haplesshairpile | this may as well happen (debut)

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debut,
hopper

this may as well happen (debut)

Russian torture really isn't so bad.

Okay, well, it's actually fucking awful. Steve's swollen face is throbbing in time with his pulse and he's pretty sure at least one of his ribs is cracked, but he'll be fine. He gets his ass kicked on a regular basis at this point. What's one more black eye?

The drugs though, man. The fucking drugs. He doesn't even care that he might have internal bleeding because he feels fantastic. They're out of that weird bunker and the kids are okay, so he tries to ignore that they're still being chased and just takes a breath. It's actually really easy to do with how high he is. Whatever they injected him with makes him feel like he's floating, like he just smoked ten of the world's finest joints, and holy shit, he is starving.

He and Robin sneak out of the movie theater in search of food, and Steve gets distracted by the mall's glass ceiling. He really hated this place, after spending all summer here scooping ice cream in his stupid little uniform, but he kind of likes it now. Yeah, sure, there's a Russian bunker a mile underground trying to crack open a hole to an alternate dimension full of hideous monsters, but the ceiling is nice. And the company. He guesses that's pretty nice too.

"Robin, come look at this," he calls out, but his vision sort of swims and after he blinks a few times, he realizes that he is no longer staring up at the bright, fluorescent lights of the ceiling. Instead he's blinking up at a night sky full of stars and while that's pretty cool too, he has no idea how he got here. And why would he come outside when they were so dead set on going to the food court? Corn dogs, man. That was the new mission!

"Robin? Stop messing around. I'm fucking star--" Steve blinks as he finally turns around in a slow circle and realizes that nothing looks familiar. He is definitely not in the parking lot of the Starcourt Mall, and he doesn't even think that he's in Hawkins anymore. "--ving. What the hell?"

Steve stands there in the middle of an unfamiliar street, hands on the hips of his red, white, and blue striped Scoops Ahoy uniform, and lets out something like a giggle. It isn't the proper response to blinking and finding yourself somewhere completely unexpected, but that's all Steve really has in him right now. He just has to laugh. He'll laugh and laugh, and panic later once he's himself again.

But for now-- "This place has corn dogs, right?"

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"Steve?"

Hopper wants to pretend he's not in the mood for this shit, a giggling teenage boy standing in the middle of the sidewalk and asking strangers for corn dogs, but the thing is, he's kind of missed having Steve around. Maybe they hadn't known each other much back in Hawkins, because Hopper had never cared much for his parents, and his only real interaction with Steve had been through the kids, but here, he'd been something familiar. They'd shared a connection that way.

And familiar isn't always so bad.

"Christ, kid, what the hell?" He sounds like he's high. Which he may very well be and that's not the end of the world, especially here, but Hopper figures it's going to make explaining this place a hell of a lot more difficult. Because this isn't the same Steve who was here before. He's older, for one, Hopper can see that. And he's wearing a sailor costume.

At the sound of his name, Steve goes still and spins on his heel to find the source of it. He wobbles a little and holds his hand out for balance, grinning widely when he sees a familiar face. Well, kind of familiar. It's not like he's ever hung out with Hopper when they're not trying to save the world.

Holy shit. In a roundabout way, he's helped save the world.

"Hey there, chief," Steve as he puts his hands on his hips. "How about you? Any idea how I got out here?" His nose wrinkles and he reaches up to wipe some blood from his lips. "Shit, I didn't pass out, did I? This is like my fifth concussion."

"Jesus Christ," he says when he gets a good look at Steve's face, then takes a couple steps forward and grabs him by the forearms to keep him standing. He's been through the ringer, bloodied and bruised, and Hopper's not completely sure an eye injury like that isn't going to require a hospital visit, but first he has to get Steve off the street. Off his damn feet, too.

"Come on," he says. "My place is close. You have to sit down and then... shit." Then he'll explain this place to a beaten bloody and very high Steve Harrington.

He doesn't have any idea how and doubts it has much to do with a concussion, but there's still a story to be told. After they get Steve ice for his eye. Hopper would say some painkillers, too, but not with whatever else might be in his system.

"Oh, so you must have stopped them then," Steve says brightly, because if someone was still trying to open the gate, there's no way that Hopper would be this calm. He leads Steve off and he cranes his head to look around, squinting against the lights.

"I don't know where everyone went, but--" He twists around and grabs Hopper's arm, looking at him very seriously. "I need food. Like, right now food."

"You need ice and a goddamn doctor," Hopper answers. "There's food at my place, let's go."

He's not leaving any room for argument, not with this. If he didn't think Steve might start spouting some shit about demogorgons and secret labs, Hopper would take him straight to the hospital, but he doesn't completely trust this place, even after all this time. The wrong doctor hears something like that and Harrington ends up with his ass in some padded room for the rest of his life, just like Eleven had been stuck in, or his brain dribbling out his ears after some botched electroshock therapy, just like Terry.

"Stopped who?" he asks when they round a corner and his building comes into view.

"Okay, jeez, Dad." Steve rolls his eyes and pushes his fingers through his hair as he follows Hopper. "We're walking? Aren't you holed up out in the woods somewhere?"

Steve admittedly doesn't know too much about the guy, or his super powered kid, but he's pretty sure he heard something about a cabin. The Wheeler kid talks pretty much exclusively about one thing only, and it's El.

"The Russians, duh." Steve stops when he realizes that they're in the middle of a city block, an definitely not the woods. "Okay, wait. Where are we? We've been walking forever."

"We're not in Hawkins anymore, kid," Hopper says, stopping a few seconds after Steve does and trying not to heave a sigh. The kid is obviously on something and whether he'd taken it willingly or not -- Hopper is gonna go with not, given the state of his face -- he's going to have a hard enough time dealing with Darrow. Adding drugs into the mix is just going to make it all worse.

"The Russians were some bullshit story Brenner made up to keep everyone scared about El," he tells Steve. "Now walk. I'll explain everything once I've got you sitting down and I can make sure you're not bleeding in your brain or something."

Not that he has any idea how to make sure of that, but he marches up the front steps of the Bramford anyway and wrenches open the door expectantly.

"Have you tried clicking your heels three times?" Steve asks, giggling at his own joke as he walks into the door that Hopper is holding open. He really has no idea what's going on, but he knows that he's safe with Hopper. He's a good guy, even if he is kind of an asshole.

But hey, the same could be said for Steve too.

"I know about the bullshit imaginary Russians. I was there," Steve says, coming to a halt in front of an elevator and reaching out to press the button. He misses the first time, but eventually gets it to light up. "But look at my face, man. This sure doesn't feel imaginary. They want to open--"

The elevator still hasn't come, so Steve jabs at the button again. "Come on. Open the damn door."

Hopper swats Steve's hand away from the elevator button. He can hear the damn thing creaking its way down to them and he doesn't want Steve to jam it up somehow and end up having to drag his ass up eight flights of stairs.

"They want to open what?" he asks. "Wait, what year is it?"

Either way, the answer is going to be wrong in terms of Darrow. That's a whole other thing he'll have to explain, but the last thing he remembers is early November of 1983. And if Steve remembers the bullshit Russians and is talking about something else now, chances are it's even later for him and Hopper realizes he can grill Steve for all the information he's missing.

Maybe not now, he realizes as the elevator door slides open. Maybe in a day or so, once he's slept this off.

“What?” Steve swivels to give Hopper a confused look, wondering why the hell he’s asking about the year, and then rolls his eyes. “I don’t have a concussion. Well, probably not. Okay, possibly.”

The elevator opens and Steve walks inside, leaning against the side of it and scoffing when he sees Hopper’s expectant face. “Fine! It’s Fourth of July, 1985. Reagan’s the president. I am Steve Harrington, age nineteen. Satisfied?”

When the doors slide open again, Steve steps into the hall and starts walking, but only gets a few feet before he realizes that he has no idea where he’s going. He turns and looks at Hopper with a vaguely pathetic expression. “Are we close to food yet?”

"Yeah, this way," Hopper says, pulling Steve toward the apartment he shares with Beverly. He unlocks the door without saying anything else, thinking about what Steve has just said. July of 1985, which means Steve's had about eight months in Hawkins that Hopper himself has missed out on.

Except he's been in Darrow for more than a year and a half.

"Sit," he says, pointing him in the direction of the kitchen before he grabs a box of pop tarts off the counter and puts them down in front of Steve. "Now what do the Russians want to open?"

Hopper leads Steve into an unfamiliar apartment, but then he gives him not only food, but sugary crap food which is exactly what he's craving. Steve drops into a chair at the kitchen table and rips into one of the pop tarts, taking a huge bite of one and moaning at the taste.

It takes a long moment for him to realize that Hopper asked him a question, but instead of answering he takes another bite. Hopper's stare grows a little more intense, so Steve rolls his eyes and leans back until the chair is up on two legs.

"The door! The-- the gate or whatever," Steve says with his mouth full of pop tart, spraying crumbs all over the place. "Big ass laser beam thing like-- can I have some water? These are super dry."

Filling up a glass at the sink, Hopper sets it down in front of Steve, then sits across from him, his forearms folded on the table.

"The Russians were trying to open the gate," he repeats. "The one El closed."

Maybe it had been stupid of him to think that maybe things could just go right for that poor kid. Just once. But he's got that copy of her doctored birth certificate in a locked drawer in his bedroom and he'd thought maybe that meant she would be able to just live. She could go out into the world and be Jane Hopper and not have to worry about any more gates or monsters. But now Steve is telling him there are Russians trying to open the gate and if Steve is involved, he's got to figure they're all involved in some way.

"Christ," he says, then rubs a hand over his face. "And the Russians drugged you and beat the shit out of you."

"Yeah, that gate," Steve replies as he takes the cup and gulps down half of it in one go. He sets the glass down and then gives Hopper a deeply offended look. "Hey, give me some credit. We figured out how to get down to their weird underground bunker, okay? I won a fight! We kept everyone alive!"

After his brief outburst, he slumps back in the chair and reaches for the second pop tart. "And yeah, that too. Just me, though. Well, the beating part. But we got out, man! And now-- oh, shit. Pretty sure telling you was gonna be the next part. So, yeah. Starcourt is a total Russian front! You've gotta shut it down. Or-- you still have connections, right?"

All the thinking makes Steve's head throb and he drops the pop tart and puts his hand over his mouth, staring up at Hopper with one wide eye as his stomach starts to heave.

"Bathroom's the second door down the hall," Hopper says almost absently, caught up in thinking about what Steve's just told him. "Or hurl in the sink if you're gonna hurl. Don't you make me clean up your puke on top of your blood."

Because he can't just send Steve out into the city looking like he does. Hopper's at least got to get some of that blood off him and probably give him a clean shirt. One of Beverley's most likely, since Steve will be swimming in anything Hopper owns.

"We're not in Hawkins anymore, kid," he says. "I don't even know what the hell Starcourt is." It sounds like a mall, but Hawkins didn't have a mall last time he was there.

Steve misses everything else that comes out of Hopper's mouth after he mentions the bathroom, because he's barreling for it at top speed. The door slams against the wall and Steve empties what feels like his entire stomach and every other internal organ he has into the toilet. It just keeps going and going and when Steve feels like he might actually die, it finally stops.

With a groan, he flushes the toilet and then grabs at the end of the toilet paper before slumping back against the tub, legs sprawled out in front of him. He tugs more of the tissue towards him, stretching it across the room, and wipes at his nose and mouth.

His head is pounding and it's like he can suddenly feel every wound that's been inflicted on him. His ribs hurt, and he lifts his shirt to see bruising all along his side. But at least he has a clearer head now. He's not sure it's all that great of a trade off, considering, but he'll take it.

"I think I puked it all out," Steve calls out weakly, referring to the drug. "But I think I'm just gonna stay on this floor for a million years if that's cool."

Once he hears the amount of puke actually coming out of the kid, Hopper refills the glass of water and grabs a fresh wash cloth and towel out of the hall closet before he heads to the bathroom. It's just as Steve is calling out to him that he steps inside and he sets the glass of water down on the floor beside him, then runs the cloth under some cool water in the sink.

With a grunt, Hopper sinks down beside Steve, then folds the cloth and settles it against his forehead with a surprising level of gentleness. Holding it there, he drops the towel in Steve's lap for whenever he wants it.

"Up to you, but the couch'll probably be a hell of a lot more comfortable," he says before there's a long pause. "Listen, kid, we're not in Hawkins. Everything that was happening to you there, it's not happening here."

Steve watches as Hopper approaches him and blinks as he lays the cool cloth over his head. It's a tender thing that he wasn't really expecting, and Steve is so overwhelmed that it almost makes him a little emotional. It's not something he ever really got from his own dad, and in just moment Steve gets it, why El ended up with him.

"Yeah, I stopped thinking you were fucking with me around the time I puked up my second lung," Steve croaks out, swallowing hard and giving himself a few more moments to just be calm and feel a gentle, fatherly hand on his head. He grips the edge of the tub and heaves himself to his feet.

When Steve sees his reflection in the mirror he lets out a choking sound, eyes widening before he quickly looks away. He hadn't seen himself yet and it scares him to see his face so beaten, reminding him of how he almost died. Again.

The wet cloth in his hands trembles a little and he blinks, trying to recalibrate himself as he heads towards the living room. He suddenly misses the drugs, if only because they kept him from being so terrified.

"So, uh--" He clears his throat and winces as he stats to wipe the blood from his skin. "Where are we, then?"

"Christ, gimme that," Hopper says of the cloth. "You're gonna rub your damn skin off without being able to see what you're doing."

Without waiting for an answer, he takes the cloth from Steve, the dry towel slung over his shoulder, then gestures for him to sit on the couch. Once they get some of the blood off, he'll be able to see if Steve needs any stitches and decide whether or not he's going to take him to the hospital. At this point, he's still leaning toward it, because he's not sure he's ever seen anyone look this rough and still able to get up and walk around.

"We're in a city called Darrow," he says as he begins to clean the blood from around Steve's eye. It's brutally purple and swollen, but at least Steve can see, which Hopper thinks is a good thing. "It's... I mean, I guess it's kind of like the Upside Down, but with fewer monsters. Some sort of alternative dimension, a city we get pulled into and can't leave." He'll get into the people who disappear later. Once Steve's had time to accept that he's here in the first place.

Steve sits down on the sofa and watches Hopper with a vaguely confused expression, watching his face as Hopper cleans the blood from his skin. Steve isn't used to this, and he swallows hard.

"Remember when I got the shit beaten out of me by Hargrove last year?" Steve rasps out, and he doesn't even know why he's saying this out loud. "My dad just looked at me and said that he hoped I didn't take it like a pussy."

He blinks a few times, feeling oddly vulnerable, and averts his gaze as he tries to process everything that Hopper is telling him. It's crazy, but it doesn't seem outside the realm of possibility, not after everything he's seen.

"Did you just get here too?" Steve asks after a few moments of quiet. "I mean, I just saw El at the mall the other day."

Edited 2019-07-28 23:55 (UTC)

"Yeah, well, I knew your dad growing up," Hopper answers. "He was always kind of a dick."

He doesn't say anything for a minute and instead focuses on getting most of the blood off Steve's eye before he moves onto his mouth. Most of what's left behind now is a big ass bruise, but at least he's a little clean than he'd been before. This is where stuff gets complicated and he knows it, but it's not like he can just leave Steve to figure it all out on his own.

"Nah," he says. "I've been here for, uh... about a year and a half. And I know that sounds messed up, but time is messed up. That's part of this place. It messes with time. Last thing I remember happening back in Hawkins was El closing the gate. She did it and those demodog things all died and when we went to step back into the lab, I ended up here instead."

"Yeah, he really is," Steve says with a sigh, furrowing his brow a bit. After some introspection after all that shit with Nancy, Steve had realized that maybe part of the reason that he acted like such an asshole for so long was because he thought his dad might actually be proud of him, in some way. Not to completely shift the blame, because ultimately it was his own fault that he was such an asshole, but that sure didn't help.

Now he couldn't really be bothered to give a shit what his dad thinks of him and it seems like it doesn't even matter anymore anyway, because his dad isn't here.

He listens to Hopper while he speaks and lets him clean up his face, because it feels kind of nice to be taken care of, even if it is by some guy he doesn't even know all that well.

"But you were in Hawkins that whole time," Steve finally says, looking up at Hopper in confusion. "So-- you were there and here? Does that mean that I'm still back home too? God, this hurts my brain."

"Doesn't get much easier," he answers, then nods. "Yeah, the way it's told and the way I figure, we're here and we're there. Somehow. Different versions of ourselves like there's a different version of Hawkins in the Upside Down. Hell if I know how it works, though, 'cause I don't think there are any Russians running around this place conducting experiments with lasers."

Not that he can say that with absolute certainty. He doesn't know a damn thing about how Darrow works.

Explaining this place to Steve is important, but there's something he needs to know first. Above everything else.

"El- she's doin' okay?" he asks.

Steve's mind is reeling as he tries to process all of this, but Hopper's question snaps him out of it immediately. Shit-- if he's been here since the gate, he doesn't really know anything at all.

"Oh, yeah. Yeah, man! She's good," Steve assures him as he pulls himself up into more of a sitting position. He doesn't interact too much with Hopper and El directly, but he hears enough from Dustin, and from Mike, who never shuts up about her. He knows enough to alleviate Hopper's fears, at least.

"Uh, let's see. She's like, yours. Legally. That doctor from the lab pulled some strings with a birth certificate or something?" He blinks and reaches for the glass of water he brought from the bathroom and takes a few sips. It still tastes a little like blood, but he assumes that will be the case for a few days. "She's still dating Mike. I mean, in as much as kids that age can date. And like I said, I saw her at the mall the other day. I don't know if she was supposed to be there, but she was with Max and they looked like they were having fun. She looked happy."

After a pause, he takes another sip and gestures at his face. "She wasn't involved with all this. None of you guys were. At least, you weren't when I was-- I don't know, interdimensionally snatched, or whatever."

While Hopper doesn't love the idea of Eleven dating anyone, he figures Mike's actually a pretty okay kid, all things considered. He cares about his friends, he clearly cares about El, and Hopper might not be great at being a guardian all the time, but he knows people who care about his kids are pretty much the thing that matters most.

"Good," he says, then exhales slowly. "Yeah, that- that's real good." He has the birth certificate here, he knows she's his, but it's good to hear about her going to the mall and being a regular teenager.

"You're gonna be okay here, too," he adds a second later. Maybe he doesn't know Steve Harrington well, but the way he is with the kids in Hopper's life, he figures he's a hell of a lot better man than his father ever was. He's not just going to leave him to figure this place out on his own. "We'll get you settled. It'll be okay."

Steve stares up at Hopper, whose face is creased with worry, and he blinks a few times as he realizes that he may end up the same way. If he really is stuck here, he'll just have to hope that they managed to stop the Russians from closing the gate, but he'll never really know for sure. Not unless someone shows up from later, like he did for Hopper.

Hopper's voice snaps him back before his thoughts can spiral too quickly, and Steve gives him a wan smile at the reassurance. "Thanks. I mean, it's not like I had a lot going for me back home, anyway."

Except maybe he had something. Someone. But now he'll never know. "There was this girl-- but, I don't know. I think she might have been too cool for me. Not that I'd ever let her hear me say that."

"She was too cool for you," Hopper answers, even though he doesn't know the girl in question and he's pretty sure Steve was always considered one of the cool guys in school. It's just a fact of like. Women in general are too cool for men, because men are idiots. Hopper is a damn idiot and he well knows it.

"Especially if you let her see you in your uniform," he adds. "C'mon, I'll get you a shirt. I- shit. Beverly."

He huffs out a breath and says, "I got a kid living here with me. Beverly. She's a good kid. You'll probably fit one of her shirts."

"Yeah, she really was," Steve says with a huff of laughter. There was a time not so long ago that he probably would have aruged with that, because he was the coolest of the cool, after all, but now he knows that it was pretty much all bullshit.

He really doesn't want to be one of those people who peaked in high school, but he probably already is. Before he can think on that too hard, Hopper distracts him with the mention of another kid.

"Are you collecting them or something?" Steve asks, but it's not like he can talk. When Hopper mentions giving Steve one of her shirts, however, his mouth drops open and Steve gives him an affronted look. "Why can't I just borrow one of yours? Look at this bullshit I've been wearing all summer. You really want to add insult to injury?"

"No one'll know it's a girl's shirt," he answers. "I won't give you somethin' pink and frilly. Hell, I don't think Bev owns anything pink and frilly. It's just a shirt. It'll fit you better than my clothes will."

Hopper's about twice as wide as Steve is. He's pretty sure three of him could fit into one of his shirts without much trouble. Beverly might be a bit shorter than Steve is, but he still figures one of her longer shirts will be a better fit for him than anything in Hopper's closet.

"You're gonna have a package waiting for you," he says. "An envelope with a bunch of stuff in it. A place to stay, some ID. A cell phone. It's weird as hell."

"Yeah, okay. Thanks," Steve says, feeling like a bit of an asshole for complaining when he could be here all alone, puking on the street with no idea what was going on. "Anything without my blood and sweat on it is an improvement."

Hopper starts talking about a package and Steve eyes him warily, feeling something like fear curl coldly in his belly. There really is no leaving this place, and it's starting to sink in.

"A place to stay? Like, by myself?" Steve asks, feeling entirely unequipped without really knowing why. He was a latchkey kid for most of his life. He's used to being home alone, but still. This is different. This is really being alone. "Where do I get the envelope?"

He blinks again, brows furrowed. "And what envelope is big enough for a mobile phone?"

"Yeah, but you can come around here if you need. Don't think Beverly'll mind much," he says and he figures she's too young for Steve to even contemplate trying to hit on. Even if she isn't, Hopper figures he's not stupid enough to do it anyway, knowing it wouldn't go over well.

"And, kid, you've got a world of culture shock comin' your way," he says as he fishes his slim cell phone out of his pocket and holds it out to Steve. "Calls, messages, games, a fuckin' step counter. You name it, that thing can do it. It'll all be at the train station most likely. I can take you there once you've had a chance to rest up a bit."

Edited 2019-08-09 16:18 (UTC)

"Thanks. I'll probably take you up on that," Steve murmurs, because he's too tired to act like he isn't scared. He lets out a deep sigh and rubs under his good eye, pausing when Hopper holds a slim object out in front of his face.

"Shut up, this isn't a phone," Steve says with a scoff, giving Hopper a skeptical look as he reaches out to take it. The screen lights up without having any buttons at all, and Steve's eyes widen. "Holy shit."

He fiddles with the phone for a bit, utterly fascinated, until the bright light of it makes his head pound even harder. Hissing, he holds the phone back out. "Has medicine come that far too, or is it still just good old Tylenol?"

"There's about thirty different varieties, but it's still mostly the same," he answers as he takes his phone back. "Get comfortable, I'll bring you some painkillers and more water. You can rest up a bit."

Hopper still has a lot of questions for Steve, things he wants to know about going on back home, but he can give the kid a break. Those questions can wait until the morning, when he's had some time to recover. Right now, Hopper won't be terribly surprised if he comes back with the painkillers and Steve is already asleep.

Hawkins has a way of screwing people over in the past few years. He can only hope Darrow doesn't prove to be just as good at it.

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this may as well happen (debut)

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