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adhdsummer · 10 months

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I have a bad habit of hearing songs and projecting them onto Steve and I finally wrote something about it. Song is You're Not There by Lukas Graham. Possibly a series if the motivation stays with me. Thanks @every-aj-needs-an-angel and @estrellami-1 for looking through it and helping me feel confident enough to post.

It starts with therapy. Well, actually it starts with his grandmother letting him play with her piano as a child and teaching him everything she knew before passing away, but writing his own songs starts with therapy. After the events of 1983, his parents (suprisingly) notice a change in him. A change that is completely understandble in someone who has had to fight off a monster with a nail bat while the guy you thought was stealing your girlfriend set it on fire, but he couldn’t exactly tell his parents that. In typical Harrington fashion, his parents decided to throw money at the problem and get him a therapist. Of course he couldn’t tell her what had happened either, but he could talk about having nightmare, panic attacks, and not understanding or wanting to face his feelings. He could talk about his shift in priorities and how that was affecting his school life, and he could discuss his worries. At some point during their sessions, his therapist suggested writing down thoughts that came with strong feelings or worried him. She also suggested trying to return to old hobbies in an effort to reconnect to who he was without his school friends. Slowly, the two suggestions merged together to result in him sitting back at the piano for the first time since his grandmother had died, silently sobbing.

Steve remembered how kind she had always been, how supportive of him she was, and how patient she had been in teaching him. She seemed to understand that he needed to learn things slowly and completely before he could move onto something else. She also noticed that, once he had learned something, he knew that forever. They had spent hours together at the keys as she taught him chords, songs, and showmanship. She showed him the music she grew up with, the music she performed for crowds, and the music she wrote herself. Her music could be joyful, sorrowful, or haunting depending on the topic she was writing about. She had been his best friend and biggest supporter growing up until she had passed away.

Sitting at the bench, looking at the ivory keys, Steve let himself feel the emotions he had pushed away back then: the anger that she had left him, the hollowness she left behind, the fear of what his life would look like next, and the grief that he knew would consume him if he looked at it. Instead, middle school Steve had packed it all into a box, put on a face for the public, and tried to become the perfect Harrington. Clearly, that hadn’t panned out for him, but now he was sure he was on the right track. He was sure that his grandmother would have been dissapointed in his choices but was pretty confident that she would approve of his recent efforts to change.

It was a few days before he dared to actually play something on the keys, only to find out it was terribly out of tune. Another few days waiting for the tuner to come out allowed Steve time to look through his notes and sort through his thoughts and feelings to try and come up with something to honour her memory. During this time Steve was hanging out with Jon and Nancy at school and trying to avoid his old crew. He hadn’t told Nancy about the therapy yet, not wanting to go into his home life. He loved her but they were careful not to discuss the elder Harringtons aside from casual comments about whether they were around at the moment or if they would mind that he was out (they weren’t and they didn’t). She had noticed his little book that he carried to write down his thoughts and feelings but didn’t ask him about it and he didn’t offer any information. Later on, he would think this was a sign that she didn’t love him like he loved her, but in the moment he was just glad he didn’t have to talk about it.

Eventually, Steve was able to sit down at the bench and try to put the words he had written to some music. He started on a Friday night and barely left the event room that hosted his piano until mid-afternoon Sunday when he was remotely happy with his creation. He took the noted version of it with him to his next therapy appointment and felt pride in himself for the first time when he received positive feedback from the therapist before they discussed his grandmother for the first time together. From that moment, Steve used music more and more to explore and process his feelings, often returning to the memory of his grandmother for inspiration and to assess his work. It was months later that he wrote something he was fully happy with, something that was finished and almost felt like an actual song someone else would want to listen to.

He’s not sure what pushed him to do it, but one Saturday in June found Steve in an electronics store purchasing a tape recorder, cassette player, a bunch of blank cassettes, and a microphone that the man said would make the recording clearer than trying to use the built-in one. Steve was fifty percent sure that the man was just trying to get more money out of him but he went with it anyway. It wasn’t his money, after all. Once he had checked out, Steve raced back home to record the song immediately. Something was so urgent about recording his creation in a physical and permenant format that Steve couldn’t explain. He set up the recorder and did a few test runs to maximise the quality, thankful the shop assistant had shown him how to use the anti-record tab to decide whether a tape could be recorded over or not. Once he was confident that his set up was the best he could get, Steve pressed record, sat down, and took a deep breath. Then he began to play and sing.

I only got you in my stories And you know I tell them right I remember you and I, when I'm awake at night So give it up for fallen glory I never got to say goodbye I wish I could ask for just a bit more time Every step I take, you used to lead the way Now I'm terrified to face it on my own

The song was a mixture of memories and feelings around his grandmother and metaphors about his current position. Thinking about facing things on his own related to how he felt when she died and the current situation he was in without his old friends. He knew they were bad news and bad friends but that didn’t stop it being scary to go on without them. If nothing else, Tommy and Carol had always been around and provided company. Now, Steve was fully reliant on Nancy. You're not there To celebrate the man that you made You're not there To share in my success and mistakes Is it fair? You'll never know the person I'll be You're not there With me

Steve had written the chorus with hope for the future. He knew he wasn’t yet someone she would be fully proud of yet but he was happy that he was moving in that direction. He was sure she would love Nancy and the influence his girlfriend was having on his life. He was studying more, he was more aware of his behaviour to other people and how they felt. He was even considering what his future would look like outside of “professional athlete”. Though I know that you're not there I still write you all these songs It's like you got the right to know what's going on As I struggle to remember how you used to look and sound At times I still think I can spot you in the crowd Every step I take, you used to lead the way And now I'm terrified to face it on my own

This verse was one of the first he had written when he had been thinking about his grandmother. It felt so unfair to him that his parents, who couldn’t give a flying fuck, had the opportunity to see who he was working to be and where he would go when the one family member who had actually put any effort into raising him would miss out. Not that his parents took the opportunity, that is. He had only seen them three times in the seven months since he had started dating Nancy. He sang the chorus again, putting his heart and love into each word. Time can heal your wounds if you're strong and standing tall I've been doing all of that, it didn't help at all They say, "You'll grow older, and it'll get better still" Yes, I will, but no, it won't They don't get it's cause The final verse found Steve pushing some of his anger into his music. This was where the metaphor mixed in with his feelings of grief. Yes, he was talking about how it still hurt that she was gone despite everyone saying it would get better, but he was also talking about the nightmares he had suffered since November last year, the feeling of terror and paranoia that sometimes settled in his chest, the feelings that whatever that had been was perhaps not the only one and more was still to come. All of that still plagued his life despite the help he got from therapy. His previous coping mechanisms - put on his mask and fake it till you make it - wasn’t working now, especially since he left the popular crowd, and it certainly wasn’t getting better yet.

Steve’s voice softened as he sang the chorus for the last time. When the final note was played, he sat for a moment and let out a large sigh before leaning over to the cassette player and stopping the recording. Now he had done it, Steve felt a bit lost. There had been such an urgency in getting this recorded that he hadn’t thought about what would happen once it was. He felt somewhat empty but also like a weight had been lifted. Looking at the tape, Steve decided he didn’t need to listen to it or make sure that it was a good copy, just the act of recording it had satisfied whatever need he had had. He grabbed the case it came from and a sharpie, writing the song title sloppily on it before placing it into a storage box under his bed. He felt lighter than he had for a while after that recording. At least, until October, when it all kicked off again.

#steve harrington #stranger things #musical steve harrington #stancy #steve stranger things #nancy wheeler #nancy stranger things #Steve can sing #steve can play piano #lukas graham #youre not there lukas graham #steve x nancy

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