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When he gets back to his double wide with Chrissy Cunningham Hargrove is sitting in his car, blasting his music again, face all scrunched up in concentration as he works on his homework. She shoots him a look, wary like she has been ever since he found her in the forest, but also kind of disbelieving. He kind of gets it. Hargrove is— Hargrove is Hargrove.
It’s like living across from a man-eating tiger. A man-eating tiger with rabies. Guy’s fucking— fucking scary. Fucking air of prospective violence around him at all times.
Honestly even he’s kind of scared to fuck with the dude.
Since Hargrove, Hargrove’s stepmom, and Hargrove’s stepsister moved in they’ve had like, two? interactions— and one of those interactions was Hargrove warning him not to do be a weird little creep to either of the women of the house— something he had no intention of being— and the second was Hargrove warning him he better not catch his eyes anywhere near Harrington’s ass again or the guy would no doubt enact some kind of terrifying and painful bit of violence on him and leave his mauled corpse for his poor uncle to find.
He wasn’t even aware his eyes were on Harrington’s ass. He was just staring into nothingness and Harrington’s ass must have simply wandered into his field of view.
Ok, ok, it’s a good ass— but it’s not like he makes a habit of admiring other dude’s asses— Not that he’s a homophobe, if he ever even had the smallest homophobic bone in his body he has well and truly exorcised it. It does not pay to be a homophobe where Hargrove might find out.
Fuck this fucking town, it is so weird. Most of it is bad weird, but some of it’s good, still weird but— like, on top of all the other fucked up shit this has to be the capitol of, like, reverse gay bashing in the country— or whatever you call it when a gay guy finds out another guy is a homophobe and then proceeds to put said homophobe in the hospital. Which, cool, but yeah, weird.
The week after the knock down drag out bit of domestic violence that occurred when Hargrove’s dad found out about Hargrove and Harrington and then attempted to terminate his own son for it, only for his own son to do his best to terminate him back, and somewhere in all the punching and kicking and biting Hargrove bellowed I may be a cocksucking faggot, but I’d rather be a cocksucking faggot than a fucking wife beater loud enough that not even implausible deniability was going to work, some of the guys at school tried to hassle Hargrove in the halls. Hargrove put one of their heads through a fucking locker and broke one of the others’ arms in three places before anyone could stop him. It wasn’t even the kid’s own locker.
Fucking psycho. Like, fucking glorious, as those guys were absolute meathead dirtbags, but also fucking scary. Especially scary when the guy that could just do that without breaking a sweat ends up in the trailer park next door after the dude’s dad skipped town in a fit of homophobic shame.
Mrs Hargrove, or Susan he thinks her name is, is a real nice lady. She actually stuck with her scary, gay stepson instead of booting him out too the moment his dad fucked off.
The absolute absence of any tolerance for being gay bashed extends to Harrington too, apparently. Guy looks fluffy and preppy and shit, but when a bunch of guys decided to go after him instead of Hargrove, since Hargrove is so fucking scary, they turned up at school the next day white as a ghost and muttering about some bat full of fucking nails. So, yeah, Hawkins is not a great town for douchebags looking for a gay guy to bash. The gay guys seem to bash back.
‘He lives here?’ Chrissy asks as soon as he’s let her inside. When he nods she leans in close and whispers, ‘Do you ever see Steve?’ and when he gives her a look, hoping like hell this isn’t some homophobic thing, and if it is Hargrove won’t be able to magically sense it with his psycho powers and come stomping over to do any damage she adds, ‘Jason doesn’t want me talking to him, but he was always really nice to me, so I feel bad.’
Fuck. He does not know what to say to that— except maybe she should dump Jason. Not really because he wants to defend Steve Harrington’s honour, it’s Steve Harrington, he does not remotely care, and even if he did he thinks Hargrove might kill him for, like, showing any kind of interest in the dude’s boyfriend, but he’s getting the distinct impression something’s wrong with Chrissy, and maybe it’s his own experience with his own douchebag dad, but when something’s wrong in cases like this he thinks maybe it’s a good idea to look to the closest asshole guy— and Jason Carver is most definitely an asshole.
He’s so much an asshole even Hargrove hates him. The psycho looks like he’s stepped in shit every time Jason comes anywhere near him. He even quit the basketball team when Jason became captain, hence him sitting in the car studying and not attending the big game— and he doesn’t know for sure that Jason’s ever said or done something to Hargrove, he’d bet he hasn’t because he’s still walking and his nose isn’t all messed up, but he suspects Hargrove suspects Jason would if he wasn’t such a fucking pussy.
Anyway Chrissy’s real cute, and, it turns out, real sweet, so surely she deserves better than some guy who has future minister of some corrupt Evangelical cult written all over his dumb, blond face.
‘I see him around, sometimes,’ he tells her, but that’s about all he can say. They don’t exactly talk. It’s not like they’ve ever been close. Back in the day Harrington was, like, Harrington, but then he became a loser, and then he became Hargrove’s boyfriend— and, seriously, he does not want Hargrove getting the wrong idea— But, like, Harrington seems ok these days. He’s not, like, mean, not anymore, at least, or particularly psycho, and Dustin— and to a degree Mike and Lucas— speak well of him. It’s just— it’s weird.
Because his idea of Steve Harrington it turns out is not the actual Steve Harrington, and includes absolutely fuck all in the way of psycho, rabid boyfriends.
Possibly also weird because he’s seen Hargrove like full on slap Harrington’s ass as he walked by, and then make this throaty growly sound, which was simultaneously the filthiest and most terrifying noise he’s ever heard another human being make, ever. He’s also caught them making out a couple of times in the Camaro, parked pretty much exactly where it is right now. Luckily he’s pretty sure they actually go back to Harrington’s fuckoff huge mansion to do anything more serious, because he’d bet Harrington getting naked brings out even more of the possessive, overprotective, rabid tiger in Hargrove.
At least they seem pretty happy together. Harrington did wait around at Hargrove’s bedside for the three or so months he was in a coma after whatever actually happened at the mall. Yeah, he knows what they say, but who can trust what they say in this messed up town?
‘Jason’s kind of—’ she begins, but then doesn’t finish, so he doesn’t learn what Jason is kind of. Instead she turns the conversation back to the topic of ketamine, and then he can’t find the stupid ketamine, and then he does find the stupid ketamine but when he comes back out into the main room her eyes are all—
A lot of fucked up shit, a lot of fucked up shit, has happened to him in his life, but this— this—
He’s shaking her, he’s calling her name, he’s— She’s just not responding. What the fuck is going on? What the—? The lights are all—?
‘Chrissy! Chrissy, wake up!’ fuck, he doesn’t even know what he’s saying. He just wants her not to be doing this. He just wants her to stop.
She’s floating. Oh fuck she’s floating. Her feet are no longer on the fucking ground. What the fuck?
What the—?
‘Munson!’ he hears his name, hears someone pounding on the door, but he can’t let go of Chrissy to see who it is or what they want. ‘Open this fucking door! I can see shit’s getting fucked up in there! Stupid Upside Down fucking bullshit I’m gonna—’
A bang, a crash, the door bursting in to knock against the wall, the room flooding with the sound of Hargrove’s music, the deep voice of Eric Burdon purring And one thing I know is true— You'll be dead before your time is due, I know— the guy listening to the fucking Animals of all fucking bands, like it’s twenty years ago. Or maybe it’s one of the weird mixtapes he’s heard Robin Buckley talking about making to try and fix Harrington’s Godawful taste in music. Whatever the case along with the music in comes Hargrove himself, who swears immediately and comes over to his side, grabbing Chrissy too, the both of them struggling to keep her from floating up to the ceiling. ‘What the fuck is going on, Munson?’ the guy demands.
‘I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t fucking know!’ he wails back, voice almost lost beneath We gotta get out of this place— If it’s the last thing we ever do—
Chrissy jerks in their grip, spasming, her eyes blinking frantically, before all of a sudden the colour comes back to them, and he barely has time to yelp before she’s landing on him, making frightened whimpering noises.
‘She ok?’ Hargrove demands, before actually asking her instead of him, because he’s got no fucking clue. ‘You ok— Um— Whatever the fuck your name is? K— something? Fucking Carver’s fucking girlfriend? Whoever you are, you ok?’
‘I—’ Chrissy manages, right as he glares up at Hargrove and snaps, ‘Don’t talk to her like that, it’s not cool, especially after what just happened!’
‘Do I look like I fucking care?’ the guy asks, the fucking nerve, before adding, ‘It doesn’t look like anything’s broken so try and get her back upright or something. I’m going to go summon help.’
‘You seriously think the cops are going to be any fucking help with this?!’ he yelps.
‘Who said anything about the fucking cops,’ Hargrove sneers back, before going stomping back out the door, bellowing, ‘Maxine!’ at the top of his lungs as he does. ‘Maxine! You better get on that fucking walkie talkie right this minute! We’ve got a code whatever the fuck you and your shitty loser friends call it. Maxine!’
‘Shut the fuck up Billy, mom is sleeping!’ comes roaring back out of the step-sister’s open window.
‘I mean it Maxine!’ Hargrove roars back, ‘We got some fucking Upside Down bullshit over here, so circle the fucking wagons.’
‘Shit!’ she bellows back, her head popping back inside her doublewide.
‘What’s going on?’ Chrissy says, voice a tiny whimper as she struggles her way upright in his lap. He looks at her, then out the door to see Hargrove angrily lighting up a cigarette, then back to her.
‘I have no idea.’