Chapter Text
Eyes closed is even better to feel. Steve is knees deep in the ocean, the undulation of cold water all around his shins and calves grounding him, droplets periodically swarming around his thighs. His skin burns and shivers, caught up between the scorch of the light and the chill of the offshore wind. The overwhelming static of the waves, colored by indistinctive chatter is all so appeasing Steve doesn’t really think about anything.
So when a splash of water strikes him in the face, all he can perceive at first is a dash of red, a harsh whistle and an overall commotion around him. Then it gets more defined. During the brief second before the lifeguard dives into the waves ahead of him, Steve catches the glimmer of long, blond curls, the flash of bright red shorts and large, sinuous lighter marks on a golden, tan back. The build is too familiar, the sun too bright and his mind is too disrupted for Steve to even put words on this. His feet just lead him away.
His things are hastily picked up, his t-shirt put back on and his steel mesh gate safely closed behind him.
Not a glance back.
And over the course of the night, he can’t allow himself to think about it because that’s not even a possibility.
Steve didn’t see what he thought he saw, because the light was too bright to even see at all. He can’t have, because the guy’s mangled body’s been rotting six feet under for five years, three time zones away. He did think he saw it, because his paranoid brain finds similarities with anything these days. That’s the fucking anniversary effect. Shadows between fireworks’ fumes, fucking navy blue shorts. Everything just teams up to make him feel like shit.
Steve has this fucked up idea that is straight up impossible because a third of all the male lifeguards here look like that anyway. Same shoulders, same curls, same tan. But that tan. It had to be a trick of the light. With the water and the fucking sun in Steve’s face. Yeah. Hell, he didn’t even see the guy for more than a second. It can’t be real.
So there’s no reason for it to cling to his mind all night and keep him from sleeping. No reason at all.
But the guts fight. In the morning he visibly still hasn’t convinced himself, otherwise he would’ve had more than an hour of rest. The whole day at the store is spent ruminating, vainly turning it over in every possible way to find the one detail he needs to be sure it wasn’t him.
Eventually Steve gets fed up. He can’t let a one second apparition of some random Californian guy ruin his life for the month to come. He’s got to make sure. He’ll just go back and see him. Then the lifeguard will be just a guy, like all the other curly blond, hunky Californian guys Steve has mistaken for a ghost over the last five years.
So five p.m. sees him walking down the beach, to the baby blue shack closest to the wharf, with the assertiveness of a lunatic.
Three lifeguards are watching the waves, but none of them looks like the one he saw yesterday.
“Um- hello?”
One of the girls turns to him sporting a casual smile.
Steve will always be impressed with California, honestly. There’s so many hot people here. This girl is gorgeous. Green eyes in contrast with brown skin and dark brown curly hair. Gorgeous.
“Hi, can I help you?”
She cocks her hip to the side, and Steve automatically feels his cheeks go pink. It’s okay. He can be charming, even to people way more attractive than him.
“Uuh… Yeah, I was wondering- um, if there’s a Billy? Here? Like, a lifeguard?”
Her eyebrows raise a little, then she glances at her colleagues.
“Um, no, sorry.”
She gives him a sympathetic smile, looking him up and down. Then her tone shifts a little, her smile turning playful.
“Why, you’re looking for somebody?”
Steve’s gaze falls to the sand below the shack for a second before returning to her eyes. That’s one problem with California also. It turned him awkward at first. And honestly, all those confident, beautiful, sun-kissed people just continue to intimidate him. Now it takes a conscious effort from him to be charming, and it just feels like cheating. Every time he has to actively remember he does not look like an awkward Indiana hick with trauma-induced anxiety.
“Uh- not really, just… I thought I saw someone, but… It wasn’t really- likely, anyway.”
She leans on the wooden guardrail of the shack.
“My name’s Cat, by the way.”
His eyes go back to her. She’s really cute. She seems… confident. And warm.
“Um. Steve.”
She smiles wider. He returns the smile, a little lopsided, but she seems to like it.
“D’you have a phone number, Steve?”
Steve’s chest deflates with a chuckle.
“Yeah, sure. D’you have- something to write on?”
So. See? No ghost here.
No ghost, and a gorgeous lifeguard who asked for his number. Things do turn out a lot better than what he anticipates sometimes. Well, now that he’s far from Hawkins, that is.
Back at his house, he throws his legs over the coffee table and drops the phone on his lap before dialing.
“Hello?”
“Hey, Robin.”
“Hey dingus! How’s weed city?”
“Ha, ha, gets funnier every time. How’s it going with Natalie?”
“Well… we finally agreed on the breed of dog, so… you can imagine. It’s kind of, like, rom-com-perfect. I miss you though. What about you, you finish unpacking? Your neighbor still mad at you?”
Steve’s head falls backwards on the couch backrest.
“Aw, man… She’s never gonna forgive me. And it’s your fault, by the way!”
“You fucked up with her car before I fucked up with the fireworks, dingus, don’t forget it!”
“Yeah, but if it was only the car, she would’ve forgiven me eventually, now she just thinks she’s got a fucking vandal next door. Bet you she’s gonna call the cops every time I turn the music on and just, like, open my window a little…”
“Just let it die, Steve, she’s gonna forget eventually if you lay low. Offer her cookies or something… Hey, did you get along with Dane? I haven’t heard from my dad since I got back home.”
“Well, yeah, it’s cool. I mean, I still have to… Let’s say ‘educate myself’ on a lot of kinds of music, but it’s cool, I meet cool people. And Dane’s cool too, he’s- pretty weird but… He’s alright, I guess.”
“You know, he’s kind of awesome for an old guy, he was at Woodstock and all. If you don’t wanna work one day just ask him about it, he’s gonna go on for hours.”
Steve chuckles.
“Yeah, alright. Hey, tell Natalie I said hi, okay.”
“Yeah, sure. You better invite us in August, you know, I wanna go to the boardwalk!”
“Yeah, yeah, don’t worry! Bye!”
“Bye, Dingus! Love you!”
There’s a lump in Steve’s throat when he hangs up.
It’s the end of an era, and he’s never good at handling those.
Robin was there with him (for him, too) for the last five years, and now he’s in another house, in another town and she’s got everything she ever wanted, and he misses her. So fucking bad. He never missed his parents like that when he moved to San Francisco. He didn’t miss Nancy like that either. He didn’t even miss the kids as much as he misses her right now. Those five years, especially the last two, were the best of his life so far, and it’s hard to let that go. Even if San Francisco was a little too big for a guy like him. Even if his house is pretty and not far from the beach. Even if it’s technically also the beginning of another era. He just doesn’t know how this one will turn out.
When the phone rings later on, he’s got cookie dough on his fingers and water bubbling out of his pan of rice, and it’s a damn miracle he manages to get the phone in time with clean enough hands.
“Hello?”
“Hey, it’s Catalina! You alright?”
“Yeah, yeah, just got- something on the stove, it’s- it’s nothing. Hey!”
“Yeah, I just got out of work, I was wondering if you wanna meet up tomorrow? After my shift?”
An apron drying both his hands, Steve almost lets the phone fall from between his shoulder and his jaw.
“Uh, yeah, sure, what time?”
“Cool, um, I finish at seven, if you want we can meet on the beach we were on today?”
“Yeah, yeah, sure! I’ll be there!”
“Okay, then… Guess I’ll see you there!”
“Yeah, see you!”
“Bye!”
So: rice is urgent, then cookies, he’s got to turn the oven on for these, and then seven p.m. tomorrow for a cool date with a cute lifeguard. And he’s got to gift the cookies. Okay. Also dress cool for seven p.m. He can go back home, then put on clothes he hasn’t drenched in sweat during the day and then go to the beach and meet her. That’s what he’s gonna do.
So the rice is sticking to the bottom of the pan, the oven is started when he’s finished with the dough so his cooking spree lasts until midnight, and he can’t find his jean shorts until 2 a.m. But he’s gonna be there on time at least.
And for fuck’s sake, he hasn’t even told Robin about yesterday’s freakout, which was the reason he called her in the first place.
Whatever.
His next day at work is pretty uneventful, except for Dane napping in the storage in the beginning of the afternoon, a guy wanting to buy all his stock of ‘Remain In Line’ by the Talking Heads, which is, like, six LPs, what the fuck, and a few girls, and maybe a guy, flirting with him. It’s harder to tell with guys, and as a ‘biby’, as Robin calls it, he never dares to be obvious about it when he’s not in a gay bar, with her as his wingman.
Dane starts briefing him on the Beach Boys section around 4 P.M. That’s right, a whole goddamn section, because Dane is that kind of a Beach Boys fanatic. Then when he’s finished it’s already past five and the end of Steve’s shift.
Steve is kind of lucky to have already worked in a record shop in San Francisco, because now he’s used to eccentric old guys with no sense of organization. Or, more accurately, their own sense of organization which makes sense only to them. He just has to get accustomed to the shop, and the storage (god, the storage…), but overall Dane is pretty cool, the pay is good, especially for a guy who just got here, and since Steve started working in one three years ago, record shops are one of his favorite places to hang out in.
He gets on the beach, on time, with his big oversized blue and pink t-shirt, his hair looking like a dream and his sunglasses on like he belongs here and knows it. The lifeguards are finishing packing up and he watches from afar as their pickup truck’s roaring back to the wharf.
He settles down on the sand, a small distance away from the shack, the waves close enough to feel the salty mist.
In a way, waves in California are similar to the flames in his parents’ fireplace back in Indiana. You can watch them, listen to them, feel them for hours, and it’ll never be the exact same. There’ll never be one wave exactly like the other. And Steve concluded a little while ago that it’s this, that soothes his mind so much.
“Hey Steve!”
His eyes turn to Cat, and really, he was going to answer, but-
“Hey, Harrington.”
He can’t.
That’s it. That’s the most fucked up thing he’s ever seen.
The guy is standing right there, all casual, like nothing’s ever happened to him. He’s smiling like he didn’t just rose from the dead. Has a hand on his hip and tiny shorts with brown pineapples on’em like he wasn’t gutted and spilling all his blood on the mall’s tiles last time Steve saw him.
“Thought you’d be a little happier to see me, amigo.”
It’s like all the air has been punched out of his chest. He can’t look away. He can’t breathe in or out, he can’t move a muscle.
“Um, I think I’m gonna leave you two to catch up, ok?”
“Sure, thanks Cat.”
And how is his voice like that? It’s never been this soft.
“Okay, well… See you tomorrow, then. See you around, Steve!”
She does a small wave towards Steve, but he can’t see her clearly. He can’t even get her near his focal point.
Because this is Billy fucking Hargrove. But it’s also not. The way he talks. And smiles. The way he carries himself. This is the opposite of the guy he knew. Even the bite he had when he said ‘amigo’ didn’t have the same undertones.
And he just looks at the waves ahead like it's normal.
“What are you doing here anyway?”
It’s gotta be a joke, right.
“Wha- What am I doing here?”