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It gets easier.
His first name is Steve, his middle name is Edward after his grandfather, his last name is Harrington. He is nineteen, he was born in 1966, and it gets easier.
It gets easier.
He hides more. Sleeps less. Drinks more. Talks less. His father puts a padlock on the liquor cabinet, his mother hides the gun she used to keep in the attic. His parents fight more too. Standing across the room, the couch and coffee table and love seat and small stand behind the love seat where they put the mail between them, the green curtains that are open revealing the black night and glow of pool, the small glass cabinet full of random family heirlooms Steve hates, the bookshelf in the corner of the room that have dusting books no one reads, the candle that flickers every few seconds. Steve thinks of this, all this furniture between them, is some fucked up metaphor for their marriage.
It’s been like this for years. At first, it was just the coffee table, then his father got promoted and they put a brand new couch in the living room, even though the one they had was fine. Then his mother spent more time at the country club with her friends and they bought the stand for mail. Then Steve came home late, no one noticed, they got heavy curtains. As things got worse, Steve got into fights, his father went on more work trips and came home with lipstick-stained collars, his mother started to go out more, the house became more vacant of life so they filled it with furniture.
They were all living in the same house but in different worlds. Steve stopped questioning it, it took too much energy.
It gets easier.
Robin helps. She comes over, swings open the door because she has her own key. Makes him eat crackers after he spent a night drinking. She turns off the TV when Steve falls asleep watching it. Sometimes she’ll drag him to his own bedroom. A few times, when he’s fallen asleep throwing up into the toilet, he’ll wake up groggy and find himself using a towel as a pillow and a cheap quilt he used to use when he was sick covering his shakey body. Robin will open the curtains and blinds in the house instead of the fluorescent lights. Let’s shine a little light on the subject, Robin will say as she throws open the curtains in the front room or his bedroom or the kitchen, my mom always says that.
Robin doesn’t know how to drive, well she does, but she refuses. She was about to get her license but then everything happened and she swore she wasn’t gonna get her license until she was at least eighteen. Steve understood that, things can traumatize you and affect things that weren’t even a part of it. Steve knows this.
On the bad days, like the really bad days, Robin will ask him the same questions. What is his first name, his middle name, his last name, how old is he, when was he born, does he know?
And Steve will answer. His first name is Steve, his middle name is Edward after his grandfather, his last name is Harrington. He is nineteen, he was born in 1966, and he doesn’t know.
It gets easier.
Steve learns that he’s sick all the damn time. Not always physically, well sometimes physically because when you’re mentally sick and emotionally sick it makes you physically exhausted and worn down. But he’s sick and he’s tired.
It’s November and the pool is still full. They should’ve drained it weeks ago or at least put a tarp over it. But they haven’t. He’s in the backyard wearing jeans and a t-shirt in the swimming pool at four am on a cold November night because he has nothing else to do. Robin is at home and Steve will pick her up early for breakfast in only two hours. His parents are out of town, again. His mom actually went with his dad to Maine. Which is kind of shocking.
It’s November and the pool is still full and Steve is sick and tired. Steve is sick of seeing Barb every time he goes into the backyard. He’s sick of seeing Nancy every time he goes up the staircase. He’s sick of hearing his parents fight whenever Robin opens the curtains to shine a little light on the subject. He’s sick of seeing thirteen year old him, on the couch, wearing a suit because his mother wanted him to wear a suit to a party, on the couch or at the kitchen table or in the backseat of the car or anywhere just listening, watching, being sick and tired but not doing shit about it. He’s sick. He is. He’s so fucking sick.
It’s November and the pool is still full. He’s underwater, a million pounds of weight, so little keeping him from drowning. He wants to. Most of the time the only things that keep him from drowning, or you know, doing something about it, is the fact that there are people out there who would miss him. Which fucking sucks. He sometimes wishes he didn’t live past his first birthday so he could just have not felt any of this.
It’s fine though. It’s November and the pool is still full and it’s fine.
It gets easier.
Jonathan’s beat-up car pulls into his driveway one morning. When Steve swings open the door, his eyes widen at who’s in front of him.
“Hi?”
“Hey,” Jonathan answers. “Robin came to my house the other day and told me to check on you every few days while she’s out of town. So here’s me. Making sure you’re not dead.”
Steve is kinda disgruntled at the fact that Robin made Jonathan check in on him every few days. He knows it’s out of love but it makes him feel a million years younger than he is. A child. Plus, he hasn’t been alone with Jonathan since the fourth of July. Since he spent the night at his house after the hospital. Kind of awkward. Whatever.
“Thanks, I guess,” Steve shrugs, thinks for a few moments. “You wanna come inside?”
Jonathan freezes then stuffs his hands into his jacket pockets, “um. Sure. Yeah.”
Steve takes a step to the side and opens the door wider, letting Jonathan inside without a word. They pitter around each other, circle in the front room. Jonathan is the first to break the silence.
“Have you eaten?”
Steve shakes his head. “Not since yesterday.”
Jonathan walks through the foyer and into the kitchen, Steve follows like a lost puppy. Jonathan doesn’t care like Robin does. It messes something up in Steve’s mind. “Do your parents ever shop?”
Steve rubs the back of his neck, “they haven’t been home in like… two weeks. And I normally eat with Robin so.”
“Come over,” Jonathan blurts out. “My mom won’t care, she loves you. We can have brunch.”
“What teenager uses the word brunch?”
“Teenagers who want their friends to eat brunch,” Jonathan smiles. “Are you gonna come over or not?”
Steve doesn’t have any reason to say no, so he says yes. “Yeah, I’ll go, lemme get dressed.”
It gets easier.
When they were in the hospital, Steve felt like he was floating. Everything was so crazy.
The thing about getting into fights with people, Jonathan and Billy and the Russian dude, roughhousing with Tommy and another Steven in their grade when he was younger, playing tackle football at the nearby park, sassing his father until his father hit him across the cheek with an open hand, pushing and pushing and pushing until someone pushed him back, the thing about getting hurt- is that he kind of wants it. It doesn’t make him happy. It doesn’t turn him on or anything, it’s not a fucking fetish. He likes it because he gets hurt.
He doesn’t wanna inflict pain on himself because he knows that’s wrong. Maggie Flemming left school halfway through sophomore year because the school nurse took her pulse and found a series of cuts on her wrists. The rumors said she tried to shoot herself in the school bathroom but Steve knew better than that. Steve was friends with Maggie, they were partners in Chemistry. She had come over to his house a few times to work on homework and stayed and watched cartoons and drank soda. But Steve didn’t know she did that. Steve visited her in the hospital once, drove three hours to bring her roses she couldn’t have and a book with something written in the cover.
“Why’d you do it?” Steve asked, he promised he wasn’t gonna ask it. Whoops.
“I don’t know,” Maggie sighed. “It made me feel real.”
“But you… you hurt yourself,” Steve said, furrowing her brows. He drove three hours and he’s only had his license for a week and a half. His parents don’t even know where he is. “You cut your wrists.”
Maggie nodded and leaned back into the couch, she looked tired. She wasn’t wearing a hospital gown like Steve thought she would be. She was wearing pajama pants and a flannel that was two sizes too big. Her socks were fuzzy, her hair was back in a bun. She looked tired. “Steve, you got into a fight during homecoming week and had to go to the hospital because people thought you wouldn’t wake up. You abuse yourself, so do I. We just do it in different ways.”
Steve couldn’t say anything else, what was there to say?
Maggie hugged him when he left, tucked her face into his shoulder. She pulled back, put her hands on his shoulders, she smiled. “Steve Harrington, I see you. I know who you are. I see you.”
Steve left with chills down his spine, he drove like he was running away from something.
Steve had gotten some letters from Maggie in the past few years, postcards from random places in the country. Sioux Falls, Columbus, New York, Santa Fe, Portland, Fergus Falls, tons of other cities with photos and short letters on the back. Steve kept all of them. They all ended the same way. Steve Harrington, I see you.
His first name is Steve, his middle name is Edward after his grandfather, his last name is Harrington. He is nineteen, he was born in 1966, and he likes getting hurt. Because when someone else hurts you, you can’t be to blame.
It gets easier.
When they were at the hospital, it was so much easier.
Steve was one of the last to be checked out, then Hopper saw him and pushed him forward. This kid, Hopper had said like he was eight and not nineteen. Check out this kid. He looks like he fought a bear and the bear won.
Robin couldn’t go into the room with him because she was taken only a moment after him. They both threw a fit about it. Steve said he wouldn’t go back there alone, and after at least three minutes of shaking his head and refusing to get up like a child- Jonathan offered to go with him.
Nancy and Mike were already gone. So were Dustin and Lucas. Will had been taken back a bit ago, he came out and Jonathan was taken back but came into the waiting room shortly after- sat next to Will. Max wasn’t sobbing anymore but she was still slightly crying. Ms.Byers has her arms around Max, stroking her hair while whispering things. Hopper and El were sitting in two chairs, Hopper talking in a hushed voice.
He wonders where his parents are. Where Barb is. Where Tommy and Carol are. Where Maggie is, if she can see him.
It gets easier.
Steve wakes up one night to his parents, who are in town for one night, screaming at each other. He can hardly make out the words over their deafening voices.
Steve crawls out of bed and puts on a shirt. He steps down the stairs quietly, skipping a few of them that creek. He feels like he’s four again, like he’s four and his parents are fighting. Or maybe he’s seven, maybe he’s seven and his parents are fighting two days before second grade starts. Or maybe he’s thirteen, maybe he’s thirteen and his parents are fighting but he’s wearing a suit and they’re supposed to be going to a dinner party but they never do. Or maybe he’s nineteen, he’s nineteen and his parents are fighting and he didn’t get into college because he never sent any letter out because he wasn’t ready yet. Maybe he’s Steve Harrington but maybe he’s not. Maybe he’s just a shell of a human and he’s tired because it’s three am and his parents are fighting and he’s sitting on the steps listening to them argue because he always does. He always will.
Steve goes back up the steps like he’s four or like he’s seven or like he’s thirteen or like he’s nineteen and his parents are fighting and he’ll not go back to bed because he isn’t a child anymore. He can leave the house. He’ll crawl through his bedroom window and drive away, to the closest place he can find because his first name is Steve, his middle name is Edward after his grandfather, his last name is Harrington. He is nineteen, he was born in 1966, and his parents are fighting and he doesn’t have to listen to it for hours and hours on end anymore.
It gets easier.
Hopper makes Steve El’s normal babysitter. Which is odd, because she’s fourteen but it’s fine. After Startcourt and Hopper almost dying and El almost dying for the millionth time, Steve understands why Hopper wants El to be safer than normal.
Her powers still don’t work, but everyone is always assuring her she’ll get them back. Steve knows she will but still. It’s odd.
“I need you to come and watch her,” Hopper calls at five am on a Sunday morning. “Her and Wheeler broke up last week-” Steve heard about that. It was mutual apparently but still difficult. “And I don’t want her to be alone. I have to go into work.”
Steve nodded into the phone before saying he’d be there soon, then he put on a pair of jeans and tugged on a sweater. He found his keys in the pants he wore yesterday, he put on his shoes while he waited for his waffles to be done. When he finally got into the car, it’s five-ten and he’s still trying to wake up.
“Where’s your coat?” Hopper asks when he opens the door. “And your hat? It’s freezing outside.”
Steve shrugs then walks inside, taking off his shoes. “Is she even awake yet?”
Hopper shakes his head, “not yet. Wake her up at seven if she’s not awake yet. She might be in a bad mood, so warning. Just be patient, she’ll come around eventually. Call if there are any panics or just go to Joyce’s. Be safe.”
Hopper leaves with a loud slam of door and thump of boots on wood then the jeep starting. It’s loud but not loud enough to wake up El, or bring her out of her bedroom because Steve is pretty sure she’s awake.
When the clock rings seven, he knocks on El’s door then opens it. She’s awake, the sheets are kicked off of her and she’s looking at the wall. “C’mon, girl, wake up.”
El sat up and looked at him, and her eyes are so heartbroken and distant, everything seems to dim around them. El is a cute kid, reminds Steve of a doe. She was angry though, Steve knew that much. According to Max, who El had become attached to the hip with, Hopper once had to buy a whole new set of plates and bowls and cups because she broke them all. Steve had seen her use her powers, how exhausted she looked afterward but how when she was in the hospital, in Hopper’s arms, how satisfied she looked. How it looked like she let something go.
It’s been a week since he went to the Byers with Jonathan after Robin made Jonathan check on Steve. Jonathan made them pancakes because Joyce was at work and Will was at the Wheelers. He ended up spending the night again like he did after the hospital.
Steve looks at El and El, who knows boundaries but has gotten into a phase where she is always touching people’s hair, reaches over and brushes her fingertips against Steve’s hair that falls into his face. “Soft.”
El drops her hand and Steve notices a rolled poster in the corner of her room, along with a photo and a few other things, all of them in a box. Steve knows what that is. “Let’s make some breakfast, we can watch any movie you want.”
Steve heats up some eggos and fills a plastic cup with orange juice. El watches Greese while eating breakfast. Steve watches too, he kind of hates this movie but he’ll live. El wants to watch it and she’s a good kid going through a lot.
Someone knocks at the door and Steve stands up, walks around behind the couch so he doesn’t walk in front of El. He answers the door, Max stands in front of him wearing a dark blue jacket and watching stocking cap. Her red hair blows a little in the wind, she smirks.
“Are you gonna study me all day or are you gonna let me in?”
Steve snaps out of it and steps to the side, gesturing for Max to come in. El looks over and smiles, stands up to hug Max hello. They hold each other for a few moments, not letting go. Like they're scared the other will disappear.
She got into a fight with Mike for the first time last week, Lucas and Dustin told him and Robin a few months ago. Got so mad she accidentally broke the lightbulb for the ceiling light. I don’t know how long they’ll last if they have any more fights like that.
Apparently not long.
Max and El sit on the couch and finish the movie. They’re watching Sixteen Candles. They both are sort of slanted on the couch, curled into each other, Max’s hand playing with El’s hair. It’s a cute sight, a sweet one. He sits in the chair, reading a Stephen King book he found on the coffee table.
Sometimes, when no one talks to him for a while, when people are in their own spaces, Steve panics. He feels alone. His stomach turns and twists like a damp towel. His mind runs. His hands shake. Everything is happening around him while he stands still.
“Steve,” El says, smiling. “Can we have some ice cream?”
It gets easier.
“Steve, I need you to listen to me,” the doctor says. Steve squeezes his eyes shut.
His first name is Steve, his middle name is Edward after his grandfather, his last name is Harrington. He is nineteen, he was born in 1966, his hair is brown, his favorite food is French toast with powdered sugar, he hates how his mother is never home when he’s sick, he has never seen The Graduate or The Godfather or anything by Hitchcock. His first name is Steve, Nancy isn’t in love with him anymore and he’s not sure if she ever was, Jonathan Byers is holding his hand because there is a needle in his vein and he can’t calm down. His mother is visiting a friend from college and his father is in Florida for the next two weeks. Robin is in the room down from his, she started sobbing again like someone died and someone did, they did. Billy did. Barb did. Heather did. Innocent people did. Robin’s innocence is probably gone. Everyone’s is.
His first name is Steve, he is crying because they’re asking who the president is, what year is it, what month is it, what town do they live in, what is seven times seven, what year was the moon landing, what is his first name, what is his middle name, what is his last name, how old is he, when was he born, what color is his hair, what’s his favorite food and- and- and-
Does he feel okay? Will he ever feel okay?
His first name is Steve and he’s crying because the president is Reagan, the year is 1985, it is July, they live in Hawkins, seven times seven is forty-nine, he doesn’t know when the moon landing was, his first name is Steve, his middle name is Edward after his grandfather, his last name is Harrington. He is nineteen, he was born in 1966, his hair is brown, his favorite food is French toast with powdered sugar, and- and- and-
He doesn’t feel okay. He will never feel okay.
It gets easier.
After the hospital. After the hospital, Steve spent the night at Byers. Jonathan tells him that he can spend the night after the hospital. When Steve says no, he’ll go home, Jonathan asks if anyone is at his house. He takes Steve’s silence as an answer.
The doctors call Robin and Steve at the same time. Jonathan goes into the room with him because Robin can't. She begs to go with. She can't, Jonathan goes. Steve holds his hand so hard he swears he hears one of Jonathan’s bones crack. Jonathan doesn’t say anything, when they pull out a needle and Steve trashes and tries to crawl out, away and onto the floor, Jonathan squeezes his hand and uses the other one to brush Steve's hair back.
He tells him about music and movies and things that Steve knows nothing about. He promises to watch The Graduate with him. Even when the needle was out of his vein and there was IV pumping into his body, Steve clutched onto Jonathan and Jonathan didn’t let go. In fact, he might've held on tighter.
When they get to the Byers house, Will is asleep in the backseat. Joyce is still at the hospital with El and Hopper. Robin and the rest of the kids went home, Max was still sobbing when they left, and Steve didn’t know what to do about it. Jonathan carries him to bed. Steve stands in the living room until Jonathan comes back out.
“C’mon,” he says. “You can sleep in my bed with me.”
Steve is too tired to argue.
Jonathan curls around him at night. It’s nice, it’s really fucking nice. Steve forgot how nice it was to be held. Jonathan isn’t gay, right? Of course not, he and Nancy are dating. Are they still? It was hard to tell. But there were rumors and laughter and god, Steve was such a terrible person. He was an ass. He rolls over and shakes Jonathan awake, because he’s loopy, he hasn’t eaten anything that wasn’t hospital food in nearly twenty-four hours, he’s a legal adult and Jonathan Byers is next to him- asleep and beautiful and Steve needs to apologize.
“Jonathan,” Steve whispers. “Jonathan!”
Jonathan wakes up, eyes lidded and he’s beautiful. He snuggles closer and sniffs, “Whaddya want?”
“I’m sorry,” Steve answers earnestly. “I was such an ass, why are you still talking to me? You shouldn’t be, you should’ve just let me go home. I’ll go now, I’m sorry, I’ll go.”
Jonathan doesn’t even flinch or sit up, he just wraps his arm around Steve tighter and pulls him closer. “Go back to sleep,” Jonathan says. “You’re hurt. Sleep.”
He doesn’t say he forgives Steve or that Steve should stay or go or do anything. He just tells Steve to sleep, just holds Steve closer, and Steve has never been so grateful for silence. For someone to just be there.
It gets easier.
His first name is Steve, his middle name is Edward after his grandfather, his last name is Harrington. He is nineteen, he was born in 1966, and Nancy is asking him if he and Jonathan are a thing.
“I’m not judging,” Nancy tells him when she walks into the video store one afternoon. She woke him up from taking a nap on the couch in the break room. Robin had sent her back apparently. Whatever. “I’m just curious.”
“Why do you think we are?” Steve asks, sitting up and rubbing the sleep from his eyes. Nancy tips her head and rolls her eyes. It’s almost fond.
“Do you have a smoke?” she asks, and he didn’t know she smoked.
Steve shakes his head, “no. I’m trying to quit.”
Nancy’s face blooms into a smile and Steve forgot how much he missed her. Nancy was the first person he was in love with. He thought they might’ve ended up together. But they didn’t and they won’t and Nancy is beautiful and his name is Steve.
“Really? That’s amazing, I’m proud of you. What made you finally drop it?”
Steve shrugs, curls his shoulders, shrugs again. “Robin said I looked like my father.”
Nancy nods then sits down next to him on the couch, she still smells the same. She rubs his back in smooth, soft circles. “I’m glad you’re quitting.”
“Yeah. There might be some cigarettes in Cass’ locker. She leaves it unlocked all the time.”
Nancy shakes her head, her hand still on his back. “It’s fine. I’ll live.”
It’s times like these when Steve falls for Nancy all over again. It’s not like he wants to, he just adores her. She is so easy to love. She’s beautiful and kind and loving and strong and Steve can’t help but not love her. He might not be in love with her anymore but he’ll always love her. There is a piece of him that Nancy owns, carries around with her, and she might never know about it. But she has it, she has it and Steve won’t ever get it back.
“Jonathan likes you,” Nancy says. “Or at least I think he does. It’s hard to tell with him.”
“I’m sorry you two broke up,” Steve answers, he almost wants to say Robin likes you, it’s not hard to tell with her, so he doesn't have to talk about this with Nancy but he doesn’t. He wouldn't. “You seemed like the couple that would’ve lasted.”
“And we didn’t?”
Steve chuckles, it’s dry and full of broken-hearted nostalgia, “Nace, we both know.”
Nancy doesn’t answer, she just reaches for Steve’s hand.
It gets easier.
He misses Starcourt sometimes. He misses it because his blood was rushing and his mind was racing and he had one goal. Get everyone out alive.
He misses it because he was alive and didn’t have to focus on his fucked up parents, the furniture, the fact Nancy probably never loved him, that he didn’t go to college, that Maggie was somewhere out there- knowing how Steve really was the way he was. He misses it because it was simple. Starcourt was simple in the most brutal way.
He goes to Jonathan’s house in the middle of the night, knocks on his window. Jonathan lets him in because of course, Jonathan is awake.
“What’s up?” Jonathan asks, eyebrows furrowed with worry and confusion.
“You remember Maggie Flemming?”
“Uh, yeah,” he nods. “She left halfway through my freshmen year- your sophomore year. Everyone was saying she shot herself and went insane.”
Steve laughs drily, “yeah. She didn’t. She went to a hospital for a bit. The last postcard I got said she was somewhere in Maine.”
Jonathan hummed. A few quiet uncomfortable moments passed before Jonathan said something. “Steve, are you okay?”
And Steve broke. Everything he had been holding in for years of his life came crashing down, breaking everything like a hurricane.
Jonathan hugged him through it, lead him to the bed, it was different than Nancy. She was softer and always distant, just out of reach. With Jonathan, he was firm- Steve knew he was there. Jonathan was firm and his body was cold and his hands were on his back.
“I’m so-” Steve sobbed out. “So damn.”
Jonathan nodded, murmured a few words. “Yeah. I know.”
Steve let out another harrowing sob, it aches. He hurts. He’s tired and sad and everything feels like it pushing him into the ground. Like soon he’ll be nothing but dust.
“It’s gonna be okay,” Jonathan says. “It’s gonna be okay.”
It’s only a few words. It won’t be enough in the long run. Steve still has a lot of shit to figure out. So do Robin and Nancy and the kids and everyone else. Steve has to figure out how to sleep without wanting to do it forever, how to remember to eat and drink and take care of himself, how to learn he is not his parents, how to stop abusing himself. How to see himself like Maggie sees him.
His first name is Steve, his middle name is Edward after his grandfather, his last name is Harrington. He is nineteen, he was born in 1966, and it gets easier with time. And he has a lot of that.