Chapter Text
The summer of Steve Harrington’s 6th birthday was sticky with sweat and cherry-flavored popsicle juice (he didn’t like the cherry-flavored kind, but he wasn’t complaining; at least his mom bought some in the first place). This summer, 1972, was also the summer that his still-eager-to-raise-a-child mother brought home a shiny new Chicago V record. She helped him peel back the plastic and delicately inspect the grooves.
“No scratches!” Steve reported to her proudly. Her smile was genuine, nothing like the tight-lipped ones he would later come to associate her with.
“That’s right, Steven,” she said, slipping the vinyl onto the turntable with the practiced grace of someone who simply loved music. She dropped the needle and the grungy guitar chords of A Hit by Varese filled the room, falling into something funkier as Robert Lamm sings of oldies. Dalilah Harrington grabbed her son’s hands, twirling him around shimmying to the music. Steve giggled in delight.
Steve liked the way the instruments overlapped, almost to the point of excessive, somehow fighting each other and blending at the same time. He marveled at the saxophone solo, wailing behind the guitar one second and in front of it the next. It got to a point where they were having a hard time dancing, but it didn’t matter because they were both laughing and-
A door slammed, jarring them both out of the trance. “Dalilah, Steven! Please, keep it down. I’m trying to work.” Steve’s father stomped angrily through the living room, holding up a stack of papers to prove his point. Dalilah sighed, but twisted the volume knob.
“Alright, that’s enough Steven. Be a dear and help Mommy set the table?”
Steve nodded, wishing selfishly that they could’ve danced for a moment longer.
-
School starts 2 weeks after Steve’s 6th birthday. After a summer of Chicago, he got used to having some sort of background noise while he played. School was very different. The first time he asked Mrs. Carralyn if she could play some music, please, she scolds him.
“School is for learning, Steven.”
Steve didn’t like to sit still very much; he was a near-constant ball of nervous energy, tapping his pencil on the desk incessantly and tugging at his hair until his scalp ached. In his desperate attempts to focus, he ends up accidentally staring at his desk mate, Harry H., for too long. Harry glares at him so hard that Steve almost jolts.
He couldn’t help it! Harry H. was smart, and he had glasses, and he always knew what letter of the alphabet came after “K”, whereas Steve had to sing the song every time. Plus, he had black hair that curled at the ends and big blue eyes that made Steve think of his favorite train toy. When he went home that day, he was so excited to tell his mom about Harry H. that he forgot she went to a friend’s that afternoon.
Huffing, Steve knelt in front of the record player, scanning carefully through the drawers of vinyl. He selects one called “Hunky Dory”, finding the man on the cover very pretty. It’s halfway through Oh! You Pretty Things that his dad thunders in. Steve can’t help jumping like he’s been caught doing something wrong, despite knowing his mother gave him permission to use the player while she’s gone.
“Did you put that on?” Richard Harrington is demanding, harsh around the edges and stern in his words.
Steve wants to lie, but knows he shouldn’t. “I liked the cover.” He feels very small.
His dad takes the record off, shoving it back into the sleeve. “I don’t know why your mother kept this. I mean, Bowie is-” he splutters in thinly veiled outrage. “He’s a fairy! Hardly a man.”
Steve didn’t understand. “What does that mean?”
Richard crouches down, large hand gripping Steve’s shoulder tightly, “He’s a man that likes other men, Steven.” For a long, confusing 5 seconds, Steve doesn’t get it. “It’s unnatural. It’s disgusting.” He stands again. “Those queers are going to corrupt our children. I won’t allow it. You’re not to listen to this any more.”
Steve sits alone in his room after his father’s outburst, stewing in uncertainty. He thought David Bowie was pretty, that’s why he picked up the record. He thought Harry H. was pretty too, and nice. It didn’t make any sense. Was he disgusting?
That night, as he pushed green beans around his plate, Steve looked at his parents. Were they unnatural , too? Or was it just him? His dad definitely wasn’t. His mom couldn’t be! So it was just him then. Uncomfortable with the thought, Steve squirmed. He would just have to pretend he wasn’t.
-
Steve was 11 when he first heard Vienna by Billy Joel, and subsequently convinced himself that something bigger was waiting for him. He was also 11 when he started seriously playing sports. His father had him in everything athletic under the sun; soccer, baseball, basketball, track, swimming, you name it (despite Billy's melancholy plea to slow down, you crazy child ). But he really excelled in basketball and swimming. He relished in the praise from coaches, basking in cheers from the crowd.
He was also 11 when his parents started taking trips. They weren’t long, not at first. An overnight BnB in New York, or a weekend trip to the coast. His mother insisted that he was old enough, that they would be back soon anyway so why was he complaining? Then they turned into weeklong business getaways.
Steve was almost 12 when he stopped asking his parents if they were coming to his games. It was easier to not bring it up when the alternative was a resounding “Man up, son” from his father and a “We’d love to Steven, but you know we can’t” from his mother. He wanted to scream at them, insisting that he was a man, that if they really wanted to, they would, but he just nodded and forced a smile.
Tommy H. became his best friend in 1978, the same year that Grease came out and filled his house with cheery pop soundtracks. Steve didn't really like him all that much at first (their parents set it up), but he learned quickly that there was a certain type of safety he gained in being friends with Tommy H. He went from being the athletic rich kid, to the popular athletic rich kid. Nobody teased them, because they were the ones teasing.
It was Tommy and Steve that pushed a boy to the ground after he spat gum into Tommy's backpack, Tommy and Steve that chased the nerds down the street on their bikes, cuffing them on the head and knocking books out of their hands. It was them against the losers.
They were the cool ones with the big houses (in Steve's case, big, empty, house) and nice hair. They were the ones all the girls had crushes on. They winked at the cheerleaders on the sidelines of games freshman year, kissed every equally rich and popular girl they could.
1980, the year Any Way You Want It was Steve's favorite song, he drank his first beer at an after-party of a winning game. The Hawkins High basketball team was loud, rowdy, and ruthless. If you didn't get coerced into chugging a glass or two, you weren't anybody.
Steve was a lightweight, drunk off his ass after three (or was it four?) beers and a cup of spiked punch. He found himself pressed back and forth between layers of swaying bodies, shoved eventually against a wall. His hair clinging to his forehead, he tried and failed to dance with the throng of inebriated teenagers. One girl next to him had paused mid-scream-sing to shove her tongue down his throat in a sloppy attempt at a make out session, giggling and sashaying away after the song ended like that wasn't the most disgusting thing that happened to Steve all night. Well, maybe second most disgusting.
He pushed out of the living room and down a couple steps into a small, smoke-filled laundry room. The smell of weed was pungent and suffocating, but Steve found he didn't care. Anything was better than the dance floor from hell.
A few dudes were lounging against various pieces of furniture, taking long drags from self-rolled joints. One boy, about his age, watched him with large dark eyes from under his tangled mop of bangs. He appeared to be the one dealing. Steve squints at him a little, recalling who this kid is. Eddie "The Freak" Munson. He has half a mind to say something, but is too drunk to maintain his douchebag jock image.
So, he leaned back and tried to catch his breath in the hazy air.
"What's the matter, Harrington, can't hold down a few beers?" Another boy he recognized vaguely from the group of seniors on the team slid in next to him. Steve tried to place a name. Carter? Collin? He gave up and shook his head.
"I'm fine. Fine." Steve hated that his words were slurring and his heart was beating too fast. Caden, his mind finally supplied, laughed and leaned closer.
"Sure you are." His breath was hot and reeking of alcohol, and it assaulted Steve's sense of smell. Caden's hand was suddenly on his lower back, leading him out of the laundry room and into a half-bath in the entryway. Munson watched them go with one eyebrow raised.
When Steve woke up again, he remembered rough lips against his and violent hands in his hair. He remembered the metal doorknob digging into his back as he was slammed into the door, groaning in pain as someone held his wrist too tight. He remembered teeth against his neck and a low threat.
"If you say anything about this Harrington, I'll tell the whole team you're a fucking fag ."
He remembered dropping to the floor, alone at last, and vomiting unceremoniously into the toilet. He wasn't, though. Steve wasn't gay. He had kissed girls before, and liked it. He was sure. Certain. This didn't mean anything; he was drunk and stupid and-
This was a mistake, nothing more.
"Hey man," a voice startled him, coming from the doorway. Steve doesn't jump, but he does whip around, not quite sober enough and unprepared for the wave of dizziness it brings. Munson is leaning against the door frame, staring down on him with… distaste, or something similar. "It's like 3am, dude. You gonna sleep on the bathroom floor?"
Steve is having a hard time comprehending his words. His head throbs. "Shit. I gotta get Tommy H."
"Sure, whatever, I don't care. You're sitting on my jacket," Munson inclines his head. Sure enough, a dark leather jacket that was previously crammed in the corner is now tucked under Steve's right knee.
Steve staggers up. It's then that Tommy H., also stumbling, comes into view. They make eye contact before Tommy's eyes land on Munson. He shoves him away from the door. "Back off, freak."
"Yeah, fuck you too, asshole," Eddie says, snagging his jacket and ducking away.
"What the hell did you just say to me?" Tommy is reeling, not quite moving fast enough to keep up with Eddie.
"Leave it, man," Steve mumbles. "Let's just go."
Steve learns a few things that night, but one that stands out the most is his new hatred for small bathrooms.
-
Steve Harrington listens to Bonnie Tyler the night after he meets Nancy Wheeler. She is all soft hair and angled features, strawberry chapstick and bright blue scrunchies (the color reminds him of someone with blue eyes and curly black hair, who always knew the alphabet). With one smile, Nancy sends Steve into a spluttering mess. With one kiss, his stomach erupts into butterflies.
Nancy Wheeler was smart, so much smarter than him, and clever. She was witty and determined and so, so stubborn. She was also beautiful. Not only that, but she made him feel heard. Steve told her things he would never tell Tommy H. or Carol, or any of their dumbass friends, things about his parents and his loneliness.
One night (before everything changed), Nance was sitting on one of the gray couches in the living room, eyeing the cupboard of records. She went over, kneeling down and humming as she examined the Harrington Music Taste.
"Asia?" Nancy questioned, perfect eyebrow lifted in that way she always did when she was teasing him. Somehow, her teasing wasn't condescending like Carol's or cruel like Tommy's.
He laughed. "That one's new. And Heat of the Moment is a good song!"
Nancy rolled her eyes and dug further into the cabinet, finally sliding an album out with a triumphant smile. "Now this is music."
David Bowie's Hunky Dory (it was a miracle that Richard Harrington didn't rifle through the records like Nancy did). "You like Bowie?" Your parents let you listen to it? He only played it when he was absolutely certain his parents were for the week (or two, or three).
"Doesn't everyone?" She returned easily, sliding it on the turntable like Steve had done, all those years ago.
"My dad doesn't," he said, attempting a light-hearted response but unable to keep the heaviness from weighing down the sentence.
Nancy just looked at him with her careful brown eyes, the eyes that had a way of peeling back his layers and tearing into him. Suddenly he wanted to tell her everything. But there was a question in those eyes, one he couldn't possibly have the answer to.
"Why not?"
"You know," Steve said. He had to choose his next words carefully or else- or else she would know. Know that you're different. Disgusting. "He's-" Steve waves his hands vaguely. "Different."
Her eyes kept searching, searching for something that he couldn't give.
"I don't care," she said, almost defiantly, like he would argue with her. "I like people that are different."
And he thought about telling her again. I love you. You are the most amazing person I've ever met. I think you're gorgeous and for some reason I think boys are gorgeous, too. Instead, he said, "Then how come you like me?" It was a deflection, he knew it, and for one split second, Steve worried that Nancy knew it. "I'm just like every jock out there."
She laughed again and they moved on. Later that night, Steve had shuddered thinking about how close he was to admitting just how different he was. Just how unnatural .
I like people that are different
, she had said. And Steve allowed himself to imagine that maybe that was true.