Chapter Text
Steve used to go to the party’s houses because he found safety in them. They weren’t silent hallways or awkward shifting around each other like his parents did whenever they were home. They were full of life and so much fun to be around, for a while.
But after a while, it felt like an obligation. Like he had to show his face just for a little while. Not too short but not too long. Because they didn’t actually want him around.
But he couldn’t just stop showing up, that would raise questions. So, he did it slower. It made him feel like he was around his parents. Like his dad’s silent nods before he disappeared on business trips. Like his mom who hid behind books and wine glasses. Like his dad and his suits that looked like armor. Like his mom and her perfect hair, perfect face, perfect outfit as she went out with friends. Like he could just show his face without even being in their lives in the way that mattered.
It was easy to leave, to stand from the table and head towards the door. It was always easy to slip away. He just had to find a moment when Eddie and Dustin were roughhousing. Or a moment when Robin was talking all excitedly to Nancy. He’d stand like he was going for more water, taking his cup with him. But he’d leave it by the sink on his way out. So easy. Too easy. And it hurt. It was like a slap in the face. Another reminder. Another thing to add to the list that seemed endless. As he moved from the room, no one followed him. No one asked him to wait. And he didn’t expect them to.
The silence in his car was deafening as he sat there. A minute turned to 5 minutes to 15 minutes, at 30 minutes he turned on the Bimmer and backed out of the driveway. He stayed idling at the very end for a few minutes watching the door, but it stayed shut. He clenched his eyes shut and took another to just catch his breath, to try and stop the tears. Yet when he opened them and glanced at the still-shut door, he began to cry.
The drive back to his house was filled with the sound of the engine and his sobs. There was no music someone made him play. There was no one to ask him questions he didn’t want to answer. There was no one to bother him to get him to let them use his pool or drive them somewhere. But most importantly there was no one who rambled about their day, telling him everything.
When he turned off the car in his driveway next to his parent’s car, he couldn’t move. He curled up tighter, a hand to his chest. He could barely breathe through his sobs. But as his brain spiraled, that weight on his chest shifted into anger. Into a harsh thought.
He thought that maybe Spring Break from Hell would’ve made them better about stereotyping people. After all, Eddie was almost killed because of it. But Steve was aware it had only gotten worse. He saw Lucas drop out of basketball, not because he didn’t like it but because it wasn’t worth it. The basketball players all saw him as a Satan worshipper because they realized his connection with Eddie. And Hellfire was now pretty solid in their belief about jocks being the worst. And even though Eddie had given Steve a heartwarming speech in the Upside Down about how much he liked this new Steve, that he was a better person than Eddie realized… Steve watched Eddie’s own viewpoints, his beliefs, grow stronger.
At first, he pushed past it. At first, he believed the few people who said that he had changed for the better. That they liked him for the person he became. But… it was too easy to see through. The kids made enough jokes about him for him to not pick up on it. He knew that they would never fully trust him because he still held onto pieces of who he had been. He still had polos and hair spray. He still enjoyed sports and flirted.
And Steve always knew they didn’t think of him as smart, that he would always be the dumb jock to the party. They’d see Steve stop and look at himself in the mirrors and tease him for being vain, but they never noticed how Steve’s eyes would land on the scar around his throat. On the scar on his cheek from pulling Eddie from a horde of demobats and barely making it out alive. They never noticed the way he would make bracelets to cover his wrist that was covered by a scar from a demobat’s tail that had attempted to pull him from the encloser he had pulled Eddie into. The way he wore longer sleeves more often because of the scars that trailed down his side from shielding Eddie with his body.
The party didn’t notice a lot of shit. But they liked to point out what they did. Maybe that’s why Steve flinched when Mike “teased” him about his hair. Just a quiet, “I see your still clinging onto your Steve The Hair days.” Mike rolled his eyes and it was blood in the water. The party swarmed like sharks. Eddie’s hair ruffling his hair and called him Narcissus which Steve didn’t understand but it didn’t sound good. Robin wolf-whistled and winked at him, calling out that she loved him as much as he loved his reflection. Which made Eddie laugh. Nancy from her spot curled up with Robin, had asked him if he still redid his hair every 6 weeks. And she didn’t mean anything by it, even if there had always been a little judgment about it, but that didn’t mean the kids didn’t find it hilarious. And Steve just had to smile through it. Until he would slip away.
And he had been slipping away more and more lately. Leaving a group hang out early. Dropping kids off instead of heading inside with them. Turning down invitations to hang out with the other older party members. And no one noticed. No one had asked him where he had been or why he was pulling away. Because they always noticed the shit that never fucking mattered.
They made stupid fucking jokes that made him feel vain. Made him feel like having pride in anything about himself was wrong. They noticed the stupidest things about him that they could point out to the world. And he had been trying so hard to let them keep rolling off his back. But eventually, they held too much weight for his body to bear. Eventually, it became too hard to shrug off. Hard like when he used to ignore comments from the basketball team. Comments on how only queers cared about their appearance that much.
But the thing about those jokes, is they always stuck. He could pretend and put on a face of nonchalance. But they always stuck. They always hurt. They dug into your chest until suddenly even if maybe… even if there was some truth in their words, you dug it out. You ripped up your own soul, and your own feelings, trying to rid yourself of what was wrong. Until every part of you was in ruin.
But it was that thought, that emotion that helped him get out of his car and head inside. He didn’t kick off his shoes to sit next to his mom’s or put his keys in the bowl, he just headed upstairs, straight into his room and to the large closet. He slammed open the closet doors that he had let Will paint like they were a fantasy forest. They hit the walls that Robin had chosen to repaint a soft blue like the sky in Will’s painting.
He pulled out shirt after shirt. Jacket after jacket until his wardrobe was left with only a handful of items that were things Eddie picked for him or things that Robin and Nancy bought him. He gathered it up in his arms and trudged down the stairs and out the sliding glass door. Then he dropped it all straight into the swimming pool that only the kids used nowadays. Because Steve Harrington had been in swimming, King Steve the swim team captain. Or shitty boyfriend Steve who took Nancy’s virginity as her best friend died in this pool. This pool is the reason Nancy lost her best friend. So he couldn’t swim in it. He wasn’t allowed that old joy anymore.
Then he turned back inside and to his fridge. He pulled out food that he had bought for himself. Items he bought because they were good when he was an athlete. Because even though the diet sucked, some of the food he actually enjoyed. He threw those in the pool too. “Steven?” His mom asked her eyes on him from her spot on the couch. She couldn’t see what he was doing from her spot but he wasn’t trying to keep down the noise.
“Everything’s fine, Mom,” he lies and brushes past her to keep taking his past out of the house.
He pulled item after item from his house, items that were his from high school days. Items that were from before he was in high school and threw them all into the pool. Over and over until the pool was spilling onto the tile around it. Overfull with all the shit that wasn’t meant for a pool. All of him that was dated before. All of the pieces of him that he would miss at night. The pieces he thought weren’t bad.
The floating mixtapes he had made with Tommy when Tommy was the only fucking person that cared about Steve. The varsity jacket that had sunk to the bottom that had always held the memory of when he became team captain of both basketball and swimming and how his dad had actually smiled at him. A reminder of one of the only times his dad had been proud of him. One of the bowling pins that he and Carol had stolen from the bowling alley to commemorate him being the last in their group of three to turn 16.
The photos of stupid times with the best friends he should hate because they weren’t perfect people. Photos of games he had won and lost, that shouldn’t be good memories to him. Photos with past dates who weren’t the one but had been fun, that he should feel ashamed of just by the number of them. Photos of parties that ended with the cops being called or everyone passed out in weird places around his house that he should feel guilty about because he had been popular. Photos of memories before the party, before his change of heart. But what he had changed wasn’t enough. It was never enough… but this, this had to be enough. This all had to be enough because he didn’t have anything left to give away.
Only as he stared down at his reflection in the pool, did he understand that wasn’t the truth. He turned back into the house and moved through the halls like a ghost of a man. Past his room and his dad’s office. “Steve, what’s the racket down there?” His dad called out as he walked past the door.
“It’s fine, Dad,” he lied, continuing on. Through his parents’ bedroom until he reached their master bath. His hands which shook from a tremor caused by too many hits he’d taken, barely managed to grab his mother’s big bag of hair care supplies.
They spilled out on the ground and he didn’t bother picking anything other than the razor back up. With his fingers gripping the tool he locked eyes in the mirror. He saw someone so tired of trying. Someone who worked so hard only to be seen as the same person he had been years ago. A person who wouldn’t have been friends with the people he’s friends with. A person who wouldn’t have sacrificed what he had. A person who would’ve been disgusted by the person he’s become.
Yet… he was the only one who truly saw that change. That switch. That growth. People pretended to see it. To believe that he was someone new, someone better. But in all of their hearts, he would always be King Steve. The asshole, the jock, the bully, the prep, the douchebag, the idiot… The Hair.
He held back the sobs that wanted to tear through him when the first strand fell. But he couldn’t stop his hands from shaking. If anything, his hands just shook harder, causing him to nick his ear. But he didn’t stop, he just cut more hair and ignored the blood that dripped down his neck into the collar of his light blue polo. It was one he liked. One that was soft and comfortable and something he enjoyed wearing. But it was all just a tie to who they thought he was. Because god forbid, he likes parts of himself. God forbid, he keeps pieces of himself that had never hurt anyone. God forbid, he has good parts of himself.
His hand shook as he brought up the razor for another cut but the sound of the door slamming open has it slipping from his grasp. It tumbles from his grip and he doesn’t feel the sting even as blood bubbles out of his arm. “Steve,” his mom’s words sound underwater as she pulls a towel from the counter, holding it onto the wound. It didn’t even hurt. But as her wide frantic eyes take him in, he starts to come back into his body.
A small sniff is the first sign but then it’s a sob. His whole body curves inwards and she holds him there. And who else was supposed to hold him? One of the people that had teased him? One of the people who were supposed to love him but made it so hard to believe that they could. One of the people who had left him hating himself more than he ever did. Or the woman who never tried but caught him anyways?
“Steven, baby?” His mom sounded worried and he didn’t know the last time he heard her like this. Even when he had come home with a cut around his neck that bruised until it scarred, she hadn’t held him. She had watched him with her eyes that matched his and asked him if he was okay, but she hadn’t opened her arms. Her voice hadn’t shaken as she said his name.
This time was different, her eyes were wide and teary and she held him up like a mother should. “Oh, baby it’s going to be okay. What’s wrong? James!” She shouted and he flinched at the volume. It made her murmur apologies into his skin and hold him closer, “Steven, I’m right here-”
His dad’s footsteps were hurried as he slammed into the bathroom just as loudly as his wife had done just a minute before. His dad froze at the sight. His eyes dropped to the cut covered by a towel on his forearm. “Steve,” his dad’s voice was monotone but not the normal indifference. Like he was in shock and unsure what else to say. “What happened?”
He looked away from the man he constantly tried to impress but what he saw was his own reflection. The side of his hair shaved roughly, terribly. And his knees just gave out. His mom couldn’t catch him in time but instead went down with him. The two of them landed next to all the things his mother had shown him when he was younger. Gadgets that his mother used to make her and her husband look presentable. Lipstick and hair curlers alike spilled over the tile.
Steve never really had a good relationship with his parents. It wasn’t something he told many people, but it also wasn’t something he went out of his way to hide. His old slogan if he had one, was "no parents, big house". But it had been that way for years. A week here, a week there. They were never there for a month straight. And when they were around, they felt like boats passing in the night. Never connecting, never speaking. It had been isolating, there had always been a barrier between him and them. He knew he wasn’t their favorite person, but he still tried to be.
But one of Steve’s earliest memories of his mom was her love for her hair. The way she’d take time in the morning, every day, to make sure it was perfect. He saw her care and attention to her hair and had hoped that maybe, she could show that attention to him. So, he had asked her how she did it. She had looked at him with a look almost like excitement before showing him how to do his own hair.
She started teaching him how to keep it healthy, how to make it always look so fluffy and soft. She had taught him to take pride in his hair and he did. And that little moment had gotten him a relationship with his mom. As young as he had been, he kept up with his hair and poured his time and energy into it. She had seen his care and it had felt like there was finally something they could bond over.
So, even when they still continued to leave, she’d always make sure to set up a time just for them to go get their hair retouched. It became one of the only moments he had with his mom. It became something he kept up day after day, not knowing if he’d still have that relationship with her if he didn’t. But people had noticed the care and love he poured into his image. In high school, people started to give him the nickname “The Hair” and he knew it was mostly a play on his last name but it still made him flush with pride.
Until it didn’t. Until everything that tied Steve to his high school years was wrong. That Steve “The Hair” Harrington was an asshole. Not just King Steve, but any version of Steve. Until he was made aware that he had to just be… Just Steve. He couldn’t keep anything- any part of who he had been, was tainted and wrong.
And for a moment it had made sense to just shave it off. To rid himself of that tie to the old Steve. But now staring at the hair on the ground next to him and his mom, he was terrified. He didn’t know what to do without it and even with most of his head left untouched, it was enough. Like maybe his mom would look at him now and think he was dumb for failing at taking care of something so simple.
Only his parents weren’t looking at the hair on the floor but him. Like they couldn’t see the way the hair lay around him like dead leaves. It made it hard to breathe. Like maybe his hair had held his love like it had always felt. Like maybe he actually succeeded in removing it from himself. Like he had pulled it from his being until there was nothing left. There wasn’t any emotion in him other than loss. Gone was the pride and care. Like the love inside of him was switched with loss. Loss of that one piece of himself he liked. Leaving them to sit there in the wreckage of what little left of him there was.
“My hair,” he choked out and reached to touch a chunk on the ground.
His mom stole that hand before it could touch the hair. “Steven, look at me,” she tried but Steve couldn’t tear his eyes away from the hair. He felt different than before but he also felt the exact same. Like maybe he would have to rid himself of every single cell, every single strand of his DNA, his organs, his skin, his life before they’d believe he’d changed.
His dad moved and crotched next to them, his hand landing on Steve’s shoulder. Steve doesn’t remember the last time his dad even touched him. He attempts to curl in on himself but his parents hold him up. Maybe if the situation was different, he’d be happy to feel the care his parents never showed him but he could only focus on the hair on the ground. On the hair that was on his head. Without thinking he reached for the razor he had dropped but his mom grabbed his hand as his dad grabbed the razor. He shakes his head, “I need to- it’s still- I’m still-” he tries to say but his voice sounds wrong in his ears.
“James, grab the first aid kit, he’s still bleeding.” His mom ordered and his dad hesitated, looking at Steve with something Steve didn’t recognize in his eyes before he stood, leaving them in the bathroom. “Baby, can you talk to me? What can I do for you?” His mom’s voice is so unsure and he’s not sure he’s ever heard her sound like that. “Those kids you love, why don’t you- why don’t you talk about them? Do you have plans with them soon?”
He can feel tears welling up in his eyes, “they don’t like me.” Steve blurts and his mom’s movements stutter.
“Of course they do, they always pop over.” She starts but he shakes his head.
“They think I’m a bad person.” His voice sounds wrong to his own ears. “They just want what I can give them. Not me, no one ever wants me.” Steve pulled his hand away from his moms iron grip and she looked like she wanted to protest. “They hate everything that makes me, me. I’ll always be a bad person to them. I’ll always be a rich bully who cares more about their appearance than others feelings.” He whispered and his mom looked over his face.
She took his hand back in hers, “Being proud in your look doesn’t mean that-“
“I can’t even wear a polo shirt without being teased about it. Nothing I do is good enough for them.” And the tears come back harder as he knows that he’ll never be enough. All the things he can let go, push away, all those things his friends believe aren’t good, ignoring them won’t fix him. It will only fix their gaze on him. “I just need- I need them. I can’t- can’t lose them. I have to- I have to change.” He tells her but when he finally looks her in the eyes, he’s shocked to see tears welling up in her eyes.
“If they don’t love you for who you are then-” She starts but Steve interrupts her.
He shakes his head, “No one loves me as I am.” He states and his dad takes that moment to return. Return to the wreckage that was Steve. “I’m no one’s favorite person. If I was myself they wouldn’t want me around.”
His dad moves slowly and it’s almost gentle as he moves and sits down next to them again. His fingers are kind as they take Steve’s hand and Steve looks down to see his blood get on his dad’s fingers. “It’s okay to change but don’t let others change you,” his mom says again like he’d believe for the second time.
But this feeling, this emotion in his chest wasn’t new. Because when he was growing up, he worked for people’s praise. He worked to be accepted and loved. He changed himself and threw away his own beliefs just so someone would tell him it was okay. Just so someone would look at him and give an approving smile. God, he’d changed for his parents just as often as he’d changed for everyone else.
This feeling wasn’t new it just changed because the people he cared about had changed. He cared about the party and everyone who came with it. He cared about Dustin, Erica, Robin, Eddie, Lucas, Max, El, Will, Mike, Nancy, Jonathan, Joyce, and Hopper. He cared about who they saw when they looked at him. He cared about what they wanted from him. He wanted them to say he did good, to compliment him on something, anything.
When Steve was growing up, he loved it when people complimented him. Maybe it was a byproduct of his parents never telling him how much they loved him. Maybe because even when he does his best to ignore it, he really does just live to please people, to get their approval. So even as he moved from King Steve and left the spotlight, he missed the way the jocks had given him a slap on the back and told him he did a good job, or the way girls would flirt with him and tell him how good he looked. He missed it a lot.
“Steve listen to me, you don’t need to change.” His mom states and she smacks her husband’s arm. “Right, James,” she gritted out and Steve glanced over at his dad’s rocky expression.
His dad’s hand tightened around his wrist for a moment and Steve wished he’d agree. He wished that his dad cared about him. “What were you trying to do?” His dad asked and Steve looked at the hair on the floor. “You need a change?” He asked and Steve glanced back at his dad. Whatever expression on his face was enough for his dad. “Georgia,” his dad didn’t order her around. Just said her name, just looked at her.
Steve watched as her face shuttered. “A change can be good,” she choked out. Her words came out wet and her fingers wiped at the tears that hadn’t yet fallen. “We can make it look good. Look like you but new, right?” She asked and he just shrugged.
His mom reached over to the bag he’d left half open and grabbed out a few other objects. One being her nice pair of scissors she’d use to trim her own hair when she wanted to do it herself. She didn’t speak as she worked on his hair and he let his eyes close. “Steve,” his dad said and he forced his eyes back open. Looking over at his dad, his dad was wiping the blood from both of them. “I’m proud of who you’ve become. You’ve grown up a lot in the past few years and I know we’re never really here… but I just- I know that it’s unfair for us not to be here but you’ve grown into a good man.” He says and it’s awkward and stilted, but it’s not as uncomfortable as Steve thought it would’ve been.
It's what he’s always wanted to hear, for them to say that it’s wrong what they’ve done to him. But as he sits there, he realizes that he’d given up on hearing them. He’s 21 almost 22 and he’d been waiting for those words since he was 10. Except as he’s given them, he realizes that his dad’s- his parent's love just always seemed out of reach. His mom’s thumb smooths against his forehead, “so proud.” She murmurs and he looks away from them. They fall into silence and Steve doesn’t know what to do about it. He just closes his eyes again and listens as his hair falls to the ground.
“Okay, I think- how about that? This is new, right?” She asks and both of his parents rush to help him to his feet, like they weren’t sure he’d be able to stay up on his own. For a moment he wants to pull away, but he can’t bring himself to. He lets them hold him and looks into the mirror. His hair is closely cut around the base of his head, but the top still has some length. It reminds him of that punk guy Eddie groaned about the other day. He locks eyes with his mom in the mirror and she looks anxious. “You like it?”
He thinks of all the times they did their hair together but this time, it was closer than ever before. “I don’t- thank you,” he says instead. Because when he looks in the mirror, he doesn’t see himself anymore and he hopes it can be enough.
She smiles, “Why don’t you shower off the hair, and then we can pop some popcorn and watch a movie?” She asks and she’s reaching out. It’s new and terrifying. But he doesn’t want to be alone, so he nods his head and lets them guide him back into his own bathroom. They hesitate to leave him alone, but he just moves to the small stereo he has in the room and picks up the tape Robin loves. They nod to him as Dolly Parton fills the room and he’s finally alone.
The shower he takes is boiling and makes his skin go pink under its stream. And the shampoo he needs is half the amount it used to be. It’s all just so wrong but it’s not for him.
However, as he finishes up and the conditioner rinses from his hair, he steps back out into the chill of the night. His mirror is fogged up and it’s another reason he loves hot showers so much. When he was younger, he’d take cold showers, going fast from his time in locker rooms. But as he grew up, he enjoyed warmer and warmer showers. Only after being in the Upside Down. Only after experiencing a chill, he’s never felt walking barefoot and bare-chested through a Hell dimension. After the scars covered his body… he felt a comfort in them. In the way, they eased his muscles and kept the mirrors from showing him in all his naked glory.
He towels off and winces at the numbness in his side from the scars covering him. But he doesn’t let that stop him. He finishes drying himself off but when he renters his room, he sees the emptiness of his closet. He swallows hard but as he steps towards it, he notices clothes on his bed. It’s his dad’s flannel pants and a thick Standford sweater. It’s easier to slip those on than pick through the remains.
When he heads down, his parents are both down there with blankets and snacks. He sees both of them in their own pajamas and he doesn’t think he’s seen them like this in years. If ever. His mom pats the spot between them, and he hesitates but does as he’s told. They don’t crowd into him, but they still comfort him. His dad’s arm was behind him on the couch and his mom’s slightly leaning towards him instead of away. It’s nice in their own fucked up way. And as the night goes on, he falls against his mom, into a dreamless sleep.