Archive of Our Own ^beta

Their stay at the Summer Palace is delayed by two weeks this year. Sure, there’s the shareholder meeting and a fun, little ditty about laying off half of ATN without proper redundancy, but when asked, their father claims one thing:

“Steve wasn’t available.”

Which, like, fine. But that’s never mattered before – whether Steve comes, whether he’s free or not. If Dad wants you there, you’re there. And if you’re not, there’s hell to pay. It’s hard to figure out which it usually is with Steve – because sometimes it’s as if Dad forgot him altogether – but clearly he’s in the good books (or the very, very bad ones) if Dad is insistent on his presence.

“It’s summer,” Shiv says. “What else could he be doing?”

School’s out. Roman doesn’t keep track of those things, but he knows that much. College is next year, right? Or this one? That is if their brother even got in. Prior conversations about Harvard and Georgetown and fucking Notre Dame were always shot down with mumbles and cute diversions about sports. Roman figures that’s what you get for letting your kid attend some shitty hick public school in rural Indiana. Like, whose idea was that? Kitty went to fucking Emma Willard.

Shiv shoots him a look from the cushy seat she grabbed because yeah, why should their trip and schedules hinge on the whim of a seventeen year old boy who’s probably, like, swimming in sewage filled lakes and fucking girls instead of just doing what Dad wants?

“Your brother, unlike some of you, had work to do.”

“Are we talking like, spiritual, personal, work or Daddy’s office work?” Roman asks.

“Ball-busting, hard grafting work. Real work.” Which shouldn’t be funny, but is, mostly given that it sounds like Dad is actually praising Steve. A novel concept.

This real work, Roman soon finds out, translates to scooping fucking ice cream. Shiv catches his eye as this information is deposited in their laps – they have enough ammo to torture their little brother for at least a couple decades right there.

Steve’s in the kitchen when they arrive. He’s got half his body in the freezer, bent over it while the staff prepare a welcome lunch around him. 

“Steven!” Dad barks, but only lightly. It’s a fond thing that Roman’s hearing less and less nowadays. 

Steve jumps, whacking his head on one of the drawers. “Fuck– ” He turns around, a frozen hunk of meat in hand. “Hey, Dad.”

“Son.” 

They meet halfway in a stilted embrace. Steve winces, which, duh, because his face looks like a lump of steak tartare – all poorly healed cuts, a swollen eye, a bump on his nose. He looked a little like this at Thanksgiving last year – not as bad, sure, but something close. It’s a wonder his nose is so straight after having been broken so many times. 

“What the fuck?” Shiv asks, opening her arms to their brother. 

“Yeah,” Roman chimes, awkwardly awaiting his turn. “You look like actual shit.”

Steve has a few inches on him now, but when he hugs Roman, their cheeks squash side by side. The skin is so hot that Roman’s face feels like it’s burning. 

“Believe it or not,” Steve says. “This is a huge improvement.” Not that either of them know what that even means. 

“Did you lose a fight?” Shiv asks. 

Next to her, Dad bristles, and demands that one of the staff fetch him a drink. They all migrate behind him, into the living room, where Steve holds his steak above the furniture like he’s only now realising it’s going to thaw and therefore stain. Dad is given his drink, and Steve a dish towel. He says “Thank you” clearly, with more of a wince than a smile, where Dad stays absolutely silent; ruminating out the floor to ceiling windows and watching the waves crash against the shore. 

Steve shrugs, then winces. “You could say that.” 

“So, what about the other guy?” Roman throws himself back against the sofa, jostling Steve out of his hunchback. From this angle, it all looks pretty gnarly. “He dead?”

Whatever micro-movement Steve was working himself through – steak pressed to puffy lip, thumb and forefinger pinching the bridge of his battered nose – halts abruptly. He becomes so completely still that Roman thinks, for a moment, time has frozen him in place like a pretty crappy looking marble statue. 

“Hey, Stevie– ” he starts. 

Shiv butts in. “You with us?”

Dad, to his credit, actually pauses his brooding to see what’s going on. There’s a pinch to his dark brows that could read as concern, but it’s all forgotten about at the sound of the front door opening and their remaining siblings joining the party. 

“Stevie boy!” Kendall’s arms are spread wide like Jesus. He leans right over the couch and wraps his arms around said brother, who flinches to attention and hugs back as best he can with a pound of steak in his hands. 

“Hey, Kenny,” Steve says, smile crooked because of his busted lip. “Con, Willa.” 

Steve stands to greet the other two. Connor makes a big deal about checking Steve over but doesn’t comment at all on the state of him. Which isn’t exactly unusual, because Connor can be scarily apathetic about things when he’s in a weird mood. This is not that, though, more like Connor was expecting it. Kendall still hasn’t noticed, because Kendall probably had a bump or two in the jet’s bathroom. 

“Feeling any better?” Willa asks him, in that quiet, half-joking way of hers. And yeah, she and Con know. 

“Tonnes,” says Steve, kissing her cheek. “Sorry that I delayed things here.”

“Oh, please.” Connor waves a hand, mouth to the top of Shiv’s head. “Fourth of July in Palm Springs was no hardship.” 

Again, there is that look from Dad, only this time Steve is looking back. His gaze is fixed and hard in a way that makes him look so much older than seventeen, and it creeps Roman out because most of the time Steve looks like he’s all no thoughts, head empty. He’s about to reiterate Shiv’s what the fuck? when she does it again for him.

“So, are you going to tell us what happened, or…?” 

Kendall looks confused at her question, before finally clocking Steve’s face. “Oh, shit, bro.” Is all he offers. 

Roman’s not all that interested in Kendall’s journey through this conversation, though, because he can’t stop watching the proverbial tennis match going on between Dad and Steve and their matching stony stares. Shockingly, Dad is the one who pulls away first. He takes a sip of his drink and nods at Steve in some attempt at… reassurance? Roman can’t really tell what that looks like on the old man.

Steve tosses the steak onto the dish towel, having given up on that particular method. He sighs. 

“Accident at work. There was a fire.” His tone is clipped and final, but Roman can’t leave it there. 

“There was a fire… at an ice cream parlour?”

“In the mall,” Steve corrects.

“Did this fire also punch you in the face?” Shiv asks and Steve almost bares his teeth at her. 

“Debris.” He waves a hand around his face. It’s only then that Roman notices the blackened tips of his fingers; puffy and red too, with cuticles shredded well past the line of his first knuckle. Steve spots his reaction and gives them another of those lopsided smiles. 

“A shelf got my hand. My nails all fell off after a day or two.” There is a collective wince. “But I only needed the bandages last week, really.”

Roman kind of thinks that Steve still needs those bandages. For something that happened a week ago – around the Fourth, must be – he hasn’t healed up all that well. 

But that would be fucked up, to call him out in front of everyone. He’d do that to any of them, but this feels different; Steve looks more than a little wrecked and, like, traumatised – not even in the typical Roy child way – so Roman reckons he might deserve to be cut some slack.

“No more manicures for you, I guess.” Yeah, he tried. Shiv kicks him in the shin. But it gets a laugh out of Steve, which is… something. Because Steve never used to laugh about anything that could potentially aggravate their father. 

Except Dad doesn’t seem all that bothered – content to brood in his own thoughts without any consideration for what his kids are blabbing about. Connor and Willa poke around at the bar, whispering softly between themselves, while Shiv is resolutely ignoring the fact that Kendall is high in favour of mocking his new sneakers. Roman would join in, only he can’t stop looking at Steve.

“They’ll grow back,” Steve says, but it sounds a lot more like a question. 

– 

They do dinner. Gerri, Frank, and Karl show up because family time cannot happen without an entire team to oversee it and hover in case there are any international incidents while the Roys take their summer vacation – he’s pretty sure Karolina and Hugo are floating around somewhere, probably with a team of people and Ratfucker Sam. Tom swings by too, looking sweaty and red in a tragic suit, sitting beside Marcia because Roman nabbed the one next to Shiv. 

Dinner goes by like it normally would, only instead of staying to nab another glass of wine like Steve has been known to do since his early teens, he asks to be excused so that he can have an early night. It’s like ten, which is probably standard fare for the working man that their little brother now is, but by the Roy clock it’s not even six. Still, Steve bids everyone goodnight and promises to be up for more tomorrow – long flight from butthole, Indiana and all. 

Here’s the deal: Steve got, like, stuck under the mall fire for an indeterminate amount of time. Nobody’s really saying much about it, at least not that Roman can get a read on. It’s dumb, because fires are a thing that just happen to people and he’s not naive enough to think that they are above all that – a fire doesn’t care if you’re rich or the King of Spain – and it’s not like Steve has suddenly developed a tendency for arson, right? There’s nothing to cover up here.

“So, like, is he good?” Roman chances as dessert is finished and the last drinks are poured. 

Dad is silent. Kendall asks: “You mean Steve?”

Shiv rolls her eyes because duh. “He’s been seen by a doctor, right? Scans, x-rays, the works.”

“He got a head CT while we were in Hawkins,” says Connor. Which means Connor was there; a fact so unusual that Roman can’t quite parse it. “Doc gave him the all clear in terms of bleeds and the like, but he’s looking at some lasting trauma given previous… instances.”

Shiv raises a single brow. “Such as?”

Dad scoffs from the head of the table. “Your brother is an athlete – he’s broken more bones than all of you combined.” Unlikely, Roman thinks. “A few cracked ribs and some missing fingernails is far from a death sentence.”

“No driving for a while, though,” says Connor. “Thought he could get away with that one.”

Roman has visions of Dad’s revenge gift Beemer wrapped around a tree. No one seems to want to speak anymore on the topic – Roman can feel Shiv bristle next to him as dinner comes to an end. There is talk of drinks in the next room, but Roman’s not really in the mood if everyone’s going to be so damn evasive about something that happened to none of them. He declines, Shiv too – claiming she has work to catch up on for her latest PR fix – and bids everyone goodnight; the silent agreement passing between both siblings that they can interrogate Steve in the morning.

Roman’s just changed into some soft pants and a t-shirt when he hears it: screaming. Bloody fucking murder. He opens his door to Shiv, standing across the hall in her pink satin pajamas, hair piled messily on top of her head. They remain stuck in whatever moment passes between them – to a soundtrack of screaming and… begging – when Connor rushes past, Kendall quick on his heels. 

They’re banging on a door at the end of the hall – Steve’s, it’s easy to tell, only because of the residue left behind on the whitewashed oak from the stickers he used to put there. Connor twists the knob, calls Steve’s name, but it’s no use. Shiv and Roman hurry after, both barefoot and panicking in that way where they expect the other to know what to do. Kendall barks for someone to get the master key, but they’re not quick enough. Steve keeps screaming. Colin is there all of a sudden, Dad at his side. Dad, who orders Colin to break the door down. One thump, two. Shiv squeezes Roman’s arm hard enough to bruise. A third shove and the door almost flies off its hinges; Roman can’t help but wonder where the fuck they got Colin from.

But it’s a thought that’s short lived, halted entirely by the sight of Steve – sweating, heaving, bleeding Steve – standing in nothing but plaid cotton pants and a pair of fuzzy socks. It’s not the bruising on his chest that causes everything inside Roman to hollow out, nor the grazes, the odd protrusions – it’s the bat he’s holding, fit to swing, full of nails that will sink right into anyone who dares approach.

“Steve,” says Connor, like he’s talking to a spooked horse that still needs breaking. “Put it down, baby. It’s only us.”

Maybe it’s the drugs that make him stupid enough to do it, because Kendall ducks under Steve’s swing and grabs him around the waist. There’s the awful sound of nails tearing the fabric of Kendall’s three piece, but Roman looks – really makes himself look – and there’s no blood. Just Steve thrashing, screaming still. Kendall presses on a particularly purple looking bruise and he bat is dropped. Steve’s pinned to the bed. 

“Rome!” Kendall shouts, and together the two of them try to hold their little brother down. A crowd has gathered by the door – Gerri, Frank, Karl, the housekeeper with the fucking key – gawking like they can’t quite believe what they’re seeing. Shiv’s joined the pile now too, having crossed to the other side of the bed so she can stop Steve from headbutting Kendall. Connor’s on his legs, pinning them in place as Steve kicks. Roman just about misses a slug to the face when Dad shouts:

“Get the fuck out! All of you.” The crowd scampers. Even Colin. Dad heaves a sigh like they’ve got all the time in the world, like Steve’s not crying – Steve never cries, not since he was like five, that Roman can recall. Then Dad leans over Steve, who’s still bucking against their hold. 

“Now, Pokey.” He runs a hand through Steve’s sweaty hair, pushes it off his face. Steve’s shaking, still trying to get Kendall to move off where he's straddling his chest, careful not to jostle any of the obvious wounds. 

“Daddy, they’re gonna– ” Steve tries, but he dissolves into a string of names that Roman doesn’t recognise. “They’re gonna hurt Du– ”

“Ah,” Dad interrupts. “None of that. You’re safe and sound here, hm? 

“The kids!” Kids? “I need to call– ”

“They’re all fine. I’ve been keeping an eye on things.”

“You have?” And shit, because Steve’s looking at Dad like he did all those years ago – when Kitty took custody of him in the deal and Dad promised that nothing would change; that they could still be a family, same as always. 

Dad smiles. “Of course, Pokey.” 

Like all his strings have been cut, Steve goes lax in their hold. All the wound up tension vanishes, though the waxy look on his skin stays, the small, tight breaths too. Colin returns with a silver cigarette case just as Roman settles back onto the mattress, Steve’s wrist in a loose hold. Kendall sits across from him, ass on Steve’s blood stained pillows, fingers lightly touching the bruises on their brother’s torso like he can make them go away. Shiv sitting on the bed now, Steve’s head in her lap, smiling down at him as his breathing calms, slower and slower. Connor still hasn’t risen, and kneels at Steve’s bedside like he’s in prayer, but he stands when Colin approaches and hands the case off to Dad. 

“Pokey,” says Dad, opening the case and tipping three or four pills into his hand. The housekeeper comes back, but only stays long enough to give Dad a glass of water. “Sit up for me, son.”

He can’t. Steve tries, but he’s shaking too much. Shiv helps him, cheeks burning with rage more than upset, and Roman wraps his arm around Steve’s shoulder even though he knows it all must hurt. His back slouches against Roman’s front, against Shiv and Kendall’s hands. Dad places the pills on Steve’s tongue like communion and surely it’s only with the intention to help, but Roman can’t help but recall the last time Steve was drugged in their presence. 

Steve tries to spit them out, gagging at the taste, but Dad makes him drink the water. “For the pain, Pokey. Your doctor said it was okay.”

Like they’re magic words, Steve complies. Dad takes Steve’s shoulders in his hands and everyone moves away as he and Connor ease Steve back onto the mattress. Roman slides off the end of the bed and runs a hand through his hair, because it can’t all be over like that. What the fuck? Shiv picks up the bat that was dropped on the carpet and rotates it like she can’t quite believe what she’s seeing. Even in fussy pajamas, it makes her look dangerous. 

“I’ll take that,” says Connor, but Shiv holds it out of his grasp. 

“I’ve got it.” She walks for the door, bat at her side. She waits, though, just like he and Kendall do. Dad’s sitting on Steve’s bed now, pulling the sheet and quilt up beyond the mottled mess of his chest and tucking it under his chin. 

“It was just a bad dream,” they hear Dad say, reapplying a cold compress that must have fallen off while Steve thrashed in his sleep. 

“But it felt so real,” says Steve, close to a whisper. 

“It’s over now.” Dad’s trying to shut him up, they all know that. Connor is moving towards the broken door like he’s trying to herd them out, but Roman is frozen to the spot. In shock. Because not a single part of this feels real. 

“It’s never over.” Despite the slurring, Steve’s voice is so cold, so empty and grave that it shakes something deep within him. Dad leans over and presses a kiss to his sweating, scabby forehead. Nothing makes sense. 

“Get some rest.”

Steve hums. “Feels funny.” They can’t see him now, with Dad blocking, cutting them off from him as usual. Roman can’t pretend he knows this Steve, not when it’s been so long since Saturday morning cartoons, skiing lessons, reading dumb stories so the kid will just sleep . It’s been years of vague platitudes and allusions to high school hierarchies, conquests, house parties because Kitty is never fucking home. Steve’s no longer a mushy kid running around in nothing but a diaper and one of Shiv’s training bras; he’s perfected the classic Roy veneer, a thick shell that’s made impenetrable by the cold looks, the biting, vicious words, the tearing people down and down and down until they can’t get back up again. 

But he’s soft again. A sad, little whimpering thing at their father’s feet. Roman could hate him for this change, but then he’d be a hypocrite. 

Steve whispers, like a little kid who wants a puppy from Santa Claus: “Da– Dad, please stay.” 

And the crazy thing is: Dad does.

—

Steve stays in bed after that. He’s not there for breakfast, nor is he sitting on the couch with a bowl of sugary cereal, staring mindlessly at MTV while they all have some very important meeting. 

Connor tells them, says he tried too. Steve didn’t want to eat anything or go on a walk or take a bath. Connor says this like Steve opened his mouth to speak at all, but he didn’t, because when Roman arrives in the room, it’s shrouded and blank with some awful weight. But for the sound of Kendall washing Steve’s face, there is absolute silence.

Kendall, dipping a white cloth into a bowl of water on the nightstand, wipes delicately at Steve’s eye, which is puffier now from all of the crying last night. It’s not weird or anything, it’s just that Kendall’s not really meant to be alone with Steve when Dad is in one of his moods. Not after that one Christmas. And Dad is in one of his moods, because at breakfast he almost threw a plate at Roman. 

“How’s the patient?”

“See for yourself,” says Kendall. 

Roman crosses the Persian rug to the other side of the bed – it’s a few feet from the window and with the curtains open, the wedge of light just about reaches the side of Steve’s swollen and blank face. He stares at the ceiling, and blinks slowly with long gaps in between. 

“Don’t go all Connor’s Mom on us now, Stevie.”

“Dude.”

Roman wonders if maybe they ought to call Steve’s mom. Have her swan in with furs and press smudgy red kisses to his fevered head. Cry down the phone at her miserable fuck of an ancient father. Like, would that be the best thing for him? Would Steve even want them to?

Roman tries: “Does anyone wanna call Kitty?”

Shiv enters the room with a sigh. She’s wearing flats instead of her usual heels; kicks them off as she sits herself at the foot of the bed. “Already did. Her PA said she’s ‘stuck in Miami’ and ‘simply not well enough to fly’.”

“Of course.”

But then there’s the hoarse sound of throat clearing, Steve’s quiet question of: “M– Mi– ”

Kendall sits a little taller. Steve jolts, eyes bunching up in what could be a squint or just pure annoyance. “Joyce,” he says, completely flat. 

Joyce? Roman mouths at them. Kendall shrugs. “An old nanny, maybe?”

Shiv shakes her head, but looks just as confused as the rest of them. “Joyce isn’t here, sweetie.”

Steve crumples and raises a mangled hand to rub at his eyes. Roman stops him before he can make contact. “C’mon, no. Don’t do that.”

“I don’t know anything,” says Steve, hoarse and quiet. 

Roman holds Steve’s hands in his own, mindful of the fingertips that have scabbed over. “Me either, buddy.”

“I swear.”

“Okay. Okay.” Roman’s ass falls onto the mattress in his attempt to keep hold of Steve. With the sides of their joined hands, he brushes the crook of his knuckle against Steve’s unmarred cheek.  “Can we get something for his, uh, hand situation?”

Kendall, eyes on his work, gestures vaguely to the plastic box on the bed. “Some band-aids in there. Plus the antibiotic ointment I found in his bag. Among other things.”

Other things. Well, whatever. Nothing can shock Roman more than the bat with the nails in it. He frees one hand and slides the kit across the bed until it rests on the other side of Steve’s hip. He fumbles, because Steve now won’t let go of Roman’s other hand, tucking it under his chin to keep it there. Great.

“God, you’re useless at this.” Shiv takes over, squeezing pea-sized dollops of the antibiotic ointment onto the padding of the band-aid before wrapping it around Steve’s middle finger. When she’s finished one, she holds Steve’s hand up to Roman and says: “Well, go on.”

“Go on and what?”

“You’re on kissy duty.” 

Her smirk is mirrored by Kendall, but there’s something fond within it that overpowers the snark of it all. Roman puckers up, with some fanfare about the ordeal, like he needs any convincing. Steve is five again, curled up in Connor’s bed after a visit from the doctor; sniffing and crying and holding Kendall’s freaky rabbit toy under his chin like he’s currently holding Roman’s hand.

Soon, they’ll have to switch and Steve will take his other hand, pulling on each knuckle with his stubby, bandaged fingers while Roman blows raspberries in response. Kendall will sing that song Steve always messes up and Shiv will snort at every misplaced word. Roman will kiss ten fingers and one forehead over and over. He’ll lay back on the pillow because sitting at this angle is weird for his back, and Steve’s soft breaths will ghost against his cheek. Shiv will yank Roman’s shoes off and curl her feet beneath his calves. Kendall will comb Steve’s hair. The four of them will lay there for hours, until Steve cracks something close to a smile. 

—

It takes two days before Steve’s up and about again. They come down to breakfast and he’s sitting at the table, curled over a bowl of cereal in a red sweater and his pajama pants, even though it’s fucking hot out and the sun is beating in through the windows.

“Morning, baby,” says Connor, kissing the top of his head. Steve only grunts in response. The crunch of his chewing is accompanied by the click of his jaw, which is still puffy and red in places. It would irritate Dad on any other day, but given the events of the last few, it seems like something he’s willing to let slide for now. 

“Got any plans for today, son?” he asks from the head of the table. Jovial, almost.

Steve looks up; a deer in headlights. “Might go for a swim.”

“Oh, yes!” Connor sits forward, fingers steepled over his eggs and toast. “Ready for the Olympics yet? How did your season go?”

Steve snorts. Barely. His busted nose makes it pretty difficult. “It didn’t.” 

“What about basketball?” Kendall asks. He’s seemed pretty sober since that night, but with how he completely ignores his plate, Roman knows that it’ll be a while before he’s truly in the thick of it. 

“Got benched,” says Steve, spoon clinking against the bowl. 

“Baseball?” says Connor.

“Same.”

Well, shit. Dad’s glasses slide down the bridge of his nose as he cuts Steve with a look. Roman leans forward in his seat, elbows perching precariously on the edge of the table. His mother would scold this kind of behaviour, but his mother’s not here – none of them are, they never have been. 

“I don’t know why you’re acting surprised. It said so on my report card.” Bold of Steve to assume that Dad actually read those things. They were read to him, certainly not stuck on the refrigerator with cutesy souvenir magnets. 

“What about college, man?” Kendall remarks, frowning. “You need those to get in.”

“Because I’m dumb as fuck, right?” Steve’s smiling; a big, old misleading thing that throws Kendall off. “Well, turns out they don’t let you play when you have a head injury. No exceptions.” He waves his bandaged hands. “Some insurance bullshit.”

“Well, that’s ridiculous,” Dad scoffs. “You were fine by Christmas.”

“I didn’t pass the physical.” 

“What didn’t pass?”

“My ears are fucked.” The littlest Roy did a pretty good job at hiding that fact. Roman’s trying to figure out what ear it could be, deducing it must be the left – given how well Steve responded to Kendall’s woeful singing on his right side – while the others gape like fish in a bowl.

“Don’t they let deaf kids play sports now?” Roman asks. Yeah, maybe in New York or LA or whatever, but not Hawkins, Indiana.

Steve shrugs. “I’m not deaf. Not deaf enough, anyways. Mom said the hearing aids are too clunky.”

“Could hide them under that hair of yours, huh?” Connor tries.

But Dad dismisses him immediately. “I don’t think so,” he tells Steve. “You can get it cut this evening.”

Steve’s eyes roll as much as they can manage with an orbital fracture. “No thanks.”

“It wasn’t a request.” 

“Yeah, well,” Steve says, stuffing his mouth with the last of his soggy cereal. “I like it.”

“In that case, why don’t you grow it down to your ass and join a commune like a fucking hippie.”

There goes all the coddling and the pussyfooting. Steve’s not as dumb as he pretends to be, so Roman knows he was expecting this shift. Dad can only play nice for so long. 

“It hurts.” Steve mutters, more disparaging than meek. 

Dad barks. “It hurts?”

“My head hurts. Clippers will only make it worse. Feel it in my teeth.” 

“Nonsense,” says Dad. “Use scissors. One of the staff will do it for you.”

“I don’t want– ”

“I’ll do it,” says Willa; who twitches a little like she thought this offer would go unnoticed. They’re all looking at her because, the hell? Roman forgot she was even here. “I did a barber course when I was in college.”

Steve jumps on the offer, unfolding his legs from the chair and pressing a mangled hand to her shoulder as he stands. All false pep, he disregards their father’s swearing and smiles down at their brother’s bought-in girlfriend. “Thanks so much, Willa. You’re the best. Are you free now?”

“Uh– ”

“Great!” He gathers his bowl from the table, which is what the staff are for, and takes her hand. Willa is dragged from the table, looking both confused and relieved to be free of family breakfast. Steve shoots them all a wave with his bowl-filled hand, and Roman winces, because he really needs to be more careful with those wounds. Dad looks on, entirely unimpressed, but says nothing as the pair of them flee. 

“So, you’re not, like, worried about that?” Roman says to Connor. 

Connor blinks to attention. “What?”

“Pretty boy and your mail order bride?” Roman nods for the door. Shiv snorts. 

“Stevie’s not looking all that pretty, currently,” says Connor. 

Shiv takes on that creepy little doll voice of hers. “You can’t say that about the baby, Con.”

“Yeah,” Kendall joins in. “He’s only a baby.”

—

Steve joins them on the beach an hour later, Willa trailing after him to dust strands of hair from his bare shoulders. He struts a line in front of each deck chair – Tom, Shiv, Roman, Kendall, Connor – and pivots, one hand on his bruised hip. 

“What do we think?”

His hair is far shorter at the sides, only an inch or two in length and no longer brushing the shells of his ears. On top, there are still piles of brown strands, but the flecks of honey that must have accumulated during the early weeks of summer are sharper; backlit by the afternoon sun, Steve looks quite like Shiv, who says:

“Of what, exactly?”

Steve huffs, shoulders slumping dramatically. “Of my hair. Pretty cool, right? I mean, my mom might actually have a heart attack, but I don’t think she’ll be home until October, anyways.”

“You look like a little boy,” Shiv says, crossing her legs. 

“He is a little boy,” says Connor.

Roman smirks, leaning forward in his chair. “The wittlest.”

“Wittle Stevie.” Ken’s better at the baby voice than any of them. Tom grins at this like the gargantuan idiot he is. 

“Gross.” Steve frowns, pulling at the string of his swim trunks. “I’m literally eighteen in a month.”

“And, figuratively, you won’t be eighteen until you’re at least literally fifty,” says Roman, knowing full well that he is both more immature than Steve and a hypocrite.

“That makes no sense,” says Steve.

“Well, it would if you were smarter.”

Steve lunges for Roman. “Children.” Connor chastises in as half hearted a manner as always, Willa taking a seat next to him. Steve pinches at Roman’s ankles, tiny strands of gross Steve hair falling all over the striped canvas underneath him. Suddenly, Steve stops, smirks down at Roman; a look is then cast to all of them, sly at its edges. 

He shrugs. “Willa said I have the best hairline in the family, anyway. I may only be seventeen, but at least I’m not balding.” Then he’s off, feet kicking up trails of damp sand in his wake as he heads for the waves. 

Roman leans forward and turns to Willa. “Et tu, Brute?” 

Willa smiles cautiously. “He needed cheering up.”

“Seems to have done the trick,” says Shiv, as Tom lasciviously rubs sunscreen on her back. The perv. 

“Did he say anything?” Kendall asks. 

“He said plenty.” Willa curls up a little at Connor’s side. Defensive. “It’s not my place to share.”

“Not your story to tell,” Connor agrees, nodding sagely. 

“Fuck that,” says Roman. “Tell us.”

Willa shakes her head. Shiv bristles at this, rolling Tom’s shovel hands off her shoulders. “He’s been catatonic for days. We’re worried.” 

“He’ll be fine.” Willa’s look of reassurance might work with her Off-Broadway girlfriends, but she’ll have to try another angle with this family. She sighs. “He was worried about his friends.”

“The kids?” Kendall finally takes his sunglasses off. 

Willa nods. “He… babysits them.” A Roy. Babysitting. “And they were in the fire too. I guess it’s hard for him, being so far away.” 

“Then why’d he come in the first place?” Roman asks, knowing that Steve likely didn’t have much of a choice. 

“I think he just wanted to see you guys.”

Roman feels shitty about that. Steve’s only thirty feet away, splashing around in the water. Waded waist deep, legs in the air, digging for something, no doubt. He remembers prior summers, when Steve followed Roman along the shoreline, tiny hands full of sands and shells, asking Roman to keep them in his pockets. Steve didn’t burn in the sun like him or Shiv or Con, he went brown like Kendall. Moles all over – beauty marks, Kitty called them – that Roman convinced him were a mirror of the constellations in the sky. Later, the pair of them would sit with Shiv on her bed, stringing the shells together with fishing wire they stole from Connor’s tackle box.

Those moles aren’t visible right now; not from this distance, sure, but the hair growing on his chest – which… okay, that’s not something he inherited from any of them — and the watercolour splash of bruising covers them all up. 

“Should he be swimming?” Roman asks. A little late for that. 

“Uh…”

“Probably not,” Shiv answers for Kendall. “But I think it calms him down.” 

Roman’s not so sure about that. Yeah, Steve quit the swim team because of his concussion or whatever, but last time Roman called, there was no mention of pool parties with that weird, freckled kid and his bitch of a girlfriend. Not since that other girl disappeared and Dad freaked out about the beers – which, what? They were all allowed to drink whenever, whatever, so long as nobody actually knew about it. Anyway, Roman hasn’t called in a while, so maybe things have gone back to normal.

Willa casts a sorrowful look toward the water and, for a moment, Roman thinks she has more to share with them. “He’s tired,” she says. “World weary, is what my mom calls it.”

It’s dinner time before they have the heart to drag Steve back in.

—

Steve’s picking at his food. This is not unusual in their house, given that Roman mostly pokes at his and fills up on wine, and Kendall can’t stomach anything when he’s getting clean. Shiv takes measured and polite bites, Tom copying her every move. Connor’s pretty normal about it, given the whole cake incident, but Steve is the one who typically eats like he’s spent forty days and forty nights in the desert. 

Dad looks almost offended. Marcia tuts and offers for the chef to make him something else, something lighter on his stomach. But Steve says no, thank you, Marcy. This is lovely. He shoves a whole chicken thigh in his mouth and sucks on the bone regretfully. He coughs, and for a horrifying moment, Roman thinks he’s choking – has flashbacks to a dinner he’d rather forget – but it’s just a cough. Followed by another. Shiv, on Steve’s other side, rubs his back discreetly. 

“Pokey?” Dad asks from the head of the table.

“All good, Dad.” Steve shoots him a thumbs up, muffling another small cough into the closed fist. 

“So,” Dad continues, willing to ignore the obvious discomfort if it means the sound will stop. “What do you plan on doing with yourself when you return to your house?”

House. Not home. Notably: it is Steve’s house. Or will be, once September rolls in and he turns eighteen. Dad has always loathed this fact. 

“Oh,” Steve clears his throat. “My friend Robin has a video store gig lined up. It might be tough, because everyone is looking for jobs after– ” Another cough. “ – the mall thing, but Mom said she’d write me a reference.”

Dad hums, chews on his champ. “What good would that do?”

Steve’s eyes widen a fraction. “Well, it looks pretty good. Everyone in Hawkins knows who she is.”

“For all the right reasons, I’m sure,” Dad says, smiling all the way down the line of Gerri, Frank, Karl. Marcia chuckles.

Steve tenses under Shiv’s hand. “Don’t talk about her like that.”

Dad waves a hand and Roman sinks lower in his seat. “Must you insist on staying in that God forsaken town, Steven?”

“Uh, yeah. I must. I have responsibilities there.” The kids, right. The potential new job. The potential that his mother will ever return from wherever the fuck it is that she goes. 

Dad scoffs. “Rewinding video tapes? Throwing pool parties?”

Not with those fingers and, no, not since that girl disappeared. Dad is really digging that knife in. 

“Like ten people I used to go to school with died, Dad. One of my kids lost her abusive as fuck brother and I need to keep an eye on her because her step-dad is even more abusive as fuck.”

“One of your kids?”

“Yeah,” Steve says, but a cough cuts him off. He’s getting worked up now and Roman really needs him to stop. This was never going to end well. “You know about them. You said you’d check.”

“Pfft.” That’s all Steve gets from Dad. And it’s enough. It went without saying, really, but Steve was delirious and having a fucking psychotic episode with his nail bat and busted eye. 

It’s not enough for Steve, clearly, because he shoves his chair out with enough force to tip Shiv sideways. Roman pushes her back onto her seat as Steve stands, no plate to the kitchen, no goodnights for anyone. 

“Thanks for the food, Marcia,” he says, saccharine and smiling. “It tasted like shit.”

—

Once again, there is screaming in the night. A new regularity at the Summer Palace. It’s coming from Dad’s office.

Kendall bursts through the double doors like every concrete memory Roman holds from his childhood. Kendall steps between Dad and Steve like Dad would ever do that to Steve; like he isn’t afraid of Steve’s grandfather and all the things he could do to ruin them if he found out. Steve pushes past him, all up in Dad’s face and Roman could fucking scream, because what is he doing?

“ – with my fucking hush money!”

“Is that so?”

“Sure is. You think I didn’t negotiate a better figure for those NDAs? I’m good.”

“You’re good? This is what you call good? Look at the state of you! Fell apart under the fucking pressure. You’re fucking weak!”

Steve laughs, loud and booming and so, so bitter. “I’m weak? That’s rich. Real fuckin’ rich. You’re the one exploiting literal children for profit. What the fuck is wrong with you?”

Connor cuts across the pair of them, looking guilty where he’s typically indifferent. “Now, Steve–”

“What the fuck, Con?” Roman asks, because it’s easier than asking Dad. “What’s he talking about?”

“It’s nothing.”

“It’s clearly something,” says Shiv. 

“We’re exploiting children now?” Kendall asks, chest heaving with unused adrenaline. 

And Steve just keeps laughing. “You guys didn’t know? Fuck, I thought you knew. Like we were all playing pretend about me losing my fingernails to some falling furniture.”

“Dad?” Shiv doesn’t sound confused, not like she ought to. Roman can’t find it in himself to play dumb either. It’s obvious. It’s so obvious now that he could be sick. 

“Dad,” says Kendall, severe and clenched. “What is he talking about?” 

Steve’s hysterical, hand over his mouth like he’s holding all the words in.His fingers are bleeding again, slippy and making the fresh band-aids fall off. Connor puts a hand on his shoulder as if to quiet him, but it’s no use now. Roman wants to shake them all for answers, but he’s got the feeling that some are coming whether he’ll like them or not. 

“He’s speaking gibberish! You think that fuckin’ idiot knows anything about our company?”

Our company. Like Steve doesn’t have just as many shares as the rest of them – courtesy of his grandfather and the Harrington family lawyers – and a seat on the board once he turns eighteen. Roman will kick anybody who’s standing below him on the ladder, but he’s never been good at hurting Steve. He pulls his younger brother’s hand down from his mouth, takes it into his own.

“Just breathe for a second,” he says. “Jesus.”

“I’m breathing,” says Steve, smiling. His eyes are wet, a shiny brown that matches Roman’s own. 

“Stevie.” Kendall takes him by the shoulders, looks him dead in the eyes. “Tell us what’s going on.” 

“Go on,” Dad laughs. “Tell them all about it.”

“Stop.”

“You want to tell them, so tell them. What’s so complicated about that?” Dad sneers like he just stole Steve’s favourite toy. His lunch money. His inheritance. 

“You have no fucking clue.”

“Don’t I?” Thick eyebrows rise, and it’s all in good humour. It’s all a game.

“You don’t.” Steve’s voice shakes. “You weren’t there. This is all your fault and you just left me alone to deal with it. You knew I worked there, you fucking knew it.”

“I didn’t know you’d stick your nose in where it doesn’t belong.”

“Bullshit!” Steve barks. “They would have come for me anyway. You and– you both fucked them over!”

“You didn’t have to tell them your name. You caved.”

“They took my fucking driver’s license, Dad. I know Russians use a different alphabet, but Roy only has three letters.”

“Wait.” Shiv’s head tilts to one side. “I’m sorry. Russians?”

“Somebody needs to tell us what the fuck is going on.” Kendall is near yelling now. 

“Everyone,” says Connor. “Calm down.”

“You fucking calm down!” Roman yells, still holding tight to Steve’s hand. “What? Dad actually needs you for once and you use it to screw your baby brother over?”

“Ro– ”

Roman turns away from Connor, blocks him out of the conversation. 

“Can we circle back to the part about the Russians, please?”

Dad waves a hand at them all, Roman flinches out of range. “Let it the fuck go. He’s fine. ‘Tis but a scratch.”

“No thanks to you!” Steve says, yanking out of Roman’s reach. “My own parents didn’t even notice I was missing, no, Chief Hopper had to come get me again.”

“Well, why don’t you ask Chief Hopper to be your new Daddy then?” Though it’s not directed at them, Roman feels the collective wince. The rejection and humiliation. Dad’s telling Steve that he literally does not give a fuck, and maybe he already knew, but it’s the first time Dad’s actually said it. That’s a first time they all remember. 

Steve is very still. Completely. The only movement is from the twitch of his lip, the slight shake to his hands. “Okay,” he says, flat as anything, and grabs the phone from Dad’s desk. He punches in a number, quick and by heart, and holds the receiver up to his good ear. There are two rings, then a crackle at the other end of the line. 

“Hey.” A soft voice. “Yeah, it’s me. Sorry to wake you.” It’s a woman on the other end, but not Kitty – it is lacking that shrill quality she possesses when inconvenienced. 

“No, no…” Steve smiles fondly, wipes a hand over his good eye. “I’m fine. I just… yeah. Is that okay?” The voice is upset, and it makes Steve upset too. “He doesn’t have to do that. I’ll get the bus from the airport. Yeah? Thanks, Mrs. Byers. You too.” 

A brief affair, phone back on the cradle. Dad’s rolling his eyes at the melodrama, hands perched on his desk in tight fists – Roman’s glad they have found a place to rest for now. “Steven– ”

“My Daddy’s going to come get me.” Steve beams, the kind of smile that’s twisted and learned. He’s almost out of the study and into the hall when their Dad rounds his desk, arm landing like a hook on the cut of his shoulder. Steve shoves away, torn hands grabbing the doorframe to catch his own fall, but before he can land, Dad’s got him by the front of his sweater, back pressed flush with the wall. 

“Don’t pull that shit with me,” he hisses. “You’re not a big man here. You’re a fucking child.”

“Let me go.”

“Dad,” Shiv says, hand on his shoulder in such proximity that Roman would never dare. He stands at a safe distance, despite the urge to intervene. 

“What?” Steve wheezes, but that smile is every bit Logan Roy. “Gonna finish the job?”

“Dad!” Kendall is doing as Kendall does, trying to force himself between them, block Steve’s body from their father, despite the fact that he has consistently failed to block Roman’s. 

“Pa…” But Connor’s done here, that much is clear. His eyes are darting around like he could cut and run. This no longer serves him. 

“You’re a fucking pussy.” Dad shakes Steve, tearing a line along the collar of his sweater. “You get yourself involved in all this shit and expect me to fix it?” Steve’s head is moving back and forth, but he can’t quite manage saying ‘no’ – Dad’s digging the knife as deep as it will go. “If you had just stayed put in that fucking house, head full of air, looking pretty, none of this would have happened to you.”

A slam and there’s blood falling between the carefully chosen split of Willa’s hair cut. A wound, reopened. Dad lets go, drops Steve like he’s dirt, and stalks out of the room; met with no resistance from staff or counsel, because they all know quite well not to get involved. 

Steve deflates, slides to the floor and curls his knees to his chest. Fingers in his hair, fit to tear chunks out since the whole cut is fucked anyway. 

“Up you get, now,” says Connor, crouching to make eye contact. 

It’s only when Steve speaks that Roman recalls their age gap – Steve is a baby, Connor’s nearing sixty. “I really tried, Con, I swear.”

“I know, Stevie.” Together, Connor and Kendall pull Steve up by the armpits. He bends over to press his head to Connor’s chest; Kendall won’t let go of his arm. Roman stands there uselessly, fingers worrying the skin at the back of his neck while their brother all but whimpers.

“I just wanna go home.”

Shiv talks at them over Steve’s hunched back. She’s got that ugly scrunch to her face that tells she’s upset, but she’s not crying. Not over this. “I don’t think he should go alone.”

“I can’t take him,” says Connor, free hand cupping the back of Steve’s head. “There are some… issues.”

“Issues?” Shiv scowls. “You know what? I don’t care. We’ll take him.”

Roman realises, quite suddenly, that he’s being addressed. 

“We?”

This is not kissing Stevie’s boo-boos to the sound of Kendall’s failed music career; it’s not a chasing a toddler whose running underfoot of an explosive argument, or frantically making him spit out whatever the fuck he just put in his mouth. It’s not Steve being left alone in a big house almost constantly since the age of thirteen. This is Dad’s inexplicable rage and Russians, it’s random kids and Steve’s fucked up hearing, police chiefs and nail bats. This is Steve’s missing fingernails. 

Kendall nods in agreement with their sister, taking all of Steve’s weight to himself. “Yes,” he says. “We.”