Chapter Text
Ask anyone in Hawkins, Indiana: which neighbourhood is the nicest?
Steve was fairly certain that every single person would come together and earnestly reply: Loch Nora. Not out of awe, just as a genuine fact.
Their block was the richest, the cleanest, and the most secure. The neighbours themselves were, eh, nice enough in that polished polite way that salesmen often are. And a lot of them were older people who kept to themselves.
Overall, it wasn’t the most communicative neighbourhood, but it was definitely the nicest. That is, provided you didn’t look too closely.
The Harrington household was particularly pretty; or at least that’s what Steve had always been told. He had a beautiful home.
Unfortunately, that’s all that really could be said about it.
It was a big, two story house with a heated pool in the backyard and a crap-ton of car space. But there was only ever one car that parked there, and it was Steve’s Beamer. His dad’s car was either being looked after by some fancy hotel or was with him at a fancy hotel. Or with him at another one of their homes. And his mom? Well, her car followed. The rest of the space available was for guests that they never had.
So, yeah, objectively the house was pretty. But it wasn’t exactly lived in. Steve lived there, technically, but if he so much as moved a picture frame two inches to the right his mom would have a fit.
Still, it’s not exactly a house someone would look at and think: Yeah, this place was stalked by an inter-dimensional monster.
Which is why Steve supposed he was out there now, in the woods behind his house at three AM, freezing his ass off in December snow.
All things considered, he was poorly dressed for this particular escapade - no gloves, no hat; just his coat, boots and pyjamas. And what was he armed with? A flashlight and a baseball bat with nails driven through it.
See, the woods behind his house looked pretty nice during the day. Squirrels chirped, birds sang. Sunlight would poke through the trees and the snow would sparkle under its light. However, in the absence of that light, like say at night time, that welcoming feeling was very quickly flipped on its head.
It was insanely dark; the flashlight not helping very much with visibility on account of all the snowfall, and every creak and thump he heard only served to put him further on edge. The only gentle thing about it was the snowflakes, and even those were just helping the cold creep up and sink deeper into his bones as he trudged through the snow.
Steve honestly didn’t know what the hell he was doing.
It’s stupid, really, what he was doing. Stupid, dangerous, and paranoid. The whole thing was supposed to be over — the lab had said it was over. Byers’ little brother was back home safe, the monster (what did those kids call it again? A demo-whatsit?) was dead. The mysterious super girl had killed it and now she was gone too, apparently. All Steve and the others had to do was just keep their mouths shut about it, and everything could go back to normal. Things had gone back to normal. Sort of.
And yet, Steve once again found himself patrolling around in the woods behind his house, late into the morning. He was gonna be screwed once Christmas Break ended, he promised Nancy he’d start driving her to and from school.
He just.. he couldn’t sleep. It was so easy to imagine that fucking thing out in his backyard, especially while knowing it had already been out there at least twice before! And what if there were more? More that could just pop in from the shadows and snatch up some other poor kid!
Kids like Will, kids like.. Barb.
Steve couldn’t even look directly at his pool anymore. The light and heat emanating off of it at night had felt like they were mocking him, so he’d shut it off and thrown the tarp over top. After all, he wasn’t using it, and it was winter anyway. He’d thought it might help him sleep if he didn’t have to constantly see the light of it through his bedroom window.
It didn’t help. But somehow, the idea of removing the tarp and turning it on again felt disrespectful; like he’d be defacing a gravesite or something.
So, he let it be.
In that way, he guessed Tommy was right about him. Steve did like to run away. Just not from monsters.
Somehow, monsters were easier to focus on. Easier than the dead girl in his pool, easier than his parents’ frequent absence, easier than the horrible words he’d spat to Nancy and Jonathan in November.
A monster, he could hit back and kill without feeling guilty; or it could kill him and he'd feel nothing at all. His words would mean nothing to it, and its shrieking roar would mean nothing to him. Aside from, well, ‘duck and weave or I'll eat you.’
He thought often of Tommy’s words, muffled through the glass of Steve’s car window - the same words that had haunted him as he’d run from the Byers residence before finally stopping to look back.
“That’s right! Run away, Stevie boy! Just like you always do!!”
He hadn’t wanted to run away that time.
Not from Nancy.
Hell, not from Jonathan.
But now, now as Steve’s bare hands gripped his bat for dear life and he imagined his lips slowly turning blue, he knew it was just becoming some sort of fucked up escape of its own. Monster hunting. Patrols around his house. Cold and exhausted but still too scared to sleep.
You can’t think about the shit that’s bothering you if you’re too busy worrying about something else.
So, Steve will wander through the woods behind his house at three… four AM, and let his flashlight lead him through the dark, snow crunching under his feet, jumping at every noise and shadow, nail bat in hand.
Because that’s easier. Because despite the promise that the monster was gone, Steve could still sometimes see it in the corner of his eye. In the trees, in the shadows. And that’s terrifying, but at least it’s a distraction.
He’s so tired.
Shit, he really should have at least changed out of his pyjamas, though. It’s fucking freezing.
(Colder than the pool?)
…
(Colder than Ba- )
A twig snapped nearby and Steve immediately spun on his heel, bat raised -
(This is it, this is how he dies- )
“WOAH!” Steve’s flashlight caught sight of Chief Hopper, one hand raised as if to placate him, the other hovering over his gun, yet somehow he still looked as pissed off as ever. “Watch it, put the damn bat down! What are you doing out here?!”
“Shit - Chief, you scared the hell out of me!!” Steve yelped, dropping the bat as ordered. The sudden movement caused his fingers to ache after being stuck in a death grip for so long.
“I scared you?!” Hopper exclaimed incredulously, then looked to the sky as his body relaxed, sighing in exasperation. “Answer the damn question; what are you doing out this late, Harrington?”
“I’m- uh-“ wait a minute. “Well, why are you here?!” So close to Steve’s house, for that matter.
“Answer. The damn. Question.”
“Alright alright, Christ!!” Steve sighed, “it… it’s stupid.”
“I really don’t have all night, Harrington-“
“I keep seeing that thing!!” Steve blurted out. He just wanted this conversation to be over with. “Or… or like- just- thinking that I keep seeing it? Out here. I- It was in my backyard a lot and it killed Ba- that girl, Barbara Holland, and I just- fuck- I know it’s dumb but I just-“
“Okay! Okay! Okay…” Hopper interrupted Steve’s spiral, both hands up to placate him this time, “…Okay.”
“I-“ he scoffed a little, “Okay?”
“Okay.” The chief repeated, slowly stepping forward. Carefully, he planted both his hands on Steve’s shoulders, towering over him. “Here’s what you’re gonna do. You’re gonna pick up that bat, you’re gonna turn around and you’re gonna go home and warm up. You’re gonna go back to bed. And tomorrow - not later today - tomorrow, I am going to help you set up some perimeter alarms. Do we understand each other?”
“…uh-“
“Do we understand each other?” Hopper repeated again, still clearly irritated, but Steve couldn’t bring himself to feel threatened.
See, Hopper was a big guy - heavy set, six-foot-something, grumpy all the time - not to mention he was the Chief of Police. By all accounts, Steve should probably have felt at least a little bit intimidated talking to him, right? And… okay, he did, somewhat.
But, he also felt weirdly… at ease? Now that Hopper was there? Before he’d shown up, Steve had just kind of been wandering around like a man possessed, jumping five feet in the air every time his arm touched a tree branch or some other stupid shit like that.
But now Hopper was there. And he was gruff, but he was also calm, and it grounded Steve back into reality. He felt safer.
Is that what having an adult around feels like?
Jesus, that’s depressing.
But, maybe, if Hopper could teach him a thing or two and set up an alarm like he said… maybe Steve could finally get some sleep.
(Maybe he could stop running.)
“…Yes, Chief,” he relented, picking the bat up again. The snow bit at his fingers, but he ignored it.
“Good. I’ll walk with you,” Hopper said, one hand guiding Steve’s shoulder back towards the house.
Steve was a little indignant that Hopper seemed to think he needed a guide. “I can walk back on my own, I know the way.” It was his house, after all.
“Yeah? Well, considering I found you out here at four in the morning, swingin’ a bat around, almost knocking me out in the process, forgive me if I don’t exactly have the most faith in your ability to follow orders right now.”
“For fu- God, Hop, I’m sorry!” Steve huffed in frustration.
Hopper ignored him. “I don’t wanna ever find you out here like this again, do you understand me? It’s not helping anything, and you’re gonna drive yourself crazy - if you don’t get yourself killed first! You’re sixteen years old; stay in your goddamn house at night!”
Knowing this was a battle he couldn’t win considering how many arguments they’d had like it in the past - though usually in the context of parties and not monsters - Steve opted to just shut his mouth and let Hopper guide him back. He was too tired to fight it, let alone go back on his own, so maybe letting Hopper guide him wasn’t such a bad idea.
The hand on his shoulder was warm.
The walk was silent and uncomfortable - Steve thoroughly scolded, and Hopper.. probably tired and grouchy. Steve sort of wondered if he was ever anything aside from grouchy.
Unexpectedly, Hopper broke the silence with another sigh, softer this time. “Look, I get it. Alright? You kids went through hell, and now it’s hard to just go back to regular life. I went through the same thing after coming back from ‘Nam.”
At that, Steve actually blinked and looked at Hopper. Vietnam? Steve didn’t feel like he’d gone through nearly enough to compare it to.. to that.
“But here’s the deal; you can’t just spend all your time being paranoid and looking for trouble. You’ll get yourself hurt, or you’ll get someone else hurt, so you’ve gotta find another way to cope with it. Something that doesn’t get you into trouble, got it? If it’s safety you’re worried about, I’ll help you set perimeter alarms out here. If it’s something else, you can talk to me - or, hell, talk to someone. I can get Owens to find you a shrink; maybe the others would be interested in that, too.” Hopper then fixed Steve with a look that would have pinned him in place if a hand weren’t still pushing him forward, “Bottom line is, you just can’t keep doing shit like this.”
As the chief finished his monologue, the trees finally parted enough to see the clearing in Steve’s backyard — dark, tarped over pool and all. The only lights to be seen were coming from the front of the shed and above the sliding doors.
“…Got it. Thanks, Hopper,” Steve says, a bit numbly, before actually taking the information in. “I think.. I don’t think a shrink is necessary, really… but, a perimeter alarm would probably be good.” At least, he hoped.
“Alright. I’ll see you tomorrow then, kid.” The chief awkwardly patted Steve’s shoulder once before finally letting go, and Steve embarrassingly had to stop himself from leaning back into the fading warmth.
(Pull yourself together, man.)
“See you, Hop,” Steve said as he went inside, sliding the door closed. Hopper nodded at him through the glass and left.
After that, Steve tried to do everything Hopper told him to. He went back up to his room, he hid the bat under his bed and he tried to fall asleep for at least a couple more hours. But now that he wasn’t chasing monsters, all Steve was left with was his thoughts.
Hopper was wrong. Steve didn’t need a shrink. He didn’t go to war! He had one direct encounter with an inter-dimentional monster; that’s hardly comparable to, like, years of conflict and death! He’s fine! Well, not fine, but.. you know, fine!
He’d get over it. He could pretend to be a dumb teenager again, and maybe it would eventually stop being an act. You know, fake it ‘till you make it! That’s a saying, right?
Sure, he was afraid of what big scary monsters could be lurking around in the woods at night, but he’d had that same fear when he was eight and he’d grown out of it.
He just needed to stop thinking about it. He wasn’t a little kid anymore.
…Though, when he was a little kid, he had also been under the impression that monsters weren’t real.
Or, rather, he was repeatedly told that monsters weren’t real, and eventually he’d started believing it, because he never actually saw any.
Now he had seen one, and his entire view of the world and how he understood it was shattered beyond recognition.
But it was fine. The lab told everyone that the gate to that other world - the ‘Upside Down?’ - they said it was contained and that nothing else could get through anymore. No more monsters, you can all relax and go back to regular life; don’t tell anybody about it.
But.. how could Steve fully believe that, when for his entire life up until that point, he’d also been running on the belief that monsters weren’t real? Go back to sleep, monsters aren’t real, don’t wake us up anymore Stephen.
Though, he supposed his parents likely didn’t realize that monsters, in fact, were real. They didn’t know that at least one monster was attracted to blood, or that electricity shuddered where it walked, or that it was vulnerable to fire. They’d never seen the way its face opened up to show flower petals layered with teeth. They didn’t know that it was slimy, and disgusting, and fast, and that their son had beat the shit out of it using a bat clobbered with nails because what the hell else was he gonna do? Nancy was there.
And maybe the lab really did believe that the gate was contained.
And maybe they were both wrong.
(Please, for the love of god, don’t let them both be wrong.)
In a lot of ways, Steve missed the version of him that didn’t believe in monsters. Mourned him, really. How desperately did he wish to be ten again. Ten and naive. Fifteen and naive. Fifteen and his biggest problems being that test he’d have on Friday, or his parents potentially coming home early, or taking a date to Skull Rock.
Ragers, popularity, basketball practice, homework. Those were the things Steve Harrington had cared about most at fifteen. Those were the things he was supposed to care about. He didn’t even have Nancy back then!
Unfortunately though, he was sixteen - sixteen and fully aware of the monsters that lurk beyond the veil, and he would never truly look at the world the same way again.
But he could pretend.
Just like he always did.