prettydamngood | (no subject)

(no subject)

Steve loves the beach. He loves it in all weathers but he particularly loves it when it's hot, when he can spend the whole day there, with a magazine, with soda. He spends most of the day sprawled out on a blanket on the sand reading or napping but, when he wakes up, he feels hot and sweaty, hectic, and it's definitely time for a swim. He leaves the majority of his stuff on the sand and he plunges into the water, submerging and swimming until he starts to feel comfortable in his skin again.

He wades out, shaking water from his hair as he goes, only realising after he's done it that that's potentially antisocial. He pushes the heavy weight of his hair back from his face and grins at whoever he just splashed.

"Shit, man," he says. "Sorry."

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I thought maybe they were a little mad at me because of the fight I had gotten into and they thought if they were to clean me up physically, I might behave better. I had tried to explain about the fight, that they had been picking on someone smaller, but the boy whose knee I had kicked had told his parents and they had called the Home to complain.

"I think they think if I look less like a wild kid, I'll behave less like one, too," I admitted.

"I don't know, man," says Steve, shaking his head. "I've known a lot of kids around about your age and, in my experience? Doesn't matter what they look like. And if adults think it does? They're freaking idiots."

It had felt as if I wanted to be a grown up for such a long time that I'd never considered what I might do when I got there. Steve's assessment makes me grin, I can't help it, and I rub the back of my hand against my mouth as if it might erase the smile.

"I like being sixteen," I decided. "I thought I wanted to be a grown up, but sixteen is pretty good so far."

He enjoys the reaction that he gets from Jamie; it feels good to make someone smile. He nods.

"Sixteen is a pretty good age," he says. "I remember loving it. Eighteen's been.....a bit weird, so far."

"Why weird?" I asked curiously. Maybe Steve wouldn't want to tell me, but he had started to talk about it and sometimes I thought people would only talk about things when they were asked. Maybe saying it had been weird meant he wanted someone to ask him.

I didn't mind listening at all. I wasn't sure if I was a good listener, but I could try.

He still doesn't feel like it's his story to tell, not really. He was only ever involved in an effort to keep the kids safe. That was all he was ever trying to do.

"Some kids I know got mixed up in some really weird shit," he says, glancing across at Jamie. "We fought some...yeah. Some actual fucking monsters."

"Oh," I said, then wondered how to tell Steve that didn't seem all that weird to me. I didn't want to make him feel as if his story wasn't significant, I just wanted to know that there were people here who wouldn't find it odd at all. People who had fought monsters, too. Sometimes on a fairly regular basis.

"What kind of monsters?" I asked instead. I would tell him about the Many-Eyed, but I could wait for my turn. I wanted to hear more about what Steve had been through first.

"We called it the Demigorgon," says Steve, glancing across to watch Jamie's face as he talks. "And then there was Dart and the others...like....dogs, but their faces were all teeth and they just kept coming." His fingers flex. Talking about them just makes him miss his bat.

I didn't know what a Dart was, but he described them like dogs, their faces full of teeth, and I couldn't help the grimace I made. I wasn't afraid of hypothetical monsters when they weren't here, I had faced down plenty, including Peter Pan, but that didn't mean I thought they were pleasant. And anyone with a bit of sense would be afraid when coming face to face with something like that.

"We called ours the Many-Eyed," I told Steve. "The monsters on the Island. They were like... giant spiders. Their blood would burn us." I stretched out my arm, showing Steve the circular scars left behind from one battle with a Many-Eyed.

Without thinking, Steve reaches out and touches Jamie's arms, the scars, his eyebrows drawn together in a frown. It's the way he might have touched Dustin back in Hawkins. When he realises he's done it, he blushes, faintly, jerks his hand back.

"Sorry." He shudders. "That sounds fucking horrifying."

I had come to think of the Many-Eyed as just a part of life. A part of the Island. They had as much right to be there as we did, maybe more, because Peter brought us all there. As far as I knew, the Many-Eyed had always been there.

"They mostly stuck to the plains," I said. "We didn't see them very often, but we could hear them sometimes. It wasn't normal, was it? Your monsters. Your world didn't have those normally?"

Otherwise, it wouldn't have been weird for him.

"No," says Steve, shaking his head, looking down at his hands. "No, it wasn't normal. My girl...My ex, and her...friend, they got mixed up in it, and the kids got mixed up in it, and..." He shrugs. "I couldn't let them do it on their own."

That was a familiar excuse, the sort I would find myself using, and I smiled as I dug my toes into the sand. Steve was a good person, which wasn't necessarily a surprise, but it made me feel better about living in Darrow. When I had gotten into that fight, people told me I shouldn't have gone that route, but I had to. I had to help. It was nice knowing there were some who would understand.

"A lot of people could have," I said with a small shrug. "Let them do it on their own, I mean. It was good that you helped them."

"They're just kids," points out Steve, glancing at Jamie. "Younger than you. I wasn't going to let them get their asses kicked." Hopper and Joyce were doing their best but, other than that, adults hadn't been any help at all. He shrugs. "I don't know. It didn't feel like I had a choice."

I had been lethal at eight. Not just to the Many-Eyed, but the pirates as well. They're just kids wasn't a phrase that had ever meant much to me, because the Island had been full of children and we had done our level best to destroy anything that opposed us.

I didn't want to tell Steve that for some reason. I didn't want him to know about the pirates.

"You had a choice," I said instead. "Even if you think you didn't. Other people would have seen the choice and wouldn't have made the same one."

Something about that embarrasses Steve a little and he ducks his head, rolling his shoulders in a shrug.

"Whatever," he says, finally, giving Jamie a crooked smile. "I'm not sorry that it's quieter here. Do you miss it? Your island?"

"Not really," I said. "Maybe parts of it. I was trying to get off the Island when I ended up in Darrow. I really wanted to leave."

It wasn't the escape I had planned, not in any form, but it was still an escape. I carried so much guilt over those who had died and those I'd left behind, but I tried to tell myself they wouldn't be angry with me. I had tried so hard and I had failed, but they would know. Somehow they would know and they wouldn't hold it against me.

"If I'd grown up with giant spider monsters, I think I'd have been trying to leave too," says Steve, nudging Jamie lightly with his elbow, his smile lifting the corner of his mouth. "What do you like best about living here?"

Without giving myself time to think, I opened my mouth and almost said Eddie, but caught myself just in time. It wasn't that I thought Steve would care, but I was still working through my thoughts and feelings on most matters and while I suspected it was an honest answer, it felt a little too honest for the moment.

"The people I've met," I said instead. Which was an extension of what I'd thought and still the truth. "Everyone here is very different, but I like most everyone I've met here."

Some more than others, it seemed.

"Hope I'm included in that," says Steve, shooting Jamie a grin to show that he's mostly teasing. He pushes his hand through his wet hair, leaving it in fingered furrows. "Yeah. The people kind of make it worth being here, don't they?" He's particularly thinking of one person, but it's not like she's his only friend.

"Of course," I answered and I knew he was just teasing me, but it was also the truth. Steve had been very kind to me and I knew I would be pleased to see him whenever we ran into each other. Because I lived at the Home, I knew there was other people I would see more often than Steve, but that didn't mean we wouldn't also be good friends.

"I like having hot showers, too," I added. "And the food. I like chocolate. And tomatoes. And hot dogs."

"All good things," says Steve, nodding. "I think my favourite thing about here is the beach, honestly. We don't have a beach in Hawkins."

"No beach," I said, trying to imagine that. In London there had been no beach, but I didn't remember much about living there and even though I recognized it as having been a difficult place to live now that I was away, the Island was still home. And the Island had beaches everywhere.

"I like the beach, too," I told him. "I don't know what I'd do without one. I love swimming."

"Yeah, me too," says Steve, nodding, his wet hair tumbling across his forehead again. "In this weather, it's pretty much all I do when I'm not at work. At least, that's what it feels like."

"I-" I stopped, realizing I was finally getting a chance to be a kid. Like I was meant to. Steve was talking about work and I was going to tell him what I did when I wasn't at the beach and it was a nice thing to realize none of it was particularly serious. None of it was worrying about Peter. I still thought of Charlie and Sal all the time, but even that was a little different.

"I've been riding bikes a lot," I said. "With Eddie and Beverly. Except she's dating this guy named Peter, so sometimes it's just me and Eddie. And I have to do homework to catch up before school starts."

I sounded like I belonged here.