Chapter Text
^^^
There was a new game at the arcade.
At least, Steve’s about ninety percent sure that's what Will is trying to get across to him as the kid jabbers across the telephone.
Steve has their cordless phone pressed between his shoulder and his ear as he sits on the couch in the living room, homework out on his lap.
“-and Mad Max had beaten all of our high scores!”
Steve couldn’t be sure he understood…any word of that.
“Sounds like you had fun,” he smiled, regardless, filling out an equation. “Is your mom still driving you around?”
“Yeah,” Will huffed on the other end. “I’ve probably forgotten how to ride a bike at this point.”
His voice had lowered in volume considerably, and Steve could only imagine that Ms. Byers or Jonathan were nearby where Will was talking on the phone.
“They’re just watching out for you,” Steve chuckled and finished up the last question, putting away his textbooks. “Try not to give them such a hard time.”
Will scoffed openly. “Okay, Mr. ‘I-Keep-The-Nail-Bat-In-My-Trunk’.”
Steve sat up a bit and hissed, “hey! Keep your voice down, brat. I don’t need your mom getting Hopper on my ass.”
The giggles it got from Will were worth any eavesdropper,s though, Steve relaxing back into the couch
The past couple of months had been…good.
Normal - or, at least, a new normal.
Will called him a lot in the evenings, especially on days they don’t see each other. Sometimes Steve would put the speaker on just to fill the house a little more. Steve’s parents didn’t quite get it, but seemed supportive either way.
He listened to Will recount the rest of his day in detail before Ms. Byers’s voice was telling Will it was time for bed. The kid whined but said a quick, “goodnight, Steve.”
“Night, kid,” Steve smiled and smiled as Ms. Byers came onto the line. “Busy day, huh?”
“You have no idea,” she chuckled, her voice sending a wave of peace over him. “How are you doing? Will said your parents went out again?”
He hummed, playing with the decorative swan pillow his mom had bought on a whim. “I’m fine. They’re off to Switzerland this time. They said they should be back right before Thanksgiving, which will be nice.”
She makes a disapproving noise, but she says, “well you know you’re welcome to come over anytime - In fact, we’re having movie night tomorrow! You should join us.”
Steve couldn’t help the smile that spread across his face, and he teased, “is Bob going to be there?”
Ms. Byers sputtered, voice coming out high, “I - Steve Harrington - you’re as bad as Jonathan and Will.”
He chuckled, standing up to walk towards the phone’s base. “I’ll definitely be there, Ms. Byers.”
“Please, Steve, call me Joyce.”
“Goodnight, Ms. Byers,” he says sweetly.
Her answering sigh is fond, making him feel warm inside. “Goodnight, Steve.”
He hangs up, a dopey smile on his face as he goes off towards his room.
Yeah, this new normal was pretty good.
—
Running.
Will.
Claws.
The lab.
Will.
“Steve?”
^^^
“Steve?”
Steve jumped as a hand landed on his shoulder, snapping him out of the half-awake stupor he had been in. Barb looked at him from where she stood next to the table he was at.
Steve looked around the library wildly, almost expecting… something .
Anything that justified the beating of his heart and the way his hands were shaking.
All he found was his own textbooks spread out on the library table in front of him. Other kids were milling around the shelves before they all needed to head to class.
Barb’s face only grew more concerned.
“Are you okay?” she asked softly, her eyebrows furrowed together.
Steve took a few deep breaths, trying to force his shoulders to relax. “Yeah I - I’m just tired,” he admitted, rubbing his eyes roughly. “I didn’t sleep well last night.”
This only made Barb purse her lips and frown. “You haven’t been sleeping well a lot lately…”
Lately. Months. A year…
“Yeah, well…yeah,” Steve floundered, looking back at the textbook instead of her piercing gaze. “You’re late.”
Barb had been helping him study every day before school. She’d taken one look at his slipping grades at the end of last year and declared herself his new tutor.
He could see her lips purse in his peripheral vision, obviously not appreciating his change in topic. “My mom made breakfast,” she sighed as she dropped a Tupperware dish in front of him. “And I had to stop her from trying to pack you an entire five-course meal.”
Steve looked at it with a bit of a twist to his stomach, putting the Tupperware next to him. “Your mom is sweet.”
“She thinks you hung the moon,” she said, but raised an eyebrow at the pushed aside tupperware. “You okay? You never pass up her breakfast casserole.”
Steve looked at the food at felt his stomach twist again. He wanted to tell her that it was nothing personal…he hadn’t been eating much of anything the past couple of days.
That would not go over well.
“Oh…yeah, I’m just not hungry,” he insisted but she was giving him a calculating look, lips pursed together in thought. “I promise, Barb.”
She sighed, worry obvious in the furrow of her brow. “Steve-”
“Barb, please,” he sighed, looking at her desperately. “Nancy will be here soon and I-”
He couldn’t deal with that.
He couldn't deal with Nancy asking any more questions than she already does.
He couldn’t deal with Nancy trying to fix things - trying to fix him .
There was nothing to fix, after all.
Everything was normal - The New Normal.
Barb stared at him for a few moments, eyes searching him for…something.
Whatever she was looking for, she didn’t get a chance to comment on it before Nancy appeared at their side.
“Steve! I proofread your essay this morning!” she smiled, sliding into the seat next to him and setting her papers down. “I made a few notes, but it’s looking really good so far!”
He leaned in to press a kiss to her cheek, glad to have an excuse to look away from Barb’s prying eyes, and insisted, “Barb helped a lot-”
“Bullshit,” Barb scoffed, and, for a second, he was afraid she was going to interrogate him with Nancy there after all. Instead, she continued, “that was all you, Harrington. I just helped you get your ideas together.”
He looked at Barb with a grateful smile.
She didn’t return it.
But that was okay because they started studying, and Nancy was none the wiser.
It was okay because Steve could fall back into the swing of things easily, even with the discomfort still turning his insides.
He could ignore the cold under his skin.
Everything was fine.
^^^
It didn’t last.
The morning moved at a glacial pace.
Steve met Nancy at her locker in between classes. He gave a nod to Jonathan when he passed him in the hallways. He avoided Barb’s worried glances whenever he ran into her.
It wasn’t until right before lunch that the principal knocked on the door of Steve’s chemistry class and told him to collect his things.
That wasn’t normal.
Nancy was in that class, and she looked at Steve with big eyes, reaching out to squeeze his hand as he passed.
He already knew she was going to call him later with way too many questions than he would want to answer.
He could only hope he’ll already be at the Byers’s by the time she calls so he has an excuse not to answer.
Hopper was waiting for him out in the parking lot, arms crossed and a less-than-enthused expression on his face.
“Another one?” Steve asked, frowning at Hopper when the chief gestured to his cruiser. “He just had one not that long ago.”
“Last night at the arcade,” Hopper confirmed as they slid inside. “I’m surprised he didn’t tell you. Joyce said you were on the phone with him for a while last night.”
Steve wasn’t.
He and Will had a sort of…mutual wish to leave the past in the past. It was easier for Steve since he couldn’t quite remember it anyway, but Will…Will was still having these visions.
Will couldn't escape, and as much as Steve reassured him that he wanted to be there for him, Will didn’t seem to want to drag Steve along with him.
So he wasn’t surprised Will didn’t tell him…but it worried him all the same.
They joined the light morning traffic as Hopper started driving towards the lab, Steve playing with the loose strings on the edge of his backpack.
Hopper shuffled a bit. “Got basketball practice today?”
“I quit,” Steve shrugged, trying to play it off.
His leg had healed from being torn up in the Upside Down, but it didn’t move quite the same. He’d stayed on as a team manager last year, but now it just…felt weird. Especially now that he and Tommy aren’t friends.
His falling out with Tommy and Carol had been…anticlimactic, really.
At first, they gave him all the time he needed. He could tell that they genuinely felt bad about what happened (even if they didn’t know the true story), and they even tolerated that he was hanging out with the ‘uncool’ people.
But then Steve didn’t laugh as they started making their snide comments again. Steve didn’t stop hanging out with Nancy (and now Barb Holland and Jonathan Byers were around more, too).
By the time Tommy and Carol asked him if they were over, Steve didn’t think any of them had it in them to fight for the friendship when he said yes.
It stung, but Steve tried not to let the loss of his old friends hit him too hard. They just couldn’t understand him anymore, and a part of him felt like they never really did.
But Steve felt the stares. He felt the shift in the air as people began to whisper about him and not about ‘King Steve’.
Hopper seemed to read the silence well, and they didn’t speak the rest of the drive to the lab.
Joyce and Will were leaning up against the back of her car when they pulled in. Steve immediately went to lean against Will’s other side while Joyce fell into step with Hopper to walk towards the building.
Steve and Will stayed put for a second.
Joyce and Hopper always tried to give them a few minutes before an appointment to just…be together.
“I’m sorry,” Will finally whispered, and Steve looked at him with a sad smile.
“Hey, none of that,” Steve huffed. “It isn’t your fault.”
Will looked at him with large, remorseful eyes. “I didn’t want them to bother you…they only drag you back here because of me.”
“No, they ‘drag me back here’ because we both went through something awful together ,” Steve tried to explain. “And yeah, your episodes are an extra layer, but I’ve got my own shit too, okay? This isn’t on you.”
Because it’s true. Steve had his own shit.
Like the gaps in his memory.
Like how every time they hook him up to their little brainwave machine, it just kind of slows down to what the doctors explained would mean Steve would be in deep sleep…but he was always perfectly awake.
Like the fact that Steve hadn’t had a single episode while Will was having them more and more frequently.
So yeah, maybe a lot of Steve’s shit also had to do with what Will’s going through, but he refused to let the kid shoulder that burden.
Steve grabbed Will by the bony shoulder and gave it a light squeeze. “We’re okay,” Steve promised, giving the boy a reassuring smile. “Now, let’s get in there and make those doctors earn their keep, huh?”
Will rolled his eyes but went along with him.
Walking into the lab always filled Steve with a wild case of deja vu.
He knew on a conceptual level that he had been in the lab before in the Other Place, but his brain refused to accept it. It was torn between recognizing the building and pushing the familiarity away.
Being separated from Will was always the hardest part of the entire process. They liked to talk with them separately to make sure their answers weren’t swayed by each other’s accounts, but it still hurt every time to see the scientists take Will and Ms. Byers to another room.
Dr. Owens always came to talk to Steve after he talked to Will.
Steve liked to joke with Will that the scientists must think Steve is boring, but he knew it was mostly because they liked to use how much Will is remembering as a gauge for how much Steve isn’t .
“How are you doing, Steve?” Owens asked, smiling as he sat down on the stool next to him.
Steve hummed, glancing over at where Hopper stood in the hallway, keeping an eye on both of their rooms like a guardian. “Could be worse. I had a test in Calculus today that you guys pulled me out of.
“Well, I’m glad we could help you out,” Dr. Owens chuckled, looking down at his clipboard. “Let’s get through this for all our sakes though…Has anything been bothering you recently?”
Lack of sleep. Lack of appetite. Lack of everything .
“Nope.”
“And still no episodes?” Dr. Owens asked, leaning forward just a tad in his seat. When Steve shook his head, the doctor pressed, “What about your nightmares?”
“Still there.”
Because, yeah, those definitely hadn’t gone anywhere.
Steve couldn’t be sure his nightmares were memories, but they sure felt like them.
Running through the forest - Claw marks on his arms and legs - Screaming for Will to run-
They were disjointed and laggy, like a tape that’s been poorly rewound and now can only play fragments.
His brain was retaining a couple of the fragments a lot better than before, but otherwise it was just…feelings.
A pit in his stomach.
Panic. Anger. Protectiveness.
“So a lot of the same, huh?” Owens asked, and Steve shrugged non-committally. “Well, your scans haven’t changed much either, but I think we both know you’re a bit of a special case with those.”
Steve gave Owens an unimpressed look that the doctor simply smiled at. “Let them draw some blood real quick, and then we’ll meet in my office and talk through some things.”
The meeting in Dr. Owens’s office went the same as every other meeting:
Ms. Byers, Hopper, and Steve sat on one side of the desk while Dr. Owens gave them excuses.
Not answers. Never answers.
Just excuses.
“It’s going to get worse before it gets better.”
“The human brain isn’t meant to hold all that in, okay? This all could be your body trying to protect your mind.”
“Same thing with Will’s episodes! Where his mind is forcing him to relive it, yours is forcing you to forget.”
By the time they were walking out into the parking lot, Steve felt like his skin was crawling.
Steve felt like he should’ve been happy as he hugged Will - Dr. Owens had said it was all just because of the anniversary.
Will’s episodes, Steve’s memory, and all the other little things Steve hadn’t admitted to could all just be chalked up to some good old-fashioned PTSD.
That was supposed to be a good thing .
Instead, Steve felt like his skin was crawling off his bones and his head was practically pounding as Hopper’s cruiser left the lab in its dust.
By the time Hopper pulled into the school parking lot, Steve was practically scrambling to get out of the cruiser. He moved for his car immediately, grimacing as he heard Hopper get out as well.
“You good, kid?” Hopper asked, coming up behind him cautiously.
“Yeah,” Steve shrugged as he dug for his keys. “Worried about Will mostly.”
Which wasn’t necessarily a lie; Steve was always worried about Will.
“You know that if you need anything-”
“I can call you, I know,” Steve snapped in frustration, keys slipping from his grip. There was a stagnant pause, Steve staring down at the ground helplessly. “I-I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I just-”
The chief swooped down and picked his keys up for him before he got the chance to, pressing them into Steve’s hand. “Hey. That stuff he was saying about PTSD? That’s real shit,” Hopped huffed. “You went through something, alright? Both of you…stop beating yourself up over it.”
Steve wanted to snap back that he wasn't. There was nothing to beat himself up over because he didn't remember any of it anyway - He didn't have anything to be worried about because everything was back to normal.
Steve stared at Hopper for a few moments and then nodded stiffly. “I’ve gotta get home…I need to do some homework before I go over to the Byers’s house tonight.”
Hopper nodded back, looking at his watch with a sigh. “I’ve gotta get home too."
The man paused before turning to his cruiser, looking at Steve with a serious look. "Seriously, kid: Just call.”
Steve could only nod.
He thinks they both knew he wasn’t ever going to call.