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In the past handful of years, Hopper has seen a lot of shit. Too much shit, especially where the ragtag band of Hawkins kids are involved.
At least he’s an adult. He has some idea of how to handle it. Some idea of how to cope with the bullshit that wakes him up at night and makes it hard to let his girl—or any of the kids, really—out of his sight for too long.
He’s long given up on trying to figure out what shit has fucked him up the most—too much energy spent on a wasted outcome. Knowing isn’t going to magically fix it.
This has to be one of the worse things he’s seen, even without comparing. There’s no monsters. There’s no cruel scientists. No detached, punishing soldiers.
There’s blood. And there’s tears. And there’s a splintering ache in Hopper’s chest.
Dustin had been the one to call him. They’d been checking up on Steve, seeing if he was okay after everything. He wasn’t answering the door, which wasn’t necessarily unusual for him. But Dustin had explained that he’d called ahead to see if Steve felt like going to the movies, just to decompress and be normal teenagers again. Steve had answered the phone and sounded fine, agreeing to go and saying that he’d be around to pick everyone up in about an hour.
An hour had passed. Then two. Dustin had biked to the Harrington house, banged on multiple doors and windows, and gotten no response, at which point he’d found a payphone and called Hopper.
It was a Saturday. El was with Mike. Joyce was running an errand. Hopper was by himself, nothing keeping him tied to the couch with his beer and his shitty daytime television (hey, he deserves a little laziness after this last bout of insanity). So he grabbed a couple things, shoved his feet into his boots, and started up the truck.
The Harrington house had been silent. Hopper had told Dustin to go home, go to the Wheelers, go somewhere, and it took a good ten minutes of arguing before the kid finally agreed and biked off. Steve’s car was in the driveway, but nobody else seemed to be home. Nobody answered the front door when Hopper knocked, nor when he yelled. The back door didn’t garner any response either, but that lock was easier to pop.
Now he’s here, climbing the stairs because he can just barely make out the sounds of shuffling feet or maybe shuddering breaths, and there’s something sick settling into his gut.
Steve’s bedroom door is yawning open and the room is empty, and the bathroom is spilling yellow light into the hall. The sink is running, but Steve isn’t in there, either. Hopper shuts off the tap and moves on.
There are two doors at the end of the hallway that are closed. Hopper eases open the first one to find a master bedroom so pristine it’s as if nobody’s living in it—and with the Harringtons, that’s probably the truth.
The second door swings open to reveal a study—and Steve.
Hopper’s heart drops. Steve is sitting in a winged leather armchair, and it takes him a minute to even realize Hopper’s there. He’s too busy, rucked-up shirt displaying his stomach and the crest of his hips. His left hand is pinching at pieces of skin, pulling taut, while his right carves steady lines. Whatever he’s using, it’s small—a razor blade, probably.
Hopper can’t even count the cuts. He has to swallow against a sudden hoarseness in his throat; when he shifts his weight to the other foot, the floor creaks.
Steve startles, hard, the razor falling to the floor as he yelps, practically leaping out of the chair. His eyes are wild, almost manic, when they meet Hopper’s, and glazed with unshed tears.
Hopper doesn’t know where to start.
Steve does—with deflection. “Oh, shit,” he says, voice thin and shaky. “I’m late to pick up the rugrats, aren’t I? Did they send you over here? Time just gets away from you, you know how it is. I’ll just grab my keys, hopefully we didn’t miss our movie but there’s always other showings, right?”
“Steve,” Hopper starts, but the damned poor kid barrels right on.
“Sorry you drove all the way out here, man. I love those kids, but they worry too much. I mean, it’s not like I was ever the most reliable guy anyway, I don’t know what they expect from me. I’ll walk you out. I can give you gas money for the trip. Shouldn’t be wasting your Saturday driving around just to see my sorry ass.”
“Steve,” Hopper says again, and this time the kid’s face flickers, his attempt at a cocky mask faltering. And then he…doesn’t know what to say after that.
“I’ll walk you out,” Steve repeats. He moves to walk past Hopper, but Hopper grabs his arm before he can.
Joyce talks about heart to hearts, right? This is a heart to heart moment if Hopper’s ever seen one.
“Sit down, kid.”
Steve squirms, trying to shrug off Hopper’s grip. “It’s really fine. Max might kill me, but other than that it’s really fine. Oh, Robin might kill me. Yeah, she might kill me. She wanted to see Vick—Vincent. Vincent, she wanted to see him today.”
“Your friends can wait,” Hopper says, reaching with his free hand to shut the door. “I just wanna talk.”
Steve pales, bleaching all the way to his hairline, and his shoulders sag. He breaks from Hopper’s grasp and staggers to the chair more than he walks to it, dropping into it like his knees have gone weak.
“It’s not what you think,” Steve starts. The angry red lines on his stomach and curving over his hips glare at Hopper like they’re carved out of neon lights. “I mean, it—it is, but I’m fine. It’s not—I’m not fucked up or anything. You don’t have to worry about me.”
Hopper takes his time answering. First he moves, sitting down in front of the massive mahogany desk and leaning back against it, so that he and Steve are facing each other but he’s not looming over him. Then he scrubs a hand over his chin and the top of his head, where thick stubble grates against his palm.
“It’s okay, you know,” he ends up starting with. “If you’re fucked up.”
Steve stares at him, face pinched like he’s trying not to blink and let any tears spill over.
“I think we all are, at this point,” Hopper continues. “Kinda hard to see the shit that goes on in Hawkins and not be fucked up. Especially for you guys. You’re all just kids.”
“I’m nineteen,” Steve mutters, staring at the floor. His voice lilts like he’s trying to be sassy. It isn’t working. “I’m really—I’m not really a kid anymore.”
He is. Of course he is. Nineteen is no less of a kid than sixteen. At nineteen, you’re still making dumb decisions and learning shit about the world. But Hopper doesn’t think that’s the argument he wants to have right now.
Hopper sighs. “Well, kid or not. The past three years have been…hard. On everyone. You’re allowed to be fucked up from it. God knows I am.”
Steve looks up at him, then. “You are?”
“Sure. Having a group of kids hellbent on getting themselves into trouble and then being stuck in a Russian hell camp hasn’t exactly done wonders on my blood pressure. Or my sleep schedule.”
Steve doesn’t say anything, but his eyelids flicker and a few tears slide down his cheeks, somehow making Hopper feel even heavier. These kids will be the death of him.
“But this?” Hopper says, nodding toward the razor. “This isn’t how you deal with it. It’s not healthy.”
“It’s how I deal with it,” Steve whispers. “It’s how I always have.”
Steve’s voice cracks on always, and it sends a lance through Hopper’s chest. He doesn’t want to know how long that means, and he wants to know more than anything.
“Why?” Hopper asks. “Why this? Why not drink, or smoke, or get high?”
Steve seems to think about his answer, fidgeting with the tacky blood on his fingertips. Hopper is itching to wash it all away. “I like drinking. I don’t want to do it when I’m sad. Smoking makes me sick. Getting high makes me way too paranoid to ever touch that again. I, uh.” He reaches a hand up, scrubs it at the back of his neck and then itches at his nose. His head drops, face disappearing from Hopper’s view. “I tried—food, for a bit. But I couldn’t deal with making myself puke. And starving isn’t really…I mean, there’s pretty much never enough food here to begin with.”
Hopper shuts his eyes. The Harringtons have never been his favorite people, but the more he learns about them from Steve, the more he wants to lock them up for child neglect.
“Cutting is just…” Steve trails off. Seemingly without thinking, he reaches over for the fallen razor blade and flips it around a few times in his hands. Hopper reaches a hand out, and after some hesitation Steve places it carefully in his palm. “It just…works. It makes my brain stop.”
The razor blade is cold. Sticky. Hopper holds it in his palm, the thing only twice as wide as a stamp and thin as a sheet of paper, and it is heavy as a handgun. “What do you mean, it makes your brain stop?”
Steve swallows. When he speaks, his voice is thick. If Hopper could see his face, he thinks he’d be crying. “Things just get to be—too much. It just all starts spiraling. And then I can’t get it to shut up, no matter what I try. Not listening to music or—or going for a run, or anything. Except for cutting. I cut, and it all goes quiet. I can just…”
“Just?”
“Never mind. Forget that part.”
Hopper leans forward. He goes to pat Steve on the knee, but settles for poking him in the calf instead. “Hey. Look at me.”
Steve takes a shuddering breath and lifts his head. His face is awash with tears, his eyes dark with something raw and festering.
“What can you do when it all goes quiet?”
“Focus,” Steve whispers, looking for all the world like the words are being torn from him. “On punishing myself.”
Hopper just barely stops himself from squeezing the razor blade into his own palm by accident. He has to fight to keep his voice even when he says, “What do you punish yourself for?”
Steve shrugs, more tears slipping down his face. He starts playing with a thread that’s coming loose in the carpet, not looking Hopper in the eyes. “Everything. Not protecting the kids. Being such an asshole to everyone. Being a shit son.”
“You aren’t a shit son,” Hopper says. “That’s…the way your parents are. That’s not on you. That’s on them.”
Steve still doesn’t look up.
“Everyone is an asshole at some point. You get better, and you move on. It’s not something to punish yourself for.”
Steve glances up at him, peeking from under his eyelashes.
“And there’s not a single damn time you haven’t protected those kids.”
“Billy got to Lucas before I even did anything. Mike almost got dragged away in those stupid fucking tunnels. Max and Nancy still got hunted by Vecna and half my friends almost choked to fucking death. I just—they—everyone asks me to protect them, and I can’t even do that. I haven’t protected them from shit. Not from getting hurt, not from having to see all this horror movie shit that keeps us all fucking awake at night. I’m not—I just—I—I can’t-“
“Okay, okay,” Hopper says, cutting in before Steve can get any more agitated. “Slow down. Slow down. None of that is your fault. Ah—hang on, listen to me. None of that is on you, alright? That responsibility…kid, that never should have been on your shoulders. I’m sorry that it was. And the things that did happen weren’t things you could have stopped.”
Steve doesn’t say anything, but he shakes his head rather vehemently. Hopper is dismayed to see his shoulders heaving with sobs.
“You don’t need to punish yourself,” Hopper continues. “None of this bullshit was your fault.”
Steve shakes his head again, and Hopper has finally had enough. He moves, resettling next to Steve. He wraps an arm around the kid’s shuddering shoulders, pulling him into his side. Steve’s head drops onto his shoulder, his tears immediately leeching warm into Hopper’s shirt.
“You know who should be punished,” Hopper says, just because maybe Steve needs something to laugh at. “The guy at the burger place in town. He gave El and me about five waffle fries between the two of us. That’s obstruction of justice, right there. Interfering with a former officer’s full stomach.”
Steve does laugh—it’s short, and watery, and barking out of him like it’s a complete surprise, but it’s there.
Hopper sighs. Steve’s head is a heavy weight on his shoulder, and his hair smells strongly of minty shampoo and hairspray. “I’m sorry, kid.”
“For what?”
“I shoulda gotten you out of this house years ago. At least then you’d have family, a better one, to help you with all this shit.”
Steve swallows. “You tried. It’s not your fault my parents have good lawyers.”
That makes Hopper pause. Steve had been young when he’d tried to charge the Harringtons for neglect—five, maybe six. “You remember that?”
“Yeah. Of course I do, you were the first person to ever talk back to my dad like that. I played police officer for weeks after. My dad hated it.”
Hopper’s sternum throbs. It’s a familiar feeling, particularly around El. She should have had a real childhood—and the more he talks to Steve, the more alike the kids seem.
They’re also getting off topic. There’s all the time in the world (provided that the world doesn’t try to end again) for them to talk about the failures of Steve’s parents. Hopper’s still more concerned with the cutting.
“You can’t keep doing this. The cutting. It has to stop.”
Steve yanks away from his shoulder, whipping around to stare at Hopper. There’s an incredulous look etched into his face, but his eyes are wide and sparking with panic. “It’s not—I’m careful. I don’t cut deep and I don’t cut anywhere there’s an artery.”
“You just cut where you can hide it,” Hopper translates, “and cut enough times that it negates how deep things are. This—“ he gestures at Steve’s bloody torso, “isn’t good. You have to stop. You have to find something else.”
“Like what?” Steve’s voice is sharp, and his eyes are brimming with more tears. “What else is going to make me feel better? You tell me, Hopper. What? Drinking myself to death? Nothing else works. I might as well just go jump into the fucking quarry.”
“Hey.” Hopper grabs Steve by the shoulders, trying not to panic himself. He can’t even think about another kid dying on his watch. “Absolutely fucking not. Do you hear me? I will personally come arrest you if I ever even see you by the quarry. You’re not—listen to me. Hurting yourself isn’t the answer here.”
“It is,” Steve bites, voice high with desperation. In the most heart-wrenching way, it reminds Hopper of every addict he’s ever met. “It is the answer. It’s my answer. I’m—I’m always in pain. It makes it better.”
“Does it? Does it make it better? Be honest. Does doing this actually make you feel better?”
Steve is quiet for a long moment, his whole body quivering like a live wire. His shoulders are fighting to start hitching with more sobs, and his face is scrunched in anger, hands shaking where they’re curled into fists on his knees. He looks like he’s liable to just shake right apart, and it makes Hopper want to gather him up and never let go.
“Well?” Hopper prompts. “Does it let you pretend that you feel better, or does it actually work?”
“Of course it doesn’t!” Steve bursts, the yell exploding from his throat with such a raw tone it makes Hopper grit his teeth. “Of course it doesn’t! It makes everything stop, and it makes everything better, and it makes the pain go away, and then I wake up the next day and I fucking hate myself for doing it! Okay? Is that what you wanted? Is that the answer you were hoping to hear? That I’m just trying to cope with shit somehow and I can’t even do that right? Huh? Are you happy now?”
Steve’s voice breaks, the anger seeming to rush out of him like a deflating balloon. Now that the screaming is out of his system, he dissolves into harsh, heaving sobs, folding his face into his bloody palms like he wants to hide.
Hopper doesn’t let him hide. He pulls on the kid’s shoulders, not easing up until Steve gives in and crashes against his chest. After a moment, Hopper can feel his hands grabbing onto his shirt, Steve’s face buried in Hopper’s collarbone.
And then they just sit. Hopper starts rocking back and forth, at some point, like he used to do for Sara, like he still does sometimes for El on really shitty nights.
Steve cries for a long time. He seizes with hard, choking sobs, clutching so hard onto Hopper’s shirt that it’s like he’s afraid he’ll disappear. It makes Hopper wonder when the last time was that someone held him like this—if someone ever did at all. The thought makes Hopper squeeze him even tighter, burying his face in the kid’s ridiculous hair.
It takes a while, but eventually Steve’s sobbing tapers into calmer weeping, and then nothing at all other than the occasional sniffle. Hopper holds him through all of it, loathe to let him go before Steve himself pulls away.
And Steve does, eventually. His ears are bright red and he scrubs at his face, not quite looking Hopper in the eyes. “Sorry.”
Hopper waves him off. “Don’t apologize. You alright?”
The blush crawls over Steve’s cheeks and down his neck. He hunches sheepishly as he nods.
“Alright, here’s what we’re gonna do. We’re gonna clean those cuts and patch them up. El is having a sleepover with Max later once they leave the Wheelers, so she’s set, but I’ll need dinner. We’ll go to the diner, and then there’s some reorganizing I need to do at the cabin if you want to help with that.”
If Steve sees through the ruse of Hopper’s requests, sees how he really just doesn’t want to make the kid stew by himself after this, he doesn’t comment. He just nods.
“I think we’ve had enough of a serious conversation for one day,” Hopper continues, because they really have. He isn’t even the one crying or bleeding and he’s almost completely emotionally drained. “But I do want you to promise me something.”
Steve swallows. He’s leaning over to play with that one loose carpet thread again. “What?”
Hopper starts getting to his feet. “The next time you feel like doing this, I want you to promise that you’ll call me. Or Joyce. Somebody, no matter what time it is. Can you promise me that?”
Steve hesitates, but he looks Hopper in the eyes and his voice is earnest. “Yeah. I promise.”
“Good.” Hopper claps him on the shoulder as they both walk toward the doorway. “Then let’s go get cleaned up. I’m craving lasagna.”
Something teasing—something Steve—creeps into his posture and his face as he turns to give Hopper a grin. “You gonna get waffle fries with that, chief?”
Hopper chuckles. There’s still something bitterly sad—like grief, or guilt, or both—in the pit of his stomach, but Steve looks like he’s lighter, and it’s all Hopper’s ever wanted to see.
“Only if they give me more than five,” he grumbles, and Steve’s bark of laughter follows him into the hallway.