steve harrington hadn't lived in hawkins his whole life, he had wanted to leave who he was and what he did behind him, long forgotten- everything was going fine until a few people of his past came knocking and steve was left to face the same devil t...
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·—★—·
Trigger warnings for this chapter - death, demogorgan, medication, guilt, internalized homophobia, homophobic slur, stalking, anger, broken property..
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Gator didn't get much sleep again that night, understandably.
All that ran in his dreams was that creature, the vines, Barbs death.
Even awake he couldn't get away from it as he downed his ptsd meds, anxiety meds and a pill for depression, today was going to be a shit day and it didn't take a miracle to see that.
Gator threw on a pastel looking striped shirt, a dark blue jacket and some grey jeans and some random pair of shoes before hoping in the red BMW and heading towards the school that he didn't want to go to today.
Or any day really.
But he didn't want to face Nancy,
Turning her down was one thing but having Barb's death flash in his mind every so often was a whole other thing.
What exactly was he meant to say to her?
'Oh hey, Nance. Remember when I turned you down because I felt like a fag? Well, turns out I sort of killed Barb too.. so surprise?'
No, definitely not.
Gator's issues just kept piling up and it was only the third day into the week, he was scared about where this was all heading for him.
Or anyone really.
And he was glad that he was able to stay in the Steve mindset all the way to lunch where he sat with Tommy, Carol and Nancy in the cafeteria as he ate away at a chocolate pudding that tasted better then he'd ever thought it was.
"Hey, Tommy. When you left, did you see Barb?" Nancy asks as Gator looks down guiltily before focusing on eating the pudding.
"I seriously have no idea who you're talking about" Tommy says back as he and Carol laughs while Gator glares at him.
"Don't be a Shitbird" Gator says to Tommy who nods apologetically causing Gator to raise an eyebrow before Tommy speaks again, "No, she was gone when we left" Tommy answered and Gator scoffed at the irony.
Yeah she was gone, but not the way they were thinking.
So Gator just didn't join in the conversation anymore and instead focused on eating before he walked off to smoke in piece,
leaving Nancy with whatever weird conversation Tommy and Carol were having.
·—★—·
Gator was sat on the hood of Jonathan's car, next to Tommy, Carol and Nicole- a ginger haired girl who sometimes hung around with them- as they waited for Jonathan.
"Hey, man" Gator says, hopping off the hood and walking towards Jonathan. "What's going on?" Jonathan asked confused because him and 'Steve' never talked before, rarely got on too.
"Nicole here was, uh, telling us about your work" Gator states as he stands directly in-front of Jonathan and the need to run his hand in Jonathan's hair was in his mind that he had to will away.
"We've heard great things", "yeah, sounds cool", Carol and Tommy added in to back up Gator's words.
"And we'd just love to take a look. You know, as.. connoisseurs of art" Gator says as a flashback of him and Witt Farr flashed in his mind from the evidence room back in North Dakota.
"I don't know what you're talking about" Jonathan says as he tries to head towards his car but Tommy's quick and grabs the bag off of Jonathan and chucks it right at Gator. "Please, give me my bag".
Something in Gator reacts to Jonathan's plead and he sighs quickly, "No, just.. Man, he is totally trembling. He must really have something to hide. Here we go" Gator says and rummages through Jonathan's bag, grabbing a bunch of photographs out of it and turning towards Jonathan again as he leant back on the guys car.
Gator looked through the photos and found that Jonathan had taken pictures of them from the 'party' last night and all the way up to Barb and him disappearing from the pool.
Gator cursed at himself for not noticing that Jonathan had been there,
Was he getting rusty from no longer being a deputy?
That had to be it..
"This isn't creepy at all" Carol states as she glared at Jonathan. "I was looking for my brother" Jonathan argued and Gator scoffed.
"No. This is called stalking" Gator said firmly as the wave of unease settled in him,
He didn't need people watching him because he had enough problems to deal with and the stress just kept building inside him.
"What's going on?" Nancy says as she walks up and joins them making Gator sigh. "Here's the starting lady" Tommy comments snarky and Gator rolls his eyes.
"This creep was spying on us last night. He was probably going to save this one for later" Carol says as she hands a photo over of Nancy in her bra before Gator left her last night.
"See, you can tell that he knows it was wrong, but.. Man, that's the thing about perverts.. It's hardwired into 'em. You know, they just can't help themselves" Gator starts as he slips back into his old self but still with the American accent as he wipes invisible dirt of Jonathan's jacket.
"So.. we'll just have to take away his toy" Gator says ripping up the photos and throwing them onto the floor before walking back over to Jonathan's bag and grabbing his camera out of it.
"Steve.." Nancy says pleading, but Gator isn't in that mindset, he's gone back to Gator and Gator hates being watched.
"No, please, not the camera" Jonathan pleads making Gators heart pull for some reason but he ignores it as Tommy stops Jonathan from grabbing it back.
"No, no, wait.. Tommy, Tommy.. It's okay. Here, Man" Gator says holding the camera out towards Jonathan but before he can grab it,
Gator drops it on the floor,
He looks at it for a second before slamming his foot down on it to make sure it's broken.
Gator then snaps back into the Steve headspace and sighs. "Come on, "let's go. The game's about to start" Gator says and starts heading back into the school followed by Carol, Nicole, Tommy and a reluctant Nancy.
