Chapter Text
Empty nest syndrome is absolutely a real thing. When you’ve spent so much of your life caring for one person, raising them up, being so involved with their everyday lives to the point where their wellbeing becomes second nature to you, and then they suddenly just leave? It's beyond jarring and saddening for most parents. So how do you cope?
Well, some people pick up different hobbies. No kids anymore, so why not take that painting class? Make a home gym? Knit or take vacations you’ve always wanted. Talk to a therapist or scrapbook precious memories of your kids, maybe. This is what most parents end up doing in the end to cope with the sudden loss of responsibility but the sudden gain of time and freedom.
But Steve isn’t a traditional parent, and he certainly isn’t like most people.
—
Steve smiled gently as he finished putting the brightly colored band aid on the knee of the little girl in front of him. She still sniffled a little and pouted, so he softened his tone and took her hand in his.
“I know it hurts, Mary. That's why we can’t do those things on the playground, okay? When I tell you to stop, I need you to stop, honey. Okay?”
The little red head nodded and averted her eyes, looking anywhere but his eyes. Obviously, she was still feeling guilty and hurt.
But, if there was one thing Steve was, it was a damn good babysitter. So, he squeezed her hand and flashed a sly grin, leaning forward to whisper conspiratorial to her:
“Although, that was a rad trick you pulled, Mare.”
The girl perked up with a hesitant smile. “Yeah?”
Steve, now seeing his chance, nodded overdramatically. “Oh yeah! I can’t even jump down two stairs, let alone walk on top of monkey bars! That was something really, really cool!” He enthused.
The little girl giggled and nodded. Steve, now feeling accomplished in his goal of drying those tears up, gave a laugh and nodded back outside. “Alright, I’m glad you’re feeling better. You wanna get back to Toby and Holly? I’m sure they miss you.” Mary nodded and stood to race through the back glass doors.
Steve stood and grabbed the bright box of Band-Aids, putting them away, calling out behind her, “Just be careful, Mary!” Getting a backwards wave in return. He sighed fondly and shook his head, leaning in the doorway of the open French door to watch the three kids marvel over the cool band aid designs and play around.
If you had told Steve Harrington three years ago, after the final defeat of Vecna, that he’d be disowned and running a bed and breakfast from his (former) parents old house, babysitting residents' kids and cleaning/cooking during the day, he’d-
Well, honestly, he’d probably believe you. After threatening you with his trusty nail bat, of course, because the number of times he’s had positive encounters with strange phenomena in his life has been less than 0. Mathematically impossible? Sure. Does it help get his point across still? Sure, so fuck metaphors.
The thing is, he was lost. The evil that had plagued them for years under the earth was gone, his kids were almost all grown and ready to make their way in the world outside of buttfuck Indiana, with bright futures and hardened minds.
His best friend had found a passion in helping people and enrolled in the University of Indiana to study to become a professional therapist for younger kids ( “Especially kids like me, Steve. I want to be the person I wish I had in my life when my sense of self was being questioned.”) , taking his ex-girlfriend in tow after being accepted into their journalism program.
Honestly? Good for her, too.
Jonathan Byers had moved back out to California, starting freelance photography and finding a lifelong partner in his friend, Argyle. Joyce and Jim Hopper had tied the knot soon after the final battle, not wanting to waste any more precious time, and Eddie…
Eddie Munson had packed up with his bandmates as soon as he was discharged and cleared of charges from the hospital, speeding away in his van, never looking back.
And it's not as though everyone he had ever grown to care for and love had just decided to abandon him. He got regular letters, postcards, phone calls now from his kids and friends, telling him fun and crazy stories about their lives out of state, their relationship bonds, their experiences in the real world, the people they met and how they were doing. He got trinkets and gifts mailed to him from them, obviously still present in their thoughts (which melted his heart,) and the occasional visit made it much better.
…But honestly? Steve was lonely. Everyone he loved and cared about was gone. Not long after, his parents decided that having a deadbeat son with a dead-end job at some small town in Indiana, with no want for a future or university, simply wasn’t worth having around. They paid him what was left of his trust funds, mailed him the deed to his house, took their last name from his record, and never looked back.
Again, honestly? Good for them.
It didn’t hurt like some would think getting disowned by your parents would be. He didn’t cry, didn’t go numb, didn’t rage out in grief. He read the documents through, got a lawyer, and simply took the next step. With the help from his honorary little brother, (now stepbrother !) Steve Joseph Harrington became Steve Joseph Henderson in a matter of months. Tears were shed, crippling hugs were exchanged, and Steve was finally welcomed into a family that made sure he knew his existence was wanted.
But he was still lonely. Tons of money, an empty house, and no one to share his wealth and days with. The walls were too bare, the furniture too clean, and the halls were too echo-ey. The silence was too loud. His screams at night are too quiet for anyone to hear.
So, he decided to do something about it.
The thing about disasters and strange occurrences? People seemed to be drawn to them. Whether it was the devastation and destruction, the suffering of humanity, or the eerie feeling one may get, staring at the ruins of a life never known in the aftermath of a tragedy, people seemed fascinated by destruction. So, whether due to rescue aid relief, true crime hungry tourists eager to visit the place the famed serial killer Victor Creel attacked once more (Eddie’s cover story, of course, brought to you by the big guy's up top,) or people who simply wanted to gawk, Hawkins saw a lot more foot traffic into the city that originally wasn’t there, with a mass exodus of people trying to get out of the city.
Was there suddenly a large amount of real estate waiting to be bought from vacated houses? Sure. Did anyone actually want to buy a house in a place rocked with disaster after disaster in the span of five years? Not at all. So, when hotels suddenly became beyond booked up and motels were overrun, Steve saw his opportunity.
Over the span of a month, he had converted his many guest bedrooms and bathrooms into clean, sterile, homey spaces, expanded his kitchen equipment and dining room to house a larger number of people, and filled up his pool out back with concrete and rubber to make a playground instead.
(He had never been able to use the pool again anyways. Not without hearing the phantom screams he’d never actually heard of Barb’s, or seeing traces of red liquid in the water, mixing with his own guilt, even when he knew it wasn’t there.)
And thus, as suddenly and quickly as Steve did everything in life, “The Studded Bat” was born.
—
“I’ll be with you in one second!” Steve called as he slid the tray full of mini pies into the oven and set an egg timer for thirty minutes. Quickly taking his oven mitts off and ripping the apron off over his head, he jogged to the foyer of the house with a smile on his face.
“Hey folks, sorry about the wait. What can I do for you?” He said, sitting down at the desk in the entrance, opening the ledger and taking out a pen. In front of him stood a pair of younger women, one radiating sunshine and smiles, with shiny blonde hair in a high ponytail and floral print dress, the other contrasting her in every way possible: cropped black hair, heavy black and purple eye makeup, black platform boots, skirts, fishnet leggings and an oversized dark sweater.
If he didn’t know better about how well opposites attract, he would be taken aback by the contrast, but he simply smiled and kept some amusement to himself.
“Hi!” The blonde girl said. “My name is Melody, I go by Mel though, and this is Steph! Er, Stephanie, but I call her Steph!” The dark girl looked over at her companion with a deadpan stare, but the ball of sunshine seemed unaffected. “Anyways, I hope we didn’t interrupt anything, we’re new to the town and we wanna stay for a bit but most of the hotels are booked and sometimes you just can’t trust motels, honestly, especially with being who we are and what we look like, and-” Good lord, this girl reminded Steve of Robin in all the best ways. And, looking at how close the two were standing and her word choice of ‘what we are’, he figured they were alike in more than one way.
Melody seemed to be getting winded quickly as her speech just got faster, until Stephanie calmly put her hand over her mouth and looked at her with a fond look. “What she means to say is that we’d like a room. No preference on floor or size.”
Steve nodded and flipped through the books, looking to see what he had available. He had two left that were not taken, one with a queen-sized bed and one with two singles. He gave them their options casually and cheered to himself silently as he assured them subtly that it was more than okay if they had the queen-sized room to themselves.
“Alright, and finally, length of stay? I run this place by myself, with free meals and laundry services included, so the average price a night for a room is usually around $12, but depending on your budget, I can always work things around if you’re willing to help out around here or do certain things.” He said, writing their names down next to his ‘Queen - Single’ slot.
“Er, certain things?” Melody squeaked, grabbing Stephanie’s hand. Said girl narrowed her eyes and tilted her head up, looking Steve in the eye. “I hope you don’t mean what I think you mean,
sir.
” She said venomously. Steve furrowed his eyebrows, before it clicked in his head and he rushed to stand up from his chair with his arms out, quick to reassure them.
“NO! No, God no, I’m so sorry, I could’ve phrased that better. I meant help around in the kitchen or get a few grocery and toiletry supplies if I find myself too busy with the childcare or other chores around here. I’m so sorry, no, absolutely nothing like that.” He rushed out, wringing his hands nervously and glancing back and forth between the women.
Melody’s shoulders sagged and she smiled back kindly at him. He noticed with some trepidation that Stephanie’s eyes still seemed guarded, but he couldn’t blame her. A lesbian couple in the middle of nowhere Indiana, with a strange man in a large house making an (accidental) innuendo had more than enough reason to be wary.
“Okay, good. I think we’ll start out with a week, get a feel for the place.” Steve nodded and sat back down, scribbling down the length of stay and quickly trying to do the math in his head. “Will you be paying all of it up front, or would you like to take it day to day? Whichever works best for your budget.”
Melody nodded and took out the approx amount from the purse at her side, handing it over to Steve. He took it and unlocked the drawer underneath the top of the desk, putting the bills inside and giving them back what was left over. He closed it and locked it again, putting the key in his pocket, before grabbing another key from the set behind him.
“Alright, thank you ladies. Follow me and I’ll show you to your rooms. Do you need any help getting your luggage or anything in?” He asked, leading them up the stairs to one of the many hallways. They walked behind him, hand in hand, glancing around the walls scattered with framed paintings well taken care of all signed by a ‘W.B’ “Yeah! Steph and I can grab most of it, but it’d be easier if you helped so we can get it all in one trip.” Melody said, Steph nodding along. He nodded and unlocked the room at the end of the hall, opening it up and stepping inside.
“Okay, I’ll get right on it. In the meantime, here’s your room. Breakfast and Dinner are provided at 8AM and 6PM respectively, and if you have any dietary restrictions, please let me know as soon as possible. You’re not required to eat here, of course, but it will be here if you want. If you’re comfortable with me doing your laundry, leave it in the basket right there by the door, and I’ll come in while you guys are gone and get it for you.” He smiled, giving his general spiel he’d long since memorized at this point. “There's a bathroom attached to your room. Other than that, you guys should be good. Just please be considerate of the other guests, and if you need anything at all, let me know. I’ll get your guys' stuff, now.”
The girls nodded, looking around, as Steve skipped down the steps and outside to the parked car with suitcases strapped on top and in the trunk. He grabbed as many as he could and brought them up to the girl’s room, waving off their attempts to help. After about three trips, he had them settled and left them alone to themselves.
Walking back to the kitchen, he made it just a few seconds to the oven before the egg timer at the side went off. Opening the door, he briefly glanced at the pies in the oven, nodding in approval at their golden-brown crusts and putting on his mitts. He took both trays out and put them further on the stove top, in case one of the little one’s wandered in and got curious.
Walking over to the fridge as he let his chicken pot pie mini’s cool, he reached in to grab his vegetable mix, strawberries and bottle of dressing he had bought previously, and set about making the last part of the dinner. Since the children were playing outside, and the majority of occupants at the Studded Bat were out and about, he turned on the radio, already set to his favorite station as he chopped lettuce.
“And next on 96.9, Hawkins radio for real music, we have the newest single released by up-and-coming local legends. This is ‘Bloody Beating Heart’ by Corroded Coffin!”
Steve shared a secret smile with the radio, a light pink dusting his face as he turned the volume up slightly, losing himself in the sweetly belted out lyrics, and the foggy golden haze of memories, featuring curly brown hair, wide brown eyes, and glinting silver rings.
—
Eddie Munson is only a man. A weak man, yes, but just a man. Who happens to like other men.
Since making it big with a record label in Atlanta, his sexuality was even more hidden than before (not like it was more obvious in the first place anyways, he just wore his bandana in his hair instead of his back pocket now.) But still, he thinks, the ability to write and sell his own music, some of his closest friends touring the country, making it big and living the life…well, hiding just a bit of oneself for the freedom of being paid to express the rest of who you are was a good compromise, in his mind.
Besides, nothing in his contract stated he couldn’t have his own fun on the sides. Wearing shades, makeup and his hair up in dark clubs at night in shadier areas of the cities they toured, anonymously hooking up with strangers in dark alleyways and hole-in-the-wall clubs was not much different from what he did before, honestly.
(If all of his hookups nowadays had tan skin, swoopy brown hair and brown eyes, that was no one's business but his. Bonus points if they had freckles or body imperfections, scars on his stomach and moles dotting along his golden skin, aching to be tasted and marked even more… fuck, he needed to call Steve sometime-)
But, as he stated before, he was a weak man in more ways than one.
See, you don't grow up in a place like Hawkins Indiana and like it. Ask 90% of the people you grew up with side by side and listen to how many tell you they want to move away, they’re dreaming big, they want to go to a university outside of this hellhole of a town and never look back. But you also don’t grow up there, going through the alternate-dimension shit he and his Party members did, and the murder charges his band members helped him fight off, without strangely missing the place sometimes. So, when it came to his bandmates, when their tour finally ended and they all voiced wanting to go back to their roots, bask in their success, maybe rub it into their bully’s faces, Eddie didn’t have to think twice before jumping off of one vehicle for hours at a time to another.
Because if there was one thing that turned out to be Eddie Munson’s ultimate weakness, it was pretty boys with big brown cow eyes and plump lips named Steve Hendersen.
So that was how he wound up where he was right now, mouth agape, staring at the absolute vision before him. Steve Hendersen (formerly Harrington, he needed to stop calling him that for fucks sake) with a flour dusted apron around his waist and neck, humming along to a single on the radio that he wrote , inspired by the man in front of him of course, with golden light from the afternoon sun highlighting the caramel and lighter blonde streaks in his hair as he chopped lettuce, a soft smile on his face.
Eddie Munson was weak for Steve Joseph Hendersen, and the minute Steve turned around at the noise of Eddie’s leather jacket shuffling as he crossed his arms and leaned against the doorway to watch the vision of a man before him, big brown eyes lighting up in excitement, toothy grin on full display and cheekbones high in glee, he knew he would never be strong again.
And then the man had to open his goddamn, plump, delicious looking mouth that was the star of so many fantasies, fuck- and say his name in such a syrupy, happy voice, and Eddie nearly fell over-
…
Yeah, scratch that, he did actually fall.