Chapter Text
"Emotion sickness
Distorted eyes when everything is clearly dying"
Exhaustion. Pain. Nausea.
Three fractured ribs, dehydration, a mild concussion, orbital bone fracture, and bruises too numerous to count, had been his preliminary diagnosis from the paramedics. They had wanted to give him IV fluids immediately but the minute the man came near him with a needle, he had flinched away violently and decided he had enough medical attention for the night.
To be honest, Steve Harrington had had enough medical attention to last him the rest of his life.
Ignoring the warnings of the paramedics, Steve slipped a rough, scratchy blanket over his shoulders and hopped out of the back of the ambulance. The bright flashing lights from the multitude of first responder vehicles hurt his eyes but at this point, his head was already threatening to explode, what was a little more hurt?
He passed Robin, pausing a moment to check in on her. An attractive EMT was pressing an ice pack to her cheek. Meeting his friend's (and wow, isn't that a crazy new truth) bloodshot eyes, he flashed his patent Harrington smile and a quick thumbs up. He also exaggeratedly looked from the pretty tech to Robin to drive home his intentions. Then he added a wink, with his non-busted eye for good measure.
He could literally feel Robin's disgust from where he was standing.
Chuckling to himself, he passed Robin's ambulance to where Will was standing. Just beyond the boy, Steve could see Jonanthan and Nancy huddled together inside the back of another ambulance. Honestly, Steve had no clue that Hawkins even had that many ambulances in the first place. But then again, a tragedy this size had never rocked the town before.
For a moment, the breath in his lungs seized up and he had to press a hand to his chest.
He forced his mind to skitter away from the thoughts of all those people, surely dead now, that had melted (melted?!) to form the Mind Flayer. Or form his weapon; he didn't really understand the basics because, well, Russians. He also had to force the image of Billy Hargrove, standing there, a lone sentinel against all the terror the Upside Down could bring, above Eleven's small form.
His mind really only held enough room for shock and exhaustion at the moment. The horror and grief, or whatever terrible emotion he could drown in, needed to wait. Wait at least until he was no longer wearing a bloody sailor suit.
Before he could reach the Byers and Nancy, Will dropped his own terrible blanket and took off across the parking lot. Steve followed his trajectory to see Mrs. Byers emerging from the crowd. She seemed to be dressed in one of the Russian guard's uniforms. Again his mind shied away at the thought of the guards he had encountered during his stay underground. Instead, he watched the youngest Byers get swept up in his mother's embrace.
"Steve," Nancy's quiet voice took his attention away from the reunion, "Are you okay?"
"This?" He gestured to the bruising on his face, "Oh yeah, it's nothing."
"You look beat to hell," Nancy was kind enough to not voice the 'again' that he knew they were all thinking.
"Really, it's nothing, nothing too bad. Last year was worse…" he trailed off. Last year was pretty bad, for sure, because, Billy. He shook his head to clear his thoughts, a slight mistake due to all the pain, but it worked. "But what about you two? You guys okay?"
"Define okay." Jonathan scoffed quietly, watching his mother clutch Will to her chest over Steve's shoulder.
"Well, you're not dead." Steve tried for light hearted, but the statement fell flat.
"No, not dead," Jonathan whispered.
Defeat and resignation seemed to fill the ambulance. It felt almost like a physical weight on his chest and shoulders, granted that could be the result of the cracked ribs, but still. Steve felt it deep in his bones, this overwhelming urge to make sure they were okay. Even though he knew they weren't.
Looking at the butterfly closures on Jonathan's face, he tried a more straightforward approach. "What's the damage?" He gestured vaguely with his hand.
"They think broken ribs and a concussion," Nancy answered for Jonathan. "I just have a sprained wrist and bruises."
"Hey, we're twins!" Steve opened the blanket he had clutched around himself and pointed to his own ribs. "At least three ribs and another concussion. I think this is becoming my thing. Concussion guy, I'm gonna be known as Concussion Guy."
Nancy's eyes were soft as she took in the damage to his face, "I still don't understand what happened to you guys."
"Oh you know, terrible job, awful customers, decoding a secret Russian code and discovering secret Russian base under said terrible job. The usual Hawkins deal." He sensed movement behind him, tensing up even as he recognized Eleven making an abortive step towards Mrs. Byers and Will.
He watched Mrs. Byers meet the young girl's eyes over her son's shoulders and he was suddenly hit with a crystal clear image in his mind.
Hopper. Standing with his back to the gate. Smiling softly, resigned. But filled with so much love.
Joyce. Watching, stretched impossibly thin. Understanding with a sense of grief, too terrible to name.
She turns the keys.
He doesn't realize he's listing until Jonathan's hand is gripping his bicep tightly.
"Steve?" Jonathan is half out of the ambulance, using all of his weakened strength to keep Steve upright. "What's wrong?"
He guides Steve to the bumper of the ambulance and forces him to sit down. Nancy, moving to the other side of the bus, lending a hand to help stabilize him.
"Hopper. It's Hopper. He's gone." Steve doesn't know how he knows it, but he does. It's concrete in his mind, an absolute fact.
"What?" Nancy looks from where Steve is seated to where his gaze is focused. Mrs. Byers hasn't really moved from where she clung to her youngest son, but her devastated stare is still locked onto Eleven.
"Mom's alone," Jonathan whispers, watching his family. "I think Steve's-" his voice breaks, "I think Steve's right."
Nancy looks horrified at that prospect, "No, that can't be true. Hopper, he can't... Jonathan, Hopper can't be dead."
She might not believe it but Steve knew it, felt it deep within his fractured bones. Dropping the blanket from around his shoulders, he shakily climbed to his feet. Someone had to go to Eleven. She didn't know. Well, maybe she did, what with her telepathy or mind powers or whatever it was she could do. No one had exactly been clear on that for him either. But no way he was going to leave that small girl standing alone in the parking lot of the damn mall, waiting for a father that would never come.
Limping toward where Eleven was standing, his movement was stopped by a hand on his wrist. Jonathan. Steve had to suppress his first instinct to rip his hand away, knowing somewhere in his mind that Jonathan meant no harm but he had been tied up too much lately.
"Mom is going to her now," Jonathan explained as they both watched Joyce detangle herself from Will and walk over to Eleven with watery eyes. From where they were standing, Steve couldn't make out what she was telling Eleven exactly, but his feelings were confirmed when he saw the girl let out a wail and collapse into Joyce's arms.
A grief, stronger than he had ever expected to feel, crashed into him at that sight. Tears pricked in his eyes, stinging at the bruised flesh on his face. Hopper was a constant in their twisted Upside Down world for the past three years. He had kept everyone together, even if Steve didn't really know what was going on or where he exactly fit into everything. Plus, the Chief had been kind to him. Not something he could say about a lot of adults.
After Eleven had closed the Gate and the Mind Flayer had been exorcised from Will, when everyone had reconvened at the Byers' house and saw the damage that Billy Hargrove had done to his face, Hopper had been the one to who drove him to the hospital. He had been the one who stayed by his side when his parents missed the multiple phone calls the hospital tried. He had even driven Steve home after the hospital released him and they both realized no one else was going to come collect him.
After driving the dazed and medicated teen home, Hopper had pressed a phone number into his hand and made him promise to call if he ever needed anything.
Over the following months, Steve looked at where he had stuck that phone number in the corner of his mirror frame, knowing he should make a call, but doubting himself before even picking up his phone.
Even though he had never gone through with calling Hopper, it had been comforting knowing he had had that option.
Now it was gone. Hopper was gone.
He didn't know when he had started, but Steve realized with a jolt, that Jonathan's hand on his wrist had slipped down and Steve was now clutching it tightly in his own. Nancy had stepped down from the ambulance and stood closely on Steve's other side. She pressed her body along his entire side with her fingers twisted up in the hem of his stupid sailor top.
She was crying silently.
He was too.
Jonathan looked wrecked, his face cracked and open in his grief, but managing to reign in his own tears. Steve knew that while the other man felt sadness in Hopper's death, he was focused on his mother and her devastation. The three of them all wanted to rush over to small huddle of Joyce and Eleven, but there was nothing they could do. There was nothing any of them could do.
We're just three kids, Steve thought wildly, we're supposed to be thinking about the next party, who was dating who, what can I buy with my next paycheck? Not dealing with another death. Not again.
Barb.
Bob.
Billy.
Hopper.
It was too much. And he was just on the periphery of things, he couldn't imagine what those with actual ties to those who've died were going through.
(Well, he kind of did with Nancy and it was all bullshit.)
There was going to be more grief and sadness in the days to come, Steve realized. It wasn't going to be their own private loss, this time the Upside Down took more from Hawkins than it had in the past two years. How was the government going to explain away this one?
Beside him, he felt both Nancy and Jonathan stiffen. Someone had stepped up to their ambulance.
"Steven."
Out of all the insanity that had happened in the past 48 hours, it was telling that the most surprising thing for him was the sight of his father in the parking lot of the Starcourt Mall.
"Dad?" He felt his body automatically straightening up into the correct posture that his father expected of him even though his ribs protested at the movement. "What are you doing- did someone call you?"
John Harrington was a tall, imposing man, and Steve spent whatever time he had with his father, trying to avoid his glare. He was never really successful.
And now that glare was laser focused on where Jonathan's hand was still clutched in Steve's own.
"Yes, imagine my surprise when I received a call tonight, letting me know my son was somehow involved in a fire at the mall." His father raised his cold eyes to meet Steve's, disappointment and disgust plain to see.
You didn't care when they tried to call you last time I was beat half to death, he thought desperately, what makes tonight any different?
Without waiting for an answer, his father reached a large hand up and clasped it around the base of his neck, pushing Jonathan roughly to the side. The grip was tight and far too close to where the needle had gone into his neck for his comfort.
"Mr. Harrington," Nancy started, an impulsive urge to defend Steve from something she wasn't even sure of.
But to John Harrington, Nancy was nothing more than an irritating fly, of no real concern. He brushed her aside, albeit more gently than he had with Jonathan, and propelled Steve forward and away from them. "If you will excuse me Ms. Wheeler, I need to take my son home now." His voice left no room for argument.
A part of Steve's mind revelled in the idea that his father cared enough to come get him from this disaster. He cares! He frantically chanted to himself and he was scruffed out of the parking lot.
"Say nothing until we are away from here." He father grit out when he saw his son start to open his mouth. "I will have no further embarrassment from you tonight."
Whatever brief sense of hope Steve had felt was doused with those words. That was why tonight was different. All of the first responders here, the army, the media that was swarming, even though they weren't being allowed in, all of eyes of Hawkins were trained on the mall tonight and John Harrington's failure of a son was at the center of it all, in a garish blue sailor suit. His father had to minimize the damage to his reputation.
So Steve kept silent. He allowed himself to be dragged to the car that had been parked just out of sight. He allowed himself to be shoved roughly in, with no care to his obvious injuries.
He allowed himself to be driven away from all of his friends.
"What the hell were you thinking?" His father exploded with they were far enough away from Starcourt. "How could you get caught all up in that mess?"
At his father's outburst, Steve had instinctively thrown his body as far away as could in the front seat. Which wasn't very far. He knew, daring a look at his father, that his reaction just deepened the disgust felt for him.
"Answer me, Steven."
"It was a fire, Dad," he whispered, trying to stick to the flimsy cover story that the government obviously fed to his father. "I work there."
"Yes, you worked there." He sneered, "My brilliant, successful son, on his spectacular career path, scooping ice cream."
He couldn't have this argument again. Not now. Not tonight. "You told me to get a job." He still found himself whispering.
"I could not hear you, you know how I feel about your mumbling, Steven."
This time Steve didn't bother to answer, it would do him no good. Instead he pressed himself further into the passenger side door and wrapped his arms around his aching ribs. Of course, he really should have expected this. He really was that dumb. The bruises and nail bat in '83 were never acknowledged, the hospital bill and night terrors from '84 were brushed to the side, but his son at the site of a freak mall fire, that was too much for his father. Nevermind the fact that none of his injuries made sense. It was a miracle he was even allowed to leave the circle of government agents without any more of their disclosure statements signed.
Which in itself was pretty odd.
"How did they let you know I was here?" He asked instead of answering his father's earlier question.
"What?"
"I'm 19, they didn't need to call anyone for me and I refused medical treatment, so they didn't need to get any permissions for any medications. Who let you know I was here?" Steve asked, confused. It felt like he could see the larger puzzle at hand but the pieces he had were blurry and not all there. Something seemed off centered.
His father slowed the car to a stop, there was no traffic in the neighborhood at this time of night. After placing the car into park, he leaned over and gently cupped Steve's face, his thumb resting high on his cheekbone.
For another moment, Steve was foolishly lulled by his fervent desire for a caring father and he didn't resist.
But John Harrington's face held none of that parental concern that his son wished for. He pressed his thumb sharply into the bruised flesh, exactly where the bone was cracked. Steve hissed in pain and tried to pull away. But his father was too strong and there wasn't anywhere to go in the small car.
"Stupid child, the police got records of all the employees in the mall and notified their families." The fingers at the base of his skull pressed tightly over the needle bruise. "I told you not to get a job at that damned mall, and look what it got you. You disappoint me. You always disappoint me." With a final squeeze, his father let go and switch the gear back into drive.
It was hard to take a deep breath again. But it was more than just damaged ribs. When his father had gripped him tightly, Steve felt his anger as strongly as the fingers on his face. The burning, roiling rage that wanted to break out and destroy his son, it felt like a physical slap. But underneath that rage there had been a needle's edge of fear. Sharp and pricking.
John Harrington was afraid.
But Steve knew, he wouldn't be fooled a third time this night, he knew that fear was not for the safety of his son. So that begged the question.
What was his father afraid of?