steve harrington but it's that jeff winger moment from community. if u have seen community, u will know... my first stobin-centric piece <3 tw for parental neglect and a prior act of self-harm. this is absolutely on the steve harrington has bad parents train <3
“Steven, this is ridiculous.”
Robin freezes in place. Her hand hovers over the remote she's just placed back down, her limbs locking up one by one at the sound of the voice at the door.
It is not a familiar voice. She knows who it is all the same.
She fights not to move, knowing the couch springs, old and rusted, threaten to reveal her hiding place, even if it is her house. Robin is very much allowed to be here. Expected, even.
But Steve? Steve is not.
It’s why there’s one Christine Harrington on the dingy porch steps.
It’s an unwelcome surprise — even after all the fuss of the 4th of July, a thousand police sirens, endless NDAs, and too much blood on his uniform, Steve’s parents hadn’t shown.
Out of town, Steve had said, his bashed in face making it impossible to read his expression. His eyes were haunted and misty but Robin couldn’t tell if it was from the horror of the night or… a loneliness far older.
So Robin had done the fussing. Had dragged him home with her, shooed away her rightfully nosy parents, and mended him up on her bathroom counter.
Steve had been silent, a little wide-eyed as she worked on each cut, each bruise — but with her gentle touch, he had been helpless to do anything but melt beneath it.
He’d called her Robbie for the first time that night. They’d fallen asleep with their hands intertwined, her arm hanging off the bed to reach out to him on her bedroom floor.
Robin still hasn’t met Steve’s parents, even though it’s been more than a couple months since that night.
She’s been to his house countless times too. She knows where the spare key is, if she ever loses her own copy, that is. Knows which stair squeaks on the way up to the second floor and how the lock on the downstairs bathroom gets jammed too easily.
She’s eaten the best grilled cheese of her life in their kitchen, sitting on the counter.
She’s laughed so hard she’s cried on their couch, getting the throw pillows wet with her happy tears.
She’s still never met Steve’s parents. Til right now.
Christine Harrington has her arms wrapped tight around her frame and Robin has no doubt that on her face is a frown that could make babies cry.
She can’t see her face though. Can only just see a glimpse of her tense body from where she sits. Steve blocks part of her view, his own tense frame in the doorway.
He’d answered the door instead of Robin only because he had the foresight to glance at the front window after the first rap at the door. It was late. Robin’s parents certainly wouldn’t knock at their own home and neither of them were expecting visitors.
The expensive car in the drive, a sore thumb along Robin’s street, had given away the identity of just who was knocking so late in the evening. So, Steve had opened it.
“Mom—”
“I mean utterly ridiculous.” Steve gets cut off without second thought, Christine continuing on as if she hasn’t heard him at all.
“Did you expect us to spend all evening chasing you around? Figuring out where you were tonight from the Carlton’s across the road?”
She’s got this snippy tone that Robin’s heard a thousand times from teachers. Patronising. Too cold for it to seem like a genuinely concerned parent.
“The Carlton’s?” Steve echoes, a bit meek. His shoulders have rolled forward, sinking down a bit and Robin can see his tight grip on the door. Still, she stays frozen, rooted to the couch.
“Yes, Steven.” Christine says his full name again, all bite. “Imagine the shame your father and I felt hearing that. Hearing who you had been associating with.”
“Don’t say that.” Steve grits out immediately, anger bleeding into his tone.
The muscles in his back ripple as he forces his shoulders back, as if he had remembered how to stand up straight at the mention of his friend.
Robin aches; at the reminder of the stark differences of their upbringings and at Steve’s unquestionable loyalty. She finally unfreezes, sitting up a little straighter and leaning forward more— ready to spring up from her seat.
She’s not sure what for exactly. She sorta really wants to go slam the door on Steve’s mom’s face and go back to being bundled up on the couch with him. The urge is strong enough to make her fingers twitch.
“Why are you here, Mom?”
There’s a strain to Steve’s question, even though he doesn’t falter in appearance. Robin can’t see his face either though. She hopes it’s got the bitchiest expression Steve can muster.
“Don’t be smart, Steven.” Christine reprimands coldly. “I know that we may have taken a larger absence than intended but that’s not any excuse to parade yourself around with the strays of this town.”
Strays. Robin feels the word pelt into her and burn into her skin, sinking all the way down. It feels like cold water has tipped down the back of her neck. An unwelcome pit forms in her stomach.
She had known, of course, the reputation of a family like the Harrington's. She hadn’t quite known the extent they would go to protect it. Policing your child's friends over a matter of image is absurd.
Somehow, Robin can see how Steve grows even tenser at his mom’s words— hackles raising like that on a dog. His knuckles turn white. But before he speaks, Christine is barreling on like she hasn’t just slandered every one of Steve’s new friends.
“And to leave the house in such a state?”
Robin hears her sigh heavily, as though this really is the biggest problem in her life — which she can’t fathom in the slightest.
There was nothing wrong with Steve’s house. No mess beyond the usual evidence that someone, you know, lived there.
“Mom, I—” Steve starts again.
“Well, I’m sure you have your reasons. You always do.” She says it so pointedly, like Steve was known for peddling lies to weasel his way out of trouble.
It’s so un-Steve it makes Robin blink hard, wondering if she had heard right.
Steve was honest. He owned his mistakes and he took things on the chin. It was something she had liked most about him in the beginning.
Back when it was all snark and Robin told herself she was never going to be his friend, in this universe or anything other. That even then, reluctant co-worker and nothing more, Steve was honest and decent to her always.
“Now, come on now.” Christine Harrington huffs out her demand. “Your father is waiting in the car and there no use winding him up more than you already have.”
Robin’s stomach turns at her words. It had been a topic of discussion between them, one night weeks ago, lips loosened by the dark. I feel like a dog to them, Steve had admitted quietly, his breath against her pillow and his warmth under her sheets. Like they just leave alone most of the time but expect me to perk up and come running the moment they call. I hate it.
“I’m not coming with you.”
The words stammer on their way out like he had forced them out— and Robin wants to sing she’s so proud of her best friend.
“Excuse me?”
“I’m not coming with you.” Steve repeats himself, the words a little firmer this time. “I’m… I’m spending the night here, with my friend Robin.”
He trails off, the words weaker, losing steam. Robin rises to her feet, the tell-tale squeak of the couch springs letting Steve know she was still here. Still right behind him.
It makes him stand a little straighter.
“I— I’ll come home in the morning.”
Christine Harrington makes a little scoffing noise, a high pitched faux laugh as if Steve’s said something amusing.
“Tell me when did I raise such an ungrateful brat?” She muses meanly and Robin doesn’t miss the way Steve flinches lightly. “We give you free rein of the house, apt time by yourself, and yet when we request you to spend a single evening with us—”
“You’re not asking, you’re demanding.” Steve cuts in, his voice more heated now.
“Oh hush, Steven. You act as if we’re so awful.”
It’s all dismissal. Everything, every word, a dismissal.
“I just can’t win with you, can I?” Christine sighs again, disappointment dripping from the sound. “Either we’re not here enough or we’re here but you can’t find time to have dinner with your family. Which is it, Steven?”
In the doorway, Steve begins to bristle. Robin really, really wants to slam the door now — if only to stop this conversation that seems to keep cutting deeper and deeper into her best friend.
She steps closer to him, moving as silently as she can, and makes sure to stay out of sight as she places a hand gently on the small of his back.
He’s shaking, she realises.
Her heart twists painfully in her chest.
Then, deathly calm, Steve says, “Did you know in 7th grade, I lied and I told everyone in my class that I got appendicitis?”
Robin blinks at the change in subject, the strangeness of Steve’s comment. She does remember that, vaguely. A boy in the year above— it had been a wildfire rumour that had turned out to be true.
Or so she thought. Staring hard at the planes of Steve’s back, the pit in her stomach yawns with an anticipation of devastation. Her hand on his back curls up a bit.
“You and Dad were gone for the whole month to Washington. It was the first time you had ever gone for that long and you didn’t even tell me until the day before you left.”
“Steven—”
“I just wanted someone to worry about me.” He steamrolls on, tone too casual for the story he was telling. “And it worked."
A beat.
"But then Cassie Lange asked about the scar.”
Robin’s hand on Steve's back twists up tighter. She feels like she knows what’s coming— but wishes it to be not true.
She doesn’t want to think of Steve, little twelve year old Steve, doing all that he can for a scrap of attention he was supposed to be getting from his parents.
“And rather than admit I’d lied…” The words come out too tight. “I went and found your sewing scissors and I made one.”
There’s this icy bite to Steve’s voice, his shoulders tensed back up. Christine still hasn’t said anything.
“I hurt like a bitch but it was worth it. I got a card from every single person in my class.”
“You wanna see the scar?” He asks— then he’s moving, his hand rucking up his sweater and shirt and exposing the skin of his stomach. Christine makes a noise like a muffled gasp. Robin feels a bit sick. Steve drops his shirt.
“And I kept all of those cards I got —all 17 of them stashed them under my bed in a box that I still have til this day.” He exhales through his nose. “Because it was proof that, at some point, somebody actually gave a shit about me. Because you didn’t. You didn’t then and you don’t get to now.”
His words hang in the air. There’s a long stretch of silence where Steve stares down the woman on the porch— someone closer to a stranger than a friend.
“So, I will see you at home, tomorrow.”
And then he slams the door to Robin’s house shut with a finality that shakes the air. Robin tenses up at the loud noise. Steve doesn't move, just stays staring at the closed door.
Behind them both, one of the noisy pipes in the house makes a loud noise. It sounds worse than usual as it breaks the silence.
Outside, Robin hears the click of heels on the pavement as they quieten, moving further away.
The pit in her stomach tightens immeasurably, a faint bile taste in her mouth. She finally remembers to smooth out her hand, pressing it flat against Steven’s back— another reminder that she was there.
If he wanted to talk or he didn’t, she was there.
Suddenly Steve sighs, an exhale so large that he shrinks down a couple inches, his shoulders dropping. It sounds exhausted.
He finally turns away from the door, to Robin, and she can only hope her face conveys every ounce of love, of support, she feels within her chest.
“Steve…” She breathes softly.
He wasn’t crying but just the sound of his name, spoken so delicately, seems to inspire tears. Robin catches the tremble of his lip and moves without thought— throwing both her arms around his neck and wrestling him into a hug.
Steve goes easy, his arms snaking around her middle and holding her back so tightly it nearly makes her squeak. She doesn’t though— just lets him bury his face in her neck, taking these big shuddering breaths, these half-formed sobs that break her heart clean in half.
She doesn’t know how long they stand there. Car engines drone as they pass by the street. The streetlights seem to get brighter. Steve presses himself so close to her, as close as he can, and Robin hugs back just as tight. She gives him all the time he needs.
She wonders if there’s an indent of him on her when he finally pulls back — a Steve Harrington shaped outline imprinted on her soul. It feels like there is.
If she could trace it, she thinks, it would be whatever shape love takes.
“Thanks Robbie.” He croaks out. He’s started scrubbing furiously at his face and she can see the wet sheen of tears as he wipes them away.
Robin doesn’t move far, just unwinds her arms a bit and lets them fall back to her sides. There’s an ache between her brows from how long she’s been frowning in concern. Steve looks more disheveled than usual, his usually perfect hair looking flatter — but he looks lighter too, somehow.
“No need to thank me, dingus.” She says, voice soft. She faux punches his chest and then regrets it when his lips don’t even twitch upward. It’s weird to see Steve all undone.
Robin thinks back to that conversation and the callousness of Steve’s mom. Her uncaring tone, the use of his full name like an insult.
She thinks of what Steve had said.
“I’m sorry you felt—” The words get stuck in her throat which grows thicker as she thinks about it. About a self-made scar on Steve’s abdomen, made by a twelve year old boy who just wanted someone to worry.
“—That you felt like you had to do something like that to yourself. I’m sorry no one noticed what you really needed.”
Steve nods slowly, his eyes glazed with a far away look as he stares somewhere over Robin’s shoulder. He gives this little shrug, a little huff through his nose.
“It’s okay.” He says, voice a bit distant. “I mean, it’s not but… even if I hadn’t meant to tell you, I’m glad someone knows now.”
It takes another second before he finally seems to shake himself from his thoughts, turning to properly look at Robin. His eyes are red-rimmed and the tip of his nose is pink. Tell tale signs of tears.
“I’ve never told anyone that before.”
Robin swallows thickly and it takes effort to choke down the urge to cry.
“Well,” She starts. It comes out too high pitched and tight and she clears her throat. “Thank you for telling me.
Some kind of smile plays on Steve’s lips, as if he can tell that she’s fighting off her sniffling and it’s sorta funny to him. It is, a little.
Because instead of being embarrassed or feeling pitied, he feels… delightfully surprised to have her care so much. To be so upset on his behalf.
“Oh, c’mon Robbie,” He gives her that same faux-punch in the shoulder she did earlier and it actually succeeds in making her lips pull up at the edges. “None of that.”
“You’re such a dingus.” Robin says. It comes out a bit wobbly still. Sue her— she doesn’t have Steve’s insane ability to bounce from one emotion to another in a single second.
Steve grins. He wanders back to the couch and flops down onto it. Robin follows and when she sits down, it’s a fraction closer to him this time. He gives one last scrub of his face, wiping the last of his tears away.
She nudges him with her thigh. She has to check just one more time.
“You alright?”
Steve smiles, crooked in that way that lets her know it’s completely sincere. He reaches forward and presses unmute on the remote, the film they’re watching starting up again with a buzz.
Steve presses his thigh back against Robin’s and in the dim lighting of her living room, his eyes glitter with an emotion that threatens to make her want to cry once more.
“Course.” He says. “I got someone checking up on me now,”
Another pointed nudge of his thigh against hers. “I’m better than ever.”
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I did all three backstories for Touchstarved (I have 12 hours on this thing and it's only the demo)
Kuras and Vere don't seem to have red options, but Vere does have a secret ending and Kuras... I don't know, holds you for a bit longer?
For Mhin, it really is just picking The Alchemist backstory. You can call them short or whatever and you'll still get it.
For Leander, you have to take the flowers and keep touching him. It's okay if you hold back the first time even.
For Ais, you gotta tell him fuck you and pet the soulless, and after that red option pretty much all yours.
Differences I found between the three backstories:
It is pretty much like how they tell you, Oracle gets premonitions, Hound has experience with people and survival, and Alchemist has knowledge about magic and science, so there's different things you find out with each one.
The Alchemist:
I may be a little bit biased, but think The Alchemist is the most informative (It's also the first one I picked). There's the expected info of noticing that Vere's collar is enchanted, or knowing about how strong Leander really is when it comes to magic, but it's got the added bonus of MC's mentor having been in the Senobium in the past.
Compared to the others, The Alchemist is more familiar with Senobium, albeit through word of mouth. It's interesting how many times the MC says something similar to "I didn't know the Senobium did that." It calls into question whether MC's teacher was lying, or more interestingly (and what I think might be the case), the Senobium has changed a lot recently. It's talked about, even without the Alchemist backstory, that the Senobium used to be somewhere you could go to for help, but now most of the characters you meet do not like the Senobium, so what changed?
The Hound:
The Hound (the least popular option, apparently) was pretty fun. The Hound notices more about Ais, specifically that he's very suited to be a leader, and that the number of scars he has (one) seems suspicious for his temperament (or "how seasoned he acts", as the MC puts it).
One thing that I found very fun was doing Mhin's route as the Hound. They're somewhat able to keep up! They can (or tried to) recognize tells, and noted that Mhin was one of the few people who was able to sneak up on them. They also weren't sure how Vere managed to get their key. They were also prepared to steal to survive.
The Oracle:
While The Hound notices physical things, the Oracle notices... how do you say, otherworldly things. The Seaspring seems to be hiding a lot (of course it is), but the MC notices a heartbeat. A presence. They feel something from Ais. The name Ocudeus means something, they can feel it. They feel like they can see Ais' tattoo move.
Also, the MC feels something from Mhin and Kuras (in his clinic at least), which is interesting!
If I had to decide which love interest was better with which backstory...
Vere: The fact that the Alchemist thought that they could tell what enchantments were on his collar if only they could touch it feels promising! And both their connections (though I mean connection in the loosest term for MC here) to the Senobium makes it feel like you might very well find something.
The Hound might be one of the few who can actually survive this guy if I'm gonna be honest. (I mean you can still get killed by him but. You know.)
Ais: The Oracle's sixth sense makes going to the Seaspring a lot more interesting compared to the others, and the way they can feel something from Ais is very cool.
The Hound can tell his character better than the others, and I wonder how that will come into play later on.
Kuras: The Alchemist knows their way around spell-crafting and alchemy (When I picked this I wondered if they would be able to help Kuras around the clinic, which doesn't happen, but hey it might).
The Oracle seems to also feel something from him.
Mhin: First things first, their red option literally requires you to have the Alchemist backstory. Mhin's precision is noticed by the other MCs sure, but not to that detail.
Watching the Hound observe where they could be was so fun to watch. It feels like this MC will be able to keep up.
The Oracle feels something from Mhin, something inhuman.
Leander: The Alchemist was able to tell that the flash of magic was a barrier spell, and that most magic (or at least the ones they're familiar with) uses an incantation or spell circle. His didn't.
But either way, there will be things to find no matter the backstory you choose, and all of the character's stories are intertwined, so don't let this dissuade you from a specific backstory! There will always be things to find, you just need to look.
Extra: I found it pretty cool how each MC has a different way of knowing what a Groupmind is. Story-wise this makes sense of course, but each of their reactions to it are slightly different, from I heard this from rumours of people in cults (Hound), to I used to be told I could put people in a groupmind (Oracle), to legends suggest it was possible with a strong enough catalyst but it's never been done before (Alchemist).
Also, it's interesting to know what they each think of surroundings (specifically the Amaryllis district). They all have different opinions from I used to be told bizarre things about this place and now I kinda get it (Alchemist), to it's not that different from the place I grew up in (Hound), to it's VERY different from where I grew up in (Oracle).
And if I'm not mistaken, the reason Vere gives for your desperation is different for all of them!
You can find gameplay from me on my Youtube channel, or watch me getting all the red options and secret ending here:
I didn't read it out loud cause my mic sorta sucks and sometimes it peaks and gets a bit shrill. Also you see how my mouse moves sometimes? It means I'm screaming. I don't think I'd have been able to keep calm enough for this. Also my reading kinda sucks anyway hope you like it lol
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