Right, lads, you know that twilight steddie au I keep banging on about? Well, I might have actually started writing it... just, a lil bit. And I'm not sure how long before I'll have enough to start posting it on AO3 (I think I want to make sure smoke signals and waiting room are finished before anything else) but I do have a lil prologue teaser to post and here it is:
On his first night back in Hawkins, Steve Harrington climbs out of his bedroom window and takes his car out for a ride.
It’s been almost a year since he’d last driven it and he can tell by the way it’s handling that his dad hasn’t kept up his promise to take it out now and then. But, then again, why would he? The only promise that Steven Harrington Sr has ever kept in his life is the one he made the first time Steve failed a class. “Do it again and I’ll make your life hell.” And, well, the rest is pretty self-explanatory.
Once or twice, Steve has wondered if his dad ever actually loved him. He’d put money on the answer being no. That the only reason that Steve even knows his father is down to obligation. His grandfather was the same. So, maybe it’s a generational thing. Maybe Harringtons aren’t built to love each other. There’s a thought. Maybe they aren’t built to love anyone.
Except Steve kind of loves his mom. In that very hands-off way that his mom has built up over years of only seeing him during the summer and limiting conversations to three sentences or less. But Steve would be sad if something happened to her and that in itself feels like a success.
He needs to call her and tell her that he got back safely.
She probably won’t answer but it’s the thought that counts.
Steve drives aimlessly for a bit, circling the streets around his house, before turning off towards the town centre feeling bittersweet. Two years ago and there would have been a long list of people dying to see the prodigal son of Hawkins High. God, there might have even been a party to welcome him home.
They weren’t good people and he probably would have ditched the party halfway through the night, but there’s something to be said about being wanted.
Hawkins hasn’t changed much in the year that Steve has been away. Small towns never do. It’s the same thousand buildings and the same thousand families that have lived in them for decades. Most of Steve’s teachers had taught his dad and if they haven’t, they’ve taught some other person whose standard he’s supposed to live up to.
He pulls into the one twenty-four-hour gas station that Hawkins has to offer and fills his tank. It’s hot out despite being the first week of September. Checking first to make sure no one is around, Steve lifts the bottom of his t-shirt and wipes at his face. It’s not like he has much of a reputation to protect anymore but old habits die hard. He’s supposed to be the ultimate cool guy after all and cool guys don’t wear nerd shirts gifted to them by the fifteen-year-old they babysit and melt in the autumn heat.
Brushing a hand through his hair, Steve opens the gas station door and grabs a soda on his way to the counter. If he plays it right, he could spend at least two hours at Skull Rock before his dad even notices that he’s gone. Smokeless for once but Steve’s a big boy. He can sit with his thoughts for a couple of hours if it means not going home.
“Pack of Marlboro Lights as well thanks,” he says, putting the soda down on the counter. “And, uh, full tank on pump four.”
It’s rude of him, he knows that, but it’s only when he finishes speaking that he actually looks at the clerk for the first time. Too easily distracted, that’s Steve’s problem. So he spends most of his time ticking off the steps in his head while doing them. Easier that way but manners get lost sometimes.
Then again, considering how his brain turns to mush the minute he does look at the clerk, maybe it’s not such a bad idea.
Standing behind the counter is the most handsome man that Steve has ever seen. He’s about Steve’s height but his mess of brown curls, so long that it’d make Steve’s mom lose her mind, adds a couple of extra inches. He blinks at Steve lazily, eyes so dark brown that someone could get lost trying to find where the colour meets the black, before turning and reaching for the cigarettes, the bottom of his work shirt riding up so that Steve gets a glimpse of black ink against pale skin.
Steve knows that he has to pull himself together because in a minute the clerk is going to turn back around, but damn if it isn’t hard to pull his eyes away from where that tattoo disappears under the fabric of his jeans.
“Got an ID for that?” The clerk asks as he puts the cigarettes down on the counter.
Steve nods and fumbles with the fake ID in his wallet. If his heart is beating a fraction too quickly, it’s just because he’s worried that the clerk is some graduated senior who’ll remember him. Not that Steve can imagine this guy has ever stepped foot in Hawkin’s high. He looks like he’s been ripped from a million-dollar oil in the Louvre.
“Harrington,” the clerk says, his voice low. “Sounds familiar.”
“Probably cause of a cousin or something.” Steve swallows down the feeling he gets when the clerk gives him a once-over. It's jet lag. That’s the only answer as to why he’s acting like this guy is some girl he’s hoping to impress. He’s just a guy, Steve reminds himself. A beautiful guy with shining silver rings on each of his fingers and another tattoo poking out from under his collar, but a guy nonetheless. “Or someone else. I think it’s a common name.”
“Or,” the clerk leans forward so that he’s inches away from Steve’s face. “I know you from Nancy Wheeler’s stories.”
“You know Nancy?”
“That surprise you or something?”
“What? No, I, uh-” And, yeah, it’s closed-minded but the idea of Nancy being friends with this does surprise Steve. The whole time that Steve has known Nancy, she has never strayed far from the academically minded folk that share her AP classes and spend their free time bulking their college applications with extracurricular activities. Steve had been the one exception and that had been a blip.
“Are they bad stories?” Steve asks, desperate to escape the awkward silence that has fallen over them. “Not that it matters, cause- I mean- If they’re bad it’s because I was a dick, so, it’s my own fault.”
The clerk is still leaning forward, hands gripping the edge of the counter to keep him from falling, and he takes a long moment to just look at Steve. Those dark eyes searching Steve’s face for something. And then he steps back and shrugs.
“Some of them.”
“Oh,” Steve says. “Uh, well that’s better than all of them. Right?”
The clerk tilts his head to the side and Steve wants desperately to reach out and push the hair that has fallen across his face.
“Am I alright to get those, then?” Steve asks when the clerk doesn’t say anything. “Just cause I’ve got somewhere to be.”
That seems to shake the clerk out of whatever thought he’s stuck on because he runs a hand down his face and then nods. “That’ll be seventy-five dollars, cash or card?”
Steve hands him a wad of cash left over from his mom and reaches out for his ID but the clerk gets there first. He brushes his hand, pale skin as cold as the soda Steve is holding, and pulls back quickly.
“Sorry.”
“Are you?” The clerk asks and Steve hasn’t got a clue what to make of that. He just stands there awkwardly and waits for his change. Like a kid standing in his parent's doorway waiting to tell them he’s thrown up.
“This is a shitty fake, by the way, hope you didn’t pay much for it.” The clerk says, pressing both the ID and change into the palm of Steve’s hand. “I know a guy and if you paid more than thirty for that, you got ripped off.”
“You think?” Steve asks, shoving the contents of his hand into his pocket.
“I know,” the clerk says. “I can get you a better one if you want.”
“This really the sort of thing you should be saying at work?”
The clerk grins, pearly white teeth sharp against his lip, and Steve feels blessed to have seen it. “You’re so right, Stevie. Oh, how I’ve seen the light.” He shakes his head, still smiling. “Just think about it, alright?”
“Alright,” Steve says and he knows that he’ll be thinking about this whole thing for the rest of his life.
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