Chapter Text
1
It had been 1978, and Finney Blake escaped the Grabber’s basement after snapping his neck with his bare hands, jeers and taunts exiting the phone in his hands, sounding into that creep’s ear as he took his final breaths. Finney left that wretched house, the house filled with blood, sweat and tears (Among other bodily fluids…), with lost children, filled with people who were taken, who never got to say goodbye.
The ghosts were there, suddenly, loud and vivid and impossible to ignore. He could hear Robin, his guardian angel, his protector, his best friend, but couldn't handle it, so he began to pretend. He pretended not to see them, not to hear them. He focused on his sister. He felt floaty, like he wasn’t present on earth at that moment. He barely noticed when the paramedics moved them to sit, covered them in a shock blanket, and left. He barely noticed when his father came and begged for forgiveness. He did not notice the ghosts that surrounded them. (He continued to pretend.)
—
It had been 1980, and Terrence Blake drank himself to death, leaving behind his daughter and son, all alone. Finney did not see his ghost, and he did not look for it either. He comforted Gwen while she cried (Cried about what? About who? The father that hurt her? Who spat the name of their mother as if she had committed a grave crime against their small, dysfunctional family?), whispering reassurances and mumbled lullabies into her ear. He held her hand while they spoke to the officers and social workers. Since their mother was dead, they would be put into the system, and he and Gwen would be separated. This only made Gwen cry harder. He ignored the almost-real looks of pity and nosey neighbors watching from afar. He ignored the ghosts.
—
It had been 1981, and Finney was adopted into a family of absent parents and quiet homes. He was forced to change his name (“ Finney is not the name of a Harrington, you got that boy? ”), so Finney Stephen Blake became Steven Harrington (The Harringtons misheard him when he said his middle name was Stephen, and he did not have the courage to correct them).
He went to a new school, pretended to be confident, and stumbled into the King Steve persona like an ill-fitted costume. He began to hang out with douchebags and pretended to be interested in flirting with women, with trying to seduce them and acting as if he fell for their batting eyelashes and coy smiles (None of them were Robin, none of them gave him that warm sense of comfort, of belonging ). He imitated his popular peers, and soon enough, he became one of them. He longed to be accepted, to be normal. (He longed for Robin , and yet he still continued to ignore the ghosts, filing away their voices to the very back of his consciousness and averting his eyes whenever he looked at them accidentally.)
—
It had been 1982, and Steve Harrington became someone of the sort that he used to hate, that he used to cower to. He ignored that shame that built in his gut whenever he acted like a dick, he ignored the disappointed glances of Nancy, of Barb, and he ignored the fact that he was so NOT in love with Nancy Wheeler that it almost physically hurt him, to not be normal. He pointedly ignored any and all ghosts.
—
It was 1983, Will Byers went missing. Steve tried his best to remain calm, but he couldn’t stop thinking about that dingy basement, piss-warm soda and salty, dry eggs. He couldn’t stop thinking about that man and his stupid fucking mask. Steve would wake up and feel his touch, all over his body, and suddenly he would be Finney again, a scared 13-year old, begging to go home. He woke up and threw up almost immediately, expelling anything in his stomach into the toilet bowl. (He did not feel clean for weeks.)
He was upset, so he lashed out. Steve knew what he said to Jonathan about his missing brother was wrong, it was shitty, but he couldn’t stop himself. Jonathan and Nancy seemed to be closer now, and Steve tried his best to act upset. He didn’t love Nancy, and Nancy didn’t love him. It was all okay. (The musty smell of that basement invaded his nose and mind for the weeks that Will was missing. He continued ignoring the ghosts, until he could not anymore.)
---
The first time it happened, he nearly had an existential crisis. Steve had just run out of the house, fumbling for his keys after being threatened by Nancy (With a GUN. What the fuck Nance?). His head started pounding. It was like a wave of ice-cold water had come over him, and suddenly his body seemed to be on autopilot. He felt his hands reach the baseball bat, felt them grip the handle with a confidence and skill he never possessed, felt a giggle bubble up out of his chest, as if holding a bat after a long time was comforting for whatever was controlling him (Except it hasn’t been a long time, has it?).
He didn’t know what he was doing as he ran back into the house, bat held tightly in his hand. His body was being commandeered by something other than himself. It was like watching life through someone else’s eyes, and he watched as the bat was wielded masterfully and swung at the meaty monster that had invaded the Byers’ house.
As soon as it happened, it ended. Steve felt his senses return to him as if his puppet strings had been cut. He only felt limp for a millisecond before he straightened up and put on a brave face, trying to ignore the dread that was coiling around his gut, suffocating and intense, making it hard to breathe. Steve tried to convince Nancy and Jonathan that it was only instinct that he had acted upon. He tried to pretend that he had not lost control of his own body for that single intense, fleeting moment.
He tried to convince himself that he was not possessed by a ghost, not taken control of by some sort of otherworldly being. He ignored the voices in his head, the sort of accomplished sense of being that he felt unconsciously. He ignored how the baseball bat that had been so comfortable in his hands just a moment before was now feeling weird and out-of-place.
Steve ignored the ghosts.
(He would not be able to for much longer.)