#*glee*

Steve manages a thin smile around the shards of his heart. He cannot imagine having friends that care that much, the sort that would go to the ends of the earth for him, that would burn it to the ground to save him. Tommy’s loyalty ended at a single rejection.

Jonathan may have rightfully kicked Steve’s ass, but he’d also taken his hand. He can still feel the gut-pull shiver of Jonathan demanding jump and his own instant and unthinking obedience. He can still see the flicker of lights through the window. He can still hear his one, crystal thought: he can’t leave them.

Not Nancy. Them.

“They’re good kids,” he says quietly. “Your brother too.” His breath twists up in his lungs as his face pinches up. “Look, I uh- I shouldn’t have said what I said about him. Or you.”

Jonathan remains quiet, not looking at Steve for so long that Steve nearly opens his mouth to continue the apology he’d gone there to make, but Jonathan beats him to the punch again. “It was pretty shitty of you. Honest, but shitty.”

“It wasn’t,” Steve says, and then quickly amends- “Honest, I mean. That’s why- I don’t know, dude. Maybe you knocked some sense into me. I was being a huge dick to you because I couldn’t handle my own problems.”

“King Steve has problems?” Jonathan asks, though it sounds more like a barb than a question.

Steve pulls a hand from his pocket to run it through his hair. “I guess,” he says with a little shake of his head. “I don’t know what it is about Nancy. It’s like… she’s the first person that’s ever looked at me like she just… expects me to be a better person than I am. And the crazy thing is, when she looked at me like that, I wanted to be, I just… I didn’t know how. I either had to climb up to her level or drag her down to mine and when I saw I saw the two of you, I was just… I dunno. Furious.”

“It wasn’t like that,” Jonathan says. It’s not the truth, Steve knows; or at least, it’s not the whole truth.

“It was, but that’s not- that wasn’t it. I thought it was, but it wasn’t,” Steve admits. It feels weird to say it aloud. “I thought I was mad that she… would come down to my level, I guess? After I let myself think… it doesn’t matter. And I was mad at you for… I dunno. Being the reason.”

“Nothing happened, Steve,” Jonathan says, a little hotly.

“That’s not true,” Steve says. “I mean, yeah, okay, you two didn’t screw or whatever, but… something happened. She went to you for help. Not me. Or, y’know, it’s- it’s worse than that. She did come to me, and I was too much of an asshole to help her. I was too worried about my dad’s opinion. He’s not even- It’s stupid. I should have helped her sooner. I was furious at myself for not listening to her. I should have.”

Jonathan doesn’t argue that, and Steve tries again to pull the knife of the realization from his gut, but it doesn’t move. She’d needed help, and he’d walked away, and he’d gotten exactly what he’d deserved for it. He’d gotten off easy, looking back.

“Well, you can’t go back,” Jonathan says, almost as if he’d read Steve’s mind. “None of us can, after this. There's only forward.”

“Yeah,” Steve agrees. He’s going to try to get back to normal, or make a new normal at least. He’s going to make sure they think this is over, and then he’s going to do his level fucking best to forget any of this ever happened.

Almost any of it, anyway. Maybe not the part where he's trying, now.

“I’m sorry,” he says, trips over the words in his rush to make good on his decision. “I meant- I meant to say that, before. It’s why I… came over to your place. I wanted to apologize. Even before the monsters.”

He’d wanted to apologize once the monster had gone, but Nancy had rushed them into the cars and told him to meet them at the school gymnasium, and then they’d been so frantically trying to find where the kids had disappeared to that nothing had even been explained until they finally sat down at the hospital. Steve still isn’t sure he totally understands, but he’s not sure if there’s explanation missing or if it’s the concussion talking.

“I already… told Tommy and Carol off, that bridge burned pretty goddamn quick. I cleaned off the theater sign. I was coming to apologize to you, and then I was going to see Nancy, and apologize to her, too,” he adds, remembering the speech he’d thought about the entire drive out to Jonathan’s house. “I want to do better. I messed up and I don’t know if I can make up for it, but I want to do better.”

“Okay,” Jonathan says. Simple as that.

“Okay?” Steve echoes dumbly.

Jonathan shrugs and pushes away from the wall. “Yeah. You want to do better- okay. But, I’m freezing my ass off out here. Come back inside.”

Jump.

“This,” Highblood hissed, “Is all your fault.”

“It ain’t.” Dualscar growled back, fins flaring with irritation, and that right there was as good a reason as any to choke back the torrent of insults that were just begging to be slung at the larger man.

Or rather, the larger half-man.

The other half seemed to be comprised solely of masses and masses of tentacles that were writhing in increasingly jerky frustration.

“You’re just lucky I knew her, else y'might’ve found yourself a fuckin’ anchovy.”

“What, like you?” Highblood spat, glaring down at the squirming arms.

“I,” Dualscar said, his voice dripping with dignity, “am a fuckin’ Lionfish, thank y'very much.”

Highblood’s head whipped up, the sudden motion tossing his dreads into his face and then wrapping them around his head as the water carried the motion through.

Tentacles flailed, human arms flailed, and profanity filled the water as Highblood struggled to get his masses of hair out of the way.

“An’ that,” Dualscar said sagely, raising his voice so he could be heard over Highblood’s cursing, “is why I wear that ‘girly fuckin’ braid’ all th’ damn time.”

One of Highblood’s tentacles shot out, wrapped around Dualscar’s waist, and squeezed hard.

“Fuckin’ christ,” he wheezed, and stabbed the tentacle with the spines on his arm; digging the spines in as hard as he could and trying not to squirm as the teeth around the suckers dug in to skin and scales.

“Highblood, let me go you insufferable excuse for a fuckin’ landlubbin’ cultist!”

Tendrils of blood smoked into the water as Highblood thrashed around more, and Dualscar swore as something in his chest popped uncomfortably, then doubled over, opened his mouth as wide as it would go, and bit a chunk out of Highblood’s tentacle.

That got a reaction, and Dualscar found himself tumbling through water ringing with an enraged roar. When he managed to right himself and turned back to face the way he’d come, Highblood was obscured by a cloud of blue-black ink; only the occasional writhing tentacle poking into view before vanishing again.

Right.

He took a moment to test his range of motion, wincing as the test confirmed that the rib was definitely disclocated, then he gritted his teeth and darted back towards Highblood.

Luck was with him, and he was fast enough to knock Highblood out of the ink cloud without getting snagged by another tentacle. Working fast, Dualscar managed to get behind him, get one arm up and locked behind his back, unwrap Highblood’s hair from where it’d gotten tangled around his throat, and use one of the longer dreads to tie the others back. It didn’t look pretty, but it’d hold until he could get back out of the water and figure some other solution out.

It wasn’t until he went to let go of Highblood’s arm that he realized the larger man had gone limp in his hold, floating there placidly as Dualscar got things settled.

“Y'okay?” He asked, flitting back around to peer into Highblood’s face.

“Fine.” Highblood grumbled, crossing his human arms. “Can we get the fuck outta this shitty ocean now?”

Dualscar grinned. “Nope.”

“The fuck not?” Highblood sounded so offended that Dualscar nearly laughed in his face.