Chapter Text
Lucas was quickly learning that he wasn’t really a partier. He’d much rather hang out in Mike’s muggy ass basement with his friends eating junk food and playing DnD. But he'd never make it anywhere on the basketball team if he didn’t at least attempt to hang out with them. He was able to dodge invites for the entirety of the fall semester, being able to fly pretty under the radar as a freshman, but Jason had insisted that the whole team was required to be at the first big throwdown of the new year. He kept going on about Tradition or some bullshit in a way that made most of the upperclassmen share knowing looks and almost all of the freshmen confused as hell. That was how he found himself on the way to Amelia Carpenter’s house the Friday of the first week of January. Mike and Dustin had adamantly refused to come with him. Some friends, right? He had hitched a ride with Steve and Robin. When he got in the car, Robin was putting on her mascara in the front seat with the practiced ease of someone who made a habit of exclusively doing her makeup in Steve’s car, chattering away about how it was Steve’s obligation as her best friend to go to every lame party with her (maybe she should share that rule with his punk friends). Steve, on the other hand, was uncharacteristically quiet. His shoulders were tense, and he had both hands gripping the steering wheel tight enough to make his knuckles white. Lucas was used to Steve and Robin ranting at each other in the car. It seemed like it was their mission to see who could talk over the other more while having piecemealed conversations that only the two of them could really follow when they were riled up. This felt different though. It almost felt as if Steve would have been fighting with Robin if Lucas hadn't been in the car. Like actually fighting. For as much as Lucas, unlike Dustin’s persistent ass, actually believed them when they said they weren’t dating, he truly felt like he was intruding on some type of lover’s quarrel in that moment.
“I’m just saying, Steve, it’s in the law of best friendship or whatever that you can’t make me go to parties alone. And you know this is like THE party. If I don’t go, they’ll probably like kick me out of band or something,” Robin reiterated as she messed with her bangs in the mirror. Steve huffed out a loud breath like he was hearing the same sentence for the thousandth time. Knowing Robin, he was.
“I know, Rob, but I’m not even in high school anymore. It’s going to be pathetic for me to be there,” Steve said flatly with none of the dramatics that usually accompanied a Steve Harrington argument. He seemed…tired.
“Almost all of your friends are fifteen; you’re already pathetic,” Robin said with a smirk on her face. Steve shot her a glare, to which Robin responded to by sticking her tongue out at him. “Besides, you could never be pathetic enough for all the ladies to forget you’re apparently really hot. You can at least pickup a hot date tonight.” For some reason, that made Steve’s shoulders tense up even more.
“Yeah, because that’s who I want to be. The creepy older dude picking up high schoolers at a party,” Steve muttered under his breath. Lucas could have sworn he actually heard Robin roll her eyes.
“Dude, you’re nineteen. You’re not the fucking crypt keeper. Chill out.” Robin slammed the visor mirror back up and slumped back in her seat.
“Dude, if you don’t want to come, you can just drop us off. You can just tell Robin no.” Robin booed him and tossed her tube of mascara at him from the front seat. Which, rude.
“Nobody asked you, Tall Sinclair. Besides, Steve would never say no to me. Steve Harrington never says no to anyone,” Robin stated casually like it was a fact before she leaned over to fiddle with the radio. Lucas could have sworn he saw Steve flinch out of the corner of his eye.
“Yeah,” Steve said softly, “Steve Harrington never says no.” Robin laughed and slapped her hand lightly on Steve’s shoulder.
“That’s the spirit, Stevie! Take the weight of the world off your shoulders for just one night, and have fun,” Robin said genuinely while leaning her whole body into Steve’s side of the car. Steve’s shoulders relaxed a little and a faint smile appeared on his lips before he leaned his head to the side to gently bump his forehead against Robin’s. That broke the tension in the front seat. Steve was still more tense than usual, but he was back to bantering with Robin about some weird customer they’d had at Family Video the other day.
“Steve Harrington never says no to anyone.” It kept playing over in his head. Mostly because it wasn’t the first time he heard that sentence. The first time was from some senior cheerleaders that were standing by his locker during the first month of school. Him and Dustin were grabbing something for Hellfire club after school, and the girls were standing around talking about Homecoming. Amber Davis was talking about how she had broken up with Jeff McDaniel, and she didn’t have anyone to take her. Jenna Blake piped in, “Oh! You should ask Steve Harrington! Everyone knows Steve Harrington never says no to anyone,” and all of the girls burst out laughing like they were in on some joke he didn’t get. They went on to talk about how cool it would be to be taken by someone who had already graduated, but Dustin and Lucas tuned them out and shared a mutually confused look.
As two people who had been on the receiving end of a million of Steve Harrington’s “No! No way, you little shits!” speeches, they just didn’t get why it was so funny. Steve told them no all the time. No, we’re not going in the tunnels. No, we’re going to stay on the bench. No, we’re not chasing after some Russian code. No, I’m not driving your asses to the arcade today. No, you can’t play your dumb dungeon game in my living room. But when he really thought about it, had Steve ever actually told them no? Not really. He always ended up doing what they wanted. Lucas actually couldn’t think of a single time they had ever listened when Steve said no. So he guessed they were right, but he didn’t get why it was so funny. Steve did end up taking Amber to Homecoming. He heard her bragging about how they had hooked up to her friends by his locker the Monday after.
The next time was in the locker room after practice one night about three weeks later. Coach was riding on Jason to clean up the court, and Jason was arguing that it wasn’t the Captain’s job to be a janitor. Coach made a comment before he walked out about how Harrington always cleaned up after drills when he was Captain, and most of the Seniors started laughing and sharing knowing looks. “That’s because King Steve never says no to anyone!” Andy yelled out, and that sent all of the upperclassmen into a roar of laughter. Everyone seemed in on the joke except for the freshman. Lucas still didn’t understand why it was so funny.
The third time, it was at the Wheeler’s house. The Byers were visiting for Thanksgiving, and they were all hanging out in the basement catching up. The Party and Erica were playing DnD, Max and El were painting each other's nails and probably plotting Lucas’ demise in the corner (Lucas would happily accept it. He hadn’t seen Max smile like that in months), and Nancy, Jonathan, Robin, and Steve were drinking beers on the couch and watching some weird movie Robin had picked up at work. They had paused their movie so Robin could go to the bathroom, and Jonathan had asked Steve to go up and get another round of beers. Steve had shot back a “C’mon man, Mrs. Wheeler is up there, and you know she has a weird crush on me. You go,” and Nancy had batted her eyelashes and thrown in a “Please, Steve.” Steve had huffed out a sigh and trekked up the stairs. Jonathan had quietly chuckled and leaned closer to Nancy to say “Steve never says no to anyone.” Nancy had gently slapped his chest with the back of her hand and whispered back “That’s not funny, Jonathan!” But she was laughing too, so obviously she thought it was.
When he first heard someone say it, he thought maybe it was just a weird way for people to say that Steve was too nice, which made sense to Lucas. Despite the fact he used to be a huge publicly facing douchebag, Steve was nice. Almost painfully so. Sure he called them shitheads sometimes and argued with them like he was their mom, but he was always there when they needed him and always saving them from the end of the world at the expense of his own physical safety. Steve Harrington was nice, and Lucas thought it was cool that other people were realizing that. But the more he heard that sentence, the more it felt like that wasn’t what anyone was implying. The more he heard it, the more it kind of made Lucas’ skin itch.
Towards the end of fall semester, he started hinting at it to the rest of his friends, which was kind of a wash. It turns out that outside of jocks and cheerleaders, Steve Harrington isn’t really a prime topic of conversation anymore. Dustin had said he heard those cheerleaders say it that one time, but they must have just known how nice Steve is. Mike looked at him like he had grown a second head before asking why he gave a shit about what people were saying about Steve. Which was bullshit. As much as Mike acted like he hated Steve, Lucas knew that the only other thing that made Mike feel safer than the older boy were the guns in Nancy’s closet. Max had spared him just long enough to give him a blank stare before furrowing her brows in blink and you miss it concern and saying “I heard Billy say that once after he had been at a party the night before. It gave me the creeps.” Which really didn’t make Lucas feel any better.
It was actually Eddie of all people who ended up giving him the most useful non-information. He had gotten to Hellfire a little early one day while Eddie was still setting up and figured it couldn’t hurt to ask Hawkins High’s longest residing student if he had heard anything.
“Hey Eddie?” Lucas had asked tentatively. The older man’s theatrics sometimes still took him off guard. He never really knew what his questions were going to be met with.
“What’s up, Prince Jock?” he asked absentmindedly as he took a seat on his “throne” and propped his feet up on the table, his ankles crossing and his hands coming up to rest behind his frankly impressive mass of hair.
“Have you heard the joke about how Steve Harrington can’t say no to anyone?” The grin that seemed to live on Eddie’s face instantly fell and he dropped his feet to the floor before standing back up and fiddling with his setup again, fully turning away from Lucas.
“It’s a pretty shitty joke if you ask me, man. And you can tell your buddy Jason, I’m not supplying him with shit, Sinclair.” Eddie’s voice was colder than Lucas had ever heard it, and he didn’t understand how his question correlated with Jason asking for drugs at all. Jason didn’t even do drugs. He was too weirdly into God or whatever for that. He threatened to have Jacob Covey kicked off the team the time he found him lighting up a joint under the bleachers.
“Oookay, I’ll be sure to let him know if he asks. But like, Steve’s my friend, and I don’t get why people think it’s so funny to say that. Or why they even say it in the first place. I just thought you might know. Sorry, man. I didn’t mean to make you mad.” Eddie stopped messing with the board and looked back over at Lucas. Turning his head a little almost as if to try to figure out if he was telling the truth. Weird.
“I’m not mad, man. I just thought you were asking something else. To answer your question, yes, I’ve heard it, and no, it’s not funny. Pretty fucking far from it, if you ask me. People are just really fucking shitty.” Eddie sat back down and threw his feet back up on the table, but his eyebrows stayed slightly furrowed, like he was thinking about whether or not he should say anything else. Lucas hoped he would. He didn’t really answer his question at all. The awkward silence had a chance to settle in the room before Lucas decided Eddie wasn’t going to say anything else.
“Ok. Uh, thanks,” he said before turning towards his backpack to fish his character sheet out.
“Hey, Sinclair,” he heard Eddie’s voice pipe up again, and he turned to face the older man. Serious wasn’t an emotion Lucas could ever remember seeing on the other’s face outside of DnD before. It was kind of twilight zone-ish. Eddie seemed to have another quick conversation with himself before he opened his mouth again. “Just, uh, be careful with those basketball guys, alright? They can be real dicks.” Lucas opened his mouth to ask him to elaborate, but, at that moment, Dustin burst through the door already excitedly blabbing about what today’s session had in store. Eddie turned away from Lucas to talk to Dustin, and they never talked about it again. All in all it was one of the weirdest conversations Lucas had ever had, and he frequently talked to a girl that was raised as a lab experiment for the first twelve years of her life, so that was saying a lot. Lucas was more confused and unsettled than before.
Lucas was knocked out of his musings when Steve parked the car at Amelia's house. Robin immediately got out of the car and started walking towards the house. Lucas went to reach for his door before he realized Steve wasn’t making any moves to get out of the car.
“You really don’t have to come in, Steve. We can find a ride home,” Lucas said softly to the older boy. Steve let out a quiet sigh before plastering a smile on his face that Lucas could only tell was fake because he spent so much time with him.
“Nah, kiddo, I’m just being dramatic because I had a long shift today. Let’s go have some fun, yeah?” Steve was kind of a shit liar, but he’d let it slide. Lucas nodded and got out of the car, Steve right behind him.
“Are you dinguses coming?” He heard Robin yell from where she was almost at the door. Lucas rolled his eyes and picked up the pace.
“Hey, Lucas?” It shocked him. Steve never called any of them but Max and El by their first names. Maybe Dustin sometimes, but they all knew he was Steve’s favorite. He had that “we’re staying right here on the bench” look in his eyes, but sadder for some reason. “Look, I know they’re your friends, but be careful with your teammates. Especially the Seniors. I’m not going to like cramp your style or whatever and helicopter around you all night, but if you need me, I’m here. If you need me, come find me. Ok?” It was so weirdly reminiscent of what Eddie had said to him that day at Hellfire. He figured it had something to do with the fact that all of the guys had been friends with Billy Hargrove, and Lucas was black. Which was honestly a fair thing to worry about. Lucas had worried about it when he first joined the team, but they had all been cool. And they all seemed to be cool with Patrick, so he figured he was fine. But it was nice to know how much Steve cared. How much he worried about all of them. Lucas nodded his head.
“Yeah. Of course. Always the babysitter, right?” Steve actually genuinely laughed and reached a hand up to clap Lucas on the back.
“Always the goddamn babysitter.”
That would have been the perfect time to turn around and go home. Tell Steve this actually wasn’t his scene and guilt Robin into ditching to appease the scared little freshman. But he didn’t do that, and he’d end up sincerely regretting it by the end of the night. The three of them entered the party together, immediately going their separate ways; Steve and Robin towards a couple of people Lucas recognized from band and Lucas towards a couple of his teammates he saw by the drink table. Ryan, a sophomore, clapped him on the back in greeting and immediately handed him a beer. Lucas gave it a tentative look before taking a sip so he wouldn’t look like a pussy. Beer was fucking nasty. He hung out for about an hour talking to his teammates and nursing the same beer, before he noticed Jason and Andy walking through the room rounding up the team.
“Alright, boys, it’s time for your Captain to earn his title,” Jason said with all the fanfare he usually put into his pep rally speeches once he had gathered everyone. The older members of the team were laughing and knocking their beers together, but Lucas was confused as hell. Jason was named Captain the first week of school way before open tryouts even took place. He looked around and noted that most of the other freshmen looked confused too. At least it wasn’t just him. “We thought we were going to have to scope out a new prize this year after an impressive five year streak, but imagine my surprise when he showed up with his band geek girlfriend. One of the cheerleaders is setting him up right now, so wish me luck, boys!” Most of the team started cheering and giving each other playful shoves. What the actual fuck was going on? Everyone who seemed to know what was happening chugged their beers and threw their cans on the floor, clapping Jason on the back as he made his way through the crowd and towards the staircase that Lucas assumed led to the bedrooms. Lucas looked over to Seth, a fellow freshman, who also looked confused as hell.
“Do you have any idea what that was about?” Seth slowly shook his head and turned his attention back to the rest of the team who were now apparently reaching some next level form of partying. It was like the leftover energy from whatever crazy power trip Jason was on was infecting everyone. Lucas quickly scoped everyone out trying to find anyone who both seemed to know what the big deal was and hadn’t completely lost their mind. Surprisingly the most coherent person who met both of those criteria was Andy. Lucas pushed through the crowd and made his way over to the senior.
“Dude,” he yelled over the music and hollering from his fellow teammates. Andy looked over to him with a big ass smile. “What the hell was all that about?” Andy laughed.
“I forgot it always takes you freshmen who never had any siblings or anything on the team a minute to catch on,” the older boy said as he continued to chuckle. “It’s the right of passage, Sinclair.” It was stated like that was supposed to mean something to him. Lucas gave him a blank stare that begged for a little elaboration, and Andy laughed again.
“It started way back in like ‘74 or some shit. At the first party of the Captain’s final semester, he gets to pick a prize, usually a freshman, and if he can get his prize, through whatever means necessary, to sleep with him, he gets to stay Captain. If he can’t, he has to step down and tell Coach to name someone else as Captain. Coach isn’t really in on it. We hear it’s caused quite an uproar in the past when Captains have had to step down.” Lucas had heard and seen a lot of fucked up things over the years with the Upside Down, but those were monsters. These were just dumbass teenagers, and the implication of “whatever means necessary” made Lucas want to puke. How was everyone just cheering that line of logic on. Andy was still smiling at him like he had just told Lucas it was going to be sunny tomorrow and not that all of his teammates thought it was ok to force themselves on someone.
“The game took a big change the Spring of ‘81 though,” Andy continued on, and Lucas was hoping this was going to be the part where Andy told him the team started making sure they had willing participants. Or really anything that would settle his stomach. “Some eighth grader and his friend crashed the party, and Johnny Rhodes, the Captain that year, took a liking to him. He was pretty like a girl, and it was the first time anyone had tried with a boy, so it was like a new challenge. Besides, it’s not gay if you’re winning a bet, right?” Lucas knew the name Johnny Rhodes. It was engraved on the 1981 MVP plaque in the trophy case. Lucas was actually going to throw up. He was going to puke right here on Andy’s shoes in front of everyone. He wished Andy would shut the fuck up. But he kept on talking, stupid grin still on his face.
“Anyways, Johnny fucking destroyed that kid, and became a goddamn legend. And then the next year when he got to high school, he joined the damn team. It was fucking gold, because, like most freshmen, he had no clue. So Xander Green thought it would be funny to pick him again in ‘82. Story goes the kid was so fucking scared when he was cornered again, he just let it happen.” Xander Green’s name was in the trophy case, too. Lucas wanted to punch Andy in his stupid laughing face, but he didn’t stand a chance with the whole team around.
“And then it was just too good of a joke to pass up, you know?” No, he really didn’t know. Andy took another sip of his beer. “Josh Maxwell got him in ‘83, and Tony Creamer in ‘84, but we thought it was all over in ‘85. Coach had actually named the guy Captain, and we knew he wasn’t going to carry on the Tradition. Besides, he couldn’t really fuck himself, could he?” Andy laughed like he had just brought the house down on SNL. Lucas’ blood went cold. He couldn’t move his body. He didn’t want to hear the rest of this story. He didn’t want to hear it in the first place. “But then Billy Hargrove really came through for us. Beat him up so badly a major concussion took him out for the rest of the season.” The concussion he got protecting Lucas. “Billy got promoted to Captain, and from how he told it, made the guy wish the first beating killed him.” Everything was falling into place. How Steve was inexplicably injured towards the end of January last year, and wouldn’t tell them what happened, just that he had gotten in a fight at school. How Steve turned big, sad eyes at Dustin when he joked that Steve had to learn how to finally win a fight. How Steve would turn white as a ghost when he caught sight of Billy when he would pick Max up, which they all attributed to the time the other boy had kicked his ass.
“We thought the streak would end this year since he’d graduated.” Why the fuck was Andy still talking? Why couldn’t Lucas make himself say something? Or just walk away? Or just do anything? “But then, Jason saw him walk in with that band dweeb. It was fucking perfect. Jason doesn’t like to get his knuckles dirty if he doesn’t have to, and he already had the drugs (“you can tell your buddy Jason I’m not supplying him with shit”) on hand in case he had to use them on someone. It was too easy to ask one of the cheerleaders to offer him a drink and then lead him up to a room. Wrapped up like a present. Not that it was necessary. Everyone knows he never says no to anyone.” Lucas bolted from the spot into the direction he thought the kitchen was. He heard Andy yell, “what the fuck, Sinclair,” but he didn’t give a shit. He elbowed his way through the crowd, and barely made it to the sink before he threw up everything that was in his stomach.
He let his forehead rest on the cool metal of the sink for a second before what Andy said really registered. He immediately wiped his mouth on his sleeve and bolted to go find Robin. He spotted her over by a red head who he recognized as the girl that was always lined up next to her at games and rushed over to her. She stopped mid laugh when she noticed him rushing over and the state he was in.
“Woah, little jock child friend, you ok?” She was definitely a little tipsy. Probably wouldn’t be super helpful.
“Where’s Steve?” Robin rolled her eyes and vaguely motioned to the staircase.
“He went upstairs with Gabby, and me thinks he’s slipping on his DD duties, because he was definitely a little wobbly on his feet. We might be walking home, Sinclair,” she said with an airy voice Lucas had never heard her use, but sounded similar to how Dustin had described her when she was all hopped up on Russian drugs. So definitely not helpful. Lucas wasn’t weak, but he knew he couldn’t take on Jason by himself. He needed some help, and he needed it now. It had been at least 10 minutes since Jason disappeared. A lot could happen in 10 minutes. But everyone he knew here that he could call in for backup seemed to be in on the world’s worst joke. Lucas might actually start crying in the middle of this party, and it must have shown on his face because Robin was looking at him in hazy concern.
And then he spotted a familiar mop of hair. He should have known Eddie would be here dealing. It was prime real estate for his little side business. He took off towards the older man, and he vaguely heard Robin trailing after him asking what was wrong.
“Eddie!” Lucas yelled once he was in earshot, and the other man jerked his head in his direction trying to see who was interrupting his drug deal. He looked instantly annoyed before registering the look on Lucas’ face. Eddie walked away from the guy trying to buy weed from him, ignoring his protests and met the younger boy halfway.
“What’s wrong, Sinclair? Did one of those assholes do something to you?” Eddie had that cold tone in his voice again, and it made Lucas really realize he had known the whole time. He had known and seemed to be the only person that didn’t think it was funny.
“Not me. Steve,” Lucas said desperately. Eddie cursed under his breath.
“What the fuck is Harrington even doing here?”
“I, um, I made him come with me. He didn’t want to. Was super weird about it. But I made him. What’s going on?” Robin asked in a small voice, realizing that something was super wrong. She didn’t seem as drunk anymore.
“We don't have time for an explanation, Robin. Eddie, I need help. He’s upstairs somewhere with Jason, and I can’t take him on alone. Will you please help me?” Lucas would cry on the spot if he told him no, and then promptly go upstairs and get his ass handed to him by Jason Carver. But at least he would have tried. Eddie didn’t answer him, he simply pushed past him and made his way towards the staircase, Lucas quickly following him, and Robin trailing behind. Lucas and Eddie started pushing open random doors, ignoring the people inside telling them to fuck off when it turned out to be the wrong room. It was the last door Lucas had left to check when he heard Jason through the door.
“C’mon, Harrington, if you didn’t want it, don’t you think you’d stop coming around? You’re just asking for it at this point. Now stay fucking still.” Lucas was going to throw up again. But that would have to wait. He pushed the door open, and Jason’s head snapped in the direction of the door. Lucas was reminded of that time El stopped the energy vans chasing them, and threw them into the air and over their bikes. It was like time itself was frozen for a second. Jason was on top of Steve, still mostly dressed. Steve was on the bed, mostly undressed and fighting however sluggishly the drugs Lucas knew were pumping through his system would allow. He had a black eye, and bruises forming on his arms and torso. Blood was dripping from Jason’s nose, and Lucas felt a moment of pride that Steve was able to land such a good hit in the state he was in. “What the fuck are you doing, Sinclair? Get out!” Jason yelled in his direction, and it made time move again. Eddie pushed past him when he realized Lucas had found the right room, and grabbed Jason by the back of his shirt, yanking him off the bed.
“How about you get the fuck out, Carver,” Eddie said dangerously, situating himself between Jason and the bed. Lucas rushed over to stand next to him adding another line of defense. Jason looked between the two of them, and then started laughing.
“This is fucking rich! The Freak and The Freshman coming to King Steve’s defense. God, the boys are gonna eat this shit up. Now run along before I give you two the beatdown of your life. I earned this, and I’m not going to let you two losers take this away from me. Seriously, this is your only warning, I’ll-” Jason was instantly cut off by a ceramic lamp crashing over his head. Lucas and Eddie’s eyes widened as Jason hit the floor hard, out cold, to reveal all one hundred and twenty pounds of Robin Buckley standing over him.
“You forgot The Band Geek, fuckface,” Robin said with a dangerous edge to her voice. Lucas would like to rescind his previous “definitely not helpful” analysis. Robin was a fucking badass. Steve let out a groan behind them, snapping them all back to the current crisis at hand. Robin quite literally stepped on Jason’s unconscious body to make it over to her best friend. “Let’s get you dressed, dingus,” she said, trying, and failing, to keep her voice from shaking.
“Rob’n, can we go home now?” Steve slurred out as she helped him sit up, his head bobbing forward slightly as he struggled to keep his balance in his new seated position. Eddie reached down and grabbed Steve’s polo off the ground, handing it to Robin. She turned and nodded her head at him, and Lucas could see the tears misting in her eyes.
“Yeah, Stevie, we can go home,” Robin said quietly as she wrestled him into his shirt and righted his jeans, doing the button up for him. Eddie cleared his throat.
“I’m, uh, guessing he drove you both here?” The metalhead said awkwardly, not really sure what to do with himself now that the immediate threat was eliminated. Lucas nodded at him slowly. He didn’t really know what to do with himself either. He’d seen Steve hurt more times than he can count. Everyone had. But he’d never seen the older boy look so vulnerable. Steve was supposed to be invincible. “I can, um, I can take you all home. Harrington doesn’t live too far from here, so it should be easy for him to come get his car whenever he’s able to.”
“Thanks, Eddie,” Lucas’ voice embarrassingly cracked, and Robin nodded her head at him in thanks. Lucas walked over to the pair and looped Steve’s arm over his shoulder, helping the older boy stand up. Steve let out a groan of pain and brought a hand up to clutch his side where Lucas had noticed a bruise forming earlier.
“M’sorry, kiddo,” Steve whispered as they made their way back into the hallway. “Y’shodn’t ‘ave to see me this way.” Lucas felt a tear finally release from his left eye, and he quickly brought a hand up to wipe it away. Here Steve was injured and violated after some weird ritualistic sacrifice-esque situation he’d been the victim of since he was fucking fourteen, and he was still worried about Lucas. And the essence of Steve Harrington finally clicked into place for Lucas. Why he was always there to help them no matter how small or stupid it seemed. Why he was so willing to put himself between them and bodily danger. Why he was going to worry himself into an early grave if his heroics didn’t take him out first. Steve didn’t have anyone looking out for him. From what Lucas knew about his parents, he never had. No one ever worried about Steve, or protected him, or made him feel safe, and he wasn’t ever going to let Lucas or his friends know what that felt like. The world wasn’t fucking fair.
“Please don’t apologize for this,” Lucas pleaded with him, his voice wavering again. They made it out of the house with relatively little fanfare. Eddie led the pack like a man on a mission, Lucas directly after him helping Steve navigate walking, and Robin bringing up the rear glaring menacingly at everyone who gave them a second look. Lucas made eye contact with a wide eyed Andy right before they made it out the door, and the older boy flinched at the glare Lucas shot his way.
Eddie loaded them up in his van. Robin in the back, with Steve leaning heavily into her, struggling to keep his eyes open (Lucas vaguely heard Robin make a quiet joke to Steve about those Russian drugs really upping his tolerance, which Steve attempted to smile at) and Lucas taking shotgun. The first few minutes were awkwardly quiet in the front, Robin murmuring softly to Steve in the back.
“Does everyone know that happens?” Lucas directed at Eddie, hoping to God he said no. Hoping that an entire school wasn’t totally cool with the basketball team being a weird rapey cult. “Because I hear people say it all the time. That he never says no to anyone, and everyone thinks it's so fucking funny. Do they all know?” He heard Robin’s breath hitch in the back, like she was just realizing something. Lucas could feel his heart rate rising as anger started bubbling under his skin. Anger at the cheerleaders, and the jocks, and Jonathan and fucking Nancy, and Robin who had said it on the way there while Steve flinched in the front seat.
“No,” Eddie said quietly. “The basketball team does and most of the cheerleaders know, but to everyone else, it’s just a rumor that started his freshman year. ‘If you want a good time, go find Steve; he doesn’t say no to anything’. It weirdly was the driving force behind his rise to popularity. And I think a lot of people have taken advantage of that, advantage of him, over the years as a result. When no one expects you to say no and mean it, not many people listen when you actually say it.”
“How do you know about it?” he asked evenly, hoping he wouldn’t have to find something to stab Eddie with while he was driving the car.
“When you don’t really register on anyone’s radar, people will say anything in front of you. I heard Billy Hargrove bragging about it last year, and at first, I really thought it was just another bullshit rumor. A shitty one that made Billy look like an absolute psycho, but it just seemed too insane to be real. And then I started eavesdropping on the basketball jocks, and they would mention it in passing a lot. The tradition and the streak and what were they going to do now that Harrington was graduating. And it was just so fucked, man, and who the fuck was going to believe that shit if they didn’t hear it with their own ears? And then at the beginning of the year, Jason came up to me at a party and asked if I had any roofies, which, what the fuck, right? Who just has roofies on hand? I knew exactly what he was going to use them for, so I told him to go fuck himself. I guess he found someone with a greyer moral compass than me, though. When you asked me about Harrington before Christmas break, I really thought that Jason had put you up to trying to get me to supply him some. Sorry for assuming the worst, man.”
Lucas would never say it in front of Max, but he was glad Billy Hargrove was dead. He hoped it fucking hurt. Actually, he knew it fucking hurt since he watched it happen. He wondered if Steve felt the same satisfaction then, watching him die, as Lucas felt right now, remembering it. Probably not. Steve is a better person than him. And as much as it made Lucas sick that Eddie had assumed he was anything like those other pieces of shit, he was glad someone was looking out for Steve, or whoever was going to be the new Steve, in whatever way they could.
“No problem, man. I’m glad someone actually gave a shit. It’s pretty fucked that no one else ever did.” Lucas heard a quiet, half hearted “language” slip from Steve’s lips in the back seat, and it made his heart hurt to think that Steve had heard all of that. He was honestly surprised he was still conscious. Maybe Robin was onto something with her Russian drug comment.
Eddie pulled into Steve’s driveway and helped Robin get him out of the van. He helped them get Steve in the house and up the stairs to his room, frowning deeply when Robin answered his “Where are his parents?” with a “they haven’t been home in months”. He didn’t make a single boyfriend comment directed at Robin as she crawled into the bed with Steve, holding the now unconscious boy’s hand and curling up to his side, and he offered to stay and sleep on the couch while Lucas pulled a sleeping bag out of Steve’s closet and set up shop on the floor, saying that he would bring Harrington to his car in the morning.
He heard Robin already lightly snoring next to Steve and Eddie settling downstairs, and Lucas stared at the ceiling all night long, unable to make his brain stop thinking about what would have happened to Steve if he hadn’t listened to Andy’s sick story. Thinking about the fourteen year old who was just trying to have fun at a high school party and was horrifically brutalized. Thinking about the boy who had that trauma used against him systematically year after year. Thinking about the boy who had girlfriends and best friends and dumbass kids reinforce that trauma at every turn. Lucas was going to be better about that. He was going to make his friends be better. He was going to look out for Steve, because apparently no one else was going to.