Head Over Heels - Steddie

1

Hawkins - Indiana, spring 1986

Steve couldn't necessarily say that anyone at Hawkins High School knew Eddie Munson better than Dustin Henderson or Mike Wheeler, but that might just be his opinion. Because even though he had been in the same chemistry class as Eddie since the three centimetre shorter guy started high school, Steve had never really paid any attention to him at all.

Sure, he was very good at being an attention seeker, everyone knew that, and he had been since the day he stepped into the school building for the first time. And because of that, or Steve thought so, made Eddie be known as the biggest freak of the school, or the hellfire leader, if there even was anyone who had hear that name before. Dustin couldn't stop mentioning it when he come over to Steve's house every Saturday to watch horror movies with him and Robin. But Steve find himself , however, watching over the long haired Eddie Munson on a random Wednesday in early may - wondering what the hell Dustin find so interested in the boy.

He was extraordinary, that was obvious, and he had never been afraid to open his mouth or sharing his opinions about things, but for the 4 years that Steve had "known" Eddie, he had never even heard him say a word. Heard him have a normal conversation, at least, or talk in a normal volume. He had a sense of shouting out weird things from time to time that probably no one understood except himself, and he had a way of pissing off the basketball leader Jason, as well. He always found things he disliked in other people, and was confident about what he liked and what he didn't like. He wore weird clothes, and always a jeans vest with a lot of metal band tags all over, had extremely long hair, made weird faces and actually seemed to be the kind of guy you'd find interesting and funny if you were to get to know him. Or more like, if you dared to get to know him, that is.

"Who are we looking at today?" Robin sneaked up behind Steve at the lunch table and he watched her sit down and place her plate in front of her. She had chosen French fries and carrots today, one of her standards. It wasn't a lot, but that and along with a juice box (preferably apple flavored) would most likely always make her happy for the rest of the day - most of the time.

"The freak." Steve exhaled, wrapped his arms around him on the table and looked back to the guy talking excitedly and aggressively about something Steve wasn't able to hear. The boys around him seemed to agree with him on what he was talking about at least, and Dustin seemed happier there than he did sitting on Steve's couch on Saturday nights. Even though he got to watch R-rated movies - which he had to spend a lot of time trying to convince Steve with.

"Eddie Munson? Wow, you're making progress Dingus." Robin chuckled, chewing on a baby carrot. She was watching Eddie across the room too, annoyed by the sound of people in the background, and her tongue living a dream of being surrounded by carrot juice.

"Progress about what, exactly?" Steve asked as his eyebrows crumbled into a thick wrinkle between them.

"Progress of the gay world, obviously. You just took your first step." She smirked at him. "Crawling like a baby gay."

Steve sighed and shook his head in disapproval, looked outside the window a few meters away from them.

It was raining outside, you could hear the raindrops hitting the window wherever you went inside the school building, and it was actually quite comfortable. A lot of the younger kids from kindergarten were out playing in the puddles, and it made Steve feel all warm and fuzzy inside. It was pretty usual that it rained before turning into summer, but he could honestly not wait for it to stop. He was tired of getting soaked shoes as fast as he walked outside, and he was tired of Robin begging him to pick her up before work instead of riding her bike everyday, which would probably happen today as well since they had a shift after school and it wouldn't stop raining until after sunset.