The Drive-In

3

"Expecting someone else, Harrington?" Eddie raises an eyebrow and grins smugly at him.

Steve's is still firmly pressed against his door window. His large hands splayed out over the handle and armrest. His eyebrows are raised, eyes wide, mouth slightly parted as it huffs out an exhale, and the expression crumples into fury.

"Yes! Yes, of-fucking-course I was expecting someone else! I-I-I don't go around whis-...er...talking to guys like that!" Steve fumbles over his words in panic as he attempts to stare down Eddie and peels himself away from the door, gesturing with his hands in alarm.

Eddie senses blood in the water. He could, if he wanted to really push Steve's buttons on this, but he was saving it for leverage.

Steve turns around in his seat away from Eddie and stares down at the steering wheel, "Get. Out." Steve says firmly.

"Well, here's the thing, Harrington. If I go out there, I'll have five of your little asshole proteges beat me into next week, but in here, I only have to deal with one" Eddie puts on his seatbelt and folds his arms, "So, you know, I'm just gonna stay put. K?"

"No! No! Not K! Definitely not K. Get out of my fucking car, Munson. I swear to Christ I'll call them over myself," Steve animatedly exclaims, turning back towards him, but Eddie hears that little drop in tone. He's bluffing.

Eddie thinks for a moment and turns back to Steve to test the theory, "You'd really send me back out there, to my doom, Harrington?" and shoots him the most endearing big eyes he can.

Then something improbable happens. Steve blinks a few times, sighs, and his posture drops, like it just gave up, "Look, just don't be so dramatic about it, ok?"

A big smile spreads across Eddie's face, causing Steve to point at him, "And you can stop that too. You've won nothing. I just happen to be a good guy, a great guy, in fact, who doesn't want ANYONE, not just you, getting hurt."

Eddie, still smiling from ear to ear, nods in understanding.

Steve grabs a blanket from the back seat and tosses it at Eddie, "At least try to hide, dumbass!"

Eddie quickly grabs a hair tie from his pocket and puts his hair in a high ponytail, reclines back in the seat, covering himself from the nose down in the blanket.

The car is silent, apart from Steve's occasional popcorn munching or soda slurping or Eddie's stomach growling. Both of them reclined back in their respective chairs, half watching the movie and half looking out of the windows—Steve for his lost date, Eddie for his pursuers.

Eddie feels his shoulder get bumped as Steve thrusts the bag of popcorn at him, mumbling poutily, "Here, I'm done anyway. Popcorn here always sucks." Eddie squirrels the popcorn under his blanket and begins snacking on it. He has no idea what kind of god-sent popcorn Steve is used to eating, but this was delicious.

"There's some soda here too. Ice is mostly melted, though, so it's watered down" Steve waves vaguely at the drink in the center console.

For a few minutes, they are in mostly silence again, except it's Eddie's food noises this time. He was shoveling handfuls of popcorn into his mouth at a time, or glugging down the soda. Steve was right, it was watery as hell, but it did the job.

Eddie looks over at Steve. He really wasn't like Eddie remembered at school. He couldn't quite put his finger on it, but it was almost like someone in a King Steve outfit, like, the look and the impersonation was absolutely bang on, but when not engaged directly he seemed flat, melancholy. If this weren't King Steve, Eddie would definitely interpret this as pining of some sort.

As the little group of varsity jackets makes their nth loop around this line of cars, Eddie reaches for his lunch box under the blanket and pulls out a pre-rolled, and holds it up to Steve.

"Don't know what's eating you, dude, but er...I tend to find these help," Eddie tries gently.

Steve turns to Eddie with a sneer already locked and loaded, "What is eating me is that you are still in my fucking car, Munson!"

"Hey man, I'm just trying to be neighborly here! Jesus Christ!" Eddie yells back and puts it away.

"I fucking heard him! MUNSON? FREAK?! WHERE ARE YOU? I KNOW YOU'RE HERE SOMEWHERE," Eddie heard Jason's voice ring out, and it was getting closer. He fucking hated this. Being a scaredy cat. He could totally take Jason, but not with his cronies around.

Eddie looks in the side mirror and can see them approaching Steve's car.

"Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit," Eddie mutters under the blanket quietly, unclipping his seatbelt.

Steve starts looking around frantically. Eddie looks longingly into the backseat, which is where he should have hidden, to begin with, then an idea hits him.

"Hold me, Harrington," he says, launching himself towards Steve. Eddie isn't sure if it's the years of sports that do it, but instinctively Steve's arms open and receive him into his chest like a football pass. Still, before Steve can protest, the Tigers are at his window, and Eddie is nothing but a blanket with a set of eyes and a ponytail.

Jason leans down to the window, and Steve grabs some of the blanket over his own lap.

"Carver?" Steve says in the most annoyed bitchy tone that Eddie thinks might even rival his own.

"Sorry to bother you, Harr-" Jason starts cooly before Steve cuts him off.

"Make it fucking snappy, junior I'm kinda busy here. You're killing the mood, yeah?" Eddie had never seen Steve act before, but he was doing a pretty good job of being pissed off. Worryingly maybe this wasn't acting at all, and Steve was simply channeling his anger for Eddie at Jason.

Jason leans on the door and peers through the window, and Eddie notices Steve's Adam's apple bob nervously. Eddie's heart is pounding in his chest, and he is about to take flight out of the passenger door when Jason throws one of his big beaming grins directly at Eddie, "Sorry, Miss, didn't see you there."

Eddie gives a high-pitched giggle from under the blanket and a dainty finger wave. Jason fires back a wink at Eddie and turns back to Steve, "Nice! Anyway, you don't happen to have seen that freak Munson skulking around here, have you?"

Steve peels Jason's fingers off his car, the sneer of disdain still affixed to his face, "Firstly, Why would you give a shit what that creepy little loser is doing?" Steve says venomously, earning him a pinch in the ribs from Eddie, who promptly gets a thump in the arm in return. "Secondly, it's late. He'll be making drops at parties. Pretty sure I saw him piss off in a car not long ago."

"Eddie drives a van, not a car." Jason looks puzzled.

Steve looks at him in disbelief and looks back at the others, "I sincerely hope you aren't the brains of this operation. I know he drives a van, dipshit!"

Now, this...this is the Steve that Eddie remembers, but this time Eddie was loving it. He could see Jason's bravado crumbling right in front of his eyes, and it was delicious.

"Sorry...er...do you know which car it was?" Jason says meekly.

Steve blinks a few times, "Now let me think...was it?...no...oh wait...yeah...that's right. It was I-don't-give-a-fuck's car. You know he's friends with piss-off-you-fucking-loser." Steve delivers this completely deadpan, and Eddie can almost see Jason's ego shatter to dust.

"You know, as captain, you could be doing way better things with your Saturday evening than chasing a guy around a drive-in. It's a bad look, guys. Also...fuck off!" Steve finishes and winds up his window, completely turning his attention away from Jason and back to the movie.

Eddie watches them walk out of sight, and their truck soon drives past them out of the drive-in. All he had to do now was get the van sorted and he was home free. Safe and sound. Injury free.

"Erm...Eddie," Steve says, interrupting Eddie's thoughts. Eddie detects a hint of nervousness.

"Yeah?" He says, looking up at Steve.

"You can...um...you can let go of me now" Steve raises his hands in the air slowly to draw Eddie's attention to where his own is. As Eddie's eyes travel to his own arms, he realizes they are clasped around Steve's waist.