Chapter Text
November 20th, 1992
Steve opened the door to his apartment with a heavy sigh. The week had been…long, to say the least. With the holidays and college applications deadlines rapidly approaching, his office had been filled with students with a number of concerns. And while Steve wanted to help them—and is quite frankly glad they are actually coming to talk with him instead of just internalising that shit—there’s only so much he can do and sometimes it weighed on him.
(Like, what do you tell a kid who has to go to his dad’s for Thanksgiving, even though he hates being there but the court agreed on joint custody and CPS doesn’t actually consider his dad to be unsafe? What can you do beyond reviewing your anxiety management strategies and double-checking if any new information has surfaced that could be used to justify a call to CPS? How do you just sit there, wishing you could hug the kid and tell him everything’s gonna be fine one day when you remember thinking the same thing at his age and knowing that ‘someday’ wasn’t soon enough?)
He made his way over to the couch, discarding his jacking on the way, and sat down heavily, pulling off his boots before unwrapping his itchy but admittedly warm scarf.
(Joyce had given it to him when he left for school. The stripes are crooked, it’s a little too long, and—like he said—itchy. But she had wrapped her arms around him in the tightest hug she could and told him, “A reminder to take care of yourself until you come back to us, sweetie.” And Steve was incapable of doing anything other than returning the hug and wearing the stupid scarf every day.)
He was debating poking around his kitchen for something to eat or just calling for take-out when the phone rang. Steve pulled himself to his feet and trudged towards the phone. He swore if it was Dustin asking if Steve was bringing a girl home for the holidays again, he was gonna strangle the kid.
“Hello?”
“Is it weird if I bring April to Thanksgiving? It is right?” Steve rolled his eyes but smiled despite himself.
“No, Robin, it isn’t weird. Joyce explicitly told you to bring your girlfriend. And the kids are dying to meet her. ”
“I know, but what if we wanna, I don’t know, reminisce about the Upside Down? That’d be weird with April there, right? Or she’ll finally realise I’m crazy and—”
“Robin,” Steve interrupted. “When have we ever ‘reminisced’ on the Upside Down?”
“Okay but—”
“But what? April is crazy about you, and I know for a fact she’s been dying to meet everyone. Plus you confirmed she’d be coming weeks ago. What is this really about?”
“Hey!” she protested. “Don’t pull your guidance counsellor moves on me! That breaks the friendship code!”
“Rob.” He heard her sigh on the other end.
“What if, I bring April, and it turns out everyone’s…weird about it. About my girlfriend. Like they’re all just pretending or something.”
“Robin,” Steve said softly, “They aren’t pretending. I mean Will—”
“—is Joyce’s son. He’s a part of the core group. And he almost got killed by the Upside Down three times. We both know it’s not the same.”
“No, it’s not the same,” he conceded. “But I’ll be there with you the whole time, and if things get weird—which they won’t— but if they do, then the three of us will leave.”
“Steve, I can’t—” Robin stopped, and sounded a little choked up. “I can’t ask you to—you love our Thanksgiving. I can’t ask you to leave.”
“You aren’t. I’m offering. You’re my family, Robin. Just as much as they are. And I would never leave you in a position like that. You’re my platonic soulmate.” Robin laughed wetly.
“With a capital P.”
“Yeah, with a capital P.”
“Okay,” she said weakly, then repeated it with more confidence. “Okay, I can do this. I’ve fought Russians, and demogorgons, and worked in fucking customer service for two years. I can bring my girlfriend home to meet my family.”
“Fuck yeah, you can.”
“Thanks, Steve. I’ll see you Wednesday?”
“Yup, I’m driving down Tuesday,” Steve confirmed.
“Alright, I’ll see you then. Drive safe, Harrington.”
“Right back at you, Buckley.”
They hung up, then Steve called the Chinese place down the street. In just four days, he’ll see his family again.
Steve never really cared much for the holidays growing up. He didn’t hate them or anything, he just was kind of indifferent. Holidays in the Harrington house were mostly boring fancy parties in too-tight clothes, expensive birthday and Christmas presents opened alone, and postcards sent from exotic locations during spring break and summers. And they never celebrated Thanksgiving. It wasn’t the kind of holiday that you could really show off for, and besides his mother was an awful cook. Thanksgiving was just another day that, once he was out of high school, no longer held any significance.
So when all that Upside Down shit went down—for the fourth and final time, and the Byers moved back to Hawkins, and everything was as close to normal as it was ever gonna get— and Hopper pulled him aside to ask if he had any plans for Friday, Steve had just stared blankly.
“Uh, no? Why, is it someone’s birthday?” He was pretty sure he had all of their birthdays memorised, but if pressed he was a little hesitant on Erica or El’s.
“No, it’s no one’s birthday,” Hopper said, slight confusion on his face. “Joyce—”
“Oh, are you and Joyce going out that night? I’d probably be available to babysit.”
“No, Steve, look.” Hopper looked uncomfortable. Not with Steve necessarily. More with whatever it was he was about to say or do. “Joyce wants to host everyone. She doesn’t want to take people away from their families so she thought the Friday after would be a better day. It’s not gonna be a big deal, but she thinks it’s important. Wants to make it a little special. Not like you have to dress up or anything. It—”
“Uh, the Friday after what?” Steve interrupted. Hopper stopped and looked at Steve like he’d grown a second head.
“Thanksgiving. It’s this Thursday.”
The duh was not said but heavily implied.
“Oh yeah. Well, like I said no plans here so I’ll be there.” He hesitated, then added, “Am I supposed to bring something?”
“No, just you. Like I said, Joyce is pretty excited to host.”
“Alright cool. I’ll see you on Friday then.”
“Good,” Hopper said. “Make sure you don’t eat too much the day before. Gotta leave room.” Steve laughed.
“Yeah, that won’t be a problem.”
He turned to leave—after all El and Max had been safely dropped off at the Byers-Hopper home and Hopper had extended his awkward invitation to dinner, so Steve was no longer needed—when a hand landed on his shoulder.
“Kid, I…haven’t seen your old man recently.”
Steve knew what this was. He glanced over his shoulder as he answered the unspoken question.
“Yeah, after the whole ‘earthquake’ thing, they decided it was time to move on.” He shrugged like it didn’t matter. Because it didn’t matter. So his parents were gonna again, big whoop.
“…but you're still here,” Hopper said slowly.
“Yeah, well I told them I wasn’t leaving, so they just left me the house.”
Didn’t bother with the excuses he had given his parents. After all, if anyone was going to understand why Steve was compelled to stay in this hellhole, it was him. Hopper forced Steve to turn around and face him.
“You’re living there alone?” he asked, eyes serious.
“I mean Robin crashes there more often than not, and the kids make an appearance now and again, but yeah.” Steve shrugged again and tried to put on that “Unbothered King Steve” air that he used to wear so well.
“Steve.”
Clearly, he’d lost his touch.
“Hop, don’t worry about it. It’s not a big deal. This is pretty standard, honest.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“My dad’s always travelled a lot for work. Them being gone isn’t anything new. I’ll see you Friday, okay.” He tried to leave again but the grip on his shoulder tightened.
“Steve, if—”
“Hopper, honestly, it’s fine.”
“IF, you ever need anything, our door is open to you.”
Steve just stared.
“After everything you’ve done for this town, for those kids, you deserve a place where someone will take care of you, alright? I know you’re an adult, but still. You deserve to be cared for. See you on Friday.”
Steve nodded quickly and if Hopper noticed the tears brimming in his eyes, he was kind enough to ignore them.
That one year was all it took for it to become an annual tradition.
And Steve’s favourite holiday.
***
November 24th, 1992
Steve was off to a late start but would make it to Hawkins before it got too dark. He wouldn’t be the first to arrive—Will, El, and Mike would have arrived Monday, and Nancy and Jonathan earlier this morning—but he would beat Robin and the other kids. Perks of living within driving distance. He hummed along with the radio absentmindedly as he drove, half excited and half dreading the return to Hawkins.
Steve had…well, if he was being honest he had never really loved Hawkins. It’s too small, filled with the same people who became less interesting the older he got. And after everything that had happened, it was hard (read: fucking impossible) to get a good night’s sleep. Especially, when it kept happening, over and over again like the nightmare you just can’t wake up from. And that wasn’t even mentioning everything they had lost—everything Steve had lost.
So no, Steve didn’t exactly love Hawkins.
But it was the place he had his first kiss with Nancy, which was still sweet despite the way everything turned out. It was the place he met Dustin and truly learned to look outside himself. It was the place he adopted a gaggle of loud, rude, ungrateful brats that he would die for thousand times over. It was the place he had met Robin, fallen in love with her, and then discovered something better than a girlfriend: a real friend. It was the place he gained a real family; one that was loud and embarrassing and annoying and nosy and warm and messy and perfect. It was the place where he got to meet, however briefly, Eddie and be reminded that people could always be more than what he first expected—reminded to be more than what people first expected.
Steve shook his head sharply.
Thinking of Eddie never led to anything good.
Steve knew there was no timeline for grief. Knew that everyone grieved on their own time in their own way and there was really no right or wrong. And yet, he was almost certain that, after six years, it should have faded. That the pit in his stomach, the tightness in his throat, the burning of his eyes had all lasted longer than they had any right to last. That he shouldn’t ache for a man Steve had only known for a week, had a total of one private conversation with, and who prior to their first real meeting had almost certainly been a dick to Eddie.
And wasn’t that telling? He didn’t even know for sure.
Couldn’t pin down a moment he had been an asshole to Eddie specifically, yet knew with clarity that he must have. After all, that had been the first thing Eddie told him: that he thought Steve was a douche back in high school and was annoyed by how much Henderson talked about him. Maybe that was why Steve just couldn’t stop grieving. Because Eddie never got to know him, not really. And he never got to know Eddie.
They had just been two scared boys pretending to be grown-ups in hell.
“It’s not fair,” Steve breathed into his empty car.
Saying it was pointless. Nothing was fair, what good did acknowledging it do?
Life hadn’t been fair when it allowed a monster to drag Will Byers into hell when he was trying to ride his bike home.
It hadn’t been fair when it ripped El away from her mother so some psychopath could perform experiments in a government lab.
It hadn’t been fair when it let those stupid horrible monsters attack the people of Hawkins over and over again, and had expected literal children to do something about it.
It hadn’t been fair when it let Russians tie, and drug, and beat himself—but not Robin, never Robin, thank god—senseless over information he didn’t have.
It hadn’t been fair when it forced Eddie into all this fucking shit when he was trying to give a scared girl a good night’s sleep.
It hadn’t been fair when it watched Lucas fight for his life so that he could save Max, or when it had refused to let her go without some permanent damage.
It hadn’t been fair when it let Eddie die a hero’s death and be remembered as a murderer and cultist by the town he saved. When he was left alone, without so much as a proper funeral.
Fuck, Steve thought as he felt the tears drip down his face.
Maybe that was the worst part. Because when the dust settled, they all had each other. Bruised arms wrapped around each other too tightly, bleeding lips whispered assurances in ears, shaking knees struggling to hold them up and they all knew when—not if, never if—the nightmares came, they could sound off on the walkie-talkie and somewhere from the darkness a familiar voice would reply. They had tangible reminders they were alive and that meant that could keep living.
The kids could go back to high school and restart the Hellfire club, albeit off campus. Robin could go to college and get a “totally useless” music degree. El and Mike could stay together in Hawkins, and stay together, as the others made their way to various colleges. Nancy and Jonathan could finally talk, and come clean, and try again. Will could come out to his family and could accept their hugs and words even as he cried. Lucas and Max could make their way to California and finally give themselves a real chance between the struggles of college life. Joyce and Hopper could stop dancing around each other and just make it official, giving Jonathan and Will the father they had forgotten they wanted. Steve could go to college after heavy persuasion from Joyce and Nancy and Robin and Dustin and even Hopper. He could move into an apartment with Robin and rib her mercilessly when she moved in with April after two months of dating. They could come together at least once a year (although it was usually more), let down in front of the only people who would ever truly understand the hell they had lived through, and somehow laugh with each other, content in the knowledge they were still, impossibly, alive.
And Eddie had never gotten that chance to be a part of their family, to have a life of peace, to fucking graduate high school. And he never would, even though he might have deserved it the most. Steve closed his eyes, raised a hand to wipe the tears pouring down his face, and spared a moment to wish that he could go back in time. He thinks if, given the chance, he could have become friends with Eddie. That things could have been different.
Then he heard a horn blaring and abruptly remembered he was driving.
He opened his eyes, squinting at the brightness before realising the brightness was the headlights of the car he was about to collide with head-on. Steve jerked the wheel hard, the way he was taught to never do—“don’t overcorrect, it just leads to a different accident, Steven.” His tires made a noise they were not supposed to make and Steve tried to swing the car the opposite way, but it was like everything was happening in slow motion and he just couldn’t move the car faster than the tree hurdling at him.
“Fuck, fuck, are you okay?!”
Steve tried to open his eyes and say, ‘Do I look fine? I just hit a tree going sixty’ but all that came out was a pained groan.
“Shit. Okay, stay there. I’m gonna call 9-1-1.”
The voice disappeared and Steve was fine with that. The voice was too loud and shrill anyway. Everything hurt, which wasn’t too unusual for Steve. Hurt less than the demobats, more than the beatings from Billy or Jonathan.
“Hey, hey, kid! People are on their way, okay? Fuck, hello!”
Steve opened his eyes for a moment, made out the appearance of some tall guy with glasses, then let his eyes close again. Focusing hurt too much.
“Shit, shit, shit. Uh, don’t move!”
Steve wanted to laugh, cause ‘Yeah, no fucking problem’ but he was a little busy slipping into unconsciousness.