Hello! Thank you all so much for the lovely reception this story is getting!
So that's where it stands. Billy Hargrove, scum of the earth and STD-infected penis of Hawkins High School, is able to get away with attempted violence and physical harm of one little kid, possibly four (and, you know, Steve's actual physical harm) by saying that Steve Harrington is in a borderline-pedophiliac relationship with his thirteen-year-old stepsister.
A part of Steve—a hopeful part of him that he should have no business listening to—briefly wonders if the entire thing will just die down and blow over within the week. But oh, no, it doesn't. It grows, and it grows fast. And it's far, far worse than he expects.
By Wednesday, the whole high school knows the story in some form or another. By Friday, the entire goddamn school system has caught wind of Steve Harrington, the former king turned so desperate that he was now pursuing middle schoolers. Once the end of the week rolls around, even the elementary school kids are emboldened enough to begin heckling him in the streets, no doubt encouraged by older siblings or parents that have heard the rumors for themselves.
Reactions to the news range on a scale of Lucy to Stacy. Some think it's a huge riot, and treat the entire thing as if it's Christmas come early. It comes with a lot of jeering, especially from the high schoolers. Steve can't walk eight steps down the hall without someone making a stupid kissy face at him, as if they consider the entire thing to be a fun rumor through the grapevine.
Most of the reactions fall into the category of disgust or worse. While the taunts are annoying at best, infuriating at worst, Steve can't stand the looks of pure hatred that seem to fill every other persons' eyes when he walks by. It's enough to nearly make him stop going to school. Not that it would help, because the news spreads so fast that now each person in Hawkins has heard the news and has made their own opinions. Now, Steve isn't even able to go down his street without someone curling their lip or spitting in his direction.
On Thursday, it happens; he catches sight of Billy Hargrove for the first time since that night in the Byers house. Billy is leaning up against his locker, making small talk with two freshmen girls. He's grinning broadly as he lets the girls fawn over him, clearly reveling in the attention. Steve lowers his head and, resolved not to even look at the asshole, stalks past him. He makes sure that he's on the opposite side of the hallway as he does so, barging past everyone in his path.
One eye is trained on his forward motion and the other is on Billy, but one of the freshman catches onto his game. She frowns, her face darkening, and leans into Billy's ear as Steve starts to make his way past him. Billy raises his head and the two boys lock eyes for the briefest of moments.
There's a definite crookedness to his nose that makes Steve oddly satisfied that he at least got some damage in, even though it was far less than the black eye and pseudo-concussion from plate smashing. Billy Hargrove's eyes are cold, his smile not reaching past the lower half of his face. Yet he still wears that damn smile. With his cold eyes and huge grin, it comes off less as a student who hates his guts—it comes more across as a guy who knows he's won a battle that he understood he was never going to lose.
And then Steve moves forward, swept up in the crowd of oncoming traffic, but he can't forget the look of triumph that Billy Hargrove sears into his brain.
The whole school is against him now. Hell, the whole town is against him now. Whether people think it's humorous or despicable, they all seem to agree that Steve, with his busted face and inability to deny that he was with Max Mayfield on Friday night, is now a man on death row, and deservingly so.
His parents catch wind of the story on Thursday. Apparently, people have now resorted to mailing his family letters demanding that he run himself out of town for doing things that have already made his mother cry by the time he even gets home. Steve's grounded the same night. His mother's tears haven't ceased, and she's continuously dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief and sniffling. His father goes the more classic route: shouting, threatening, shaming. And Steve just takes it all, resigned to his fate. It doesn't stop him from defending himself, but he knows deep down that his efforts are falling on deaf ears.
"Dad, you don't actually believe that I'm in a relationship with a middle schooler, do you?" he asks, his voice flat, tired of asking the question.
"Then what were you doing at the Byers house with Maxine Mayfield, Steve? Hm?"
"I told you, I was babysitting."
His mother whimpers. "Babysitting…" she murmurs, as if she'd just heard her son utter a confession.
In the end, the hammer comes down. No car for two weeks, no outside contact for two weeks. He has to take himself off the basketball team effective immediately. He was basically under house arrest; he was to go to school and come home, that's it. And absolutely no talking to the Mayfield-Hargrove's.
"You're a disgrace to this family," his dad tells him, "You hear that, Steven? A fucking disgrace."
Later that evening, Steve sits on the end of his bed, decompressing from the three-hour scolding. But it's those last few sentences that are still ringing in his head like church chimes.
A disgrace.
Correction, a fucking disgrace.
His lights are off by eight-thirty that night. He has a headache from crying, and his college essays are in shreds at the foot of his bed.
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