#if i continued writing it i'd be writing cleo as a trans lady btw

[farahsamboolents]

Fuck Hawkins, Am I Right?

AKA, a little Steve get’s Vecna’d ficlet that got stuck in my head but I won’t be writing the rest of, so if anyone else wants to take it up you are free to, with credit of course :)

It was 1990.

During the school year, Steve Harrington was your everyday, boring middle school counsellor in training who coached the basketball team. It was a nice gig; the kids loved him, the parents were fond of him, and he got along with most of the staff members at Hawkins Middle, save for old Mrs. Montgomery, who had never quite forgiven him for kicking a hole in the wall when he was trying to show off a handstand.

In her defence, the hole was poorly patched up and still visible, all these years later.

In Steve’s defence, he was twelve.

Now, it was late August, the school year was scheduled to start in a week, which meant that Steve’s summer job as a roadie for Corroded Coffin was coming to an end.

He’d been doing this since 1986, which was their first “tour” - which really meant stuffing the band plus Steve into Gareth’s mom’s minivan and driving to Indianapolis, Chicago, and then one insufferably long drive to Knoxville. They had played in stuffy basements, bars that had surely never even heard of a fire code, and once, in the middle of a public park.

(That last one was just to piss off Steve, who was complaining that there was nothing to do on the way to Knoxville. Surprisingly, the stunt was a hit among the local metalheads, and word travelled fast. Their Knoxville show ended up being a huge turning point for their career.)

In the beginning, the tour was brief, and the band spent most of it being grumpy and bickering with one another in the back of a cramped van.

This year, the tour had barely begun before Steve had to make his way back to small-town Indiana for his normal boring job. Corroded Coffin scheduled shows in the neighbouring cities so that Steve could just hop off the bus at whichever one he found more convenient, and would continue the tour without him.

Hawkins, Indiana still refused to book Corroded Coffin at any of their venues. Not since 1986.

Perhaps it was because they had a song called Fuck Hawkins. It was their shortest song, and it was entirely acapella.

It went:

Fuck Hawkins!

Fuck the tigers!

Fuck off Hawkins!

Fuck you, tigers!

And then Eddie Munson, who had proudly written the song, would play the guitar riff to the next song on the setlist.

This year was their biggest year yet. Instead of the vans that they usually rented (Gareth’s mom had never forgiven them for the state they returned her car in) they had their own tour bus.

The rest of the bus (the rest of the band, their single other roadie, their manager, and an agent) found it hilarious that they were currently driving in the direction of Hawkins, and were chanting Fuck Hawkins from the small living space of the back of the bus. Steve, who was driving, grinned at their antics, occasionally pumping a fist in the air when he didn’t need both hands on the wheel.

“The whole thing is Fuck Hawkins, right?” asked the other roadie, who went by Owl, due to her large round eyes that rarely blinked. She liked stealing the front seat whenever it was free, fascinated by the open roads ahead.

“Mhm.” Said Steve, around the donut he was eating for breakfast.

“So why the fuck are we going to Hawkins?” said Owl. The rest of the bus cheered in agreement. Steve was pretty sure half of them were still drunk from the night before.

Steve shrugged. “I live there.” He said, crumbs falling out of his mouth. “Besides, I’m the only one going to Hawkins, I’m hitching a ride from the next town over.”

“What the fuck for, Shrinks?”

Steve shrugged again. “Can’t let the place fall apart without me.” He flipped the turn signal, and angled the bus to the exit ramp. Traffic was painfully slow.

The group in the back booed at him, and picked back up their chant of Fuck Hawkins.

Eddie sidled up next to Owl, slinging an arm around Steve’s shoulder, ignoring his protests of I’m driving, Munson.

“Ol’ Shrinksy’s got a point, Owl.” He said. “Without him around, the town has a bad habit of accusing random folks of murder.”

“That happened with me around.”

“Don’t hurt your own case, Steve.”

Steve rolled his eyes and took another bite of his donut.

“Point is,” continued Eddie, “this one can’t resist helping out the little guys who get stuck in a bad situation. And the entirety of Hawkins is a bad situation.”

“You got that right.” Muttered Steve darkly.

“Aww,” Cooed Owl, “We’ve got ourselves a regular ol’ superhero on our hands.”

Steve and Eddie shared a look and burst out laughing. Owl rolled her eyes.

Everyone in the bus, save for Steve and Eddie, speculated that Steve and Eddie were secretly SteveandEddie (or, rather, ShrinksandEddie). The pair of them denied it, citing how bad of an idea it would be to date a coworker, but their little in-jokes and secretive looks from across rooms or venues didn’t help them sell it.

The bus slowly drove past a sign that said that Hawkins was fifty miles away. The chant in the back increased in volume.

Cleo, their manager, began protesting the noise, saying hadn’t the joke gotten at least a little bit old by now, so the chant increased in volume even more. Steve was even shouting it from the front seat, an upgrade from his usual head nods to the beat.

Eddie sauntered to the back, stomping to the beat of the chant as he sang along.

Cleo buried her head under a pillow.

Owl was headbanging as she chanted.

Everyone was so caught up in hooting and hollering that nobody noticed when the wheels of the bus left the pavement and began driving on grass.

It was much harder to ignore the crunch as the front of the bus crumpled against a tree.

The chanting stopped immediately. Cleo flew to her feet, immediately taking a headcount of occupants. Thankfully, the bus had been moving at a snail’s pace with the flow of traffic, so the worst injury appeared to be Jeff’s hot coffee spilling down his front.

Until Eddie started screaming.

“Steve!” He was shouting, “Steve Harrington, you motherfucker, don’t you fucking dare do this to me right now!” His voice was pitched up into a panicked shriek.

Cleo rushed to the front, where Eddie was now frantically digging through the bag Steve kept by the driver’s seat as he continued telling Steve to stop. She held up a hand to everyone else to encourage everyone else to stay back.

Steve was sat perfectly still, hands still on the 10 and 2 position on the wheel. Every muscle in his body was tensed, and his eyes were rolled back in his head, eyelids fluttering.

The bus was still trying to move forward into the tree, and Cleo looked down to see that Steve’s foot was still on the pedal. She pushed past Eddie to shove his foot. It was annoyingly hard to move; the guy went jogging whenever he was stressed, so his tensed up muscles were really not working in her favour.

“Ohthankfuck!” Said Eddie, pulling something out of the bag.

“Is it seizure medication?!” Yelled Cleo, finally pushing Steve’s foot off the pedal. “Has he had seizures before? And you let him drive!”

Eddie ignored her, and Cleo turned around to find him fiddling with the stereo on the bus.

“Are you fucking kidding me!” She yelled. “Now is not the fucking time, Munson!”

The opening notes to some poppy song that Cleo didn’t recognize began playing through the speakers at the same time that a concerned citizen was knocking on the doors of the bus to ask if they were okay.

“What the fuck!” Screamed Owl over the music, “How’s he doing that!”

Cleo whipped her head back to Steve, who was -

Steve was -

How -

“No no no no no!” Screamed Eddie, leaping to his feet and reaching up to grab Steve’s hand.

Cleo found herself frozen, crouched next to the driver’s seat, staring up at Steve. His head was now pushed up against the ceiling of the bus, flattening his voluminous hair.

“Steve please, please wake up, please,” Eddie was sobbing now, barely audible over the inappropriately happy pop song blaring through the speakers. His face was shining with tears.

Steve’s arm bent at the elbow, pulling itself out Eddie’s grasp. His hand was trembling.

“Steve wake up, wake up, we’re all here, we all want you back!” Screamed Eddie, desperation cracking his voice. He was grabbing Steve’s foot now, hugging it to his chest.

Owl was screaming her head off. Jeff was repeating what the fuck over and over again at an increasing volume.

And then, as if he were a marionette with its strings cut, Steve came crashing back down, crumpling to the floor on top of Eddie, gasping desperately for air. The foot that Eddie hadn’t been clutching collided harshly with Cleo’s shoulder on the way down, but she couldn’t bring herself to care.

Eddie pushed himself to a sitting position, gathering Steve into his arms, hands desperately moving from his head, to his back, to his arms, to his legs - presumably checking for injuries, or checking that he was still there, still real. He was pressing his mouth into Steve’s hair and face as he did, kissing him wherever he could reach in between panicked sobs.

The rest of the bus was hovering just behind where Cleo sat, still frozen next to the driver’s seat.

Steve finally raised his head from where it was buried in Eddie’s chest, directing his bloodshot eyes to his audience before making eye contact with Eddie, who had finally stopped sobbing, but was still breathing heavily and sniffling.

“Fuck Hawkins, am I right?” Said Steve, weakly.