Chapter Text
Late July, 1985
It’s after everything – after the mall and Hop’s funeral and his mother trying to kill him – that Steve gets called to his father’s study.
He limps along the hallway with bare feet, crutches forgotten by his bed in favour of standing as tall as he can despite how the gauze pinches. Knuckles rap against the mahogany door, but the sound is hollow.
“Come in,” his father says. “Have a seat.”
Steve’s been here before, sweating in this very spot – not from exertion, but out of fear. He’s not afraid this time, because he’s already heard it about the shitty grades and the scratch on the beemer, and being benched from the team and the college rejections and his inability to keep a girlfriend because he’s a slut and a junkie like his mother.
Because Steve’s not afraid of anything. Not anymore.
“I suppose you understand now,” his father says, apropos of nothing.
He does this sometimes – acts like Steve is the only one out of the loop. Like he’s a step behind everyone else and not quick enough to catch on. But what is there to catch this time? His mother’s always been intense when she’s off her meds. It was an accident.
“No? No, I don’t understand anything.”
Waking in the night to her cold hands on his swollen face. The rush and the packing, the wet road that slipped from under them. His mother made no sense and his father is only adding to the confusion; blank as he is, scribbling on checks with his weighty pen, refusing to look up from his work.
Steve aches all over.
“Nineteen years ago, your mother fucked Jim Hopper,” his father says, like he’s talking about the quarterly earnings and not his own wife. “She wanted a baby and I couldn’t give her one, so she took matters into her own hands.”
“What…”
His skin is clammy and his heart is in his ears. Dad’s sharing this like he shares anything: with vague disinterest and absolute disdain.
“I’m not your father.”
“Dad, I don’t– ”
“I can’t imagine the man had much worth inheriting, and they’re saying he has another daughter – alive, this one – but I can put you in touch with your uncle if you would like to contest the will.”
“The will?! What are you talking about?”
“You need to stay calm, buddy.”
Don’t be so dramatic, buddy. Comb your hair, buddy. You can’t wear that, buddy. Speak up, buddy. You’re always crying, buddy. Don’t be a pussy, buddy. Grow some damn balls, buddy. You’re a fucking idiot, buddy.
“I am calm.”
“You’re not.” His father finally looks at him. “You’ve had a tough summer, kid, I get that. I can see about Doctor Keane prescribing you something for sleep, but I’d rather not get into all of that. It’s a slippery slope, as you well know.”
Like he wasn’t happy for Mom to – because the pills kept her docile, kept her from tearing her own hair out. Like Steve isn’t already at the very bottom of that canyon and scrambling for a way back up.
“I don’t need pills, Dad,” he spits. “I need you to start talking like a real person for five minutes.”
“A real person? Steve, don’t be ridiculous.”
“How’s that ridic– ”
“It’s ridiculous because I’m the only one here. Your mother will remain in Pennhurst for the foreseeable and your biological father, well, he’s dead. It’s not like he bothered with you before that.”
It all stutters to a stop. His frustration winding down into nothing. It hurts in a way that is sharp, and doesn’t make all that much sense to his tired head. He wishes the white noise would stop, that he could go back to yesterday morning when his biggest stress was finding a new job with Robin.
“You mean… he knew?”
“Yes, he knew,” Dad says. “We told him when you were born, and he signed over his parental rights immediately.”
He’s never been the best kid, but for Hopper to write him off so quickly – before he even got to be a person – feels like a lance to the heart.
“But, I don’t– ” he starts, stops, starts again. “He never said anything.”
His father looks at him, then. Something softens in his severe brow, and Steve melts with it. The leather seat is malleable beneath his palms from almost two decades of worrying; of sitting across from his father and begging for answers that he now wishes had remained buried.
“I don’t understand.” He knows he sounds weepy, pathetic. A sopping mess ever since he coughed every bit of himself out on that river bank. In what can only be pity, his father stands, paperwork forgotten, and rounds his desk to put a hand on Steve’s shoulder.
“Bed, come on now,” he says.
It’s fine without his crutches on the way back, because Dad shoulders most of his weight. Steve can’t remember the last time they touched like this. Or at all. It’s funny, to be told that another man is his father and feel so suddenly the urge to cling to the one that never held back.
In his room, Dad pulls the covers back, pounds the pillows. He looks out of place against the blue and white plaid, his warm skin and dark hair standing stark, his shadow stretching like a terrible creature; the kind Steve is unfortunately rather familiar with by now. And Steve’s not afraid of his father, but some deep rooted part of him – his nervous system, Robin might claim – sees the slope of Dad’s back as he stretches over Steve’s body to tuck him in, and knows, innately, that now is not the time to remain in his sights, to keep his attention. It is better to be a thing that is pitied, placated, than it is to be the trouble.
Steve knows he’s well within the former by now, and basks in the warmth and novelty of such a feeling. Dad fixes the top sheet and, in Steve’s hand, he places three pills, grabbing him a glass of water from the en-suite to chase them with.
“Get some rest, buddy.”
Steve groans. His leg burns and his heart is on fire. A warm hand cards through his hair and he leans into the touch, skin alight with the rarity of it. He could close his eyes and imagine Hopper is here, that Hopper is the one comforting him, but. But that’s not what he wants. Not right now.
Besides, Hopper is dead.
“Nothing’s gonna be the same ever again,” Steve whispers into his pillow, mostly to himself.
When his father leaves, which he often does, he leaves the lamp next to Steve’s bed on, no matter the glare or the immaturity or the electric bill.
“No,” he says. “It won’t.”
–
His mother’s psychiatric team allows him a supervised visit one month later. Before school starts back up for the kids, and the leaves start turning on the trees.
Steve drives over on a Saturday. Alone. Dad’s gone back to the city for now. Steve called to invite him, but only got as far as his secretary.
He’s never been to Pennhurst before. Distantly, he carries memories of a hospital in a city, with traffic blaring beyond the barred windows and his mother in a white gown the size of a two-person tent. But it’s possible he made it up – there’s whole chunks of his childhood that he can’t remember.
“Hi, Mama,” Steve says, when the nurses guide him to her table.
His mother is beautiful. Magazine beautiful. Even with dirty hair and grey skin, with pale eyes so wide and bewildered, she radiates a cool elegance.
“James?” she asks.
James! She yelled that night. Roll the windows! What’s that song on the radio? The song wasn’t anything other than static, but she hummed as if backed by an entire orchestra.
“No, Mom. It’s Steve.”
“Stevie,” she sighs. “Baby, you ought’a cut your hair.”
He tried to get it cut last week, but silver glinted in the corner of his eye and he wasn’t in the salon anymore. He had to leave after ten minutes.
“I guess.”
Her hand reaches across the table between them. Her skin is so cold.
“Will I cut it for you?”
They made Steve turn out his pockets before letting him see her. They even took his lighter. She couldn’t cut it even if he wanted her to.
“That’s okay.”
“Get your daddy to give you some money.”
“Sure.”
“He’s got a very good job now, you know.” His daddy’s always had a good job – Head of Mergers, CFO, CEO. It's all the same to Steve.
“Chief of Police,” she continues.
Oh.
“That’s great, Mom.”
“In school, he was always getting into trouble. Not like you, Stevie – you’re good as gold.” Steve only nods. “But your daddy liked to smoke under the bleachers and he damn sure never got me to school on time.”
A fan whirs in the corner. He wishes he could blame it for how his hair stands on end.
“You’re like him in other ways, you know.”
It’s like Steve’s not even here.
“Your hair, your jaw. That smile of yours.”
She pinches his cheek.
“Handsome as ever, aren’t you, button?”
He lets her hold his face, do whatever she needs. Like always. It’s never occurred to him to do any different.
“Sure, Mama.”
September, 1985
Robin gets them a job at Family Video. Robin talks a lot, so Steve doesn’t have to fill the silence. It’s nice to be around her, because she seems to get that feeling bad is just how it goes sometimes, and doesn’t need him to be a funnier or more charming version of himself.
She just needs him to be himself. Whatever that means.
She never asks about his leg, but makes Keith provide them with a stool for her cramps. She sings songs to herself all day and plays movies that she thinks he’ll like, because she’s the kind of person who cares about what he likes. She brings him her mother’s biscuits for breakfast. She holds his hand when a car backfires on the street.
Robin is so easy to love.
Steve worries he’s not.
The Byers have been in California for a few weeks now. Steve never did contest the will, because he never told anybody. It’s not fair, is it, to take that grief from someone and make it your own? Steve hardly knew Hopper beyond some busted parties and a few tangles with alternate dimensions. If anything, Hopper seemed to resent Steve – always on his ass about something or the other: pulling him over, checking his pupils, confiscating his smokes and yapping on about curfews and responsibility.
And the man clearly didn’t want him, if he signed over his rights so easily; went on to have another family, and then another, once El was in the picture.
It’s fine, really. It’s totally fine. People might think otherwise, but Steve’s used to being unwanted. Until Dustin, then Robin, nobody ever sought Steve out for anything other than his popularity, his money. His dick. Well, except for Nancy. But he doesn’t want to think about her. Or Tommy or Carol; about what they’d think of all this. The Chief of Police? The same guy who made them clean their own sick from the precinct’s floor, who pulled them over for driving after midnight; who busted them for cigarettes and swimming in the quarry and hawking loogies on people’s heads at town hall assemblies.
They’d piss their pants about it. They’d paint the truth of it all over the marquee at the Hawk. Or Hopper’s headstone.
That is, if they cared at all.
“... dingus?” Robin’s marble eyes blink once, twice. Her face is so close to his own that he can see each freckle with the kind of visual clarity he hasn’t possessed since Billy knocked his lights out last year.
“Huh?”
“Your turn to pick,” she says. There’s a playful slouch to her shoulders, a heavy sigh she takes as she leans against the counter, ready to run and fetch whatever it is he chooses.
His leg’s been a little stiff today.
“Uh…”
There’s plenty he knows she’d like. But the place where their interests intersect is the place where Steve holds all the fondest parts of his mother. Her playful, singing, dancing self. Audrey Hepburn, Grace Kelly, that one with the kids who sing German songs in the Alps.
So instead, he asks: “We got any Charlie Brown?”
By now, he knows Robin to the bone. Through phone calls that stretch into the wee small hours, the feeling of her chipped fingernails scratching against the knee of his jeans. He knows her eyes, her nose, her mouth, her ears. The small scar beneath her jaw from her ill-considered attempts at skateboarding in the fifth grade. It’s because of this that he catches it: her upset and uncertainty; the look of naked concern Robin gets when she’s been presented with a problem she cannot crack.
“It Was a Short Summer, Charlie Brown?” she asks, glancing away, already making for the correct shelf.
“Sure was,” he says, not quite believing himself.
–
“ – and then I thought about how scared you must have been, button. You were so brave that night and, well, I’ll just never forgive myself for hurting you like that.”
“Ma, it’s okay. Really.”
“It’s not, Stevie, but I’m the one who has to live with that guilt.”
Steve thinks about his busted leg and the spiderweb of scars where the branches split through the windshield. He thinks of how the water rushed through the cracks and how the only reason they survived was because she wouldn’t let him wear his seatbelt.
“You shouldn’t feel guilty,” he says eventually. “It’s not your fault.”
“I know, button.” Soon, her time will be up and she will have to let the next patient use the phone. “But I’ve been working with Doctor Hatch and there’s a whole list.”
Soon this conversation will be over.
“That’s great, Ma,” he says, hoping it sounds like he’s smiling. “I’m really proud of you.”
“I’ve been working really hard.”
“That’s great.”
“You should come visit again! I can show you my room, and the paintings I’ve been working on. Like when you were little, remember?”
“Maybe.” Steve does not remember. “When the doctors say it’s okay.”
“It won’t be like last time. I promise.”
He’d do anything for it to just be over.
“That’s great, Ma.”
November 1985
“You look like shit.”
Max doesn’t slam the car door, but it’s a near thing.
“Gee, thanks.” Steve’s faring no better himself. Later, he’ll feel guilty about saying: “You better not talk to Sinclair like that.”
Max sinks low in the passenger seat.
He’ll feel even worse about: “Though, you’d have to actually see him to talk to him.”
“Next time I’ll get the bus,” Max says, scowling out the window at the bare branches they pass. The cold has hit them far earlier this year; or maybe he just feels it more now, in his aching joints and the black of his memories.
“You were at Eddie Munson’s last night,” Max says.
“Sorry, I meant to come check in, but…” he fails to think of any worthwhile excuse.
“That’s not why I’m bringing it up.” Her hands slam down, fingers pinching the leather seats. “I don’t need you checking in on me.”
“I know. I’m not your babysitter anymore – I’m your friend.”
“Gross.”
“Gross? That hurts, Mad Max.” Hand to his chest, thoroughly wounded. At least she’s smiling. “We fought monsters together.”
“You’re so damn sentimental sometimes– ”
“You say that like it’s a bad– ”
“But it’s not enough to distract me.” Fantastic. “Why were you at Eddie Munson’s place?”
“Hangin’ out,” Steve tries, knowing he missed the mark on sounding casual.
“You?” Max’s seatbelt is completely stretched now as she turns to gape with him. “Hangin’ out with Eddie Munson? Really?”
“Judgemental much?”
“Logical, you mean,” she counters.
“Look,” Steve sighs, pulling in directly across from said man’s trailer. “Henderson’s been yapping on about him for like two months now. Maybe I had to see what all the fuss was about.”
“So, you’re jealous.”
Jesus Christ.
“I don’t get jealous.”
“Tell that to Jonathan.”
Head in his hands, Steve would rather be slamming it against the steering wheel.
“You done bullying me? I’ve got places to be, y’know.”
“Oh,” she says, smirking. “I’m sure.”
“Go do your homework.”
Max unbuckles her belt. “You don’t have to worry about me ditching you for Munson,” she says, overly sincere. “You’re totally my favourite.”
He lifts his head. “Wait. Really?”
“Of course, Steve.” Door open, backpack swinging onto one shoulder. She bends at the waist to peer through the window. “I’d take this beauty over Munson’s death trap any day.”
“Hey.” He reaches across. “That’s not– ”
Max turns on her heel and throws a wave over her shoulder. “See you tomorrow, friend!”
Well, at least she’s smiling.
October, 1985
“Hi. I’m looking for Katherine Harrington. She usually calls around this time.”
“And who am I speaking to?”
“Steven. Her son?”
“I’m afraid your mother has rejected her weekly phone call, Steven.”
“Should I call back again tomorr– ”
“Goodbye.”
–
Dad has groceries delivered this time around. Every Wednesday, like he thinks Steve needs the reminder.
Steve answers the door, groggy and confused, and accepts the paper bags without question. He has thirty minutes to unpack it all and get dressed for the day, before he needs to head out to get Robin.
It’s not like she can’t ride her bike, but he likes the excuse for company. Her company, specifically. Besides, he’s on the evening shift today, so there’s plenty of time to rot away in bed between now and then.
Well, depending on how his proposition pans out.
After he picks Robin up from her house, makes nice with her father, and drops her off in the Hawkins High parking lot, Steve does the only thing he can think of. His last resort, as it were; the kind of thing he would have done without thought before Nancy entered his life like an ice cold wind and blew his prior self across the water.
He seeks Eddie Munson.
Predictably, the guy is late. He misses the second bell and seems to think it’s hardly worth the rush as he parks up at the back of the lot in his busted van and lights a cigarette with a cracked window.
Steve’s knuckles rap against the glass.
“Jesus fucking Christ!” Munson leaps so high in his seat that his head hits the ceiling.
“No,” says Steve with a halfhearted smirk. “Just me.”
Munson’s eyes roll, but the flush of his cheeks tell Steve all he needs to know.
“To what do I owe the pleasure, Your Majesty?”
He’s made it this far – no point in beating around the bush: “You still dealing?”
“Oh, absolutely not.” Before Steve can make his doubt about this known – the guy stinks of grass – Munson continues, growing more vehement by the second. “Last eight-ball I sold you got me a bruised ego and a decidedly un-artfully shredded Deep Purple tee.”
Steve frowns. “I’d never wreck your clothes over some blow, man.”
“Courtesy of Tommy H, if you let me finish.”
Steve raises his hands in apology. “My bad. But it’s not like I roll with him anymore. You know that.”
“Do I?” Munson raises a single brow so high that it disappears beneath his curly bangs.
Steve snorts. “So, what? You were ranting on tables about some other benched jock who got beat and dumped, for the entire second semester of senior year?”
My senior year, he doesn’t add, as Munson is a repeat offender. He’s not looking to make an enemy of the guy, not right now at least. Besides, the kids seem pretty fond of him for whatever reason.
“Self-pity doesn’t suit you, Harrington.” Munson smirks. “But you did heal up rather nicely.”
“Thanks, man.”
“That time. Pity about, uh…” Munson looks Steve up and down – from the pinkish scars on his nose and chin, down to the leg he is clearly favouring as he leans against the van.
“The mall?” Steve cuts across any awkward conversation Munson might attempt to make about it. “Yeah, well, it’s whatever.” Sure is. So much has happened since, every bit of his world crumbling in the wake of that particular revelation. Steve can’t think about it. His inability to think about it is what brought him right here: to this shitty van with the repeat senior who sells drugs beyond the playing fields and openly insults the popularity of some of his best – and highest paying – customers.
“Whatever, he says.”
Steve nods. A sure thing. Munson, one on one like this, seems to fall into a default state of discomfort. Weird. Steve is decidedly very good at pretending he’s not uncomfortable most of the time; events of the world-ending variety excluded.
“So, how about it?”
Munson casts a furtive glance around the parking lot, as if there’s a single person in sight. He heaves a put-upon sigh.
“Meet me at the bench during final period.”
Considerate of him, given that the kids have nothing after school today and would notice his absence were he not immediately present to pick them up, but it’s not what Steve’s going for.
“I don’t think so,” he says. “It’s not like you just carry the full catalogue around, do you?”
Munson frowns.
“I’ve got weed,” Steve explains. “I need something else.”
Munson looks almost offended by the notion that Steve sources his weed elsewhere; as if it’s an active thing. He hasn’t smoked in months – the Russians drugging him and Robin kind of rid his mind of any wish to be loose and out of control. But then there was the accident and his mom had to go away and his dad hasn’t been home since August and—
“Forrest Hills,” says Munson. “You can drop by at eight.”
“Oh, that’s– ”
“It’s the trailer park.” Indignance and shame are at war on Munson’s face. There is no clear winner.
“I know,” says Steve. “A friend of mine lives there.”
“A… friend?”
“I doubt you know her.”
Steve’s almost always with the kids – it’s no secret, Munson probably sees him pick them up after their nerd sessions on Fridays – and Max, being that she is a girl, stands out amongst the bunch. But it’s not really Munson’s business, is it? About why she and her mother are his neighbours. He might already know, but Steve’s not trying to stir gossip with the very man who spouts it across the cafeteria for the whole school to hear. For as much as Munson always acted above such things, he really was no better than Steve and Carol at their worst.
“Ah,” Munson says with a sly grin. “A conquest of yours?”
Case in point.
Rolling his eyes, Steve spins on his good leg and begins walking away. “See you then,” he says over his shoulder.
Munson calls after him, but it’s lost to the sound of second period. Above the bell’s chime, he yells something teasing and vaguely threatening, but Steve pays it no mind.
He’s wasted enough time.
–
“So, what brings royalty like yourself to my humble, peasant’s abode?”
Steve is beginning to regret his decision to return to his old hobby of occasional drug use. But needs must.
“I’m not playing these games with you, Munson,” Steve says, refusing the seat offered to him and standing in the very centre of the trailer’s kitchen. “Let’s get this over with.”
“Well… I haven’t sold you anything since, what, your sophomore year? And even that was through Tommy H.”
Steve scoffs. “You’re such a fucking gossip.”
“No, just curious,” says Munson. “Big house like that and you still can’t find a way to entertain yourself.”
Steve casts his attention elsewhere; eyes the mugs on the wall, the bunched up duvet on the sofa. “Well, it’s not like I’m throwing ragers anymore.”
“And why is that?”
There are framed photos of a kid at varying stages of life, there are shitty drawings pinned to the refrigerator. “Hm?”
“Why’d you stop?” Munson watches him watch these things with a curious tilt to his head. His hair drapes down like a curly curtain. “I used to make a killing at your parties, man. It’s how I saved up to buy my baby.”
Steve can only assume he means the literal monstrosity of a van parked out front. He shrugs.
“Tommy and Carol liked those parties way more than I ever did.” One of the drawings is like the kind Will used to do, only not nearly as detailed. It’s all dragons and knights and swords, just like the kids’ game. “Besides, clean-up’s a total bitch.”
Not entirely true. Steve loved those parties, they just stopped loving him back.
“What? No maid service?”
Steve titters out an hysterical, little laugh. They stopped the maid service pretty soon after his father was caught fucking one.
“As if. I have to earn my allowance somehow.” Besides, it hardly seems fair, Steve thinks, for some woman to have to tidy up bottles and cups, or scrub sticky stains from the carpet.
Munson stops short of whatever follow-up he had. Steve, despite the nature of his visit, feels a pleasant squirm in his gut at having proven the guy wrong.
“Anyway,” he pivots, picking a frame from the wall, looking at it like there’s something more there, something worth studying besides the obvious delight on Munson’s preteen face as a man – presumably his uncle – holds him close.
Did Hop ever look at him like that? Did he have a picture of Steve? Someone ought to.
He realises that he’s been looking too long; that Munson is coughing to catch his attention.
“Hey! Earth to Harring– ”
“So!” Steve turns on the spot. “About them drugs: what you got for me? I’d rather avoid any uppers, if possible. And I’ve got the benzos covered for now, so nothing like that.”
Munson frowns a little, those big eyes widening and watering to the point that Steve thinks he’s going to say no; that he’ll deny him this single reprieve from the constant hurt and confusion. If it comes down to it, Steve can use his leg as an excuse – it’s not like the guy hasn’t noticed – and spout some shit about the mall being on fire and a beam landing on him like he’s been real brave, real patient, but the pain’s just become too much.
Even though the mall caused a different kind of pain entirely. And, of course, he has a pretty stellar prescription for his leg.
But Steve needn’t have worried: Munson may be a menace, but he’s not one to look a gift horse in the mouth.
“This way, my liege,” he says with a flourish and a turn, though there’s a hitch to his broad shoulders; something stiff and guarded that Steve’s willing to ignore. “I have just the thing.”
–
The first time he tries Special K, Steve snorts it. Call it familiarity – there’s even a small part of him that expects his heart to race, his veins to thrum with abundant energy – but it’s nothing like coke.
He runs a bath in his parents’ tub, steaming water full of bubbles, and strips down with none of the ease he used to possess. Instead, he’s awkward and shuffling, leaning against the sink and kicking his pants off, his boxers. He’s a mass of scarring, patches of redness from sticky bandages that his skin grew intolerant off. The heat of the room makes it look that much worse.
Once he’s situated in the tub, there’s nothing left to do. It feels nice, but the warmth of the water does nothing to rid his bones of their burning; his chest of its flutters. He tips a small amount of the Special K onto a hand mirror that belongs to his mother. Instead of clean lines, he makes clumsy little piles. The steam causes the powder to cake. He rubs the remainder on his gums.
The pain stays, but at least he can forget about it for a while.
December, 1985
He has an hour before he needs to pick Max up from the Sinclairs. She and Lucas are on again, though it’s hard to tell how long these spells last. And, despite Erica’s desire to gossip with him like a pair of batty, old ladies, Steve excused himself from joining dinner, claiming to have other plans with family.
Ha.
He swings back around to Forrest Hills and pops his trunk. Inside, amongst the array of Christmas presents for the kids and a crimson poinsettia for Mrs. Henderson, there is a bottle of his father’s finest scotch, tied at its neck with a sparkling gold bow.
Eddie answers his door mere moments after Steve’s knock.
“Looks like you made it onto my Nice List by the skin of your teeth, Munson.”
“The fuck…”
“Merry Christmas!” Steve sings. “Or, well, Happy Holidays, I guess? Bold of me to assume.”
Munson snorts. “Did you get me a present, King Steve?”
Steve turns at his waist, holding the bottle out of reach. “Well, if you’re going to call me that– ”
Munson’s hands raise in apology. “My bad, sire! Please, please, come on in.”
“Don’t mind if I do,” says Steve, scooching past.
He’d crack the bottle open, but he’s not about to drive drunk with Max in the passenger seat, and he’s toast if he gets pulled over by Powell. Besides, this is a gift for Eddie – it’d be rude of him to partake.
“Do all of your servants get such special treatment?” Munson eyes the bottle, and with how they widen, Steve knows he must have caught the date.
“No,” Steve says, elbows on the counter. “But my friends do.”
“Friends?” Munson presses a scandalised hand to his chest. If Steve were more aware, riding on less of a high from the feeling of Christmas and gift giving and the light dusting of snow outside, he might have noticed the slight shutter to the man’s expression; a blink and you’ll miss it sort of thing. But Steve will only remember it later.
For now, he grins up at his friend. “Sure thing, Munson. Any friend of Mary Jane is a friend of mine.”
“What about a friend of Henderson?”
What about him? Steve’s smile slips, but only by a fraction. He doesn’t want to talk about Henderson, because the kid always wants to talk about Munson. Which is fine, totally fine, only Steve’s no idiot, alright? He knows that Munson is better and far more suited to the kids. They all like the same things – things that fly right over Steve’s head on a good day – and he’s welcomed them into his Dungeons and Dragons club in school, which is no protection against bullying, but certainly a deterrent from the worst of it (strength in numbers and all that). And sure, Munson’s on his third attempt at graduating, but Steve graduated last summer and he’s achieved nothing since then. Big whoop. He’s floating aimlessly while, day by day, Dustin likes Munson better and better and Steve fades further and further from his mind.
“Ha,” Steve says, in some approximation of a laugh. At least his smile is convincing enough – Carol always said he had it down pat. “So, c'mon, what have you got for me?”
The look Munson gives him is pinched – a little disgusted, maybe. Steve tries not to hate it, to take it personally, but he likes to be liked. He’d very much like for Munson to like him.
“Well,” says Munson, suddenly so bright and sharp and echoing in the small space. “The Special K as always, my liege.”
Steve tips his head graciously in return. He’ll play the part if it’s what Munson wants. It was fun when things were all Christmas and gifts and the potential of snow. Maybe he can invite the kids and Robin over, Nance too. Maybe they can have their own Christmas together without the ghosts of parents both dead and alive looming over them. He can make this better, he just needs a little help.
“Though…” Munson appears to weigh something in his mind. He sizes Steve up, gaze flicking down to him as though he is back on the cafeteria lunch tables, and Steve is some meathead at a moral deficit, leagues beneath him and his crew. Some asshole who will fade into small town obscurity while they venture out into the wide world and change it for the better. “I do have something a tad more… adventurous.”
Steve’s not really looking for an adventure, but he enjoys indulging Munson – very much likes how the teasing fits his face; a jump of the eyebrows, a bashful twist of his curls that poorly hides his toothy smile. Not quite like Robin’s, but something smug, playful. Something electric.
Steve wants to please him, wants Munson to look at him and see not a fallen king, but an equal. Someone worthy of a smile when his hands are empty, not just when they’re full of cash.
But maybe this is as good as it gets.
So, he buys the ket, and then some. His prescription from the crash has weaned down to half, so he takes some oxy too. The acid, well, he’s not against it, but he’s not too keen to revisit the aftermath of Starcourt – when he and Robin thought their systems were clear of the serum, but later discovered that they were sorely mistaken.
Still, this feels a lot like a test, and he’s never been more eager to pass with flying colours. But, as he takes his leave, Steve can’t help but notice how Munson’s face falls, and reckons that he’s been found wanting.
–
The snow doesn’t last. Outside, an ice cold torrential downpour floods Christmas Eve. Steve watches through his window as puddles form on the pool cover, hopes it doesn’t freeze overnight. But why would that matter? It’s not like Barb can get out now.
His tongue tastes bitter. His limbs are smooth and loose, as if suspended by strings. The clean lines of his plaid wallpaper bend into waves which crest in the dark corners. They rise higher, gather and lap against the ceiling. His lips kiss the plaster, sucking in mouthfuls of air before the inevitable—
—his mother screams, she chokes. She claws at his chest and neck for purchase, but the current is stronger. It’s always stronger. A whirlpool, a vortex, it rips them apart. In his hip, something strains and snaps. It’s not supposed to– the other pills don’t do this.
He tips overboard, off the bed, from the bridge. Steve crawls on all fours, breath held to the point of pain. Beneath him, the bedroom carpet is thick and sticky; he wades through it like molasses. When he reaches his door and twists the knob, he’s swept out with the water, which runs down the stairs in rivulets like an electric blue waterfall. It’s all gone now, running beneath doorframes and through splits in the skirting, and still, still, he cannot breathe, he’s going to–
A crackle and a hiss. A reedy and demanding voice from the bedroom, but he can’t go back in there, he can’t!
“ –eve! Jesus, Steve, come in already. Over!”
He never took the walkie with him. He could have called for help before things got too bad, before they took her away. He could have– but the water would have ruined it. It probably already has. None of it’s real, anyway, because Dustin’s not calling him for anything, not when he has Eddie Munson, who is so perfectly made for him, someone that Dustin aspires to be like. Someone that is Steve’s total opposite, so much more real in every way that Steve can never be.
The water chokes him. It spills from his mouth and onto the carpet, feels how it clogs his nose and burns. It’s all wrong. It’s awful. His mother has been dragged so far out that he can no longer reach her. And even she, who wanted him enough to– to cheat on her husband, can’t stand the sight or the sound of him. Even she, who held him like a treasure, made songs for his ears and smiles for his eyes, doesn’t want him. Even his own father.
His father, who is far away and never wants to come home. Who screens his calls and treat him as a hindrance; a house pet in need of feeding. Who hates him, wishes he’d died that night in the river, under the mall, with the slam of Billy Hargrove’s body, Jonathan Byers’ fists; the bath and the balcony and the crush of his face beneath a pillow. His father, who chose him in his own way. Took a son that was not his and pretended for so long to love him. Who held him, kissed him, kept him.
Then his father, who is dead.
Because what is Hopper to him other than dead? A ghost of a father that could have been, if given the chance. Or would never have been, because he was given chances aplenty and refused them all. Steve remembers. He remembers how their paths would cross, how the man hounded him to be better, smarter, less reckless. How ashamed he must have been, for Steve to be his blood.
When the next wave comes, Steve lets it take over. Each step of the stairs fits to a notch of his spine, like he was built to fall. The wave rises to impossible heights, darkens to impossible darkness. It takes him away.
But it just spits him out onto the carpet.
Still, he is drowning.
Still, he remembers.