Chapter Text
College was supposed to be a time where you fly away from the nest and branch out, meet new people. It wasn’t for you. You got to go to school with two of your best friends and your stepbrother. You, Robin, Nancy, and Jonathan all made the mutual decision to go to Indiana University at Bloomington instead of any other original plans made prior so that way you could be close enough to Hawkins in case something happened. None of you wanted to risk not being able to help if the Upside Down reared its ugly head once more. So, now you got to share a small dorm room with Robin and Nancy, which your dad really loved. He thought that if you were sharing such a small space with two other people, you’d stop hurting yourself or do so less frequently. You didn’t share his hope. You knew that you would burn if and when you needed to; you’d always figured out a way to do so before.
The three of them kept a very close eye on you. They were afraid that the moment they looked away, you’d pull your hair or hit your head, not knowing that those two were better options than what you preferred. But as time moved on, the first few weeks of classes passed by, and they seemed to forget that they were so worried about you. You counted your blessings that those two had busy schedules and extracurriculars and other friends. It gave you the space that you’d been lacking since El became a part of your family. At the same time that you felt relief from being away from your quasi-sister, though, you felt anxious. How was she doing in school? Was she being bullied now that you weren’t around? Did the boys protect her? Was she using her powers? Were things normal enough for her now that your dad was back?
They called you weekly. It was annoying. You understood why your dad did it, why he didn’t like you being where nobody knew the full truth about your tendencies, but you didn’t know what he thought he was going to accomplish. Was he simply going to assume that you told him the truth each time you spoke? You could very easily lie and say you’d done nothing to hurt yourself; how would he know otherwise? And Jonathan was present for each phone call for two reasons: firstly, it was his family too; secondly, someone had to translate for you on days you weren’t speaking. He was also the one who would rat you out if you had done something and were trying to lie about it.
Toward the end of September, you had been trying to study for your biology class and utterly failing. You were alone and thought nothing of it when you started hitting your head against the wall, but then the others came back. Your roommates saw this when coming back from dinner.
“Shit,” Nancy muttered when they walked in before she and Robin scurried over to you to try to intervene.
“Hey there,” Robin greeted you hesitantly as she neared. “You need to stop.”
You showed no intention of doing so. They each took one of your hands so that you wouldn’t just start pulling your hair when they made you stop hitting your head. Once your hands were secured, they tried to cushion your head. Whatever happened when they did that caused them to exchange a glance.
“How long have you been doing this?” Nancy asked you.
You shook your head and grunted. You had no clue.
“Okay, well,” Robin began, “you really need to stop this time because, um, well, you’re bleeding. And I know that you’ve had your fair share of concussions and have a high pain tolerance and everything, but this really isn’t good. I mean, you’re doing more damage to yourself than the Upside Down did to you, and it killed you once.”
“Robin,” Nancy grabbed her attention.
“Right, rambling. Sorry.”
“Yeah, but it’s working, so keep going.”
“Oh, okay, sure. Um, just focus on me, okay Hopper?” Robin asked.
You nodded. You didn’t even care that this was only to get you to stop hurting yourself; you just liked listening to her talk. You thought her ramblings were cute.
“So, you-you were doing bio?” she checked, and you nodded. “I mean, yeah, bio sucks, dude. I remember taking it back in high school. I had Mrs. Norton, who was just the literal worst. A colossal bitch. Nothing she said ever made any sense, and all she did was repeat what was in the textbook, so nothing ever got clarified, and I thought I was going to pull all my hair out that year,” she laughed before realizing what she said. “Not-not that that’s an option. You don’t get to do that, either. I was just, you know, like, exaggerating. I do that a lot. I think I got it from my mom. She’s always blowing things way out of proportion, and, like, I know when people get my point and stuff, but it’s like I just can’t shut up sometimes, so I keep going and going. Kind of like I’m doing right now.”
You began to laugh. A true laugh escaped your lips, and you’d pay to keep seeing the smile that spread across Robin’s lips.
“Can we maybe move away from the wall now?” Nancy asked you, interrupting your moment with Robin.
You slowly nodded. You were okay. You were fine.
“Okay, good,” Robin said as she led you away from your bed to stand you in the middle of the room. “I’m gonna get some first aid stuff, okay? If I let go of your hand, do you promise to keep it out of your hair?”
You nodded. You didn’t want her to let go of your hand, but you weren’t going to tug at your hair if she were to do so. She moved away from you slowly, keeping her eye on you just in case, but you kept your word (your nod?).
“I know that you get frustrated,” Nancy started, causing you to divert your eyes from Robin to her, “but what does hitting your head really do to help? I mean, won’t that make learning kind of worse?”
You shrugged. It wasn’t about the kind of damage that you were inflicting; it was the simple fact that you were inflicting damage.
Robin handed the first aid stuff to Wheeler, who began to clean and disinfect where your head had split open on the wall.
“Yeah, did you want to, like, talk to us about it or something? Or look at us about it?” Robin jokingly corrected herself.
You shook your head.
“Should I call Jonathan?” Nancy asked. “Because he’s the only one who speaks fluent Hopper.”
You shook your head again. You didn’t want him to know. He would tell your dad during the next phone call, and all that would do is worry your dad when he had enough to worry about with Will and El.
“Then will you talk to us? Please?” Robin begged. “Pretty please? I’d say pretty please with cherries on top, but I know that you don’t like cherries because they remind you of cough medicine, and you don’t understand how people can like cherries despite everyone knowing that all standard liquid medicine is always cherry flavored.”
You looked at her strangely. How did she know that? You’d never told her that. Or at least you didn’t remember telling her that. As she’s pointed out tonight already, you’ve had quite a few concussions, quite a bit of brain damage in your day.
“Remember in middle school when we had a class sundae party for the end of the year? Everyone made their own sundaes, and you were the only person who didn’t put a cherry on theirs, and when I asked you about it, you made this face of, like, disgust, and then Jonathan explained it right before he started questioning your participation in the event, and later your dad had to come pick you up because you were throwing up because you had too much sugar,” she explained.
You looked over to Nancy to see if she was going to corroborate this story because you truly didn’t remember that.
Wheeler nodded. “I held your hair.”
“So, anyway,” Robin regained control of the conversation, “I will do, like, anything if you will just talk to us. You haven’t spoken since move-in weekend. It’s been weeks. And, you know, we’re worried. Like, we know that it’s just kind of what you do, but we always thought that maybe it was just an in-public or at-school thing, that maybe you were a bit livelier at home, but it seems that maybe not? We-we’re just worried.”
You smirked. “Anything?”
Her face lit up like a Christmas tree and she nodded excitedly. “Anything.”
“Okay. My request: take a breath, Ro.”
Your two roommates burst out laughing before they finished patching you up.
“So, um…” Nancy said but clearly didn’t know where she was going with it.
“I’m sorry,” you apologized to them both. “You shouldn’t have to…I’m not your problem, guys.”
“No, you’re not,” Robin agreed. “You’re our friend. And I don’t know about Nance, but you’re stuck with me.”
You closed your eyes and swallowed, trying not to think about the last person to say that to you: Eddie. God, what you’d give to be able to run to him again, tell him that you were living with Robin; he’d tease you relentlessly for it. He would let you complain about it because you were still hopelessly in love with her. Jesus, you missed him so goddamn much. You guessed that’s what happened when you only ever truly let one person into your world. Each time that person leaves, the light fades and the darkness eats you. It was beginning to eat you again, and you felt your hand twitch. You needed to do something, anything, but you couldn’t because your roommates came home. Maybe if you just shut your brain off, it’d shut up.
“What was that?” Nancy asked in concern. “Are you okay? Are you about to do something else?”
“Um, no. No,” you shook your head. “I-I think I’m just gonna go to bed.”
They frowned at you and reminded you, “It’s seven thirty.”
You shrugged. “Just tired. Guess slamming your head against a wall repeatedly will do that,” you laughed.
“Okay,” Robin said.
“Just…maybe just smoke some weed next time instead?” Nancy requested. That was arguably her best idea yet.
When you went into the bathroom to get ready for bed, you burned yourself. For a few moments, you were able to breathe again. You weren’t drowning. And, sure, maybe it got a little worse for a little while after that, but if you were the only one who knew, then what was the harm? It wasn’t like Eddie was there to call you out on it. It got too bad, though, and you had to start coming up with excuses again because you had to venture to places that others could see. Remembering Eddie holding your hands through your breakdowns, you had to burn there. You had to burn at least one of your hands, which you then had to write off as an accident with the stove in the common room, pretend that you were actually cooking something. They didn’t have enough information to call bull, so they were forced to buy it.
When you went home for fall break with the others in early October, you had to confront it with your family, though. El had been spying. She missed you, and you almost never actually spoke on your phone calls home, so how else was she going to know how you were doing? Well, she certainly saw how you were doing that last week before fall break, midterm week. She caught you burning yourself and told Joyce and your dad. You were in deep shit. Hell, your dad was in deep shit with Joyce about it because he knew. He’d known for a while. She was livid that he never told her, especially when they were making their contingency plans at the mall if something were to happen to one of them. She thought she should have known about something like this.
“Don’t blame yourself,” you told her. “Or him. I hid it from him for four years before he found out, and he’s a cop. No offence but hiding things from you is infinitely easier than hiding things from him.”
“So-so-so, the whole time in California?” she checked.
You nodded.
“No, honey,” she said sadly. “Why-why didn’t you say something or-or-or I don’t know, glare a specific way at Jonathan to let us know?”
You shrugged. You were incapable of asking for help. Why was that so hard for them to understand?
“Kid, you know I’m gonna ask,” your dad warned you.
You rolled your eyes and sighed, lifting up your shirt to reveal your stomach, littered with fresh burns over old scars. You moved the neckline to show your shoulders. You removed the bandage over your left hand to show them that. Finally, you pointed to the specific spots on your thighs that you’d burned. You watched as he tried to catalogue and compartmentalize everything, but what tore you apart was Joyce beginning to cry. You didn’t want her to cry for you. You weren’t worth her tears.
Because it was October, these new injuries made your father worry ten times more than he perhaps would have otherwise. October was the most dangerous month of the year for you. There was an obvious tension between you and your dad, but he never once explicitly asked about it or brought it up. No, he left that to your stepbrother.
“You never talk about her,” Jonathan pointed out.
You raised an eyebrow at him. You never talked about anything.
“You know what I mean.”
You shrugged. What the fuck was he expecting from you?
The actual anniversary date of her death passed while you were home for that break, and you had a very difficult time doing what you needed to do. Your father was watching you like a hawk. Any time you tried to leave the house, he stopped you, knowing damn well what you were going to do. Hell, he was hesitant to let you go to the fucking bathroom. He checked you for a lighter practically any time you went in there. You actually had to sneak out of the house. Legitimately sneak out of the house like you were some 15-year-old kid with a boyfriend your dad hated or something. It was so dumb.
October wasn’t a total loss for you like it normally was, though. You got dragged to a Halloween party by Nancy and Robin. You went mainly to assuage their worries about you never leaving the dorm and having no friends (which wasn’t completely true; you managed to find a dealer here, so very technically you could count her as a friend maybe). You didn’t drink normally, especially after your dad’s little bout of alcoholism after Sara died, but you had one or two drinks that night. You smoked a bit too much, too, so you weren’t exactly sober. It was making the noise and the crowd a little unbearable, honestly. You had to get out of there, at least step outside or something if not leave completely. You couldn’t leave without Nancy and Robin or without telling them. Luckily, Robin followed you outside when you stepped out for some air.
“Hey, where are you going there?” she asked, grabbing your hand before you made it too far. “You shouldn’t really be going anywhere in the state you seem to be in.”
She kept talking, rambling about something or other knowing her, but you couldn’t focus on her words. All you could focus on was how pretty this girl was. How ethereal. How good. And in your intoxicated little head, for some God forsaken reason—maybe it was the way she was rambling, the way she was smirking, the way she grabbed your hand—you thought it was a good idea to kiss her. You leaned up and captured her lips with yours. The second that you pulled back from her, it was like you instantly sobered up. When you saw her just staring at you, you knew you fucked up majorly. You immediately sprinted away from that party, and you didn’t stop until you were in your dorm. It was a little shortsighted as an escape plan since she lived in the same goddamn room, but it was better than nothing, right?
You locked yourself in the bathroom after fishing out your lighter from under your pillow. Did you seriously just do that? Why on God’s green earth would you do that? She was your friend. You didn’t even know if she liked girls, let alone you. She shouldn’t like you. You’d question her sanity just a bit if she did. You found a spot on your stomach that wasn’t completely fucked up yet, so you held the flame there for a few seconds. Not really having a lot of other space to work with, you pulled down your pants and added a couple of burns to your collection on your thighs before you heard banging on the door.
“You can’t stay in there forever!” Robin called out.
Maybe not, but you could certainly try. You groaned in frustration because you knew that ultimately, she was right. You’d have to see her eventually. You lived with her for Christ’s sake.
“Come on. It’s not just so we can talk about that, though we definitely should, but I’m just-I’m scared you’re gonna hurt yourself or something in there. Pull your hair out of your head or something.”
You hesitantly opened the door and stepped out into your dorm room, pleading with her, “I’m so sorry, RoRo. Please just forget that I did anything, and we never have to talk about it and—”
Before you could finish speaking, she stepped toward you, grabbing your face in her hands and kissing you again. It startled you for a moment, but you kissed her back. She smiled against your lips, moving her hands from your face to your waist and walking you back against the wall, slotting her right leg between yours. You pulled away after a minute.
“Ro, please. If you don’t mean this…”
“Of course I mean this,” she told you as if she couldn’t believe that you thought that she didn’t. “I’ve been wanting to do this for years, but I didn’t even know if you like girls. You know, you were with Eddie and then—”
You choked on air. “I was what now?”
“You were with Eddie.”
You shook your head.
“He was the only one you told anything to, though, and you spent so much time with him that we all just assumed…”
You laughed. “Maybe in another life but not this one. In this one, I bitched to him about how much I like you. I just didn’t think that this would be reciprocal.”
“I promise you that it is,” she tried to assure you.
You looked at her oddly before telling her, “Nancy can’t know.”
She frowned. “She’d be fine with it. She knows about me; she wouldn’t—”
“Robin,” you cut her off. “I’m not ready for anyone to know. Plus, I really don’t want my dad knowing, and she kind of dates my stepbrother.”
She nodded. “Okay.”
She began to kiss you again, and you thought that maybe college wasn’t going to suck so much after all.