𝐖𝐇𝐎: @harringtoninc & tommy 𝐖𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄: melvald's general store 𝐖𝐇𝐀𝐓: is this called... progression? growth?
he doesn’t mean to end up at melvald’s.
he tells himself he just needs coffee. the shitty kind, pre-ground in a red tub, the kind his dad used to drink and tommy used to mock until he got older and realised it was the only thing that ever cut through a hangover. he doesn’t even need it. not right now. he’s just restless. agitated in that twitchy, skin-too-tight way that comes around sometimes and won’t leave without being walked out.
so he drives. no plan. no radio. just the sound of his own engine and the vague idea that doing something normal might keep the ghosts at bay.
he parks outside the store. sits there for a minute with the keys still in the ignition. the parking lot’s nearly empty. fluorescent light bleeds out across the concrete like a bad omen.
he tells himself it’ll be quick. just the coffee. in and out.
but when the bell above the door chimes and he steps inside, the first thing he hears is a drawer slamming shut and the rustle of paper. then a voice - low, distracted, familiar.
steve.
tommy freezes.
he doesn’t see him right away. just hears the sound of receipts being counted, maybe end-of-day paperwork. nothing remarkable. but his body reacts before his brain does - blood thudding in his ears, hands starting to sweat. he doesn’t know why it’s hitting him this hard. maybe because he didn’t brace for it. maybe because he still remembers what steve looked like the night they stopped being friends. or maybe because he doesn’t remember the last time they looked at each other and it didn’t end in something mean - from tommy’s end at least.
tommy stares. too long. he shouldn’t. he knows he shouldn’t.
because it’s him, and it’s now, and everything between them feels like a loaded gun left on the table. months and months and months of silence, of biting words and worse absences. but also: bikes leaned against trees. summer afternoons by the pool. being sixteen and thinking the world only went as far as the next weekend and the people who made you feel invincible.
he wonders if steve still remembers any of that. if he lets himself. or if he’s rewritten it all by now - sanded it down into something easier, something where tommy was always the villain. maybe that’s safer. maybe it’s what tommy would’ve done too, if the roles were reversed.
he wants to believe steve knows he went to rehab, but deep down, he doesn’t think anyone told him. why would they? his parents wouldn’t. not out of pride or concern, but embarrassment. image to maintain. no one needs to know that poor boy fell apart.
if he does know, tommy’s sure he thinks it’s pathetic. predictable. of course hagan ended up in rehab. of course he burned his life down and now he’s hanging around hawkins like a ghost trying to prove he’s changed.
tommy has to force himself to look away, tap his fingers against his thighs, resist the sicky feeling that spreads throughout his body. ground himself - remind himself that it’s just steve. his best friend. he takes a deep breath, reaching for another thing off the shelf without even thinking, and bounds up to the counter.
“hey.”
it’s soft. careful. tommy swallows. his voice is caught somewhere between old muscle memory and something gentler, smaller. something he's spent the last few years trying to grow into. “didn’t mean to interrupt. i was just-” he gestures vaguely at the shelf behind him but doesn’t finish the sentence, instead he places his coffee and a pack of grape Bubble Yum onto the counter.
it’s stupid. he doesn’t even like gum, not really, not anymore. but his hand just grabbed it without thinking, like muscle memory from middle school afternoons when they’d sneak pieces under the bleachers or shove five pieces in their mouths at once just to see who could blow the biggest bubble. it’s bright purple and dumb and childish, but it’s something from before. before the drinking. before the fights. before he forgot what it felt like to laugh without something ugly sitting behind his teeth.