idk why this just popped into my head, but thinking about Steve who’s actually insanely smart, he always got straight A’s in school and the whole “dumb jock” was just a stereotype that Steve got stuck under and just never tried to prove wrong. Who cared whether or not he was actually smart? So he just played along. (Besides, it was an in to flirt with the girls; to pretend like he didn’t know what he was doing.) His parents had him tutored since he was old enough to count on his fingers, and sure it was exhausting, but it was something he was good at. Math, reading, science, it all came easy to him. He liked being able to impress the people around him. When he got involved with the upside down, the one thing that didn’t crumble around him was his studies. He was determined to make his parents proud. When it was time to send out all his college applications, his parents hadn’t returned home in months and by the time he heard back from the schools the upside down was worse than it’s ever been and it just wasn’t a concern anymore. So Steve stuffed the enveloped futures away. He had completely forgot about them. Until now.
It’s been a month since Hawkins cracked open. Max and Eddie both have been discharged from the hospital, on strict rehabilitation protocols. Because Wayne still had to work despite the government hush money, Steve decided it was best for Eddie to stay with him. Besides, the house is quiet and lonely, why not put it to good use? Steve had been downstairs frying eggs on a pan when Eddie came bounding around the corner clutching a stack of opened envelopes. He looked confused.
“What’s wrong Eds? What are those?” Steve asked, and when Eddie started rifling through the envelopes Steve caught the slightest sight of his school symbols. His heart dropped. “Eddie it’s not -“
“Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Columbia -“ Eddie starts naming off as he rifles through each envelope.
“Eddie.”
“You got into them all Steve. There’s like 10 different top notch schools here that you got into. Why has no one heard about this? And why are they stuffed in a drawer?”
“Because I’m not going” Steve says simply, like it was the easiest decision to make.
“What? What the fuck do you mean you’re not going?” Eddie asks appalled. And Steve gets why, he does, but he’s also determined to stand his ground.
“Why does it matter? I’m not going” Steve pouts, crossing his arms.
“Stevie. Did your parents pay for you to get in or something? Did they use the Harrington name you hate so much? There’s gotta be a reason you won’t go besides just being a stubborn asshole” and Steve gets why he‘a asking, and he’s never been hurt by it, but part of Steve flinches at the fact that Eddie couldn’t believe that Steve got in on his own account.
“No. It doesn’t matter, can we just drop it?”
“No. No we can’t. Do you know how badly I would KILL to get into any school, let alone an IVY. This is incredible Steve.” Eddie states, padding closer into the kitchen and Steve has to hold back a laugh at his rabbit slippers.
“I can’t go” Steve says quietly, turning away from Eddie and back to the stove where the eggs are starting to burn.
“Why though? Can you tell me that much?” Eddie asks, matching Steve’s soft tone.
“Because I have to be here. I have to be here incase Vecna isn’t really gone. Incase the kids need me. Incase Robin needs me. I can’t just leave…” Steve says, turning back towards Eddie to look at him before turning back towards the burnt eggs.
“Stevie. They’ll be fine. When are you gonna put yourself first sweetheart? I need a valid reason why you’re staying and I’ll drop it, because these aren’t -“
“Because you’re here!” Steve yells, turning back towards Eddie. Steve watches as Eddie’s lips part ever so slightly as his breath hitches before he continues. “When I got accepted into those schools the people who I did that for weren’t here anymore and fucking Henry Creel apparently was more prominent than ever, and the kids needed someone to take a hit and someone to protect them and Robin was here and she was the first person to care about me and what would that say about me if I left? And eventually those stupid schools were the furthest thing from my mind and then I thought about maybe going, maybe getting away from this hell… you came along and I couldn’t. I couldn’t leave you Eddie. With the regards of sounding cheesy, you carved a spot into my heart along side those bat bites and how was I supposed to just let you go after that?” Steve’s out of breath, and tears are starting to gather at his waterline, but he doesn’t care because Eddie is looking at him like he hung the sun and the moon and the stars and he remembers why he stays. And when Eddie’s lips collide with his own, he thinks he found home.
“We’re not done talking about this” Eddie says, and Steve chuckles as Eddie dives back in.
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I’m just here trying to sleep after a long week (I know it’s only Wednesday but I am stressed and I wanted to quit my job on Monday so it’s a long week) and I’m thinking about Dustin’s birthday. Specifically his seventeenth. And maybe it’s not on the exact day, but around there, and it hits him out of nowhere
He’s the same age Steve was when a bunch of kids were shoved at him and he was told to keep them safe. He’s the same age Steve was when he almost died doing that multiple times on the same night. He’s the same age Steve was and he doesn’t think he’s even remotely prepared to handle a group of kids and doesn’t think he could have been brave enough to fight a bunch of demodogs or billy when he was spitting mad and then gotten up and gone into the tunnels afterwards.
And he looks at Steve now, more mellow, softer around the edges, with friends his own age and his bitching far more playful and affectionate with them, with his glasses and his failing hearing and sometimes anger because of those things but no regrets.
He looks at him and wants to cry because he doesn’t know how Steve did it. He doesn’t know how Steve was so brave and strong then when he was arguably still sort of an asshole and didn’t even know them aside from knowing who they were. Because that night was the first night they’d even spoken, but Steve had jumped right back in despite how they all knew he’d tried to pretend it never happened.
He looks at his brother and doesn’t understand how he’d so easily been there for them back then because trying to imagine himself in his place it just makes him feel overwhelming panic.
Because that’s when it hits
Steve was a kid too. He was just a kid, but he’d seemed like an adult to him, had carried himself with the confidence of adulthood even when Dustin knew now that it was bravado.
He thinks about the year before, when Steve had fought his first monster and been even younger. And maybe he wasn’t the youngest, that was Erica’s privilege, but he’d still been a kid and they’d all forgotten that because it was Steve, who took on the mantle of protector and carried it like a badge of honor even now.
And he hugs him, of course he does, and when they talk, they both cry a little, because Steve can finally admit how he’d felt back then, how he’d felt so out of his depth but didn’t want the kids to see his fear because he needed to be brave
Just lots of sappy thoughts about childhood and loss and moving on knowing that you were allowed to be scared when you thought you couldn’t
KAT YOU GET BACK HERE RIGHT NOW. I'M SCREAMING AND CRYING! I'm gonna lose my MIND. I'm gonna climb the WALLS. I'm gonna FLY into the SUN! this is SO IMPORTANT to me now, I'm never going to not think about this, this is critical to their relationship now and I'm never going to see it any other way.
if you write it, I'll podfic it. I swear, this just flipped some switch in my brain, I'm obsessed.
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I think it’s kind of an odd choice to make Steve bad at school. He would have to have decent grades to play sports. Maybe he isn’t the best student ever and he got more slack being a star player, but he wouldn’t be close to failing. At least before his senior year when he couldn’t get into college.
RIGHT!? I was literally going to add to my previous post about how he was in multiple sports, so he would have been kicked out if he was failing more than one class.
But anyway, I totally agree. I don't think he was amazing at school and definitely wasn't getting all A's throughout, but I also don't think he was failing. At the very least, I don't think he was failing at anything math related.
I've mentioned this before, but I absolutely love the headcanon that he's dyslexic, which was what led to my headcanon of him being great at math. The majority of ELA and history is passage after passage with not a lot of time to read them thoroughly, especially on test. So I understand why he wouldn't like those classes and have low grades in them. And as we all know, his dad gave him a lot of shit about school and grades and trying to get him into the best college he could. So in my mind, it would make total sense that instead of overworking and studying for ELA/History, he would spend the most time getting really good at his easiest subject. Which in this case would be math.
So he would study the most for math and science, leading to high grades. At the very least, he had a B+ in math.
I also think that after his first interaction with the Upside-down, it would then make more scenes that his grades would start dropping, due to trauma and head concussions. More of a gifted kid burnout situation rather than a bad student one.
Anyway, sorry for ranting about this. 😞 Just got really excited to talk about this cause I've been thinking about this headcannon for months and I really just need to make it its own post. 🤷♀️
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