Chapter Text
It turned out that life outside the mines involved distracting himself from thinking about how much he missed his old house. A hard feat when it'd had just about everything. Many floors, a running village outside that stopped him from needing to grocery shop, and his big red comfortable bed. Out here, there were a lot of good things too; or good people, anyway. But there were also downsides. Like rent.
Garrett had offered his house. Or, rather, his epic gaming store and upstairs studio— the floor of the kitchen, even more specifically, as he didn’t have a spare room. The kids had very kindly offered their garage. Dawn’s house was so crowded she didn’t even have the garage to offer. Steve hadn’t accepted any offer, and now he had to pay rent.
That was the very short explanation as to how he found himself with eight goats, three chickens, two rabbits and a particularly fat llama at 8pm. Life had changed a lot in his absence. In fact, it’d changed a weird amount, and he had the suspicion that it’d passed faster than his time in the mines. When he’d left, it’d been 1995. Now, it was 2025, and he didn’t feel that much older.
“But you look it,” Henry said from the corner. The old school gameboy in his hands blinked different coloured lights. Garrett had given it to him for free. His video game shop had really kicked off recently, and he’d offered Steve many games just like Henry’s, but Steve hadn’t accepted any. After living in that world, the crafting world, no game ever properly filled the void it left behind.
This world just wasn’t the same. It had bug bites, the internet, and compulsory showers. Or even better; petting zoo’s, working for a living, and black mould on the roof of his Bnb. But he could ignore all that.
Henry piped up. “I don’t think you should ignore that, Steve.” The garage, filled with straw and bleating animals, echoed his knowing tone back at them. Steve frowned.
“Yeah, well. Don’t worry about it. Nothing a little water can’t handle!”
Henry gave him a look. The kid was too smart for his own good. He was catching on, Steve could smell it.
There was one, big reason he’d decided to live out here anyway. And if anyone was going to catch on it’d be Henry.
“The llama’s eating your shirt.”
He jumped and pushed the llama off. It bleated and wandered away as if he’d personally offended it. Steve batted at the stain. Henry rolled up onto his dirty red sneakers and shuffled over. The gameboy was put away into his backpack. “You don’t have to do this, you know,” he said. “Dawn’s got enough helpers. Kids from school help all the time.”
“They can’t help late nights like I can,” he reminded him.
“I can,” Henry said. “I’m here all the time, too.”
The poor guy didn’t seem to understand that they weren’t necessarily ‘hanging out,’ rather Steve was babysitting for his sister. But Steve wasn’t going to burst that bubble anytime soon. “Because you’re special,” he said.
“Right,” Henry replied slowly, and moved around him to adjust the feed for the hens. They clucked in the same way the ones back home did. "Special. That's what they said about my jetpack. If they wanted it to be more 'special,' they'd let me fly up more than eight feet."
“Didn’t that get seized for numerous health and safety violations?”
Henry said something under his breath. He turned the lights off for the night. The animals moved around and sank into their bedding.
“What?”
“NASA’s jealous,” he repeated a bit louder. Steve snorted. He reached around Henry to pull at the garage door string.
“Say that all you want, bud, there will still be five degree burns on your ankles. They took it away for a reason.”
Two weeks ago, Henry had shown his jetpack online. It'd received much attention and acclaim, only to be taken away after a particularly dangerous stunt Henry had performed to impress the neighbourhood kids. Henry was particularly bothered by it, as the woman who'd seized it had been a NASA scientist who'd happened to be in the area. Ever since, he told anyone who'd listen that NASA was against him. Personally, Steve didn't see why NASA of all companies even cared about a kid's jetpack.
The two of them shut the door to Dawn’s garage. The bright purple door softly hit the ground. Dawn was off like she was every Friday, at her late-night scrapbooking classes, so he shot her a text.
“I’ll get it next time,” Henry muttered, and followed Steve along the long street to his house. He and his sister lived a very short distance away from Dawn. “In fact…” he tried to look casual, by pursing his lips and dragging his legs a bit as he walked, and in the process looked anything but. “I bet if I just got my hands on some red stone…”
“No,” Steve said.
“What?” Henry exploded, “come on! It won’t be that dangerous if you come with me, right? You’ve lived there — like — fifty years!”
“Not that long. And that’s not my problem with it, I love that place, but you can’t get your hands on redstone or NASA will put you on a watch list.”
“NASA doesn’t know what red stone is,” Henry said.
“And be glad of it. But until you can convince —“
“You want me to convince NASA?”
Steve thought on it. He was going to say Natalie, but maybe that was a better idea. “Yes,” he said slowly.
They reached Henry’s house, and Henry stomped up the path. Natalie opened the door at his knock and invited Steve in for tea. hedeclined, stating the hour. He was tired and feeling it in every possible part of him.
“Thanks for looking after him,” Natalie said. She nudged Henry, who was still looking upset. “Henry. C’mon.” He looked over her shoulder and tried to sidle past, but she cheerfully grabbed his shoulders and steered him back around to face him. “Henry.”
“Right. Thanks, dad.”
Steve nodded. “No problem,” and walked halfway down the driveway before he stopped, froze, and turned back around. But the door was shut, and the conversation over.
“Wait a minute,” he said slowly.
Crickets twittered in the bushes, and the night air was slightly warm. Just warm enough to forgo long sleeves and thick blankets.
“Wait. Hold on.”
Steve was broke. He lived in a rundown Bnb worth half of what he was charged in rent, and he didn’t know how to cook anything but mushroom soup. Which was apparently a really weird thing to only be able to make, but it was true to the recipe back in the mines; much simpler than trying to work out where to cram three pieces of wheat to make bread. And there were a lot more consequences to handling lava here than back in the mines, too.
So what he ended up doing for food was just going to Garrett’s. This wasn't a good solution. Garrett sustained himself on a mix of crash diets and weird food combinations. What Garrett clearly liked the most however, with the sheer amount he consumed, was peanut butter sandwiches. Each sandwich had a two-finger’s tall slab of peanut butter. The one time Natalie had caught him biting into one of them, she’d actually gagged. She didn’t let Henry eat anything at Garrett’s. Not many guardians did, which was why the shop didn't serve food. Unfortunately, Steve was broke and desperate.
“I don’t know what happened,” Steve said. He sat next to Garrett in the empty store. It was midday, but it would be all too soon that it’d become overrun with kids coming home from school. “He just said it, then closed the door behind him as if nothing happened!”
“Kids imprint fast,” Garrett said, mouth full of peanut butter. Imprint? Like dogs? Steve picked at his sandwich.
“What does that mean?”
Garrett shrugged. “They do that. Call you names and stuff.”
“I can’t afford kids."
The two of them leaned against the counter, facing the back wall. They were sitting, Steve with his legs crossed and Garrett with his spread out. Anyone passing by the front window wouldn’t be able to see them. Garrett liked to insist it was a strategic position, but they couldn't see anyone either.
Garrett nodded wisely. “Yeah. Not many people can.” He was wearing his favourite pink jacket, the matching one to Steve’s. Garrett looked like he had his life figured out. Arcade games, his own store. What did Steve have?
“One moment I’m cooking lava chicken, or stuck in prison, and the next I have kids!”
“You already have Dennis. What’s the difference of two more?”
“They’re not dogs.”
Garrett shrugged and bit into his sandwich. “It’s not as if you don’t have money,” he said, after a few chews. “You’ve got plenty of stuff back home in the mines. Just go get it.”
Steve fidgeted with the bread. It was a bit stale, and it fell apart in his hands. “I don’t need money… to be happy…” he said slowly. “You’ve got all this without money, right? So I can manage too.”
“Uh, I took your diamonds, remember?”
“I thought you put them back.”
“Nah, pocketed them when your back was turned.” Garrett pointed out the row of new machines. “I bought those with them.”
“How was I supposed to remember that if you stole them, Gargar?” Garrett shrugged.
“Don’t know what that world ran on, Steve, but this one runs on money.” He took a big bite and while chewing, continued. “It’s not fair but it’s how it is. You can’t survive without it.” He swallowed. Another bite. “If it bothers you we could always go back. My cycle machine needs new parts. Idiots sold me dud wheels. They don’t light up the way they should.”
There was nothing Steve wanted more than to go back there. But if he went, what if he didn’t want to come back? Save the kids, everything he wanted would be there.
“The bridge to my diamonds is broken,” Steve said slowly. Thoughtfully.
Garrett shrugged. He leaned against the counter and stretched his back until it cracked. “How long will it take to fix it?”
A couple hours. “A week,” he said.
Garrett swallowed the last of his sandwich and nodded easily. “Right. How about the kids? Bringing Dennis?”
“No,” Steve said. “They can stay here together.” If he didn’t leave something to come back to, he’d never want to leave. Garrett popped his back one more time before standing. He pulled Steve up. Steve’s face teetered close to Garrett’s, but just as quickly separated.
He wasn’t being entirely honest. He didn’t really care about the diamonds. He could have continued with working, and showering, and living with black mould.
He’d have taken anything Earth’d thrown at him. Because even if it wasn’t great, the mines were only almost perfect. Because the mines had almost everything Steve could ever want except one main, important, crucial thing. One thing only Earth had.
Simply put; the mines didn’t have Garrett.