I come bearing a harringrove thought. What if one day when Steve is dropping Max of he sees Neil hit Billy and just loses it and attacks Neil with the bat, scaring the kids and revealing the upside down to Billy because nobody can hurt him how dare they.
I mean, we all know Steve is a Mom™ with the kids, he drives them all over the place, would totally make them lunches and shit during the summer, let’s them all hang out at his house at once so their actual parents can work or whatever. He’s protective, but the kids make him soft. We’ve all seen the way he smile at Dustin.
But I go fucking feral for the idea that when it comes to Billy, Steve becomes a monster of his own. Fighting the Upside Down brought out a little bit of the darkness, but he tries really really hard to push it down because he doesn’t want to scare his kids.
The Beemer isn’t huge, so he probably doesn’t have all the kids in it at once, maybe Max and Lucas and Mike and El (because of COURSE he chauffers them for their double date). And they can hear the yelling when they pull up, cuz it’s summer so Steve has all the windows down and Neil is LOUD. So Steve is out of the car before Max can stop him, and she can’t stop him from walking straight up to the house cuz he’s got those long gazelle legs and they just eat up ground when he’s moving fast. And he gets the door open just in time to see Neil hit Billy, who’s already cowering on the floor.
And Steve just.. sees red. It’s like all that darkness hiding inside him swells up and goes topside, swallows him whole. He’s a feral beast, because someone, some piece of shit has decided to put his hands on what belongs to Steve Harrington. And that just can’t stand.
So he goes back to his car, the kids are all calling his name but it sounds like it’s coming from far away, and that’s not important right now. What’s important is popping the trunk and getting out his bat. Not The Bat, though his hand does hover over it for a minute, because the small part of his brain that’s still man and not wild thing tells him no, no we can’t go that far. So he takes the aluminum one instead and goes back to the house, shrugging off the small hands that try to stop him. He goes inside and steps smoothly between the crying, shaking boy on the floor and the vile piece of garbage looming over him, plants his feet, and swings.
The sound the bat makes when it connects, and the howl of agony that follows, are both immensely satisfying. When Neil goes down, he crouches over him, watches him cower. And when he speaks, it’s Steve’s voice but it’s not really Steve. It’s the darkness, the beast, the wild animal that lives inside him and always stays quiet, but not for this. “Touch him again, and you won’t get up from the next hit.”
And then he just, picks Billy up and half carries him out of the house, like he didn’t just drop a grown man with a baseball bat. And once they’re out, it’s like the haze just lifts. The beast is satisfied, because Billy is safe. So the darkness can go back to sleep. Max and Lucas and Mike take a step back when he gets close, and the fear in their eyes makes Steve’s gut twist a little. But he can’t regret it, because nothing is more important than keeping Billy safe. And the kids will get over their fear, they’ll learn to accept that this side of him exists.
Because he sees that same need to protect Billy reflected back at him in El’s eyes as she takes a step toward them, to help Steve support Billy on the walk to the car. She might not be as violent, as feral as Steve in his need to keep Billy safe, but she’s just as fierce. She’ll deal with the kids.
Everything’s gonna be fine.
