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Like most children, Steve could not remember his first couple of Christmases. His first memory of Christmas was when he was five.
It was early December, just after the start of the Christmas season. His mother was home, but he didn’t know where his father was. His parents’ relationship was never good to begin with, but it really started to go south when he was five. He wouldn’t discover until years later that that was the year his mother caught his father cheating on her for the first but definitely not the last time.
His mother was sitting in the arm chair with a magazine in her lap, and Steve was hanging ornaments on the recently put up tree. At five years old, he was quite short and had to stand on his tippy toes to even reach three quarters of the way up. The top of the tree was completely bare.
Steve pulled yet another gleaming blue ornament out of the clear bin and stared at it.
“Mom, why don’t we have any fun ornaments?” He asked.
His mother flipped the page of the magazine with a perfectly manicured hand, and without even looking up, she asked, “What do you mean, Steven?”
“Well, the one in town has all these fun ornaments, and we have all these boring ones,” Steve answered, holding up the blue ornament, which was just like all the others on the tree. The only variation was that some were gold and some were silver and some were blue, but they all looked so… perfect. The tree was boring, and nothing like the cool one in town or the pretty ones in Steve’s books.
His mother finally looked up and raised her perfectly shaped eyebrows. “Steven, those ‘fun’ ornaments are for sentimental saps. You don’t want our tree to look like something they pulled out of a poorhouse, do you?”
Steve didn’t really know what a ‘poorhouse’ was, but his mother said it like it was a bad thing.
He replied, “No, Mom.”
His mother nodded and went back to her magazine.
Steve pushed down his disappointment and put the twenty-fifth blue ornament on the perfectly trimmed tree.
Plastic, perfect, uniform. Just like the rest of the house.
(Just like their family.)
That same year, a week before Christmas, Steve was standing on his tippy toes to reach the counter as he made himself a sandwich. His hands were sticky with peanut butter and jelly, and the sandwich could hardly be recognized as a sandwich, but he was pretty sure it would still taste good.
The click of high heels entered the kitchen, and Steve turned from where he had just finished making his sandwich. His mother stood in the doorway, her eyeshadow-dusted and mascara-painted eyes staring down at him. Steve felt incredibly small. Well… smaller than usual.
“Steven, your father is going on a business trip.”
Well, that wasn’t new. His father seemed to always have a business trip.
“I am going with him this time.”
Okay, that was new. His mother rarely joined his father on business trips.
“Oh,” Steve said, surprised. “Am I coming with you?”
Steve had never been on one of his father’s business trips. His father always said he’d ‘just get in the way.’ Steve didn’t mind; the business trips seemed boring, anyway. But his mother usually stayed home with him, and she was always home for Christmas.
“No, Steven,” his mother said. Her tone made it sound like he was stupid to even think that.
“Is Annie coming?” Steve asked, suddenly excited. Sure, he would like his mother to stay for Christmas, but Annie, who was his nanny, was fun. She made him something to eat so he didn’t have to struggle to reach the counters to make a sandwich. She even helped him bake cookies once! She played with him and danced with him and read him stories. He loved it when Annie came over! So maybe this Christmas wouldn’t be so bad, after all.
“No, Steven.”
Steve’s smile fell off his face, and he frowned in confusion.
“Then… who am I staying with?” Steve asked.
“Your father and I have decided you’re old enough to stay by yourself,” his mother said.
Steve’s eyes widened. Steve had never stayed by himself for longer than an hour before when his mother had to run some errands.
“H-How long will you be gone?” Steve stammered.
Maybe it was a short business trip. It would be okay.
“Through New Years,” his mother answered. She seemed annoyed with all the questions. Normally, that annoyed tone of voice would be enough to make Steve snap his mouth shut. ‘Children should be seen and not heard, and not even seen most of the time,’ his mother always said, and Steve tried to listen to her and be quiet, not talk too much, not annoy her, but this time… this was different, and Steve was too anxious to remember to be quiet.
“But that’s…” Steve counted on his fingers. One week until Christmas and one week after that. Then, New Years, so that was… “Over two weeks! I can’t be alone that long.”
“Nonsense, Steven,” his mother snapped, and her tone was enough to remind Steve that he wasn’t supposed to talk too much. He snapped his mouth shut. “You’re five years old. You can take care of yourself for a couple weeks.”
“But…” Steve shrunk under her irritated gaze. The rule ‘children should be seen and not heard’ was screaming at him to be quiet, but he couldn’t be quiet, just like he couldn’t stay alone for that long. “Why can’t Annie stay with me?”
“Annie is off for the next two weeks because of Christmas,” his mother replied. “And I don’t want to waste my time looking for a nanny who can work through Christmas.”
“Then… Then why can’t I come with you?” Steve asked. “I’ll be quiet, and I won’t get in the way, I promise!”
Steve’s eyes were filling with tears, and he fought to hold them back. His mother hated it when he cried or whined or anything like that.
“No, Steven, you are old enough to stay home, and that is final,” his mother said, her voice hard.
Steven shrunk back even more, his back pressed against the cabinet, and his tears fought against him harder. He tried even harder to blink them back.
His mother’s hard gaze stared at him for another moment before she sighed, softening by a margin. She leaned down to be a little closer to him, meeting his teary eyes. Surprisingly, she didn’t say anything about how he was almost crying.
“Don’t worry, Steven. I’ll have Mr. Johnson stock up on groceries before I leave, and I’ll make sure the stove and all that stuff is unplugged. Just stay home, play with your toys and watch TV, and everything will be fine,” his mother said.
Steven knew he couldn’t change his mom’s mind, so he nodded.
His mother straightened back up. “Good.”
His mother stood in front of him for a moment, looking more awkward than he had ever seen her. Then, she reached forward and patted him on the shoulder, her hand barely even brushing his shoulder before she pulled away again. She turned and left the kitchen.
The next day, she left the house.
Steve spent that Christmas alone…
And the one after that.
Steve didn’t spend another Christmas with anyone until he was seven, and it wasn’t exactly fun.
His parents were home for Christmas, which he was so excited about, until he discovered they would be spending Christmas night at a stuffy business party for his father’s job.
“But why do I have to go?” Steve complained as his father worked on tying his tie.
“Because my boss values family unity, and we are going to show him that we are a perfect family and that the future of the company is in good hands,” his father answered. The response sounded practiced.
Steve barely knew what any of that meant, but he knew it meant ‘you’re going whether you like it or not, so shut up.’
His father turned to him and grabbed Steve’s tie off the chair. He knelt down in front of Steve and looped the tie around his head and set to tying it.
“Now, you are going to be perfect, Steven,” his father ordered. “Be polite, speak only when spoken to, shake people’s hands when you’re introduced to them, and don’t act up.” His father finished tying the tie, and at the last part, which he said in a harder tone than the rest of it, he moved his hands and gripped Steve’s upper arms. Steve winced at his tight grip. “Can you do all that?”
Steve knew it wasn’t really a question, and it certainly wasn’t a choice.
Steve nodded anyway, and his father released his arms.
“Good,” his father stated as he stood up. “Then, let’s get going.”
The party was unbearably stuffy. Steve felt like he was suffocating as soon as he walked in there. There were a couple of other kids, but they all looked just as uncomfortable as he did, dressed in stiff, itchy suits and stiff, itchy dresses with their hair shiny with gel or pulled back so tightly, it looked painful. Most of the people were adults, though. Stuffy adults that towered over Steve and stared at him with looks, like they were judging his every move. Just like his mom and dad.
His father’s hand gripped his shoulder, and Steve winced as his fingers dug into Steve’s skin through his suit jacket. His father pulled his shoulder back with a slight jerk.
“Straighten up, Steven,” his father ordered through gritted teeth, and Steve straightened his back.
“John!” A big man said as he approached. His voice was so loud, it made Steve jump. “It’s good to see you!” He exclaimed, practically roared, as he clapped one hand on Steve’s father’s shoulder and shook his hand with the other.
“Nice to see you, too, Fred,” Steve’s father replied.
The man, Fred, let go after a moment and turned to Steve’s mother, who looked even fancier than usual in a glittery dress with her blonde hair pulled back. She smiled her perfect smile, her white teeth framed by red lipstick.
“And this must be your beautiful wife, Margaret,” Fred said as he took Steve’s mother’s hand and bowed low to kiss her knuckles. He straightened back up and smiled at her in a way that looked… gross to Steve. It was the way some of the boys in class looked at the girls, which Steve didn’t really understand and he understood even less when that girl was his mom and the boy was someone who wasn’t his dad.
Steve’s father’s hand gripped even tighter at his shoulder, to the point where it was painful, but he wasn’t looking at Steve. He was looking at Fred and his wife with a glare in his eyes, but when Fred turned, that glare was gone and replaced with a perfect smile.
Fred looked down at Steve. “And this must be your son, Steven.”
Steve remembered what his dad had said, and he held out his hand, having to hold it almost above his head for it to be level with Fred’s chest.
“It’s nice to meet you, sir,” Steve said.
Fred smiled, looking a little surprised, and he shook Steve’s hand. Steve’s hand was tiny compared to his.
“What a little gentleman,” Fred laughed, letting go of Steve’s hand, as he glanced briefly at Steve’s father. He glanced at Steve’s mother, allowing his gaze to linger, before turning back to Steve’s father. “You’ve taught him well.”
Steve’s father nodded as he put his hand back on Steve’s shoulder. He looked at Steve, and Steve could barely hold back a grin as his father looked at him with something almost like pride.
“Yes, we have,” his father said. “Steven, this is my boss, Mr. Lightbright.”
Steve tried not to laugh at the man’s name.
“It’s nice to meet you, Steven,” Fred Lightbright said. “I’ve heard from your father that he hopes you’ll take over for him someday.”
Steve didn’t know anything about that, but he was pretty sure his father would be mad if he said so, so he just nodded.
“Do you do well in school?” Fred asked.
Steve wasn’t sure how to answer. He knew it would probably sound better if he said yes, but he also wasn’t sure if he should lie. His teacher said lying was bad.
Steve glanced at his father, who nudged him. That didn’t really answer his unspoken question, so Steve just decided to answer honestly.
Steve shook his head. “I’m not good at school.”
His father gripped his shoulder so tightly, Steve almost squeaked, but he swallowed the sound before it could escape.
Okay, so apparently that was the wrong answer.
Fred’s smile wasn’t so nice anymore. It looked like a shark’s, all bared teeth.
Steve was nervous. He didn’t like that smile.
“Oh? Are you good at any of your classes?” Fred asked. He sounded like he was just curious, but he was still smiling that scary smile. “Are you a good reader, or are you good at math or anything like that?”
Steve swallowed. His father was still gripping his shoulder so hard, Steve thought it might bruise. He wasn’t sure how to answer. He wasn’t sure what anyone wanted from him.
“I’m not good at reading,” Steve admitted, his voice a lot quieter. “I’m okay at math, I guess. I love gym and art class, though. Those are my favorite.”
Fred nodded. “Is that so?” He asked, and he turned to Steve’s father. “John, how can you except the child to take over for you when you retire if he can’t even read?”
“I-“ Steve blurted before he could stop himself, and he shrunk when both men turned to him.
“Don’t speak unless spoken to,” his father had said.
But Steve couldn’t stop now, and both his father and Mr. Lightbright were staring at him.
“I can read,” Steve finished lamely.
“But not well,” Fred said as he turned back to Steve’s father.
“He’s only in second grade,” his father pointed out.
“Well, he’s not off to a very promising start, is he?” Fred replied.
Fred’s name was called, and Fred smiled at Steve’s father, that scary smile.
“The wife is calling,” Fred said, and he glanced at Steve’s mother one more time before glancing back at Steve’s father. “You know how it is. It was nice talking to you, John.”
Fred disappeared into the crowd, and Steve’s father’s grip on his shoulder tightened again, making Steve look up.
His father glared down at him, and Steve felt really scared.
Steve went to bed that Christmas night with tears on his face and bruises all over.
Steve went to another Christmas party when he was eight. Not much happened at that one. The adults still stared at him with judging, scrutinizing eyes; his suit was still itchy and uncomfortable; his dad’s grip on his shoulder was still too heavy and too tight.
The whole night was still boring and suffocating, but Steve escaped the night without any bruises.
His father also got promoted, and Steve didn’t have to go to anymore Christmas parties after that. Probably because his father was the supervisor to most of them, so no one was scrutinizing him and their ‘perfect family’ anymore. Whatever the reason, Steve was just glad he didn’t have to go to another business Christmas party.
The Christmas when he was nine, Steve spent alone.
The Christmas when he was ten, Steve spent alone.
The Christmas when he was eleven, Steve spent alone.
The Christmas when he was twelve… was different.
“So what are you doing for Christmas?” Tommy asked. “Do you do anything with your parents?”
Steve shook his head absentmindedly. He was preoccupied with stuffing his books into his cluttered-and frankly overflowing-locker. “Nah, my parents are on a business trip, so I have the house to myself.”
Tommy was quiet for a minute. Steve didn’t really notice as he wrestled his books into his locker, crinkling papers (homework assignments from September, handouts he had never even looked at, test papers with Fs and Ds and occasional Cs written at the top).
“Why is this history book so huge and awkward?” Steve grunted as he struggled to get it into his locker. “Actually, why do we even have it? It’s not like anyone actually reads it!”
“Except for the nerds,” Tommy said.
Steve finally got his history book in and set to piling the rest on top of it.
“So you’re spending Christmas alone?” Tommy asked.
Steve nodded as he slammed his locker shut. It tried to open again and spill all his books and papers out, but Steve slammed it shut even harder. He heard it latch shut, but he held his hands in front of the locker for a moment to make sure. When it didn’t pop back open, he smiled in satisfaction and dropped his hands.
He turned to face Tommy and leaned his shoulder against his locker. “Yeah, but it’s either attend one of my father’s stuffy business parties or spend Christmas alone, so if I had to choose between the two, I’d choose the latter.”
“But Christmas is about family and togetherness and all that shit,” Tommy said, which was oddly sentimental for Tommy. “No one should spend Christmas alone.”
Steve shrugged. “I’m used to it.”
Tommy was giving him a weird look. He looked almost… sad.
Steve didn’t like it.
“Then, spend Christmas with my family,” Tommy suddenly blurted out.
Steve’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “But you just said so yourself—Christmas is about family and all that shit. I can’t crash your family get together.”
“Well, you are my family,” Tommy countered.
Both of them seemed a little surprised at that.
Steve’s heart warmed at Tommy’s words. Sure, Steve thought of Tommy like a brother, but he had never thought, never even hoped, that Tommy thought of him the same way.
Tommy forged ahead. Tommy didn’t do all that mushy emotion stuff, and neither did Steve, so Tommy didn’t allow the awkwardness to set in.
“And my mom loves you, so she’d love to have you come,” Tommy said.
Steve blinked, and maybe it was still the surprise of Tommy saying Steve was family or maybe it was that Steve liked the idea of having someone to spend Christmas with, but Steve found himself saying yes.
Steve didn’t spend that Christmas alone.
Instead, he spent it laughing with Tommy; helping Mrs. Hagan set all the food out on the table; watching Tommy and his older brother tease and jibe at each other; and playing with Mr. Hagan’s train set with Tommy.
That was the most memorable part of the night. Mr. Hagan had more trains that Steve thought any adult could have, and they were set up with a cool track and some even moved. Steve loved it.
He and Tommy played with the trains, moving them along the track and watching the ones that moved chug-a-chug-a-chug-a-chug over the mountain and through the green, grassy parts of the track.
“What are you two doing?” A voice snapped, and they both looked up, like deers frozen in headlights.
Mr. Hagan stood in the doorway, and he looked angry.
“Tommy, you know you’re not allowed to touch those trains! They’re collectibles, not toys!” Mr. Hagan yelled, and he took a step closer.
Steve flinched back so hard, he fell into Tommy and sent them both to the floor. Steve landed on Tommy, who gave an oof, and he scrambled off of him, crawling backwards until he hit the leg of the table. Steve’s arms instinctively curled up to cover his face.
The blow he was waiting for never came.
After a few moments where Steve’s heavy breathing was the only thing that filled the silence, Steve hesitantly lowered his arms and saw Mr. Hagan standing frozen in horror and Tommy staring at him in confusion.
“What’s wrong, Steve?” Tommy asked.
Steve didn’t look away from Mr. Hagan.
“Steve,” Mr. Hagan said softly, like he was speaking to a wounded animal. “It’s okay. I’m-I’m not mad.”
Steve tilted his head to the side in confusion.
But… Mr. Hagan had yelled. Steve’s dad always yelled before he hit him, but Mr. Hagan didn’t even move closer. He didn’t even look mad anymore. He actually looked… sad.
Steve hesitated for another moment before crawling out from under the table and standing up. Tommy was still looking at him in confusion, and Steve suddenly felt embarrassed. He wasn’t even sure why, but Mr. Hagan and Tommy were both staring at him, and he had done something wrong, but he didn’t know what.
“Sh-Should I go?” Steve whispered.
Mr. Hagan rapidly shook his head. “No, it-it’s okay. I’m sorry I scared you.”
“I’m sorry we touched your trains,” Steve said.
Mr. Hagan smiled, but he still kind of looked like he was going to cry. “It’s okay. Let’s go back out to the living room, and you guys can play with Tommy’s toys.”
Steve and Tommy nodded, and they ran out to the living room. Steve and Tommy didn’t think anymore about it, but Steve still caught Mr. Hagan—and a little while later, Mrs. Hagan, after Mr. Hagan presumably told her—sending him concerned glances.
It was still the best Christmas Steve had ever had.
“Why’s your tree so boring?” Tommy asked.
It was the next year, a week before Christmas, and Steve already had an invitation to the Hagans’ house for Christmas. Tommy was over at his house hanging out that day and had been staring at Steve’s Christmas tree for the past five minutes, but Steve was too high to think much of it until Tommy asked that question.
“What do you mean?” Steve asked.
“There’s no cool ornaments or anything. It’s all just blue and gold and silver. It looks like something out of a catalogue,” Tommy explained.
Steve shrugged. “My parents like it that way.”
“Do you like it?”
Steve stared at the tree in consideration. He supposed it looked pretty, but it just looked so… cold and impersonal. It didn’t really speak Christmas.
And Tommy was right. It did look like something out of a catalogue.
“I think it’s boring,” Steve admitted, something he had only mentioned to his mom once and hadn’t even thought of saying to her again.
Tommy nodded. “Yeah, it is. Pass the weed, would you?”
The next week, when Steve was at the Hagans for Christmas, he was shocked when Tommy handed him a present.
Steve had unwrapped the present in excitement. He had never unwrapped a present before; his parents were never home to give him gifts on Christmas, and while he occasionally got a birthday gift when his parents remembered, they never bothered to wrap it.
“Wrapping presents is a waste of time. You just rip it open and throw the wrapping paper away,” his dad said.
“It’s not like people care about the wrapping anyway. They just want the present,” his mom said.
Steve decided he loved unwrapping gifts. It filled him with joy and anticipation and excitement. It made the gift even more exciting, if that was even possible.
It was a small box, and Steve opened it to see what was inside.
Steve’s smile grew even wider.
It was an ornament. It was a train, red and yellow, no blue or silver or gold. Steve picked it up, and it was heavy in his hands, unlike the hollow glass of his family’s Christmas ornaments. Steve turned it over in his hands in amazement, and he spotted the words carved into the bottom.
To: Steve
From: Tommy
It was just an ornament with four words carved into the bottom, but it was also so much more than that.
Steve put it back in the box carefully, and he placed the box to the side so he could jump up and practically tackle Tommy in a hug.
When Steve got home that night, the first thing he did was hang the new ornament on the tree, right in the center for everyone to see. It was a huge contrast from the blue and the gold and the silver.
It was just one ornament, but it already made the tree seem brighter and livelier and happier.
Steve felt brighter and livelier and happier, too.
Steve spent the next Christmas with Tommy’s family, and he fooled himself into thinking this would be a regular thing.
“Hey, Steve?” Tommy said one day when they were lounging on Steve’s couch, drinking beer at noon just because they could.
“Yeah?” Steve asked.
“Would it be okay if we… didn’t do Christmas this year?”
Steve sat up, knitting his eyebrows. “Why? What’s up?”
“I’m spending Christmas with Carol’s family this year. You know, meet the parents and all that,” Tommy answered.
Steve felt a quick rush of anger hit him. He loved Carol, he did, but he wished the three of them could have just stayed friends instead of Tommy and Carol dating. Things were so much better back then, and now, Tommy couldn’t hang out because Carol; Tommy couldn’t come over because Carol; Tommy couldn’t do anything because Carol.
But Steve swallowed his anger because he knew how Tommy would react if he said anything. Just like with his mom and dad, what Steve wanted, what Steve felt, didn’t matter. If he ever said anything, they would just get mad, and Steve would lose the argument anyway.
It was just Christmas. Steve was throwing a New Year’s party, and he would see Tommy then. Sure, Tommy would probably be more focused on Carol at the party, but at least he’d be there.
“Sure, man, it’s no problem,” Steve lied.
The Christmas when he was fifteen, Steve spent alone.
The next year, Steve met Nancy Wheeler.
Steve was used to a revolving door of girlfriends; he was used to girls leaving him, even thinking he was only good for one thing, and he was used to pushing a few away when they got too close. He didn’t expect Nancy Wheeler to be any different. To her, he was probably just… an experiment. A little rebellion. And Steve was okay with that.
But then, she was different, and Steve found himself falling. Hard.
This was usually the part when Steve would push the girl away. His heart was wrapped in thick walls, walls he had put up the first time his parents looked at him and decided he wasn’t worth loving. No one ever broke down those walls. The only one who even came close was Tommy, but Steve wouldn’t even let his best friend get close enough to let down his walls.
Nancy Wheeler touched those walls, and they started to crumble like paper.
For once, Steve thought… Maybe he could trust someone enough to let them in.
Then, Johnathon Byers happened.
Then, the monsters in the wall happened, and a month later, Steve was still processing that.
Things returned, more or less, back to normal. Nancy explained the misunderstanding, and Steve apologized for the spray paint on the movie theater, and they were back together again. It should’ve been perfect. Except…
Nancy still gave Jonathon longing glances when she thought he wasn’t looking. Steve and Nancy both chipped in to buy Jonathon a new camera, Steve out of guilt, Nancy out of something else Steve didn’t want to admit was there. But Steve couldn’t not notice how Nancy and Jonathon’s hands brushed when she handed him the present and how the touch lingered for a second too long before Nancy pulled away.
So, no, things weren’t perfect. But like the monsters in the wall, Steve was choosing to ignore it.
That was the Harrington way, after all. Ignore all your problems until they punch you in the face.
Christmas with the Wheelers was awkward. Between Mrs. Wheeler’s badly disguised distrust of him, Mike’s apparent hatred towards him, and Nancy’s two-way love between him and Jonathon, it was incredibly weird. At least Mr. Wheeler seemed to like him, if only because he finally had someone to talk to about sports. On top of that, Steve was fielding questions about why he wasn’t with his parents on Christmas, dodging the questions so he didn’t get the pitying look he always got when he said his parents didn’t come home for Christmas.
But when Nancy surprised him at his house the next day, Steve couldn’t hide that fact.
The knock came at ten in the morning, which Steve still thought was too early for anyone to be knocking the day after Christmas. He turned off the cheesy Christmas movie he’d been watching on TV and jogged over to the door, opening it just as the second knock came.
“Hello, how can I help—oh, hi, Nancy.”
Nancy smiled. “Hi, Steve,” she said. “Just bringing back your dish.”
She held out the Tupperware container Steve had used to bring frosted brownies to her house the night before. Steve accepted it with a thank you.
“My mom wants me to ask you for the recipe,” Nancy added.
Steve shrugged. “It’s my grandma’s recipe, but I don’t think she’d mind. The secret ingredient is enough colorful sprinkles to make a rainbow jealous.”
Nancy laughed, and Steve stepped aside, holding the door open wider. “Come on in,” he said, and Nancy stepped inside.
“Where are your parents?” Nancy wondered as they walked into the living room.
Steve faltered, unsure of how to answer. It was easy to dodge that question with Mrs. and Mr. Wheeler and the neighbors, but this was Nancy.
“California, I think,” Steve said. “Business trip.”
Nancy’s eyebrows shot up. “They flew out the day after Christmas.”
“Uh, no, they didn’t come for Christmas. Flew out about two weeks ago.”
Steve was prepared for the awkward silence and pitying look, but it didn’t make it easier to see Nancy’s face fall into a sad expression, like she was looking at a kicked puppy.
Steve shrugged. “It’s not a big deal,” Steve said dismissively. “I can watch Hallmark movies, blast the most annoying Christmas songs, and eat all the Christmas cookies and drink all the eggnog I want. It has its perks.”
Nancy nodded, looking like she wanted to say something but chose not to. Not a surprise because communication was never their strong suit, but Steve was relieved she didn’t push.
Steve headed to the kitchen real quick to toss the Tupperware container in the sink so he wasn’t just awkwardly holding it the whole time (and if he set it anywhere but the sink, he’d forget about it and it’d sit there for a week). When he returned to the living room, he found Nancy looking at the tree.
It hadn’t changed much since Steve was a kid. Still fake and plastic with silver, blue, and gold ornaments adorning the stiff, green branches. The only change was the single train ornament, front and center on the tree, sticking out like a sore thumb against all the plain, perfect, uniform ornaments.
“What’s with the train ornament?” Nancy asked.
“Tommy gave that to me a few years ago,” Steve answered, trying to hide the sadness in his tone when he thought of Tommy. They hadn’t spoken since Steve drove off after yelling at Tommy and Carol about the spray paint. The only time they even looked at him was when they gave him dirty looks in the hallways.
Tommy and Carol were jerks. Steve had been a jerk. But they were still his friends. Now, that friendship was gone, and it would never come back. Steve knew he shouldn’t, but he wanted that friendship back. Anything was better than the loneliness.
Steve tried not to be bitter about the fact that he sacrificed his oldest and only friendships for Nancy, and Nancy still might love Jonathon Byers more than him.
“My parents prefer a clean, orderly tree,” Steve continued. “Personally, I think it’s boring as hell. When Tommy found out, he got me that ornament.”
Nancy was quiet for a moment. Tommy was a sensitive topic, a reminder of Steve’s bullying days. Nancy saw Tommy as just a bully, nothing more, but Tommy was so much more than just a bully to Steve. Tommy was a friend, and while he could be a jerk, he could also be very considerate when he wanted to be. He knew Steve better than anyone, and considering there was so much Tommy didn’t know about him, maybe that was a little sad.
“That was nice of him,” she finally settled, and Steve nodded.
“He wasn’t always a jerk,” Steve said. “But people change.”
Nancy nodded, turning to Steve. “Yeah,” she said. “They do.”
Steve had a history of missing these things, but he was pretty sure Nancy wasn’t talking about Tommy.
New Years Eve came a few days later. Steve would typically have a big New Years Eve party, but his popularity was waning ever since the whole thing with Tommy and Carol. He was still popular in the sense everybody knew who he was and knew not to get on his bad side, but King Steve was dying or was already dead. It would’ve felt weird to have a party like he used to.
Instead, Steve just invited Nancy.
They spent most of the night watching movies curled up on the couch. Thrillers, mostly; Nancy loved those. Steve personally loved romcoms, but Nancy hated them, called them too cliche and unrealistic. They stayed away from the horror genre all together; the memories of monsters in the walls were still painfully fresh.
It was almost midnight when Nancy suddenly sat up.
“I almost forgot,” she said, and she moved to the edge of the couch to rummage around in her bag.
“Forgot what?” Steve asked, pausing the movie.
Nancy pulled out a package wrapped in Christmas wrapping paper, and she held it out to Steve.
“Christmas was a week ago,” Steve pointed out.
“Yeah, but I realized I never gave you a present,” Nancy said.
“You didn’t have to get me anything,” Steve said.
“I wanted to,” Nancy replied. “Now, here. Open it.”
“Bossy,” Steve lightly teased as he tore the wrapping paper off the package.
His face immediately broke into a smile, and he looked up at Nancy.
“So the train ornament isn’t the only one,” she said.
Steve opened the package carefully and pulled out the ornament. It was a small record player with a record in place on the turntable and the needle down, like a song was about to play.
“I love it,” Steve said, and he stood, heading over to the Christmas tree. He’d be taking it down in just a few days, but he didn’t care. He hung the record player ornament near the top of the tree, just below the star.
In the next room, the clock began to chime
Nancy joined him beside the tree, and she wrapped her arms around his neck. “Happy New Year,” she said.
“Happy New Year,” Steve replied, and they kissed.
The kiss lasted until the echoes of the clock chime faded out, and for a moment, Steve could believe everything was perfect.
It didn’t last long.
By the same time next year, Steve and Nancy were broken up because apparently, Nancy didn’t love him and everything they had was bullshit. Then, she got together with Jonathon Byers the day after they broke up.
On top of that, the monsters in the wall came back, and Steve was now the certified babysitter for a bunch of preteens.
Including the one pounding on his door at nine in the morning on a Saturday.
“I’m coming, I’m coming, hold your horses!” Steve yelled as he ran down the stairs, still in his pajamas because again, it was a Saturday. He flung the door open and had half a second to be confused when he didn’t immediately see anyone until his eyes drifted lower to find a twelve year old on his doorstep.
“What took you so long? It’s cold out here,” Dustin said, not even bothering to stamp the snow off his feet before ducking under Steve’s arm and entering the house without an invitation.
Steve rolled his eyes. “Come on in, I guess. But take off your shoes, man. Were you raised in a barn?”
Dustin responded with an eye roll of his own and kicked his shoes off at the entrance to the living room, throwing them haphazardly into the corner. Dustin made his way into the living room and dropped onto the couch like he owned the place.
“Is there a reason you almost knocked my door down this early in the morning?” Steve asked.
“Yeah, to celebrate the whole, you know, saving the world two years in a row thing, Mrs. Byers decided to have a little Christmas party for all of us,” Dustin said. “I think it’s mostly because El didn’t even know what Christmas was, and Mrs. Byers found that unacceptable.”
“That is unacceptable,” Steve said. “Poor kid doesn’t know what Christmas is?”
“She didn’t even know what a birthday was,” Dustin said. “But yeah, so when Mrs. Byers found that out, she decided to have everyone over for a Christmas party on the 23rd.”
Steve paused. “Everyone?” He echoed, uncertainly.
“Nancy and Jonathon are going to be there, if that’s what you’re asking,” Dustin said, always the blunt genius. “But you have to be there! You helped save the world, too.”
“I couldn’t even take Billy Hargrove,” Steve reminded him, still feeling the blow to his ego two months later. “You shitheads kidnapped me and stole a car. The most I did was throw a lighter and hit a few demodogs with a baseball bat.”
“Dude,” Dustin said, sounding surprised. “You saved Lucas. Yeah, Billy kicked your ass, but he probably would’ve killed Lucas. You kept us safe in the tunnels and the junkyard. Give yourself some credit, man.”
“Yeah, credit for being a damn good babysitter. Sure that’ll do wonders for my reputation,” Steve muttered, sarcastically.
Dustin shrugged. “It did wonders for your reputation with us. Well, maybe not Mike. But me, Lucas, and Max? Definitely.”
Steve refused to show how that really made him feel—happy and warm, like he felt when Tommy first called him his best friend—and responded the only way he knew how: with sarcasm.
“Glad I won the praise of a bunch of preteens. That will definitely win me some points with the ladies,” Steve replied.
Dustin rolled his eyes, not seeming offended. Dustin had a weird way of seeing right through Steve’s sarcasm and bravado, and it was a little unsettling to be known that well by a kid. But it also felt good to be known in a way Steve had never let himself be known before.
“Whatever, man,” Dustin said. “You coming or not?”
Steve’s first instinct was to say no. Nancy and him were on somewhat good terms, but it was incredibly awkward, and Jonathon being there would only make it more so. But he also knew Dustin would be disappointed, and Steve did not want to open himself up to the kicked puppy dog eyes.
Steve shrugged. “Sure, why not?” What else was he gonna do with no friends, no girlfriend, and his parents being in… New York? Boston? Antartica? Steve didn’t know.
Dustin beamed for just a second before trying to hide the smile and play it cool.
“Cool. It’ll be fun and… cool,” Dustin said, awkwardly, obviously trying to hide how happy he really was. Steve resisted the urge to smile, fondly. “Now, could you give me a ride to the arcade? I’m supposed to meet the party there in ten minutes, and biking would take me, like, thirty.”
Steve couldn’t help it this time: he laughed with almost sickening fondness.
“Sure, kid. Let’s go.”
Steve felt wildly out of place, despite the fact that he had been to the Byers house before. But then again, the first time, he had been fighting a monster that came out of the wall and the second time, he’d been getting his ass kicked by a racist jerk that reminded Steve too much of who he used to be (although at least Steve can say he was never racist and he never picked on preteens because what the hell, Hargrove?). Now, he was at the Byers house, and there was no other-worldly catastrophe or a world-saving mission, and Steve felt wildly out of place.
Steve was considering turning around and going home when the door was flung open.
“Are you gonna stand there all night or come in?” Max asked, eyebrows raised.
“Geesh, I didn’t even get the chance to knock,” Steve muttered as he stepped through the door and into the chaos of the living room. Because that’s the only way it could be described—chaos.
Hopper was chasing Mike with a candlestick, yelling something about “three inches!” Steve didn’t want to know what that was all about. El was sneaking cookies from the kitchen with her powers, so there were several frosting-and-sprinkles-laden cookies hovering in the air as El floated them towards herself. Dustin and Lucas were wrestling and were getting worriedly close to a shelf of knickknacks, which Will seemed to be policing as he snatched all the knickknacks off the shelf seconds before Dustin and Lucas rolled into the wall the shelf was on. Jonathon was just taking pictures and watching the mayhem unfold. Nancy was helping Mrs. Byers in the kitchen, but neither of them seemed to be well-versed in the art of cooking because there was a concerning amount of smoke coming from the oven.
Steve stood awkwardly in the doorway, holding the array of Christmas-themed desserts he’d brought, before deciding to ignore everything else and help Nancy and Mrs. Byers before they burned the house down.
Steve dropped his Tupperware container of desserts on the counter and rushed over to the oven, using a towel to pull the baking dish of something that might’ve been brownies at one point out of the oven. Mrs. Byers and Nancy turned away from where they were trying to save the lumpy mashed potatoes with copious amounts of milk and whipping cream.
“Oh, shit,” Mrs. Byers muttered as she waved a towel over the smoking dish before it could set off the smoke detectors. “Thank you… Steve, right?”
“Yes, Mrs. Byers. Can I help you with…” Steve trailed off, gesturing to the dishes strewn across the kitchen, most of which weren’t past saving but were very near it.
“Not unless you’re a miracle worker,” Mrs. Byers said.
“Not a miracle worker, but I do know my way around a kitchen,” Steve said as he set to work.
By the end, nothing was perfect, but most of the food was edible and decent, so Steve considered that win.
“When you said you knew your way around a kitchen, you weren’t kidding,” Nancy said as she poured a pot of boiling vegetables into a bowl.
Steve shrugged sheepishly, still not sure how to talk to Nancy after everything, but he gave her a half-hearted smile. They began to take the dishes to the table. Mrs. Byers had scrounged up several folding tables and lined them up in the living room (after Jonathon and Hopper worked together to push the furniture to the sides of the room).
“Dinner!” Nancy shouted in a voice only an older sister could muster, and everyone came running.
The kids were like stampeding gremlins as they sprinted down the hallway and took seats at the table. Mike sat beside El and grabbed her hand under the table, and Will sat on the other side of him; Will gave Mike a look Steve couldn’t discern and stared at the mashed potatoes like they held the secrets to the universe. Jonathon sat on the other side of Will with Nancy next to him, and in a similar manner to Mike and El, they were holding hands under the table. Steve looked away, his eyes drifting to the other side of the table.
Max sat on one end with Lucas next to her. Lucas was giving her a lovesick look, and Max was pretending not to notice while trying to hide her own lovesick look. Dustin sat on the other side of Lucas, and Steve took a seat beside Dustin. Hopper took a seat at the end of the table with El on one side and Joyce on the other.
“Let’s eat!” Mrs. Byers exclaimed, and everyone dug in.
The rest of the night was spent in conversation. Mike and Will were trying to explain Christmas to El. Max was marveling over the snow falling outside the window, having never seen it in California, and Lucas and Dustin were offering to take her sledding the day after Christmas. Jonathon was still taking pictures, and Nancy was watching him with a smile and heart eyes, both more genuine than Steve had ever seen when they were dating. Joyce and Hopper were talking quietly, and they kept glancing at Will and El with discrete smiles. Steve only caught snippets of the word “gift” thrown here and there, so he assumed it was about whatever they’d gotten Will and El.
Steve was content to watch it all. He’d never had anything like this. The closest were those Christmases he spent with Tommy, but even those were nothing like this. Tommy’s family was kind and happy, but they weren’t fun and chaotic and overflowing with joy. Steve preferred this wild and rambunctious gathering any day of the year.
The night came to an end around ten o’clock that night, and Steve was tasked with taking Lucas, Max, and Dustin home. They’d biked over—in Max’s case, skateboarded— but Steve (and Mrs. Byers) refused to let them bike home in the dark. Steve crammed their bikes and skateboard into his trunk, and Max and Lucas slid into the backseat while Dustin got in the passenger seat. The car rides started out with loud conversations but dwindled shortly after. Steve glanced in the back mirror and saw Lucas and Max leaning on each other’s shoulders, eyelids dropping and being plagued by occasional yawns. A glance in the passenger seat showed that Dustin wasn’t much better, his head leaning against the cold window and blinking blearily at the night sky.
He dropped off Lucas first, and Mr. Sinclair waved from the front porch as he opened the door to usher Lucas inside. Then, he dropped off Max; thankfully, the door was opened by her mom and not Billy, and Max’s mom gave a nod of acknowledgment as she closed the door.
Finally, Steve pulled up to Dustin’s house. Mrs. Henderson opened the door when she saw them pull up. Dustin opened the car door and was calling a “see you later” to Steve when he paused. Steve followed Dustin’s eyes to Mrs. Henderson and was confused when he saw her give Dustin a meaningful look, point at Steve, and then beckon towards her.
Dustin turned back to Steve and said, “My mom wants to talk to you.”
Steve knew Mrs. Henderson was perfectly nice from everything Dustin had told him, but he couldn’t help feeling nervous as he got out of the car and followed Dustin up the sidewalk. A dozen scenarios flew through his head, one being the most prominent: that Mrs. Henderson would find it weird that her twelve year old son was hanging out with a seventeen year old and forbid Steve from seeing Dustin again. Steve couldn’t figure out why that possibility hurt so much and left him nervous beyond belief as he approached Mrs. Henderson.
She smiled kindly. “You must be Steve,” she said.
Steve nodded and held out his hand to shake hers, the way his dad always taught him to greet anyone. She shook his hand as Steve said, “It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Henderson.”
“It’s nice to meet you, too,” she replied. “My Dusty-Bun’s told me a lot about you.”
Steve just barely managed to stop himself from laughing, and Dustin blushed as he hissed, “Mom!”
“What?” Mrs. Henderson asked. “But he’s told me a lot about you. How you helped him search for Mews—“
Steve assumed that was the cover story Dustin gave his mom when they were searching for Dart.
“And you drive him around so he doesn’t have to bike everywhere, and he also told me how you protected his friend Lucas from that—what was his name?” Mrs. Henderson said, turning to Dustin.
“Billy Hargrove,” Dustin answered.
“I appreciate all you’ve done for my Dusty,” she said.
This was it, Steve realized. This was the moment she was going to tell him she appreciated it, but he couldn’t see Dustin again.
No matter how hard Steve tried, he couldn’t ignore the fact that that realization hurt like hell.
“And I want you to know you’re welcome anytime,” she said.
Somewhere, a record scratched. Steve blinked, having not expected that, but a moment later, the relief set in. She wasn’t forbidding him from seeing Dustin, although Steve couldn’t figure out why. Didn’t she find it weird her twelve year old son was hanging around some random teenager? Steve still found it a little weird.
But Steve wasn’t going to say any of that because it would be rude and Dustin might think Steve didn’t want to hang out with him when actually, it was the complete opposite.
Instead, Steve responded, “Thank you, Mrs. Henderson.”
Her smile grew, and Steve smiled in return.
“I almost forgot!” Dustin suddenly exclaimed, and he sprinted inside. Steve gave Mrs. Henderson a quizzical look, but she just shrugged, most likely used to Dustin’s weirdness by now.
A moment later, Dustin reappeared, and he shoved something into Steve’s hands. Steve turned it over and realized it was a walkie talkie.
“Every member of the party has one,” Dustin said. “You’re a member of the party now.”
There was that feeling again—happiness and warmth spreading through Steve’s chest, like a bonfire behind his ribs.
“We’re on channel eleven,” Dustin said. “Just press that button,” Dustin added, pointing to the button in question.
“Got it, Henderson,” Steve said. “Thank you.”
Thank you for the walkie talkie. Thank you for taking a chance on me. Thank you for being my friend. Thank you for accepting me into the party. Thank you for everything.
There was too much to thank Dustin for, but Dustin seemed to get it. At least Steve hoped he did.
“Merry Christmas,” Dustin said.
“Merry Christmas,” Steve replied and headed back to his car.
A member of the party. Maybe Steve wasn’t so out of place after all.
When Steve was seventeen years old, he spent Christmas Day alone, but it didn’t feel as lonely as it usually did.
“What do you mean you’re spending Christmas alone?” Robin demanded, almost dropping the stack of VHS tapes in her hands.
Steve shrugged. “It’s not a big deal. My parents are out of town, so I’ll just hang around.”
Robin gaped at Steve like he’d just said he was a demogorgon in disguise.
She shook her head, as if freeing herself from the stupor. “Nope,” she said, resolutely, seemingly having come to some decision. “No best friend of mine is going to spend Christmas alone.”
“Robin, it’s not a big deal—“
“It is a big deal!” She exclaimed. “No one should be alone on Christmas.”
“What are you going to do? Call my parents and tell them to come home?” Steve asked. Good luck with that, Steve mentally added. I don’t even know where they are, much less how to get ahold of them.
“No,” Robin replied. “I’ll spend Christmas with you.”
Steve’s eyes widened. “Robin, you don’t have to do that. Your parents—“
“Will have to deal with it. As your platonic with a capital P soulmate, it is my solemn duty to make sure you don’t spend Christmas alone!”
“Platonic with a capital P soulmate?” Steve repeated.
Robin nodded. “Yeah, it’s a new thing I’ve been trying out. If you don’t like it, I can think of something else.”
“No,” Steve said, smiling. “I like it, but that aside, Robin, I can’t take you away from your family on Christmas.”
“You’re not taking me away from them. I see them everyday!”
“You see me everyday—“
“That’s beside the point. I am offering to spend Christmas with you. I want to spend Christmas with you, and you know once I put my mind to something, there is no stopping me, so all you can do is accept it,” Robin said, her voice more determined than Steve had ever heard it. Even more determined than when she’d insisted Keith give Steve the Family Video job, telling Keith that her and Steve were a package deal.
Steve sighed. “Fine, but only because I know you would break into my house on Christmas if I said no.”
“That’s the spirit! Now, I’ve gotta call in the cavalry,” Robin said as she grabbed Steve’s walkie talkie off the table. That walkie talkie was always close by, even while Steve was working, and Robin wasn’t afraid to use it (although Steve had talked to Dustin about Robin getting one of her own, and Dustin agreed. Dustin had told Steve the exact model of the walkie talkie, and Steve would be giving Robin the walkie talkie as her Christmas present).
“The cavalry—what does that mean?”
The cavalry—of course.
On Christmas Eve, Dustin, as he usually did, walked into Steve’s house like he lived there, carrying a duffle bag. Dustin didn’t even bother to knock anymore, ever since Steve told him where the spare key was.
“Henderson, what are you doing here?” Steve asked, not even alarmed when people just walked into his house anymore. Robin did it at least four times a week.
“Robin told me you were spending Christmas alone,” Dustin said, tossing his duffle bag on the couch. “So we’re staying the night and spending Christmas with you.”
“Dustin, you know how much your mom loves Christmas. She’ll never forgive me if you spend Christmas with me instead of her,” Steve pointed out.
“She took a shift at the hospital,” Dustin responded. “She won’t be back home until noon tomorrow, so as long as I’m back by then, she’ll forgive you. Now, what Christmas movies do you have here?” Dustin said, beginning to rummage through Steve’s movie tapes.
Robin arrived twenty minutes later, and they decided on watching A Christmas Story. But first, Robin apparently had to raid Steve’s kitchen.
“Where do you keep the hot chocolate?” She asked as she opened a random cupboard. She didn’t find the hot chocolate, but she found the mugs, pulling three down.
“That corner cabinet,” Steve answered, and Robin headed over to it, withdrawing the box of Swiss Miss hot chocolate Steve kept up there, along with a bag of mini marshmallows.
“Dustin, on a scale of ice cold to scalding, how do you take your hot chocolate?” Robin asked as she poured some milk into each of the mugs.
Dustin raised an eyebrow. “Scalding. Who drinks their hot chocolate cold?”
“Robin,” Steve answered, and Dustin looked positively scandalized as he looked at Robin like she’d just kicked a baby or something.
“You drink your hot chocolate cold?” Dustin asked.
“Yeah, I don’t like hot drinks,” Robin replied. “They feel weird in my mouth.”
“That’s not hot chocolate!” Dustin exclaimed. “That’s chocolate milk!”
“There’s a difference!”
“There is not!”
“I’ve already tried to convince her,” Steve said. “Robin refuses to change her mind.”
“Well, it’s weird,” Dustin muttered.
“I once saw you put chocolate on a carrot, Henderson,” Steve said. “You’re weirder.”
“Am not!”
“Chocolate on a carrot?” Robin repeated, horrified. “That’s diabolical.”
“Don’t knock it til you try it,” Dustin said with a shrug.
“No, thanks,” Robin said. “Now, let’s go start the movie before my hot chocolate gets warm.”
The movie was barely at the halfway point, and Robin and Dustin were already asleep. Dustin snored loudly, and Robin never sat still while she slept, so she was flopping around like a dead fish while dead asleep. Steve was the only one still awake, but he wasn’t watching the movie.
“Big house, no parents.” That’s how everyone described Steve’s house. It was big and empty and lonely, uncomfortably clean, almost like it was never lived in. Steve could’ve wrecked it anytime he wanted, and he had on more than one occasion, but the universe must’ve hated him because every time he made a mess, his parents chose that moment to come home. They’d always give him that disappointed look, and maybe Steve was imagining it, but those stays at home seemed to be shorter than the others, like they couldn’t even bear to be around him.
Steve learned to keep the house clean. Even after his parties, he’d spent the early hours of the morning cleaning until the house was back to its spotless, nothing-out-of-place shape, just in case his parents came home. He never made a mess, always put things back, and that only added to the emptiness and loneliness of the house. The house carried the air of a museum—pretty to look at, nice to walk through, but no one wanted to live there.
Now, the living room was a mess. Blankets and pillows strewn in every direction. Mugs of half-drank hot chocolate (or cold chocolate, in Robin’s case) sat on the end tables without coasters, creating rings on the polished wood. The TV droned on in the background. Dustin was curled up on one pallet of blankets, drool escaping his open mouth, and Robin was splayed out like a starfish, hair a knotted mess around her head.
For once, the house didn’t seem so big or empty or lonely. For once, it felt lived in, real. Like a home.
And this felt like a family.
“Steve!”
Steve jolted awake as someone shook him, and he sat up, swinging a fist blindly.
“Where’s the monster?” He yelled.
Dustin ducked out of the way of his flailing fist, but Dustin wasn’t surprised or startled. If anything, he seemed annoyed, rolling his eyes.
“Come on! It’s Christmas!” Dustin exclaimed, shaking Steve again, even though Steve was already awake.
“It’s also eight in the morning,” Robin grumbled as she sat up, having been awoken by the commotion. Her hair stuck up in all directions like a Dr. Seuss character. “Go back to sleep, you gremlin.”
“No!” Dustin said. “How can you sleep in on Christmas? We have presents to open, and Steve promised to bake cookies.”
“The ones with the chocolate frosting?” Robin said, suddenly wide awake. “The ones that taste like a slice of heaven?”
Dustin nodded, and Robin was on her feet.
“Well, let’s go, chop, chop,” she shouted, clapping her hands. “I want cookies.”
“Presents first!” Dustin said as he ran for the Christmas tree.
“I told you we shouldn’t have fed him after midnight,” Steve mumbled as he stood and followed Dustin to the Christmas tree.
“Why do you have two ornaments that are different from the others?” Robin asked.
“Who cares?” Dustin said before Steve could explain, and he tossed Robin her gift. “Steve and I worked together on this.”
Robin tore open the present and grinned as she pulled out the walkie talkie.
“So you can stop using mine,” Steve said. “You’re a member of the party now, and every member of the party gets their own walkie talkie.”
Robin beamed as bright as the sun.
“Your turn,” she said, grabbing a small box from under the tree and handing it to Steve. “This is from me.”
Steve opened the box and pulled out a small bracelet. It was a simple blue, red, and white one with three charms: an ice cream cone, an old fashioned film reel, and in the center of those two, one half of a heart.
“I know it’s kind of lame,” Robin rambled, “and you don’t have to wear it, but—“
“I’m never taking it off,” Steve said as he slipped it on. “Platonic with a capital P soulmate, remember?”
“Platonic with a capital P,” Robin said, holding up her hand, and they bumped fists. Steve noticed under her pajama sleeve, she was wearing an identical bracelet, only the half of the heart faced the other way, clearly meant to connect with the charm on Steve’s bracelet.
“Get a room,” Dustin said, and Steve rolled his eyes.
“Open your present, Henderson,” Steve said, and Dustin tore the wrapping paper from the box under the tree.
“A radio-building kit!” Dustin exclaimed, face stretched into a grin. “Thanks!”
“Merry Christmas, guys,” Steve said.
“Merry Christmas, Steve,” Robin responded. Dustin nodded but was too busy opening the radio kit to begin building it, and Steve knew bits and pieces of that kit would be scattered across his living room in minutes.
He didn’t mind one bit.
When Steve was eighteen, he didn’t spend Christmas alone.
The Christmas when he was nineteen was the best one of all.
December 23rd came around with a dusting of snow, enough to cover the grass and rooftops. And apparently enough for an impromptu snowball fight in Steve’s front yard.
El was using her powers to hurl snowballs without even touching them. Will and Dustin were teaming up to take her down. Dustin was distracting her by throwing snowballs at her from the stack of snowballs he had hastily premade when the snowball fight began. Meanwhile, Will was sneaking around behind El with an armful of snowballs, and she had yet to notice him. Will tossed a snowball, hitting El in the back of the head. El turned, and in a flash, a dozen snowballs were heading straight for Will. Will yelped and dove behind a tree. Dustin took the opportunity to hit El with more snowballs, and this time, one knocked El off her feet. She fell to the ground with a laugh, and Dustin and Will immediately started pelting her with more snowballs.
Meanwhile, Max was kneeling behind a makeshift fort and pummeling Mike with snowballs, under guidance from Lucas. Max was out of her casts but was still learning how to walk without crutches after waking up from her coma almost two months earlier, on Halloween. Her eyesight wasn’t great, reduced mostly to colors and shapes, but somehow she still recognized each of her friend’s blurry forms and took deadly aim with the snowballs. Mike was using his backpack to shield his face, getting in the occasional snowball that bounced off Max’s fort.
Mike threw his arms up and yelped, “I surrender! I surrender!”
“Mike, no!” Will shouted. “Death before dishonor!”
Steve wasn’t really sure what the teams were, but they all turned on Mike and started pelting him with snowballs. Mike preceded to fall to his knees with a mock-scream and then collapsed in a dramatic death.
Beside Steve, Eddie was laughing, and Steve wasn’t even surprised when Eddie picked up a huge clump of snow and joined in the snowball fight. None of the kids were expecting him, so Eddie snuck up behind Dustin and dropped the huge clump of snow down Dustin’s shirt.
Dustin shrieked and spun around, hitting Eddie in the face with a snowball, and the fight was back on.
It had been almost nine months since they defeated Vecna by torching his slimy ass. Vecna had made a run for the window, but Steve had run in with his axe and chopped Vecna’s head off in the second before Vecna could escape. Robin, Nancy, and Steve had watching Vecna’s corpse burn until it was barely recognizable before returning to Eddie and Dustin.
They’d found Dustin wailing over Eddie’s body, and Steve, in panicked desperation, had given Eddie CPR. Against all odds, it worked, and they got Eddie back.
Eddie was in a medically induced coma for a month afterwards before his wounds had healed enough to wake him up. Wayne, Steve, and Dustin were all there when Eddie opened his eyes, and over the next few months, they all helped Eddie on the long road of recovery.
Now, Eddie had scars and phantom pains, as well as a slight limp, but he was as bright and chaotic as ever. Meanwhile, Steve was trying to ignore the butterflies in his stomach whenever he saw Eddie. That was easy for the few months after they defeated Vecna when he spent most of the time worried about Max and Eddie, but once things settled down, the butterflies went crazy. Seriously, the butterflies had gone from fluttering to doing a whole gymnastics routine every time Eddie smiled.
Steve knew he should be telling the kids and Eddie to come inside and get ready for dinner, but he couldn’t bring himself to stop the fun. Several minutes passed of the waging snowball fight and Steve watching from the sidelines. It might’ve gone on forever if Nancy hadn’t poked her head outside to see what was taking them so long.
“You and Eddie were supposed to tell them dinner was ready,” she said.
“We are!”
Nancy raised her eyebrows. “It looks like you’re just watching while Eddie is nailing the kids with snowballs.”
As if on cue, Eddie hit Mike in the face with a snowball, and Mike, being the drama king he was, flailed and collapsed to the ground like he’d been mortally wounded.
“Betrayal!” Mike shouted through a mouthful of snow.
Steve shrugged with an innocent smile, and Nancy rolled her eyes.
“DINNER!” Nancy shouted.
The kids froze, most of them mid-throw, and dropped their snowballs, running for the door and shoving each other to get in first. They kicked off their snowy boots and dropped their coats in messy piles in the entrance way.
“Michael!” Nancy yelled. “Is this your house? Pick up your stuff!”
Mike ignored her as he and the other kids continued shoving each other and tripping over one another on the way to the dining room.
“It’s fine,” Steve said. “This house has seen worse than a couple of fifteen year olds after a snowball fight.”
“Are you sure about that?" Eddie asked as he stepped inside and promptly slipped in a puddle of melted snow. Steve caught him by the arm and pulled him completely back onto his feet before he hit the floor.
Eddie laughed, a slight blush coloring his face. “Thanks, Stevie.”
Steve resolutely did not look at Eddie because if he did, he would start blushing too, and Steve Harrington, heartbreaker prince of Hawkins, did not blush.
“No problem, Eds,” Steve replied.
Erica, the last of the kids to enter the house because Erica was too cool to join the shoving and pushing of the other kids, looked between Steve and Eddie with raised eyebrows.
“If you two lovebirds would move out of the way, there’s a dessert table with my name on it,” she said as she stepped between them and walked into the dining room.
Okay, now Steve was definitely blushing.
“Lovebirds—we’re not—it’s just—we just—“ Steve and Eddie stammered, talking over each other.
“Don’t care,” Erica said over her shoulder. “Two words: dessert. Table!”
“You two coming or not?” Nancy asked, looking between the two of them with what Steve called her “Nancy Drew” look, like they were a riddle she was trying to solve.
“Coming!” Eddie exclaimed and ran into the dining room, tripping over his feet as he went.
“What was that all about?” Nancy asked, giving Steve a quizzical glance.
Steve shrugged and did what he did best: he played dumb.
“No idea,” he said and continued into the dining room before Nancy could question it further. Steve could only guess some of the questions she had, and Steve didn’t know how to answer those questions to himself, much less to Nancy.
All he could do was avoid Eddie like the plague and douse the butterflies in his stomach with enough eggnog to knock Santa on his ass.
After dinner, Steve got to work cleaning up. He tackled the dishes while Nancy and Robin handled the dining room, and Joyce and Hopper were attempting to wrangle the kids. Steve was scrubbing a particularly nasty pan when Eddie appeared at his side.
“Need any help?” Eddie asked.
Steve jumped and would’ve dropped the pan if his quick reflexes (honed mostly from fighting monsters over the years) hadn’t kicked in to catch it before it hit the ground.
“Uh, no, I can handle it,” Steve said.
Eddie blinked and looked very purposefully at the mountain of dishes cluttering Steve’s counters.
“You’ll be here all night without help,” Eddie pointed out.
Steve debated shooing Eddie out of the kitchen, but he couldn’t figure out how to do that without seeming rude.
“Okay,” Steve said. “I can wash the dishes if you want to dry and put away?”
Eddie smiled. “Sounds like a plan, Stevie.”
They fell into a routine pretty quickly. Steve scrubbed the dishes and rinsed before handing them to Eddie, who dried them with a towel and placed them in the correct cabinet. Eddie had been to Steve’s house often enough to know where things went. It was going pretty quickly, and for a while, they didn’t even speak, continuing on in a comfortable silence.
But as Steve had learned, Eddie could only handle silence for so long.
“Your parents won’t be mad about the mess we made?” Eddie finally asked.
Steve shrugged. “They won’t be home until after Christmas, so as long as I get it cleaned up before then, they’ll never know.”
“They don’t come home for Christmas?” Eddie asked.
Steve shook his head, refusing to look at Eddie because he didn’t want to see that pitying, puzzled glance he always got when he said his parents never bothered to come home for the holidays.
“No, my dad’s a workaholic,” Steve said. “His business trips run through the holidays most of the time, and my mom sticks with him to make sure he’s only working, if you know what I mean.”
“Do you get lonely?” Eddie asked, blunt as always.
“Not really,” Steve lied. “I get to do what I want when I want, so it’s not so bad.”
They finished up the dishes and returned to the living room where the kids were mid-sugar crash and dozing off on the couch. Joyce and Hopper were yawning, too, leaning against each other on the love seat with Joyce tucked under Hopper’s arm. Robin and Nancy were talking about who knows what while Jonathon was taking pictures of the sleeping kids, muffling his laughter behind his hand.
“For the next time they think it’s a good idea to eat a pile of Christmas candy,” Jonathon said as explanation, snapping another picture of Will drooling all over Mike’s shoulder.
Steve shook his head with a laugh, and he walked over to where Eddie was standing in front of the tree. Eddie was studying the two unique ornaments in a sea of perfect, uniform ones.
“What’s with the random two ornaments?” Eddie asked, pointing to the train ornament and the record player ornament.
“Gifts,” Steve said. “My parents prefer a boring, perfect tree, like something out of a magazine. I prefer one with character, so Tommy gave me the train ornament and Nancy gave me the record player ornament.”
“Why don’t you ever change it?” Eddie asked. “You said your parents are never home, so how would they know?”
Steve paused. “I never thought of that,” he admitted. “Maybe I’ll do that next year.”
“Count me in for the decorating committee,” Eddie said.
“You’d decorate it with ornaments of bands I’ve never heard of,” Steve pointed out.
“Are you saying that’s a bad thing?” Eddie asked with a smirk.
Steve pretended to think about it. “No,” he simply said. “Not a bad thing at all.”
Eddie’s face turned bright red, and he pulled his hair around his face to cover the blush. Steve smiled, fighting down a blush of his own.
“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I better get these rugrats home,” Steve said, pointing to Dustin, Lucas, Erica, Max, and Robin.
“Hey, don’t count me as one of the rugrats,” Robin said.
“I will when you stop watching My Little Pony.”
“It is an excellent show with advanced character development and a very interesting plot line!” Robin defended herself as she grabbed her bag. She was about to head for the door when Eddie grabbed her arm and pulled her close to him, whispering something in her ear. Her face grew into a smile, and she nodded.
Eddie released her arm, and Robin continued for the door like nothing happened.
“What was that all about?” Steve asked as she passed him.
“Nothing. Just a nerd thing,” she said with a flippant shrug.
Steve raised an eyebrow. “Fine, don’t tell me.” Steve turned back to the kids and clapped his hands loudly, startling them awake. “Let’s go, rugrats!”
It was a heck of a shift at Family Video. Everyone was renting Christmas movies, and the store was full of rowdy little kids and stressed out parents. Steve sighed heavily as he approached the door to his house, ready to change out of his work clothes that just smelled like store and take a nap.
He fumbled with his keys and jammed them into the lock, but when he twisted, there was no click. He frowned in confusion and tried again, but it was the same thing. He turned the doorknob instead, and his heart dropped into his shoes when the door easily opened.
It was unlocked.
Steve was certain he had locked the door when he left. His dad had always been strict about locking the door because of the sheer amount of valuables in the house. After years of being scolded every time he left the door unlocked, Steve wouldn’t have forgotten.
Someone had been—or still was—in his house.
Steve slowly backed away from the door until he reached his car. He quietly unlocked the trunk and pulled out his nail bat.
He was pretty sure the demogorgon wouldn’t use the front door, but government people and evil Russians probably would. There was also a chance it was some random burglar, and Steve was about to traumatize them by threatening them with a nail bat. Either way, Steve wasn’t taking the chance.
Steve crept inside, his bat raised and at the ready. He could hear rustling in the living room, so he headed in that direction, fingers tightening around the handle of the bat.
There was the sound of breaking glass, and Steve jumped into action. He turned the corner and raised the bat, ready to swing first and ask questions later.
“Woah, woah, woah, it’s just us!”
Steve stopped the bat inches from Eddie’s forehead.
“Geesh, Stevie, remind me never to get on your bad side,” Eddie laughed nervously.
Steve sighed as he lowered the bat. “What are you idiots doing breaking into my house?”
“Does it count as breaking in if we have a key?” Dustin asked.
Steve looked around the living room to find it a complete mess. Empty cardboard packaging was strewn around the room, along with torn plastic and tissue paper. Dustin and Max were sitting on the floor, opening even more packages. Will and El both had paint splatters on their clothes, hands, and arms, and they were standing beside the tree, holding some ornaments in their hands. Robin was unpacking a cardboard box, and Lucas and Erica seemed to be mid argument about the placement of an ornament on the tree.
That’s when Steve noticed the tree.
It looked nothing like it had every Christmas of Steve’s life. The blue, silver, and gold ornaments were gone, pulled from the branches and dropped into a box beside the tree. A multitude of colorful, unique, and sometimes downright tacky ornaments had replaced them, filling the green branches with splashes of color.
“You said you didn’t like your boring tree,” Eddie said. “So we thought we’d change that.”
“Will and I made ornaments,” El said as she held up a painted ornament, covered in streaks of every color of the rainbow. Will held up an ornament in his own hand, and Steve could see a sword painted on it.
“And the rest of us raided the ornament section at Melvid’s,” Robin added. “Mrs. Byers was very confused, but we told her the plan, and she gave us a discount.”
“And some of us asked our parents for any ornaments they weren’t using, so that’s what’s in these boxes,” Lucas said, gesturing to a few cardboard boxes.
“Do you like it?” Eddie asked.
Steve stared at the tree. It was chaotic and crazy and messy in all the best ways, and the fact that his friends had decided to do this… Steve had never had someone do anything this thoughtful for him.
“Like it?” Steve said. “It’s awesome.”
“Well, good. You can help us finish by putting the star on the tree,” Robin said. “You’re the only one tall enough.”
Steve smiled and took the star from her. Unlike the plain gold star that had been on top of the tree for years, this one had tinsel around the edges and lights fixed at the points and scattered in the center. Steve pressed the on button, and it lit up, flashing green and red.
“Thanks, guys,” Steve said as he placed the star on the top of the tree.
They all continued decorating the tree for the next several hours, and Steve loved every second of it. It was a nice change from his big, empty house and no parents and the boring, perfect tree.
This was what Christmas was all about: fun, joy, and above all else, family.
Maybe Christmas didn’t have to be lonely, after all.