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atinylittlepain · 6 months

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Chapter Two

90s!steve harrington x f!oc

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He got out, hopped one state over, and planned on continuing an anonymous existence of cold beds and numbers scribbled on forearms. One small problem in that plan, or maybe one big problem.

warnings | 18+ angst, pregnancy symptoms, ruth and steve are not very good at using their healthy communication skills.

a/n | thank you to everyone reading this little story, and as always, thank you to @pr0ximamidnight for providing the amazing artwork for this series <3

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Maybe she brought this upon herself. Conjured him up, sitting on a bench outside the library when she walks out after her shift. Her fault for checking if he had an account. He does. He used it once, six months ago, rented a Joan Baez CD that he had to pay a late fee on. And now he’s here, up in an instant when he sees her, much to her dismay. Same doc martens now clunking her way, she tries for something like a smile, but is pretty sure it’s more of a grimace than anything else.

“Hey.” She nearly laughs it’s so anticlimactic, both of them doing a stuttered, awkward shuffle on the sidewalk, a close distance that comes with knowing a stranger.

“Uh, hi, Steve, do you, like, need something from me?” Maybe a little rude, but honestly, she hadn’t been expecting to ever hear from the guy again, not a whole two weeks after that brutal phone call.

“How have you been?” A question for a question, she shrugs.

“Oh, you know.” Oh, you know, she’s only nauseous most hours of the day, can only keep down orange juice and pretzel sticks when it’s bad, and it’s so very often bad. Oh, you know, it’s actually insane how often she has to go pee, not to mention the pure body horror that is already going on otherwise. Oh, you know, there’s something, a small something, a shared something, a mistaken something. Something that she has decided to keep, don’t ask her why. She doesn’t know why.

“You look good.” He’s clearly nervous, hands tucked in his back pockets, one coming to hastily swipe through his thick flop of hair, eyes darting from his shoes up to meet her gaze, and then back down to his shoes. A little pitiful, she shows some mercy.

“Is there something you wanted to talk to me about?”

“Yeah, I– do you wanna– could we talk over dinner, maybe? I know it’s kinda early, but–”

“Oh, well–”

“Too weird?”

“No, not at all, it’s just– I’m already resisting the urge to puke right now–” His face falls fast at that, nearing beaten puppy territory, and she immediately realizes the foot she just shoved in her mouth.

“Not– you don’t make me want to puke, that’s not– the wanting to puke thing is kinda the norm for me right now.”

“Oh, oh, that’s normal, right?”

“I’d say it comes with the territory, yeah.” The thought occurs to her, blatant and dumb, that nothing about this is normal. Going about this all the wrong way, all backwards, both of them awkwardly shuffling on the sidewalk, toward and away from each other. To any passerby, a first date maybe, the nerves and jitters of it. Ha, she thinks, if only.

No to dinner, they somehow manage to settle on a bench outside the library instead, a pointed amount of space left between them, hands in laps and eyes on shoes. Steve clears his throat, his hand reaching up to run through his hair, already a tell, before seeming to think twice on it and instead rest his palm on his knee. Jolting knee, jolting palm.

“I’m sorry I didn’t come talk to you sooner, since you called, I mean.”

“Oh, I wasn’t expecting you to. Honestly, it probably wasn’t fair of me to tell you that, I should’ve–”

“No, I’m glad you did.” His brow pinches, deep frown all over when he turns to look at her fully, suddenly so serious. She tries to conjure up what she remembers of that night with him. A lot of hazy smiling, a lot of smug self-certainty. None of that here, none of that now. Now, Steve is worrying his bottom lip between his teeth and having an obviously hard time sitting still, and Ruth braces for impact.

“Look, Ruth, I– I needed some time to think about this, but I want to do the right–” She stops him there, some kind of close heat rising in her throat, a little self-righteous. The way it goes in the movies, right? Yeah, she’s not interested in that.

“No one’s asking you to be a hero, Steve. Like I said two weeks ago, I’m not looking for your help.”

“What if I want to help?”

“What if I don’t want you to?”

“How is that fair?”

“What the fuck are you talking about, fair. Are you twelve?”

“No, what I mean is, it’s my kid too, okay?”

“It’s a fetus, Steve. It doesn’t even have fingernails yet.”

“Okay, then it’s my fetus too.”

“Oh, really? Are you the one going through some Jim Henson-type body horror bullshit currently? No? Well, then I have a hard time buying that argument, sorry.”

“Jesus, are you always this mean?” Said with a half-hearted laugh, more like a punched-out exhale, all that hair of his falling in his eyes as he tilts his chin down toward his hands. She winces in the silence.

“Maybe I overstepped with the fetus thing, but I am the one who got you into this– situation. And–and if you’re really keeping it– them– I want to be in their life, and I want to be there for you too– not in like a weird– not like– support, okay? I want to support– that’s– that’s, yeah.” He lets out a sigh, shoulders slumping with it in the aftermath. Part of her is starting to catch up with the reality that no, not an act. One of the good ones, maybe, despite her own weariness.

“Is that really what you want?” She hates how small her voice sounds, nearly lost in the din of everyone around them getting off from work, going home, normal human shuffling in their normal human lives. But Steve hears her, looking only at her.

“Yeah, Ruth, it is.”

…

A plan, or something like it. They sat and talked, stipulations made, agreed-upon addendums Then they sat and talked some more, halfway compromises, none of it written down, none of it legal. But something, he thinks, that could be called a plan.

The first big spat had come in discussing living arrangements. Ruth’s I’m not living with that muppet-looking dude and Steve’s I want to be around if something happens, and then Ruth’s I’m not a coma patient, Steve. Eventually, something of an agreement, a slow introduction into each other’s lives.

He’s only been over to her apartment once before now, a sort of tentative exposure. She lives close to the library, but not on the side of the suit-monkey, sky-scrapers, instead on the side of old brick and sidewalks bursting with tree roots. Nice neighborhood, quiet, she lives on the second floor of a house-turned-rental, wobbling flight of stairs up the side of the building to her apartment. He watches mom and dad guide their boy, small body on impossibly small tricycle, down the sidewalk while he waits for Ruth to answer the door.

“Sorry, Toby, I was on the phone but– oh, what’re you doing here?” Pretty dress, black with little white flowers all over, and lacquered buttons down the front. For Toby, he thinks, his heart clenching around the thought, and his mind reminding him not to do that.

“Who the fuck is Toby?”

“How is that any of your business?”

“Since I’m– since we’re–” Since what? His own righteousness fizzles out with no real answer to back it. Ruth sighs, door still only half opened, dark blue nail polish tapping along the frame. It’s that time late in the summer when every afternoon smells like rain, darkening and murmuring sky starting to threaten a few drops now.

“Steve, is there a reason you’re here right now?”

“Uh, yeah, the appointment. And wait, I’m not just gonna drop this Toby thing, what’s that–”

“You’re way early.” Not exactly the welcome he was hoping for, Ruth still making no move to let him in. But he’s trying to be patient, hormones and shit. Those, Eddie’s exact words when he came home with some homeopathic bullshit pamphlet from Leif about prenatal vitamins. Here, it’s about hormones and shit. All Steve knows is that said hormones and shit are doing a lot right now, tsunami-sized changes. So patience, he can do patience.

“I thought we could get lunch, if you’re feeling okay?”

“I’m kinda busy.”

“With Toby?”

“Miss Cohen?” Small voice, coming from somewhere behind Steve. Ruth’s last name, is it bad he just learned it last week?

“Hi, Toby, are you ready for your lesson?” No question, this is bad. Bad, because when Steve turns around, he finds Toby, all four feet of him, looking, perplexed, up at the strange man standing in his apparent teacher’s doorway. For his part, Toby simply side-steps Steve entirely, hiking his trapper-keeper up under his arm, Ruth’s hand touching, pulse-point between his tiny, sweatered shoulder blades as he walks into her apartment.

“I’ll see you in an hour, okay? For the appointment.” A pointed look finishes off her words, and she’s already closing the door before Steve can think to string together an apology.

He sits down on the bottom step of the flight of stairs, not familiar enough with this part of town to do any fruitful wandering, and his own apartment too many blocks away for it to make sense to go home. The boy on the tricycle is still making slow progress down the sidewalk. Dad does that same thing that Ruth did, hand between shoulder blades, checking in, catch and release, care

Here’s the thing, part of Steve is terrified, and the other part is numb, already making room for all of this, mind configuring a new reality. He rolls through quick gasps of anxiety, his heart floating up into his throat that yes, this is real, before he sinks back down into something mundane, somehow making all this seem normal. He’s having a baby with a woman whose last name he didn’t know until last week. And strangely enough, he hasn’t been this sure of something in a very long time. It’s a mess, and it’s his, and he’s sure of it.

“Bye, Steve.” Except it comes out a little more like bye, Steeb, Toby’s trapper-keeper smacking him in the shoulder as he barrels down the steps and onto the sidewalk. He’s already off down the block by the time Steve stands up.

“Sorry, we’re still working on his V and B sounds, Steeb.” Pretty dress, white flowers swishing around her shins as she meets him at the bottom of the steps, his brow furrows when she holds out a granola bar to him.

“You said you wanted to get lunch, I’m sorry we couldn’t.” More and more moments like these. Because yes, Ruth can be mean. Maybe not exactly mean. But sharp. All angles and edges. And she can also be like this, surprising him like this. He tucks the granola bar in his pocket, a quiet thank you as they walk around the back of her apartment.

Ruth drives one of those boxy Ford Explorers, dark green and a dent in the passenger-side door that only makes Steve a little nervous. He sold his car when he and Eddie left, a few months of rent and a nicer bike, so he lets Ruth drive, and resists the urge to hold onto the door handle every time she takes a turn a little too sharp for his taste. No use for that granola bar now, he’s been perfectly jostled by the time they pull into the parking lot of the OB-GYN, stomach all swirled up. And walking into the waiting room doesn’t help his case. Women, very round women, all over the place, and sitting next to them are their husbands, right? Boyfriends, right? Some sort of nondescript partner that got them into this state in the first place, right? Arms around shoulders, soft smiles that Steve tries not to stare at for too long. Hands on stomachs and hands over hands. And then there’s him and Ruth, leaving a chair between them while she fills out a packet of paperwork.

“Do you have any siblings?”

“Huh?” A little distracted by all the shiny, happy families teeming in the waiting room, he blinks twice at Ruth’s question before she points her pen down to her clipboarded packet.

“Oh, no, it’s just me. Do you?”

“Yeah, I have an older sister out in New Mexico. What about family history of mental illness?” He can’t help the snort that slips out at that question, Ruth turning half a smile and a raised brow on him.

“Is a blanket yes an option?” He has decided that he likes her laugh. A dry rasp of a thing, pretty bells at the end if she thinks something is especially funny.

“Mine too.”

“Yeah?”

“Mmhmm.”

“Add it to the list.” The list, the one they’ve been mentally tallying up with all the things they find in common with each other, some sort of rapid fire get-to-know-the-parent-of-your-child-ice-breaker thing. So far, the list is not very long. They both like Elliott Smith, Yo La Tengo too. Ruth can’t stand the Lemonheads, and Steve can’t either. And yes, they agree, David Berman is an underrated genius. And that is also about where the list ends. Plus one more now. Two fucked up families, how fitting.

…

“That’s a lot of pamphlets.”

“Yep.”

“Lots of different ways to do this, I guess.”

“Yep.” And that’s all she’s gotten out of Steve since they left the doctor’s office. He won’t even look at her, sitting on her couch, big blinks into the distance and the smallest pinch between his brows, a thick fistful of pamphlets clutched in both his hands like a prayer book. And while she doesn’t blame him, a little shaken herself from hearing the heartbeat of the thing she’s apparently growing inside herself for the first time, at least she hasn’t gone practically nonverbal.

“Steve?”

“Yep.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yep.” She scoffs, tugging a few of the pamphlets out of his hands to look at them for herself. One on circumcision, cross that bridge if they get to it, she sets that one aside. One on water births, hard no, she sets that one aside.

“How do you feel about elective c-sections?”

“What?” Finally, he has reentered this plane of consciousness, blinking back into focus as he looks at her. She waves the pamphlet in question in front of him.

“It kinda makes me squirm, I mean, right? That’s weird.” All she gets from him is a mumbled I guess, though she’ll take it, setting the pamphlet aside with the others and clapping her hands together, trying to make it feel like a conclusion.

“Well, we already got a couple decisions out of the way, so that has to count for something.” And she’s lost him again, staring hard into her rug again, and she doesn’t like it one bit. Over the few weeks she’s known him, she’s never seen him like this. Sure, both of them stumbling through this thing. But right now, he looks checked out. Frankly, he looks ready to bolt.

“You– you have insurance, yeah?”

“Um, yes?” She can’t help the laugh her reply comes out on, though judging by the rather stony look on Steve’s face that probably wasn’t the best reaction she could have given him.

“Sorry, I’m just trying to– it’s okay if the kid goes to public school, right?”

“Are you serious right now?” When Steve doesn’t say anything in response, her frustration flares up into anger fast, a bitter laugh as she gets up from the couch.

“Oh no, I am not playing this game with you, Steve. You want out? Fine, I didn’t ask for your help, but do it now while my expectations are still low.” Steve is up and off the couch at that, doing that thing she’s come to expect. Always the same pattern of movements, a quick drag of his hand through his hair before thumb and forefinger come to pinch the bridge of his nose, squint, shake of his head. She’s seen that particular maneuver enough times now to know exactly what it means.

“You’re telling me you aren’t worried about how you’re gonna pay for and support a whole other human being? That’s not freaking you out right now?”

“Of course it’s fucking freaking me out! Christ, I– but people do it all the time, right? At least that’s what I figure. And I shouldn’t, believe me, I know I shouldn’t. But it’s what I want. And it’s fine if it’s not what you want, I’m not asking you to want this. Just do me a favor and tell me that now, okay?” Silence settles between them, Steve opening and closing his mouth, lips pressed in a thin line to hold any reply back. And in its ever perfect timing, her stomach starts to slurry, acid rising up the back of her throat, stinging sick.

All she manages is a quiet excuse me, stupidly polite, brushing right past Steve on her warpath for the bathroom. The first heave comes just as she curls over the toilet bowl. She had managed to get breakfast down today, a relatively normal meal, now making a mangled reappearance as muscle pulls taut and burning with each roil of her stomach. And somewhere through the fog of it, a warm palm between her shoulder blades, soothing and smoothing circles into her shivering spine.

“Here.” Quiet, care, he offers out his forearm for her to grip as she slumps away from the toilet, something to brace against at the very least. He surprises her, a cold, dampened cloth pressed to the back of her neck, a sigh of relief that she can’t help at the feeling of him holding it there, holding her still.

“Sorry, it’s usually not that–”

“It’s okay, Ruth. Do you want some water?” She feels ridiculous, certainly pitiful when she nods, letting him coax her hand to where his had been holding the cloth to her neck before he’s off rummaging around in her kitchen. Usually not that dramatic when this happens, usually not sitting on the bathroom floor after it happens, usually not someone else there to ask if she’s okay after it happens either. And then he’s back, crouched down alongside her, not handing her the glass of water, but holding it to her lips. She hates that she likes that.

“Thanks.”

“Yeah, of course.” One hand holding her elbow, the other on her waist when she gets up. It’s a conscious choice to lean out of and away from his palms, resisting that warmth and taking a few steadying breaths, focusing instead on the freckle she can see on the joint of his thumb where he has hooked his hand into his pocket. Taking inventory to steady herself, dark pants and a dark t-shirt underneath a denim jacket that she keeps resisting the urge to smooth the collar of, for him. His boots, of course, and the thin, wire glasses she’s come to expect. He squints when he doesn’t wear them. She doesn’t get why he doesn’t wear them sometimes.

“I’m sorry, alright? I didn’t mean to freeze on you like that. I’m, fuck, I don’t know. It’s terrifying, but it also feels so, like, clear.”

“Clear?” He sighs, a breath of a laugh, arms crossed over his chest and hips resting back against the bathroom counter. Both of them getting swallowed up in too small of a space.

“I barely know you, Ruth, I didn’t think I was gonna see you again. And now, now–” Another sigh, and she braces for impact, for him to finally realize that the door is wide open, that no one is keeping score, and that the best thing, the smart thing, is to get out of this mess. No, she can’t blame him, can’t even work up a flurry of anger at him. All she can manage is another sick stir in her stomach, waiting for this to be over already.

“I just wanna meet this kid.” His chin is tucked down, so she can only just see the curve of his smile, small wonder, and then a laugh. And then yeah? Yeah, yes. Such a small space, all filled up, cheeks rounding and eyes spilling over top of them.

“He looked like a bean or something on the scan.”

“You think it’s a he?” Instinct, or maybe just cliche, palm to stomach like she might find the answer to his question there. She shrugs.

“I don’t know, that just slipped.”

“Hmm.”

“Hmm?” She wouldn’t mind if this kid came out with his grin, his glasses tilting up with it.

“I guess we’ll find out eventually.” And that we’ll is answer enough, isn’t it? Sticking around, isn’t he?

“I guess we will.”

“You think you can eat some dinner?”

“Mmm.”

“Mmm?”

“Maybe just toast for me.”

“Yeah, you got it.”

He knows where her toaster is, knows that she keeps a few heels of bread in her freezer to make them last longer. He has done this before, in the few weeks that they have decided that whatever this is, it’s together. She watches him shuffle around her small kitchen from over the back of the couch, head in her hand, his quiet movement tilting to the side. He makes four sideways pieces, dry for her and butter for him. And nothing is said, save for a quiet thanks and an equally quiet welcome. The light is starting to slip, thickening into a haze that spills over the warped wood floors of her apartment. It rained for the better part of the afternoon, her windowsill damp, letting that cool scent of late summer in.

They sit side by side on the couch, making what could be called meaningful work out of two pieces of toast each. Yes, answer enough. Yes, staying. Yes, together.

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