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After an hour of catching up and making sure Eddie has been taking care of himself, Wayne shoos him away to go spend time with his friends.
“I’ll be fine here,” Wayne says, tilting his head towards Joyce and Hopper. “Go on.”
“Always trying to get rid of me,” Eddie jokes.
“Never,” Wayne says with a fond smile.
It’s an old call and response, but it hits differently now, and Eddie finds his throat tightening. He deals with it by squeezing his uncle’s shoulder on his way towards the pool.
The kids have taken a break from swimming in favour of bugging Steve for ice cream sandwiches. They’ve surrounded him at the barbecue, trying to make a case for dessert first and Steve is staunchly refusing.
“The burgers are almost ready!” he shouts. Then, sharply jabbing the spatula towards them, he adds, “You can wait.”
Dustin responds with an eye roll that gets his entire head involved, while Mike says something snarky about how Steve isn’t their mother.
Eddie laughs and considers coming to Steve’s rescue once he’s acquired a fresh beer, but as he’s fishing a can from the cooler he gets the uncanny sense that he’s being watched. Sure enough, when he looks up, El is staring at him with an impassive expression. They haven’t been formally introduced and Eddie figures this is as good a time as any.
“You’re not angling for one of these, are you?” he asks, brandishing the beer can and sending a flicker of condensation to the ground.
El’s brow furrows and she says, very carefully, “Angling?”
“Yeah, you know, like trying to convince me to give you one,” Eddie clarifies.
“I am not old enough,” she says simply.
Eddie huffs a laugh. “Hasn’t stopped any of your friends.”
When she doesn’t say anything else, he adds, “You’re El, right?”
She nods.
“I’m Eddie.”
“I know,” she says.
He raises his eyebrows, not because he’s entirely surprised that she knows who he is, but because the tone in which she says it has an oddly omniscient quality.
“Mike told me about you,” she adds.
Not omniscient then. Or at least not about this.
“Right, of course,” Eddie says. “He told me about you, too.”
She continues to stare at him and Eddie tries to remember if reading minds is one of her many super powers.
“You must be happy to be back in Hawkins,” he says. “With your friends.”
“Yes,” she says. “I missed them. People in Lenora were…not nice.”
“I’m sorry,” Eddie says. “People in Hawkins aren’t very nice to me.”
El frowns. “Why not?”
Eddie shrugs. “I’m different.”
El nods wisely. After staring at him a beat longer she says, “I like your hair.”
Eddie’s grin ticks up on one side. He likes how direct she is, so he shakes his head a bit for her benefit, letting it tangle wildly around his head. He’s rewarded with a smile and small laugh.
“Thanks,” he says. His instinct is to reach out and run his hand over her buzzed hair, but when he starts to lift his hand she pulls back and he drops his arm immediately. “I like yours, too,” he offers instead.
He knows instantly that he’s made a mistake because her smile falls from her face and she drops her gaze to the ground.
“Papa did it,” she says. “I didn’t want to.”
A sick weight settles into Eddie’s stomach.
“That sucks,” he says. “I’m sorry he did that to you.”
He gives her a moment to respond and when she doesn’t, he adds, “Y’know my old man shaved my head once, too.”
She looks up with wide questioning eyes. “He did?”
Eddie twists a strand of his hair around his finger.
“Yeah,” he says. “It wasn’t quite this long, maybe at my shoulders. He said it made me look like—” He cuts himself off, not wanting to repeat exactly what his father said. “He didn’t like it,” he amends. “So he shaved it off.”
El gives him a long look. “He’s a bad man?”
The expression in her eyes is so much older than her years and Eddie wants to cry. Because, yes, his father is a bad man, but he suspects that this man she calls Papa is far worse.
“Yeah,” he says, once he’s sure his voice isn’t going to break over the words. “Yeah, he is. But I live with my uncle now. Or I will again, soon. And he’s a good man. He even likes my long hair.”
El smiles, just a little quirk of her lips. “Yes, Hopper is my dad now and he is good, too.”
“Look at us,” Eddie says. “Upgrading the parental units.”
El’s eyebrows contract and he realizes he may have confused her again with his word choice. He pushes past that. “You going to grow it back out?”
“Yes,” El sighs. “It takes a long time.”
“Yeah,” Eddie agrees. “It’ll look cool though, while it’s growing, right?”
“I guess so,” El says.
“Yeah, c’mon,” he says. “You’ll rock it. It’ll be very metal.”
“Metal?” El asks.
“Yeah. Real badass,” Eddie explains.
“Bitchin’,” El suggests and Eddie laughs. El, he’s decided, is a delight.
“Exactly,” he agrees. “Real bitchin’.”
She gives him that small smile again and Eddie can’t help feeling strangely pleased that they had something to bond over, even if it was something as terrible as forced buzzcuts from abusive fathers. He had, truthfully, been a little intimidated by El, not that he’d ever admit that to anyone. Superpowers aside, she has a very stoic demeanour that’s impossible to read. He definitely hadn’t been expecting to have anything in common with her.
She calls his attention back by tracing a finger gently over his bat tattoos.
“I like these,” she says.
“Thanks,” he replies, flipping his arm over to show her the one on the other side. “I’ve got a bunch of them.”
He lets her run her fingers over the puppet master.
“You want to get some tattoos one day?” he asks.
“I have one,” she says, in a tone so matter of fact she may have been commenting on the weather.
Eddie’s first reaction is surprise. He immediately wonders what kind of tattoo parlour is doling out ink to children. Even he was sixteen before he got his first tattoo and El would have been much younger. That thought is swiftly replaced by the dreadful realization that nothing so ordinary as a tattoo parlour would be tattooing such an extraordinary girl.
El doesn’t seem to notice that anything is amiss. She flips her wrist over like it’s the most ordinary thing in the world, revealing the small 011 marking the tender skin there. Eleven. It confirms his worst suspicions, but he’d never thought to question her namesake. No one had adequately explained anything about this girl. He feels sick.
“Jonathan says one day I can get a cover up.” She pronounces ‘cover up’ very carefully, like she’s not quite sure she’s getting the term right.
Eddie swallows, willing back the bile that’s risen in the back of his throat. If he thought he wanted to cry over her forced buzzcut, it’s nothing compared to this. He wants to wrap an arm around her and make sure nothing bad ever hurts her again.
She looks at him with a question in her eyes, like she’s waiting for him to confirm Jonathan’s suggestion.
“Uh, yeah,” Eddie manages eventually. “Yeah, you could get that covered up.” He reaches for her wrist and this time El lets him. He swipes his thumb over the number, like that simple gesture might be enough to wipe it away. It’s not, of course. The mark remains, indelible, on her pale skin.
“Yeah,” he says again, rallying some of the enthusiasm that he’s made himself known for. “That’d be an easy one to cover,” he adds. “It’s nice and small.”
El smiles and Eddie’s lungs let go of his held breath. He hadn’t even realized he stopped breathing.
“What do you want to get instead?” Eddie asks.
El contemplates the inside of her arm then turns her smile back to Eddie. “Something pretty.”
Eddie smiles back, but a lump has risen in his throat that he no longer trusts himself to talk past, so he stays silent.
“Will is going to draw some ideas for me,” she says.
And, god, these fucking kids. They’re going to be the death of him. Their compassion and loyalty could power the sun.
Before Eddie has a chance to comment or offer up some suggestions, Steve’s voice carries across the backyard announcing that the burgers are ready. El offers Eddie one more smile and then rushes towards the barbecue where the rest of her friends have gathered. He huffs out a laugh as he watches Steve attempt to wrangle them into an orderly fashion while they clamber for food.
An aching cold throbs through Eddie’s fingers, which is how he remembers that he’s still holding a beer. He transfers it to his other hand and tries to rub feeling back into his skin, takes a long pull from the can in an attempt to steady himself. A strange feeling is rising in his chest, a gratefulness for these people who have become friends and are starting to feel more and more like family. He thinks some of the horrors might have been worth it if it got him here, to this moment. If he can’t change any of it, at least he has this.
“Hey, man,” Steve says, appearing with two plates bearing burgers and loaded with various sides and salads. “No onions,” he adds, as he hands one of them over.
He’s all tanned and backlit by the sun, gloriously muscled in his tiny swim trunks and tight gray t-shirt, the most wonderful and unexpected of them all. Eventually Eddie is going to have to contend with his ever-growing feelings for Steve Harrington, but not right now.
“Thanks, Stevie,” he says, setting his beer down and taking the plate.
Steve settles in beside him and bumps their shoulders together. “Sure thing.”
And it’s such a small gesture, but it makes Eddie’s heart beat faster. He can’t help the way his smile grows on his face.
“This was a good idea,” he says.