d’ve known- I would’ve called so fast, man. I mean, trust me, your phone would’ve never stopped ringing.”

“Good to know.” Steve smiles, his eyes so golden and warm in the dusk it almost seems as if the sun is on its way back up. He returns his attention to the van, just for half a second to give the machinery one last tweak, and then he straightens and closes the hood, wiping the car grease from his hands off on his jeans as he announces, “Well, your car should start now, if you wanna test it out and make sure. And then we can, uh, continue this conversation?”

Eddie nods, hops back in the van, and turns his key in the ignition. It rumbles to life, and he lets out a laugh like a cheer. “You’re a goddamn miracle worker, Stevie!” he shouts.

“Glad I could help,” Steve calls back proudly.

Eddie revels in the sound of his not-dead van for a moment longer before he takes a deep breath, turns off the engine, and jumps out to stand in front of Steve again. “So.”

“So.”

There’s a brief beat of buzzing silence. Eddie finds he doesn’t have all that much left to say, and he’s feeling far too giddy right now to be able to stand through some sappy discussion about how they feel about each other when it’s entirely unnecessary. He suggests instead, “Do you wanna just skip the conversation and go make out in the back of my van?”

Steve grins at him. “Absolutely.”

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