𑣲𝓚

Three nights with your notes spread across your desk, your pencil worn down to a nub, and your mother calling from downstairs that dinner was getting cold. Three nights reading through library clippings about school funding, college acceptance rates, and the way girls in Hawkins were politely encouraged toward “practical” futures while boys with half of your grades were told they had potential. You had interviewed four seniors, two teachers, one guidance counselor who had smiled at you with the concerned tenderness adults reserved for girls they planned to ignore. 

It was practically perfect.

You had written it carefully. Not angrily, though you had to admit that anger had lived under every line you wrote, warming the words from dpwn below. You had made it clean, sharp, and correctly sourced. You had imagined your byline on the front page. You had victoriously imagined holding the paper in your hands and seeing proof that all the hours you spent noticing things nobody asked you to notice had finally become something real.

The reaction to it, unfortunately, had left much to be desired.

Mr. Walsh held the pages in one hand and adjusted his glasses with the other. His voice was polite enough, but it held that familiar detachment.

“It’s very thorough,” he noted with a faint nod of his head towards the article.

You knew you were absolutely dead, or rather, any hopes of seeing a cover page was.

Across the table, Mark Ellison leaned back in his chair, tapping his pencil against his front teeth. His article was a soft little thing about “school spirit making a comeback,” built around three quotes from basketball players and one sweeping paragraph about how Hawkins High had ‘survived difficult years by pulling together’. He had written it during study hall. You had watched him do it while eating chips from a vending machine. You had also watched him pay more attention to his stupid Walkman than his article.

Mr. Walsh then gave Mark’s pages a fond pat from beside you. You had to physically stop yourself from letting the steam errupt from your expression, and curled your fingers into your palm. You didn't, however, hide the scoff when the teacher told the boy his next words.

“I think this is what we need above the fold this week. Something upbeat. The town’s had enough heaviness, don’t you think?”

The room moved on. You couldn't even get another word in before everything decided it was time to start up again. That only served further in building up your irritation. 

Someone asked about the sports column, someone else complained that the typewriter ribbon was fading again, and most annoyingly, Mark grinned without trying to look too pleased, which made him only look worse. You sat very still with your hands folded over your notebook, your nails continuing to press little moons into your palms.

“Maybe we can run yours inside,” Mr. Walsh added, almost kindly. You hated how he made it seem like it was somehow charitable of him to do so. After all, his excuses were always relatively  the same. “It’s strong work. Just a bit… intense for the front page.”

Intense.

You looked down at your notes until the letters blurred into a block of black.

That was what they always called girls who didn't make unfairness easier to swallow for others. Intense. Difficult. Ambitious in a tone that meant unattractive. Boys were driven. Boys were promising. Boys were leaders, even when they had to borrow a pencil to write a paragraph about pep rallies. Even when half of them couldn't even write clean enough for legitimacy on papers of loose leaf.

You smiled promptly then because you knew how to make adults comfortable. You weren't so sure your face was able to hide your growing annoyance, though. It was practically humiliating in its steady routine, but you'd learned over the years Mr. Walsh was as stubborn as the donkey he was named after.

“Sure,” you gave a small exhale alongside your smile, your tone was too light to be breezy and far too sweet to be real. “Inside is fine.”

Inside was not fine.

At lunch, you stabbed your fork into a pile of cafeteria mashed potatoes until they lost their shape entirely. With a cheek resting in hand, the sight of the sullen plate reflected your own inner turmoil. Conversational chatter flattered about around you.

“He said it was intense?” One friend asked, sitting across from you with a carton of milk she had not opened. “Everything's intense to that guy. Mr. Walsh wears the same brown sweater every day and once called Pat Benatar ‘too confrontational.’”

“He didn’t say Mark’s article was intense,” you muttered with poorly disguised disgust. Your brows twitched together and your eyes flicked up in a roll. The moment replayed in your head, Mark getting far too much praise for something he spent the better half of an hour listening to Olivia John-Newton, though he'd refuse the accusation vehemently if questioned.

“That’s because Mark’s article has the emotional range of a gym sock,” your friend Stacey said from beside you. She had bright blue eyeliner, a talent for gossip, and the terrifying confidence of someone who had never once doubted she deserved to take up space. You admired her for that.  “You need something undeniable.”

“I had something undeniable.” the response came almost petulant, and if you were still holding onto the leverage that you had a shoe-in for an article, you'd have refrained from saying it.

“No,” Stacey clicked her tongue, pointing her plastic spoon at you. “You had something true. That’s different. Truth makes people sleepy unless there’s blood on it.”

Leah made a face, looking down at the strawberry jam on her cake slice, and promptly pushed it forward. “Please never go into medicine.”

You tried not to laugh and failed halfway, the sound catching in your throat before it could become anything that felt good. For a moment, there was something besides that sense of annoyed displacement. 

The cafeteria around you churned with noise. Trays clattered, and somebody at the far end started chanting for reasons that probably involved a dare and milk coming out of someone’s nose. You let the spark of clear judgement light through your expression as you looked over to  the basketball table occupied its usual territory near the windows.

They were loud enough to own the room without having to ask, a result of years of indulged arrogance,  you could only assume. Tommy H. was telling a story with both hands, his laugh sharp and performative. A few juniors watched him the way freshmen used to watch Steve Harrington.

Steve did not sit with them anymore, that was something practically everyone noticed since last year.

He sat two tables away from the old crowd, alone with a slice of pizza gone stiff at the edges. His hair was still perfect in the way that seemed less accidental the longer you looked at it, all careful lift and feathered brown shine.

His shoulders filled out his yellow polo, but they were rounded inward today, one hand pressed against his temple while he stared at a textbook he did not seem to be reading. There was a bruise near his jaw, faded yellow at the edges. His eyes kept moving toward the basketball table and then away before anyone caught him looking.

King Steve, deposed but still dressed for court.

Stacey followed your gaze. Her mouth curved before you could shove it away off of her.

“If you want the front page,” she brightened up with a revived vigor, “you have to write about the biggest tragedy in Hawkins.”

Leah, unfortunately, looked too.

“Oh Stace’, I don't think that's a good—” she was swiftly cut off by your mutual friends voice dipped in delight

“The fall of King Steve,” Stacey finished and you gasped at her.

You snorted without ceremony promptly, her words did less to entice you and more to amuse you. If there was anything you couldn't find yourself caring less to write about, it would be about anything involving Steve Harrington. “That’s not an article.”

“It is absolutely an article! It’s got everything. Popularity. Masculine fragility. Hair products.”

Leah leaned forward then, lowering her voice. She looked besides you two with a more hesitant approach, her eyes flicked to the table a few feet away from you. “Also maybe just leave him alone? He looks one spilled pudding cup away from a complete collapse.”

“That’s the point,” Stacey had taken to promptly ignoring the two of you. “What happens when a guy builds his whole identity on being wanted, and then people stop wanting him?”

The words landed before the joke did.

You looked at Steve again. He dragged a hand through his hair, then immediately seemed to regret it, patting the front back into place with a reflex so automatic it made your chest pinch in spite of yourself. If you were to compare it to anything, it would be akin to a kid being filmed for a birthday party. It held the familiar awareness of being all too stiff, even in the singular companionship of just himself.

A whole identity built on being wanted.

The cafeteria lights flashed across the windows as usual. Outside, October had pulled Hawkins into a cold, colorless stretch of afternoon. The trees beyond the parking lot shivered with half-bare branches, leaves gathered wetly along the curb. It was a domestic background that you've memorized in routine these past four years. 

You pulled your notebook from your bag suddenly. Stacy's words had flicked on a small lightbulb in your brain.

Leah's  brown eyes blinked wearily on you as the next few minutes were received in silence from your side, only the sound of pen to paper filling your ears. “Oh, God. Stacey, you broke her.”

You rolled your eyes at that.

“I inspired her.” Stacey gave a self assured correction, her fingers going up as if it would further solidify her point.

There was no real attention paid to your friends for the next whirlwind of time, and you clicked your pen every so often in an attempt to soften the strokes of ink.

At the top of a previous blank page, you had written:

The Lifecycle of a High School God: why a crown crushes a king.

Stacey leaned over your shoulder and let out a delighted gasp.

“That is disgusting,” Leah immediately. Her eyes widened and she threw you a look that your promptly avoided. 

“It’s not, it's anonymous… and a work in progress,” you murmured in weak retaliation, already thinking faster than you could write. “Stacy's  right, it'd be a good article. How we make gods out of boys and then act shocked when they don’t know how to be human.”

Leah’s expression softened in a way you did not want to look at too closely. Realistically, you realized this might be a bit too cruel. But you were already on your verge, and no matter how absurd the idea had seemed before – you could admit held strong potential. 

“And Harrington?”

You watched him push his tray away untouched, and your gaze was less detached than you had been before.

“Steve is the case study.”

You told yourself that made it cleaner, and you also told yourself a lot of things that week. Things that in hindsight, might’ve been necessary to proceed with caution.

—

You approached him after basketball practice on a Wednesday, when the hallway outside the gym smelled most strongly of rubber, sweat, and floor wax. Most of the team members had already spilled toward the locker room, their voices echoing against the cinderblock walls. Steve came out last, a gym bag slung over one shoulder, and damp hair falling looser than usual around his forehead.

He looked tired enough that the sight of him made your plan wobble. It was one thing to think this out carefully and assume control, and it was another to actually act it out. 

Then, finally, he glanced up and saw you waiting by his locker.

You pushed off the wall before you could think better of it. Any further delay would only serve in faltering you more. 

“Harrington,” you called out firmly, letting your voice carry the boldness you had practiced in your mirror. Though, you weren't entirely sure you properly hid the wince that came with addressing him like that. “I’ve been looking for you.”

His eyebrows lifted then, that was what you'd noticed first. His face seemed to twitch in a complicated way, his face didn't hold a smirk, not right away at least. Surprise was there first. Real surprise, open and unguarded enough to make you feel briefly cruel. Your tried not to ponder on him for too long.

“For me?” his voice held a sincere curiosity that had you irritated at repeating yourself.

“No, the other guy with gravity-defying hair and a tragic aura.”

That got him.

A breath left him, almost a laugh, you saw the movement happen in real time. He leaned his shoulder against the locker, trying to recover his balance by looking casual. His thumb hooked into his belt loop. His shining eyes flicked over your face, landed on your mouth for half a second too long, then jumped back up.

You really had to refrain from the scoff that wished to escape you. 

“Tragic aura,” he repeated, his eyes twisted in a regained stability. His voice was more awkward than you remembered it being,  strangely that'd been your first true thought of him. “Wow. That’s, uh… that’s new.”

You gave a low hum in response.  “I’m a journalist. We notice things.”

“Is that why you’re here? To notice me?”

The line should have been smooth. You could actively hear him reaching for an older version of himself, the one who would have tilted his head and let girls do the work of melting. But his voice caught on the last word. Not much, but it was just slightly enough that you felt something in you feel successful.

You smiled, the formation stretched across your face as you cleared your throat softly. “I need help.”

Now, he seemed a bit confused,  his head tilted slightly in a way that reminded you of the neighborhood poodle. You let a smile turn slightly genuine at the semblance found between the two. 

“With?”

You stepped closer finally, and you stepped close enough to see the faint line where his tan had started to fade at his throat, and certainly close enough to catch the smell of clean soap beneath sweat and cologne.

“Understanding someone.” the words came out a bit hesitant, not at all like the suaveness you had practiced by standing in front of your bathroom mirror.

His gaze sharpened a little. Instinct took over him well. “Someone?”

“A boy,” you said quickly. Whatever it was that appeared in your face seemed to have gotten to him.

You saw the ghost of King Steve ever so slightly stir in movement in him. His mouth curved, one corner first, then another. It was almost unfair how quickly he could change expressions, and even worse so, that each expression of his seemed to cause your nerves to fray.

“Well, lucky for you, I happen to be an expert.”

Your eyes flickered to his, though not before you let your gaze find the small details of his face that were only exposed up close. “You do?”

“Former expert,” he amended, and something dry entered his voice. “My credentials are under review.”

You laughed before you meant to. You couldn't help it at the moment. It came out too genuine and his face changed with it. Not entirely dramatic, though. He just went still, the way people did when a sound touched some starved part of them. His own pools of hazel seemed to be too flittery for someone you were sure had done this plenty of time before. Still, against your better judgment, you kept staring into his eyeline.

You should have written that down later, a faint voice echoed through your head. Not the eyes part, you quickly denied and even got upset at yourself for supplying the image. You really should have been memorizing any small part he'd exposed, even more of the behavior you were out to conquer.

Instead, you remembered the exact angle of his shoulder against the locker, the wet curl slipping toward his eyebrow, the way he looked at you with confusion and cautious interest and a kind of bruised hope that had no place in your article.

You tilted your chin, chewing on the bottom of your lip by pure instinct. By now, you were close enough to have to tilt your head up to meet his gaze. You blinked, breaking whatever power he seemed to have had momentarily to have you swept up and cleared your throat.

Your voice was back to being confident again, since practice made perfect. “Pick me up Friday?”

His mouth caught in a faint sputter, you could tell you had caught him completely off guard. Faintly, as if it were a bodily response, you softened your smile into something smaller, tilting up at him for the silent moment.

“Friday,” he said after a beat. Steve’s voice seemed to have taken a breathless edge now. It did something all weird and wonky to you. “Yeah. I can do Friday.”

“Seven.”

“Seven,” he repeated, and appearing to remember he wasn't an apparition, Steve's body seemed to lean toward yours as he continued. “Where are we going?”

You hadn't thought that far. Instead of deciding on the spot, you bit the inside flesh of your cheek as an amused exhale escaped your lips.

“You’re the expert, Harrington. Impress me.”

You walked away before your nerve gave out. You could feel him watching you down the hall, could feel the whole plan beginning to take shape behind your ribs. You had even taken to looking through your sosters old magazines for inspiration. Hot and cold. Interest and withdrawal. Private sincerity, public disruption. All those where supposed to be tactics to reuse interest in relationships,  but you figured that the same could also be said for an indirect character study. 

Observe the subject under changing social conditions. Note responses. Analyze, that had been your plan split up into groups.

You were very good at making terrible ideas sound academic.

—

On Friday, his Beamer waited by the curb under a sky the color of sad, wet cement.

He got out when he saw you, which you hated because it was exactly the kind of performative gentleman routine you had expected, and also because he did it without checking if anyone was watching. That complicated your observations, causing a flutter to go through you. He wore a brown leather jacket over a striped shirt, jeans that fit him too well, and that expensive cologne that seemed built into the mythology of him.

Ralph Lauren, Stacey had said with the authority of a girl who knew these things and lived vicariously through others. It mixed with the leather and the faint sweet smell of cherry chapstick when he opened the passenger door.

"Aren't you going to get in,” Steve gave you a wounded look. His head was tilted down slightly towards you and it seemed like he was more offended you had even made an attempt to reach for the door. 

You looked at the open door in his hand, feeling less like a mastermind and more like a nervous girl.  “Do you do that for all your dates?”

Steve's hand went up to run the back of his neck as he let out a weak exhale,  the ghost of a smile on his face. “Only the intimidating ones.”

You slid into the car after that, tucking your notebook deep inside your bag where he would not see it. The seats were cold through your skirt. The dashboard glowed amber when he turned the key, washing his face in soft light as the engine rumbled awake.

He didn't take you to Enzo’s, where everyone went to be seen. He drove past the diner, past the arcade, past the bright places where Hawkins pretended it had a pulse. The town fell away into dark stretches of road bordered by skeletal trees and damp fields. Eventually he pulled into a small overlook above the park, where the swings moved gently in the wind below and the streetlamps made small gold circles on the path.

“This is your idea of impressive?” you couldn't help the baffled tone that took over as you asked, but your voice had taken a softer lift.

He shrugged, fingers resting on the steering wheel. “You said you wanted to understand someone. Hard to do that while watching someone like Tommy try to fit an entire breadstick in his mouth.”

“You’re not friends with him anymore?” you didn't really need the answer, everyone practically knew the answer by now. But still, it's different to have someone tell you something by choice than admit knowledge by association.

His thumb moved along the stitching of the wheel. Back and forth. Back and forth.

“Not really.”

“Why?”

He gave you a sideways look. “Wow. Straight to it.”

“I told you. Inquisitive.”

“Right.” He exhaled through his nose, not quite laughing. The smile on his face was soft in its hesitancy. “I don’t know. Stuff happened. I got tired. He got meaner. Or maybe he was like that, and I just stopped thinking it was funny.”

The words fell between the two of you in a hush.

You watched him in the dashboard light. Away from school, he seemed younger and older at once. Without the noise around him, without the audience, the space he occupied seemed to changed shape. He rubbed a hand over his face, then caught himself before he ruined his hair and dropped it to his lap. He did that a lot.

“You okay?” he asked suddenly, breaking you out of your trance. You quickly gave a few hard blinks to refocus, you seriously had to stop doing that around him.

“What?”

“You’re shivering.”

Were you? You hadn't noticed much besides him. “I’m fine.”

“You’re obviously not fine.”

Before you could answer, he shrugged out of his leather jacket and draped it over your shoulders. The weight of it settled around you, warm from his body, lined with the smell of him so completely that your next breath came slower than the last.

“You’ll get cold,” you said, a frown finding its way on to your face. It was a cold evening in Hawkins, the chill more prominent than usual. Your worry was quickly shoved down by him.

Steve seemed to just fidget by habit now. The muscle in his forearms tensed and gained your attention as his arms crossed against his chest. He gave a slight shove and his smile was all teeth and unintentional charm.“I’m tough.”

Now, you didn’t even bother to hide your scoff. A challenging twist of your brow appeared and you pointed out the faults in his words. “You just complained about the heater not working.”

“I’m selectively tough,” his grin stayed and was backed up by a small chuckle. 

You looked at him, and he looked back, and something quiet opened in the car.

The conversation shift quickly after that. You asked questions you had meant to use later. What did he want after graduation? He did not know. Where did he want to go? Away, maybe. Or nowhere. What was he afraid of? He made a joke at first, something about being left unsupervised with fireworks, and then he went quiet long enough for the windows to begin fogging at the edges.

“I don’t think I’m good at anything,” Steve told you after that. He said it plainly, almost casually, which made it worse. It was easier to dissect him clinically when he didn't wear that expression that caused you faltering to gain back control. 

You shifted toward him, eyes dragging over him.  They seemed darker with the setting say, but somehow they had something stored away that made you want to push back on his words.  “That’s not true.”

He gave you a look that unnerved you. “You don’t know that.”

You didn't let it get to you. You pushed through because for some reason, you felt like you couldn't stay silent. “I know you noticed I was cold before I did.”

The words had you faltering from the truth it held.

Steve gave a wry exhale, his head tilted back against his seat with his eyes on you. “That’s not a skill.”

Your voice felt firmer now. “It is, actually.”

He stared out through the windshield. Below, the park sat empty and silvered by frost. You couldn't really focus on that, not when Steve sat besides you looking less like the king you knew and more like a boy you wanted to know. You couldn't even process the words before Steve continued in. “Nancy used to say I had good instincts when I got out of my own way.”

Nancy.

There it was. The bruise beneath the bruise. It wasn't  one you were exactly shocked to hear, the whole sum of Hawkins new about the romance between the Wheeler daughter and him. Still, you weren't going deny the tinge of discomfort you felt at the mention.

What? Why were you uncomfortable? You immediately shut down the thought. A hard clearing of your throat helped stabilize yourself. You had to remind yourself that you weren't here for whatever reason that your body seemed to mistake. Instead, you focused on the task at hand, or at least tried to. You should have leaned in then when his head bowed slightly. You should have gathered the quote, traced the wound back to its social function, and built your thesis brick by brick.

You settled on something else, because strangely, anything else seemed harsh. “She sounds smart.”

“She is.”

The words carried no bitterness. That threw you off. You'd have known guys to turn completely hostile after break-ups, and you couldn't even remember a time where someone from Steve’s circle stayed genuine for the moment. You'd completely expected him to talk badly about her, about the situation, and frankly just about anything and everything that came up. To place blame in everything that never warranted it. 

You'd have felt more comfortable if he reacted like that. He didn't notice your turmoil.

“She’s also right,” he added, turning back to you. His hazel eyes mesmerizing in its softness. “I get in my own way a lot.”

You wanted to ask how. You wanted to ask why. What came out was a stupid joke about how his hair probably counted as a separate obstacle. “How, by looking in the mirror and not finding your face under all that hair?”

His laugh wasn’t loud, it certainly was not the cafeteria laugh you'd have known, not the old one that announced him from across the room. It was small and startled and breathless, given to you without polish. It didn't help you when he leaned back against the seat, smiling at the roof of the car, and your pulse betrayed you completely.

What happened next made you feel less like you were playing him and more like he was playing you. When he reached over to tuck a loose piece of hair behind your ear, he did it slowly enough that you could have stopped him.

You didn't. You didn't stop him.

You told yourself it was because you were playing an act.

His knuckles brushed your cheekbone, working in breaking you out of your mind. Steve’s hand lingered there, his thumb moving once over your skin, it barely had any pressure. He watched the place he touched instead of your eyes, and the careful uncertainty of it burned through you harder than confidence would have.

For one long second, you wanted him to kiss you so badly that you forgot why you were there.

Then a car passed on the road behind you, headlights cutting through the windows, and both of you shifted apart.

Steve cleared his throat, his head turning to look out the driver's side.  He seemed to have looked aware of just how vulnerable the moment was,  and didn't know how to navigate it.  “So. Did I help?”

You looked down at his jacket wrapped around you. It made feel warm in ways you almost wished it didn't. 

“Yes,” your voice came out all wrong,  small and breathless. “You did.”

You wrote three pages that night and hated all of them. It was as frustrating as it was complicated.  The problem was not that Steve failed your test. You found that out quickly. 

The true problem was that he kept passing in the wrong direction.

—

In public, you performed coldness with the sharp dread of a person setting a match to her own sleeve. Or at least, you truly hoped it looked like that. 

Monday morning, Steve found you near your locker with a bright, almost boyish smile that made you glance away before it could hit directly.

“Hey,” he leaned besides you near the locker. “I was thinking maybe after school we could—”

You shut your locker too hard.

“Can we not do this right now?”

His hand, halfway extended toward yours, stopped in the air. He dropped it quickly, trying to make the movement look natural.

“Do what?” his voice had you wanting to falter. God, since when were you this weak?

“This.” You gestured between you, impatient and vague. “The whole thing.”

People moved around you in the hallway, a current of denim jackets and textbooks and perfume. Someone bumped your shoulder. Before you could stumble, Steve stepped closer, placing himself between you and the rush of bodies. It was an unconscious movement. Protective without announcement.

Your stomach turned. You bowed your head to ignore looking into his enrapturing eyes. A warmth came instinctive in your stomach standing in such close proximity with the boy in front of you. You tried to push it down.  

Keyword, tried.

His voice dropped, his head leaning down to yours in an attempt to meet your gaze. “Hey. What did I do?”

His voice had you feeling weak already. “Nothing.”

“Okay, well, I’m getting a pretty strong not-nothing feeling here.”

You looked past him toward Stacey at the end of the hall. She watched with wide eyes, silently mouthing something that might have been commitment or abort. Her hands moved in front of her in a weaving gesture. You weren't sure what she'd been trying to convey, so you only assume she wanted to to keep going.

You crossed your arms, forcing your tone to turn cold and far away. No words really landed cleanly in your head for inspiration, so you took the first ones that would stick. “Maybe you don’t have to be so… much.”

Steve blinked.

His jaw tensed with movement,  your eyes drew to the action by unfortunate reflex now. He glanced down, then back up, searching your face with a focus that made your skin feel too thin and your act feel too hesitant. 

“I’ll fix it,” the words came quietly. You were sure your expression was dumbfounded, sure you had been acting like this on purpose – but what did he gain from doing that? You were so rapidly expecting a textbook fit. Instead, you got patient murmurings. That was worse than any possible anger.

“I don’t need you to fix it.”

“Then tell me what you need.”

His breath warmed your forehead. His hazel eyes showed no sign of any true hostility. They were worried and confused, and there was something heartbreakingly earnest in the way he tried to solve the version of the problem you had invented. You liked that. You liked that he seemed to act like that by instinct.

And so, because of that, you almost reached for him.

You willed yourself to iron quickly. Wetting your bottom lip, you finally looked up at him. eyes. The action had you remembering just why you were so hesitant to meet his gaze, having a look that could melt anything in them. Instead, you stepped around him and walked to class with your throat tight enough to hurt.

At lunch later, you made notes that took up new space in your writing notebook.

He responded to social rejection not with aggression but accommodation. Attempts repair. Shows confusion when expected script fails. Public status seems less motivating than personal connection.

You underlined personal connection so hard the paper tore.

Even detached on paper didn't feel right.

— 

The next test, as the girls had dubbed it, was supposed to be funny. You were sure it was meant to be, but it still held an underlying issue. It was Stacey’s idea, though you were the one foolish enough to do it.

The party was at some fellow senior’s house on Maple Street, loud enough to rattle the windows from the street. Steve picked you up with his hair arranged into what could only be called architecture. He seemed nervous about the party in a way he tried to bury under commentary about the radio, the road, and the fact that you were late even though you had been ready for ten minutes and had simply stood in your room wondering when exactly you had become the villain in your own story.

It was a rough start to say the least.

When you got there, he came around to open your door.

You stood and tried not to let the deep inhale of breathe be heard. The last thing you needed was to look as nervous as you felt. And quickly after that, you took one look at his carefully styled hair, and before you could lose courage, reached up and ran both hands through it. A smile found its way on your face, practiced and teasing, mirroring the girl in the catalogue of your People magazine.

The brush through his hair wasn't gentle, although his hair certainly was. Seriously, you had to ask later on what his secret was. 

The structure of its volume collapsed instantly, and Steve froze. His head still remained in its bowed position from where he leaned down from the passenger seat door of his car. His brows twitched together as your hands ran along his temple. You froze too, fingers still threaded into his hair.

For one second, you waited for the familiar snap. For the old King Steve to step forward with wounded pride and a cruel mouth. The porch light hummed above you. Inside, someone shrieked with laughter. His friends, or former friends, or whatever they were now, could see you from the living room window.

Steve looked at his reflection in the dark glass of the car. He let out a small sigh, and the familiar heart fluttering charming grin appeared on his face. Steve's eyes shut for a moment but his expression didn't falter, even as a series of laughter escaped him. The sound felt warm to you, and your body responded in turn.

“Better?” Steve then fluttered his pretty eyes back open, his head tilting with curiosity. “It was exhausting keeping that up anyway.”

Your hands fell quickly, your finger tips missing the way his hair felt against your skin instantly. The joke died so completely that you could almost hear it hit the pavement.

He glanced at you, the ruined hair falling soft around his face only enhancing him.  “Does it look terrible?”

“No,” you denied, and it came out too quickly. You winced at that, a small noise escaped Steve. 

His mouth twitched. “That was very convincing.”

“I mean it.” you did. 

He looked younger again. Not smaller, exactly. Just less fully arranged. Another strand fell over his forehead, and you had the sudden, awful urge to smooth it back with care instead of strategy.

The party behind you roared alive, and Steve heard. His shoulders tightened, but he didn't turn toward them like you thought. He looked at you instead, waiting for your reaction, which somehow made you responsible for the whole fragile moment.

You reached up and fixed one piece of hair near his temple. Something in you liked doing that. 

“There,” your voice was stronger now, and your smile had turned real moments ago. “Better.”

The smile he gave you was crooked and private. It really was nothing in comparison to the rest of the party, but it lingered. You spent the next few hours trying to get him to smile like that again.

You didn't take notes that night, or any of the other future nights.

You just remembered things instead.

You remembered the blue flicker of a movie screen across his face two nights later, when he sat beside you in the theater and kept his arm over your shoulders for the first half hour because that was what Steve Harrington knew how to do. Smooth. Easy. Practiced. Then, sometime after the second reel started rolling, his fingers stopped drumming against your sleeve and settled there with a hesitant weight, not claiming, only asking.

You remembered the way he drove with one hand when he was showing off, then switched to both hands when he told you about the time he forgot about his gym clothes and his coach made him wear an extra one two sizes too small. You remembered that he kept cherry chapstick in his glove box beside a flashlight, two old cassette tapes, and a receipt from a gas station outside Indianapolis. You remembered him stealing fries from your plate at the nearby diner and pretending to be wounded when you kicked his shin under the booth.

And in the next important memory, you remembered rain.

It came hard one random Thursday night, turning Hawkins into a blur of headlights and slick black roads. Steve’s house was empty in the way large houses could be empty even before you stepped inside. It was too clean, and far too quiet. The kind of place where expensive furniture sat untouched, waiting for adults who came home late and left early.

You ended up in his bedroom because the living room felt too much like a showroom for you.

His room was warmer than you expected, messier in an unapologetically human way. A baseball glove rested comfortably on the nearby dresser. Records stacked crookedly near the stereo. A half-open drawer with socks spilling out. Hair products lined along the bathroom counter with an intensity that might have been funny if it did not now seem faintly sad. Still, you had gotten a few quips out in hopes of cracking a smile from him.

The storm rattled the windows deeper into that even when conversations died down. You sat on the floor with your backs against the thick wooden frame of his bed, sharing a blanket that smelled faintly of detergent and his cologne. It was a familiar scent to your mind now. His knee pressed against yours beneath the fabric. 

Neither of you moved away. 

“I used to think this place was cool,” Steve had mentioned offhandedly after a moment, looking around the space of his room.

You didn't quite follow why his tone seemed far away, to you, his words were still holding up. “It is cool.”

“It’s big.”

Your head turned to face him, a hum on your lips. “That’s usually part of cool.”

He shook his head, the slight shake of his hair reminded you of how you missed touching it. You shook your head and focused once more when he spoke again. “No, I mean… it’s just big.”

You understood what he meant.

Near his large bedroom window, thunder rolled low over the town. The room flashed pale for a second, then settled back into the lamplight.

You rested your cheek against the edge of the mattress, warm eyes pouring into yours as he mimicked your actions. “Are your parents gone a lot?”

“Yeah.” Steve then picked at a loose thread in the blanket. His next words came out short and detached, so unlike the guy you've known. “Dad travels. Mom goes with him when she’s tired of pretending she likes Hawkins.”

You didn't like how his eyes dimmed.  “And you?”

“I stay.”

The word sat between you.

He laughed once, it was without humor, and rubbed at his eye with the heel of his hand. His voice held that rasped edge that sent tingles down your spine.  “God, that sounded pathetic.”

“It didn’t.” The reassurance came so quick it shocked you. You attempted to play it cool, repeating the words slower. 

“It did.” He looked down at his hands, the same ones you found yourself wanting to hold without the premise of a lie. “I just… I don’t know what happens when this is over. School. All of it. Everybody keeps acting like we’re supposed to know.” You didn't know what to say, it was the first time you've seen him so visibly wrecked.  “College, jobs, whatever. And I’m sitting there thinking—what if this was it? What if being King Steve was the only thing I was ever good at, and I wasn’t even good enough to keep it?”

Your chest tightened, it seemed like the world was laughing at you. Her he was, sitting on his bedroom floor besides talking about his insecurities all while you were actively trying to back on them. 

The article was in your bag downstairs. A draft. A title. A guillotine made of clever sentences.

“Steve,” the name came of gentle from your lips. 

He would not look at you, he kept staring at a spot on the floor. 

“Nancy figured it out before I did,” he went on, his voice lower now. His shoulders carried his tension clear as day. “That all the stuff people liked about me was just… noise. Parties, basketball, the car, the hair. The Harrington house. I thought that meant something. Then it didn’t, and it was—”

He stopped and didn't continue any further. You knew the signs before it came, and the room quieted down. 

His throat moved, a small, forcefully restrained noise finding its way out. The rain that thudded against his window filled the silence for him. And for you. 

You reached for his hand quickly.

He looked at your fingers covering his, then turned his palm upward and held on. You opened your mouth to speak, but not much came out. His grip was still foreign to you,  but it was different right now. It wasn't smooth, and it didn't feel like it held any kind of plan. His grip tightened once, almost too much to be soft, but then he quickly loosened it.

You shifted closer.

That was all it took.

He pulled you into his lap with a suddenness that stole your breath, then seemed to realize what he had done a second after doing it. His hands hovered at your waist.

“Sorry,” he whispered.

You settled there instead of moving away. Your own eyes were blown wide and mirroring his. You tried to speak but it came out all airy. “It’s okay.”

His breathing changed when yours did. Steve's eyes seemed to track your face, and the air seemed to turn into something deeper. 

For a moment, neither of you spoke up again. He lowered his forehead to your shoulder,then to the curve of your neck, his breath warm against your skin. The response that you gave was instantaneous, a rapid rising and falling of your chest went through the warmth of your body. His hands gripped your waist through the blanket, not possessive necessarily, you thought it felt more like clinging. Tethering.  The storm made the windows tremble. His hair brushed your jaw.

You lifted a hand and threaded your fingers into the back of his hair. The return of the welcome feeling was pleasant in your grasp.

He went still under your touch, and for a moment. Then he exhaled, deep and unsteady, and held you closer. Your faces were breaths away now, the bridge of his nose softly touched yours.

“Hey,” your voice came out weak. It was too soft to be teasing like you'd hoped. 

Steve’s eyes softened instantly. You saw it happen. You saw the moment the small, genuine grin stretched across his face. His voice came back whispered, as if scared to break the moment. “Hi there.”

When he finally pulled back, his eyes searched your face with an openness that made lying feel entirely  impossible. You knew he was about to kiss you. You knew that you really should stop him. You knew the truth should come out before his mouth touches yours, before this became another thing you had stolen under false pretenses.

But you'd been stupid, and so you didn't stop him.

The kiss began softly, almost carefully. His lips were brushing yours once before returning with more certainty. He tasted faintly sweet from the chapstick he pretended not to use. The kiss felt like it was bewitching your body whole. His hand rose to your hair, fingers sinking in with a restraint that kept breaking and returning. You gave a slight laugh against his lips before calming down. You felt him trying not to rush, trying not to take more than you gave, and the effort undid you more thoroughly than any practiced confidence could have. Because it was just so him.

You kissed him back.

Not for the article. Not for the headline. Not because Stacey would demand details or because Mr. Walsh would have to admit you knew how to find a story

You wanted to, you truly wanted to..

You kissed him because his hand was warm against your back and his breath caught when you touched his face. Because the room smelled of rain and leather and laundry soap. Because his mouth moved against yours with need and care tangled together, and your whole body answered before your conscience could organize a defense.

When you pulled away, his forehead rested against yours. The faint flush from his skin felt nice against yours

He smiled, small and dazed. You added that of the list of expressions you liked to see on him.

“Does this mean I’m helping with your boy problem?”

A laugh broke out of you, shaky and real. You pressed your face into his shoulder to hide it. With a lightness in you chest you lifted your head up as you rolled your eyes. Your hand moved on its own account now. It slid up to grasp the side of his face, your fingers sliding against the shape of his jaw.

“Shut up, Steve.”

His arms tightened around you, and his lips found yours once again. His own lightness expressed through the laughter that filled the echoing bedroom. "Ouch, you wound me."

For a few minutes, the world narrowed to the storm, his heartbeat beneath your palm, and the terrible knowledge that you had done something you could not write your way out of.

—

The article sat unfinished for two days.

You told yourself you would kill it. You also told yourself that you had time. Then you told yourself you would revise it.

So you sat in the newsroom after school, staring at the draft title until the faniliar letters turned cruel.

The Lifecycle of a High School God: why a crown crushes a king.

It sounded brilliant in the cafeteria. You distinctly remember thinking that. But now? Now it sounded mean. 

No, mean was too light of a word. It felt cruel.

You pulled the pages from the typewriter, folded them once, and shoved them into your folder. You would tell Mr. Walsh you had changed direction. You would write something else. Anything else. A review of the cafeteria pizza. A profile on the marching band. A blank page with sorry written in the center.

The front page spot didn't seem so enticing anymore when the cost came so harsh.

You were reaching for your bag when Mark appeared in the doorway, looking over at you. You didn't bother to hide the deep exhale you gave, you whole body tensing on on instinct.

“Working late?”

You stiffened and corrected him. “Leaving, actually.”

His eyes dropped to the folder in your hand. You immediately shut the folder, not liking the look in his gaze. “Is that the mystery column everyone’s whispering about?”

“No.”

“So yes.”

You tucked it against your chest. You had truly no paitence for the boy. You had been feeling horrible all last night yesterday, well, even more so last night than usual. “Move, Mark.”

He held up both hands, smiling. You didn't like his smile. It was nothing like the comforting presence of Steve's. The thought only made your mood worsened. “Relax. I just wanted to see what was so important that Walsh was considering bumping my school spirit piece.”

“He wasn’t.” You wished you sounded as steady as you needed to, but the flicker in your voice betrayed you.

Mark noticed. Boys like Mark always noticed weakness when it benefited them. And Mark himself no doubt would revel in any chance of taking an empty shot at you.

“Come on,” he clicked his tongue in a way that made your blood boil from its condescension. “We’re all on the same staff.”

“No, we’re not.” You pushed past him quickly. 

You did not know, however, that then one folded carbon copy had slipped from your folder and landed beneath the table, half-hidden by the trash can. You did not know Mark found it ten minutes later. You did not know he read it standing under the buzzing lights with his mouth slowly opening into the delighted shape of opportunity.

If you knew, you certainly wouldn't have lived through the reoccurring nightmare you've been having for the past few weeks.

You found out the next morning when Hawkins High came alive with your words.

Not the final version of your words, for it surely would've had a different result. It wasn't even the whole draft.

It was the worst version, the sharpest version.

The version written before you knew the way Steve looked when he gave away his jacket and pretended not to be cold.

Copies appeared on lockers before first period. Someone had run them fast and dirty, the ink uneven, the margins crooked. The title screamed from the top in bold type.

By second period, everyone had read it. By lunch, they were reading it aloud. You pushed through the hallway with your heart hammering so hard your vision pulsed at the edges.

A boy near the trophy case laughed. “Listen to this part—”

You snatched the page from his hand and you were sure the rhythm of your heart could be heard from miles away.

There it was.

Your article.

Your voice, sharpened into a blade that you couldn't even begin to imagine dulling.

The Lifecycle of a High School God: why a crown crushes a king

Every high school builds a throne, though no one admits to carrying the wood to make it. We vote with our eyes, our invitations, and our laughter at jokes that are not funny enough to deserve it. We create a boy and call him a king because it is easier than admitting we are the kingdom that is faulty.

The high school god is rarely born exceptional. He is assembled meticulously. A good car. A good face. The right jacket. The right table. Enough people saying his name in the right tone until even he begins to believe there is something sacred in being wanted. These continue to enforce how sincerity rarely makes the cut.

But worship is not love. Anyone will tell you that, and those who disagree would be dumb enough to face the consequences. Popularity feeds on performance, and performance rots whatever is underneath the layer given. A boy taught to survive by being admired will eventually mistake attention for affection, control for confidence, and loneliness for proof that everyone else has failed him

When a crown falls, what remains is often not a villain, but something more ordinary and more frightening: a boy with no language for himself beyond what other people once applauded and now isolate.

Hawkins High should ask why we keep making kings out of boys who do not know how to be human — and why we act surprised when the weight of a crown crushes them to dust.

You had written every word. It would have been easier to say that Mark embellished over your words, and exaggerated for journalist effect. But he didn't,  you were the one to do that. It was the worst part of the draft he could have chosen, simply because of the fact that you had left out everything you saw after.

You had also left out every human thing that would have saved him.

You found Steve in the print room a few hours later. And before you could assume any sort of hope of a clean explanation, it was shot and dead in front of you. You almost wished he hadn't gone there.

But of course he would have gone there, and of course the place where your betrayal had been made public still smelled of ink and metal and hot paper. It was proof of the now posted article that you didn't even want out. Faintly, you could hear something loud with the clacking press that someone had forgotten to turn off. Steve stood near the long table, one of the copies in his hand, the page trembling slightly between his fingers.

He looked up when you entered and you almost wished he hadn't. 

His eyes were red.

Not crying, not exactly. Worse. It made your heart drop and panic spike up into you. It seemed he intended to hold back so hard that the effort had hollowed out his face.

“Steve–” you didn't recognize your voice. It was so desperate and and pleading. You opened your mouth and tried to stammer out any explanation that came into your head, but there was nothing you found coming to mind. 

“Steve, please! Just listen, I–” He interrupted you and laughed, but it shook you. It wasn't like the laughter you had come to live,  this one had no warmth in it. It was so unlike him and you hated it. You hated causing that. 

“Was any of it real?”

You stopped short, any explanation does quickly in the tip of your tongue. 

He held up the article for you to see. As if you needed to be reminded of what you'd have done, a small breath part of you mouthed off bitterly. 

“When you looked at me like that. When you stayed with me. When you—” His voice caught, and he looked away, jaw tight. You immediately took to shaking your head, the implication of his words just. Because they were true.  And because they weren't. “Was that just material for your front page?”

“No!”

“No?”

“It started—” You hated yourself before the words finished forming. “It started as an article, but—”

His face changed and your heart seemed perpetually lodged into your ribcage. There were some truths that did not deserve the dignity of a full explanation. Steve just exhaled out sharply, his head finally facing you. The reaction wasn't what you wanted, you wanted–no, needed to explain yourself.

He nodded slowly, eyes dropping to the floor. Steve didn't give the you the chance to continue. “Right.”

“Steve, I was going to stop it. I didn't even turn it in! I swear, I wasn't going to hand it over. Mark found an old draft, and he—”

“Don’t.” He looked at you then, and the quiet in his voice hurt more than shouting would have. The word held so much that you froze on instinct. Your eyes stung viciously as you opened your mouth but nothing came out. “Don’t make this about him.”

Your mouth closed then. You felt utterly helpless, which might have been deserved. You desperately wanted to tell him everything,  wanting him to understand that it was real – is real. But your eyes, wide and frantic, just froze. He stepped closer, the paper crumpling in his fist.

“Everyone else wanted to see me for my status,” Steve began with a sharp inhale. You felt the stinging turn more prominent in your eyes, you tried to take a step forward but that was rejected when he almost flinched back two steps himself.. “The car, the parties, the game. Whatever. I got that. I was stupid, but I got it.” His breath shook. Steve’s voice cracked  nearing the end, and that was the last thing you heard before your vision blurred into spots. “I thought you were the only one who didn’t care about it.”

“I did! No, I mean–I do, you have to believe me, Steve.” Your voice was surely pathetically small. Everything else seemed to turn into static silence in the empty printing room and you desperately needed to fix it. You wanted to, but you felt so utterly unsure of your next steps. You reached for him on instinct.

Steve flinched back.

The movement was small. Instinctive. As if his body no longer registered you as a comfort, and that split something open in you. You felt the first few tears fall from your lashes, each blink dropping tiny little pearls. Steve made a noise you couldn't properly translate, his eyes were on yours but they held a thousand words and emotions in a single look. His own hand twitched open and shut before being brought up to bury itself in his hair, Steve then forced his eyes shut and his head turned to the side. He couldn't decide what hurt more, being hurt by you, or seeing you hurt.

He was the one that came back sharp and strained.

“Turns out,” Steve’s voice was so rough, it could have been unrecognizable. You opened your mouth immediately to shut down whatever he would say, but he beat you to it.  “you just used me for a headline.”

The press clattered behind him. A sheet slid loose and fluttered to the floor.

“I’m sorry,” you whispered, your voice cracking and stinging from feeling utterly defeated. Because he was right, you did. You did get to know him for a chance at a headline, so that was why you could only apologize. But you wanted nothing to do with that stupid article, and regret washed over you at the thought of him thinking none of it was real. Because yes, it was messy, but it was real for you. “But–fuck, Steve... please you have to understand that–” you were cut off before you could even continue. 

He stared at you for a long moment, and you could see the part of him that wanted to believe you fighting with the part that had learned too many times what wanting cost.

Then he turned and walked out.

The room didn't become empty when he left, there was no relief that came with him leaving. And the room didn't become calmer in his disappearance; instead, it filled with him.

The absence of his cologne. The missing warmth of his jacket. The ghost of his hand at your cheek, careful and uncertain, before you had earned any of it. All of the little things that were so present just a moment ago were gone and let the physical trail of what happened.

You were left alone with the faint clacking of the room's machinery. And for a moment, you were so ready to run out to try and plead. To explain, to tell him every complete thing he was missing in hopes of him understanding. But you couldn't do that, not when you were already reason enough that he was hurting all over again.

With a loud curse, you found yourself feeling completely lost in a room that you've only ever compared with a haven. 

— 

For two days, Steve Harrington became visible to you in a way he had never been as king.

You saw him at his locker the next Friday morning, hollow-eyed and quiet, pretending not to hear the whispers. You saw him in the cafeteria, sitting with a younger boy you didn't know for exactly six minutes before the younger boy said something animated enough to make Steve almost smile. Then Steve caught sight of you across the room and the almost vanished.

That hurt like a stab to the heart. 

Then came the other little things that made you feel significantly worse.  He stopped coming to the parking lot after school until the buses had left. He stopped looking down your hallway. He stopped being available to your guilt.

You tried to corner Mark. He denied leaking it with the loose, oily confidence of someone who knew proof mattered more than truth. Mr. Walsh gave a speech to the staff about journalistic ethics while refusing to meet your eyes. Stacey apologized three times, then stopped because the apologies had nowhere to land when she held you while your sobs filled your bedroom. Leah sat beside you at lunch without talking much. That was the kindest thing anyone did.

By Friday afternoon, the newsroom felt smaller than it ever had for you. More suffocating. 

The printing press sat under the window, still and waiting. Dust turned in the late sun. Your original ambition lay around you in stacks of paper and headline sketches and discarded layouts.

You looked at the front page proof with Mark’s article on school spirit and felt nothing.

Not disappointment. Not anger.

Nothing.

That truly scared you more than pain did.

You had thought giving up the article would be enough. You had thought killing the story would count as a moral act. But the story was already alive, crawling through Hawkins High with your fingerprints around its throat. You didn't know what to do, the words were already there for everyone that listened. 

You sat at the typewriter.

For a long moment, you did not move. Shortly after a fit of tense silence, you finally rolled in a clean sheet. The keys struck hard enough to ache in your fingers.

This time, you did not write anonymously because you were clever. Or because you were trying to be witty or cruel. You wrote anonymously because the confession was not meant to redeem your name. It was meant to give him back his.

By the final bell, the flyer was everywhere, curtesy of your desperate and frantic efforts. 

It wasn't approved, it certainly also wasn't polished. Id didn't become formatted with Mr. Walsh’s careful little rules. It was just a single page copied until the machine jammed twice and your hands were black with ink that you couldn't scrub off

Students grabbed them from the tables, from the lockers, from the floor where they skidded under shoes. After all, no one loved potential hidden stories more than Hawkins High

You didn't wait to watch them read. That had been the least of your priorities. There was more important things that you cared about than who read a piece of your work now, and he had been gone from your sight long enough.

So, you ran.

The hallways exploded around you with the annual end-of-week chaos of Hawkins High School. Lockers slammed open, someone yelled about a shared ride, and a freshman dropped an entire stack of books and cursed with such feeling that a teacher shouted his name from twenty feet away. The sun poured through the front doors in a white-gold sheet, way too bright after the fluorescent dimness of the hall.

Steve was not at his locker. He was not outside the gym. He wasn't by the trophy case or the pay phones or even the side entrance near the band room. Your lungs burned by the time you shoved through the heavy double doors and stumbled into the afternoon.

The parking lot sprawled ahead of you, shining under the cold sun. Cars backed out in crooked lines. Girls shouted through open windows. The air smelled of gasoline, damp leaves, and somebody’s cigarette. It was all nothing that you cared about. The one thing you did seemed to be missing from the scene. Your eyes squinted in the light as it traveled across the parking spaces of the lot, failing to find what your heart desperately wanted to see.

At the far end, the BMW’s engine roared to life.

“No,” you breathed with pure adrenaline rushing through your veins. Steve sat behind the wheel, one hand on the gearshift, his profile hard through the windshield. 

Before you even knew it, you started running. 

It was stupid, rushed, and entirely filled with desperation. Your shoes slapped the asphalt. You heard Leah faintly calling your name, but you didn't turn back. The wind tore at your hair. Your bag bounced painfully against your hip but you paid it no mind. You cut between two parked cars and nearly slipped on loose gravel.

“Steve!”

He did not hear you, or pretended not to. You gave a groan of loud annoyance, but it still did little to deter you.

You reached the car just as the reverse lights flashed.

Without thinking, without dignity, and definitely without any plan beyond the awful certainty that if he drove away now something inside you would never forgive you, you threw yourself in front of the driver’s side door.

The car jerked to a stop and Steve froze behind the wheel.

Through the glass, his beautifully bright eyes  widened. Hurt, shock, and stubborn pride moved across his face so quickly you could barely separate them. Then his mouth tightened. You could tell he wasn't expecting your actions, and you couldn't exactly say you were the most sane person now.

The window rolled down slowly, the crank turning under his hand with mechanical, agonizing patience.

“What are you doing?” his words came loud and filled with unresolved frustration. Steve’s voice was rough. Thick in its tension. He wouldn't look straight at you. You refused to settle for that, the days spent with the familiar feeling practically left you numb and empty. 

“Go back inside,” Steve’s eyes and words seemed to contradict each other. He shifted back into looking into his dashboard instead of you. “Go celebrate your front page.”

You shoved the crumpled paper through the open window. It landed in his lap.

“I don’t care about the stupid article, ” you said, breathless enough that the words broke apart. “I don’t care about the front page. Just–read it. Please.”

His jaw flexed. For a second, you thought he would throw it back at you. Then Steve looked down at the copy of printed words.

You watched his eyes move over the page.

Correcting mistakes:

There was an article circulating this week about a king. It was clever in the cruel way people mistake for intelligence when they are too afraid to admit they have been wrong.

The girl who wrote it thought she was exposing a system. She thought it clever and brilliant. She told herself the boy at the center of it was an idea, a symbol, a lesson with good hair. She thought distance made her fair and judicial. She thought observation made her honest.

Then the boy gave her his jacket when she was cold.

Then he admitted he was afraid of being forgotten, and the girl realized she had been so busy studying the crown of his that she had ignored the weight of it on his own head.

The first article was right about one thing: Hawkins High School makes kings out of boys and then punishes them for not knowing how to be anything else. That wasn't the mistake here. But it was wrong to confuse a boy’s damage with his character. It was wrong to turn trust into evidence. And it was wrong to take the softest things he offered and sharpen them for public consumption.

This is not an apology meant to earn forgiveness. This is meant, instead to fix the record.

The boy was never a god. 

He was kinder than any story allowed him to be, and he was kinder than she deserved. 

Steve stared at the paper.

His chest rose and fell under his yellow polo. His rings glinted where his fingers gripped the page. Around you, students slowed. A few openly stared. You could feel the parking lot turning toward you with the appetite of a place that loved spectacle.

For once, you really, truly, couldn't care.  

Steve’s eyes lifted to yours,  and you could weep just from that alone. “Why should I believe you?” he asked.

The question was quiet enough that no one else could hear. You stepped closer, hands gripping the edge of the open window. Your own voice want any better, it was loud and messy, and undeniably real. A breathless bount of laughter escaped you “Because I was playing a game and I lost, Steve.”

“I lost.”

His throat moved but you hadn't seen it.

“And I lost you,” you sighed with your head hanging low in shame near the open window, voice shaking now, “and I regret it. I was supposed to push you away, but every time you held my hand, every time you looked at me like I actually mattered, I—”

Your breath caught, and you forced it down in order to continue.

“I don’t care about King Steve. I don’t care about the crown or the table or the stupid front page. I want the guy who gets cold in his own car because he gave me his jacket. I want the guy who pretends he doesn’t use cherry chapstick. I want the guy who worries too much and fixes his hair when he’s nervous and acts tough until somebody he cares about needs him to be gentle.”

The words were embarrassing in their vulnerability, and it didn't help that Steve just stared at you. But even small battle wins were tremendous to those who were cautious.  The defensive hardness in his face trembled.

You leaned closer, not touching him. Though God knew you wanted too. But you wouldn't take what he had not offered.

“I just want you,” you said and the words hung there in the bright afternoon.

For a second, nothing happened. That scared you.  Because if even though all of this, he didn't believe you, you were sure that would break you entirely. You didn't understand how looking at him now, with his beautifully enrupturing genuine gaze and constellations of freckles so faint kissing his skin with blessings, you could have been so stupid.

Your panicking monologue was cut off when Steve let out a breath that broke halfway into a laugh.

It made you falter momentarily. You wouldn't exactly describe it as fully happy or clean. Instead, it was more ragged. Disbelieving. Full of relief that came so sudden it seemed to knock the strength out of him. He looked down at the crumpled printed again, then back at you. You saw the exact moment when whatever he had been holding together for two days came apart in his hands.

“You’re insane,” Steve held his head in his hands. The heels of his palms dragged to his eyes, and that when you noticed the concealed redness there. Your panic was a quick guest arrival as your hand hesitantly went over the threshold of the open window and found its spot tangling through his hair at his temple.

Your voice came out soft. “I know.”

“You ran in front of my car.” Steve's was returned in a disbelieving laugh. The sound on instinct made you smile.

“I know.”

“I could’ve hit you.”

You weren't quite so sure you believed that. And it seemed like neither did he fully either. The both of you stared through the air between you “You're not exactly driving donuts with your Beamer in a school parking lot, Harrington. You were going four miles an hour, max.”

His mouth twitched and your heart found its comfort. There he was. That was the boy you wanted to see, the one who was sincere and silly and all of the words in between.

The moment didn't truly feel fixed all the way, and it didn't feel so easily forgiven so neatly that the hurt could be vanished beneath a kiss. But there, beneath the bruised pride and the red eyes and the stubborn set of his jaw, was the boy from the park. The boy from the rainstorm. The boy who had laughed quietly when nobody asked him to perform.

He shoved the car door open.

You barely had time to step back before he was out, hands catching your waist. Steve lifted you clean off the pavement, and a startled sound escaped you as your hands grabbed his shoulders.

“Steve—”

“Shut up,” he rasped, but his voice broke around the smile. Then kiss that came next didn't surprise you. But it certainly didn't prepare you for it either.

It was not exactly graceful, but it was completely and utterly impassioned.

Someone in the parking lot whooped. Someone else yelled something that sounded suspiciously like “Harrington!” A horn blared because a car was stuck behind his open door. The reminder of just how crazy this whole situation was roared in your ears. 

Steve didn't seem to hear any of it. You had a feeling that he did, but just pretended he didn't. That made you smile on reflex against him.

His hands held your waist with desperate certainty, then slid up your back, pulling you close enough that the cold afternoon disappeared between you. Your fingers tangled in his hair, ruining it again, and he made a sound against your mouth that was half laugh, half relief. He tasted the same sweet cherry chapstick you started buying for yourself and breathless warmth. The kiss carried every unsaid thing neither of you knew how to organize yet. Anger. Want. Hurt. Forgiveness beginning somewhere far off and walking slowly toward you.

When your feet touched the ground again, you were dizzy. It was a good dizzy, and the pounding in your side was a welcome pleasure now. 

Steve rested his forehead against yours, breathing hard. His hands stayed anchored at your hips, refusing to let you drift away. Up close, you could see the faint details scattered along his neck, the tiredness under his eyes, and the careful hope he was trying not to show too quickly.

“You really printed that?” The question broke you out of your stupor. You were still so dazed from his touch that you distantly found yourself nodding. Your hands refused to leave their spot in reaching for him now that there wasn't a lie justifying it.

“Over Mark’s stupid school spirit thing?”

Your words came mechanical,  as if offended he'd even question it. “Technically under it. Around it. On top of some of it.”

“I made a stupid amount of copies.” The confession came paired with you momentarily dropping your hands where they were wrapped around him to hold up the black ink stains on your fingers.

His smile spread, crooked and real enough to hurt. And you swore that it was the most beautiful sight in the world.

“Good.”

You laughed weakly, your hands finding their way back into sliding to the back of his nape. “That’s what you took from the public confession?”

“I’m processing.” His thumb moved along your jaw, slow and familiar. “Also, I liked the cherry chapstick line.”

“I hoped you would,” you felt like a cat relishing in caresses. The smile that mirrored his came quick and teasing on your mouth.  His eyes stayed on yours, and his smile softened at the edges.

“You’re a terrible writer.”

Your brows lifted in instinctive defensiveness of your craft. “Excuse me?”

He brushed his thumb beneath your chin, eyes bright with that old Harrington charm, gentler now, and clearly worn in rather than performed.

“You didn’t even come close to losing me.”

The ache in your chest loosened all at once.

It would not be so easy for you to say it was gone, you would still have to apologize without speeches. He would still have to decide what trust looked like after being turned into copy. 

But Steve was standing in front of you with his hair wrecked by your hands and your confession folded against his car seat. He was looking at you, really looking, not the way a king looked over a crowd, but the way a boy looked at the girl he was still willing to let close enough to hurt him.

You rose onto your toes with a soft shake of your head and grin. “Just shut up and kiss me, Harrington.”

His grin flashed.

“Yes, ma’am.”

Perhaps it was because you had always been a helper, and it felt good knowing that people were comfortable enough to come up to you and ask for such help.

But what you really loved about it was the outcome.

When the person you helped came to you afterwards and excitedly told you how they had aced their test, or how they had gotten a good mark on their assignment, it filled you with a quiet sense of pride. Not exactly for yourself, but for them. For their success, for their improvement. And because you had done that, you had helped them get to that success.

So naturally, you signed up to become an official tutor at the Hawkins High School Tutoring Centre.

It became apart of your routine. Staying after school to tutor someone, or having to come to their house to do so. Either way, you never really minded. All that really mattered was that you helped them not to dread class so much anymore, to help them to not have to scratch their head while looking at the work because they just didn't get it.

So of course, now in your sophomore year, you didn't mind when the coordinator of the centre informed you that a new person had been added to your roster. However, you didn't know who this person was because the arrangement had been last minute since the person's original tutor had been unable to do so, so he wasn't officially on your schedule yet. All that you knew was that he was a guy in the year above who had apparently been holding off getting tutored for a long time. This made you assume this guy was going to be a bit hard to work with, but you were always able to manage.

It had been thirty minutes since school ended when you sat in the library, waiting for this person to show up with your stationery already set out on the table. This person was already late, and should have already been at the table with you fifteen minutes ago.

You were thinking about the meatloaf you were going to have for dinner tonight when the doors of the library swung open, abruptly cutting off your thoughts and startling you. You looked up as the librarian glared at the culprit at the door, pressing a pointy finger to her lips.

And the culprit was the last person you expected to walk into a library of all places.

Steve Harrington.

As in Steve "The Hair" Harrington, also known as King Steve.

The kind of person who threw a raging party every Saturday, the kind of person who misbehaved in class because they knew there would be no real consequences, and the kind of person who would only ever be at school after hours for basketball practice.

So why the hell was Steve Harrington in the library of Hawkins High after school hours?

And why was he looking straight at you?

He didn't look happy by any means. He was obviously annoyed by whatever was plaguing him, and you grew nervous as he approached you while still wearing his irritated expression.

He came to a stop in front of your table, and you swallowed anxiously under his intimidating stare, starting to fiddle with the ends of your sleeves as a nervous habit.

"Are you Y/N L/N?" He asked flatly.

You blinked. "Yes. Can I help you?"

"You're supposed to apparently, you're my... tutor," said Steve, his face scrunching up as if the word physically hurt him.

Somehow, you had known from the second he had walked in with that look on his face, yet your stomach still dropped with dread when he said it.

You were happy to tutor anyone, but anyone didn't include Steve Harrington. It was something you had never worried about, because how were you supposed to assume that one day you would have to tutor King Steve out of all people?

You schooled your expression to the best of your abilities, and you recollected yourself as you nodded. "I see. Well... sit down, and we can get started."

You tried to say it kindly, but you immediately regretted doing so when he mumbled something grumpily under his breath as he reluctantly sat on the same table on you, pointedly choosing the seat furthest from you. You resisted the urge to roll your eyes, and you had a feeling that was an urge you would need to resist often.

You cursed the coordinator of the centre for setting up this arrangement. Clearly, this person didn't know anything about how you and Steve couldn't be any more different, because you truly were polar opposites.

While he played beer pong at house parties, you were studying. While he goofed off in class, you paid attention and completed all of your work. While he was at basketball practice, you were tutoring. While he always had a rowdy table at lunch, you had a quiet and calm one.

There was a spectrum, and you both sat at the opposite ends of it.

You just hoped you could swiftly help Steve pass a test so that it would be over as soon as possible.

***

After just one week, you could tell you were going to be tortured with tutoring Steve Harrington for a while.

To put it nicely, he... lacked concentration, and perhaps lacked a lot more. You really didn't think he was stupid, he just couldn't focus on what he needed to.

Only after two sessions, you had noticed that while you talked, he simply didn't listen and clearly didn't even try to. He always had a faraway look in his eyes, like he was thinking about the party he was throwing that weekend, or what he was having for dinner. Sometimes he was clearly present in the moment, he just still chose not to take in a single word of yours. One time, he started to balance a pencil on his nose while you were explaining the math equation he needed to solve, and it had taken him ten minutes to realise you had stopped talking.

He was already by far the most difficult person you had tutored, and so far, you were lost on how to get through to him.

You didn't even know how or why he was in the tutoring program. He had made it clear since day one that he didn't want to be tutored by you, and he hadn't once shown an ounce of effort in any of your sessions. Maybe he had gotten pressured by his parents, that wasn't an uncommon reason behind kids coming to the tutoring centre. But then you had heard rumours that his parents was always out of town and that's why he was always able to throw parties, so if they were never there, why would they pressure him to do such things?

You didn't know, and you didn't really want to. You had no interest in Steve Harrington's life, no matter how handsome or charming he was. He wasn't all that interesting.

Nevertheless, you were still being forced into his life one way or another, so much so that you ended up with plans to go to his house on Sunday.

It had been during the usual tutoring session tucked away in the corner of the library, you overviewing your notes for your own work while he was supposed to be reading the textbook laid out in front of him. Of course, he was instead staring out of the window longingly, like he wished to be outdoors instead of stuck inside with you.

"Do we always have to do this in the library?" He asked suddenly, breaking the silence.

You looked up, frowning. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, is it necessary to be in the library for all of this stuff?" He rephrased.

"Well... yeah. A library is the best place to study and get work done," you said, confused on why this wasn't obvious to him.

"Yeah, but... someone could walk in," he said quietly.

Oh, so that's what it was about. He didn't want someone to walk in and see him actually studying, something that was considered weird and nerdy for people like him. Or more specifically, he didn't want to be seen with you.

You sighed, and propped your chin on the palm of your hand. "Then where do you suggest we go if not a library?"

"I don't know, just like... not at school," said Steve, avoiding your gaze.

"Well, you could come to my house or I could come to yours. I've done that with other people when they weren't able to study at school either," you said.

He blinked. "You want me to come to your house?"

"Yeah, so I can tutor you. If that doesn't work, then we can go the public library or-"

"No, just..." he trailed off, seeming to consider it before sighing, running a hand through his hair that you couldn't help but look at. "My parents are out of town this weekend. You can come over on Sunday if you really want."

You were secretly glad he suggested his house. You didn't want Steve coming over and judging your house that was very much not a mansion like his probably was.

"Sounds like a plan," you said dryly. "What time do you want me to come over?"

"I don't know like... two o'clock?" Said Steve.

"Works for me," you said unenthusiastically, and he seemed just as eager as you were as he ripped some paper from his notebook and wrote his address on it, giving it to you.

"Don't take this the wrong way but can you please not tell anyone about this?" Steve asked.

You didn't resist this time, and let yourself freely roll your eyes. "Don't worry, I don't want anyone knowing about this either Harrington."

His eyes flashed with surprise, and you tried not to feel too satisfied as you had clearly startled him with that.

The rest of the week passed quicker than you would've liked it to, and before you knew it, you were climbing onto your bicycle with your bag on your back and his address in your hand. It was a longer ride than you had anticipated, and you soon realised why your houses were so far away from each others as you entered his neighbourhood, which was lined with rich houses and fancy cars in driveways, a stark contrast to your neighbourhood that was filled with actual life instead of excessively big, soulless properties.

You finally pulled up to Steve's house, and suddenly the nerves inside you increased tenfold. You certainly didn't want to be alone with Steve Harrington in his house that was go-to place for high school parties you were never invited to. But you were a tutor, this was your job, so you had to pull through. You were determined to get Steve to at least pass one of his subjects.

You took a deep breath before you approached the house and knocked on the door. You stood there for a few minutes with no answer, so you knocked again, and only a minute after that, the door swung open.

Steve looked like he had just rolled out of bed with rumpled clothes and hair that was tousled, out of its usual polished state, a sight that felt a bit shocking to see as he was well known for his perfect hair.

He blinked as if he was surprised to see you, and then he said, "I forgot you were coming."

Despite your nerves, you were able to remain cool and unbothered on the outside as you shot him a deadpanned look, sarcastically replying, "flattering."

He sighed. "I didn't mean it like that, I just- sorry, I know you've come all this way, but I can't do the whole tutoring thing today. I've got a killer headache, so I'm in not in a good state to study."

You actually did believe that he had a headache, but you had a feeling he was leaving out some details.

"Are you hungover?"

A pause.

"No," Steve scoffed.

But his hesitation had already answered your question.

"Have you made a hangover smoothie?"

He frowned. "Hangover smoothie?"

"You don't do that sort of stuff? My sister always did when she was in high school," you said. "Do you have a blender?"

"I... don't think so?"

"God, for someone who always goes to parties, you don't seem well equipped for your hangovers," you said quietly, but he heard it all the same, and he looked at you incredulously.

"I can't study," Steve repeated firmly, probably a way of trying to get you to leave.

But you only tilted your head. "I think you can."

"What?"

"Just drink lots of water, and we can get started," you said with a sweet smile.

"This is ridiculous, you can't-"

"But I can, because I'm your tutor, and you can be as difficult as you want, but I'm not giving up on you. So, are you going to let me in, or should I tutor you at school this week?" You asked.

Steve stared at you in bewilderment, like he couldn't even fathom the fact that someone was saying no to him, that someone was going against what he wanted.

He seemed to realise that you weren't going away anytime soon, so he widened the door, and you smiled with satisfaction as you stepped into the threshold, shoulder brushing against his as you walked further into his house.

Your confidence diminished as you followed Steve into his fancy kitchen, awkwardly standing in silence while he had a water in a glass that had probably been expensive, like most items likely were in the house by how everything looked, but you tried not to pay too much attention to it all.

He then led upstairs to his bedroom, and you tried not to show your surprise at the size of it, at the king-sized bed in the middle of the room, the shiny basketball trophies that lined the shelves, and the ensuite connected to the room.

It reminded you of how much of a typical jock he was, and how you were supposed to tutor this certain jock.

"Get started with it then," said Steve unenthusiastically, flopping onto his bed. When he noticed you weren't moving, he said, "you can sit down, y'know."

You cleared your throat awkwardly before sitting on the edge of his bed that you noticed immediately was very soft. Still, you didn't let yourself get too comfortable as you shifted your bag to your lap, undoing the zip and starting to unload your stuff.

Soon enough, there were books and pens scattered on the bed, both of you sitting opposite each other. He at least had a notebook opened in front of him with pen in his hand, but that was where it ended, while you explained the key points of the Civil Rights Movement for his history class.

"Are you hungry?" He interrupted you to ask. "I am."

You gave him a confused look. "Um... I guess I could eat, why?"

"I'll go get a snack!" He said eagerly, jumping up from the bed, "do you like potato chips?"

"Yeah...?"

"Great, I'll be back," said Steve, bounding out of the room, leaving you confused by his sudden hospitality.

When he was gone for longer than necessary just to get chips, you realised he was just making an excuse to not do his work, and it made your irritation grow. You needed to come up with a new strategy to get the information for the work through his head.

He eventually came back with a bag of chips that he sat between you so that you could share, but he still ate most of them as you focused on trying to make him learn. It became even more annoying to do so when he kept crinkling the bag obnoxiously and chewing excessively, all while sat in a stupid position on his side while leaning on his elbow.

And then you got an idea.

Just as he reached out for more chips, you snatched the bag out of his reach and placed it next to you.

Steve looked at you, clearly affronted. "You didn't have to take the whole thing if you wanted some."

"I made some flash cards for you," you said, ignoring what he said.

"Oh, great," he said sarcastically.

You shot him a look as you reached into your bag to pull out the pile of flashcards stuck together with a paper clip.

"Here's how we'll do this. For every answer you get right, you get a chip," you told him. "If you get it wrong, well, you just won't get anything."

He narrowed his eyes. "That's just stupid. I could easily get those back."

"Okay, then go ahead."

He held your challenging gaze before moving abruptly to try and startle you, reaching for the bag. But you were faster, taking the bag before he could touch it and placing it on your other side.

His mouth parted. "That was good luck."

"Just answer the flash cards Harrington, and you can get as many as you want," you said. "Only if you get them right though."

Steve groaned, running his hands over his face before he said, "fine, then shoot."

You smiled, pleased, and read out the first flash card. "What does the atomic number of an atom tell you?"

Steve was silent for a moment. "Uh, say that again?"

You repeated it, then he narrowed his eyes at you suspiciously.

"I thought we were doing history," he said accusingly.

"We were, but now we're doing science. I guess I didn't think you'd realise since you don't listen to anything I say," you said coolly.

Steve raised his eyebrows, and got off his elbows, sitting up. "Alright, so we're not holding back today."

"Why would I? I'm serious about tutoring you, Steve," you said while looking into his eyes, saying his first name for the first time without realising it. A smirk then tugged at his lips, and he subtly grew more confident.

"Atomic number... um... it tells you how heavy the atom is, or something?" He guessed.

"Incorrect," you said flatly, "but at least you tried. The atomic number of an atom tells you how many protons there are in the nucleus."

Steve frowned. "What does that even mean?"

"The nucleus of an atom is the centre of the atom, and it consists of the protons and neutrons," you explained, and at his lost expression, you added, "I can draw you a diagram-"

"No, just... next question," said Steve with a slight grimace.

You obliged, and went to the next card. "How many electrons are found in the first, second and third shells of an atom?"

"Jesus Christ," Steve murmured, rubbing his temple.

Feeling a stab of sympathy for him, you said softly, "want a hint?"

"Obviously."

"There are two found in the first shell, and the second and third are the same," you told him. "Well, it depends on which rule you're using, but we'll just use one for this one."

"I don't know, okay?" Steve snapped, still rubbing his temple. "We both know I don't know shit."

You deflated at his outburst, and you bit your lip, reading over the flash cards.

"Let's try this one, it's easy," you said gently. "What is the central part of an atom?"

Steve shot you a glare. "I don't-"

"I just said it," you told him encouragingly, "when I was explaining the answer to the first question. Think back on what I said."

Steve furrowed his eyebrows, "I..."

"I offered to draw a diagram of it."

You waited patiently as Steve went into deep thought, and then he blurted out, "the nucleus!"

You grinned. "Yes! That's right?"

Steve's eyes widened. "Really?"

"Really! Good job, Harrington, I knew you had it in you," you said happily.

"Thanks. Now, can I have my chips back?”

"Oh, right," you handed the packet back to Steve, and he took it back eagerly, digging into the bag enthusiastically. You snorted, and he sent you a sharp look with no real bite.

"You haven't had any yet, have some," Steve offered, holding it out.

"I'm fine, thank you," you said politely.

"You said you could eat, so eat," Steve insisted, and you let out a little laugh before giving in and taking one.

"You know, it's not that you don't know shit, it's that you don't pay attention," you said. "If you just simply did that, you would know much more."

"Yeah, yeah, whatever. Tell me more about it later," said Steve, bored by school talk. "What's your favourite chip flavour?"

To your own surprise, you went along with the change of topic. "Salt and vinegar."

His face scrunched up in disgust. "Are you serious?"

"What's wrong with salt and vinegar?" You said defensively.

"Everything. It makes my tongue feel weird, and I hate the smell," said Steve. "It's disgusting."

"No it's not! What's your favourite then if you're such an expert?" You inquired.

"Chicken's good."

It was your turn to grimace. "Yeah, you're the last person who should be judging my favourite flavour."

Steve's jaw dropped. "You don't like chicken?"

"It's got a weird smell to it," you said.

"Salt and vinegar is the one with a weird smell!" Steve said furiously, and instead of snapping back at him, you couldn't help but burst into laughter.

Surprise flickered across his face at your laughter, before he was unable to stop himself from laughing with you. It felt so out of the ordinary to be genuinely laughing with Steve Harrington on a Sunday, a moment that you felt like you shouldn't have belonged in.

And when the ring of the telephone on his bedside table cut through the sound of your combined laughter, the moment vanished, and you no longer belonged.

"I'll get that," said Steve, sobering and jumping off the bed to reach the phone, taking it off the stand and holding it to his ear.

The awkwardness crept back into you as you sat in silence, trying to mind your own business as you looked down at the books set out in front of you. Still, you couldn't help but pay attention to Steve's conversation.

"Oh, hey Nance!" He said eagerly, and you blinked at the change in his voice. "Mhm... yeah, of course, I would love to. How could I ever say no?" He laughed then, and you could hear the muffled voice on the other end. "Yeah, I'll be there in fifteen minutes. See you then."

You were picking at the skin on your fingers by the time he put the phone back down on the stand, and you reluctantly looked up as he turned to you.

"Hey, so uh-"

"You have plans with your girlfriend?" You said it before he could, raising your eyebrows.

"Well... yeah," said Steve sheepishly. "So unfortunately, we're going to have to cut this short."

"I don't think you find that unfortunate," you said knowingly, getting off the bed and starting to gather your stuff.

"Yeah, I don't," he admitted shamelessly. "No one does homework on a Sunday anyway."

"People with good grades do," you said pointedly, and Steve's eyebrows furrowed at the jab. Yes, it was a little harsh, but you had realised by now that you needed to be harsh if you wanted to get your point across. You straightened up, looking him in the eyes. "Harrington, you can't cut a tutoring session short just because your girlfriend wants to hang out with you."

Annoyance spread across his face. "Why not?"

"Because that's not how it works," you said snappishly, getting irritated with his obliviousness. "We were finally getting somewhere, and then you just ditched it with no second thought. You signed up for this, so you need to pull your head out of your ass and go through with it."

Steve scowled. "For the record, I didn't sign up for this, my dad did, so you should know I'm not doing this willingly. Even if I was, I'm not going to ditch my girlfriend to be tutored by another girl in my own house."

"Doesn't she know you're getting tutored?"

"No, no one does!" He blurted out, and you blinked. "The whole thing's pointless. Seriously, you really don't need to do this. You know my girlfriend is really smart? She can just tutor me instead, and she's happy to do so."

"Maybe you should've told your dad that before he signed you up," you said coldly.

"You don't think I- you know what, it's none of your business. You should just give it up, because you should know by now that this isn't going anywhere," said Steve heatedly, and you clenched your fists, biting your tongue so that you wouldn't say something you'd regret.

You packed the rest of your stuff and zipped your bag with an angry sigh. You hoisted your bag onto your back and went for the door, desperate to get out of the house.

But then you paused by the door, gripping the doorframe tightly as you looked at Steve who was glaring at the ground.

"You don't understand that I'm not giving up, Harrington. This might be an arrangement neither of us like, but I'm going to help you no matter what, because that's what I do. You shouldn't doubt yourself so much," your voice became quieter the more you spoke, suddenly feeling embarrassed.

You turned before you could see him look at you, and you hastily left the house.

***

The next tutoring session in the library was awkward and mostly silent. You had tried to explain the work to him for the first fifteen minutes, but when you realised he was never going to listen, you stopped talking and looked at your notes instead. You gave him a textbook that you told him to read even as that was something the both of you knew he wasn't going to do. You spent the whole session trying to think of what to do about him, how you could get him to just listen to you.

It was at the end when he broke the silence.

"About the other day..." he started, and you looked at him too quickly, with too much hope. "I just... you know who my girlfriend is, right?"

Oh, so it was just about his girlfriend instead of an apology. You didn't know why you were expecting more.

But of course you knew his girlfriend. Nancy Wheeler, a pretty, smart girl who nearly beat your top grade in the class, and sometimes did when you lagged behind on work due to tutoring. She was quiet but kind, and never did a thing wrong it seemed. You weren't friends with her, but you liked her with the exception of the times she got a higher mark than you, and jealousy would flare up inside you without being able to help it.

You didn't know how someone like her was able to put up with Steve.

"Yeah. She's really nice," you replied.

Steve smiled, a soft look in his eyes you had never seen before. "Yeah, I know."

You resisted the urge to roll your eyes.

"I just want to ask you to not tell her about this... whole tutoring thing. Or anyone, for that matter. I don't want her to know because it's a bad look for me to be spending so much time with another girl," he explained.

"But I'm just tutoring you," you said with confusion.

"Yeah, but still," Steve shrugged.

You didn't hold back from rolling your eyes this time.

"And I don't want anyone knowing I'm getting tutored either. They might think I'm a nerd," said Steve, and then gave you an apologetic look. "No offence."

"None taken," you said sarcastically.

"Anyway, is that all okay?" He asked.

You sighed. "Yes, it is. I haven't told anyone anyway, and I don't plan to. My goal is just to get you to pass one test, and then you can be free."

"One test?" He repeated.

"Yes."

"It doesn't have to be an A or anything?"

"No, just a pass, even if barely," you said.

Steve nodded like he was accepting a challenge, leaning back in his seat. "Deal."

You hated how a small smile twitched at your lips. "Deal."

That next Sunday, Steve came over to your house instead. Leading up to it, you had been a nervous wreck.

People came over to your house all the time for tutoring, it had become normal for you, and you never minded it. But it was different with Steve, because he was different from all of the other people you had tutored. You had seen his big house, you knew he was rich just by looking into his driveway, so he was more likely to judge.

It wasn't that you were poor. You and your family were comfortable, but not rich, and you had a feeling Steve had only ever been around rich. You were the type of person who still only had a bike because you were saving up for a car, while he was the type to have his car bought for him.

You also just had wildly different interests, so yeah, you were pretty fucking scared.

You sat in your kitchen while your mum moved around you, biting your nails while you waited for Steve to come. You had deep cleaned your bedroom, and cleaned other parts of the house just to be safe.

You hated how much Steve Harrington was stressing you out.

"I think your new student is here," your mum said, looking through the window.

You jumped up at once, and joined her by the window, spotting Steve's burgundy BMW parked outside of your house.

Your mum raised her eyebrows. "He must be borrowing his dad's car.”

"No, that's his car," you said weakly.

She blinked. "Oh, wow. Okay."

You watched Steve get out of the car, subconsciously observing the navy jacket he was wearing over a polo shirt, along with his famous jeans that always fit him just right.

You blinked, startled by your own thoughts, and distracted yourself by heading for the door to greet Steve.

"Don't be weird!" You called out to your mum.

"I'm never weird!" She called back. That was a lie.

You opened the front door before Steve even reached it, and you internally winced at your eagerness.

He seemed to notice it by the slight raise of his eyebrows, but thankfully, he didn't say anything.

"Hey," he said casually as he approached you.

"Hi," you said blandly.

A smile tugged at the corners of his lips, and you were about to ask him what was funny until he spoke. "You know, you always speak in this tone."

You frowned. "Tone? What tone?"

"Like, this flat tone, and you're blunt too," he explained. At your skeptical look, he rushed to say, "not in a bad way, it doesn't have to be bad. Except for when you're like, insulting me."

"I don't insult you."

"You literally did this time last week."

"Just because someone's saying the truth, doesn't mean it's an insult Harrington," you said sweetly.

He clicked and pointed at you. "See? That's it, right there!"

"That wasn't an insult."

"No, but it was blunt."

You rolled your eyes, albeit a smile tugged at your lips against your will.

"Just come in, we've got work to do," you said, widening the door and stepping aside for him to come through.

"Yes ma'am," said Steve, stepping into the threshold, and you failed to keep your smile from widening.

Your smile dropped when you were reminded of your fears as you noticed him looking around your home, and you started to pick at your fingers.

"My bedroom's just upstairs," you said quietly, about to lead him to your room until your mum appeared with a wide smile.

"Hello! You must be Steve!" Your mum greeted brightly. She introduced herself by her first name, and you wanted to sink into a hole.

"Nice to meet you," said Steve politely, seeming taken aback from your mum's energy. But there was nothing judgemental on his face, just... surprise.

"I don't know how long you plan to stay over for, but no matter the time, if you want a drink or some food, feel free to come down and ask! Or just get some yourself, she can show you," your mum said kindly, referring to you. "If she lets you out of the room, that is..."

"Mum," you warned.

"I'm just playing around honey! She's just a strict tutor, she's determined," your mum told Steve.

"He knows, mum. I've been tutoring him for a few weeks," you said with annoyance. At least, you had been trying to. "We're going up to my room now."

"Okay. Good luck, Steve!" Your mum said playfully to Steve, and you groaned as you urged him along while he laughed, seeming heavily amused by your mum.

"I'm sorry," you said once you were out of earshot. "I told her not to be weird, and I guess she heard a completely different thing."

"She's not weird," Steve smiled. "She's... really nice."

He wore a strange expression when he said it, one you couldn't read, so you just looked away and dismissed it.

You swallowed nervously as you entered your room, Steve stepping in behind you, and you rushed over to set up the stationery on the floor, as if starting as soon as possible would give him less time to look at your room.

You called him down to sit, and your face felt hot as he sat down without saying anything, glancing at your posters with an unreadable expression.

Your focus was on English today where Steve had to write an essay. You didn't think it was particularly hard, but that was always different for Steve. So you went into it thinking that he would be ignorant to it as always, that he would just get distracted by something stupid again.

But he proved you wrong.

Because when you looked at him, his eyes were already on you, and they weren't glazed over with the other thoughts he usually had running through his mind. He seemed... focused, and it startled you. Especially so when he asked a question about the topic.

So you let him write the introduction of the essay himself, sitting in silence as he wrote. Both of you had your backs pressed up against your bed, the supplies laid out in front of you while you sat a respectful distance from each other.

You tried to mind your own business, but then you couldn't help but stare at him while he wrote something that you'd probably have to give some constructive criticism on. Either way, it felt oddly personal to see him like that. King Steve sitting in your bedroom, writing an essay after apparently listening to the tips and information you gave.

You noticed how his eyes slightly narrowed while he wrote, his tongue sticking out slightly while he concentrated. The small vulnerability was definitely strange to witness, but... nice to see.

You snapped out of your daze, and looked away from him.

You spent the next whole hour working on the essay. There were many scrunched up balls of papers by the end of the hour, all that had come from a frustrated Steve every time he made a mistake. You had to gently remind him that it wasn't his final copy, that these were only his drafts.

He ended up with an introduction he was somewhat satisfied with, and a written starting sentence for the next paragraph.

You never thought you'd say it, but you were actually proud of him. Proud of him for finally putting in the effort, for swallowing his pride and taking your advice.

Your mum came at the perfect time with a plate of chocolate chip cookies just as you had decided to give Steve a break. They were leftovers from the batch she had made only a few days ago, and while Steve had been politely thankful, you could see the delight in his eyes.

After your mum left, he took his first bite of the cookie, and stopped masking his joy.

"I love your mum," he said blissfully, throwing his head back as he savoured the cookie.

"Don't go throwing that sentence around please," you said with a small grimace.

"But I do! I swear, these are heavenly," he said solemnly, holding up the cookie like it was a trophy. "This is exactly what I needed after the worst hour of my life."

You snorted. "Uh oh, Steve Harrington's actually done schoolwork and now he's dying."

"I am," he said seriously, and you laughed, making him grin.

You fell into a relaxed silence as you grabbed a cookie for yourself, and it felt strange to feel so comfortable around Steve, to just eat cookies with him in silence like you were friends who did this all the time.

After a few minutes, Steve interrupted the silence as he nodded towards something on the wall, asking, "do you have siblings?"

You followed his gaze to the photos of you and your family hung up on your wall, one of which included a younger you surrounded by older kids that were in fact your siblings.

"Yeah, quite a few actually," you answered. "But they're all either moved out or at college right now, so I'm basically an only child at the moment."

"So... you're the youngest?" Steve inquired, and you weren't expecting the genuine curiosity in his voice.

"That I am," you said with a bashful smile.

Steve hummed as he stared thoughtfully at the picture of you and your siblings.

"I've always wondered what it would be like to have siblings," Steve said like it had been a thought in his head more than something he'd meant to say out loud, and that seemed to be the case by the way his face fell after he realised what he had said.

But you didn't pay any mind to it, continuing the conversation normally, "it's loud when the house is full. It can also be really annoying when I want some quiet privacy, because that always get disrupted. Well, I guess I get time to myself all the time now, but that's going to change when they come back for the holidays."

You hadn't meant to ramble, and heat rushed to your cheeks once you realised, but Steve

showed anything but judgement. If anything, he seemed invested in your words, a faraway look in his eyes like he was imagining the scene for himself.

"Sounds nice," he said so quietly you almost didn't catch it, and you decided not to let him know that you had heard it, because you somehow knew those words had only been for himself. He cleared his throat, seeming to recollect himself as his voice returned to its usual confident, slightly cocky state. "So, do you plan to go to college like them? Your siblings?"

"Yeah, I'm actually really excited to. It'll be nice to get out of Hawkins," you said with a smile, "what about you?"

Steve shrugged. "I guess. My dad wants me to. But anyway, I probably can't get in with the way I'm going," he gestured to his incomplete essay.

"How many times do I have to tell you that you really do have it in you, Harrington? And either way, it's up to you whether you want to go to college or not. Don't let your dad decide for you," you said lightly, popping a small piece of a cookie into your mouth.

Steve blinked, and something vulnerable flickered in his expression for a few seconds before it smoothed over, his walls coming back up.

He seemed to be in a rush to lighten the unspoken weight that now hung in the air, so in his haste, he grabbed another cookie and took a reckless bite of it, spilling crumbs onto your carpeted floor.

"Stop it, you're getting crumbs on my carpet!" You complained, grimacing as you picked the crumbs out of your carpet and sprinkled them back onto the plate.

When Steve let out a laugh, your expression soured and you decided to take a different approach, gathering more crumbs in between your fingers before throwing them at him.

He let out a sound of disbelief as he held his hand up to shield himself, and he narrowed his eyes at you before he picked some of the crumbs out himself and threw them at you.

"You jerk!" You laughed, swatting his arm before the two of you fought over the last few pieces of crumbs in the floor to toss at each other.

You both ended up in a fit of laughter that made your stomachs hurt from the sheer absurdity of it, and that was what you counted as the first successful tutoring session.

***

The tutoring sessions with Steve changed after that day. Instead of it being something in your schedule you dreaded, it became something you actually looked forward to, because the times with Steve became enjoyable.

You both came to an agreement of doing tutoring twice a week, since you had other people to tutor and he had basketball practice. Wednesdays at his house, Sundays at yours.

You grew to favour Wednesdays and Sundays.

What it was, was that he was finally listening to you, and he was finally getting schoolwork done. There were many things about the work from each subject that you always had to explain to him multiple times so that he would understand, but you never lost your patience. He seemed surprised by this every time, looking at you like he was waiting for you to get angry after sheepishly asking for another explanation.

But you never did. You never saw any reason to.

It was not only that he was finally getting assignments done, but there had also been a shift in the dynamic between you. At the beginning, it had all been awkward silences and irritated glares, until you started to talk instead of letting the silences settle, until you laughed instead of throwing annoyed words and looks at each other, and the glares became playful instead of real. It began to feel less like a chore, and more like a fun hangout.

You considered Steve Harrington as a friend now, which felt ridiculous while simultaneously feeling right, because why wouldn't he be your friend? Sure, he didn't acknowledge you at school, and sometimes he talked about his girlfriend too much when he should've been studying, but he was kind. He was extremely nice to your parents, he complimented your home in a way that you knew he meant it, and he was always offering you food and drinks whenever you went to his house, or bringing them over whenever he came to yours.

You had even grown to like him so much that you started making hangover smoothies for him every Sunday when he came to your house, because he was pretty much always hungover on Sundays. You told yourself that you did it because you wanted him feeling well enough to be tutored, but deep down, you knew it was more than that.

Sure, he had his flaws, but Steve wasn't nearly as bad as you had initially thought him to be. Because you had seen a different side of him, a softer and more vulnerable side he never showed in public, in front of his popular friends and the girls that fluttered their eyelashes at him despite knowing he was taken. You wondered if he even showed that side to Nancy Wheeler.

It had especially shone through on one Wednesday when he came to your house instead of his. He had called you immediately after school to beg you to not come to his house, to have him come to yours instead just for that week. He hadn't told you why, but you had said yes anyway, because all you needed to hear was the urgency in his voice to know that it was important.

You hadn't asked when he arrived, even when he  looked down more than usual. You still didn't ask when he wasn't nearly as talkative as he usually was, almost silent the whole time as you talked him through the history paper he had to write.

You were forced to finally do something about it when you noticed him doing nothing after you left him to do it on his own, his eyes glued to the paper with a distant look in his eyes, mindlessly tapping his pencil on his knee. It was easy to see as you were working in your living room, sat at either ends of the couch. You didn't want to push him as he clearly wasn't in a good mood, but unfortunately, giving him a push was what you were there to do.

"Steve," you said softly, bringing him back to the moment and capturing his attention. "Are you struggling to start the next sentence?"

He blinked. "Huh?”

"On the paper," you said, nodding towards it.

"Oh," he said, looking at it like that was the first time he had noticed it there. "Um... no. Just thinking."

"You've been thinking for a long time," you pointed out gently, and you swallowed when he fixed his hard gaze on you. "I just- if you need me to go through it again, you know not to be afraid to ask me-"

"For god's sake, I already know I'm stupid so can you just leave it alone for a second?" Steve snapped, and you jerked back a little, taken by surprise. "I don't need you talking to me like I'm some slow kid."

"I wasn't-"

"You were. You always do!" Steve said out of frustration, running a hand through his hair.

You stared at him for a moment, processing his words before you leaned back into your spot on the couch, accepting defeat.

"Work at your own pace then, Steve," you said flatly, not bothering to hide your annoyance as you shifted your body away from him, focusing on your own notes.

You didn't look at him for a few minutes, but the tension in the air was palpable as you felt Steve's gaze burn holes into you. He said your name after at least ten minutes had passed, and you looked at him to find his guilty expression.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly, looking at the ground. "You're not doing anything wrong, I'm just an asshole. I don't even know why I'm acting like one when I literally wanted to come here."

You frowned. "What do you mean?"

"The last place I wanted to be at was my house tonight, and for some reason, your place was the first thing that came to mind for an alternative," Steve admitted softly, and your heart skipped a beat. "I was so relieved when you said yes to me coming here instead."

The admission slammed into your chest, and it made your breath catch. Your house had been the first place he had thought of for an escape? Not Tommy Hagan's house? Not even Nancy Wheeler's?

Steve blinked as if snapping out of it, and frantically said, "sorry, that was a weird thing to say. I don't know why I- just forget that ever came out of my mouth."

"Don't be sorry. I think it's nice," you said softly, turning your body back to him as he looked at you curiously, "that you thought of my house as a better place to be. I didn't realise you liked it that much."

"How could I not? It's the place that holds the outcomes of your mum's glorious baking," Steve joked, and you laughed quietly, shaking your head at him. Steve smiled, but his face quickly sobered as he looked at you questioningly. "By the way, you haven't asked me anything."

"About what?"

"About what happened at my house, why I prefer to be here," said Steve bluntly.

You shrugged. "Not my business, is it? It's up to you if we talk about it."

Steve seemed taken aback by that, and you didn't know why he did. Was he used to people prying in his personal business that clearly upset him?

"But... don't you want to know?" Steve pushed.

"I guess I'm a bit curious, but I'm not going to force you to say anything," you said as if it were obvious.

Steve opened his mouth just to close it again, and narrowed his eyes. "You're weird."

You arched an eyebrow. "Or I'm just not nosy."

"Or that," Steve agreed in defeat, and you huffed out a laugh. You didn't expect anything more from him, but when he started talking again in a weaker tone, you listened. "My dad's just an asshole, and... is it really bad to say that I prefer my parents being away on a work trip to them being home?"

You didn't respond momentarily, staring ahead thoughtfully before you softly spoke. "I think you're allowed to feel however you want to, and you shouldn't be so quick to invalidate yourself."

You looked at Steve to find him staring at his lap with his eyebrows knitted together into a small frown, picking at his fingernails as he went into deep thought, probably taking in your words.

Neither of you mentioned it again after that. His asshole of a dad and his unstable home, that was. Every time his parents were home on a Wednesday, you always changed the plans around for him to come to your place instead. You never made a big deal out of it, never talked about the reason why, because you never felt it was necessary to make Steve explain himself more than he had to. It was something Steve appreciated more than you could realise.

It was a Friday night when your parents were in need of some last minute groceries. Your dad had been about to go get them himself before you had offered to get them instead. Your parents had both just come home from a whole day of working, and it had worn them down enough to the point you could see the exhaustion on their faces, so you had been generous enough to take a small weight off their shoulders. They had been hesitant to let you with the recent disappearance of a young boy named Will Byers, but they had been too tired to argue with you, so they let you go with minimal argument.

You weren't old enough to drive on your own yet, so you took your bicycle as you always did with a flashlight. The grocery store wasn't far away anyway.

You quickly popped in and out, getting what you needed with the cash your parents had given you. You took your bicycle out of park and struggled to juggle the full grocery bag in your hands while trying to get onto your bike safely, only having the fluorescent lights of the store behind you to help.

You heard a car pulling up to the curb in front of you, and didn't look up as you thought nothing of it, thinking it was just someone else coming to the grocery store until they suddenly honked. You jumped in surprise, almost dropping the bags as you looked up.

The headlights of the car blinded your vision for a moment, and you blinked rapidly as you squinted to see who was sitting in the drivers seat of the car. When you realised who it was, bewilderment washed over you.

The window rolled down, and Steve tilted his head to meet your gaze from the drivers seat. "What are you doing?"

You blinked, and shot him a look of disbelief. "What am I doing? What are you doing, honking at me like some idiot?"

"That's not very nice."

"Am I usually nice, Harrington?"

Steve snorted. "No. But seriously, what are you doing?”

"What does it look like? You do know what groceries are, right?" You asked sassily.

"I know that! But why are you... you're trying to get onto that bike while you're holding a bag that looks very full."

"Yes?" You said, confused on why he was pointing out the obvious.

Steve returned your confused look. "Didn't you bring your car?"

You gave him a deadpanned expression. "I don't have a car."

Steve didn't react for a moment as he comprehended what you had just said, and then his eyes widened. "You- you don't have a car?"

You looked at him with irritation. Of course a rich boy like him couldn't believe such a thing. "No, because not all of us are rich like you, Harrington."

Steve blinked, eyes flitting from you to your bicycle as he slowly seemed to understand. "Right... but you couldn't even bring your parents' car?"

"I can't drive yet. I'm a year younger than you, remember?"

"Then why-"

"Can you stop interrogating me and just get to the point of why you're here right now? Or have you just come to make fun of me for not having fancy transportation like you?" You snapped more harshly than you meant it, and a tense silence followed your outburst, making embarrassment flood through you.

"I didn't come to make fun of you," said Steve quietly. "I was going to ask if you wanted a ride back home."

Your face changed, not expecting that. "Oh."

"Yeah, um... well, do you? Want that ride?" Steve asked.

"Is it still up for grabs after I just bit your head off?" You said sheepishly.

Steve let out a laugh, and answered your question wordlessly as he got out his side of the car and walked around the BMW to approach you. He stopped in front of you, looking into your eyes for a second before he took your bike out of your hands.

"You're not about to throw my precious bike to the side of the road, right?" You asked, half joking.

He snorted. "No, I'm putting it in the trunk. You can get in the passenger seat, I’ll be there in a second, I just gotta put the seats down first."

You were about to speak up to say that he didn't have to go through so much trouble and that you could really just pedal your way home, but he was too swift in his movements as he opened the car door, leaning in to adjust the backseats of his car.

You tentatively got into the passenger seat, balancing the grocery bag in your lap. You glanced at Steve through the rearview mirror, and felt a weird fluttery sensation in your chest.

You stared ahead with a warm face as you listened to Steve’s movement before you could hear the sounds of him handling your bike. You looked over your shoulder this time, and watched the way he put in extra effort to make sure your bike was in a safe position before he closed the trunk. You turned back to the front, the fluttering in your chest intensifying as your cheeks started to burn. God, why were your cheeks burning?

You didn't move as Steve got back into the car and started up the engine again. After a moment of silence, he said, "you can put your seatbelt on, y'know."

"Right! Sorry," you said, your cheeks burning even hotter as you scrambled to put your seatbelt on.

Steve pulled out of park after putting his own seatbelt on, and you deliberately kept your gaze on the window while keeping a tight grip on the bag in your lap.

"You also don't have to keep that bag on your lap. You can put it on the ground," Steve added.

You might as well have been on fire at that point. You carefully placed the bag on the ground, avoiding his gaze. "Sorry, it's just... a nice car. Don't want to ruin it."

"Groceries won't ruin the car," Steve chuckled, and you smiled sheepishly. In your defence, it was a really nice car. "So, why were you on your own? Getting groceries, I know, but your parents didn't want to come?" Steve asked, genuinely curious.

"They were going to get groceries, but I decided to do it to let them rest. They're tired from working all week, so I just wanted to give them a little break," you explained bashfully.

Steve hummed. "That's really nice of you."

"Unheard of, right?" You joked.

"Not really," said Steve so quietly you were sure you imagined it, glancing at him to find that infuriatingly unreadable expression on his face again. "Still dangerous to be going out by yourself at night, though. Especially since that kid's just gone missing."

You did a double take, unsure if you had heard him right the first time. His tone was casual as he said it, but his jaw was tight. He surely didn't care, did he?

"Well, that kid was eleven, and I'm sixteen. I'm capable," you replied.

"Sixteen's not that much older."

"Oh come on, don't act all high and mighty just because you're a year older."

"I'm not. I'm just saying you need to be more careful because I- you don't want something bad to happen you," his voice grew quieter with each word, barely inaudible at the end of his sentence, but you were still able to catch what he said.

You shot him a confused look. He was acting weird tonight, you thought. There was that softer side of him showing that he never displayed in public, but it wasn't that. There was something about his energy that lacked its usual spirit, something dejected. Had it been his parents again, you wondered? You certainly weren't going to ask, though.

The rest of the drive to your home was silent and quick. The grocery store was only a short way from your house anyway.

When you arrived, Steve got out of the car with you to take your bike out of the trunk, being kind enough to park your bike where you directed him as you held the grocery bag.

"Thank you, Steve. For the ride and doing... all of this. You really didn't have to," you said sincerely as he leaned on his car.

Steve smiled weakly. "No worries. Couldn't have just left you there, could I?"

"You could've," you said calmly.

"I'm not that bad, L/N," said Steve teasingly, and you chuckled.

"Goodnight, Steve," you said softly, sending him a small smile.

He mirrored your smile, saying goodnight to you back with your name. You turned on your heel, starting the walk to your house as your heart raced in your warm chest.

When Steve called out your name, you turned around too quickly, making it seem as though you had been waiting for him to call you back. Perhaps you had been.

Steve scratched his neck, seeming nervous as he hesitated. "Um, sorry to be a bother but can I just ask for some advice?"

"Yeah, of course," you said, walking back over to him.

"Since you're a girl and all," said Steve quickly. "It's about Nancy."

You froze.

Oh. You forgot about Nancy.

Your chest twisted suddenly, nearly winding you and making you stumble, but you kept your composure and faced him with your chin up.

"Yeah, what's up?" You said airily.

"She's not happy with me right now. I invited her and her friend over to a party at my house, and she stayed over without her friend and now she hasn't seen her since, and she's really worried," Steve explained. "And I guess I was just more concerned about getting in trouble than her friend, and she got pissed off at me for it and... I don't know, I just don't know how to make it up to her."

You frowned. "Wait, her friend? Like, Barb?"

"Yeah, her. You haven't seen her around, have you?"

"No, not since Tuesday," you said.

"Well shit, that's the night she went missing..." said Steve, and your eyebrows drew together with concern. Just like Nancy, you weren't friends with Barb, but you had always thought she was nice. "Anyway, Nance isn't talking to me so I thought that you, a girl, would know how to fix it."

"Right," you said uncomfortably. "Why don't you ask your friend Carol? She's a girl."

"Yeah, but she's too... I just think you're someone who gives better advice," said Steve honestly.

You didn't know how to take that, and you hated how a smile twitched against your lips.

"Well, it seems simple. You just go up to her, apologise, and help her look for Barb. Or just be there for her. She's obviously distraught if her best friend is nowhere to be seen," you told him.

Steve nodded along, listening intently. "Yeah, okay... thanks."

You smiled weakly, "no problem."

Steve sighed. "I just... I really like her, and I don't want to mess it up, y'know?"

Your chest twisted even further, and you bit your lip, looking away from him.

"Yeah, that's understandable. Well, I hope it works out between you, but I have to go to bed now. My parents will get worried," you said briskly, already starting to talk away.

"Yeah, okay. Goodnight," he said.

"Goodnight," you said quietly over your shoulder, and basically sped to your house, not looking behind you as you went back inside the safety of your home where he couldn't reach you.

That was the night you realised you had developed feelings for Steve Harrington.

But it didn't matter, because his heart only belonged to Nancy Wheeler, and you didn't stand a chance.

***

You were zoned out as you absentmindedly stored some of your books into your locker, your mind in a different place to your physical body.

Annoyingly enough, all it ever seemed your mind could stay on these days was the thought of Steve.

You knew it had been a bad idea to tutor him from the very start for many reasons, and now your worst fear had actually happened. Just like every other girl at Hawkins High, you had developed a schoolgirl crush on Steve Harrington, and he plagued your mind completely without permission.

It had been two weeks since you came to your realisation, and every tutoring session with Steve since then had been torture. It didn't help when he was his usual sweet self, bringing your favourite snacks when he came to your house, telling you how one of the posters in your bedroom looked cool, getting along with your parents, and listening to you with that concentrated look he had that was frustratingly handsome.

And it certainly wasn't helping that he now insisted on giving you a ride home every time you went to his house. He had asked you about your method of transportation to his house since he found out you weren't able to drive, and he seemed to take it personally when you told you just took your bike every time. Sometimes, you even got into small arguments about it, because you didn't like making him go through the effort of putting your bicycle into his car every time, but it made you learn that Steve didn't take no for an answer when to came to those sort of things.

Every ride home made your heart beat a little faster for him, and your feelings grew stronger with each time you both talked nonstop for the whole ride. It wasn't fair that he was able to make you feel such a way.

You used to judge those kind of girls before, the ones who batted their lashes at him in an attempt to get his attention, the ones who stared longingly at him in the hallways. Now you were one of them, and you felt so pathetic. You wanted to defend yourself by acknowledging that you had actually spent quality time with him and had gotten to know him as more than just a popular jock, that you had seen what was under the mask he always hid behind at school.

But did it even matter when he had never once remotely showed interest in you? When you technically weren't even friends, just acquaintances? You were his tutor for goodness' sake, of course you weren't supposed to feel this way. You had never even come close to feeling the same about anyone else you had tutored.

Of course Steve had been the one to capture your heart out of all of it. Him and his stupid soft smile that almost seemed reserved for you, him and his stupid jokes that made you genuinely laugh, and him and his stupid kindness in giving you a ride back to your house that night, putting your bike in his car without you having to ask him to do so, the implications of him caring about you when he expressed a concern for your safety.

All before he had asked you for advice on how to make it up to his girlfriend.

Even if you could've, you wouldn't. You certainly weren't the type to barge into a relationship, a very happy one at that.

You were snapped out of your daze when you heard someone call your name, and you perked up, looking into the direction of the voice.

A boy named Tyler came up to you, a student in your year that you tutored for maths and history. He had an excited expression on his face as he approached you with a piece of paper in his hand.

"Hi, Tyler," you greeted with a warm smile. "What's up?"

He grinned at you. "I have news. Good news."

"What is it?"

He held the piece of paper up to your face, showing you the contents. All you had to do was look at the B circled on it to know what it was.

"I got a B on my maths test!" He told you happily.

"That's amazing!" You said with a wide smile, pride blooming in your chest upon seeing the joy in his eyes. "I told you you had it!"

"I couldn't have done it without you," he said. "Seriously, thank you so much. You saved me."

You laughed sheepishly. "I'm just glad it worked out for you."

"I mean it, you're the best! I hope you're getting good credit for all of this tutoring you do," said Tyler earnestly. "You deserve it."

You smiled. "Thanks."

"I'll see you around. Hopefully I'll ace my history test next!" He said hopefully as he walked off, and you gave him a thumbs up before he fully turned away.

You turned back to your locker with a smile, your chest filled with warmth. That was why all those hours of tutoring was always worth it at the end of the day. The extra credit was a bonus, but it was helping others that really mattered for you.

You jumped at the sudden bang on the locker next to yours, followed by a familiar voice saying, "who was that?"

You turned your head in surprise, and your face morphed into an expression of disbelief as you saw him.

Because here Steve was, his body completely facing you while it leaned against the locker next to yours, his arms crossed and his eyes focused on you while everyone moved around you, all easily able to see the interaction between you two. The interaction between the most popular guy in school and some quiet girl who tutored people. 

It was the first time Steve had ever even looked at you in the school hallways, let alone talked to you, so it took you a moment to respond to his question as you processed your current situation.

And god, you hated how your chest started feeling warm in a different way when you looked at him.

"Um- uh- just a guy I tutor," you said bashfully.

"What were you talking about? He seemed very happy about something," Steve asked, and you quietly grew confused at his curiosity.

"He got a good grade on his test. He came to me because I helped him study, and he really thought he wasn't going to do a good job, but I told him he would, and I was right," you said with a proud smile.

Steve narrowed his eyes at you, his expression unreadable. "Hm, interesting. You seem to like him."

You blinked. "Um... yeah, he's a nice guy."

"So, do you have a thing for him?" Steve said suddenly with a smirk.

Your face dropped. "What?"

"What? It's just a question. You can tell me, I promise it'll stay between us. If it helps, it seems like he might like you too," Steve lowered his voice and leaned in a little, causing heat to rush to your cheeks.

You tried to hide your flustered state by rolling your eyes and slamming your locker shut. "No, Steve. I don't have a thing for him."

"But wouldn't he be your type? Like, smart guys?"

You looked at him incredulously. "No offence to him, but he's not exactly a smart guy if he needs tutoring. God, Steve, just because I get along with him, doesn't mean I like him. I'm his tutor, and that's it."

His infuriating smirk didn't falter, his eyes shining with amusement as he said, "if you say so."

You sighed while rolling your eyes again. "You're so annoying."

"Your eyeballs will get stuck in the back of your head if you keep rolling them."

"Then stop doing things that make me roll my eyes, idiot."

Steve opened his mouth to continue the banter both of you would never admit you thoroughly enjoyed, but the next words never got to leave his mouth as you were suddenly approached by two certain people, one of which threw an arm around Steve.

"Couldn't find you for a second there Harrington, you disappeared on us," said Tommy Hagan, while Carol Perkins stood beside him, chewing gum obnoxiously while assessing you with her eyes.

Then, a smirk spread on her lips, her voice laced with amusement as she asked, "who's your friend, Steve?"

Tommy looked at you like he hadn't noticed you were there, and immediately started sniggering even though you hadn't done anything.

Steve's face fell, something more guarded taking over his expression at the presence of Tommy and Carol while panic flickered faintly in his eyes, and you noticed it. Meanwhile, your stomach churned uncomfortably as Tommy and Carol stared at you like you were some form of entertainment.

When Steve didn't answer Carol, you took it into your own hands and hesitantly said your name. She snorted, arching an eyebrow at you.

"I wasn't asking you," she said.

"Well you were looking at me when you said it, so maybe you should've been clearer about who you were talking to," you shot back coldly, and Steve's eyes widened while Tommy whistled.

Carol's face hardened, chewing her gum more aggressively.

"Sassy, aren't you? Honestly Steve, since when did we start stooping so low for new friends? We shouldn't be welcoming this kind of crowd," she said, looking at Steve with a scoff.

"We're not," said Steve quickly, and you frowned. "She's not my friend. She's just..."

He trailed off, catching your sharp gaze. He held it for a few moments before looking away, looking at his actual friends, "she’s a stranger to me."

Your heart dropped.

A stranger.

Not a friend, not even an acquaintance, just a stranger. That's all you were.

“Then why are you even talking to her?” Carol snorted.

“Because, um… she dropped something and I was just giving it back to her was all,” said Steve hastily, talking about you like you weren’t even there.

Carol raised her eyebrows, unconvinced, and god, you wanted nothing more than to just shove her face into the locker like she deserved.

"As fun as this is, I'm hungry man, let's go eat!" Said Tommy, slapping Steve's back before letting go of him. He briefly glanced at you, his voice mocking as he said, "see you later... uh, whatever your name is."

Carol giggled, "yeah, see you sweetheart."

Tommy burst into another fit of sniggers, and your eyes caught it immediately as Steve let out a laugh, albeit it sounded a little more uncertain than the others.

But you were probably just imagining that just to make yourself feel better, because when the three of them walked away, Steve didn't look back at you once.

Your cheeks burned as he left you standing there, feeling like an idiot who had just been picked apart by a group of people who deemed themselves superior to you just because you weren't popular.

As if that hadn't already ruined your day, as if Steve hadn't already made your heart hurt enough, something happened at the end of your science class.

The class was pleasantly rowdy as everyone either did their written science work or talked with their friends about their plans for the weekend. You were one of the people doing their work, and was the first to walk up to the teacher to hand in your completed work.

"Well done, Y/N. I look forward to grading this, you never fail to impress me," your science teacher said, and you smiled sheepishly, thanking her quietly. "So, how's that tutoring of yours going?"

"Really good," you said, hating how Steve crossed your mind.

"I'm sure it is, I've even seen the evidence of it. You know, I never thought I'd see the day where Steve Harrington would be able to understand anything in my class, but proving by his recent results on his last test, it seems as though I have made it to that day," she told you with a smile.

You stilled. "What do you mean?"

She tilted her head at you. "Hasn't he told you? He passed his science test the other day. I even almost gave him a B."

You narrowed your eyes, "the other day? I- did you give him these results?"

"Yes. I know he tried to hide it, but I could see how happy he was."

Your blood started to pump in your ears, the realisation slowly dawning on you as you comprehended what she was saying.

"I even heard he got a good grade on his English assignment too. I don't know how you've done it, but you've worked wonders on him," she said. "Good job."

You didn't say anything for a moment before collecting yourself enough to say quietly, "yeah, that's good."

You went back to your seat after that, the noise around you fading to the background as the gears turned in your head.

He had been passing tests and getting good grades on assignments, and hadn't told you? He had been keeping it from you?

Your jaw tightened, and you clenched your fists, something hot stirring in your stomach.

You were going to kill him.

***

You thought it had been apart of your dream at first, then you thought it was just some animals playing around outside. But when the persistent tapping kept on going every time you thought it would stop, you finally woke up, and investigated.

When you saw nothing was happening to your window, you went over to it anyway, looking outside to see the source of the noise.

It was much worse than an animal. It was Steve throwing rocks at your parents' window, the morning sun shining down on him and highlighting the small cuts on his face along with the purple bruise on his left cheek.

You gasped softly upon seeing his beat-up face, concern flooding you against your will as you worried about who did something like that to him. You stared at him in disbelief before rushing to put your dressing gown and slippers on, tidying your hair as best as you could before hastily making your way out of the house, not even bothering to be quiet since Steve was being noisy enough anyway.

You walked around your house to meet Steve now crouched, gathering more rocks to throw. You stood there for a moment, gazing at him with folded arms while he didn't notice you, lost in his own world. You reminded yourself that you needed to be hostile, that he still hadn't given you an apology for what he did a few days ago.

When he rose to his feet, you finally spoke up.

"Trying to wake my parents up?" You asked, and he jumped, whirling around to you with wide eyes. He blinked at your words, looking back to your parents' window as you clarified, "that's their room, genius. I know you like my mum's food, but you surely can't be that desperate."

Embarrassment flickered across his face at your words, and he looked back to you with shame. "Shit. Sorry."

You shrugged. "That'll depend on how grumpy they are this morning."

A short silence followed your words, and Steve sighed, running a hand through his hair, and you watched him closely, eyes lingering on his bruises. The injuries looked fresh, and it made you wonder why he was here instead of resting at home.

"Are you okay?" You asked gently before you could stop yourself.

Steve looked at you in surprise. "Huh?"

"Your... face," you said, gesturing to your own. "Seems like you're hurt. Are you alright?"

"Oh, I'm fine, but that doesn't matter," he said quickly, seeming ashamed of whatever it was.  "What matters is what I came here to do, which is to say sorry for the other day."

You raised your eyebrows. "What did you do the other day?"

"You know, when we were talking and Tommy and Carol came over," said Steve, confused on why you were asking about the obvious until he realised you weren't playing dumb, you just wanted him to admit what he did wrong. "And then they were being assholes and I didn't do anything about it."

"Is that it?"

Steve's eyebrows knitted together as he seemed to search his mind for anything else. "I think so?"

You hummed quietly, keeping your face blank as you looked him over. You quickly noticed how something about him was off — not just the bruises and cuts on his face, but the way he held himself, the defeated look in his eyes that wasn't there before. You couldn't put your finger on it, but something in the air around Steve had shifted, and it made your curiosity grow stronger about whatever the hell had happened in the past few days that caused that and the bruises.

Steve sighed, his head hanging low as he said, "look, I know I messed up. I know that wasn't right of me and it wasn't fair to you, and you had to defend yourself which you shouldn't have had to because I shouldn't have let them treat you like that in the first place. If it's any help, it didn't feel good during that moment."

You scoffed. "It didn't feel good for me either."

The guilt in Steve's eyes strengthened, and he looked at you sorrowfully. "I'm really sorry. You didn't deserve that, after everything you've done for me-"

"Actually, it's okay Steve. We're not friends anyway, you don't owe me anything," you snapped.

Steve's face fell slightly like you had struck him. "That was stupid of me to say. I was trying to get them to back off of you, you know? They wouldn't have taken it well if I said yes, they would've been even worse."

"That's such a lame excuse. They were going to make fun of me no matter what you said, so you're just telling yourself that to feel better," you said sourly. "You're just like... I don't know, ashamed of me or something?"

Steve shook his head. "I'm not-"

"Then what do you call it? You're only nice to me when we're alone, and you're embarrassed to be seen with me in public. That's why you didn't want me to tutor you in the library. You literally said it yourself, you didn't want anyone to walk in and see," you poured out what had been pent up inside you through this whole ordeal. "You never acknowledged me in public until that moment for some reason, and even then, you said I was just a stranger."

"I know, I know, it was shitty of me. I shouldn't have- I'm really sorry," said Steve, and the worst part about it was how sincere he sounded, how real the apology seemed to be.

But you knew it would go back to normal after this, and with the last few days having given you room to think about it, you knew you couldn't go for any longer. Not with your feelings for him growing stronger everyday.

"I don't think this arrangement is necessary anymore," you said with a tight throat, avoiding his gaze as you said it. But even in your peripheral vision, you could see how his face dropped.

"What? But I still need to be tutored! I- I still need your help," said Steve frantically.

"There are other tutors at school, you can just go to them if you really need help," you said. "Also, didn't you say you could get your girlfriend to tutor you? She'll be happy to help."

Steve's expression shifted into something more hurt as he looked at his feet. "I'm not sure that's so true anymore. I'm not her favourite person right now."

Your chest tightened, and you finally looked at him, reading his crestfallen expression. Was that the reason why he looked like that? Because him and Nancy were arguing? You had a nagging feeling that there was much more to it, but you weren't going to push. You were too mad at him to do so anyway.

"Even then, I'm not the only tutor in the world. Besides, from what I've heard, you'll be just fine without tutoring anyway," you said bitterly.

Confused spread across Steve's features. "From what you've heard?"

"Yes. I'm not sure why I had to hear it from someone else that you had literally passed your science test, and got a good grade on your English assignment."

Steve's eyes widened slightly. "You- who told you that?"

"The science teacher."

"Why would she even tell you that? Oh my god..." Steve murmured, pressing his hands to his face.

"That doesn't matter, Steve. What matters is that for some reason you decided to hide the fact that you were improving," you scolded. "You neglected to tell your literal tutor that you had passed in two subjects!"

"I... forgot," said Steve unconvincingly.

You snorted humourlessly. "I don't think you did, and I don't even want to ask why you didn't tell me because you'll probably just give me another stupid excuse."

You were mainly pissed off at Steve for the way he had treated you in front of Tommy and Carol the other day, that was what drove the wedge between you two in the first place, but him not telling you about his good results had been the final straw. Because those had been moments he was meant to share with you, because you had been the one to help him. He was supposed to approach with you excitement like Tyler had done, and he was supposed to brag about his results to you with a wide smile while you were silently proud of him.

You had been eager for that moment between you and Steve, but because of some reason that was unknown to you, he hadn't told you, and had robbed you of that moment.

So yeah, you were very pissed.

"So you're ditching me because I didn't tell you about two decent grades I got?" Said Steve, and you couldn't help but notice the hurt that seeped through his voice. You hated how it sparked guilt in you.

Yet, you stood your ground. "I told you that all you needed to do was pass one test, and you could be free of me. Did you just forget that?"

Steve's Adam's apple bobbed, his jaw tight. "No."

"Then why didn't you just tell me? I know you hate being tutored, so why did you drag it out?" You asked heatedly, your pent up frustration spilling out. You stared at him expectantly, impatiently waiting for his answer.

But he only stared back at you, his mouth opening uselessly with nothing coming out, his eyes holding a desperate look that tugged at your chest, that almost made you give in. But you fought back against it, and scoffed at his silence.

"There's no reason to keep doing this, Steve," you said, your voice weaker.

"But I still need help with my other subjects," said Steve quietly.

"You know how to study now, and you can help yourself. I've given you a little push, so now you can be independent," you reasoned. "And look at the bright side, you'll have free time on Wednesdays and Sundays now."

"But I..." he trailed off, and your heart skipped a beat as you thought he was finally about to speak, finally about to admit something.

But he chose not to say it, and continued with his silence.

You gazed at his face, taking in each detail of his features, memorising it for when you would think about him at night, when you wouldn't see him anymore. The softness of his dark hazel eyes, the moles scattered on his face, and his stupid perfect hair that you longed to feel with your own fingers.

"It really was nice tutoring you Steve, but I've done my job now," you said softly, sending him your first smile of the day, and your last for a while.

He looked at you with sadness, something close to devastation, but not quite there. Because maybe Steve Harrington was fond of you in the way he was fond of your mother's cookies, but he nowhere near cared about you in the way he cared about Nancy Wheeler.

And that's why you turned your back to him, walking inside your house without looking back at him, even when you heard the small, desperate "please," leave his lips.

all comments and reblogs appreciated!

Splitting into two groups had been necessary.

Nobody had liked it.

Least of all, Steve.

Even now, you can still picture the expression he'd worn before you'd gone your separate ways, bat slung over one shoulder, jaw set so tightly you'd thought he might crack a tooth. Every instinct he possessed had been arguing against leaving you somewhere he couldn't immediately reach, and it had taken Nancy reminding him - twice - that covering more ground was the only way this plan stood a chance of working before he'd reluctantly given in.

"Yeah," he'd muttered, still unconvinced. "Doesn't mean I have to like it."

You'd smiled despite yourself, reaching across to squeeze his hand through the fingerless leather glove he refused to throw away, reminding him that if anyone in Hawkins knew how to survive the Upside Down by now, it was probably the woman standing in front of him.

That hadn't impressed him nearly as much as you'd hoped.

Instead, he'd simply sighed, stepped closer, glancing over his shoulder to make sure Dustin wasn't looking, and pressed a quick kiss against your forehead.

"Be careful."

"Always am."

"Liar."

You'd laughed, nudged his shoulder, and watched him disappear into the crimson mist with Dustin, Jonathan, Eddie, Will and Eleven until the trees had swallowed them completely.

The memory still tugs at the corner of your mouth.

Until-

"...Hey."

The smile disappears instantly.

You stop so abruptly Robin almost walks straight into your back.

"What?" she asks, steadying herself with a hand against your shoulder.

You don't answer.

Your head turns slowly towards the trees to your left, every muscle in your body suddenly taut.

It isn't loud.

If anything, it's strangely distant, the sound drifting through the dead forest like smoke on the wind. For a heartbeat there's nothing else - only the soft hiss of spores falling through bare branches and the faint crackle of your flashlight.

Then it comes again.

"Hey!"

Closer this time.

Urgent.

"I'm over here!"

Your stomach drops so violently it almost hurts.

You would know that voice anywhere.

"Steve?"

The name leaves your mouth before you've consciously decided to say it.

Nancy's head snaps around immediately. "What?"

Before you can answer, the voice comes again.

"Honey."

The nickname punches the air from your lungs.

Nobody else calls you that.

Not Robin. Not Nancy. Not your parents.

Only Steve.

"Honey!"

There's something beneath it now that wasn't there before.

Fear.

Not the loud, frantic kind, but the tight, restrained panic of somebody desperately trying to keep themselves together. The kind of fear that makes your own pulse spike before you've even had time to think.

"I can't-"

The sentence breaks apart abruptly, swallowed by the trees.

Your heart lurches into your throat.

"Steve?!" you shout, already stepping forward. "Steve, where are you?!"

For a moment, the world answers with nothing.

Not even the ordinary silence of the Upside Down, but something heavier, stranger, as though the entire landscape has paused to listen.

Then, impossibly, the voice comes again.

Closer.

Close enough that you instinctively turn your head.

"Come find me..."

The words catch on a ragged breath before the final one arrives, quiet enough to almost disappear beneath the drifting ash.

"...Please."

Everything inside you seizes.

You've heard Steve angry before. Exhausted. Bleeding. Terrified enough to stand between monsters and children with nothing but a baseball bat clutched in white knuckles.

But you've almost never heard him sound helpless.

You don't think.

You run.

The forest surges towards you as your boots hammer across uneven ground, branches clawing at your sleeves while ash billows around your legs. Somewhere behind you, Nancy shouts your name, followed almost immediately by Robin yelling, "Wait!" but neither voice properly registers. Steve sounds hurt. Steve sounds alone. Steve needs you, and every instinct you possess drowns beneath that single overwhelming certainty.

"Steve!" you yell back, your voice tearing through the trees. "Steve, where are you?"

Nothing.

Then-

"Honey!"

Further ahead now.

You change direction immediately, scrambling over the twisted roots that split the road apart. He sounds closer this time. You can get to him. You just have to keep moving.

Behind you, Nancy's voice grows sharper.

"Wait!"

This time she's running too.

Robin isn't far behind, crashing through the undergrowth in your wake, and neither of them is trying to stop you anymore.

They're following. Because they'd heard him too.

Somewhere further back, confusion suddenly erupts.

"Wait - what's happening?" Mike calls.

"What are you doing?" Lucas shouts, his voice carrying faintly between the trees.

Max's follows a heartbeat later. "Guys?"

You never hear the answer.

The forest swallows their voices almost immediately, leaving only the pounding of your own heartbeat in your ears, your breathing growing harsher with every step, and somewhere ahead, drifting through the ash like a lifeline you can't bear to lose...

Steve.

Calling your name.

Nancy doesn't waste a second.

The moment you're swallowed by the trees, she snatches the walkie-talkie from her belt without breaking stride, thumbing the transmit button as she runs, branches whipping against her sleeves and catching in her hair while Robin struggles to keep pace beside her. Both of them are still searching desperately through the dead woodland for any glimpse of your torchlight, but you're already disappearing deeper into the crimson mist, moving far faster than either of them can hope to match.

"Dustin," Nancy says sharply, breathing hard between each word. "Dustin, come in."

For one agonising second, only static answers her, the familiar crackle hissing through the speaker loud enough to make her grip tighten instinctively around the radio. Robin glances sideways, her expression caught somewhere between confusion and fear, before Dustin's voice finally bursts through the interference.

"Nancy?" he says, sounding perfectly ordinary. "You guys okay?"

"No." Nancy doesn't even attempt to soften the answer. "Where's Steve?"

There's a pause.

"...What?"

"Dustin." Her voice is tighter now. "Where is Steve?"

Another beat passes before Dustin replies, and this time the confusion in his voice is unmistakable.

"...Uh..."

The radio crackles again.

"...He's here."

Nancy almost stumbles over an exposed root. "What?"

"I said he's here."

Robin's head snaps sharply towards her, eyes already widening as Nancy presses the walkie harder against her ear, convinced she'd simply misheard. "What do you mean he's there?"

"I mean..." Dustin sounds genuinely baffled now. "...he's standing right next to me."

There's the muffled sound of movement, someone taking the radio, and then Steve's voice comes through the speaker.

"Nance?"

The blood drains from Nancy's face.

"...What's going on?"

She stops so abruptly Robin nearly crashes into her shoulder before managing to catch herself, both of them standing motionless amongst the twisted trees as the impossible settles between them. For a long moment neither woman says anything, because the voice coming through the walkie is calm, confused, completely steady. It bears absolutely no resemblance to the terrified voice that had been echoing through the forest less than a minute ago.

"...Steve?" Nancy manages eventually.

"Yeah?"

"...Are you okay?"

"...Yeah."

"You sure?"

Steve lets out a small, bewildered laugh. "I mean... considering where we are? Sure enough."

Nancy looks at Robin. Robin looks back. Neither of them says it aloud, but they both reach the same impossible conclusion at exactly the same time.

Robin leans towards the radio first.

"...Steve." Her voice comes out far quieter than she'd intended. "...We just heard you."

Silence.

Nancy forces herself to continue. "You were yelling for help. You kept calling out and..." Her throat tightens painfully as she glances in the direction you'd disappeared. "...and she ran after you."

Another silence follows, longer this time, until Dustin finally breaks it.

"...What?"

Steve sounds equally lost. "...What yelling?"

Nancy can hear her own heartbeat now, loud enough that it almost drowns out the radio. "You were calling her name."

"I wasn't."

"You said-"

"I never said anything."

There's no hesitation in the reply. No uncertainty. No searching through his memory to make sure he hasn't forgotten. Steve says it with the absolute certainty of someone stating an indisputable fact.

"I never yelled."

The words settle over both groups like falling ash.

Nobody speaks.

Not Nancy. Not Robin. Not Dustin.

Even the radio seems to fall silent.

It is Robin who finally whispers the question none of them wants to ask.

"...Then who did we hear?"

Nobody has the chance to answer.

Very faintly, through the crackling speaker, another voice reaches the other group.

"Jonathan!"

Jonathan's head jerks upright on the other end of the radio. "Nancy?"

Again.

Closer this time.

"Jonathan!"

Jonathan is already moving before anyone can stop him.

"Nancy!" he shouts instinctively into the darkness. "Where are you?"

"No!" Nancy's voice tears through the walkie. "Jonathan, wait!"

He freezes mid-step.

"It's not me!"

The forest falls deathly quiet.

Jonathan lowers his flashlight by fractions, his eyes never leaving the darkness ahead, while beside him Steve has gone completely still, every muscle in his body suddenly taut.

Then the voice comes again.

"Jonathan..."

It sounds closer now.

More desperate.

"...Please."

Jonathan's face empties of colour.

"...That's..."

The sentence dies unfinished.

Chaos erupts almost immediately afterwards. Questions crash into one another from every direction, nobody waiting long enough for an answer before another voice cuts across it.

"What the hell is that?"

"How is it doing that?"

"It sounded exactly like-"

"Jonathan, don't move!"

"Steve, wait-"

Because Steve has already taken a step towards the sound.

Just one. Instinctive. Automatic. The sort of step you don't realise you've taken until somebody points it out.

Will's voice is so quiet at first that nobody hears him.

"...It's learning."

The panic rolls straight over the top of him. The radio continues crackling with overlapping voices while Steve stares into the trees, every instinct screaming at him to run after Jonathan before it's too late.

Will looks up.

"...Guys."

Still nobody listens.

Then, louder this time-

"It's learning!"

Everything stops.

Even Steve.

Will has gone frighteningly pale, his gaze fixed somewhere beyond the trees as though he's finally recognised a pattern that's been sitting just beyond reach this whole time.

"It isn't just copying us."

Nobody interrupts him. Nobody even breathes.

"It's finding the voices we'll follow."

The words settle over the group with all the weight of a death sentence.

Steve feels something cold slide slowly down his spine as every conversation he's ever had in this place suddenly replays itself in his mind. Every frantic shout across a battlefield. Every nickname. Every desperate search through the dark. Every time someone had called Robin, Dustin, Nancy, Jonathan, Eddie, Max... every time somebody had shouted his own name, or called you Honey across a room without thinking.

The Upside Down had heard it all.

It had listened.

And somewhere, somehow, it had remembered.

Not simply the sounds of their voices, but the relationships behind them. The people those voices belonged to. The ones each of them would instinctively run towards without stopping to think.

It wasn't imitating them.

It was studying them.

The realisation lands with such force that Steve feels physically winded.

His head snaps towards the walkie.

"...Where is she?"

Nancy and Robin don't answer immediately. Instead they look at one another, horror spreading slowly across both their faces as they finally understand what had just happened. Robin is the one who finds her voice first, though it barely rises above a whisper.

"...She went after the voice."

Steve doesn't wait for another word.

He tears into the trees at a sprint, Dustin and Jonathan following without hesitation while Eddie, Will and Eleven race after them. Behind him, Nancy forces herself back into motion as well, raising the walkie while she runs.

"East," she says breathlessly. "She headed east, towards the old woods. She thought..." Her voice catches for the briefest moment before she forces the words out. "...she thought she was coming to you."

Steve doesn't answer.

He can't.

Because only one thought is repeating over and over in his head now, louder than his own footsteps, louder than the pounding of his heart, louder than the forest rushing past him.

It knew you'd come.

Steve is moving before Nancy has even finished giving the direction.

"...East-"

It's the only word he hears.

His boots are already pounding across broken tarmac before his mind has caught up with the decision, the walkie still crackling uselessly somewhere behind him as Eddie swears, Jonathan shouts something he doesn't quite catch, and somebody - maybe Dustin - is barking for everyone to stay together. It barely registers. As far as Steve is concerned, he is staying together. You're out there somewhere, alone in a place that has just learnt exactly how to separate people from the ones they love, and everything else falls away beneath that single, brutal certainty. The plan, the map Nancy had spent hours drawing, the routes they'd carefully agreed to follow, even Vecna himself - all of it is pushed aside by one overwhelming instinct. You are alone, and he has to get to you.

He tears through the dead woodland without slowing, branches whipping violently across his face and shoulders, leaving thin scratches he doesn't even feel as they catch against his jacket. Thick vines snake across the forest floor, looping around his boots often enough that he nearly loses his footing twice, while ash swirls through the beam of his flashlight so densely that the trees seem to dissolve into shifting silhouettes before reforming again.

Every movement in the corner of his vision demands a second glance he doesn't have time to give. Every twisted trunk looks like somebody standing just beyond the light until he gets close enough to realise it's only another dead tree.

"Honey!"

His voice tears through the forest, louder than he intends, echoing strangely through the endless stillness before disappearing into the red-grey haze.

Nothing.

He doesn't hesitate.

"Honey!"

Again, only silence answers him. Not true silence - the Upside Down is never truly silent - but the slow groan of old trees, the distant crackle of vines shifting somewhere beyond the flashlight beam, the soft hiss of ash drifting endlessly from a sky that has forgotten what daylight looks like.

Less than two minutes ago, something in this place had been shouting your name over and over again, loud enough to pull you halfway across the forest without a second thought.

Now...

Nothing.

The silence feels deliberate somehow, as though the Upside Down has already said everything it needed to say.

Steve runs harder.

He can hear the others crashing through the undergrowth somewhere behind him, Dustin already beginning to fall behind while Jonathan stubbornly refuses to let him disappear entirely from sight, but they're little more than background noise now.

His own heartbeat pounds so violently against his ribs that it drowns almost everything else out, each breath burning harder than the last as one thought repeats over and over with desperate, unbearable simplicity.

Please answer.

Please.

Please-

A scream tears through the forest.

Steve stops breathing.

It isn't his name.

It isn't even words.

It's one raw, involuntary cry, ripped straight from somebody's chest before cutting off so abruptly it feels as though the air itself has been stolen away mid-breath.

His stomach drops.

Not because he recognises the voice, though he does immediately.

Because he recognises the fear.

The voices that had lured you away had been almost unnervingly perfect. They'd sounded exactly like him, exactly like Nancy, every sentence carefully chosen, every plea just convincing enough to override reason. Looking back, they were almost too perfect, polished in a way real panic never is.

This...

This isn't like that.

This scream isn't performed.

It isn't trying to imitate terror.

It is terror.

"Hurry!" he shouts to the others behind him, though he barely realises the words have left his mouth.

He changes direction instantly, boots skidding across loose earth as he throws himself towards the sound with reckless desperation. Branches claw at his sleeves, vines wrap around his ankles, ash blinds him for a heartbeat at a time, but none of it is enough to slow him down. Every instinct in his body is screaming that he is running out of time, and he pushes harder, lungs burning, muscles protesting, the forest seeming to resist every step as though it doesn't want him reaching you.

Then, without warning, the trees fall away.

Steve bursts into the clearing so fast he almost loses his footing entirely, stopping so abruptly that Dustin crashes into his back a second later before Jonathan catches them both.

Nobody moves.

Nobody speaks.

Even the forest seems to hold its breath.

You're suspended several feet above the ground.

Your head is thrown back so far it looks painful, your eyes rolled white beneath half-closed lids, arms drifting slowly outwards as though invisible hands are pulling them wider inch by inch. Your feet hang limp beneath you, toes barely disturbing the ash swirling below, while your fingers twitch and curl into impossible, unnatural shapes that Steve has seen once before and prayed he'd never have to witness again.

His mind doesn't even need a second to make the connection.

Another girl.

Another impossible choice.

Another body floating helplessly beneath a blood-red sky.

Max.

"Oh, God..."

The words escape him before he realises he's spoken them.

Everything inside him turns to ice.

No.

No.

God, no.

He's too late.

By the time Nancy reaches the clearing, Robin is only a step behind her, Lucas and Mike close on their heels, all of them arriving breathless enough that the sight before them steals what little air they had left.

Dustin reaches for Steve's arm instinctively, fingers wrapping around his sleeve before he even seems to realise he's done it, while Robin says your name just once, so quietly it barely sounds like a word at all. It comes out as disbelief more than anything else, as though saying it aloud might somehow make what she's looking at impossible. Lucas swears under his breath, a sharp, horrified sound swallowed almost immediately by the dead forest, and Nancy doesn't waste a second. Panic has always made her practical. She's already scanning the clearing, already looking for an answer, already searching for something - anything - they can still do.

Everyone is talking at once.

"What do we do?"

"Get her down!"

"El-"

"Steve!"

"The music-"

The voices blur together into meaningless noise. Steve hears them, but they never quite become words. His entire world has narrowed to the impossible image hanging in front of him.

To you.

Your head is still thrown back unnaturally, your body suspended several feet above the ash-covered ground, but then he notices something that turns his blood to ice.

Your lips are moving.

Slowly.

Almost conversationally.

As though you're talking to somebody standing right in front of you.

No sound comes out.

For one terrible, endless moment, Steve feels completely useless.

He has always known what to do. Swing the bat. Get between the monster and the kids. Buy everybody enough time to run. Keep moving until the danger passes. Even when he was terrified, there had always been something practical to hold onto, some action that made fear feel manageable.

Now...

There is nothing.

He takes one step forward, instinctively positioning himself beneath you before stopping again, his hands lifting helplessly as though he might somehow be able to catch you despite the impossible distance between you. Every instinct tells him to reach for you, to pull you back, to fix this somehow, but he can't even touch you.

His gaze flicks desperately towards Eleven, searching her face for reassurance she doesn't have, and for the first time since this nightmare began, he realises he genuinely has no idea what he's supposed to do.

Then something clicks.

The backpack. His backpack.

Before anyone can even finish shouting over one another, Steve is already dropping to his knees, wrenching the zip open with shaking hands and throwing supplies blindly into the ash as he searches. Flashlights. Rope. Spare batteries. Bandages. Everything he'd packed because somebody might need it. Dustin starts to ask what he's doing, but Steve barely hears him.

His fingers close around cold plastic.

The Walkman.

Hidden beneath spare ammunition and first-aid supplies is the cassette he'd tucked away weeks ago without ever mentioning it to you, your favourite album carefully rewound and ready to play.

He'd packed it after Max. Quietly. Secretly. Not because he'd expected to use it, but because the idea of ever standing helplessly beside another person he loved without at least trying had become unbearable.

Of course he'd brought it.

Of course he had.

Somewhere else, somewhere that doesn't feel like a place so much as a memory that's forgotten how to end, you are running.

The world around you is wrong in ways your mind can't quite untangle. Streets fold into childhood bedrooms, school corridors open into empty forests, and every familiar place seems to shift the moment you look away from it, rearranging itself into something almost recognisable before slipping just beyond understanding again.

Faces appear in the distance - people you love, people you've known your whole life - but something about them feels subtly, nauseatingly off. Their smiles linger too long. Their eyes don't quite meet yours. Their voices sound as though they're being remembered by someone who has never actually spoken to them.

Ahead of you, Steve appears between two dead trees.

He smiles.

He lifts a hand.

"Come here."

Relief floods through you so suddenly your legs almost buckle.

You take one step-

The image tears apart like paper caught in a fire.

The smile vanishes.

The trees dissolve into darkness.

And from somewhere beyond the endless red horizon, something begins to move.

Vecna emerges slowly, impossibly tall against the crimson landscape, each measured step echoing through the empty expanse until the sound seems to come from every direction at once.

He doesn't hurry. He doesn't need to.

One grotesquely elongated hand stretches towards you, fingers unfurling with terrifying patience, while his voice settles around you like smoke.

"You've always been so willing to follow."

You stumble backwards.

He keeps coming.

"There was never any question."

His hand reaches your face.

Long fingers press gently against your temple.

Your vision whites out.

Back in the Upside Down, your body jerks violently.

Robin gasps.

Steve looks up just in time to see you rise higher, another few feet lifting you into the air until you're suspended almost twelve feet above the ground, your arms beginning to spread wider as though invisible vines are pulling every joint apart one careful inch at a time.

The cassette clicks into place.

Music erupts from the tiny portable speaker, far too small for a clearing this large, the sound fighting desperately against the endless groan of the Upside Down.

Nothing happens.

Steve turns the volume higher.

Still nothing.

It can't have been more than a minute.

It feels like hours.

He stares up at you, desperately searching for any sign that you've heard it - that your fingers twitched differently, that your breathing changed, that something, anything, reached you - but your expression never changes.

Around him, nobody says it aloud.

Nobody has to.

They're all thinking exactly the same thing.

They're losing you.

Inside the vision, everything begins to unravel.

Your memories spill around you in broken fragments, recognisable enough to hurt but twisted just enough to become unbearable.

Steve turns away from you without looking back.

Robin laughs as she walks past, pretending not to know your name.

Empty rooms stretch endlessly before you, years of your life collapsing into quiet apartments where nobody ever comes to visit, birthdays forgotten, phone calls unanswered, photographs fading one by one until every face disappears.

You try to run.

The world doesn't let you.

Invisible vines wrap themselves tighter around your ribs every time you struggle, stealing each breath before it can properly fill your lungs.

"I told you," Vecna's voice murmurs somewhere behind you, everywhere at once. "Nobody ever loved you."

The memory changes.

Steve smiles sadly.

"I just felt sorry for you."

Another.

You watch your own funeral.

Nobody cries.

"The others will barely notice you're gone."

"No..." you whisper.

"They'll move on."

"No!"

You fight harder now, twisting violently against restraints you still can't see, tears streaming freely down your face as panic overtakes reason.

Nothing works.

Every desperate movement only seems to tighten whatever is holding you in place, until your screams barely escape your throat at all.

This is it.

You're never getting out.

And somehow, impossibly, the worst part isn't even that you're about to die.

It's Steve.

You heard him.

He sounded terrified.

He needed you.

You never reached him.

As another tear slips down your cheek, all you can do is pray that wherever he is, whatever found him, he made it out.

Please let him be okay.

Please let him survive this.

Even if you don't.

Suddenly-

another voice.

So quiet at first you almost mistake it for another trick.

"...Hey."

Not Vecna.

Steve.

Real Steve.

It barely reaches you, no louder than a memory, but you'd know that voice anywhere.

Vecna's words continue, louder now, trying to drown it out, but Steve keeps speaking anyway, his voice weaving itself carefully through every lie.

"Remember Family Video?"

The darkness flickers.

"The day I asked you out? You spilt that whole thing of popcorn all over the floor, then looked me dead in the eye and tried to convince me it'd already been there before you got there. You were so serious about it, I almost believed you."

Another memory.

Your first date.

"Remember when I tried so hard to impress you that I spent twenty minutes pretending I knew what I was talking about, and then you asked one follow-up question and I had to admit I'd completely made it up? You laughed so hard you nearly fell off the bench. I thought I'd ruined the whole date. You told me afterwards it was the moment you actually started liking me."

The first time he'd kissed you.

"Do you remember our first kiss? I kept saying goodnight and then not leaving. I think I said it three times. You finally laughed and told me, 'Steve, either kiss me or go home.' So I kissed you… And then I still stood there for another five minutes because I didn't actually want to leave."

The first time he'd laughed so hard he'd nearly fallen off the bonnet of his car.

"Remember when we stayed in the Family Video parking lot for almost two hours after my shift because we kept saying, 'Okay, one more story,' and then neither of us ever left? You got halfway through telling me about the weird dream you'd had where Robin somehow became President, and you were doing all the voices. I laughed so hard I nearly fell straight off the bonnet of the car. You laughed because I was laughing, and neither of us could stop."

Every story arrives exactly as it happened, warm and ordinary and completely, stubbornly true.

Vecna's voice rises in fury.

Steve's doesn't.

It just keeps talking.

Keeps reminding you.

Keeps loving you loudly enough to be heard.

The vines around your wrists loosen.

Only slightly.

But enough.

You pull.

They give.

Suddenly you're falling forward onto solid ground instead of hanging helplessly in the endless red expanse, and for the first time since this nightmare began you can see it.

A tear in the darkness.

Beyond it-

the clearing.

Your own body suspended in the air.

Nancy.

Robin.

Max.

Everyone looking up at you in horror.

And directly beneath you...

Steve.

His face is streaked with ash and panic, his mouth still moving as he tells another story, another memory, another reason to come back.

You can hear him now.

Perfectly.

Each word grows louder as you begin to run towards him, the impossible distance between you shrinking with every desperate step across the crimson landscape. He's reaching for you, even though he can't possibly touch you from where he stands, and somehow you know exactly where the gap in this red hellscape leads.

You're almost there.

Close enough to see the tears in his eyes.

Close enough to hear him say your name.

Close enough that if you just keep running-

For one suspended, impossible heartbeat, nothing happens.

Then your body drops.

There isn't a graceful descent, no slow drifting back towards the earth. One moment you're hanging impossibly high above them, the next the invisible force holding you gives way entirely, and you plummet towards the ash-covered ground.

Steve is already moving.

He catches you before you can hit the forest floor, the force of your body slamming into his hard enough to send him stumbling backwards. His knees buckle beneath the impact, Dustin grabbing his shoulder just in time to stop both of you crashing into the roots behind him, but Steve barely notices. He's already wrapping both arms around you, pulling you instinctively against his chest as though he can somehow shield you from whatever has just happened simply by refusing to let go.

"Hey, hey, hey..." His voice is shaking so badly he barely recognises it as his own. "I've got you. I've got you."

He lowers you both gently to the ground, pulling you into the safety of his lap.

You don't answer.

Not immediately.

Your body is trembling violently in his arms, each breath catching somewhere high in your chest before dissolving into another sob, your eyes squeezed shut as though opening them might drag you straight back into whatever nightmare you've just escaped. Steve's heart lurches into his throat.

"Flashlight," Nancy says quietly somewhere behind him.

He barely hears her.

His other hand cups your jaw instead, carefully tilting your face towards him just enough to check your pupils, his thumb brushing absent-mindedly across the tears still clinging to your cheek.

"Hey."

Nothing.

"Honey."

His voice breaks completely on the nickname.

"Come on."

Your eyelashes flutter.

Then, slowly, your eyes open.

They don't focus immediately. They dart frantically around the clearing, pupils wide with panic, as though you're still trying to work out which world you're standing in. For a terrifying second, Steve isn't sure you recognise him at all.

Then your gaze catches his.

Relief floods across your face so suddenly it almost hurts to look at.

Your fingers seize handfuls of his jacket before he can say another word, clutching the fabric with desperate, shaking hands.

"Steve."

"I'm here."

"What..." Your voice catches painfully. "Why were you screaming?"

Steve freezes.

"I heard you." The words tumble out faster now, tripping over one another as tears continue spilling unchecked down your face. "You sounded scared. You kept calling me and I- I tried to find you, but..." You shake your head hard, still gripping him so tightly he can feel your hands trembling through the denim. "Are you hurt? What happened? Where were you? Steve..."

Every question lands like a punch to the ribs.

You still think you were trying to save him.

You have absolutely no idea what really happened.

Steve opens his mouth.

He almost tells you.

Almost explains the voices, the mimicry, the impossible horror of hearing himself call your name while standing half a mile away. He almost tells you how close he'd come to losing you, how he'd watched you floating beneath that ruined sky exactly the way Max had, how for one unbearable moment he'd genuinely believed this was the last time he'd ever hold you.

Then he really looks at you.

You're shaking so violently your teeth chatter between words. Every breath is too quick, too shallow, your chest rising and falling in uneven bursts that never quite seem to fill your lungs. Even now, even after everything, your hands are moving over him in frantic little checks, brushing across his shoulders, his face, his arms, searching desperately for injuries that aren't there.

You're still trying to make sure he's okay.

This isn't the moment for explanations.

What you need isn't the truth.

You need certainty.

Without saying another word, Steve slides one hand gently to the back of your head and pulls you against him, his other arm wrapping securely around your shoulders until there's barely any space left between you. He can feel your heartbeat hammering wildly against his chest, completely out of rhythm with his own, and so he simply holds you there, one hand stroking slowly through your hair as though reminding you, over and over again, that he's solid.

Real.

Alive.

"I'm here," he murmurs quietly, resting his forehead against yours. "You're okay."

You shake your head weakly.

"No, but-"

"I'm here."

"I thought-"

"I know."

"I couldn't get to you."

"You don't have to."

His voice is impossibly gentle now, every word spoken with the same quiet certainty.

"I'm here, baby. I'm not hurt. I promise."

Another sob catches somewhere deep inside your chest.

"I'll explain everything when we get out of here, okay?"

He waits until your eyes find his again before continuing.

"But right now..." His thumb brushes carefully beneath your eye, wiping away another tear before it has the chance to fall. "...I've got you."

Your breathing catches.

Then, slowly, almost without either of you noticing, it begins to change.

One shaky breath.

Then another.

Steve doesn't ask you to breathe with him. He simply breathes himself, slow and steady, holding you close enough that your body has something solid to follow. Gradually, almost imperceptibly, the frantic rhythm of your breathing begins to match his own, each inhale a little deeper than the last until your shoulders stop shaking quite so violently.

Only then does Steve finally lift his head.

Over your shoulder, the rest of the group stand scattered around the clearing in complete silence.

Nobody speaks.

Robin's hands are still clasped tightly over her mouth. Dustin has gone unnaturally pale. Eddie stares fixedly at the place where you'd been hanging only moments before, while Nancy slowly lowers the shotgun she'd forgotten she was still holding. Even Eleven, exhausted as she is, looks quietly shaken.

None of them need to say what they're all thinking.

The Upside Down hadn't almost fooled them.

It had almost taken you.

And for one unbearable moment...

it very nearly succeeded.

By the time you all make it back to Hawkins, the adrenaline has long since burnt itself out, leaving behind only the kind of exhaustion that settles somewhere deeper than your bones.

Nobody feels much like talking.

The drive back is almost entirely silent, broken only by the occasional crackle of the radio somebody had forgotten to switch off and Robin quietly asking if anyone wants to stop for food before immediately deciding she isn't actually hungry after all.

You end up back at Steve's house.

Somebody makes tea. Somebody else disappears upstairs and comes back with blankets that don't quite match. Dustin spends five solid minutes insisting he isn't tired before promptly falling asleep in the armchair with his head tipped awkwardly against the cushions. Jonathan and Nancy sit shoulder to shoulder on the opposite sofa without saying much of anything, content simply to exist in the same room now that they're all accounted for.

Relief, it turns out, isn't loud. It doesn't arrive with celebration or triumphant laughter. It arrives softly, in mugs of tea gone cold before anyone remembers to drink them, in blankets tucked carefully around shaking shoulders, in the quiet reassurance of counting heads every few minutes and finding that everyone is still there.

You're lying along Steve's sofa, a blanket pulled loosely over you despite the warmth of the room, your eyes half-closed with exhaustion.

Every muscle aches. Your head feels heavy, your thoughts slower than usual, as though some part of you is still trying to find its way back from wherever Vecna had taken you.

Steve hasn't left your side once.

He's sitting on the floor beside the sofa, his shoulder resting lightly against the cushions, one hand absently cradling the back of your head where it hangs over the armrest, his thumb brushing slow, absent-minded circles through your hair every now and then as though reassuring himself that you're still solid beneath his fingertips.

He waits.

Not because he's unsure whether to ask, but because he's spent the last hour watching you slowly return to yourself, and he isn't willing to rush whatever fragile peace has finally settled over the room.

Eventually, when everyone else's conversations have faded into comfortable background noise, he speaks so quietly you're almost convinced you've imagined it.

"...Can I ask you something?"

You turn your head just enough to look at him and give the smallest nod.

He hesitates for a moment, eyes dropping to where his hand still rests against your hair before he quietly asks, "...What exactly did it sound like?"

You know immediately what he means.

"The voice?"

Steve nods once.

"It sounded like..." You swallow. "...You."

He smiles sadly, shaking his head almost before you've finished.

"No." His voice is gentle. "Not who it sounded like."

A beat passes.

"...What did it say?"

You frown.

At first, all you can remember is the panic. The fear. The overwhelming certainty that Steve was somewhere ahead of you, frightened and alone. The details blur together, slipping through your fingers every time you try to hold onto them.

Then, slowly, one sentence surfaces.

Your expression changes.

"...It said..." You stop, hearing it again exactly as you had in the forest.

"'Come find me.'"

The room falls quiet.

Steve doesn't answer straight away.

Instead, he looks down at the floor between you for a long moment, his brow furrowing almost imperceptibly as something clicks into place.

You see it happen.

The same realisation finds you a heartbeat later.

"...You'd never say that."

Steve looks back up. "... No. I wouldn't."

You keep turning the memory over in your mind, examining it from every angle now that you know it wasn't real, and suddenly the whole thing feels obvious in a way it hadn't before.

"You'd tell me to stay where I was."

Another slow nod.

"Yeah."

Silence settles between you again.

Then, almost as an afterthought, he quietly adds, "...Or I'd come to you."

You stare at him.

Because he's right.

Of course he's right.

If it had been true - if Steve had genuinely been lost somewhere in the Upside Down, terrified and unable to reach you - he would never have asked you to run blindly towards him. He'd have told you to stay put. To hide. To wait. He'd have found a way to reach you himself, even if it meant walking straight back into danger.

The voice had been perfect.

Every inflexion. Every hesitation. Every tiny detail that made it unmistakably Steve.

But it had made one fatal mistake.

It had copied his voice.

Not his heart.

You let out a shaky breath, something between a laugh and a sob.

"It knew how you sounded," you murmur, more to yourself than anyone else. "It just... didn't know you."

Steve's expression softens.

"No," he agrees quietly. "It didn't."

Because that's who Steve is.

The Upside Down had understood your fear. It had understood your memories, your instincts, the people whose voices would make you run without thinking. But it had failed to understand something much simpler, and much harder to imitate.

Steve Harrington has never asked the people he loves to walk into danger for him.

He goes first.

Always has.

Always will.

For a long while, nobody says anything.

The house settles into one of those rare silences that only follows genuine fear, where nobody quite trusts themselves to speak because doing so would mean acknowledging how close they'd all come to losing someone.

The mugs of tea on the coffee table have long since gone cold, and outside, somewhere beyond the curtains, a car passes along the quiet suburban street, blissfully unaware that the world has almost ended again.

You find yourself looking around the room instead.

At Robin, curled awkwardly into the corner of the sofa with her knees tucked beneath her chin.

At Nancy, staring absently into her untouched cup of tea.

At Jonathan, who hasn't taken his eyes off Nancy since they got back.

At Max, quieter than usual, her expression unreadable as she turns an empty cassette case over and over between her hands.

And at Steve, still sitting beside you on the floor, his shoulder resting lightly against the sofa, as though moving even a few feet further away from you somehow feels impossible after what happened.

It is Will who finally breaks the silence.

His voice is quiet enough that everyone has to look up to hear it.

"...We need a new rule."

No one answers immediately.

Not because anyone disagrees.

Because they all know he's right.

The old rules had kept them alive this long. Stay together. Keep the radios on. Don't make unnecessary noise. Don't split up unless you absolutely have to.

Now those rules weren't enough anymore.

Will draws a slow breath before continuing.

"If you hear somebody calling your name..."

He trails off, unable - or perhaps unwilling - to finish the sentence himself.

Steve does it for him.

"...Don't answer."

The words land heavily in the room.

Nobody argues.

Nobody even questions them.

Robin swallows hard, her eyes fixed somewhere on the carpet as she quietly adds, "...Even if it sounds exactly like us."

Another silence follows.

Longer this time.

Because that is the part none of them wants to say aloud.

Not just don't answer a stranger.

Don't answer Dustin.

Don't answer Nancy.

Don't answer Steve.

Don't answer the people you love most in the world.

The room feels colder somehow.

You glance at Steve beside you, and for the briefest moment you wonder whether, if you heard him calling for you again tomorrow, you could really ignore it.

The thought alone makes your chest tighten.

Dustin is the first to move.

Without a word, he reaches for the battered Hellfire emergency pack that's been dragged through almost every disaster the group has survived, unzips the front pocket and rummages around until he finds a thick black permanent marker.

He hesitates only briefly before uncapping it.

Then, kneeling on the living-room floor with the backpack balanced across his knees, he opens the inside flap where every previous rule has already been scribbled in increasingly cramped handwriting over the years.

He doesn't ask whether everyone agrees.

He already knows they do.

Slowly, deliberately, he writes beneath the others.

RULE #8

IF YOU HEAR SOMEONE YOU LOVE CALLING YOUR NAME...

DO NOT FOLLOW THE VOICE.

The ink is still wet when he snaps the cap back onto the marker.

Nobody comments on it.

Nobody laughs.

Nobody suggests a better wording.

Because you all understand something they hadn't understood that morning.

The Upside Down hadn't simply learnt your voices.

It had learnt your hearts. Your trusts. Who you love most.

And from now on, surviving would mean learning not to trust them.

The weeks that follow are, by all outward appearances, wonderfully ordinary.

School starts again. Family Video reopens. Robin complains about customers with renewed enthusiasm, the kids fill Steve's house almost every afternoon as though nothing has changed, and somebody inevitably starts an argument over whose turn it is to choose the film.

Life, stubbornly and almost offensively, continues.

Some days you're almost convinced you're beginning to forget.

Not what happened.

Just the feeling of it.

The constant certainty that something terrible is waiting just beyond the next corner gradually loosens its grip, replaced by familiar routines and evenings spent piled into living rooms with takeaway cartons balanced on your knees, laughing over things that would've seemed impossibly trivial only a few weeks earlier.

It gets easier.

Not better.

Just... easier.

Until one quiet evening.

Steve's house is unusually still, the late afternoon sunlight spilling lazily through the bedroom curtains in soft golden stripes that stretch across the duvet. You'd meant to stay awake. You'd only gone upstairs to lie down for half an hour while Steve started making dinner, but somewhere between closing your eyes and listening to the muffled sounds of cupboard doors opening downstairs, sleep had begun to pull gently at the edges of your thoughts.

You're hovering somewhere between dreaming and waking when you hear it.

Your name.

Quiet. Unhurried.

Floating up the staircase from somewhere below.

For one impossible moment, your body forgets where you are.

Your eyes snap open.

Every muscle locks.

Your heart lurches so violently it almost hurts, adrenaline crashing through you before your mind has had the chance to catch up.

You don't answer.

You don't move.

You simply stare at the bedroom door, every instinct warring with itself as the silence stretches on around you.

Because you know that voice.

You know it better than your own.

But you also know where that certainty almost led you.

The room remains perfectly still.

Downstairs, you hear nothing more than the faint clatter of something being set on the kitchen counter, followed by footsteps crossing the hallway.

A minute passes.

Maybe less.

It feels much longer.

Then the floorboards outside the bedroom creak softly, and a gentle knock sounds against the half-open door before Steve appears in the doorway, one hand still holding a tea towel he'd evidently forgotten to put down.

He smiles when he sees you're awake, though it fades almost immediately when he notices the way you're sitting rigid against the headboard, your breathing still just a little too fast.

"...Hey."

You don't answer straight away.

He tilts his head, confusion flickering briefly across his face.

"I called you."

A beat.

"...Why didn't you answer?"

Your throat tightens.

You look at him.

That's all you do.

You look at him, and in the space of a heartbeat you watch the question disappear from his expression.

Understanding arrives quietly.

Painfully.

His shoulders soften almost imperceptibly, and something in his eyes breaks - not dramatically, not with tears or visible grief, but with the quiet devastation of somebody realising that a wound they desperately hoped had healed is still there beneath the surface.

"Oh."

The word is barely louder than a breath.

Neither of you says anything else.

There isn't really anything to say.

Steve crosses the room without another question, sits carefully on the edge of the bed, and opens one arm in silent invitation.

You move before you've consciously decided to, the tension finally leaving your body as you fold into him, burying your face against his shoulder while he wraps both arms around you with the same steady certainty he always has. One hand settles instinctively at the back of your head, his fingers slipping gently through your hair, while the other rubs slow circles between your shoulder blades until your breathing begins, little by little, to settle again.

He doesn't apologise.

He doesn't tell you that it was only him.

He knows none of that would help.

Instead, he simply holds you, solid and warm and undeniably real, allowing his heartbeat to become the only sound worth listening to.

Outside, the world carries on exactly as it always has. Cars pass along the street. Somewhere, a dog barks. The neighbours laugh over dinner in their garden. Hawkins continues with the blissful normality it has always pretended to possess.

Inside the house, though, something has changed forever.

The tragedy isn't that you failed to answer when Steve called your name.

It's that, somewhere beneath a blood-red sky, the Upside Down had managed to reach into one of the most instinctive acts of love a person can know - the automatic certainty that the voice of someone you love means safety - and twist it into something to be feared.

You escaped.

You survived.

But some echoes don't stay behind when you leave.

And every now and then, on quiet evenings when someone calls your name from another room, you still have to remind yourself that not every voice asking you to follow is trying to lead you into the dark.

dividers: saradika-graphics

He tried to distract himself. Amanda on Monday. Mary on Tuesday. Both futile. He felt disgusted with himself, guilty in a way that didn't make logical sense. You two weren't together, had never been together. But the guilt sat in his chest regardless, heavy and persistent and— fuck.

Another secret he's been carrying for two months: he's been faking it with everyone else.

He slips the condom off before they can notice, drops it at the bottom of the bathroom trash, and waits in there until he's sure they've left. He never finishes himself off afterward. He knows the only way he can is if he thinks about you, and that knowledge sits in him like something radioactive. It’s too dangerous to acknowledge directly and too present to ignore.

He can’t sleep. He tosses and turns, wondering what you’re doing, if you’re in your dorm with Robin or if that meathead is feeling you up— nope. He can’t be jealous. It’s not fair to you if he’s jealous of you messing around with other people too. Even if it’s a fucking Alpha Tau. 

He doesn’t know what is wrong with him. 

On Wednesday you were walking out of the library when he caught sight of you, and his entire body responded before his brain could intervene. You looked so pretty in the moonlight. He watched you laugh when you caught his eyes, your breath a small cloud in the cold air, warm and there and real. Your hand squeezed his arm when he held the door open, and then your mouth was on his neck and his hands were moving under your blouse— butter yellow, soft against his palms, genuinely so pretty on you. It drove him mad.

He always hated when the other girls left marks on him. But yours were different. Yours he'd flaunt, wearing shirts that wouldn't cover them, pretending in some parallel life that he was allowed to show off that he was yours. People assumed it was Robin. He let them assume.

Neither of you had the patience to undress properly. He'd hiked your skirt up, your legs hooking around his waist, pulling him deeper. His chain had swung against your collarbone with each thrust. His jeans bunched at his thighs. Both of you loud and breathless, the car rocking with the rhythm of it, your skin against his a sound he'd been replaying ever since.

He'd looked down at you— eyes clenched, fingers digging into his shoulders, neck arched— and dragged his tongue up the column of your throat. When he spat into your mouth and watched you swallow, the moan that tore out of him was completely beyond his control.

Sex had always come easily to him. But with you there's a challenge he keeps wanting to solve. He loves being the reason for your sounds, loves finding the specific combination of things that makes you cry out, loves the places in you that he finds and you didn't know existed. He loves how he fits inside you, the way you stretch and clench around him perfectly. He thinks about what it would feel like without a condom— like the first time. He thinks about it too often.

With you he doesn't hold back. He never has to muffle himself or perform. He just is. And that, more than anything else, is the thing that terrifies him.

He knows what anyone would tell him if he described this out loud. End it with the others. Or if he can't do that: think of you when he's with them. He's tried the second option. He's ashamed to admit it, more ashamed to admit what happens when he does.

He doesn't think of you in those moments. His mind doesn't go to anything compromising. It goes, instead, to conversations. The way you make him laugh. The particular sharpness of your wit, the patience you extend to Robin and— somehow, inexplicably— to him. More patience than he deserves and you both know it.

He thinks about how people are drawn to you and you have no idea. How they gravitate toward you at parties, on the sidewalk, in line at the library, and you move through it all like it's ordinary. He thinks about the line between your brows when you're irritable, and how badly he wants to press his thumb there and smooth it out. He thinks about how when you get mean, you're ferocious— certain and passionate and immovable— and how hours later you always go back and apologize to whoever it was. You always know what to say. He has never once known what to say.

Thursday, he tried to write off everything as stress and a bad week. This time of year is always hard for him. Nightmares. Headaches. The insomnia that arrives like a seasonal houseguest who doesn't know when to leave. He guesses he can add ejaculation issues to the list too.The anniversary of the accident, seeps in, coloring everything gray, his scars aching before his brain has caught up to what day it is.

He'd skipped his classes and gone out once for air. He told himself it was coincidental that he wandered toward the building where your class meets. That he hadn't, over the course of the past several weeks, memorized the rough shape of your schedule. That he didn't sometimes take routes that would put you at the edges of his vision, even from a distance.

Purely coincidental.

He wasn't even sure he'd say anything if he saw you. He could ask if you wanted to get lunch, take a walk— two friends, only two friends, who happened to be sleeping together. He ignored the small sharp pain in his chest at the phrasing.

When he rounded the corner and found you kissing Sammy, the guy's hands on you and yours on him, Steve stopped walking. He stood there for five full seconds. Then he turned around and went back to Pike.

He'd like to say he did the honorable thing after that. Moved on, let it go, focused on something else. He can't stop thinking about it. It's his own rule— the one he made, the one that's supposed to protect both of them— and it's eating him alive.

Which is why he snapped at Robin when she started in about Nancy. He knows it's different for them. He does. But a selfish, rotting part of him was jealous— not that he'd ever say so— jealous that at least she got to be with someone she loved without everything being underwater. He felt guilty about it almost immediately. It wasn't that he wasn't happy for them. He was. He is.

He's also drowning.

He didn't even register you asking to come in when you appeared in his doorway later. He was too busy being struck dumb by the sight of you— hair up, pink sweater he loves tucked into your light wash jeans, fresh manicure you'd probably done in your dorm with Robin. He watched you cross the room and felt his chest do that thing it does. Tighten first. Then soften, like something rigid giving way.

You touched his knee. You gave him the look that meant it was okay.

He felt safe. He always feels safe, and that is the most dangerous thing about you.

His rules dissolved and he put his head in your lap because it was the only context in which he was allowed to do that. He went limp and hoped you couldn't see his eyes going wet. He breathed you in— clean laundry, something faint and warm underneath, the specific scent he's started associating with a future he wants and can't have. He asked you to talk about your day because he could sit for hours inside the sound of your voice. You made the mundane parts of your life sound like somewhere he wanted to be.

Broken, he told you. He feels broken. He didn't tell you he wasn't sure how to fix it. Or that he suspected he knew exactly how, and was terrified of what it would cost.

After you left, the thought of you kissing Sammy returned and wouldn't stop. It moved through him in different frequencies. He wondered what your lips would feel like against his— not his neck, not the geography of his shoulders and chest, but his mouth. He wondered if the rhythm would be the same as everything else between you, that strange melodic fit, the way your bodies always seemed to find the same tempo without trying.

On the night of Mardi Tau, he'd told Robin three times he wasn't going. He couldn't. Couldn't watch you across a crowded room, couldn't watch you dance with Sammy, couldn't see your mouth on someone else's again and pretend the sight wasn't carving something out of him.

He watched from his window when your car pulled up and Eddie climbed in. It was dark outside andhe couldn't see you. His heart thumped anyway.

The car pulled away.

His heart sank.

It should be him.

.-.-.-.

Katrina was always a sweet girl. Her hair was a bit much sometimes— reminded him of when Tammy Thompson got her first perm and he couldn't see the board in Mrs. Click's class until he finally moved seats. 

But she didn't deserve tonight.

Everything was going well. He did everything he normally did, and by her sounds, Katrina was enjoying herself. All while his mind kept drifting to Sig Tau. To you. His heart racing because the rumors had been circulating through Greek life all week— that Sammy really likes you. 

It was all dirty touches and heat between them until he got Katrina over the edge.

But when it was his turn and she went to touch him— nothing.

He laughed it off awkwardly and told her to give him a second, spitting in his hand, trying to coax any reaction from his body. The redness crept up the back of his neck and deepened in his cheeks, not from the sex but from something worse. He kept trying. But even looking at Katrina sprawled naked on his bed, cheeks flushed, watching him with patient eyes, he still couldn't think properly.

He kept thinking about what an asshole he was. What an utter prick, to be here with a nice girl who deserved better than this. All because he couldn't fucking admit what he'd been running from all this time.

His shoulders drooped. He deflated.

"Oh my god," Katrina whispered.

Steve opened his mouth, a lump rising in his throat. "I—" Nothing came. No excuse worth saying out loud. "It's not you. I swear—"

"Oh my fucking god." She stood up from his bed. He could tell she wasn't happy by the way she moved— quick and stiff, snatching up her clothes. He saw the tears rolling down her face before she turned away.

"Katrina—"

"I am missing the biggest party of the year for this," she said, voice unraveling as she pulled her shirt over her head.

Steve stood there, still holding his limp dick, unsure whether he should wait until she left. He didn't know the proper etiquette for this situation. He'd never had anyone leave in the middle of a hookup before. Never because he couldn't get hard. He rubbed his face with one hand, trying to think.

"I'm sorry. I'm really stressed out—"

She turned around, lip quivering. "This," she hissed, motioning between them, "is what's supposed to relieve you of stress."

Steve picked up his boxers and slipped them on, feeling her watch him. Then his jeans. He looked at the floor, then up into her eyes, hoping and praying her memory of the last half hour might somehow evaporate.

It was in that humiliating moment he realized it wasn't only hating the fact you were with someone else tonight. He was too. Even though his hookups with other girls had become rare. Even with the lie he'd told you from the start— that he had a once-a-week rule— it still sent pain radiating through his chest, the particular kind that comes from knowing you're doing something wrong.

"I don't think we should keep seeing each other," he said, trailing off because he was a coward.

Katrina ticked her jaw. She sniffled once, sharply, through the hurt. He watched her shrink into herself, arms crossing over her chest, trying to make sense of something that didn't make any sense. She didn't have feelings for him— he knew that. But he could almost see the trust between them severing, clean and quiet as a cut. Without another word she picked up her handbag and walked out.

He wished he were man enough to sit with it or run after her to tell her… anything that would make her feel better. To feel the full weight of hurting someone he hadn't meant to hurt. To reckon with the ways his selfishness was splitting him apart from the inside.

Instead he got dressed quickly and put on his glasses. He needed to see you.

Not needed. Wanted. Both. He couldn't untangle them anymore.

His adrenaline was high and he ignored the beaming DON'T DO IT sign glowing right in front of him. Rules be damned. There were never really rules with you to begin with.

He smoked two cigarettes on the walk to Sig Tau without realizing it, and hadn't noticed he'd arrived until he was already pushing through the crowd outside and through the doors. He stood in the middle of the main gathering space, chest heaving, eyes scanning the room.

The scary thing was he always knew when you were there before he found you. Some magnetic pull in his chest that swung toward you like a compass finding north— maybe it was your perfume, the one you only wore when you went out. He found you before his brain caught up to the fact that he was looking.

You were alone. Relief moved through him so fast it embarrassed him.

Except you were scanning the room the same way he had been, searching for someone— Sammy, probably. Then you stopped. Hair framing your face, lip gloss catching the colored lights. He watched your expression shift. Watched your lips flicker upward. You looked exactly as relieved to see him as he felt seeing you.

He crossed the room toward you, taking you in the whole way. Gold crop top. Your purple skirt and white pumps. The line of your collarbone. But he kept returning to your eyes. He drowned in them every time and he did it willingly, like a man who had made peace with the water.

You were the most beautiful person he'd ever met. It drove him absolutely crazy.

He was so close but he needed more, and if there weren't people watching he'd have pulled you into him right there. Instead he motioned toward the bathroom tucked out of the way, the one nobody else seemed to know about.

He pulled you inside and crowded you against the counter.

"Touch me," he said. The words came out wrecked. A plea, not a request.

You started to say something and he shook his head. He said please. Said it again. Please.

And you did. You touched him exactly where he knew you'd touch him first, and he twitched and let out a breath that was equal parts relief and pleasure. His skin knew you. Reacted to you the way muscle reacts to memory— without instruction, without hesitation. He whimpered when your fingers traced along his scars and brushed through the trail of hair on his stomach.

He pressed his hips against you involuntarily. Already hard against your bare thigh.

Both of you were asking for more without saying it. You pulled his hand and pressed it against the damp cotton of your panties. His knees buckled, his weight nearly crushing you as he started working slow circles against your clit. His mouth found your cheek, breath short and ragged.

Then you were up on the counter and he was fucking you with his fingers, his cock aching against his zipper, completely engulfed in your wetness and the sounds falling from your mouth. You clutched at him. He still wasn't close enough. It wasn't enough anymore. It hadn't been enough for a long time.

He worked faster, stretching you with another finger, curling to find that spot that made your whole body shift. He could feel you shaking. He could hear the pitch of your whimpers climbing.

He rutted against your leg, moaning into your neck, until you made a sound he'd never heard from you before. He pulled back to look at you— half-lidded, mouth open— and his eyes dropped to your lips. Parted and pretty, lip gloss still sticky.

Before he could think longer he grabbed you by the head, fingers fisting your hair, and kissed you.

Then froze immediately.

"Fuck. I'm sorry. I'm sorry—"

You smirked at him. Hunger in your eyes. One finger hooked into his chain necklace, pulling him back.

Your lips crashed against his.

He grunted when you bucked your hips, grinding on his hand still inside you. The kiss was messy and filthy and open-mouthed and unforgiving, and it rearranged everything inside him. His skin felt like it was burning, the heat moving straight to his cock. But underneath all of it— underneath the want and the noise and the desperate friction— his heart was beating against his ribs in a rhythm he recognized from somewhere he'd been trying not to visit.

He couldn't ignore it this time. Didn't want to.

All he wanted to do was smile. Because he was kissing his girl. His Hot Shot. Finally.

He felt you getting close and threw himself into it— fingers moving faster, palm pressing harder. His tongue licked into your mouth because if this was the only time he got to do this, he refused to forget what you tasted like. Sweet and warm and everything kissing was supposed to feel like and never had before. Feeling you kiss him back with the same urgency, the same hunger, he whined against your lips.

You nipped his bottom lip between your teeth and let it go.

In the fraction of a second it took, he thought about your first time together. How he'd wanted to kiss you then. How he'd wanted to kiss you every single time since. He thought about how swollen your lips were now— wet from him, undone.

That was all it took. He came, pressing against your leg, letting you feel it. Letting you know it was all you.

But he doesn't stop kissing you.

Can't.

And the thing is— he knows, standing here with his hand leaving your thighs and both arms pulling you in instead— that this has nothing to do with sex anymore. It stopped being about sex somewhere between the first time your mouth found his and right now, in this dim bathroom at a party neither of you particularly wanted to attend. What he wants is not the thing bodies want. It's something older and quieter and much more frightening.

He wants to keep kissing you in the morning. He wants to know what you look like when you're half-asleep and grumpy. He wants to sit across a table from you and argue about something stupid and be wrong and have you tell him so. He doesn’t want to say goodnight, because then that means leaving. And he’s so tired of leaving.

Your fingers tighten in his hair, pulling hard enough to sting, and the groan that comes out of him is helpless. It’s not because of the pain but because of the wanting underneath it, the sheer volume of it. He wraps both arms around you, one hand wide and flat across your lower back, the other cradling the back of your head, and he holds on.

You clutch at him with the same desperation and something in him cracks open. He moves his mouth to your jaw, your throat, pressing kisses into the warm skin there. He needs to touch every part of you he can reach, needs you to know he's here, he's here, he's been here this whole time.

His hands won't stop moving. One slides up your side, thumb grazing the underside of your tit through your top, and the other grips your hip hard enough to mark. He's not sorry. He wants to mark you. He wants there to be proof.

You pull his face back to yours and he comes back willingly and gratefully. If he's honest, every second his mouth isn't on yours feels like something wasted now. The kiss shifts, messier, all tongue and teeth and two people running out of ways to say something neither of them has said yet.

You slide your hands under his shirt, palms flat against his stomach, and every muscle in his body contracts under the touch. Your nails drag up his sides and across his ribs and he shudders. It’s not even from sensation but from the specific tenderness of being known. You know exactly where to touch him. You've always known.

He pulls you impossibly closer, hands roaming across your bare back, until there's no space left between you. Chest to chest. He can feel your heartbeat against his own and he doesn't know which is which. Doesn't care.

He kisses you slower this time. Still wanting, still urgent, but slower. His tongue slides against yours and he thinks: this is the problem. This has always been the problem. There is no casual version of this. There never was.

Your fingers find his belt loops and pull his hips flush against yours. He can feel the wet warmth in his jeans against your inner thigh. He makes a sound into your mouth. It’s broken and wanting and almost pained, like something has been held under pressure for a very long time and is only now, in increments, being allowed to surface.

He brings his hand up to cup your face. His thumb strokes your cheekbone with a tenderness he has no business feeling, and he knows it, and he does it anyway. You tilt your head and deepen the kiss and he thinks: I would do anything. I would blow up every rule I've ever made. I would stop being careful entirely.

The kisses slow. Gentle now. Each one landing separately, softly. Just lips resting against lips. Just breathing the same air. Just staying.

He draws your bottom lip carefully between his teeth one last time. His tongue soothing the place, and then he pulls back.

Steps away.

He looks at the floor. Then at you.

Something moves across his face that he can't stop in time. Something guilty and sad and full of all the things he hasn't said and should have, all the moments he's walked away from and chosen rules and Robin over this, over you.

He opens the bathroom door.

He leaves.

The click of the latch behind him sounds, in the silence that follows, like the loneliest thing he's ever heard.

.-.-.-.

Steve walked into the empty Pike house and the silence swallowed him whole.

His eyes were still blown wide, hair wrecked, clothes wrinkled and askew— every detail of him a confession he hadn't meant to make or even think. He trudged inside and let out a heavy breath, both hands dragging down his face like he could physically rearrange what had happened tonight into something he could live with.

He knew he'd fucked up. The only thing he could do to avoid thinking about it was sleep, which meant he was going to lie awake staring at the ceiling and think about nothing else.

He made it to his room and threw himself backward onto his bed, depleted and spent. His fingers drifted to his lips without him meaning for them to— still buzzing faintly, still warm from where your mouth had been.

A smile crept onto his face before he could stop it.

Then, as fast as it arrived… gone.

His phone rang.

He launched himself off the bed. He looked at his watch and wondered who the hell was calling at this hour. Eddie? Robin? His heart lurched sideways at the thought that it might be you. Could it be you calling to come over, to talk, to say something that would either fix everything or make it completely irreparable?

He picked up. "Hello?"

"Steveee," a voice slurred.

Steve pulled the receiver away from his ear, stared at it, put it back. "Uh..."

"Were you asleep?"

His eyes went wide. "Max? Why are you calling this late? Are you okay?"

"Stevee, I'm more than okaaay." She hiccupped.

"Are you drunk?" His voice came out protective before he could temper it. He knew he'd gotten into things he shouldn't have at her age, but he was an idiot. Max was not. He bit at the skin around his thumbnail. "Are you safe?"

"I'm at Wheeler's." The line crackled and her voice dropped to a hushed whisper. "We got into a bottle of Mrs. Wheeler's wine playing truth or dare."

Steve laughed, the coiled tension in his chest easing slightly. "Right, and are you doing a dare right now?"

"Yuuuup," Max sang.

"What is it? You supposed to prank call me or something?"

"Nope. Got dared to tell someone I love them. Dustin, the shithead he is, wanted me to probably say it to Lucas in front of everyone, because apparently I kind of suck at telling people that shit..."

Max's words drifted off.

Steve went completely still. He replayed the sentence. Made sure he'd heard it correctly. Because it was true—Max had never said that to him. Not once. Not directly. Not without enough sarcasm layered on top to make it deniable.

"Steveee, oh my god, did you die over there? Hellloooo?"

"Yeah." He swallowed hard. "I'm here. Sorry."

"Oh god, don't tell me it cut out and I have to say it again," she groaned.

He smiled at the ceiling, something loosening in his chest. "No. I heard you."

A beat of silence.

"I love you too, kid."

Max made an immediate and theatrical gagging noise. But he could still hear her smiling on the other end. "Gross, dude. You didn't have to say it back."

The quiet that followed wasn't really quiet at all. It was the specific kind of silence that exists between two people who both meant exactly what they said and know the other one did too.

"Now it's my turn to dare you to do it," Max giggled.

He rolled his eyes. "That's not how the game works and you know it."

"Maybeee. Or maybee you're scared."

"Max—"

"Steveeee," she mocked.

"I'm going to hang up now. Go be a pain to Wheeler or something." He shook his head when he heard her cackling.

She went quiet for a moment. Then: "You never called this week."

His throat went dry. He sighed, picking up the base of the phone and moving to sit at the edge of his bed. She couldn't see him, but he looked down anyway. "Yeah. I know. I got busy. I'm sorry."

Another wave of silence settled between them— the weighted kind, the kind that carries whole seasons inside it.

Steve raked his fingers through his hair.

"I don't miss him, y'know?" Max mumbled, her words soft and slurred but perfectly clear.

"Max—"

"And I know you still feel guilty, and we haven't really talked about it. But I needed you to know that."

She was right. They hadn't talked about the accident. That was probably mostly his fault—he never wanted to drag her back into bad water. He wasn't sure what to say.

"Drink water before bed. Okay?"

"Steve." His name was soft on the receiver, careful with him in a way she rarely was out loud.

"Yeah?"

"I dare you to tell me if you love her."

"Robin? Of course I love her, you know it's not like that thou—"

"No, not Robin." Max said your name.

It moved through the phone line and landed somewhere behind his sternum.

He froze. His face fell. Something cold and certain moved through his blood all at once. "Max, you know that's—I can't—why would you—she's a friend. A friend, okay?"

"Do you?" she asked again. Steady and almost sober-minded. Almost like she already knew the answer long before he ever did.

And Steve felt all the weeks of careful avoidance collapse at once.

He thought about you. He let himself, fully, for the first time in months— didn't redirect the thought, didn't shut the door on it before it could open. He let it open.

It wasn’t like a lightbulb, or a lightning bolt striking him. That was the thing about it that undid him. It didn't arrive the way he'd always assumed love would arrive. He had always imagine it to be loud and obvious and impossible to miss. It had crept in the way warmth does in a room you've been sitting in for a long time. Slow. Pervasive. Already everywhere before you think to notice.

The specific moment for him was all on Valentine’s when he saw you lying on his chest fast asleep. It overwhelmed him. It excited him. He knew it then, there was no one else. But he stayed in denial, tormented by thoughts of what it’d be like to go steady with you.

It felt like something that had always been true and was only now, under the specific pressure of Max saying your name through a crackling phone line at midnight, being acknowledged.

He carried it the way you carry an injury you've decided not to mention— working around it, adjusting your movement, telling yourself it wasn't that bad. But it had been pressing into him constantly. Heavy and specific and shaped like everything about you: the way you looked at him when he wasn't performing anything, the particular patience you extended to him that he hadn't earned, the sound of your laugh when something caught you off guard, the way the room organized itself differently when you were in it.

It felt like something that was equally killing him inside but also the thing that was keeping him alive. 

He wanted things he hadn't let himself want in years. Simple things. Quiet things. He wanted to call you for no reason. He wanted to make you breakfast. He wanted, god help him, to introduce you to people and have a word for what you were to him that was true.

Instead he had rules. He had arrangements. He had you hidden away in a bathroom, holding a kiss that rearranged everything and a door he'd closed behind him anyway.

The wanting sat inside him like a lit match in a closed room. It illuminated everything, consuming itself, running out of air.

"Yeah," he whispered. "I do."

The words landed in the quiet of his empty room and he didn't take them back.

When he finally got off the phone and lay down in the dark, Steve stared at the ceiling and wondered if this was what it was like in every version of things. Every alternate arrangement of choices and timing and circumstance– did they all wind up here? Something in him said yes. Something in him had been saying yes for a while now, quietly, in a register he'd been working very hard not to hear.

No matter what he built around it. No matter how many rules he made or broke or pretended still applied. No matter the timing, no matter the cost.

It was you.

It had probably always been you.

You were worth falling in love for.

Lately, Steve felt like you had a hard time listening.

Whether it was about his suggestion during a movie night or his options for dinner – you were arguing with him about it.

Tonight’s no exception.

Except this time, Steve’s patience is nowhere to be found.

Steve has your back pressed against his chest in the small guest bathroom of his house. There’s a party raging downstairs – all for Robin’s birthday but it’s the farthest thing from your mind right now.

Your pink dressed is shoved up and bunched over your hips. Steve kicked your feet apart seconds after he pinned you to the counter and your lower stomach presses harshly to the counter top.

He has one arm wrapped around your waist and the other snaked between you and the counter – his fingers nestled deep in your cunt. Your head is heavy against his shoulder as he murmurs into your ear.

You’ve pushed his buttons all night, riling him up every chance you got, and twenty minutes ago he dragged you into the bathroom and turned your attitude into complete submission.

“God you feel so tight around my fingers,” Steve breathes against the shell of your ear. The walls of your pussy clench harder around him and he huffs out a laugh. “Yeah. Can’t wait to feel you around my cock,”

“Oh fuck, Steve,” You whine helplessly at his crude words. His fingers plunge in and out of you – you’re so wet he’s practically sliding in and out without any effort.

Your thighs ache from the shaking and spasming he’s caused. Steve decided on a torturous route tonight. He’s pushed you so close to the edge twice already and just before you can take a step off the ledge, he yanks you back.  

The air around you is thick and sticky – from your shared body heat and the frustration you’re feeling from him edging you for the last half hour.

Steve knows just how to get you to the edge and how to pull you back just as quickly.

It’s hell. 

And it’s ecstasy.

Steve brings his hand from around your waist and glides it up your stomach, landing with his palm wrapped loosely around your throat. You lean into his hold.

His other hand continues thrusting his fingers in and out, his thumb catching on your clit to rub tight circles.

“Just like that! Oh please – please don’t stop,” You cry out. Steve nudges the side of your face with his nose and you can feel his smirk against your skin.

“Yeah, right there?” He asks, his fingers continuing their brutal pace. You’re so close. You nod helplessly against his hand, thighs squeezing shut around his hand. Steve leaves dizzying kisses from the underside of your jaw all the way to your temple. He stop to whisper. “You gonna cum?”

“Yes, yes – I’m – I’m right there,”

Your toes curl and that coil in your stomach tightens. Your orgasm is almost there, barely lighting up your finger tips and then suddenly, Steve pulls his fingers out and that feeling of euphoria is gone.

“No no no no!” You sob, knees buckling under you. Your eyes squeeze shut in frustration for the third time you’ve been denied now.

Steve hushes you from behind, using his palm still around your neck to tilt your head up and to the side so he can kiss you. It’s quick but deep. His tongue laps against your own, swallowing down your cries and whines. He smiles against your lips, that bastard.

“I know baby,” Steve coos. “It’s hard, I know, but you can take it. Just a little longer, yeah?”

Despite the torment he’s subjecting you to, the tenderness of his voice has you like a puddle at his feet.

Your wide eyes stare up at him, filled with nothing but lust and trust, and you nod frantically. Anything for him to finally let you come.

“I can – I can take it,” You promise, your voice shaking.

He leans down to press his mouth to yours. “Good girl,” He murmurs against your lips.

Steve removes both his hands from your body and dips them between your bodies. Your stomach swirls at the sound of his belt unbuckling, the metals clinking against each other, and before you know it, Steve’s pants are shoved mid thigh and he’s guiding your body to bend over the sink.

You follow his lead mindlessly, letting him place you exactly where he wants. You hands find purchase against the granite top and he pushes your face down until you meet the counter.

It’s cooling against your cheek, and Steve keeps his large hand splayed across your face as he uses his other hand to line himself up to your entrance.

Your breathing is erratic again, adrenaline and anticipation coursing deep in your veins. Your pussy aches for him and clenches around air. Surprisingly, he doesn’t let you suffer long and pushes himself deep in one thrust.

Steve finds his unforgiving rhythm almost immediately. The stretch is intense – it always is – but the relief is even stronger. You’re a moaning mess for him and your hips buck down to meet each thrust.

“Fuck, you feel so good. Always so fucking good,” Steve groans, one hand squeezing your hip to hard you know it’ll bruise. He watches the way your ass bounces against him every time he drives into you.

The wet sounds of his cock sliding in and out of you fills the room. It’s so lewd and obscene that anybody walking past the door would be able to hear it – you’re thankful for the obnoxiously loud stereo playing from downstairs.

Heat burns through your veins and your body jolts forward with every thrust. In a split second, Steve’s hand tangles itself in your hair before he yanks you back up.

His hips drill into yours, his cock hitting that perfect spot deep inside you – that perfect spot only he’s ever touched – and your eyes roll all the way to the back of your head.

“Oh my God, you’re so – so deep,” You whimper. His fingers tighten in your hair, forcing your back into a deeper arch. Your teeth dig into your bottom lip so hard you taste blood.

Everything about him is so overwhelming. His brutal pace, the warmth radiating from his skin and to yours, the smell of sex surrounding you. It’s all too much for you to handle and he can feel it.

You clench harder around him and he quickens his pace.

“Don’t cum yet,” Steve demands. His voice is firm and unyielding. There’s a slight edge to it and you know he’s just barely hanging on to his own resolve.

You whine in protest – one that quickly turns into another moan when Steve’s hand smacks against the swell of your ass. You jolt at the collision, knees smacking against the cabinets.

“Hold it, baby. I know you can.” Steve grunts. His cock continues to feel like it’s splitting you open and then your eyes focus on the mirrors reflection in front of you.

Your own face is a mess. Mascara runs from your eyes, the blush you swept across your cheeks now mixes with the natural blush Steve caused, your lips are a bitten and swollen mess and your hair is still wrapped messily around his hand.

Steve looks even better. His face is pinched in pure pleasure. There’s a thin layer of sweat covering his forehead, dripping down his temple. His hair is messier than normal and when he glances upwards, meeting your gaze, his eyes are dark and full of lust.

You can’t hold your body back any longer. Every nerve in your body ignites on fire, every tendon pulled taut by him and every muscle begging for relief. Steve uses your knotted hair as leverage and forces your gaze to stay on the reflection of you two.

“Look at you, baby,” He breathes. “Look at the mess you’re making all over me,”

Your head nods frantically against his hold as your eyes bounce around the sight in front of you. You focus on the way his hands grip your hair and your waist, the way your body jerks every time he drives his hips into yours.

You mewl against him, aching for release.

Steve lets out a loud groan as the tip of his cock kisses your cervix. “Goddamnit, you were fuckin’ made for me, weren’t you?”

“Steve baby, please – I need to.. I wanna cum,” You plead helplessly. As he listens to you, he wonders where that sour attitude suddenly went.

“Hold it.” He says firmly. There’s no room for arguing with him but you can feel the way his thrusts begin to turn sloppy and you know he’s not far from his own release.

He just wants you with him.

Steve forces your face back to the mirror. “You wanna cum, hmm?”

“Yes yes! I’ll do anything – please,” Your pathetic begging is music to his ears.

His grins at the sight of you and brings his back back down to your clit, the pads of his three fingers massaging over the sensitive nub. “Come on then baby, do it. Cum for me baby, let go,”

His words are a catalyst – like a conditioned reaction, your entire body tightens around him and your head throws back against his shoulder. Your thighs tremble at the feeling of his cock splitting you open and the extra simulation.

Your fingers dig into the skin and his arm as your climax finally hits.

Your eyes squeeze shut – your vision blurs into something hazy and your head swims with the overwhelming feeling of Steve. Your pussy gushes around his cock and he whines at the feeling and sight of it.

He keeps his eyes trained on the way he disappears in and out of you, and the way your pussy opens and envelopes him with every thrust. Perfectly adjusting to the size of him – just like you were made for him.

It’s all he needs to follow you right off the edge. His arms wrap around your limp body, hugging you back against his chest as his hips sloppily thrust into you. “I’m gonna – I’m gonna cum baby,”

You coo against him, fuzzy and content.

Steve gives you one last thrust before his hips shove to a hilt against yours and you feel thick ropes of his cum fill your pussy. He twitches against your warm and velvet walls, his face buried into your neck as he bites on your skin to minimize the noises threatening to spill.

He stayed sheathed inside for a moment as you both regain  your breath and when he finally looks up at you, there’s a sweet and almost pliable smile on your face.

He smirks gently and kisses the side of your face. “Think I fucked all the attitude out of you yet?”

You pretend to think for a moment, eyes flicking to the corner of the room. “Hmm. I don’t know, maybe we should try again just to be sure,”

Steve laughs against your skin but before he can respond, there’s a bang at the door.

the apartment had settled into that soft, easy rhythm that only came after the last of the wedding chaos had finally faded.

for a few weeks now, everything had felt a little brighter around the edges, like the world itself had decided to be gentler with you both. joe had booked time off before tour, and for once there was no frantic calls between interviews, no half-finished dinners left cooling on the stove because one of you had somewhere to be. it was just the two of you, learning how to be married.

joe was still joe.

still left his coffee mugs everywhere, still sang random songs while brushing his teeth and still wrapped himself around you every night like you were responsible for keeping him alive.

but there was something different now, something that made your chest feel warm whenever you looked at him.

husband.

your husband.

even months later it didn't feel real.

before the wedding people had always joked that nothing changed after getting married. they were liars.

because somehow everything felt brighter.

-

then joe had started going back to meetings.

nothing alarming, just the slow return of work and the fact he was going on tour soon inching its way back into your lives.

some mornings he left early with coffee in one hand and his keys in the other, hair still a little messy, kissing you goodbye with a promise to be back before dinner. some days it was later, meetings stretching on while you stayed home and tried to be productive in the apartment that suddenly felt a little too quiet without him in it.

you told yourself the quiet was fine. normal, even. a natural part of the season you were in.

you were both busy, both trying to prepare for what was ahead.

the tour, the travel, the long stretches apart that would come with it. you'd known from the start that marriage wouldn’t stop life from happening around you, wouldn’t freeze everything in perfect place just because the vows had been said and the rings had been slipped on.

still, on one particular morning, you woke up feeling wrong.

not dramatically wrong, not enough to panic immediately, just enough to notice.

your stomach turned when you sat up, a strange sickly wave rolling through you that made you freeze for a second with your hand braced against the mattress.

you swallowed hard and sat there, eyes half-closed, waiting for it to pass. and it did, eventually. enough that you got through the rest of the morning pretending it hadn’t happened.

it didn't concern you as much as it probably should've. you brushed your teeth, made yourself a little tea and told yourself it was probably something you ate, or maybe just exhaustion.

there was no reason to worry joe about it. he already had enough on his plate, between meetings and rehearsals and tour prep and everything else trying to pull him in a dozen directions at once.

he kissed you on the cheek before leaving that morning with an absentminded “call me if you need anything, okay?” and you smiled and told him you would.

by afternoon, you felt perfectly fine.

which, somehow, made the whole thing easier to dismiss. a fluke. a weird little moment. nothing to spiral over.

except then the next day came.

and the one after that.

and suddenly the “weird little moment” had become a pattern that your body seemed determined to keep repeating.

more nausea.

another morning where you barely made it to the bathroom in time.

a stubborn heaviness in your chest every time you tried to ignore the possibility forming in the back of your mind.

then the period that didn't come, even after you stared at the calendar like maybe it would feel guilty and appear if you looked hard enough.

and that was when the spiral started.

at first you fought it, you really did.

you tried to convince yourself it was stress, or hormones, or your body being dramatic for no reason. but the longer the days stretched on, the more every little sign seemed to align into the same terrifying shape.

the nausea. the missed period. the constant low hum of suspicion that you couldn't shake no matter how hard you tried to distract yourself with work or editing or scrolling mindlessly until your eyes hurt.

pregnancy.

the word sat in your mind like a live wire.

it wouldn't have been the worst thing in the world. that was the part that made it so confusing, so impossible to untangle.

you were married to the love of your life. you both had stable jobs, a home you loved, a life that wasn't perfect but was solid and real and full of room for something bigger.

you had talked before, in soft private moments, about a future family. someday. one day. after the next thing, after the next phase, after the next stretch of work had settled.

in future.

not now.

not when joe was about to go on tour. not when your lives were already shifting into motion again. not when you were supposed to be joining him for a big chunk of it, packing your bags and following him on the road like you always tried to do when you could. not when everything was already in flux and the timing made your head spin just trying to think about it.

and yet if it was true, it would still be yours. yours and joe’s. a tiny, impossible thing growing in the middle of all this love.

-

you lasted longer than you thought you would before finally ordering a pregnancy test.

you made sure joe would be out all day before the package arrived, which was ridiculous because he was not suspicious by nature and never would've asked why you were suddenly hovering around the front door with too much energy and a too-bright smile, but it still felt important to keep this moment yours for a little longer.

something about it had made you strangely private, almost protective, as if saying it aloud too soon might break it.

when the apartment was finally yours alone, you carried the test into the bathroom with hands that felt colder than they should've.

the small, ordinary packaging looked offensively normal for something so capable of changing your life. you set it down on the counter and stood staring at it for a long moment before reaching for your camera.

you didn't know why you did that first, maybe because vlogging had become as natural to you as breathing and because, right then, having the camera there made you feel like you weren't completely alone.

like you could speak out loud into the little lens and keep yourself anchored to something outside the panic beginning to bloom in your chest.

you set it up on the bathroom floor first, as if you were just starting a normal vlog, and with a shaky laugh you talked to it like this was any other day.

you rambled, a little aimlessly, about how nice life had been lately.

how after the wedding and the honeymoon and all the little “officially married” things settling into place, everything somehow felt even softer.

you said how weird it was that you and joe had somehow managed to make this whole grown-up married life thing look easy. you joked weakly about how domestic you both had become, how much time you'd spent together in the kitchen lately.

and while you talked, the tears kept threatening.

you blinked them away and looked over at the test on the counter, trying not to think too hard about what you were doing. trying not to think about the possibility that this one tiny object could confirm everything you had been circling for days.

then the timer went off.

the sound made you flinch.

for one horrible second you just stood there, the bathroom suddenly too small and too bright. then you picked the camera back up from the floor and set it on the counter with hands that had started to tremble.

you stared at your own reflection in the mirror for a beat, like maybe the person looking back at you would have better answers than you did. then you turned the test over.

positive.

the world went strangely quiet.

you stared.

you blinked.

you looked again as if the lines might rearrange themselves if you gave them enough time.

your hand flew to your mouth without you even realising it, your knees almost gave out under you and you had to grab the edge of the sink to steady yourself.

for a few seconds, all you could do was breathe.

"oh my god"

the words came out of you in a cracked whisper, barely audible.

you had no idea how long you stood there like that, frozen in place, camera still recording while your entire life shifted underneath your feet.

maybe five minutes, maybe less.

it felt endless either way.

the tears finally broke free, and you laughed a little through them because what else were you supposed to do?

you covered your mouth again and made a helpless, breathless sound as your eyes kept darting between the test and your reflection and the camera, as if one of them might somehow tell you how to handle this.

what the hell were you going to do?

more importantly, how on earth were you going to tell joe?

that question alone was enough to send another rush of panic through you.

because you knew him, you knew him too well.

he could read you like an open book on your best day, and right now you were a mess of nerves and hormones and disbelief, which meant he would know something was wrong the second he saw your face.

you couldn't keep a secret from him if your life depended on it, you never had been able to.

especially not one this big.

but you also knew you couldn't just blurt it out over takeout containers and dish towels like it was a casual update.

this was too huge for that.

was it too little to just tell him, “i’m pregnant”?

did that sound wrong somehow, too blunt for a moment this important?

should there be a dramatic reveal or some kind of heartfelt speech?

you had no idea.

all you knew was that your heart was hammering hard enough to make your ears ring and your thoughts were spilling over each other so fast you could barely catch one before another took its place.

so you took another test.

just to be sure. just to have the proof sitting there in black and white, as if one positive result somehow wasn’t enough to convince your own brain. you sat on the bathroom floor with the second one in your hand and tried to breathe through the whole thing while your camera quietly recorded every nervous second. then you checked it too, and when it came back positive, your laugh broke into a sob.

you were really pregnant.

somewhere between the shock and the tears, your mind started racing ahead to everything at once.

the future, the baby, joe, tour, your work, the vlogs, the apartment, the nursery you'd not even thought about yet, the tiny life you'd somehow made with the man you loved more than anything.

and in the middle of all that fear, there was also something else. something softer, something almost bright.

you and joe had made a family.

the thought scared you and warmed you in equal measure.

-

by the time afternoon blurred into evening, you cleaned yourself up enough to look almost normal, though your eyes were a little puffy and your hands still shook whenever you held them still for too long.

you spent the rest of the day moving through the apartment in a daze, editing a few clips you probably wouldn't post, rambling softly to the camera whenever the silence got too loud, letting the lens become a kind of lifeline.

every so often, your gaze drifted to the clock.

when joe texted that he was on his way home, your stomach flipped so hard you had to put the phone down for a second and hold onto the counter.

now it was real in a different way, because he was actually coming back, and in a little while you would have to look at him and say the words out loud.

no more rehearsing in your head. no more waiting. no more pretending that tomorrow might somehow feel easier.

-

you finished dinner just in time, plating everything carefully despite your trembling hands.

the recipe was one the two of you had learned together recently, and for some ridiculous reason that made the whole thing feel even more emotional.

the apartment smelled warm and comforting, the kind of smell that usually made joe grin the moment he walked through the door, and when he finally did, it was exactly like that.

his shoes came off by the entryway, his shoulders loosened the second he saw you, and then that smile appeared. the one that always made your heart do something soft and helpless in your chest.

“baby” he said, voice already full of affection, and crossed the room to kiss you.

you melted into it for a second, clinging to him just enough to remind yourself he was really there.

he kissed your forehead, then your cheek, then your lips again, easy and familiar. he looked tired, but in a good way, like the day had actually gone well.

“i made dinner” you said, trying to sound normal and probably failing.

his eyes lit up immediately. “you did?”

you nodded, and he glanced at the table with a grin that made him look almost boyish. “smells amazing.”

“you had a good day?” you asked, because you needed to hear him say something ordinary, needed one more normal thing to hold onto before everything changed.

“actually, yeah,” he said, settling a hand at your waist while he spoke.

“really good day, productive one too. meetings went fine, got a bunch done. no disasters, no weird stress stuff. just.. good.”

that should have made it easier. it should have made it feel like the perfect moment to tell him.

instead, it made the panic bloom harder.

you must have gone quiet, because his expression shifted almost immediately. joe always noticed even the tiniest change in your face.

his brows drew together just slightly and his thumb brushed a slow line against your hip.

“hey,” he said gently. “you okay?”

you took a breath and let it out too slowly. no point pretending now. not with him looking at you like that. not when the words were already pressing at the back of your throat.

“can you sit down?” you asked softly.

the concern on his face sharpened. “that sounds scary.”

you gave him a tiny, shaky smile. “i know. i’m sorry.”

“baby,” he said, suddenly more alert, but he did what you asked. he moved to the chair near the table and sat down, though he kept one hand in yours the whole time, his fingers lacing through yours like he was grounding you both. his eyes stayed on your face, carefully searching. “you’re freaking me out.”

you almost laughed at that, which only made him look more worried, so you squeezed his hand and breathed in through your nose.

“wait here,” you said. “and close your eyes.”

his eyebrows shot up. “absolutely not. that is not helping.”

“joe.”

“you are scaring me, baby.”

you smiled despite yourself, because he always sounded so offended and so fond at the same time, but he obeyed after a second. slowly, warily, he shut his eyes. his free hand flexed once against the table like he was bracing himself.

you hurried back to the bathroom, your heart in your throat, and came back holding the pregnancy test like it was made of glass.

your eyes were already burning again by the time you reached him.

he still had his eyes closed.

“okay,” you whispered, stopping in front of him. “open your hand.”

he did, palm up and uncertain.

you placed the test in it, your fingers brushing his for a second longer than necessary.

“open your eyes.”

joe did.

for a second, he just looked at the test.

then up at you.

then back down.

silence stretched between you so completely that it seemed to fill the whole room. not tense silence, not exactly, just stunned silence.

his mouth parted slightly. his eyes widened. he looked like he was trying to process something impossible.

his gaze flicked to the lines on the test and then back to your face.

then his eyes filled with tears.

“are you serious?” he asked, voice breaking on the words.

you nodded before you could stop yourself. “yes.”

he stared at you for another beat, as if the answer had to be said twice to become real. “you’re serious?”

your own tears spilled over then, and you nodded again, smiling so hard it hurt. “yes, joe.”

his face changed all at once.

he stood up so fast the chair scraped lightly against the floor, and then he had you in his arms, pulling you against him with such force that the breath rushed right out of your body.

you clutched at him immediately, laughing and crying at the same time, his arms wrapped so tightly around you it almost felt like he was trying to hold the moment still by sheer force alone.

“oh my god,” he breathed into your hair, and you felt it as much as heard it. “oh my god.”

he laughed a little through the tears, low and disbelieving, and then he pulled back just enough to look at you. both of his hands came up to cup your face, his thumbs brushing over the tears on your cheeks with the most careful tenderness in the world.

“i’m gonna be a dad?” he whispered.

you let out a shaky laugh and nodded. “yeah, baby. you’re gonna be a dad.”

his eyes squeezed shut for a second, and then he laughed again, helpless and full of disbelief. “we’re-” he stopped, shook his head, looked back at you like he was still trying to understand the shape of it.

“we’re together. like.. together together. like parents together. like family.”

that set you off all over again. more tears. more laughing. you reached up and grabbed one of his hands, squeezing it hard.

“yes,” you whispered. “yes, exactly that.”

his forehead dropped against yours, and for one long moment the two of you just stood there breathing each other in, crying and smiling and trying to make sense of how everything had changed in a matter of minutes.

joe’s hand slid down from your face to your stomach, resting there with so much awe it almost made you cry harder. like he was afraid to move, afraid to disturb the delicate miracle of it.

you watched his throat bob as he swallowed.

“i can’t believe this” he whispered, and there was such wonder in it that your heart nearly split open.

“me neither” you admitted.

he looked up at you then, and there was a brightness in his eyes that made your chest ache. “we’ll figure it out” he said immediately, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “everything. we’ll figure it all out together, okay? every part of it. all of it.”

the certainty in his voice did something to you. soothed something jagged inside you that had been spiraling all day.

you nodded, because there was no other answer.

“okay.”

he smiled at that, soft and shaking, then leaned in to kiss you.

it was the kind of kiss that felt like a promise. the kind that said he was here, and he was staying, and whatever came next would not happen to you alone.

when he pulled back, he kept one hand against your cheek and the other still on your stomach, as if he couldn’t quite bear to let go of either place.

then, because he was joe and because he apparently could never stay in one emotional state for too long, his face shifted into something halfway between disbelief and giddy realisation. he started pacing a little in the small space by the table, one hand over his mouth, shoulders shaking with silent laughter.

you could see the smile beneath his fingers, the tears still wet on his cheeks, the way he looked like he might burst right out of his skin from the size of the feeling in him.

“you’re pacing” you said, smiling through your own tears.

“i know,” he said, not stopping. “i know, i just- baby, i’m sorry, i don’t know what to do with myself right now.”

“i think that’s fair.”

he laughed, then turned back to you and came right up again, like he couldn’t stand being away from you for even a second. both of his hands came back to your face, thumbs gentle at your jaw.

“we’re really doing this,” he said, quieter now. “we’re really having a baby.”

you nodded, and your smile trembled at the edges. “yeah.”

he stared at you for a second longer, then leaned in and kissed your forehead, your cheek, your nose, all over your face in a soft, overwhelmed sort of way.

you laughed wetly and tried to shove him lightly away, but he only smiled harder and pulled you close again.

then his hand found your stomach once more, resting there with almost reverent care, and more tears slipped down his face.

“hey,” he said suddenly, his voice turning lighter in a way that only made you suspect trouble, “i have always said i wanted to be inside you forever.”

you let out a shocked laugh that was half gasp, half groan, and immediately smacked his arm. “joe.”

he burst into laughter at your expression, full and bright and completely ridiculous, and you couldn’t help but laugh too, tears still streaking your cheeks.

“what?” he said, grinning wildly now. “i’m just saying, i guess i kind of will be for nine months.”

you stared at him for a second before laughing harder, which only encouraged him.

the two of you were a mess now, crying and laughing at once, and the apartment felt somehow too small for all the love and disbelief and joy packed into the room.

he looked so happy it almost hurt to look at him. so stunned, so undone, so completely and obviously in love with the life the two of you had made.

“you are impossible” you told him, still laughing.

“and you love me.”

“unfortunately, yes.”

“good” he said, and pulled you in for another kiss before you could even finish rolling your eyes.

this one was softer, warm with tears and laughter and the kind of joy that makes the world tilt. he kissed you like he was trying to memorize the moment, like he knew things were changing and he wanted to hold on to this exact second for as long as he could.

when he finally pulled back, his forehead rested against yours again, and both of you were breathing hard in the quiet that followed.

then his gaze dropped.

“wait” he said suddenly, pointing toward the camera you had hidden nearby.

your stomach dropped for half a second before you remembered. right. the vlog.

the proof of the whole surreal, emotional, life-altering day.

you let out a breathless laugh. “i was filming”

joe immediately groaned, though he was still smiling.

“of course you were.”

“i didn’t know if i’d post it,” you admitted, wiping at your face. “i just… needed something.”

he nodded, all the teasing gone from his expression again, replaced by that same soft understanding he always gave you when words got too tangled.

“i’m glad you did” he said.

you looked at him, still a little dazed. “really?”

“yeah,” he said simply. then his smile returned, smaller this time but no less bright.

“i’ll probably want to watch this later and cry all over again.”

that made you laugh, because of course he would. of course he would want to remember every second of this strange, fragile, beautiful beginning.

you reached for his hand again and he took it instantly, intertwining your fingers like he always did when he wanted to make sure you knew he was there.

then, as if the thought had only just hit him properly, he looked down at your stomach one more time and smiled in a way that was so full of love it made your chest ache.

“hi,” he said softly to it, like he was speaking to the tiniest person in the room. “it’s me. your dad. i guess i should probably get used to saying that.”

your heart melted right there on the spot.

you leaned into him and rested your head against his shoulder, and he wrapped an arm around you immediately, holding you close while the two of you stood in the kitchen with dinner cooling on the table and the camera still somewhere nearby and your whole life unfolding in front of you all at once.

it was still scary. that part didn't disappear.

the tour, the timing, the future, the suddenness of it all, the way your mind already tried to leap ahead to everything you didn't yet know.

but in that moment, with joe’s hand on your back and his heartbeat steady under your cheek and his tears drying slowly on his face, the fear didn't feel bigger than the love.

maybe that was what being married was really for.

not avoiding the hard things. not making life neat and easy and perfectly timed. just having someone standing beside you when the hard things arrived, and knowing, with complete certainty, that you would face them together.

joe pressed a kiss to the top of your head and sighed, soft and happy and still a little stunned.

“we’re gonna figure it out” he murmured again.

you smiled into his shirt, tears still hot on your cheeks, and squeezed his hand against your stomach.

“yeah,” you whispered. “together.”

and when he kissed you again, it felt like the beginning of everything.

-

a few weeks later, after countless conversations, a lot of excitement, and joe randomly tearing up at least three times a day whenever he remembered he was going to be a dad, the two of you finally decided to tell everyone.

well.

sort of.

because after watching back the footage from that day, the one where you had found out and then told joe, neither of you could bring yourselves to share it.

it wasn't because you weren't happy. it was the opposite, actually.

it was too special, too raw.

that moment belonged to the two of you.

every shaky breath, every tear, every stunned laugh, every second of joe standing there holding that pregnancy test like it might disappear if he blinked.

that was yours.

and somehow, sharing it with millions of strangers felt wrong.

so instead, you posted a simple announcement.

just a handful of photos. one of you and joe standing outside in golden evening light. another of joe kneeling dramatically beside you with his hand on your stomach despite there being absolutely no bump yet. one of tiny baby shoes resting between your intertwined hands.

and the final photo was your favorite.

joe kissing your cheek while you laughed at something he'd said.

the internet absolutely lost its mind.

your phone practically exploded.

you and joe spent the entire evening curled up together on the couch reading comments.

every few minutes joe would just randomly smile at his phone.

"what?" you asked eventually.

he looked up.

eyes suspiciously shiny.

"people keep calling me a dad."

you immediately burst out laughing.

"joe."

"i'm serious."

he shoved his phone toward you.

sure enough, thousands of comments.

dad keery era.

djo - dad

you looked back at him, he looked genuinely emotional.

"you're crying."

"i'm not."

"you literally are."

he wiped under his eye.

"okay maybe a little."

"oh my god."

"leave me alone."

tour came quicker than either of you wanted.

but thankfully, because you were still early enough in your pregnancy, you were able to travel with him for a big chunk of it.

and honestly?

it became one of your favorite periods of your marriage because it felt like this little bubble. just you. joe. and the tiny thing growing between you.

you got to see cities together, eat food from places you'd never been, wander around unfamiliar streets hand in hand, take photos, film vlogs, make memories before life got a whole lot crazier.

if there was one thing that did change dramatically though, it was joe.

or more specifically how protective he became.

it was ridiculous. genuinely ridiculous. the second he found out you were pregnant it was like some switch flipped inside him.

suddenly you couldn't do anything. absolutely anything.

one morning you reached for a grocery bag.

joe appeared out of nowhere.

"baby."

you blinked.

"what?"

"put that down."

"...it's apples."

"still."

"joe."

he took it from you anyway.

another time you stood on your tiptoes trying to grab a mug from a shelf. a shelf, not a mountain. not a dangerous cliff edge. a shelf.

before your fingers even touched it, joe's voice came from behind you.

"what are you doing?"

you looked over your shoulder.

"getting a mug."

"why?"

"...because i want tea?"

he was already reaching past you.

"i'll get it."

"i can reach it."

"you don't need to."

"i literally do."

"nope."

and then there was the infamous airport incident.

you had picked up your suitcase. your own suitcase. the one you'd been carrying perfectly fine for years.

and joe had gasped, actually gasped, like you'd just attempted to bench press a car.

you stared at him.

he stared at the suitcase.

"put it down."

"joe."

"you're growing a human."

you laughed.

"the human is the size of a grape."

"still."

"you're insane."

"thank you."

and somehow he sounded proud.

later in the tour there was a short break where you both got to spend a couple weeks back home.

it was glorious.

no hotels, no airports, just home.

which was how you ended up sitting on the living room floor one afternoon surrounded by pr packages.

you had decided to vlog opening them because honestly there were so many.

the camera sat on its tripod.

joe lounged beside you on the rug, one arm draped lazily around your shoulders.

"hey," you said.

"today we're opening all the pr that's been piling up while we've been away."

joe nodded.

the first box opened easily.

you pulled out tiny baby clothes.

immediately both of you froze.

because they were tiny. absurdly tiny. joe picked up a little onesie, held it up, stared, stared some more, then looked at you.

"our child is gonna fit in this?"

you nodded.

he looked horrified.

"that's way too small."

you laughed.

"babies are small."

"that's not a baby."

he held it between two fingers.

"that's a hamster."

the next package was bottles, those you both recognised which immediately felt like a win.

"we know these."

"yes!"

you high-fived.

"look at us."

"we're basically parents already."

you both nodded seriously then burst out laughing. the confidence didn't last because the next package contained some bizarre baby contraption.

you pulled it out slowly, turned it around, looked at the instructions, looked back at joe. he looked equally confused.

"what is that?"

"i don't know."

"turn it over."

you did, it didn't help.

"still don't know."

"maybe it's a hat."

"definitely not a hat."

by the middle of the vlog the floor was completely covered.

baby blankets. tiny socks. toys. books. feeding supplies. carriers. little matching outfits. you kept stopping to hold things up and stare at them.

because every now and then it would hit you all over again.

this wasn't hypothetical anymore, these things were for your baby. your actual baby.

and every single realisation felt just as surreal as the first.

at one point you picked up an impossibly tiny pair of shoes.

the room went quiet.

joe immediately reached for them, holding them carefully in his palms. they looked impossibly small there.

you watched his expression soften and instantly knew he was having feelings. again.

"joe."

he sniffed.

"don't."

"are you crying over shoes?"

"maybe."

you laughed.

"they're tiny."

"i know."

"you are unbelievable."

he looked at the camera.

"i'm having a moment."

"over shoes."

"tiny shoes."

which somehow made him cry harder.

toward the end of filming you were both surrounded by baby things.

completely overwhelmed, completely clueless and completely happy.

you leaned against joe's shoulder, he immediately wrapped an arm around you, pulling you closer.

"you know," you said "we have absolutely no idea what we're doing."

"none."

you laughed.

"but," he looked down at you, that soft smile appearing. the one that always made your heart ache.

"we've got each other."

your expression immediately melted.

"that's true."

"and eventually we'll figure out what half this stuff does."

"hopefully before the baby gets here."

you laughed.

he kissed the top of your head then looked at the camera.

"if any parents are watching..."

he held up another mystery baby gadget.

"...please help."

when the vlog went up a few days later, the comments were absolutely flooded.

comments:

user: you two are gonna be the sweetest parents ever

user: the fact they openly admit they have no clue what they're doing is actually so comforting

user: their baby is already so loved and it's not even here yet

user: the way he constantly reaches for her without thinking i'm emotional

user: dad keery era is thriving

user: can't wait to watch this little family grow 🤍

-

“‘Course she is, what a stupid question.” One of the girls snipped back to the boy who’d asked the question, elbow digging into his side.

“Heard you live in the trailer park. Moved all this way just to live in a tin can.” The comment earned a laugh from the rest of the group, all far too amused by the snide comment.

“Heard you live in the trailer park. Moved all this way just to live in a tin can.” The comment earned a laugh from the rest of the group, all far too amused by the snide comment.

“Heard you live in the trailer park. Moved all this way just to live in a tin can.” The comment earned a laugh from the rest of the group, all far too amused by the snide comment.

You could feel your skin heating up, some sort of mix of shame and anger and anxiety, and you begged your body to not let your skin flush and give away your emotions.

“It’s rough out there. Must suck, being born on the wrong side of the tracks.” The same boy continued on his attack, clearly made up with himself and the responses he was getting from his friends.

You just stared at him for a moment, eyes blank and brows furrowed, letting the laughs around you trail off in anticipation of your response.

But you didn’t give one, instead picking up your backpack up off the floor and getting up to walk away from the table. Your barely touched food left behind as you stormed out of the canteen and those same cruel giggles followed you even with the distance put between you and the group.

And that was it. A dislike started before you even knew their names. Not that you stayed oblivious to who they were, after a few weeks you had settled in enough to put names to faces. Which meant you could confidently say you wanted absolutely nothing to do with Steve Harrington.

—

You need a job. Well, another job. Your hours at the diner have dropped over summer since people are busy vacationing and generally getting themselves out of Hawkin’s, which leaves you with little leftover each week to put in your savings pot - that coincidentally exists with the aim of getting yourself out of Hawkin’s too.

You do, however, find yourself questioning how much you need another job when you turn up to your Family Video interview only to be greeted by Steve Harrington.

Robin had told you about the job opening, and sure you know they work together. Robin has long since dealt with your disbelief at their friendship, your comments a little less frequent now but you still respond to any mention of him with a groan and overly dramatic eye roll.

But she’d assured you, absolutely promised hand-on-heart, that she would be there when you come in for your interview. But as you stand in the doorway, bathed in the red glow of the fluorescent light, you lock eye contact with Steve and realise that you really should know better by now than to trust Robin to know her schedule.

“Oh for fucks sake.” You grumble, brows pinched together a little as you step up to the counter, the boy behind it watching your annoyance with a smug smile.

“Now that’s no way to get a job.” His tone is condescending, and if you had even an ounce less of self control you think you’d be tempted to smack the grin right off his face. It wouldn’t be the first time, but these things are a bit more acceptable in middle school.

“My bad, Harrington, didn’t realise you owned the store.” You feign shock, hands raised to your side as you gaze around at the shelves stacked with tapes.

“I can’t believe Robin told you to apply.” He scoffs, arms folding across his chest.

“Don’t be stupid, we were friends before you were.” It’s childish, stupid bickering that you really should be above by now. And you are, with anyone else. But not with Steve.

“Oh, real mature.” He draws out his vowels as he rolls his eyes at you, every little movement further lighting that angry fire in your chest. “She can have other friends, better friends.”

It takes everything in you to not take his bait, every nerve in your body pulsing with frustration and rage and you have to take a deep breath in to keep yourself at least somewhat calm.

“You’re a real piece of work, Harrington.” You exhale your words out, eyes closed as you shake your head at him. “Where’s Keith?” You never thought you’d see the day where Keith was the better option in terms of company.

“In the back.” He juts his head in the direction of the office door at the side of the store. “Better hurry up, you’re late.” He taps his fingers against his watch, and you realise that thanks to your petty arguing you’re now late to your interview.

You flip him off as you walk towards the office, feet striding quickly across the store. You can’t believe Steve Harrington was still ruining your life, even after graduation. Maybe you’re being dramatic, but you think your dramatics are allowed given the circumstances. If there was anyone you allowed yourself to be a little bit childish over, it was him.

Turns out it’s pretty easy to secure a job at Family Video if you’re a pretty girl who can hold a semi-decent conversation, the interview pretty much consists of Keith scanning over your CV, asking the usual boring questions of why do you want this job? and what would you bring to the store? and after a whopping ten minutes you’re walking out the office with your new FV vest in hand.

You wave it at Steve as you walk out, a smirk on your lips as he glares at you. “See you next week, Harrington.” You sing, not stopping to hear whatever smart response you’re sure he has cooking up and head back out into the parking lot.

—

You’ve worked four shifts at Family Video now, and three of those you got lucky and only had to work with Robin. But today luck isn’t on your side, it’s just you and Steve alone all day. It’s pretty easy work, but with easy also comes boring, and with that comes plenty of time for Steve to try and rile you up.

You’ve spent the past hour trying to put away the ever growing pile of returns, sat cross-legged on the floor as you slot each tape into its rightful place on the shelf.

Except every time you seem to make progress, Steve comes along to move the tapes around, feigning interest in each one before he puts it back somewhere it doesn’t belong.

“Oh now this, this is meant to be good.” Steve picks up Back to The Future, waving the tape at you as he studies the case in fake intrigue.

“Everyone’s seen Back to The Future, Harrington. It’s not some hidden gem.” You huff as you shuffle on the carpeted floor, legs going numb and the rough fabric leaving indents into your bare calves from where they’re pressing into the ground.

“Hm, yeah, maybe.” He puts it back, in the completely wrong spot, before picking up another video case with the same false fascination. “What about this? Y’seen this?” He holds the copy of The Breakfast Club directly in front of your face, your hand quickly swatting it out of the way.

The impact of your knuckles on the plastic stings and you quickly pull your hand away, blowing on the skin to attempt to sooth it. “Yeah, I’ve seen it.” Your voice is blunt, unimpressed at his antics. “D’you not have work to do? Instead of, you know, disrupting mine?”

“What? I’m trying to help.” He acts shocked at your annoyance, bottom lip jutted out in a puppy dog pout as you let out a dramatic sigh.

“You’re a fuckin’ headache, you know that?” You pinch the skin between your eyes, at the point of exasperation with him and his determination to ruin your day.

“C’mon, why don’t you want my company?” His voice is thick with sarcasm, his arms crossed over his chest as he peers down at you on the carpet. It makes you feel small, enough to have you standing up to lessen the height difference between you - though you still have to crane your neck to stare at his face.

“I will never want your company, Harrington.” You narrow your eyes, huffing a little as you pick up the box of returned tapes and make your way to start on another shelf as far away from him as you can get.

But of course, he follows you. This time hanging back so he can lean against the counter and watch as you go on your tiptoes to place the tapes on the top shelf.

“They’re gonna fall.” He nods towards to tapes teetering on the edge of the shelf, and you know he’s probably right, but you’re not going to admit that.

“Whatever.” You grumble, continuing on with your stacking and trying your hardest to block out the boy's presence behind you.

“Look at them, they’re wobbling, if they fall on you you’re gonna get a concussion.”

“Can’t be worse than this.” Your voice is sickly sweet and entirely fake, and you turn to flash him your best sarcastic smile.

You turn back to carry on organising the shelf, maybe being a little too rough with how you’re shoving the tapes on there, lips twisted up into a frown as you feel Steve’s eyes watching your every move.

“You need to-“ Steve steps up behind you, his words halted as a hand goes above you to catch a tape before it can come tumbling down off the top shelf and most likely fall directly onto the top of your head “- chill out.” He pushes the tape back onto the shelf, now positioned safely there away from the edge.

Your body feels tense with how close he is, chest practically pressing into your back as he crowds over you, you think this must be what fight or flight feels like. All the nerves in your body on high alert, chest thumping and skin suddenly feeling too warm even with the AC pumping through the store.

“Whatever.” You repeat, but your words seem to hold a little less bite now. Steve seems to notice, a shallow chuckle coming from behind you before he finally moves away and settles behind the desk.

You find yourself letting out a deep breath you didn’t even know you were holding, shaking your head to yourself before carrying on with your work as best you can whilst ignoring his presence.

You’ve told Eddie to pick you up when you finish at 5, the promise of a takeout and 4 pack of his choice enough to bribe him into being your chauffeur for the night. You already planned to buy those things anyway, but if it got you a ride home too then who are you to complain.

He’s usually late, nearly always in fact, so you take your time getting your belongings from the staff room. Vest tucked back into your bag, hair pulled out of the knot you’d tied it in to keep it out of your face as you work.

The rest of your shift with Steve had been spent in awkward silence. He’d stopped bothering you after he’d stopped the tape from tumbling down onto you, instead busying himself with other tasks which conveniently kept him at a distance from you. If you did ever have to cross paths with each other there’d be an awkward shuffle past one another or a detour taken around one of the shelves. You weren’t complaining, you’d take uncomfortable tension over him actively annoying you any day.

After dawdling for a few minutes in the back, re-tying your laces and fiddling with how your shirt was tucked into your skirt, you push the staff room door open and step back out into the store. When you see Steve standing at the desk talking to Eddie, laughing about something and seemingly getting along, you feel your lips turn into a frown. Surely they weren’t friends? Surely this wasn’t another part of your life Steve Harrington had managed to wiggle his way into.

You stride over, brows pinched as you appear next to Eddie who stops his laughter to look down at you, face a little puzzled at your clearly irritated expression. “Hey kiddo, you good?”

“Don’t call me kiddo.” You huff, the feeling of Steve’s gaze boring into you and you can feel the blood rush to your cheeks with embarrassment. It’s only made worse when he laughs at Eddie’s greeting, and you suddenly feel about 2 feet tall. “Can we go?”

“Yeah, was just waiting for you.” Eddie shrugs, his eyes still studying you as you shuffle your feet on the carpet clearly eager to leave. “I’ll see you around, Harrington.” He gives the other boy a casual salute, nodding to him as he backs towards the door.

“Later, Munson.” Steve nods back, before turning back to you, your knuckles turning white as you grip the strap of your bag tightly and wring the fabric to try and get out some of your frustration. “See ya, kiddo.” His voice is teasing and his smirk doesn’t falter as you scowl at him, eyes narrowed and stare pointed, mumbling something under your breath before you pass Eddie by and storm out.

“Woah, slow down.” Eddie calls after you, door swinging shut behind him as you stride across the parking lot to his van.

“Since when were you two friends?.” You frown, looking a bit too much like an upset child to try and dispute his nickname for you.

Eddie shrugs, looking back to the video store and then to you. “He’s not so bad, the kids love him.”

“He’s a dick.”

“You two just don’t get on, he’s chilled out since he graduated.” Eddie tries to reason with you, the same point you’ve heard a million times before from Robin.

Maybe he has changed, dropped his stupid high school persona and become a nice guy, for everyone but you. But the grudge you both hold for each other runs too deep to be glazed over with his change of heart, too much said (or maybe unsaid, in terms of apologies) for you to truly buy it.

“He thinks he’s so much better than us, y’know? Because he lives in some big house with all that money and we live in the trailer park?” You lean against the van behind you, metal hot against your skin in the evening sun.

“He’s not like that anymore. It’s not even his money, he works the same shitty minimum wage job you do.” Eddie's hands are shoved into his pockets, and you do feel bad for putting him on the spot with all this, but your anger is bubbling up in your stomach and it’s like it’s consuming your every thought.

“Whatever. If you wanna ignore the fact he’s some rich dickhead, be my guest.”

It makes it worse, in a way, that him and Eddie get along. Because Eddie was one of your first friends when you’d moved to Hawkin’s, looking out for you in the trailer park and school in the same way an older brother would. You had the same lifestyle, grew up with the same struggles but for some reason Steve wasn’t giving him grief. Apparently it was just you. You wish it didn’t bother you, wish you could wring the thoughts out of your brain onto the tarmac below.

“C’mon, don’t let it ruin our night, yeah?” Eddie smiles at you, a sympathetic look because he can see how riled up you are. “I’ll even pay for the beer.”

“You can’t bribe me, Munson.” You huff, but the whisper of a smile appears on your lips and Eddie knows that in five minutes all will be forgotten. Once you’re a good distance away from Steve. “I know you don’t have the money for it.”

“Yeah, you’re right. You caught me.” He holds his hands up in faux defeat. “But the thought was there.”

“I appreciate the theoretical generosity.”

Your eyes flick back to Family Video before you climb into the passenger seat of Eddie's van. You don’t know why you do it, torturing yourself with one last reminder of your infuriating co-worker before you close the door and shut the day out of your mind.

—

You should’ve known it was going to rain. Maybe you did, and had chosen to ignore it. The air this morning had that close, sticky heat to it, the kind that comes when the clouds are hanging low in the sky and you can almost smell the deluge that’s just waiting to be spilled.

But the sun had still been high when you’d set off to your shift at the diner this morning, too hot to even consider a jacket and your bag was already full with a change of clothes for your shift at Family Video this afternoon.

You watched the sky open up and douse Hawkin’s in a long needed rainfall from the windows of the diner, eyes darting to the clock because you needed to set off in what, twenty minutes? You found yourself saying a silent prayer to whoever was listening for rain to let up for just long enough for your walk across town.

Unsurprisingly, your prayers went unanswered.

You keep your head down, chin tucked into your chest and eyes focused on the pavement beneath you, as you storm your way downtown. Your bag tucked tightly into your side, as if that will stop the unrelenting downpour from seeping through the canvas and onto your clothes. Your clothes stick to your skin uncomfortably, the fabric of your diner uniform rough and irritating and you really regret selling your car now.

The walk to Family Video was 20 minutes on a good day, but today isn’t a good day and you’re practically jogging as the rain smacks across your face almost painfully so you manage to get there in just under 15. You push the door to the store hard and almost trip over the welcome mat as you bound across the threshold.

Your hair is dripping onto your clothes and into your eyes, eyelashes catching the droplets and blinking them away before they can render you blind, and you’re suddenly aware of the fact you’re probably leaving little puddles of rainwater with each step and Steve is sat at the desk watching you and you genuinely wish the ground would swallow you whole.

“Don’t even fuckin’ start, Harrington.” You hiss as you storm from the door towards the staff room, eyes still focused on your feet because if you make eye contact with him you’re sure the embarrassment and anger will kill you on the spot. You sling your bag onto the floor as soon as your in there, the contents of it soaked only slightly less than the clothes on your back, and you have to blink hard to fight off the sting of tears that threaten to spill.

Because the truth of it all, at the core of all the pettiness and bickering and childish comments, was you felt ashamed. Steve had made you feel ashamed for who you were, where you were from and the way that you lived all those years ago. The fiery anger that came in response was the only way you knew to counter that horrible, achy feeling that sat in the pit of your stomach.

You fumble with the buttons on your shirt, fingers slipping against their plastic as you try to change out of the sodden material. Everything feels so difficult, like you’re having to exert so much energy just to change out of your uniform and you have to remind yourself to just take a deep breath, your hands shaking with the slurry of emotions that are twisting in your gut.

You don’t bother trying to pack your clothes away neatly, deciding they’re a lost cause and just tossing them to the floor next to your bag. There’s no way they’ll dry off before you need to walk home anyway. Your cotton t-shirt clings to you, only slightly less suffocating than the button down you’ve changed out of, and you’re really regretting choosing jeans right now because the damp denim is stiff and unyielding as you try to pull them up your legs.

Everything feels too close, too tight on your skin like your circulation is being cut off everywhere the fabric touches. You pull the bobble off your wrist and scrape your hair up into a ponytail, trying to find some relief from the way it’s sticking to your neck.

You linger by the door for a moment, swaying back and forth a little on your feet as you psych yourself up to walk back into the store. You don’t want to look at your reflection in the mirror, mascara probably smudged onto your cheeks and cheeks flushed to a bright pink, so you take a deep breath and stride out into the fluorescents. They make your eyes squint a little, the bright cold light painful compared to the dullness of the staff room. You walk to the desk, Steve watching you with an eyebrow raised but for once he doesn’t look like he’s going to come at you with some snide comment.

“I need the key.” You hold your hand out, words short as you avoid eye contact. “For the bathroom.”

Steve just nods at you, hands reaching below the counter and pulling out the oversized key ring that identifies the bathroom key.

You mutter a thank you, the words barely audible as you grab the keys off him and hurry towards the employee bathroom. Your hands are still shaky, and the obnoxious key ring only makes it harder for you to get the key into the lock. After a few tries you manage to get the door open, pulling it with such panicked force that it almost makes you trip over your own feet as you tuck yourself away inside.

The hand dryer mounted to the wall is shoddy and barely warm, but you sit yourself on the cold lino floor and wave your hands under the sensors so the weak stream of air can blow over your head. It only lasts about 30 seconds each time, so you have to keep holding your hands above your head to trigger it again in a vain attempt to dry yourself off.

You’re not sure how long you’ve been sitting under the dryer for, losing count of how many times you have to reactivate it as you stare at the tiled wall opposite you. You’re a little zoned out, the loud hum of the machine above you sending you into a bit of a trance, so when the door of the bathroom opens it jolts you back to reality and has your heart beating faster.

“I really don’t wanna hear it right now.” You mumble, not having to even look to know it’s Steve standing in the doorway. You brace yourself for some snide comment, knowing you’re too drained to give anything back.

“Wasn’t gonna say anything.” It’s probably the first time he’s spoken to you without some snark in his voice. You wouldn’t say he sounded warm right now, not by a long shot, but you could probably settle for genuine. “Was just gonna give y’this.” He’s tripping over his words, forcing them out as he holds out a yellow jumper to you from his spot in the door.

You look up at him now, nose scrunched up in confusion as your eyes move between the jumper and him trying to discern any ulterior motive in his expression. But it’s not there, he’s just blinking at you, big brown eyes filled with something close to sympathy. You hesitate at first, clenching and unclenching your hand as you weigh up your decision, eventually reaching out and taking the jumper off him.

“I won’t tell Keith you bunked off for, like, twenty minutes either.” And then he almost smiles, a twitch of his lips that could be put down to a trick of the light. But it’s there, and you catch it, and for once it’s not laced with sarcasm.

You nod in place of a thank you, words caught in your throat because this is probably the first time Steve Harrington has been nice to you and you still don’t know whether to trust it. He leaves you there in the bathroom again, a few more minutes to yourself to try and gather your thoughts before you have to go out there and actually start your shift.

You debate not putting the jumper on, too proud to give Steve the satisfaction of helping you. He’ll probably hold it over your head for however long, until he needs something from you and can bring up the fact you owe him one. But the dampness of your clothes is making you shiver, and you don’t think you can face working an entire shift answering questions from customers about why you’re so damp.

So you bite the bullet, swallow your pride, and pull it over your head. It’s too big for you, swamping your frame and hanging down to your thighs, but it’s soft and warm and dry, and you hate to admit it but it smells great. Some spicy cedar cologne that Steve has obviously doused himself in, the fact you actually like it makes you shudder. It’s almost enough to make you take it off. Not quite though.

You don’t say anything to Steve when you finally step onto the shop floor, heading straight to the desk to see what needs doing. You have to push the sleeves of the jumper up your arms to stop them falling over your hands as you flick through paperwork, not really taking in the words and having to re-read them a couple of times for them to actually register.

It’s amazing how much time you can pass fronting shelves, especially when you’re spending all your energy on blocking out your surroundings. A couple of customers ask you to help them find movies, and you have to blink yourself back to reality so you can actually think about where they’re stocked.

The computer system is clunky and slow and you have to stop yourself huffing as you wait for it to load up the customers details. You don’t mean to be short with anyone, but god you’re ready for the day to just be over. The screen finally lights up and you slide the tape across the counter to the woman in front of you, she gives you a sorry smile - clearly you’ve not fully dried off yet and must look a little worse for wear - before picking the video up and leaving the store.

“You’re gonna scare the customers off if you keep talking to ‘em like that.” Steve’s voice comes from behind you, making you jump as you turn around to face him.

You furrow your brow. “Can you not be a dick for like, one single day?”

You expect some shitty response back, but instead Steve seems to drop the subject.

“Why’d you walk here anyway? Thought you could drive?” He looks down at you, standing in your damp clothes save for his dry jumper, his voice genuinely curious rather than the usual questioning tone you’ve come to expect.

“I can drive, I sold my car.” Your nose is still sniffly from the downpour and it scrunches up with the ticklish feeling, small lines spreading across the bridge.

“Why’d you sell your car?” He’s leaning back against the counter now, hands behind him holding his weight.

“Jeez what is this, twenty questions?” You grumble, pulling the sleeves of Steve’s jumper down over your hands. He just looks at you expectantly, eyebrows raised in place of an answer. “I’m saving up, to move.”

“You gonna get your own place?”

“No, like, move. Away, I wanna go back west.” You shrug, eyes focused on your hands as they twist in the jumpers cuffs.

“Oh, yeah, I forget you’re not actually from Hawkin’s.”

His words almost make you wince, because of course he forgot. There’s no reason for him to remember, not that you moved here from out of state or that he hounded you about it the moment you did.

You let out a dry laugh, a small shake of your head as you keep your eyes away from him. “Yeah, right.”

There’s a weird silence that hangs in the air then, one that’s normally filled by more spatting or sly smirks but instead it just sits there. Heavy and unaddressed, the pair of you stood waiting for something that didn't come. Steve eventually stalks off, busying himself away from you as you hang around by the desk assisting any other customers that come in that evening.

You occasionally make eye contact with one another, each caught glancing from across the store and quick to turn away. The shift is pretty dead, midweek evenings never drawing that much of a crowd, but you manage to make it to the end without having to say anything more to Steve.

It’s still raining when you venture outside after locking up, bag clutched close to your side as you brace yourself for another walk through the torrential conditions.

You debate using your diner shirt as a makeshift hood, but quickly decide against it. It’d probably just piss you off, and you’d end up soaked either way.

You take a deep breath before you step out into the rain, trying to walk as fast as you can across the parking lot but it’s dark out now and you have to squint to stop the rain getting into your eyes and your feet just won’t carry you as quick as you’d like.

“Hey!” Steve calls out after you, still standing under the shelter of the store. You debate ignoring him, ploughing on through the rain and not looking back, but something inside you makes you turn around. “You want a ride?” He nods towards his car.

You stand for a second, processing what he just said. Surely you misheard, because Steve Harrington offering you a ride home must be a sign you’ve lost the plot or the end of the world is actually here.

“Seriously?” Your hand is across your brow, shielding your eyes as you peer back at him.

“Well, yeah.” He acts like he’s stating the obvious. You’d be mad if he wasn’t offering you a lifeline, or at least a dry journey home.

You chew on the inside of your cheek before nodding. “Okay, thanks.” Your voice is barely audible over the sound of the rain hammering against the tarmac, but you start walking back towards Steve’s car so he can assume you’ve taken him up on the offer.

He waits for you to get into the passenger seat before he gets in himself, the noise of the storm outside muffled by the car's metal shell. It smells surprisingly clean inside; not that you didn’t expect it to, or that you’d given it any thought at all. But the air freshener that swung from the mirror had a pine fresh scent and there was a lack of rubbish inside considering the amount of kids he ferries around.

“You still live in Forest Hills?” Steve isn’t looking at you as he turns the key in the ignition, checking his rear view mirror before he pulls out of his parking spot even though the lot is pretty much empty.

“Yep, still there.” You had your bag on your lap, holding it to your chest as if it was some sort of shield, something to hide behind.

The creak of windscreen wipers along with the hum of the radio fills the car, though it’s barely loud enough to make out what songs are actually playing. You wish Steve would turn it up, let the music slice through the silence that sits between you as he drives.

It’s a nice car, sleek and with leather interiors all in tact. It makes you almost glad you don’t still have your car, which would look like a beaten up tin can next to Steve’s. But it would also mean you weren’t having to accept a ride off him, so maybe you shouldn’t write it off so quickly.

“It’s purely selfish, y’know? Me giving you a ride. Just don’t want my jumper to get ruined.” His voice seems to hold less bite than usual.

You’ve been picking at your nail polish, eyes focused on the flaking red paint as a little pile of it collects on top of your bag. You glance at Steve through your lashes when he speaks, eyebrows raised slightly. “Is this you trying to make conversation?”

“No, just wanted to let you know.” Steve doesn’t take his eyes off the road, and you move your attention back to your nails without giving him a response.

That same unsettling silence fills the car again, you debate turning the radio up yourself but decide against it. You think it’d be rude, which is strange because normally that’d only encourage you around Steve.

“Why’d you hate me so much?”

The question makes you stop scratching at your nail polish. Steve’s looking at you when you glance up this time, only for a split second before diverting his eyes back to the windscreen.

“Are you being serious?” You almost laugh, tongue pressed into your cheek to stop yourself saying anymore.

“Yeah, I mean, I know I kinda sucked in school but-“ He pauses, trying to find the right words. “I d’know.” He can’t.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me.” It almost comes out as a question. Your head tips back to lean against the headrest as you stare up at the car's fabriced ceiling. When Steve doesn’t say anything, just looks at you again as if waiting for you to continue, you press on. “I’d been here less than a week before you and your dickhead friends decided to rip into me for living in the trailer park. Y’all thought it was so funny, couldn’t get enough of the jokes.”

You see Steve press his lips together, out the corner of your eyes. “Pretty sure you gave me shit too.” His voice is quiet, unsure if he really has a leg to stand on.

“Yeah, because I didn’t wanna be a fuckin’ doormat.”

“I mean, I’m not friends with ‘em anymore.” He shrugs, fingers drumming on the steering wheel at a nervous tempo. “Plus, I tried apologising to you and you told me to ‘get fucked, Harrington’.” He mimics your voice, but it doesn’t seem so spiteful this time. It might make you laugh if you didn’t have your guard up so high.

“Look, I’m real glad you’ve done the 12 steps of assholes anonymous or whatever it is that made you sort your shit out.” Steve laughs and you narrow your eyes at him. “What? What now?”

“Assholes anonymous, was pretty funny.” For the second time that day you think you catch him smiling at you.

His comment throws you off a little. “Yeah, well, I’m a pretty funny person I guess.” You sigh, brows pinching as you try to regain your train of thought. “All I’m saying is if you keep being a dick after you apologise, it kinda defeats the object.”

Steve hums, a small nod because you are right. As much as it pains him to admit it. “In my defence, you also kept being a dick.”

He’s right this time. “Guess I’m pretty stubborn, too.” You don’t notice that you’re almost at the trailer park, rolling up towards the Forest Hills sign that’s distorted by the rain through the windscreen. “You can just drop me at the entrance, don’t wanna traumatise you by making you drive through.” You almost sound like you’re joking, a lilt to your voice that Steve’s never heard before.

“Shut up.” He shakes his head, a small huff of a laugh coming from his nose. “It’s still pouring down, looking out for the jumper, remember?”

“Right, course.” You draw your words out, a smile twitching at the corners of your lips. “If you turn left when you go in, then take the second right.”

Steve nods, his car slowing as he turns into the park and follows your directions. You preemptively hold the straps of your bag, like you’re ready to bolt the second the car lulls to a stop. You don’t though, instead fumbling with your seatbelt and shuffling in your seat as you debate on what to say.

“Thanks for the ride.” It feels a bit weak after the conversation you’ve had during the journey. Like you should be coming out with something more profound or resolving. You have no idea what that’d be, though. “I’ll, uh, wash the jumper and bring it to work.”

“No rush,” Steve waves your words off. “Got plenty of others.”

“Right, checks out.” Steve thinks you don’t sound as short as you usually do, you think so too. “See y’around, Harrington.” You nod at him before finally getting out of the car. The smell of petrichor coming from the ground hits you as soon as you step out, the cold air washing over you as you hurry to your door through the rain.

You look back once before you step inside, and you know that Steve hasn’t left yet because you would’ve heard it but it still shocks you a little to see him waiting for you to get inside. He gives you a nod, barely there especially through the rain, but you return the gesture before you push open your door and cross into the warmth of your home.

You hear Steve’s car start up, stood still by your front door in a confused trance about the last ten minutes until your moms voice snaps you out of it.

—

“Since when did you wear glasses?”

You look up from the computer to Steve who’s just walked in for his shift, the glasses in question slipping down your nose bridge as you do. “I d’know, a few years? I normally wear contacts.” You shrug.

Steve stares at your face, eyes scanning over your features and the round metal frames that circle your eyes. You can’t read his expression, his eyes lingering a little too long and making you feel like you’re under a microscope.

“Jeez Harrington, quit gawping.” Your brow furrows and you can’t hold his stare. You hate having to wear your glasses, but you ran out of contacts this morning and had no other option. You can feel your blood rising to your cheeks and hope the pink glow of the neon Family Video logo is disguising the flush.

“Can I try ‘em on?” There’s a playful smirk on his lips, one that makes you only furrow your brow more as you huff out an annoyed noise.

“Get fucked, no way.”

“Oh c’mon sweetheart, just for a minute.” The pet name is laced in fake sweetness but not in the sarcastic way you’re used to, you hate that you don’t hate it.

“No. Way.” You repeat, arms crossed over your chest like a stubborn child.

But Steve doesn’t care for your answer, leaning over the counter and plucking the frames off your face despite the way you swat at his hands and try to move your head away from his grabbing hands. He puts them on, blinking a couple of times as his eyes adjust to your prescription. “What d’you think? Do I look good?”

“No, you look dumb. Now give them back.” You try to lean over the counter and grab them back but Steve quickly steps out of your reach.

“Don’t be cruel.” He pouts at you and you just roll your eyes. “You really are fuckin’ blind though.” He cracks a grin at you and you know he’s not being mean, just trying to poke and prod at you for some other reason.

“Yeah, so give them back.” You round the counter so you’re in front of Steve now, reaching up to try and get your frames back from the boy's face but he sees that coming from a mile off. Before your fingers can even graze the metal he’s pulled them off his face and held them up over his head. That lopsided grin that you’ve seen an awful lot lately spreads across his lips as you sigh in frustration, all dramatics and not much action to back it up.

You’ve got no hope of getting them back as he holds them over his head, even as you’re toe to toe with him and craning up as much as you can. You tug on his arm, fingers curled over his bicep as you try to pull them towards you but his hand braces your waist to try and hold you off and the heat from his palm has you distracted. You can feel each of his fingers pressing against your skin, so hyper aware of each spot he’s touching.

“You can do better than that.” Steve teases, his hand tightening its grip each time you push up on your toes to try and get closer to the frames. It’s childish and stupid and definitely a waste of both of your time but you can feel it in your cheeks.

“Can you two actually do some work instead of flirting?” You’re too caught up in your mission to get your glasses back to notice Keith coming out of the office, stood near the door looking less than impressed at the two of you.

Steve’s mouth drops into a small ‘o’ at the sound, his eyes finally pulling from yours and his hand brought down to his side. “We’re not-“

“I don’t care, do some work.” Keith huffs, pointing between the two of you and fixing you with a firm glare before stalking back into the office.

You take the opportunity to finally grab your frames back, Steve still distracted by the interruption so it’s easy to pull them from his fingers.

“Nice going, Harrington.” You push the frames back onto your face, tone dripping with soft sarcasm and you flash him a small grin before you return to the computer so you can pick up where you left off.

“S’your fault.” He mutters, lingering near the counter and watching as you scroll through the screen looking.

“Do some work.” You don’t look away from the computer, your hand grabbing the sheet that has all the recent returns written on it that need putting away. “Stop causing trouble.”

“You love it.” You can see him grinning out of the corner of your eye, corners of his lips curled up in confidence even when you scoff at his remark.

You wouldn’t go as far to say you love it, not by a long shot, but you definitely don’t mind his antics as much as you used to. The teasing no longer holding that same bitter weight it used to, instead replaced with something softer that chips away at that grudge that sits deep in your stomach. Uncurling it’s way out and leaving the space empty, waiting to be replaced with something else.

—

You’re going to be late. It’s ten minutes past when your shift at Family Video was supposed to finish and twenty minutes before your shift at the diner is due to start, and Steve isn’t here to take you off, and you’re going to be late.

Your bag is already stored under the desk, you didn’t bother putting it in the staff room today because you knew you’d have to leave quickly. But you can’t leave, because Steve’s not here. You might actually kill him.

You drum your pen on the counter, an antsy beat that reflects your current mood because you need to leave and the clock keeps ticking and you’re still here and you suppose this is what you get for putting your strict time schedule in the hands of Steve Harrington.

The second you hear the bell above the door ring and see Steve bundle in looking a little flustered and pink in the cheeks, you grab your bag up from underneath the counter and swing it over your shoulder.

“Hey, sorry, I know I’m late I-“ Steve’s still catching his breath, but you don’t have time to listen to whatever excuse he has.

“No time, gonna be late.” You hurry round the counter, almost tripping over your own feet with how quickly you’re trying to get out of here.

“No, hey, wait a minute.” He reaches out to grab your wrist as you pass, but decides against it at the last second instead hovering his hand over your arm.

You look between his hand and his face, almost amused by how he’s holding it there without actually committing to the act. “What? Make it quick.” You huff.

“Well, I’m having a movie night tonight with, like, everyone. Real big group, lots of us. And some of the group, not naming names because I respect their anonymity-“ His hands are flailing as he rambles on, dramatic and completely avoiding the point of what he’s trying to say.

“Spit it out, Harrington. I needed to be outta here like, 10 minutes ago.” He’s standing between you and the door, and you’re not quite cruel enough to just walk out in the middle of this clearly very challenging monologue.

“Right, sorry.” He nods, brows pinched a little in seriousness. “Some of us, them, wanted to invite you. To movie night. With everyone.” Every time you think he’s done, he keeps on adding to his sentence.

You pull your bottom lip under your teeth, a little taken aback by his offer. Sure, things had been a little calmer between the two of you since he gave you a ride home. Less bite to your words, the occasional smile at something the other said. Nothing crazy though, certainly not enough to expect an invite to his place - even if the invite was technically from an anonymous party.

“I mean, I have work, at the diner.” You glance at the door, eyes darting around everywhere but Steve’s because you’re on the spot and maybe you feel a little flustered with the shock but you’ll be damned if you let him know.

“That’s fine, you can turn up whenever.” He shrugs, hands shoved into his pockets because he wants to fidget and can feel them getting a little clammy from asking you what is really a pretty simple question. He puts it down to the fact he’s not used to being so nice to you, that’s definitely it.

“And it’s at your place?” You know that by asking all these questions you’re only delaying your exit, getting yourself in deeper trouble when you’re inevitably late, but the whole thing is so bizarre you can’t bring yourself to leave.

“Yeah, but it’s not just my thing, it’s the -“

“The group, yeah, got it.” You interrupt. “I guess I’ll see when I finish, how I’m feeling y’know.”

“Yeah, course, no pressure, I’ll let them down easy if you don’t turn up.” He nods, face still serious but there’s a lightness in his voice now, a bit teasing but nothing like it usually is - or used to be, you suppose.

“Anything else?” You start to make a move towards the door, you’re probably going to have to run to work now through the summer heat and blinding sun but somehow you’re less mad than when Steve first turned up.

“No, no, that’s it, you’re free to go.” He holds his hands up and steps back from the door.

“Great, thanks for the permission.” You roll your eyes but there’s a curl to your lips which gives you away, a tiny silent notion that maybe you’re not so mad at him anymore.

“I’ll see you tonight, think of the group.” He calls after you as you head out, and you turn to give him a brief wave of your hand to acknowledge his words. You have to turn away quickly because you can feel a proper grin trying to work its way onto your face and you’re not ready to deal with why it’s there or what that means. It’s easier to just cast your eyes down at the tarmac that’s glowing from the sun and focus on your feet as you put one in front of the other as quickly as you can without breaking into a sweat.

You spend the entirety of your shift debating on if you should go tonight. You try your hardest to focus, you really do, but taking orders and pouring coffee isn’t exactly complicated work and the customers ask the same questions every day so you don’t even need to think about your answers anymore.

You’re standing behind the counter, elbow resting on the cold surface and your head resting in your hand so you can comfortably stare into space. You must look pretty out of it, chewing on your pen and eyes focused loosely on one of the big windows that looks into the diner, because it’s enough for your boss, an older woman called Eileen, to clock you.

Normally you’re a hard worker, chatting up a storm and always busying yourself with something to pass the time but today you’ve been a little clunky, not particularly bad but noticeably distracted. So when she comes to stand beside you, a finger poking into your side that makes you jump and straighten up, you think you’re about to get a scolding. You were also ten minutes late today, through no fault of your own.

“You got somewhere better to be?” She asks, for a moment you panic but once you look at her and see the knowing smile on her face you know you’re not in trouble.

“Sorry, it’s just,” you weigh up what you’re going to say, because you’re still a bit muddled over it all anyway, “a friends having a movie night, and they invited me and I d’know, guess I’m thinkin’ about going if I’m not out of here too late.”

“A friend, huh?” She raises her eyebrows at you, because since you started working here you’ve never been so distracted by a simple invite from a friend.

“Yeah, well, a group of ‘em really.” You put your now chewed up pen back into your apron pocket, swaying on your feet a little as you avoid eye contact with your boss because you don’t like that questioning tone in her voice. She knows you too well for you to try and bluff.

“Tell you what, you get all that cutlery back there polished up and make sure the stations are tidy enough and you can finish early.”

Your nose scrunches at her offer, because she’s not the sort to lie but you’ve never gotten cut early and you’ve barely said anything at all. Maybe you really were out of it today and she just wanted you out of the diner. “Seriously? Like, actually finish and go?”

She laughs, a warm sound followed by a gentle squeeze on your shoulder. “Yeah, kid, get it done and get yourself out of here.”

“I will, holy shit - sorry, I mean thank you.” You blurt out, pressing your lips together to try to fight off the dumb smile that’s really on your face. For no other reason than you’ve got a Friday night off, of course.

“Y’make sure your friend knows that this is a one time thing though, alright?”

The way she says friend and the quirk of her eyebrow has you scurrying away back into the kitchen. “For sure, I will, thank you.” Your voice carries through the pass, and you start to make your way through the mountain of cutlery that’s piled up throughout the shift.

It’s close to 8 o’clock by the time you finish, the sun starting to settle lower in the sky and covered by a haze of clouds. There’s a pink tint to everything outside, a nip in the air that warns of the end of summer though you pay no attention to it. You’d quickly changed out of your uniform back into the same t-shirt and pair of shorts you’d been wearing earlier, clothes being pulled out and shoved into your bag without much care as you hurried yourself out of the diner before your boss could change her mind. Though she did send you off with about half a cherry pie in a to-go box, which she only ever did when she was in a really good mood.

It’s not too far of a walk from Main Street down to Steve’s house, or maybe it is but you’re grateful for the time alone to actually decide on whether to turn up or not. You could easily just go home, take the night off and just relax. Plus, it seemed pretty out there for an invite to suddenly be extended to you. You’ve heard Robin talk about their big movie nights before, although you can’t say you paid much attention to what she said after she mentioned the fact that Steve hosts them.

You have to physically shake your head to yourself, shake off this weird doubt that if you turn up it’s all going to be one big joke that you’re the punchline of. You’re too old for that sort of stuff now, surely.

That cold breeze that you’re so determined to ignore seems to pick up once you start getting more into the suburbs of Hawkin’s, your bare arms and legs nipped at by the first signs of autumn. You know you have Steve’s jumper in your bag, the plan had been to give it to him before you left your shift at Family Video but his late arrival had meant it completely slipped your mind. But you can’t turn up to his house in his jumper, can you? You’ve barely buried the hatchet, the figurative soil still fresh. But you are cold, and it’s that or your shitty work vest which holds about as much warmth as tissue paper, so maybe it’s okay to just put it on for now. Just til you get inside.

It’s not until you’re standing there on the doorstep of the Harrington house that you realise you might’ve actually gone a little bit mad. This should be your worst nightmare, the sheer thought of it should have you turning on your heels and sprinting home. But you’re not, you’re knocking on the door and standing there waiting for someone to answer and you have definitely gone mad.

You can hear a muddle of voices inside, they pick up when you knock and it has you suddenly feeling a little overwhelmed. Maybe you should’ve just gone home. But before you can think anymore about whether you’ve made the right choice by coming the doors being pulled open and Steve’s stood there and he almost looks happy to see you. “Hey, you came.” His eyes scan over you, specifically his jumper, and there’s a smug smile on his face that is definitely less antagonistic than usual. “Nice jumper.”

“Yeah, got an early finish at work.” You tuck your chin to your chest to look down at your torso “Sorry, I was meant to give it to you at work but I had to rush out and then it’s kinda cold out tonight.” You can feel yourself rambling, quickly cutting yourself off. “I brought pie.” You hold up the plastic bag that holds your to-go container.

Steve waves off your apology, or explanation, or whatever it actually is. “It’s cool, keep it as long as you want.” He steps aside so you can cross the threshold into the house. You’ve never been before, but it seems like everyone knows where Steve lives purely from the amount of parties that were held here throughout high school. “You’ll be popular, gonna be invited every week if you keep bringin’ pie.”

“Using someone for their access to pie is pretty morally skewed.” You quirk an eyebrow at him, voice deadpan but you’re not being serious. It takes Steve a moment to register that, so used to the constant tension between the two of you.

“You’re right, I’ll be sure to tell everyone to not be so shallow.”

You breathe out a laugh, and it’s small and barely there but it’s genuine. You and Steve both catch it, eyes locking for a brief moment before you’re both quickly looking away. You’re still not sure what’s changed, but you’re not going to question it right now.

“Go through, get yourself comfortable.” Steve gestures towards his living room, you can hear hushed voices now that you’ve stopped talking but you try to push any urges to run out of your mind. You toe your shoes off before padding through the house, aware of the fact they’re probably filthy and the house looks pristine. Like it’s barely lived in, it could be one of those model homes.

“You’re here!” Robin practically shouts when she sees you, a grin on her face that quickly turns to a look of confusion when she realises you’re standing there in one of Steve’s jumpers. “And you’re wearing one of Ste-“

“I brought pie.” You cut her off rather than yourself this time, placing the bag onto the coffee table that already holds a ridiculous amount of food. It looks like a kids been let loose in a candy store, but then again maybe they have.

“Oh I love your job!” Robin’s quickly distracted by the gift from your work, and you silently thank your boss for unknowingly giving you a way out of what would surely be an interrogation otherwise.

The room is filled with faces that you recognise, some from school like Robin and her girlfriend Vickie, and you sort of know Nancy Wheeler who’s here with her boyfriend Jonathan. The rest are all the kids that frequent Family Video, coming in usually just to pester Steve rather than actually rent anything. They’re all squished up on the biggest couch, shoulder to shoulder as they all cram in so they fit there.

You give a small wave, a quiet hello and smile to everyone - who don’t seem all that surprised to see you there.

You settle yourself onto the floor, onto the pile of cushions and blankets that’ve been laid there as more makeshift seats. You feel out of place, in the house you’ve never been in before with people you don’t really know other than Robin. You plant your hands either side of you as you sit cross-legged, palms pressing down into the plush fabric as some sort of grounding point. It gets a little easier to not think about how you’re the odd one out once the film starts playing, conversations hushed as the opening to The Goonies starts playing.

You keep your eyes trained on the TV when Steve sits down next to you, his knees almost knocking into your own. You know there’s room on one of the couches, but maybe this is him attempting to be polite.

“Didn’t think you’d come.” He leans into your side as he speaks and you can smell the same cologne that lingered on his jumper.

“Neither did I.” You shrug, lifting your chin to the side slightly so you can look at him. The TV screen is lighting you both up, the light changing with each frame and changing the way the contours of your face are hit by shadows.

“Bit strange, you just know where I live.” He teases, and you knock your elbow into his side but it’s kind of soft and doesn’t hold any real anger to it.

“Everyone knows where you live, Harrington. You might as well have written it on the walls of the school.”

“What can I say? I’m a brilliant host.”

You roll your eyes at him, your stare through your lashes kind of soft in the low light. “Wouldn’t know.”

“You do now.” His voice is a little quieter, words spoken low like they’re supposed to stay hidden.

You ignore the way your stomach is twisting up, not in the same way it used to. “Maybe, jury’s still out.”

His bottom lip juts out, all faux upset and big brown puppy dog eyes. “Even after all my hard work? I slaved for hours over the stove.” He gestures to the table piled high with snacks, hands moving lazily and brushing against your knee. His hands are warm, or maybe you’re still cold from the walk over.

“Can you two shut up? Some of us are trying to watch this y’know?” The curly haired boy, you’re pretty sure his name is Dustin, shushes you from the couch.

“You’ve seen this like, twenty times Henderson.” Steve whispers back, like he’s suddenly conscious of keeping his voice hushed.

“Yeah, and I want to see it again. If you wanna flirt, take it elsewhere.”

You can feel the heat rise to your cheeks, a pink flush spreading across the skin and you’re grateful that Steve’s distracted by the boy because you don’t think you’d ever live this down.

“It’s my house, and I’m not -“

“Shut up.”

“Dickhead.” Steve mumbles, but he keeps quiet after that. You’re not sure if he can feel the weird tension that sits in the air between you, you hope he can’t.

There’s a big debate on what to watch next when The Goonies finally finishes, mostly involving the kids who can’t seem to decide on what they want to watch. It’s sweet to watch, if a little bizarre. This is the last sort of thing you imagined to be going on in Steve Harrington's house on a Friday night. After a good twenty minutes of arguing, the red haired girl eventually gets up with a huff and just puts Back to the Future in the VCR. She gives you a small lopsided smile as she sits back down and you recognise her from the trailer park then. She’d not long moved there, just her and her Mom. You smile back, making a mental note to say hi the next time you see her around.

“Y’seen this one before?” Steve whispers to you, cautious to not get another earful from Dustin. There’s a cheeky smile on his face when you turn to him, and it makes you smile too.

“Everyone’s seen Back to the Future.” You mumble, tongue pressed into the side of your cheek to stop yourself grinning too much. Your hands suddenly feel clammy against the blankets, so you shuffle a little so you can hold them in your lap instead.

You can feel Steve’s gaze on you throughout the movie, just for a moment or two before he’s looking back at the screen. You try not to turn your head when you realise, hoping if you keep your eyes on the screen he won’t know that you know.

You look up over to Robin at one point, who’s cuddled up close to Vickie under another blanket and she nods at you. You’re not sure if it’s a nod of approval, or more of a “I told you you’d get along”, or she could just be entirely confused by whatever was happening. It’d make sense, you’re pretty confused yourself.

Jonathan and Steve are both in charge of getting all the kids home at the end of the night, the group split between the two cars. You’re helping tidy up before you leave, grabbing any rubbish you can whilst the kids bicker about who’s going to sit where in the car.

“You have so much explaining to do.” Robin tugs at your arm as you reach down to grab a candy wrapper, Vickie standing off to the side to at least pretend to not be listening.

“I promise there’s really not much to explain.” You shrug, your hands now filled with bright coloured plastic.

“You’re kidding, right? You two hated each other for years and now you’re at his house in his jumper? Get talking.” She pokes your ribs, and you try to wriggle away from her touch.

“I mean, I was told it was an invite from the group.”

“First I’ve heard of it.”

Your mouth hangs open a little, taking a small inhale as you try to process what your friends just said. But you can’t, because then Steve calls your name from his hallway and Robins fixes you with a look and your heads feeling a bit fuzzy as you excuse yourself from the interrogation.

“You want a ride home?” Steve has his car keys dangling from his forefinger as he’s leaning against the frame of his front door.

“It’s cool, I can walk.” You look down to the colourful rubbish in your hands and then back up to Steve. “I do need a bin though.”

“I’ll sort that.” Steve takes the rubbish from you, walking into his kitchen as he continues talking. “It’s dark out, you’re not walking.”

“I walk home all the time.” You pull the sleeves of your, or Steve’s, jumper down over your hands.

“Good for you, not tonight though.” His voice is sarcastic and you narrow your eyes at him once he’s standing back in front of you but it feels different to how it used to, a lot less like a standoff.

“It‘s out of the way, I’m fine to walk.”

“I’m dropping Max off, you live in the same place.”

You huff, eyes locked with Steve’s as he raises his eyebrows at you because he knows he’s won. “Fine, but only ‘cause you’re already going there.”

Robin and Vickie both give you the same look as they pass you on the way to the car, their eyebrows raised and a grin that says you’ve been caught red handed. You’d try to argue a defence but you wouldn’t even know where to begin.

After all the arguing the kids went through to decide who gets shotgun, Steve ends up kicking Dustin out the passenger seat so you can sit there. The boy grumbles something you can’t hear as he clambers into the backseat, but Steve fixes him with a glare and he seems to quiet down pretty fast.

You don’t say much during the drive home, mostly just listen in to the silly arguments Steve, Dustin and Max have. You never pinned Steve as the type to babysit, and maybe this wasn’t quite babysitting, but it was clear how much he cared about them despite all their bickering. It was miles apart from how you two bicker, or used to anyway.

Dustin is the first out, and he actually says goodbye to you as he climbs out, clearly no grudge held over you stealing his spot up front. Once you get to Forest Hills you realise Max’s trailer is opposite Eddie’s as Steve pulls up in front of it, waiting until she’s inside before he starts his car back up.

“I can just get out here if it’s easier.” You gesture out of the window with your thumb.

“It’s fine, you get door to door service with me.” It’s dark in the car, the inky black of the night seeping into the enclosed space but you can tell Steve has some cheesy grin on his face just from the sound of his voice.

It’s only about two minutes before you’re outside your own trailer, the bedside lamp in your room left on for you and emitting a glow through the slatted blinds over your window.

“Y’know, Robin said she didn’t know anything about inviting me tonight.” You don’t know why you say it, wanting to push the words back inside as soon as they come out.

Steve exhales out a laugh, a little awkward because he didn’t really think about the fact you would definitely speak to Robin. “I mean, I did say it was anonymous, so could’ve been anyone else.”

“Right, yeah, I’m sure Nancy Wheeler was really rooting for my presence there.” You raise a fist alongside your words, fake enthusiasm quilted by a genuine smile.

“You can’t get me to reveal anything more, I’ve already said too much.” Steve shakes his head at you and you can’t help but let out a laugh. It’s a proper laugh and it surprises you a little when it comes out, Steve thinks it’s one of the nicest sounds he’s ever heard.

“Wouldn’t want to get you in trouble.” You nod your head, closing your eyes as if this were a serious issue. “Thanks for the ride, again. Better be careful or I’ll get used to it and start expecting ‘em.” You tease, finally lifting your bag out the footwell and you’re already halfway out the car before Steve can reply and tell you that he wouldn’t really mind that. It’s probably for the best that he keeps that to himself anyway.

You turn to give him a wave, a small flick of your wrist and a small smile that’s barely visible in the dark but it’s definitely there. You almost begrudge yourself for letting your guard down so much, seemingly so easy to just forget how much you really disliked Steve Harrington. You try to tell yourself you still find him annoying, maybe not to the level of hatred as before but he’s not off the hook. Your arguments with yourself become less convincing by the day.

—

By the end of summer, the rain that so often frequents Hawkins in the fall has already started to pour. Most days there’s at least a shower, and if you’re lucky it’s when you’re tucked away in work. But some days it’s like the heavens have opened and weep for the whole day, no relief or break in the clouds, just a solid slate of grey across the sky.

You know to bring a waterproof with you every time you leave the house, so your clothes can at least stay dry as you march across town to your shifts. But the cold of the rain has you sniffling, nose permanently a little pink along with your cheeks even when you’re out of the cold.

It’s also become somewhat of a routine for Steve to drive you home if you’re both working that day, the same argument each time of you insisting that you’re fine to walk or you can call a cab and him being adamant that he’s giving you a ride and that’s that. He’ll even come back to pick you up a couple of times when he’s finished a few hours earlier than you, waiting in his car in the parking lot as you wrestle with the keys to lock up. He’ll try to say he was passing by anyway, you think that he’s lying but you choose not to say.

You’re wiping down the last few tables of the diner, the sun set a good few hours ago now and the harsh fluorescents are making your temples pulse with the threat of a headache after being here all day. Your feet ache, you’ve barely been off them for the last twelve hours and even though you’re used to it, it doesn’t make the pain any less irritating. The venues empty now, at least, so you can focus on speeding through the last of the close and finally return to your bed.

The bell above the door jingles, an indicator that someone pushed it open and you try to stifle the groan that wants to spill from your mouth. You’re too tired to deal with some disgruntled customer who’s about to be told they can’t get a burger.

You toss your cleaning rag onto the still damp table, a little dramatic with it as you smooth out your apron and head to the host desk. “Sorry, but we’re all closed up now.” You call through before you even reach it, hoping they might turn round and leave before you have to face them.

“Damn, can’t even get a coke?”

You peer round the curve of the diner to see Steve standing at the host desk, hands shoved into the front pockets of his jeans and he gives you a stupid grin and you bite your bottom lip to stop yourself grinning back. “Nope, not even a coke.” You’re at the desk now, still behind it so it serves as a divider between you and Steve.

“Oh, that’s a shame. Was really craving one.” He shrugs his shoulders,

“Why’re you really here, Harrington?” You ask even though you’re pretty sure you know the answer.

“Told you, I was craving a coke. But seen as I’m here, and you’re nearly done, I can give you a ride home.” He says it so casually, like it’s just a coincidence and definitely not because he knew you were closing tonight and for some reason he really doesn’t like the thought of you walking home alone in the dark.

“Y’gonna give me a say in that?” You look up at him through your mascara coated lashes, a little smudged under your eyes after your long day.

“Probably not, no.” He shrugs again.

You sigh, all false dramatics and Steve knows it. “Fine, you’re gonna have to wait around for me to finish though.” You gesture to the booths that line the front windows.

He sets himself down in one of the garishly red booths, the leather worn and stitching frayed and still a little damp from where you’ve wiped them down.

You disappear back into the restaurant, just for a couple of minutes, only to return with a glass filled with coke and you set it down wordlessly in front of him. You don’t wait for him to respond, instead moving straight back out of his eyeline to finish up your close. You don’t want him to think it means more than it does, or maybe you don’t want to think about what it means. It’s one of the two.

It doesn’t take you long to finish up your jobs, you’re so used to doing them that you could probably get them done blindfolded or in your sleep. You say a quick goodbye to your manager, gathering up your coat and bag that you’d tossed into the office when you’d arrived and bundling them up into your arms.

When you get back to Steve he’s still sipping on his coke, eyes watching you pad over with your belongings clutched to your chest.

“You need me to pay for this before we go?” He asks, straw resting on his lips so he can go back to drinking it as soon as he’s spoken.

“Nah, you’re good.” You shuffle your bag in your arms when you feel it slipping from your grasp. “Just don’t tell on me.”

Steve mimes zipping his mouth shut, and holds out the now empty glass to you. You raise an eyebrow at him, your arms full and he retracts the glass when he realises there’s no way you’re grabbing it.

“Just put it on the bar.” You turn your body to look back to the bar, and Steve shuffles himself out the booth so he can place the glass on the end of the counter.

“C’mon then, trouble.” His smile grows when you roll your eyes at his nickname, a scoff falling from your lips that holds no real weight.

“Don’t call me that, asshole.” You grumble, walking ahead of Steve and out of the diner, the bell ringing out as you pull it open to leave.

“Don’t call me asshole, asshole.” He mimics your voice, and you turn to shoot him a half hearted glare.

“You’re a nightmare, givin’ me a headache.” You wait at the passenger door, looking over the roof to him and the amused look on his face.

“You don’t mean it.” He hums, eyes fixed on you as he unlocks the car.

“Totally do.” You hold his stare just for a moment before fumbling with the door handle amongst your belongings, huffing a little as you struggle to pry the door open. You manage it, though, with a little stubbornness.

As soon as you’re in the car you toss your stuff in the footwell, your bag has spent an increasing amount of time there to the point where there’s probably various things that have fallen out rolling around there. Pens and hair elastics and maybe a lip gloss, all littered on the floor waiting to be found.

“You got any decent music yet?” You root through his glove box, even though you know he’s definitely not bought anything new since you last looked through his cassettes.

“They’re all decent.” Steve counters, hands circling the wheel as he reverses out the parking spot and onto the road. “You’re just uncultured.”

“Yeah, you’re right, I’m sorry I ever insulted Bon Jovi.” You pull the tape out and tap it against your hand, the hard plastic leaving your palm a little red.

“Well, that one’s not mine.”

“Don’t lie to me, Harrington.”

“It’s not.” He sulks, and you let out a small laugh as you push it back into its place and close the glove box.

“It’s okay, I’m not judging.” You tip your head back against the seats headrest, twisting so you can look at Steve. He glances at you out the side of his eyes, a look of I know you are in the quick stare. “Someone’s gotta like them Steve, it’s good you’re taking one for the team.”

Steve turns to look at you properly, brows pinched together a little and he looks almost confused.

“What? Oh come on, I was just teasin’.”

“You called me Steve.”

“Well, yeah, that’s your name?” Your brows furrow now, your faces mirroring each other.

“You never call me Steve, it’s always Harrington or some stupid insulting nickname.” He chuckles over the last part, face softening slightly.

“Oh. Right.” You pause, mouth twisting up a little as you think about what he’s just said. “I guess you’re right.” You can feel Steve still looking at you as both sit in silence, your eyes flicking between him and the dashboard. “Stop staring at me, you’re makin’ it weird.”

“It is weird.” He laughs, and you huff, sinking further into your seat with your arms crossed across your body. It’s like you’re trying to make yourself smaller, shrink yourself down to stop him staring at you.

“You’re weird.” You grumble, but there’s nothing really behind your words.

“Y’know you used to be a lot better at comebacks.” He teases, and you rack your brain to try to come up with some witty response but everything feels a little jumbled and the words won’t pull together in a way that makes sense.

“Yeah, well, I’m tired. You tire me out with tryna navigate your shitty music selection.”

“Oh do I?”

“Yeah, you do.”

Steve laughs and you can feel the heat rising to your cheeks, blood pumping harder and flushing your skin and you’re grateful that the streetlights don’t offer much clarity because you don’t want him picking up on your blush too.

You stay silent until you reach the trailer park, words all caught up in your throat that won’t come out even if you want them too. Steve doesn’t seem to mind though, just keeps glancing at you with a smug smile on his face because he knows you’re flustered, as much as you try to play it off. You caught yourself off guard, and so did he, and now you’re too busy in your own head to actually say anything.

The car pulling to a stop eventually brings you out of your head, back to reality and to the front seat of Steve’s car. You look out the window to your trailer as it sits empty in the dark, no lights left on so it's almost completely enveloped by the night sky, the faintest outline of it visible through the inky black.

You reach for your belongings in the footwell, wringing the straps of your bag in your hands as you press your lips together trying to come up with the words you want to say. Or any words at all at this point.

“Nobody home?” Steve nods his head towards your unlit trailer, and you look over at him with wide eyes, blinking a little as the words process that he’s talking about your home and not about the fact you’ve sat in silence for the last five minutes.

“Oh, no, my parents are travelling for a couple weeks.” You stumble over your words, like your brain has forgotten how to communicate with your voice box properly. You let them sit in the air for a moment, mouth still slightly agape like you’re not quite done. “Do you wanna come in? I’ve got a couple joints rolled, if that’s your sorta thing.” You can’t meet his eyes, instead staring past him into the night beyond the window.

“Depends.” Steve draws the word out, and you have to look at him to try and read his expression despite the fact it’s probably the last thing you want to do right now. “You got any Bon Jovi?”

You roll your eyes at him. “Shut up, absolutely not.”

“I suppose I’ll cope.” He sighs, all over dramatic as he pulls the keys out the ignition and holds them in his palm. “C’mon then, lead the way.”

You push yourself out the passenger door, stumbling a little over your own feet in the dark as you try to dig through your coat pocket for your keys. It probably doesn’t take you that long to find them, but in the dark it feels like time drags on and there’s a million eyes on you watching your every move because what on earth were you doing bringing Steve Harrington into your home out of choice? Maybe it was a moment of temporary insanity, maybe it’ll wear off soon.

You have to kick the bottom left corner of your front door to get it open, some internal part of it sticking and you curse yourself for never actually sorting it because the world around you is as good as silent and the sound of the impact of your shoes on the plastic seems to ricochet around you.

Everything feels a bit less strange once you knock the lights on, the buttery yellow glow over the familiar surfaces seeming to settle your mind. You stand aside to let Steve in, closing the door behind him and cutting off the cold night breeze that was leaking in.

“Stay here, I’m gonna go get changed.” Your hands are still full so you have to jutt your head towards your bedroom, Steve only nodding in response as he gazes around the room.

Your parents have a habit of collecting nic nacs and trinkets from their travels, and they litter every possible surface they can around the living room. It makes for an interesting space to look at, you suppose. Although it could also be bordering on just looking cluttered.

Your room feels a lot calmer, and emptier, in comparison. Most of the decorations are taped to your walls, old tour posters your parents had held on to mixed in with photos of you and your friends. You have a little clutter on your desk, but it’s mostly a mix of pens and pencils and various makeup products you’ve been too lazy to put away. It looks lived in, really. Homely and an accumulation of yourself, everything with its own place despite the mess.

You sling your bag and coat to the corner that’ll be covered by your door once it’s open, your diner uniform swiftly following onto the now growing pile. You pull on a pair of grey sweatpants, that you’re fairly sure used to be Eddies given how you have to pull the waist tight and roll it down in order for them to fit, and a vest top that skims your midriff and leaves a band of skin showing across your stomach. You’re too tired to really care about how you look, contacts removed and glasses replacing them as you glimpse at yourself in the mirror. It’s fine, really. You’re in your space, after all.

With a pair of well worn slippers replacing your trainers, you pad out your room and back to Steve, who doesn’t look like he’s moved an inch since you left him there. “When I said stay here I didn’t mean, like, that specific spot.”

“Oh, yeah, I know, I was just lookin’ at… everything.” Steve nods, eyes moving from one of the many ceramic plates lined up on a windowsill over to you. “The glasses are back.” He grins at you, and you feel your nose scrunch up as you set him with a stare.

“Hands off them this time.” You point at him, his hands raising to his side in defence. “We can smoke in my room, just ignore the mess.”

“S’cool, I don’t mind mess.” He shrugs, and you quickly turn on your heel to walk back to your room.

“Sit.” You gesture over to your bed whilst you scour through one of your desk drawers for the little tin you keep your joints in. You pull various notepads and loose papers out, piling them up on top messily until you feel the cool metal brush your fingers and pull it out. You know there’s a lighter somewhere on the top, amidst the now larger pile of junk. You shove the papers back in, the crisp noise covering the sound of you humming to yourself as you roll pencils and make up tubes around to reveal the well worn lighter. The print worn off where you’ve held it over the course of the last few months.

The joint hangs from your lips when you turn around, snorting a laugh at the sight of Steve perched on the edge of your bed. “You can sit normally, y'know?” The words are muffled into the roach as you flop yourself onto your bed, pulling an empty can off your bedside table that’s been functioning as an ashtray. You cross your legs so it can lean against your shins as you light up, taking a deep inhale as Steve adjusts himself to be sitting a little more comfortably, less like he’s waiting in the doctor's office.

“Your rooms nice, suits you.” He looks around the space before landing on you, joint still between your lips as a smokey haze starts to fill the room.

“Cheers, Harrington.” You hold the joint out to him after taking one last drag, poised between your pointer and middle finger, your equivalent to an olive branch. “M’sure the room appreciates it.”

As soon as Steve inhales he can feel the warmth of the smoke hit his chest, flowing down his throat and spreading across him. “You like living here? In the trailer park, I mean.” His question strikes up some sort of response in you, a panic that you thought you’d moved past but your face must show it because he’s quick to clarify. “I didn’t mean it like that, like, in a bad way or anything. I was just asking, probably a stupid question.”

You shrug, and you can feel yourself cooling a little, shoulders relaxing and breathing deeper. “I guess, it’s just the norm for me though. Always lived in a trailer park.” Steve passes the joint back to you and you’re grateful for the buzz it’s giving your mind.

“It’s cosy, feels like a proper home. Like, real people actually live here.” Steve realises he probably sounds like he’s already high, and maybe it is hitting him a little quickly but it’s mostly the fact he’s just not good with his words.

“As opposed to fake people?” You hand the joint back to him.

“No, well, kind of.” He flicks the joint off into the can, hand brushing your leg as he reaches over. “My house is usually empty, other than me, it doesn’t really feel like a home y’know?”

You press your lips together, corners pulling down into a small frown at his words. “Sounds pretty shitty.”

“I’m used to it.” He shrugs. “I forget it’s not like that for everyone ‘til I’m somewhere like this.”

You never really think about the fact you’re actually lucky to have a good relationship with your parents, a close knit family unit even if it is contained in the small trailer. You must be zoning out a little because Steve knocks his hand against yours to pass you the end of the joint. You take it off him, fingers almost tangling together in the lazy movements of your hands. “At least you’ve got a good group of friends, you guys all seem really close.” You smile at him, taking one last toke of the joint before dropping into the can where it fizzles against the last of the soda in there.

“Yeah, we are, s’nice.” The haze of smoke fills your small room now, and Steve’s words are slow and soft because his heads a little fuzzy and you’d be lying if you said yours wasn’t as well.

You push yourself off your bed, feet sliding across the ground more than stepping as you mooch over to your cassette player, finger tracing over the tapes as you read over the titles you’ve seen a million times. “Any requests?” You call over your shoulder, Steve watching you from your bed with a slack smile.

“I can go get the Bon Jovi from my car?”

“Fuck off.” You shake your head at him, turning back to the player but not before he catches a glimpse of your smile. You settle on a Fleetwood Mac tape, slotting it in and turning the volume down low so it’s more of a background hum as Second Hand News starts playing. You grab a bottle of nail polish off your desk on your way back, returning to your cross legged position opposite Steve as you start painting them, tongue peaking out a little as you focus on the small brush.

You can feel your glasses slipping down your nose, a careful finger pushing them up whilst trying to keep the wet polish intact. Your eyes squint slightly in focus, lids feeling a little heavy from the smoke and your body wants to move a lot slower than you’d like it to so your strokes are a little messy as you apply the black lacquer on the last couple of nails. Carefully twisting the cap back on the bottle, you place it on your bedside table and hold your hands up to admire your work, though there’s arguably not much to admire with the specks of polish that dot the skin next to your nails. “What d’you think? Are they a total mess?” You hold your hands out to Steve, wiggling your fingers a little so the sheen of the paint catches the light from overhead.

“Nah, they look great, a real masterpiece.” Steve glances at them briefly, but even when you’re focused on your nails you can feel his eyes on you.

“What? Did I get some on my face?” You run the pad of your forefinger across your nose and the apples of your cheeks to try and feel for any stray polish, though if it was there you’ve probably just made it worse.

“No, no. Jus’ looking at you.” He pauses, lips pressed together as he takes a deep inhale through his nose. “You’re really pretty, y’know?”

Your brows pinch together, a little confused and your brains a bit too foggy to really process the fact that Steve’s just complimented you. “You’re high, Harrington.”

“A little, yeah. But you are, always thought you were.” He shrugs, leaning back on his palms and head a little crooked as he looks at you through his heavy lashes.

“Oh, really? That why you were so mean to me in school?” You ask, but you don’t sound accusing, maybe it’s the weed making everything a little softer. “What’s next? Pulling my hair in the playground?” Your lips pull into a smirk, a little too sweet for your words to hold any venom.

“Hey, you can’t blame me for thirteen year old Steve’s behaviour. S’not like that’d be my method of choice now.” Something about the way he’s speaking has your heart beating a little quicker, chest suddenly feeling heavy because it feels like he’s saying something more and you can’t deny that you want to know what that is.

“Oh yeah? What’re these methods then, hotshot?” You sit up a little, shifting in your spot because you can feel a tension in the room. It’s like you’re teetering on a ledge, and any tiny movement will send you plummeting into something entirely unknown.

“I can show you, if y’want.” Steve’s almost whispering, voice so soft that you’re not sure you heard him correctly. But the way he’s looking at you, eyelids a little heavy and pupils blown, confirms that you did.

You pull your bottom lip under your teeth, eyes scanning over his face to try and discern any sign of a laugh, trying to wait him out and see if he cracks but the seconds pass and he’s still looking at you like you’re the only other person on the planet right now. “Yeah, you can show me.”

The words have barely left your mouth before he’s moving into you, big hand cupping your cheek and thumb grazing over the trail of freckles that spread across the high point there. You feel the breath hitch in your chest at the contact, reminding yourself to keep breathing as Steve brings his face to yours. His nose nudges yours, a gentle movement that has you tilting your head to the side a little. He follows your movement, lips hovering over yours for a moment and your eyes are squeezed shut because you’re still not entirely sure this isn’t a joke and you’d rather not open your eyes and find out.

But then his lips are on yours. Your eyes are still closed and you’re still telling yourself to breathe and Steve Harrington is kissing you in your bedroom.

It’s soft at first, gentle and barely there, but then you lean forward to bring yourself closer to him and reciprocate his movements and it’s like a switch has flipped in both of you.

Your hands move from their place in your lap to behind his neck, arms draped over his shoulders and fingers brushing into the hair at the nape of his neck. The light touches have Steve kissing you with more urgency, lips parting a little more and tongues brushing against one another and then you sigh and it sends Steve’s head spiralling because you sound so pretty and it’s him who pulled that sound from you.

He keeps a hand pressed against your cheek, guiding you as he licks into your mouth and nips at your bottom lip a little, and the other sits on your waist. His fingers brush the bare skin at your waist and it has your entire body feeling like it’s being electrified, each slight movement of his hand sending another current through your veins.

He pulls away slightly, lips still so close to your own that you feel them move as he speaks. “”Are they workin’?”

You can feel the smile on his lips, and your breath fans against his lips as you exhale a small laugh. “Yeah, think so.”

Then he’s back on you, lips peppering kisses on your mouth and cheeks and jaw, trailing down your neck and sucking on that sensitive spot by your collarbone. You inhale sharp, biting down on your lip that’s a little swollen from kissing to try and stop yourself whining as he leaves purple marks along your throat. It doesn’t work very well, the noise coming out like a whimper and his grip on your waist only tightens when he hears it.

“God, y’sound so pretty.” He murmurs into your neck, kissing over the spattering of pretty lilac bruises that he’s left behind.

“Steve.” You’re definitely whining now, voice all desperate and fingers pulling at his shirt to try bring him back to your lips again.

He obeys your tugging, planting soft kisses on your mouth and pulling back to look at your face in between them. You're looking up at him through your lashes, eyes all bright and needy and probably the softest he’s ever seen them look.

“Can I touch you? Is that okay?” He punctuates his questions with more kisses, loose strands of hair falling down into his face and brushing against your skin.

Your heart feels like it’s rattling around inside your chest, desperate to break out of its confines because it feels so constrained having to stay inside there. You nod at Steve, mouth still parted a little as your chest rises and falls with your heavy breathing.

“C’mon, use your words. Normally got so much to say to me, honey.” There’s a smirk on his lips and a teasing to his voice but the way he’s looking at you gives him away, shows you he wants it as bad as you do.

“Don’t be a dick, Harrington.” You breathe, a smirk matching his spreading over your face. You lean up to kiss him again, his bottom lip pulled between your own as you move away again. “Y’can touch me, want you to.” You whisper the words, just loud enough for Steve to hear, and he’s already moving you so you’re lay beneath him with a hand beside your head holding him above you.

“Back to surnames already? Seems cruel.” He pouts, a finger running along the waistband of your sweatpants and the sensation makes you feel a little dizzy.

You shift up onto your elbows, just slightly so you can brush your nose against his and hold his gaze. “If y’want me to say your name, you’re gonna have to make me.”

Steve almost feels his heart stop at your words, the way you speak softly has his mind running a million miles an hour and his head spinning out. “Oh, I plan to.”

His hand moves slowly past your waistband, movements calculated and teasing but you keep your composure as he trails his fingers closer to your core. His pace is agonising, pulling back each time he edges closer so when his fingers finally brush over the growing wet spot on your panties you can’t help but let a small moan slip from your mouth.

“Fuck, y’already wet, huh? That all for me? Got you all riled up?” His words are smug but you can see how his chest is rising and falling quickly and his pupils are blown out as he gazes down at you.

“You ever stop runnin’ your mouth?” Your words come out breathy, little piques in your tone as he grazes over your covered clit.

He chuckles, fingers finally pushing aside your underwear after what felt like an age of teasing. “Maybe if you ask nicely.”

“In your dreams.” You barely get your words out before your breath gets stuck in your chest from Steve’s fingers rubbing circles against your clit, eyes closed and head tilting back from the sensation that’s travelling up over your whole body. “Fucking hell, Steve.”

One of your hands holds your weight, still sat up off the bed so you can bring your lips to Steve’s between your moans, and the other grips at his shoulders. Nails digging through the material of his shirt as you try to find purchase as his fingers continue their steady motions across your clit.

When he finally slides a finger inside you, your slick meaning he can slip in easily after he’s riled you up, you let your body drop against your bed. Your grip on his shoulders pulls him down with you, his other hand holding him above you. You tug at his shirt, wordlessly urging him to pull it over his head as you pant beneath him. He only stops his motions to remove it, tossing it aside to the floor of your room and you follow suit with your own which leaves your chest completely bare.

“Jesus, you’re so hot.” It’s more like he’s talking to himself than you, eyes scanning over your body and then back to your face as he returns his hand to its place between your thighs.

“Shut up.” You murmur, smile tugging at your lips and you can feel the blood running to your cheeks.

“You are, y’so beautiful.” He kisses you on your cheek, the corner of your lips, trailing them down onto your chest as he pumps his fingers inside of you.

You trail a hand up his bare arm, over his shoulder and to the nape of his neck so you can thread your fingers into his hair. Tugging a little when he finally slips another finger inside, stretching you out and pulling more moans from you as the coil inside your stomach winds itself tighter and tighter.

“Oh my god, Steve, please.” You find yourself begging, everything all too much yet not enough at the same time. Your hips buck against his hand, desperately trying to chase your high as you reach a hand between the two of you so you can palm at Steve’s crotch. Even through the denim you can feel how hard he is, straining against the confines of the fabric and you barely even have to touch him before he’s groaning into your skin in between kisses.

“What d’you want, jus’ tell me and I’ll give it to you.” His voice is strained as you continue to grope him through his jeans, pressing himself harder into your hand as he speeds up the motions of his fingers inside you.

“Want you to fuck me.” Your practically whining at this point, and you can feel your walls clenching around Steve’s fingers as he works you closer to the edge.

“Fuck, yeah, I want that too.” You don’t think you’ve ever heard him sound so needy. “You got a condom?”

“I’m on the pill.” Your words send Steve’s head a little dizzy, a deep exhale coming from his mouth and you take it as disappointment. “S’fine if you don’t want to, though.”

“Are you kidding?” Steve locks his eyes with your own, both still a little hazy from smoking and the intensity of the moment. “I want to.”

With his words your already fiddling with the button of his jeans, tugging at the denim and he pulls his fingers out of you so he can tug them down along with his boxers and discard them onto the ever growing pile of clothes on the floor. You can see how hard he is now, tip already leaking as he helps you out of your own sweatpants so you’re left in only your panties.

You wiggle your body a little as you slowly pull them off, suddenly feeling a little too exposed despite all that's already happened tonight. But the way Steve’s staring at you, like you’re a work of art, something made just for him, makes you feel a little less self conscious.

“You sure you want to do this? We don’t have to.” His voice is soft and you know that you could turn him down now and it’d be fine, whatever grudge that was held between you is now buried no matter what you say. But you do want it, not even 24 hours ago it might’ve killed you to admit it but not now. Not here, in your room with Steve looking down at you like you’re the only girl in the world.

“I want it, want you, Steve.” You lean up and kiss him softly, a break from the teasing and intensity of your touches. Something more gentle, in place of an apology or explanation, something that says I don’t just want you now, I want you for good. Steve kisses you back like he understands.

Steve pushes into you slowly, gradually hitting deeper inside you with each thrust and it has you squeezing your eyes shut tight and practically seeing stars. When he finally bottoms out, he stays there for a moment, the pair of you breathing in sync. He can feel your walls squeezing him, and he has to take a moment to collect himself to stop himself finishing then and there.

Your arms hang over his shoulders, one hand running through his hair and the other tracing lines on his back. You almost feel bad for how your nails dig into his skin when he starts moving again, but when he moans in your ear you don’t feel so guilty anymore.

“Feels so good, wanted this for so long y’know? Think it would’ve solved all our problems.” Steve’s rambling on, a little drunk on how good you feel and how you look underneath him. “Don’t think m’gonna last long, keep clenching around me and it’s driving me crazy.”

Your bedroom is filled with the sounds of your moans, bed creaking and it’s all a little dirty but you’re too fucked out to care. The knot in your stomach is still tugging tighter from when Steve had his fingers inside you, and it’s only getting more intense now his cock is nudging that spot inside you that you can never reach on your own. “I’m close too, y’feel so good Steve.” Your voice is sickly sweet and only pushes Steve closer to the edge.

“Jesus, fuck.” Steve runs a thumb across your cheek, eyes locked with yours as he pounds into you harder and the sounds you’re making are bordering on pornographic - you’d be embarrassed if he wasn’t so clearly into it, kissing you hard and a little messy and you can feel that coil in your stomach about to snap.

“M’gonna cum.” You can barely force your words out, especially when Steve moves a hand back to your clit and begins rubbing circles around the bundle of nerves. It only takes a few more thrusts for you to go tumbling over the edge, walls clenching around him tight as you grip his shoulders and leave little crescent marks as a reminder of the night.

You can tell Steve’s close too, the way he’s moaning your name and his pupils are blown as he watches you unravel. His thrusts get a little sloppy, quicker but his rhythm is messy and when you drag your nails down his back it’s the final push for him. You can feel it as he cums inside you, warm ropes filling you up and he keeps thrusting into you slowly even after he’s finished. His breathing is heavy as he looks down at you, bodies tangled and a little sweaty but he still thinks you look beautiful.

You feel empty when he finally pulls out of you, like your body had gotten used to him being there. You whine a little at the feeling, but Steve’s quick to kiss away the noise as he strokes your hair.

“This mean we’re friends now?” You ask, a little teasing as you smile at him.

Steve shifts his body from its place over you, looking through the mess of clothes on the floor to find his boxers amongst them. He hands you his t-shirt, and you’re not oblivious to the fact he’s giving you his clothes to wear instead of your own. He looks over to your light switch and then back to you, going to flick it off when you respond with a nod. “You do this with all your friends?”

“Well, no. But y’gotta at least ask me on a date before you get to pass that point.” You pull his shirt over your head, the smell of his cologne a comfort as you settle into it.

“What, you wanna be wined and dined, huh?” He’s grinning at you, and you shuffle up to let him lay next to you in your bed.

“Obviously, Harrington. Get with the program.”

“C’mon, surely I’m past the surname point now.” His finger traces along your jaw as he lays facing you, following the curves of your face and nudging it closer to his.

“Maybe, I’ll think about it.” You’re still grinning as you kiss him, just for a moment but even after you pull away you keep your face close to his.

His arm rests over your waist as you cuddle into him, a soothing weight that helps to lull you quickly into a sleep. You slot into his body easily, head on his chest and his chin resting atop of it, falling into a position that feels almost too natural, like it’s something you should’ve been doing for a long time before.

You’re not sure what time it is when you get woken by a knock at your door. Though a knock is probably too gentle a word, it was more like a repetitive slap against the plastic that has you grumbling as you try to wriggle out of Steve’s grip and out of bed. You pull your joggers on, eyes still a little fuzzy from sleep as you make your way out your room and to whoever was pounding on your door.

“Alright, alright.” You’re mumbling so whoever’s out there definitely didn’t hear you. You pull the door open the door to see Eddie standing there, stupid smug grin on his face as you stand there still half asleep. “Jesus, Eddie, what is it?”

“Harringtons here, isn’t he?” He sounds almost giddy with it, because he knows he’s right. He looks behind him to Steve’s car, then back to you as you stand there in Steve’s shirt. And then he notices the spattering of purple bruises along your neck, and that’s enough to send him over the edge with laughter. “Oh my god, I knew it! I knew this would happen!”

You stand there, blinking the sleep out your eyes because you’re still way too tired to be dealing with Eddie and his apparent victory. “D’you actually want something? Or is this it?” You point down to him, the boy still grinning wide and you’re half tempted to just slam the door in his face.

“This is it.” He shrugs. “Just needed proof, and those-“ He wiggles his finger towards your neck “-are proof.”

“Fantastic, thanks so much for waking me up for this Eds.” You huff, hand already on the door ready to shut him out. “Now get lost.” There’s nothing cruel to your voice, Eddie knows you too well to take any offence.

“See y’later, you little harlot.” That’s enough for you to slam the door in his face.

You pad back into your bedroom, Steve groaning as you clamber over him to try and get back into place but inevitably disturb him as you do so.

“What was that?” His voice is thick with sleep, a little gruff and you tuck your face back into his chest with a sigh.

“Jus’ Eddie. Gloating ‘cause he got proof.” Your voice is muffled, lips brushing against his skin as you speak.

“Proof of what?” Steve’s hand trails lazily up your spine, a barely there touch that could easily lull you back to sleep.

“This, us, I guess.”

“Oh, well, that’s not so bad, is it?”

“Nah, I don’t mind.” You move your head away so you can look at Steve, eyes fighting to stay open and a sleepy smile on your face. “D’you?

Steve shakes his head, eyes all doting on you even in his tired state. “I don’t mind at all.”