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January 1987.
Steve doesn’t know how they know, but they definitely know. His heart had dropped the second he turned onto his street and saw his father's car in the driveway. His parents weren’t supposed to be back for another four days, and they didn’t come home early unless something happened. The last time they’d come home early was when the "earthquakes" happened, but they didn’t come home because they were worried. No, they came home because since he had been missing he was considered a suspect of murder. Which the government took care of later. The same as they did with the rest of them, including Eddie. His parents had been furious though, demanding to know why he was careless enough to let the family name be tarnished by his actions. Almost an exact replica of what they’d said the time before when they came home early because Steve had gotten suspended for getting in a fist fight with Billy Hargrove during basketball practice.
This time though there wasn’t a fight with Billy Hargrove. There wasn’t an "earthquake". There wasn’t anything other than the fact that for the past nine months he had been dating Eddie Munson.
Steve knows they know. He doesn’t know how but they know.
As if to really set it in that he was right, his father stands in the window with his arms crossed. It’s been a long time since Steve has seen him this angry. He wishes he wasn’t scared. He’s fought inter-dimensional monsters for fucks sake, he shouldn’t be scared of his father. Sure, his father has hit him before. Maybe Steve deserved it a few times, maybe he didn’t some other times. Steve knows how to take a punch. He’s known how to take a punch since he was ten years old and crashed his bike into his father's car, chipping the paint. He remembers crying and the way his father had told him he was a man now. It’s been nearly eleven years since that day and Steve still doesn’t really feel like a man. Not the man his father wants him to be.
He can’t really stall anymore, his mother stands next to his father in the window. Even from the other end of the driveway, Steve can see she’s been crying. He holds eye contact with his father as he turns off the car, gets out, and slams the door. His mother flinches, he almost feels bad. Almost. He’s angry. He’s already angry and they haven’t even said anything. They only come home when they’re mad at him. When he’s done something wrong. They never come home for any of his accomplishments, birthdays, anything. But they came home for this. They’ve come home to yell at him for being happy. So Steve guesses they did come home for an accomplishment, but they’re only here to squash him like a bug under their feet until he falls back into their perfect son. The son he hasn’t been in eleven years.
They move away from the window but don’t open the door for him. When Steve unlocks it and makes his way in they’re standing in front of the couch. He knows the drill, this isn’t anything new. “Sit.” His father says anyway. Steve’s body vibrates with anger but he does as he’s told.
“Why are you home?” He asks. The look he gets tells him they know he knows.
“Where have you been?” His father presses.
“At Nancy’s.” He says simply. There’s no point in lying. They always know everything, he really wishes he knew how.
His mother frowns at him, “With who Steven?”
He stares back, a dead look in his eyes. “With everyone.”
“Who is everyone?”
Steve wants to roll his eyes but he restrains himself, keeping his stare blank. “Do you want a list?”
“Yes.” His father hisses. He crosses his arms tighter. Steve can see his right-hand twitching.
He swallows, “Nancy, Mike, Johnathon, Argyle, Robin, Max, Dustin, Eddie, Wi-“
“You can stop there.” His father cuts him off.
Steve knows why but he tilts his head anyways. “But you wanted a list.”
“We wanted to know who was there.”
“Which is why I was giving you a list.”
His mother huffs, “Steven.”
“Oh.” Steve blinks. “Unless- you just wanted me to say Eddie’s name.” He can hear the attitude in his voice but for once he can’t bring himself to care. His father's hand twitches again.
He can take a punch.
“If you wanted me to say his name you could have just asked.” He doesn’t even have time to blink before his father is grabbing the collar of his shirt and lifting him off the couch. Steve’s hand grasps the chest of the scratchy polo, fighting to stay up as his knees are pressed awkwardly against the seat of the couch. “You better drop the attitude, Steven.”
“Okay.” Steve breathes, cowering. His father steps away and he falls back on the couch, straightening out his sweater. “So what do you want?”
“You know in this house we don’t have absolutes.” His father begins. Steve nods because that’s what he’s supposed to do. But it thrives under his skin, in his bones. It burns up his throat to shout that he knows damn well that isn’t true. That it has and always will be what his parents want or a hit to the face. “Now we have always looked the other way to your- actions.”
“What actions?” He knows but asks anyway.
His mother frowns at him because she knows too, “The women, Steven. You’re supposed to worship your women. Not meet them and- you are supposed to wait until marriage. Worship them.”
Steve scoffs and his words boil out of his mouth before he can calm himself down. “They’ve all told me to worship them in the bedroom.” She looks properly offended, her hand moves before his father does. It’s a hard slap, it leaves his left ear ringing with the sting of his cheek. But he can take it. He looks back at her with a blank stare after correcting himself forward again. “Steven.” His father nearly growls. His hand grips his face. Steve fights the smirk that pulls at his lips. He shouldn’t say it. He won’t say it.
“This is not about those women and you know it. This is about that- that boy.” He doesn’t even say Eddie’s name and yet the word drips with so much hatred.
Steve says it, “He holds me like this too, you know.” He doesn’t have to see the fist to know it's coming. He makes an awful noise as it lands on his left eye, mixing with the still stinging skin of his mother's slap. In the back of his mind, Steve is grateful his father thinks rings are too feminine to wear or that blow would have been a lot more painful. “You listen to me closely Steven, I will not have this queer talk around me!” He spits when he yells, always has. Steve’s always hated it.
“Well, it’s not like you’re ever home.”
His father's hand is back on his face, it hurts more now with the throbbing of his eye. He can handle it. “This is my house, Steven James!”
Steve winces, he hates his full name, hates that it’s his father's name. “May be your house but I get to have all the fun in it.” He says it with a curt laugh. His father knows what he means, he knows he does. He pushes anyways. “What is that supposed to mean?”
Steve locks eyes with his father, blank stare thrown out the window and replaced with a crazy, amused look. He shouldn’t find this fun. He shouldn’t say it. “What? You want to hear about all the queer sex I’ve had in this house?” He says it. The next hit feels harsher than what he’s gotten before. But he can handle it. Russians still hit harder.
He can feel the trickle of blood going over his cheekbone. There’s a thrill inside him, one he’s only felt a few times, one that only comes along when he’s so angry that he enjoys the pain of the fight. His own hand twitches. “You better be lying to me son!” He’s off the couch again, in the same position as earlier. He’s not going to back down this time.
“Lying?” He laughs. Then he leans in closer. “Sometimes he holds me like this too.” His father is moving them now, lifting him straight off his feet and slamming his back into the wall. It’s familiar, but not in this context. It makes him cackle. He doesn’t know why he’s laughing. He really shouldn’t be laughing. He can feel the fear low in his gut but the anger is in his bones. It’s been eleven fucking years of this bullshit. He’s done. “Strike three, Dad! He likes this position too.” His father hits him again, on the other side this time. It’s not as strong as the last but it makes him a little dizzy. “I will not have a son that fucks other men!”
Steve cackles, throwing his head back against the wall. He feels delirious. He probably is. “You don’t.” He says, giggling even more when he sees the confusion in his father's eyes. “You have a son that likes to be fucked by other men.” He stage whispers it, eyes wide with a cocky, open-mouth smile. A fist lands right against it. Steve runs his tongue along his bottom row of teeth with a groan. He tastes blood but all his teeth are still there. He can handle this. “One man actually.” He finishes.
There’s a fire burning in the man’s eyes, when he speaks Steve can feel the hate. “I should kill him.” He spits, literally.
Steve fixes his look. Lips pulled into a sneer he looks his father dead in the eyes. “You touch him and I will kill you.”
His father shakes his head. “You will never get into heaven.”
“Eddie is my heaven.”
“You’re sick!” He shouts.
Steve laughs but he feels like he could cry. “I was born sick!”
His father steps away from him now, hands peeled off him like touching him physically burned. "My son is not a fag!”
“Steven please!” His mother sobs.
He barely spares her a glance. “Your son likes to be fucked on the couch.” He says simply, enjoying the way his father's face twists in disgust and his mother cries harder. “I like it.”
His father shakes his head. “No. No! You don’t! He has corrupted you!”
“Corrupted me?! Dad, he has fucking enlightened me!”
“Enlightened you?!” He spits, “he’s turned you into a fag!”
Steve can feel his energy slipping but the anger is still surging. “Maybe he has.”
“We can get you help.” His mother pleads.
Steve ignores her. “Maybe he turned me by kissing me like he never wants to do anything else. By holding me like I’m something priceless.”
“Steven-!”
“By bending me over your kitchen counter! By holding me against the wall and fucking me till I can’t breathe! By telling me how good I feel when I let him do whatever he wants to me!” He’s yelling, screaming even. His mother looks sick to her stomach. His father might even gag. “Steven! We won’t let him do that to you anymore! We can help you!”
“I like it!” He shouts, “I love it!” He corrects. “I love him.”
“No, you don’t.” His father insists.
“I do and he loves me too.”
His mother is crying even harder now, her body shaking. “We love you!”
“No, you fucking don’t!” Steve snaps. “You don’t fucking love me! You haven’t loved me since I was ten fucking years old! You haven’t loved him since the day I was old enough to realize that I was my own damn person!”
“What happened to you, Steven?” The words fall off his father's tongue like venom. It makes Steve feel sick.
“I became my own person.”
“You’ve been corrupted.”
“I fell in love!”
“Get out of my house!“ his father screams. Proper, ear ringing, floor shaking scream. His body is red, and his arms shake. “Get out of my house before I kill you!”
“James!” His mother protests.
“I will not have a fag in my house!”
Steve nods. His mother protests again but she’s cut off. “No Stephanie- I will not- that thing is not just son. And I will not have it in my house.”
Steve doesn’t bother heading to his room to grab his things, he heads straight to the door. “Steven-“ his mother pleads.
“Goodbye.” Is all he offers back.
——-
Without the adrenaline and anger, Steve feels crushed. Everything hurts. His face hurts, his arms hurt, his head, his stomach, his chest. He hasn’t cried yet. He has to drive. But he’s pulling into Eddie’s driveway now so he’s probably going to cry here soon. Eddie must have seen him because before Steve even finishes turning off the car he’s on the porch. “Stevie? Did you miss me that my-“ his words quickly fall to a dead stop as soon as Steve’s face is in view. He doesn’t really know how he looks but he knows it can’t be good. Eddie is in front of him before he reaches the stairs. “Steve oh my god. Baby, what happened? Who- I.”
“My parents are home.” He tries not to cry but the way Eddie is looking at him right now he can’t help it. “Oh, baby.” Eddie holds him tight. “They know don’t they?” He’s calm when he speaks but Steve can tell he’s panicked, worried.
“More than they should.”
Eddie grimaces, “Who told them?”
“That we were together? No idea.” He shrugs, looking away. “That you’ve fucked me rough in their house several times and I liked it? Me.”
Eddie gawks at him, not able to stop the bounds of laughter falling out of him. “You told them what?!”
Steve’s laughing now too. “I was angry. Knew it’d piss them off.” He leans into the soft way Eddie holds the less bruised side of his face. Melting as he hums.
“Looks like it definitely pissed them off, babe. Come on. Let’s get you cleaned up.”
Steve smiles. He’s still hurting, and the sadness is building up inside him more and more as he comes to terms with the loss. But he feels safe. He has Eddie. He’s loved. He doesn’t need his so-called ‘family’.
And if Steve sobs into Wayne’s hug after the man tells him he’s got a family right here with him. Well, that’s no one’s business but their own.