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pluto and its sun | steve harrington part one: the perpetual orbit

pairing: steve harrington x reader word count: 15.6k warnings: cursing and using alcohol as a coping mechanism includes: heavy angst, self sabotaging!reader, yearner!steve, yearner!reader, eventual second chance romance, friends to lovers to exes to lovers, the world's most depressing wedding, maxsteve sibling moment for those who care. summary: all you've ever known how to do is orbit steve harrington. all he's ever known is to love you. eventually hundreds of miles separate the two of you and yet your orbit never faulters. but a wedding and a flask filled with whiskey just might be the two things that implode your sun. loosely based off of the song 'parachute' by hayley williams a/n: okay this was originally supposed to be one big one shot... but i decided to split it into two. this is depressing so sorry in advance. also shoutout to my wonderful lid!! @tinfoileddd for helping me with the title and letting me brainstorm ideas with her <3 i hope you all enjoy!

masterlist

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

There was a time in your life where the center of your universe was a five foot eleven hazel eyed boy from Hawkins. In the beginning you two were just kids who grew up in the same circles. Which meant you had mutual friends, were in the same homecoming group, and even sat at the same lunch table sometimes, but all of that meant nothing when Steve Harrington was the Sun and you were Pluto.

You were there, he knew you existed, but there were so many other planets that revolved around him. Ones that he gladly gave attention to, and because all you’ve ever known how to do was orbit Steve, you continue to sit at the lunch table and give him a pencil during Algebra only wishing you could be more like Mercury, wishing to be so close to him that it burned.

And you had become accustomed to that for so long that you had convinced yourself that this was all you were ever going to get from Steve. Fingertips that brushed as you passed him a pencil. The smell of his cologne as you stood next to him in front of Lisa Keller’s house for homecoming pictures with his hands on Mercury’s waist. His laughter at the lunch table, that brief moment of eye contact when he catches you laughing too, and the smile he shoots your way that makes your heart do a traitorous thing.

You think how lucky Mercury must be to have him like that all the time and you wonder if maybe one day once you’re out of Hawkins and no longer confined by his gravitational pull, that you’ll find a new star to orbit. One that would love you even if you are Pluto.

That all changes though on a chilly November night in 1983 when Will Byers goes missing and you find out that Hawkins is not what it seems and that your orbit is not as far away from the sun as you thought.

As the months and years pass and with each new battle Hawkins seems to find itself in Steve and you only grow closer. So close in fact that you don’t know where he ends and you begin and it becomes obvious that you’ve lost your original orbit. The thing about your orbit was that it kept you steady, kept you from becoming all consumed, but god if you didn’t love the feeling of hurling through space.

For the longest time you’d imagined what it would be like– to be Steve’s. In December of 1985 during a closing shift at Family Video he let’s you know he also wonders what it would be like to be yours.

It’s a Tuesday night, an hour before closing, and the bell that hangs above the entrance hasn’t chimed in the last two hours. There’s still a substantial amount of snow blanketing the ground and roads from the storm that rolled through Sunday and that only added to your usual lack of business after the sun set in the winter time. If it was up to you this place would close at eight, but you weren’t the boss, and admittingly you did like having the alone time with Steve. Even if you were sorting through old tapes and reshelving the horror section per Keith’s request.

“Maybe horror for our movie night this week?” you suggest, holding up a copy of Amityville.

Fifteen year old you would have died knowing that only three years later you’d be having weekly movie nights with Steve. That the King Steve, whose fall from grace was anything but graceful, was your person. Granted King Steve had been long gone for some time now and sometimes it’s hard to believe that the boy who stands in front of you with a green Family Video vest and a crooked name tag adorned on the front of it is the same untouchable boy from those years ago.

Steve looks up from the stack he’d been kind of going through on the cart and flashes you that smile that still makes you feel like you're that fifteen year old girl. “If you want to cuddle with me you don’t have to use the excuse of some lame horror movie to do it.”

That teasing, flirting, the sly smirk on his face, it’s times like now where you realize his old habits do die hard and that there are parts of King Steve that still live in him, but it’s the good parts. The parts that make you giddy and the butterflies in your stomach to kick with such force you feel your stomach flip. The boy that stands in front of you is the same person as the older version you knew of him, but just more himself in the best way possible. And everyday you thank your lucky stars that you’re able to have Steve in your life like this.

“Right so when I have to turn on the lamp again because you thought you saw something in the corner of the room I’ll be sure to hold you extra tight,” you tease, slotting the movie into its correct place onto the shelf.

“It was one time!”

Your soft laughter eventually dies down until all that fills the void is the buzz from the overhead lights and the ticking of the clock on the wall. The two of you work in silence, wanting to actually get this done before you have to leave, not wanting to hear Keith complaining about you two being lazy while he’s got cheese ball dust caked under his fingernails.

The clock ticks louder on the wall, like a constant reminder that your time with Steve for the day is running out, and you think that you’ll never get enough of Steve. That he could crawl under your skin and live there and you’d still want more of him. Especially when you can feel his eyes flickering over at you every so often, lingering long enough for you to feel it, but not long enough for you to catch him in the act. It’s embarrassing to say that it’s making you blush slightly, but you quite literally used to look forward to Steve asking you for a pencil during class just so you could feel the slight brush of his fingers against yours and then savored that feeling until the next time. So, blushing over him playing eye tag with you was not the most embarrassing thing you’ve done when it came to Steve.

About ten minutes before close Steve mumbles something about being right back. When the bell above the entrance rings you know exactly what he’s doing and a few seconds later you hear your car start out front. You focus on transferring the last few tapes from the cart and back onto the shelves, trying to ignore how the blush on your cheeks has now spread throughout your body.

The bell rings again and you can feel the cold air rush in just as fast as him, like he doesn’t want you to know what he’s done, doesn’t want to make a big deal out of it. Steve just does things like that so effortlessly– without a second thought. You notice very early on in whatever you want to call your relationship with him that he only does stuff like that for you. Even in school when you hyperfocused on every little thing he did with Mercury he was never as attentive with her as he is with you and it makes your head spin.

Eventually the clock strikes eleven and the neon light in the window fades to black as Steve locks the doors behind you. The cold winter air bites at the apples of your cheeks and the snow crunches beneath your feet as you walk at what could be considered a snail’s pace to your car, with Steve alongside you of course. He was adamant about walking you to your car when you two closed together, even though you two literally parked not even ten feet away from the store. You clearly didn’t mind it, greedily taking advantage of every second you could get with him.

“You know you don’t have to do this for me,” you say softly as the two of you linger by your car.

“Do what?” Steve questions with that sly smirk on his face that you love more than you should.

“Oh right sorry– I keep forgetting that my car magically starts on its own.”

“That’s a real fancy car you got. Don’t know how you can afford it on $3.25 an hour.”

You roll your eyes at him, but there’s no real malice behind it, if anything it’s fondness. “Thank you Steve– for real.”

He shrugs his shoulders, his hands stuffed in the pockets of his coat. “It’s no big deal, but you’re welcome.”

On any other night this would be the moment that you would tell him that you’d see him tomorrow, get in your car, and drive home. Your hand is already on the door handle, the cold metal doing nothing to help your already freezing fingers, but something in you is telling you to stay for another minute. To turn around and stay out in the cold for just a little bit longer. Maybe it’s a sign from above protecting you from a horrible car wreck or maybe it’s the feeling of Steve’s eyes burning into the back of your head, like he’s trying to tell you to stay without really saying it, but either way you turn on your heel, the snow crunching underneath your sneakers, and come face to face with Steve.

Wind whips through the barren parking lot making the cold settle deeper into your bones and you can see that it's already turned the tip of Steve’s nose and the tops of his cheeks red. He lets out a long exhale once the two of you make eye contact, like he’d been waiting for you to turn around, hoping that you wouldn’t get in your car and leave him standing here.

Steve can’t believe he’s about ready to ask you this in the middle of the Family Video parking lot, but you've turned around and willed his thoughts to come true, so now he has to follow through with it. He’s chickened out one too many times before and god help him if this was where he was supposed to finally work up the courage to ask you, then so be it.

He’s rehearsed this a million times, thought about it at night until his alarm clock read an obscenely late time, and now that the time has come everything he’s wanted to say goes right out the window and is reduced to six words.

“Have you ever thought about us?”

His question hits you like a tidal wave and the sound of your heartbeat in your ears makes you feel like you’re caught in that wave, constantly being held under by the rip current, your chest burning from having to hold your breath. The feeling sits there for an uncomfortable amount of time and it’s not until you see Steve start to turn in on himself, embarrassment written all over his face at your lack of reply, that your head finally breaks through to the surface gasping for air.

“Have you?”

You’re turning the question back on him, but you can’t help it. Even though you know Steve isn’t the same golden boy you shamelessly fawned over for years, the boy who you never thought would give you the time of day, there is still that part of you that fears this is all too good to be true. That there’s no way Steve could ever feel the same way you do about him. So, instead of making a fool of yourself when it turns out his words didn’t hold the same meaning you thought they did– you force him to answer first.

“Yes,” he answers simply and then with an airy laugh continues. “All the time actually. Can’t get you out of my head.”

You find yourself leaning against your car, not trusting yourself to be able to stand on your own. At fifteen you had convinced yourself that you were fine with admiring Steve from a distance, that as long as you could have those small interactions with him you were content. At sixteen you convinced yourself that you were fine with just being best friends with Steve, that as long as you could have him close you didn’t need to actually have him to be happy. Now at seventeen you’re trying to convince yourself that Steve Harrington does in fact feel the same way you do about him and when you continue your questionnaire everything you thought you knew blows up in your face.

“How long?” you ask quietly, like you two are in a crowded room and not in the middle of an empty parking lot. “How long Steve?”

“Are you asking how long you’ve been consuming my mind? Or are you asking how long I’ve thought about what it would be like to be yours?”

He asks it so casually, like this confession isn’t changing things forever between the two of you.

“Both.”

He inches closer to you, close enough that he can reach out and take his warm hand in your freezing one. The feeling of his hand in yours, the way his big hazel eyes seemingly stare straight into your soul– it makes your head spin.

“I’ve always noticed you Y/N. I’ve always thought you were so pretty and funny in a way not many people appreciated. That day your freshman year when Heather invited you to sit at our lunch table was a day I’ll never forget. And everyday since then when I would I catch your eye or heard your laugh it put such a funny feeling in my chest.”

Steve shakes his head, pausing for a moment as laughs to himself slightly, like he can’t believe that he’s admitting all of this right now.

You sure as hell can’t believe he’s admitting it either.

He takes a deep breath, squeezes your hands in his again and then continues.

“I mean fuck did you really think I didn’t have a pencil on me almost every single Algebra class for that year? I was just using it as an excuse to have any little bit of interaction with you, but I never specifically seeked you out because I didn’t think you were interested in me. Didn’t think you’d like the kind of guy I was back then. But then all the shit with the Upside Down happened and we got thrown into the mess together and now I can’t imagine my life without you in it. If I thought my thoughts about you before were all consuming then I don’t even want to know what they’d be considered now.”

Steve realizes he’s rambling and reels himself back in with a sheepish smile.

“I just– what I’m trying to say is that I’m an idiot who’s had feelings for you for way too long and I’m finally admitting it because I can’t stand to just have you as a best friend when I want you as something much more than that.”

It’s not just the cold air that you’re breathing in that is making your lungs burn– it’s you realizing that you never needed to be more like Mercury. The Sun saw you even when you felt like you were the furthest you could be from him.

“I was going through an astronomical amount of pencils that year, but I’d say it was worth it,” you reply with a big grin stretching across your face.

Steve mirrors your expression, the weight on his chest lifting when he sees you smiling. “Yeah?”

“The amount of times I went into Melvalds for pencils was a little concerning. At one point Joyce asked me why I was going through so many and I lied and told her I was writing a novel.”

The laughter that ripples through Steve’s chest is like music to your ears and a little part of you still wants to pinch yourself to see if this is real.

“Is that so?” Steve questions.

“I couldn’t let her know that I was buying them out of pencils because the boy I had a massive crush on would ask for one like every day and I never wanted to not have an extra on me.”

Steve’s heart swells and he wants to punch himself for waiting so long to do this.

“Well how could I ever repay you for all those pencils?” his tone is slightly teasing as his hands rest on your hips, gently caging you against your car.

“Hmmm. I think I might have an idea.”

You kiss Steve Harrington for the first time in the middle of the Family Video parking lot. There’s snow on the ground and your fingertips are freezing, but the fire that ignites in you when you feel his lips on yours has you feeling like it's the middle of July.

And you realize that this is what it finally feels like to be close to the Sun.

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

Being with Steve is everything you could have imagined and more. He’s attentive and caring and honestly everything you could have ever asked for in a boyfriend. He makes life easier and when shit hits the fan again in Hawkins he’s right there beside you the whole time.

And you don’t know if it’s because you two are faced with what is the most challenging fight you’ve had yet or the fact that Steve suffered his worst injury and you’re both a little scared that maybe you won’t make it out of this one alive. But the topic of your future together gets brought up and when Steve mentions something about having a brood of children the idea doesn’t scare you. Alright, maybe his idea of six is a little extreme, but you could see yourself in the future having little versions of him and you running around. You in a white dress with a shiny ring on your finger, the people you love most bearing witness to such a sacred ceremony of true love.

In a stolen RV on the way to what might be your inevitable death you come to the conclusion that doing those things with Steve– getting married and having kids. It is something you would want with him.

But then Hawkins gets put in lockdown and well your future is stuck in limbo. College is put on hold for the foreseeable future and you think that maybe it was a blessing in disguise because even though you had been accepted into Indiana University and had plans of getting into their school of medicine– those plans were never really yours. It’s always what your parents had wanted for you and you’d never been one to really know what you wanted in life, so you went along with it, wanting to make them happy. But as the years in high school passed and the idea of what you were getting yourself into became more of a reality, well you felt like a rat in a cage. The lockdown helped ease the panic for a little bit, but the thing about a caged rat is that it never stops feeling caged and the walls built around Hawkins weren’t big enough for what you realized you wanted for yourself.

The crawls, smuggling in contraband, relaying secret messages through the radio station that Steve and you seemed to live at– this wasn’t how you imagined your early adulthood to look like. Sure you loved playing apocalyptic house with Steve and in the grand scheme of things you two had only grown closer over those eight months, to the point where once all of this was over he’d thought about just renting that RV he talked about and getting a head start on your future together.

But when it’s all said and done and Vecna and the Upside Down are gone and real life quickly funnels its way back in you realize that Steve and you are in two very different stages of life.

It starts as pillow talk and before you know it there’s tears streaming down your face and a horrible feeling in your gut that maybe what you thought would be forever with Steve would only turn out to be a chapter. When you tell him that in six months you’re planning on going to NYU instead of IU you should have known he wouldn’t take it very well, in fact you knew he wouldn’t take it well, and you’d prepared yourself for it. You just hadn’t prepared yourself for the inevitable realization that your orbit around the sun might have swung too far out and there’s nothing there to pull you back in.

All you’ve ever known is Hawkins and for the longest time all you’ve ever known is Steve. He’s your safe space, the person you love and trust the most. You two have been through hell and back multiple times and you think maybe that’s why this hurts more than it would if it was some other boy you met in high school. Because you two have a bond that goes deeper than anyone could imagine.

At the end of the day it’s put in front of you very clearly.

You want to find out who you are outside of Hawkins, want to make a life for yourself that isn’t your parents dream, and you still love Steve.

Steve hates the idea of leaving Hawkins permanently because it’s all he’s ever known, he’s more than content with living the life he’s imagined for himself (and you) in the fixer upper on the corner of Sycamore and Vine that he’s been eyeing since December, and he still loves you.

And because Steve loves you he’s never going to hold you back from doing what you want to do. So, you two try to make long distance work. It’s hard, even with your parents funding your flights home the distance takes its toll, and when you come home for Christmas break you two break up.

You saw it coming, knew it was inevitable, and honestly it wasn’t just the miles between you that contributed to the breakup, it was feeling like you two were on different paths, and maybe some other things you weren’t ready to address yet internally. It hurt more than you could ever describe because even if you two didn’t want the same things– you still loved him.

You’ll never not love Steve Harrington.

And even when Pluto is casted out as a dwarf planet and no longer considered a major planet– she still orbits the sun anyways.

That following spring you don’t come home for the kid’s graduation and when your Mom calls you that following morning to check in like she always does on Sundays she of course lets it slip that she ran into Steve at graduation. She claimed he was doing well and that he even got a job at the school. You tell her that’s great through gritted teeth and a searing pain through the still fresh wound on your heart. She asks when you’ll be home, you say you don’t know and that’s the whole conversation. You put the phone back on the receiver and wish that the universe in your heart would be swallowed by a black hole.

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

On August 3rd, 1993 Steve walks to his mailbox like he does every morning and retrieves his mail. He mindlessly sorts through it– junk mail, his outrageous electric bill, his neighbors water bill, coupons for Bradley’s, and then his eyes land on a crisp white envelope. He nearly does a double take, confused as to who is sending him something so official and fancy.

Mr. Steven Harrington 465 Park Street Hawkins, IN 46952

There’s no return address, but something in him already knows who this is from, and part of him has the nerve to not even open it and just throw it in the trash. He doesn’t though, he slowly walks back up his driveway, back into his house, and it’s not until he’s safely sat at the kitchen table that he opens the envelope.

PLEASE JOIN US IN CELEBRATING THE WEDDING OF CHRISTOPHER CARTER & Y/N Y/L/N

Saturday October 17th, 1993 At 3 o’clock Laurel Hill 5395 Emerson Way Indianapolis, IN 46226

There’s a ringing in Steve’s ears that resembles all the times he’d taken a particularly hard blow to the head during his years of trying to save Hawkins, but he thinks another beating from Billy Hargrove would hurt less than how he feels right now. The news shouldn’t come as a surprise to him, he’d heard from Robin a couple years ago that you were seeing someone and then that you were engaged and well that was a rough pill to swallow. And of course in true Robin fashion she always gave out more information than Steve would have cared to know.

This guy– he’s everything your parents would have wanted for you and more. Comes from money, majored in political science at Columbia, also from Indiana which explains the wedding being back home, and to top it all off Robin claimed he was really nice. Which made Steve feel even worse because Robin just didn’t go around saying that about every person she met.

The fact that everyone else in your ragtag group of friends had met and apparently approved of this Chris didn’t help the ache in Steve’s chest either. Robin, Nancy, Jonathan, and you all being a couple hours from each other kept you all close, while Steve felt like the outcast of the group back in Hawkins. And yes he knows life happens, people move on and grow up, but the fact that all four of you still kept in touch and the only one he talked to was Robin hurt more than he’d like to admit.

In fact Steve hasn’t talked to you in five years.

Five years of failed relationships, meaningless hookups, and looking for you in every girl he sees. You’d left such a lasting mark on him that it was starting to get pathetic and you’d clearly moved on– so why couldn’t he?

The proof of your heart belonging to another man was in his shaking hands and he still couldn’t help but think about what life could have been like if he hadn’t let you go, if he tried to make things work when you came home that Christmas.

He’d like to think it would be his name next to yours on that invitation, but that’s a dream that’s already been tarnished.

The clock on the wall reads 10:02 a.m.

Robin picks up the phone at 10:03 a.m.

“I need you to tell me this isn’t real. Tell me she’s not getting married.”

It’s real. He knows it is. He knew you were engaged, but holy fuck if he wasn’t holding on to the smallest bit of hope that it would fall through.

“Steve….”

“Robin.”

There’s static on her end, a sigh, and then. “It’s real Steve. She’s getting married to Chris. I’m sorry.”

The old wooden dining chair creaks under Steve as he slumps against the back of it, the invitation still gripped tightly in his other hand. “Why did she invite me?”

“Believe it or not she still cares about you. Still asks how you’re doing from time to time. When she asked me whether or not she should invite you– I told her yes.”

“And why the hell would you do that?” he bites back at her.

“You don’t have to come, but I honestly think she’d like to see you. It’s been five years Steve.”

It’s been five years but Steve swears sometimes it feels like it was just yesterday.

His eyes glance back down at the invitation in his hand as his finger traces the embossed lettering of your name. All he ever wanted was for you to be happy and he always thought he’d be a part of that happiness, but he’d let you go. He let you go find yourself and in the process you found someone else that made you feel the same way he used to.

“Does he make her happy?”

Robin doesn’t respond for what starts to be an uncomfortable amount of time and then finally with a sigh she tells Steve what he does and doesn’t want to hear.

“Yeah he does. He makes her happy.”

Something twists in Steve’s chest– sharp and painful. The invitation gets tossed onto the table with the rest of the mail and he gets up from the creaking chair with an urgency he hasn’t had since he was fighting demogorgons.

“Glad to hear. I’ll talk to you later. Gotta get to work.”

It’s August 3rd. School doesn’t start for another couple weeks and it’s also ten in the morning meaning Steve would have been extremely late for work. All things Robin knows but doesn’t get the chance to comment on because Steve’s slamming the phone back on the receiver so hard that it nearly comes off the kitchen wall.

Steve’s not mad. He's upset. He’s got five years of unresolved feelings bubbling to the surface over a fancily addressed envelope and seeing your name next to another man’s– inviting him to come bare witness to your eternal love.

His hands haven’t stopped shaking and he finds himself rummaging through the cabinet for that dark amber liquid that could numb the feelings he didn’t have the capacity to handle right now. He doesn’t even bother grabbing a glass. If he was going to drink at ten in the morning then he might as well be as uncouth as he can– choosing to bring the bottle straight to his lips and letting his chosen vice begin to work its magic.

Steve eventually finds himself in his room. One hand still has an iron grip on the neck of the whiskey bottle while the other haphazardly shuffles through the clothes once neatly hung in his closet. He lets out something that resembles more of a grunt than a hum once he finds what he’s looking for and then tosses it onto his bed.

The formal suit stares back at him, taunting him in ways only he could understand. He isn’t drunk enough to talk back to it yet. So, he brings the bottle back up to his lips and takes a long swig while his eyes are still locked onto the article of clothing.

He mumbles something incoherent at it, something he isn’t even sure he understands, and then sits down on the bed next to it. Which is where he spends the rest of his day drowning his sorrows.

The next morning he mails back the RSVP with a splitting headache.

Please Respond RSVP by September 1st, 1993

Steven Harrington accepts with pleasure declines with regret Plus one? YES NO

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

It was easier to blame the pit in your stomach and the crushing weight sitting on your chest on the flower fiasco (because the florist arriving with red roses instead of white would ruin everything at least in your Mom’s eyes) instead of addressing the real reasons.

Today was your big day. The day that you’d been planning meticulously for the last year– the color of the napkins, if you should have chicken or fish, red velvet or vanilla cake, what font should be used on the name placards and if they should coincide with the color of the table cloths they will sit on.

Everything was planned out down to the tiniest detail and save for the flowers, which were not the massive deal your Mom had made it out to be, everything else had gone off without a hitch. It looked beautiful, like something you could only dream of.

And that should help calm your nerves at least a little.

Right?

You were marrying a good man. Chris made you happy, your friends liked him, and your parents loved him. He made you feel safe and a future with someone like him was something girls were more than envious of.

So the fact that you were on the verge of a breakdown with less than an hour left until you were set to walk down the aisle was a little concerning.

Your dress– the one that had been hand designed by some French lady who flew into New York courtesy of Chris’s Mom– felt like it was two sizes too small and every time you tried to take a breath it kept getting tighter. Your bridesmaids had left you alone in the dressing room not even ten minutes ago and in those minutes you’d worked yourself up into a panic attack.

These feelings though hadn’t just popped up suddenly. They’d been bubbling under the surface for weeks now— ever since you got a certain RSVP back in the mail. You thought that inviting him might tie up some loose ends you still have internally, but receiving his response had only unraveled them. It had been five years since you spoke to Steve and now the first time you were going to see him since you had broken up was going to be on your wedding day.

The day you’d once hoped to share with him.

No. You can’t think about that right now. You can’t think about how you’ve only ever imagined marrying one man and that it wasn’t the one on the opposite end of the building getting ready right now.

You smooth the front of your dress with your sweaty palms for the hundredth time and try to take a deep breath, try to talk yourself off this very dangerous ledge to be dangling from right now. You don’t dare catch a glimpse of yourself in the mirror, knowing the moment you see yourself trying to keep it together, the less than thrilled look on your face on what is supposed to be the happiest day of your life, it will break the dam of tears you’ve so tactfully held back.

This was something every bride went through, it was just a little bit of cold feet, at least that’s what you keep telling yourself.

There’s a soft knock on the door and it makes you freeze, your breath catching in your throat. You didn’t want anyone to see you like this, but then you see your Mom peek her head in and the breath you’ve been holding in shakily comes out.

“Hi honey,” she says softly as she closes the door behind her. “How’s my girl? Feeling a little nervous?”

You were far from nervous. The incessant pounding of your heart against your ribcage and the heavy feeling of impending regret that floods your nervous system was not just you feeling nervous.

“Mom I don’t–”

Your dress is suffocating you and you’re to the point where you reach behind you and start clawing at the corset Robin had so expertly laced up earlier. Your perfectly manicured fingers slip past the silk each time you grab at it, unable to free yourself from the rib crushing material.

It’s a sight to see– you panicking like a rat stuck in a hot cage whose only way out is to dig through your metaphorical stomach while your Mom stands there watching you.

A cry of defeat slips past your lips once you finally give up, your arms aching and sweat beading at your brow.

“Mom,” your voice cracks something awful and the realization hits you like a ton of bricks. “I can’t do this. I can’t marry him.”

“Yes you can,” her reply is instant and sure, like there’s no other option that could have crossed her mind. “This is all just some wedding day jitters. You just need to take a deep breath, maybe have a little drink. You want some wine? I can get you a glass of wine and it will take the edge off real quick.”

She’s already turning back towards the door and it makes you even more manic.

“I don’t want wine!”

If you needed alcohol to get you through what is supposed to be the happiest day of your life, well then that’s a sign right there that you shouldn’t be doing this.

She stops dead in her tracks at the sharpness of your voice, but doesn’t turn back towards you yet, she’s waiting for the other shoe to drop.

“I want to take this dress off. I need to take this dress off because I’m not getting married today.”

You watch as she turns toward you slowly and the look in her eye is something you’ve seen one too many times before. It makes your already rolling stomach flip in ways you’ve never felt and her gentle touch on your arms does nothing to bring you back from the ledge.

“Honey, you’re going to get married today. You’re going to take some deep breaths, have a little wine, and I promise you’ll feel so much better.”

You can feel your bottom lip starting to tremble as you shake your head in defiance at her.

“You love him Y/N. I’ve never seen you happier than when you’re with him. He’s good to you and he can provide for you. I’m not going to let you regret ruining your future again over such a rash decision– over feeling a little nervous. This is what you’ve been planning for the past year, what you’ve been looking forward to, what Chris has been looking forward to.”

Her hands fidget with your hair for a moment, always making sure you look your best, before they intertwine with yours. “Trust me baby,” she squeezes your hands like she’s really trying to get you to listen to her. “You want this–you just have to get out of your head.”

The first tear falls from your eye and drags a path through your once flawless makeup.

This was never what you wanted. This was what she wanted– what your parents wanted.

For someone who had left all they’ve ever known to escape the crushing weight of feeling like you needed to live the life your parents had planned for you. It’s quite ironic that you’ve landed yourself back under their thumb. You guess moving seven hundred miles away will never get rid of the little girl who always wanted to make them happy, who wanted to trust that they always had her best interest in mind.

It’s funny that you’d thought you were a rat in a cage all those years ago back in Hawkins, because that was a cardboard box compared to how you feel now.

This wasn’t college, this was a commitment to another person, and as lovely as Chris was– you could not spend the rest of your life with him. As horrible as it sounds, you don’t think you’ve ever really loved him. Not in the way you should. Chris was good to you, really good to you, he was the kind of guy that would rent out the fanciest restaurant in New York on a Friday night for your one year anniversary kind of good. The let’s fly out to Paris for the weekend kind of good and the you’ll never have to work another day for the rest of your life kind of good.

The lavishness of everything was amazing, but you’d found yourself getting wrapped up in it, choosing to forget that marrying a man like Chris came with obligations. Ones that you know would slowly wear you down until you were a shell of a human, a ghost of your prior self. Chris may have been born in Indiana, but he hadn’t grown up the way you had, barely spent three years of his life in the Hoosier state before moving to New York, and sometimes it’s glaringly obvious that you two come from very different worlds.

Yet even with your differences Chris had never given you a reason to doubt his love for you and his family was so welcoming, claiming they were glad Chris had settled down with a girl like you. Even going as far as paying for the wedding and your dress wanting your special day to be everything you could have ever dreamed of.

Except this is nothing you’ve dreamed of.

When you accepted Chris’s proposal you’d thought that maybe this was the moment that you’d stop orbiting the sun. That the part of your heart that was still reserved for that hazel eyed boy who you fell in love with all those years ago would unlock itself and let Chris fully in– let him be the new sun you’d orbit– and for the longest time you’d convinced yourself that it had happened. You hadn’t seen Steve since you two broke up– five years to be exact. So, finally fully moving on, creating this life with Chris should have been the final nail in the coffin for whatever you felt towards Steve right?

Wrong.

If anything, getting engaged to Chris had only made you think more about Steve.

You’d thought more about Steve during this past year of being engaged than you had the first year after your breakup. He always seemed to be in the back of your mind and you’d find yourself asking Robin about how he was doing, breaking the cycle of Robin being the one to mention him every time you asked how things were at home because even after all these years you still associated him with home and Robin could always tell when you were homesick.

You thought about Steve when Chris’s Mom was helping you decide if you wanted a live string quartet or when his sister helped you pick out the Swarovski toasting flutes that cost more than you could ever imagine something you drink out of costing. It was all so out of your depth and fancy and all you could think of when you were choosing between one extravagant thing or another was that this was not what you’d ever imagined your wedding looking like.

In fact you know if Steve was still in your life he would have been poking fun at you, telling you that this wasn’t anything close to what you wanted– that it wasn’t you. And he would have been right because you never wanted anything extravagant. A late night pillow talk session back when your future was up in the air had revealed that all you had ever wanted was a simple wedding, one where your love was the main attraction and not an ice sculpture of a swan.

It makes your stomach twist to think that you’d left Hawkins– left Steve– for the sole purpose of wanting to find out who you were outside of all you’ve ever known and in the end you’d found yourself living a life that half the time didn’t feel like yours.

Like you were an imposter– living the life of some NYC socialite when all you were at your core was a girl from Indiana that loved sunsets and driving backroads in a maroon BMW with the only boy you’ve ever truly loved.

The same boy you’d invited to your wedding. Telling yourself that he more than likely won’t come as you drop his invitation off at the post office, but you should have known that Steve of all people would be one to attend. Because he’d only ever wanted you to be happy and what better display of happiness could be shown than marrying someone? You tell yourself that it doesn’t mean anything, that it had been five years, he’s surely moved on, but the NO that he’d marked on his RSVP for a plus one made your heart do a traitorous thing.

You’re marrying another man and yet your orbit still hasn’t strayed from your sun. It may have been weaker over the years, but the proof of your eternal love for Steve Harrington was here on your wedding day, wishing he’d show up after five years of no contact and tell you that you didn’t have to do this.

“Mom, I don't want this. Chris is a good guy, but this isn’t the life I want for myself. Please don’t make me do this.”

You’re pleading, tears streaming down your face as your Mom stares back at you with such a stoic expression that it makes you panic even more. There’s no remorse or motherly love staring back at you, just a face that tells you exactly what’s going to happen and it’s not what you want.

It’s sad that even at twenty five you still feel like you have no control over your life– that you can’t work up the nerve to walk out that door yourself. The part of you that your parents have tainted with the idea that this is your only option and that you’ll never live a life better than this tries to reason with the other part of you when you realize that the one person that was supposed to protect you is not on your side in this.

It’s a back and forth battle in your brain and you know that if you do walk out of this venue right now that you’ll be on your own. Your parents will cut you off and you’ll probably end up sleeping on Robin’s couch, which isn’t the worst thing ever, but it’s also not just you that will be affected by this choice.

Chris will be too.

He didn’t deserve this, his family didn’t deserve this, especially after the astronomical amount of money they’d spent on everything. You know you wouldn’t want to be left at the altar on your wedding day, but you also don’t want to marry a man you know you don’t love like you should. It’s a double edged sword and unfortunately your hands are gripped tightly onto it.

“This feeling will pass. A couple months from now you’re gonna be able to look back on this and laugh, knowing that you were just overreacting. You’re going to be living the life that woman would die for darling, be greatful, especially since you’re getting it with such a handsome and nice man like Chris.”

Her touch is cold as she wipes away your tears and you know she’s thinking of what excuse she can tell everyone as to why you’re going to be late walking down the aisle, you can see the gears turning in her head. It’s all methodical with her, always has been, and when she presses a chaste kiss to your forehead you know you’re marrying Chris today whether you want to or not.

“I’ll be right back,” she whispers before quickly turning on her heel and exiting your dressing room with urgency.

The door clicks shut behind her and you absolutely lose it.

You stumble into the little bathroom, your hands gripping the sides of the porcelain sink with such fierceness that you feel like you could rip it right off the wall. The first glimpse you get of yourself in the mirror is terrifying, your mascara is streaked down your cheeks, your eyes are bloodshot, and your chest is red and splotchy– borderline breaking out into stress hives.

There was no way you could make it down the aisle and look presentable in an hour– yet you knew it was going to have to happen.

You try to talk yourself down from off this metaphorical ledge that you’ve been walking with one foot dangling off the side of ever since you woke up this morning, but it’s easier said than done. You tell yourself that maybe you could learn to love Chris like you should. That maybe once you go back to New York and settle into your new life that you’ll look back on this and laugh like your Mom had said, but you shouldn’t have to learn how to love someone. It should come naturally and while you do have love for Chris it isn’t the eternal kind.

You’ve only ever had that with one person and you threw it away for what? A life you don’t even want? To be sobbing on your wedding day? To be right back under your parents thumb?

You guess you were always meant to be a rat in a cage.

The door opens, you can hear the clicking of your Mom’s heels across the wooden floor, the sound of what is undoubtedly a glass of wine being sat down at the vanity, and then her voice echoing through the room.

“I’m going to go get Robin. You’ll get all fixed up and then everything will go as planned.”

You don’t respond, you just wait for the sound of the door closing again before slowly exiting the bathroom. You find the wine glass sitting next to your favorite blush as you sit down at the lit up vanity and the girl that stares back at you in the mirror is unrecognizable. It’s a girl with no back bone– a chronic people pleaser. A girl who wishes that her knight and shining armor would come and save her, but this isn’t a fairytale and Chris isn’t an ogre. So the only thing you needed saving from was yourself.

You sit there and stare at yourself for a long time until you eventually start wiping away the remnants of your makeup, your silent tears aiding you in the process, but nothing can remove the stain on your heart.

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

The second Steve pulls up to this place in his pickup truck he knows this is way out of his comfort zone. He may be in formal attire, but this is something you’d see in the movies or on the cover of some celebrity magazine at the doctor's office. He knew this Chris guy came from money, but not this kind of money, and Steve feels like the smallest guy on Earth, feeling like a fool for ever thinking that he could provide for you back then. He still could barely afford to pay his light bill on time some months and here you were marrying Mr. Money Bags.

A gentle knock on his window startles him enough that he’s cursing under his breath and his hand shakes an unnecessary amount as he cranks the window down.

“Sorry to startle you sir, just the valet,” a guy probably around his age states, who is also dressed in formal attire.

Valet. Right. Because that’s the type of wedding he’s attending where you can’t even park your own vehicle.

Steve puts the truck in park, takes the ticket from the worker, and slowly gets out of the vehicle. The trek up the stairs to the entrance is lined with extravagant flowers and Steve finds himself having to remember how to walk, having to take one step at a time. There’s a lady with a clipboard standing at the top of the stairs by the front entrance that watches him the whole time, how his hand grips the railing like he’s an eighty year old man who’s taken on too many tumbles.

“Hello! Name please?” The lady asks with a little too much enthusiasm once Steve finally makes it up the stairs.

“Um– Steve,” he replies. “Steven Harrington.”

The lady’s eyes scan the clipboard and then with a smile on her face she makes a little check by what he can only assume is his name. “Ah yes. Mr. Harrington!” She then looks back up at Steve with that same smile. “The Carters are very happy that you could attend.”

Steve forces a smile back at her and tries to act like her referring to you as Carter before it was even official didn’t make his chest ache.

As soon as he passes through the threshold he feels like he’s been transported into another dimension. He’s never been to anything this fancy before in his life, the excessive amount of flowers, the crystal chandelier, the live string quartet. If this was just the ceremony he could only imagine what the reception would be like.

It’s so in your face and reeks of wealth and Steve can’t help but scoff because this is so not you. You two would have made fun of a wedding like this, claiming that anyone who felt the need to do something so extravagant was over compensating for an already failing relationship.

But that was back then and Steve hasn’t talked to you in five years so hell for all he knows this is something you wanted. Maybe this was who you were now and it makes his stomach twist to think about how there’s a whole nother version of you that he doesn’t know a single thing about.

There’s so many people here that Steve is actually kind of grateful for it, he can blend in and not feel like the obvious sore thumb he is– the ex at the wedding. Granted he’s not sure how many people here actually know who he is besides the handful of people from home, which is more than enough for him. He keeps asking himself why he ever thought it was a good idea for him to come as he tucks himself in a corner, sneaking sips from the flask he’d hidden in the breast pocket in his suit jacket.

He thinks he might be a masochist– wanting to torture himself by watching the only girl he’s ever loved marry a man he could never measure up to. He doesn’t know why he’s throwing himself a pity party, he’d let you go, thought he was doing the right thing all those years ago, and sometimes late at night when he’s had a little too much to drink he wonders why his love wasn’t enough for you to want to stay.

He knows you two wanted different things back then, that making long distance work was harder than either of you could have imagined, but he swears if you’d asked him to move to New York with you when you came home that Christmas he would have. Instead you’d broken up and Steve hates himself for not fighting harder for you, for rolling over onto his back and exposing his belly for you to carve into. He knows things were hard for you and maybe you felt like you didn’t have the capacity to love him and figure out who you were, but Steve didn’t really know who he was back then either and still doesn’t if he’s being honest. But it had never wavered his love for you because if there was one thing Steve was certain about it was how he felt about you.

Steve’s eyes catch sight of your Mom hurriedly walking through the crowd of people and up the grand staircase– a glass of wine perched in her hand. She still has that same methodical ambiance about her, carries herself with such perfectionism and control that Steve understands why you moved to the other side of the country.

“Look what the cat dragged in.”

The familiar voice rips his eyes away from the older woman who disappears somewhere upstairs and onto the one person who he’d only ever seen wear a dress one other time, back when the tight feeling in his chest was from an alternate dimension entity murdering teenagers and not from attending a wedding.

“You look nice Robs.”

He really means it, but he can tell she doesn’t care to hear his compliments.

“Yeah– the things we do for Y/N,” Robin states with a soft sigh as she looks out into the crowd of people and then as if she realizes what she’s implied her eyes shoot back towards Steve. He’s already looking at her with an expression that says tell me about it, but he doesn’t say anything. He just slips his flask out of his pocket again and takes another swig, fully knowing Robin might judge him, but not caring anymore.

If this was any other setting Robin would have said something to him, but over the years Robin had learned the importance of time and place, and as long as Steve didn’t get sloppy sad drunk before the ceremony even started, she’d let him be. She also feels partly guilty about Steve’s current mental state, she should have never told you to invite him, should have never told him that you wanted to see him, because no matter how much she wanted you two to get back together it would never be that easy. This wasn’t like the romantic comedies that Nancy would make her watch, this was real life, two real people with real feelings.

Although Robin has a feeling that Steve would have shown up anyways without her telling him that. Steve would push down every horrid heartbroken feeling he had if it meant you got to be happy, if he got to see you be happy, because to Steve the happiness and safety of the ones he loved meant more than his own well being. It’s something she learned very quickly that summer she slung ice cream for a living with him. When their 4th of July was spent thousands of miles underground and how at only age nineteen Steve had taken the brunt of the horrors they experienced down there just so there wasn’t a scratch on her.

Robin knows Steve has experienced so much hurt in his life for only being twenty seven and yet she knows him watching you get married to someone else will undoubtedly be the worst pain he’s experienced.

She wonders if maybe in some twisted way this is closure for him.

In the same twisted way she hopes it’s not– for either of you.

“Did I tell you I’m walking down the aisle with the son of the man who invented Pop-Tarts?” Robin rambles, trying to make conversation, which is something she never has to force with Steve, but she guesses there is a first time for everything.

It gets a slight smirk out of Steve though and so she’ll take it as a win. “Let me guess Michael Jackson is officiating the wedding isn’t he?”

“Well now you’ve ruined the surprise!”

Steve can feel himself falling back into the familiar back and forth riffing he does with Robin and for a split second a real smile graces itself onto his face, but it’s gone as fast as it appears.

“Robin! There you are. I’ve been looking for you.”

Your Mom suddenly appears next to Robin and Steve swears her presence alone causes a change in the air pressure. Her eyes lock onto his for a second, gives him a tight lipped smile, and then focuses her attention back on Robin.

It wasn’t that your Mom didn’t like Steve. In fact your parents loved him as a person, but they didn’t love the fact that he hadn’t gone to college and that he was working at Family Video as a full time job when you two had started dating. Your parents would never come out and say that they wanted better for you back then or at least their terms of better, especially considering your parents were friends with Steve’s, but when you two had broken up it was obvious that your parents weren’t the least bit sad.

“Honey I need you to go help Y/N. She had a little mishap with her makeup and I need to let everyone know we might have to push the start of the ceremony back just a teensy bit.”

She says it so casually like it’s no big deal and Robin and Steve share a concerned look.

“Is she okay?” Steve asks immediately, surprising both himself and the two women who stand in front of him.

Your Mom gives him a small smile, already halfway out of this conversation and onto the next task at hand. “Oh she’s just got a little wedding day jitters. She’ll be all good by the time she needs to walk down the aisle.”

She’s gone before Robin or him can ask anymore questions and something settles deep in Steve’s gut. Something he can’t ignore and maybe it’s the liquid courage that he’s been nursing ever since he arrived or maybe it’s just pure concern, but he finds himself doing something he knows he shouldn’t.

As soon as your Mom had left Robin was brought into another conversation by one of the groomsmen asking if you’d be mad if one of their ties might be a slightly darker shade than the rest of the guys and Robin wants to say ‘how the fuck could they be a different shade you all went and got them together’ but she doesn’t. She tells him it will be fine because frankly she has bigger fish to fry and that fish is you who she knows is undoubtedly a mess up in your dressing room.

You’d been off for months now, but this morning while she was helping you get ready she could tell right away that your demeanor was not one of someone with wedding day jitters. She’d tried mentioning it in a not so obvious way, asking if this was something you still wanted, but you were always so quick to shoot her down. Your thousand yard stare quickly turning into a smile, reassuring her that this was what you wanted, but she could see the lack of sparkle in your eyes, and she hated that you felt like you had no way out of this.

Once the groomsmen is shooed away Robin turns back towards Steve to tell him that she probably won’t see him till after the ceremony, but his corner is no longer occupied. Her head whips around in every direction, eyebrows drawn together in confusion and a little bit of annoyance because if she knew being a maid of honor meant putting out this many fires she would have never accepted the role.

(Yes she would have because she loves you, but future Robin will take this day into consideration if anyone ever asks her again. Unless of course there’s a wedding in the future that might include her two favorite people and well then maybe she’d officiate it instead because how could she be both the maid of honor and the best man?)

Her eyes finally lock on to someone with shaggy brown hair ascending the grand staircase and she just stands there– watching him. She makes no effort to stop him and when she sees him disappear down the hall she turns on her heel and heads to the other side of the building.

This tie fiasco could ruin the wedding and Robin surely doesn’t want that.

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

Steve’s legs seemingly carry him down the hall, the same legs that have carried him through the tunnels under Hawkins and through the Upside Down multiple times, but the trek down this marbled hallway feels far more scary than his times spent in alternate dimensions.

He knows he shouldn’t be doing this, knows it’s only going to make things worse for him, but god dammit he needed to make sure you were alright. It doesn’t matter how long it’s been since Steve’s seen you, if you haven’t been his for five years, or if you were about ready to get married to another guy– he was always going to care about you.

And he shamelessly wanted to see you. Even if he knew it would absolutely tear his heart to shreds, he wanted to see you one last time, because after today Steve was going to have to let you go.

At least that’s what he keeps telling himself, but how is he supposed to let go of the girl who was and probably always will be the center of his universe?

The once amplified sound of what seemed like hundreds of people talking and music playing has now settled into a muffled buzz in the distance as Steve stands in front of a double solid dark oak door. He can see his distorted face reflecting back at him in the golden door knobs and the Mrs. Carter sprawled across the center of the door on some sign that probably cost more than what he makes in a week teaching middle schoolers about puberty makes him want to reach back into his breast pocket for that security blanket once more.

He runs his hand through his hair, takes a very shaky deep breath, and then with a whispered fuck it– he knocks on the door.

“Robs?”

Steve’s heart embarrassingly skips a beat over just hearing your voice. It had been five years since he’d heard it, the first time he’s heard it since you looked at him with tears streaming down your face telling him that you’re always going to love him before ending what was the best thing that had ever happened to him.

The fact that he can tell you’ve been crying– even through the door. God it makes his head spin because you never truly forget what it sounds like when the woman you love is hurting. He knows you may very well tell him to fuck off and to get out, but it’s a risk he’s willing to take if it meant seeing you.

His hand shakes as it hovers over the door knob and before he can seem to lose the courage he wraps his large hand around the cool metal.

On the other side of the door you’re oblivious that it’s anyone other than your best friend coming to help you and you don’t think of the implications of what you’re saying or the fact that it could be someone else– you just desperately call out to her as the door creaks open.

“Robin, I need you. I don’t know what to do.”

Your face is hidden in your hands, still sitting at the vanity, not knowing how the hell you’re supposed to walk down the aisle in less than an hour and marry Chris. All you do know is that you need your best friend to talk you down off this ledge and maybe possibly help you figure out how to get out of this.

“Robin?” you question once you realize the door had opened, but she hadn’t made her presence known.

As you’re lifting your head up Steve finally peaks his head in from around the corner and when you two make eye contact in the mirror you swear it feels like Pluto has flown off its orbit and collided directly into the sun– imploding itself and the entire solar system.

A buzzing silence fills the room and you stare back at him in the mirror for the longest time, waiting for him to disappear, thinking that you’ve had a psychotic break and you were hallucinating him being here. You slowly turn in your chair and with unsteady legs you get up to face him, your hands gripping the back of the chair for support.

“Steve?”

It comes out so broken, but what should you expect when you’re broken yourself?

Steve feels his knees go weak under him and he tries to casually lean against the table to his right, like his knuckles aren’t turning white from how he’s have to hold himself up. It’s embarrassing and his cheeks flush over how his knees had nearly buckled under him at the sound of your voice.

Over the sound of you saying his name.

“Hi angel.”

The old pet name slips off Steve’s tongue with such ease no one would have ever guessed it had been five years since you two had been together. Steve doesn’t even register that he’s said it, he’s too mesmerized by how beautiful you look. How you’re standing there in front of him looking like a real life angel in the white dress that he’d imagined you in so many times. It takes his breath away in such a heartbreaking way because all those dreams were never going to become a reality and the proof was right in front of him.

Your heart does a traitorous thing when you hear him call you angel and it does nothing to help ease the ache in your chest, if anything it makes it worse. Your hand still grips the back of the chair like a lifeline as you stand there staring at him, taking in the man you haven’t seen in years. He’s changed so much yet not all in that time and your stomach churns over the fact that you once knew every single thing about him, but now there’s half a decade of Steve that you know nothing about.

When you’d left him he still had some of his boyish features, but now at twenty seven he’d grown into himself. His hair wasn’t as long as it was back in high school, but it was still long enough in that classic Steve way. There were crinkles around those all too familiar hazel eyes and you remember Robin telling you he coaches little league and you wonder if they’re from him being out in the sun. You could also tell that he’d gained some weight, filling out his suit in a way that had your eyes trailing all over his body. The slight pudge that made its presence known over his belt. It looked good on him and it didn't slip past you the way the fabric on the arm of his suit jacket strained when he lifted his arm to run his hand through his hair.

He looked good.

He looked too good.

And you shouldn’t be thinking that about someone else on your wedding day.

Steve could tell from your tone of voice through the door that you had been crying, but if he hadn’t been able to, well he could definitely tell now. Your mascara was still smudged slightly around your bloodshot eyes and your skin was red and splotchy– a tell tale sign that you were stressed and or upset.

“What are you doing here?” you ask softly, not trusting your voice enough to not crack again.

A little smile tugs at his lips, like he’s trying to make things less awkward, “Well I was invited…full government name and everything.”

You give him a look– a look that he still knows very well and knows that now is not the time for jokes.

Steve glances down at the floor, his bottom lip tucked securely between his teeth. The idea of admitting that he was coming to check on you, that he wanted to see you, made his stomach twist. Because he knows he doesn’t really have the right to do those things, feel those things, with you anymore.

He hasn’t for a long time, but old habits die hard.

He moves closer to you, just enough that it’s noticeable, but not enough that you’d feel inclined to step back– not that you would anyways.

“I heard your Mom say the start of the ceremony was being pushed back and I wanted to make sure everything was alright.”

His eyes wander up from the floor to you and the way you’re looking at him, eyes all round and lashes still damp from your tears, it makes Steve throw all his restraint out the window.

“And I wanted to see you,” he states, like it doesn’t crack something deep in his chest. “I wanted to see you one last time.”

Your fingernails dig into your palms, trying to stop yourself from breaking again, to stop your already watery eyes from leaking again. It’s funny that you thought inviting him would somehow make things easier for you, to close off that chapter in your life once and for all. You should have known it wouldn’t work like that, should have known that the moment you saw him again everything would come rushing back tenfold, that your orbit around your sun could never be severed.

When you don’t respond Steve finds himself taking a deep breath, trying to not let your silence over him wanting to see you again bruise his already very fragile heart. He knew it was a little forward, but what did he have to lose? You were already standing in front of him wearing a wedding dress that another man was going to help you out of later.

The smell hits you instantly. As soon as the air leaves his pretty pink lips you’re met with the overwhelming smell of alcohol. There wasn't any alcohol available to anyone until the reception, which means Steve either snuck some in, or drank before he got here. It’s then that you really take in how glassy his eyes are and how messy his hair really is, he was always one to constantly run his fingers through it when he was tipsy, never knowing what to do with his hands.

His speech wasn’t slurred yet, but you could imagine if he’d found you any later he’d be on the cusp of it.

“Why have you been drinking?” you ask abruptly.

Steve wants to say– because I can’t get through watching you marry another man sober.

Because ever since I got that invitation in the mail I’ve been drinking to cope.

Because I’ve looked for you in every woman I’ve been with since you left. (which isn’t a lot)

Because I know after today I’m going to have to let you go, even when I haven’t had you for years.

Because I don’t know if I can ever move on from you even if I tell myself to let you go.

Because it’s been five years and my Mom has been starting to ask when I’m going to find someone to settle down with.

Because I’m hoping that maybe you still feel the same and maybe this won’t end with me at a bar tonight.

Because I still love you.

Instead, he turns the conversation back on you, not wanting to dive into his own personal issues, and asks. “Why have you been crying?”

You narrow your eyes at him, annoyed that he’s trying to avoid your question by bringing up the obvious elephant in the room. There’s so many things you want to tell him, so many things that would ultimately determine if you were going to be walking down the aisle shortly, and you wonder if you asked Steve to sneak you out the back if he would.

He would without a second thought.

Do you tell him the truth? Do you tell him all the reasons that have been swirling around in your brain as you stand here in your custom made wedding dress staring into the glassy eyes of the man who would light the world on fire if you asked him to.

You could tell him your red rimmed eyes and smeared mascara is just because of nerves.

But what you really want to say is – it’s because my special day is nothing like I ever expected it to be.

Because I feel like an imposter.

Because the man that will be standing across from me at the altar isn’t a five foot eleven hazel eyed boy from Hawkins.

Because my parents want this marriage to happen more than anything in the world, even at the expense of their own daughter’s well being.

Because I realized that moving away and leaving you was never going to fix me and that I was never trapped in Hawkins. I was running from something much bigger than myself.

Because seeing you here is killing me and knowing you’ve been drinking is making it even worse.

Because you’re always going to be my sun and my orbit around you still hasn’t strayed even after all these years.

Because I’ve thought about you showing up like this a million times and now that you’re here I can’t work up the nerve to ask you the one thing I need you to do for me.

Because I wonder if you still love me even after I left you like I did.

Because I still love you.

But none of that comes out of your mouth– you lie straight to his face instead.

“I’m just nervous,” you respond. “I think every woman cries a little bit on her wedding day if we’re being honest. I mean there’s a lot of people out there. What if I trip walking down the aisle? Or what if I forget my vows?”

It’s all bullshit and you can tell as Steve’s eyes flicker across your face, taking in your wrecked features for the millionth time since he stepped foot into this room, that he knows it too. He’d always been able to tell when you were lying, when something much bigger was bothering you than you’d let on, and it’s times like this when you realize he probably knew about you wanting to leave Hawkins way before you did.

He doesn’t say anything right away and lets your response linger in the air. He isn’t really sure what to say, he’d heard you crying out for Robin through the door, can clearly see the stress hives on your chest, this wasn’t just a little wedding day nerves. This was you freaking out and Steve doesn’t know if it’s because of your Mom or if it’s something else.

He selfishly hopes it’s the something else, but if it was, how would that even play out? You’re supposed to be marrying Chris in less than an hour and what if this is all just nerves? Does he risk making a fool of himself by insinuating what he thinks is going on with you? What he hopes is going on? He doesn’t really have much to lose if he does, but there’s still something holding Steve back.

It’s been five years since he’s seen you and in that time, not only has he changed, but so have you. Say he does put everything out on the table, asks you if you really want to marry Chris or just straight up tells you not to marry Chris. Who says you’d even want to be with him? Or if things would even work out. In a month you could regret ever leaving him today and Steve would be painted the fool. Hell, he doesn't even know if you still have feelings for him. The irrational side of him though, the side that still holds on to what you told him when you left years ago, tells him it’s a possibility.

The rational side– it tells him to let you go.

You’re both not teenagers anymore, fighting demogorgons and saving your podunk town for years on end. You’re adults with real life responsibilities, and jobs, and 401k’s that Steve still isn’t really sure he understands. Things are so different from what they used to be and Steve can’t help but think about how when things got real– when all the adrenaline from years of being on edge had finally worn off– you left. And maybe that’s a sign that you two weren’t meant to be together in the real world, facing normal people problems that now seemed much harder than defeating Vecna ever was.

His irrational side takes over long enough for him to break his already fragile heart.

“Do you love him?” Steve asks, his throat constricting as the words come tumbling out.

His question steals the air from your lungs and you swear you can feel the corset backing on your dress tightening again. This is what you had wanted, you’d wanted him to question things, wanted him to come save you, and you can’t get yourself to say the words you need to.

“I–”

Tell me not to do it Steve.

“I love him,” you reply with what is the most uncertain tone coming from a woman who’s about to marry said man. “I love him enough.”

Tell me not to marry him.

“You love him enough?” An ugly feeling settles deep in Steve’s chest as he wrestles with the realization that your love for him was clearly never enough for you to stay in Hawkins, but you apparently love Chris just enough to marry him.

The tears you’ve been holding back finally break past their barrier and then they come down harder when you realize that the man who’d wipe them away as soon as the first one fell wasn’t even moving an inch towards you.

“I–no–Steve–” your words come out wet and broken and you have no fucking clue to what even say anymore. “That came out wrong–” it came out exactly like you wanted it to. “I’ve just got a lot going on in my head right now.”

Say anything. Say anything at all and I won’t marry him.

Steve can feel his emotions starting to get the better of him and he knows he should just leave the conversation at this because the longer he stands here and watches you cry the worse it’s going to get for him, but he’s got to get one last thing off his chest.

“Do you remember what you told me when we broke up?” Steve asks, holding out hope that you’d held on to the same thing as him after all these years.

You sheepishly shake your head no at him, there was a lot of things you’d rambled to him that night, and maybe if you’re brain wasn’t fucked up beyond belief right now you’d be able to decipher what he was alluding to.

Steve tries to swallow down the giant lump in his throat, he should have known you wouldn’t remember, should have known every question he would throw your way would only hurt him, but fuck it he’s got a little bit of whiskey left in his flask, so he might as well continue.

“You’d told me that you’d always love me,” he can see the broken realization on your face, but he continues. “And for the longest time I held on to that, hoping that you’d come back to me, and you never did. Which I should have expected, but I showed up to your wedding, came into this room, with the idea that maybe you still loved me even just half as much as I still love you.”

He shakes his head, eyes flickering back down to the floor in an act of selfpreservation.

“I don’t know what I was expecting to happen. I don’t even know why I’m telling you all of this right now, but I’d held on to those words for so long that there was part of me that had hoped you’d see me and everything would go back to how it used to be, but I know this isn’t a fairytale. This is real life and you’re marrying another man and I have to accept that.”

This is where you tell him that you still love him. This is where everything changes and you can feel like yourself again– with the only person who ever really understood you. This is where relief should be flooding your nervous system.

Instead you stand there with tears streaming down your face and paralyzed vocal chords.

You can see the first few tears cascade down Steve’s cheeks and you want to reach out and wipe them away, remember how his skin feels under your touch, but you can’t.

Steve wipes away his own tears and looks back up at you, clearing his throat before continuing to break not only his own heart, but yours too. “I’m choosing to believe that what’s going on with you is just nerves because if it was something else you would have told me. And I’m sorry for springing this on you but I couldn’t–” his voice cracks and he stops, shaking his head in annoyance at himself. “I’m happy for you and Chris seems like a great guy. I think maybe being nervous is a good thing, yeah? Just shows that you want your special day to be everything you imagined.”

“Steve,” you finally choke out. There’s so much you want to say to him, so much you need to say to him, but you can’t get it out. You don’t have time to get it out. Because as much as you want him to run away with you, as much as you’re looking at him with pleading eyes, trying to get him to just take your hand and run out the back.

It’s not going to happen.

He’s too good of a man to do it and you’re too chicken shit to tell him.

How you’re even standing right now is beyond you– you’ve got no backbone. Never have. Probably never will. Hopefully in the plethora of gifts that your Mom was boasting about earlier– someone has given you one.

It’s clear that you’ll marry Chris because he’s good to you and because it will make your parents happy. You’ll also let Steve walk out of this room and hope that maybe the universe would give you a third chance in the future, because even if you’re married, even if this is Steve’s way of letting you go.

How can Pluto ever stop orbiting its sun?

His hand reaches out and you let him intertwine his fingers with yours, relishing in the feeling of his skin on yours for the first time in years. Electricity travels up your arm and directly into your chest– blooming something achingly familiar in your heart. You don’t want to let him go, don’t want to have to forget the way it feels to do something as simple as holding his hand or hear him call you angel again.

You squeeze his hand as you look into those doe eyes of his and for a split second you feel like you’re seventeen again in the Family Video parking lot. The frigid winter air nipped at your skin back then as you leaned against your car, but you never even felt the effects of it because you had your sun right in front of you. Which is how you feel now, even for just a minute, having him here in front of you, it dulls the ache in your heart.

Steve takes a shaky deep breath and you know this is the end, this is where he’s going to let you go, and you wonder if this is how he felt when you left him standing in his bedroom that Christmas. You feel his grip loosen just a tad, but you hold on tighter, not letting him leave before he’s said goodbye.

He reaches up with his other hand and cradles the side of your face, his thumb gently wiping away your tears. It makes your breath hitch in your throat and the tears fall even harder, but you shamelessly lean into his touch, your eyes fluttering shut, trying to savor this fleeting moment.

Even after everything, this was still your Steve standing in front of you. Still the same caring boy who’d put himself between you and too many life threatening situations to count, who would always bring you over free ice cream that summer he worked at Scoops and you worked at the Gap, who threw you a graduation party when Hawkins going into lockdown had ruined everything about the end of your senior year. Five years had passed and he’d fallen back into old habits like nothing had happened, like both of you weren’t hurting.

“I'll always love you Y/N, but I’ve got to let you go.”

His words hit you square in the chest, like you’ve gotten the wind knocked out of you, and to make matters worse you feel his touch evade you. Clearly drawing the line in the sand with not only his words but his actions. As you slowly blink open your eyes you’re praying that this has all been a bad dream and you’d be back in your bed in New York, but luck has never been on your side, and Steve stands before you with round wet eyes that will haunt your dreams tonight.

Steve wants to tell you a million other things, wants to stay holed up in this dressing room with you for eternity, but he knows he can’t. Hell he’s surprised your Mom hasn’t busted down the door wondering why you weren’t ready to walk down the aisle by now, but either way he knows his time with you is limited.

He’d seen you, told you his feelings, and now he was going to watch you marry another man.

“You know,” Steve shuffles back a bit from you, starting his exit plan. “I always thought you’d make a beautiful bride and it’s nice to know I was right.”

He finds himself biting the inside of his cheek, trying to not let himself cry again as he walks backwards towards the door.

You open your mouth to say anything to get him to stick around, but nothing comes out, and you’re internally screaming, pleading for him to not leave you.

It seems to play out in slow motion as you watch his hand grip the door knob, the sound of the door opening ricochets off the walls, and then in a split second your sun leaves you and takes every bit of warmth with him. Silent tears stream down your face and when Robin walks in seconds later you’re none the wiser to the fact that she’d been eavesdropping in the hallway to hear at least the worst bits.

She guides you to sit down at the vanity while she grabs some things from the bathroom. Time doesn’t seem to exist to you right now, and you don’t even realize she’s exited the bathroom until you feel her pressing a cold washcloth to the back of your neck and chest, trying to get you to calm down. She doesn’t say anything to you, which you’re eternally grateful for, but when you make eye contact with her in the mirror as she stands behind you, you know she knows.

She knows you’re back in the Family Video parking lot, except you’ve locked your keys inside your car, and Steve is nowhere to be found.

Forty-five minutes later and only a half an hour past the ceremony start time, Robin and you exit the dressing room hand in hand, leaving behind your conversation with Steve and an empty wine glass.

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─── The moment the live string quartet starts playing Canon in D and everyone stands Steve wishes the floor would swallow him whole. As soon as the giant double doors open he hears a gasp from the crowd and he wants to punch himself for sitting in an aisle seat. He wonders if it’s too late to ask Lucas to switch seats, but then he locks eyes with you as you start coming down the aisle and whatever he was thinking goes out the window. It was one thing to see you in your dressing room, but this was different, this was real, and he feels his chest crack wide open. You looked like an angel, so breathtaking, and he’d imagined this day so many times before, what you’d look like as you walked down the aisle towards him, he just never thought he’d be in the crowd and not at the altar.

He doesn't have Robin to lean on right now, just a very judgemental yet caring Max next to him that can definitely smell the whiskey on him, but doesn’t say anything. Mainly because Max is just observant at twenty-two as she was at fifteen and she knows that Steve Harrington is still very much in love with you. She knows he’s been struggling, knows this has to be the worst day of his life and she’s surprised he even came, but he was here and that has to count for something.

Max feels a slight pang in her chest as she looks up at the man that has saved her life more times than she can count. He looks broken, far from the bat-slinging teenage boy she once knew, and she finds herself reaching out for his hand hanging idle at his side. Without a second thought she wraps her hand around his and gives him a reassuring squeeze, letting him know that she’s here and when he turns his head towards her and gives her a smile that says thank you, she gives him one back. She gently bumps his shoulder with hers like she’s telling him you know it’s no big deal, and he squeezes her hand back.

Their hands stay intertwined the whole ceremony and when the officiant says those famous six words, Max feels Steve grip her hand to the point where it hurts, but she knows that twenty seconds of pain is nothing compared to what Steve is feeling right now.

The guests cheer and holler and clap, but all Steve can hear is a constant ringing in his head, like he’d rung his bell too hard again. He watches as Chris and you walk back down the aisle hand in hand with big smiles on your faces. It makes Steve’s chest burn with such fierceness that he can’t catch his breath. The groomsmen and bridesmaids follow in tow of the newly married couple and he doesn’t miss the sympathetic look Robin shoots his way, it makes him feel even worse, like he’s the pathetic ex that showed up to the wedding just to ruin the vibe.

The crowd eventually trickles out of the room and he hears Max and Lucas asking him something from behind him, but he doesn’t answer, doesn’t follow the crowd into the ball room. He just keeps going straight and lets the entrance doors slam behind him as fresh air finally fills his burning lungs.

Steve doesn’t stay for the reception.

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