#centerfold

You answer what you can while Dustin refuses to let go of you for longer than three seconds at a time. He clings to you like you’re an anchor, like if he loosens his grip you’ll disappear.

Robin keeps staring at you like she’s waiting for you to wink and reveal a prank. Nancy looks like she’s doing mental math. Max is watching you with something like relief, like your presence proves that miracles still happen in this shitty town, even if they’re exhausted and wearing an old hoodie.

Steve can’t stop looking at you.

It’s not exactly intentional, he doesn’t mean to. But his eyes keep dragging back to you like a magnet, like the rest of the room is a blur and you’re the only sharp thing left. His old hoodie hangs off your shoulders in a way that makes something in his chest go tight and painful. The sleeves swallow your hands. The worn gray fabric is faded at the elbows. It shouldn’t matter.

But it does.

Because it’s proof. Proof that you were real before. Proof that you’re real now. Proof that some part of you carried him across two thousand miles after all this time.

Dustin finally gets hauled into the chaos again, pulled by Lucas and Will and sheer necessity, because the world is ending and he’s the one who knows the most about it. Someone calls his name, and he looks back at you like he’s afraid to leave you unattended.

“I’m not going anywhere, Dustin.” You promise, soft but steady.

Dustin nods like he’s trying to memorize your words. “Please don’t.” He says anyway, somewhere between a warning and a plea.

Then he’s gone, swallowed by voices and maps and Hopper’s marker screeching against glass.

You exhale slowly. For the first time since this all started to unravel, you actually feel like you might collapse. Steve sees it. The way your shoulders sag the second no one is tugging on you. The way your face goes slack with exhaustion. The way you blink like your eyes are full of sand.

He’s moving before he thinks about it.

“Hey.” Steve says, low.

You turn toward him and something inside him shifts, like the world tilts on its axis and decides to make him pay attention. Your gaze catches on his jaw first, still faintly swollen from the fight. Then your eyes track down to his hands. His knuckles are scraped raw, bruised and split. 

You swallow hard.

“Hi.” You manage. It’s just one word, yet it feels like a punch to the ribs. 

Steve clears his throat like it’ll help. “You, uh. You wanna get out of here for a second?” He gestures vaguely toward the back door, toward a sliver of anywhere that isn’t packed with people and panic.

You blink, then nod once. “Yeah.”

It’s not dramatic. It’s not a confession. It’s not anything. But Steve’s heart still kicks hard in his chest as he leads you away.

The back door sticks, briefly, when Steve pushes it open. Cold wind hits your face immediately as you exit, sharp and grounding. The noise from inside muffles immediately and quiets as the door shuts behind you. Out here, it’s near silent. Wider. 

The field behind the radio station stretches long and massive, November grass flattened in patches from foot traffic. Beyond it, the forest rises dark and dense. And just before the treeline, the radio tower rises tall and steady toward the gray Indiana sky. 

You wrap your arms around yourself instinctively, the sleeves of Steve’s hoodie swallowing your hands. A shiver runs down your spine and your eyes briefly flutter closed. For a second, you’re not sure if it’s the weather or the proximity to Steve. 

He notices. 

He’s never been good at this part. The quiet part. The part where he’s supposed to say what he means without hiding behind a joke.

“You look like shit.” He blurts out.

Your mouth twitches. “You too.”

Steve lets out a breath that almost turns into a laugh. The wind lifts a strand of your hair and Steve has to shove his hands into his jean pockets to keep from reaching out to tuck it back. 

“I’ve been up for twenty-six hours or so.” You say, voice quiet. “Maybe more. I stopped counting.”

Steve’s eyes flick to the hoodie again. “You kept that.”

You glance down like you’ve forgotten you’re wearing it. For a second, your fingers tighten on the hem, subtle but telling.

“I didn’t pack a coat,” you say, but it’s weak. You know it. Steve knows it. Then you add, softer, “It smelled like home.”

Steve’s throat goes dry. He looks past you, toward the tower, because if he keeps looking at you he might do something stupid. The way he averts his gaze does something wild to your chest.

“You look different.” He says. 

You huff a small laugh. “Yeah? That’s what happens when you leave Hawkins. Your hair grows.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Steve says, and his voice comes out rougher than he expects.

You still. He stills too. Because there’s something dangerous in that sentence. Something that could crack open if either of you pushes it. Steve forces himself to meet your eyes.

“You look…” He starts, then stops. His hand drags through his hair. “You look beautiful.”

You blink, surprised. It doesn’t come off like a line or teasing. And it definitely doesn’t sound like Steve Harrington being Steve Harrington. It’s honest and raw. And it hits you like it hurts.

Your gaze drops, dark lashes brushing against your cheeks. When you look back up, your eyes glitter in a way they hadn’t a second ago.

“Steve…” You say quietly, not exactly sure how to react. Your body urges you toward him, like you’ve always belonged to him. But your mind keeps you planted firmly.

Steve’s heart is hammering now, louder than the wind. He can hear his pulse in his ears, escalating steadily the longer he’s alone with you. 

He gestures vaguely around him, helpless. “You shouldn’t be here.”

You lift a brow. “That’s your opening line? Hello, you look beautiful, you shouldn’t be here?”

“Yeah. I’m—” He exhales hard. “I’m not very good at this.”

“At what?”

Steve stares at you like you’ve asked him to explain the gravity.

“At you.” He says, his words almost a confession.

You go still again, breath catching. For a second, neither of you moves. And then you step closer.

Finally.

Not much. Just enough that Steve feels it in his skin, like your warmth is a gravitational pull.

“You called my dorm.” You say quietly. Steve’s stomach drops.

He opens his mouth. Closes it. Opens it again.

“I—”

“You left a message.” You continue, softer now. “About the Turnbows. About Dipshit Derek.” A flicker of a smile. “About how you needed my opinion.”

Steve swallows, dryly.

“And about wanting to hear my voice.” You add.

Steve’s chest aches. He should deny it, make a joke, turn it into something easy. But he can’t. His eyes drop to your mouth before he can stop himself.

You notice.

Your breathing changes. The space between you becomes charged, humming, like the seconds are building toward something inevitable.

Steve’s hand lifts, slow and cautious, like he’s afraid you’ll vanish if he touches you too fast. His fingers hover near your wrist, near the cuff of his hoodie. He doesn’t grab. He doesn’t pull. He just waits. Like he’s giving you the choice.

Your entire body hums in anticipation as you realize the choice Steve is giving you. You don’t move away. How could you? Instead, you tilt your head up, just slightly, and Steve’s entire world narrows down to the distance between your mouth and his.

It’s not even an inch.

It’s everything.

Steve’s breath shudders out of him like a prayer. Your hands tremble anxiously. He leans in—

The back door slams open, brutally.

“Y/N!”

You jerk back like you’ve been burned. Steve nearly falls over his own feet. Dustin barrels out to the field, eyes wide, frantic, half-angry and half-relieved, until he sees you.

Then he sees Steve.

Then he sees the way you’re both standing too close, breathing too hard, staring like you’re trying to remember how to be normal. Dustin’s face does something complicated.

“Oh.” He says, flatly.

You clear your throat. “What’s wrong?”

Dustin blinks like he’s rebooting. “Nothing. Nothing’s wrong. Hopper just wants—” He looks at Steve again. Looks at you again. “He wants everyone. Like, now. Because apparently we’re doing a thing.”

Steve drags a hand through his hair, jaw tight. “We were coming.”

“Uh-huh,” Dustin says. His tone is too casual to be real. “Sure.”

You step forward first, desperate to break the moment before it breaks you. “Okay. Let’s go.”

Dustin falls into step beside you immediately, shoulder bumping yours like a silent reminder that you’re here, that you’re solid, that you’re his big sister.

Steve follows behind, silent. 

The ache in his chest is back, worse than before. He can almost taste the air where you were, where you almost kissed. It lingers tauntingly on his lips. 

The room snaps back into motion the second you, Steve, and Dustin walk in.

Hopper is mid-argument with Murray about rotor blades and “basic physics,” Lucas is pacing like a caged animal, and Nancy is tapping her pen against a legal pad so hard it’s threatening to punch through the paper. The glass behind Hopper is still covered in half-formed plans, arrows that lead nowhere, circles around words like wormhole, Abyss, and Vecna.

Everyone looks up when you reappear.

There’s a beat of collective recalibration, like the room has to remember that you exist now, that you’re real, that you’re here to be factored into the math of survival.

Hopper jerks his chin toward the board, overwhelmed and exhausted by the chatter. 

“Everybody, shut up! Look, if somebody else has some magic bean that I don’t know about, I’m all ears. If not, it’s a risk we gotta take. We fly, or we die.”

“Fly or die!” Murray repeats. 

“Then I guess we die.” Dustin snorts. 

Immediately, the arguing starts back up again. Voices are overlapping, growing louder and angrier.

Steve doesn’t mean to speak.

He’s still half-stuck in the field. Still replaying the almost of it. Still trying to get his heart to slow the hell down.

But the words come anyway.

“Magic bean…” He whispers, face flashing with something like realization. You stand behind him, watching as he scrambles to his feet, rushes out of the room, and returns with a slinky.

“Steve? What are you-”

“We don’t need a magic bean.” He chuckles, then repeats, louder. “We don’t need a magic bean!”

The room goes quiet.

“Sorry, just… we don’t need a magic bean. We got a beanstalk right here.” Steve straightens a little as he addresses everyone, adrenaline kicking in now that his brain has something solid to latch onto. 

Realization flashes across your features, too. A bright, genuine smile breaks across your lips.  

“The radio tower.” You say, breathless and half-chuckling. 

“Exactly, there’s one in the upside down.” Steve is smiling too as he watches you catch on. 

“Max said that Vecna is trying to draw our worlds together, right?” You ask, gaze locking with Steve’s. 

“We’ll never reach the abyss from the tower. So we let Vecna draw the worlds together-” Steve continues.

“And as he draws it closer and closer, the tower will breach into the abyss.” You interrupt, positively giddy.

“Exactly!” Steve winks at you and you momentarily forget how to breathe. “And then bam! El makes her move, she does her meditation thingy and enters Vecna’s sick mind. She ambushes him.” Steve is just facing you now, as you formulate the plan in perfect synchronization.

“Presumably, when she does, it would halt the worlds from moving. We climb from the tower into the abyss, save the children, climb back down.” Your smile is wide, eyes glittering as you watch Steve in sheer adoration. 

“It’s genius.” Steve smiles back, wide and genuine. 

Dustin’s eyes flick between the two of you, sharp in that way that means he’s registering more than he’s saying. He opens his mouth.

Steve feels it coming. The little shit-eating grin. The inevitable commentary.

“Wow.” Dustin says slowly. “You two planned that fast.”

Robin snorts. “Yeah, Harrington. Since when do you collaborate without arguing for twenty minutes first?”

Steve bristles. “We’re literally just problem-solving.”

“Uh-huh.” Robin says. “Sure you are.”

Dustin squints. “Did you guys kiss out by the radio tower earlier?”

“What? No—” Steve chokes on air. 

Nancy makes a choked sound, Max snorts, and Robin slaps a hand across her mouth to keep from giggling.

“Wait, what?” Lucas asks, entirely confused.

“You guys kissed?” Mike repeats the question.

Your jaw tightens, just slightly.

“We did not kiss.” You say flatly, before anyone can push it further. “And we’re not going to. We’re just friends. That’s it. Can we please stay focused?”

The room stills for half a beat.

It’s not cruel. It’s not dramatic. It’s practical. Controlled. Mission-first. But the words land harder than they should.

Steve feels it anyway.

A dull, stupid ache blooms in his chest. The kind that has nothing to do with Vecna and everything to do with the way you said just friends like it was a rule you were setting for yourself. For both of you.

“Okay, okay. Just… noting the teamwork.” Robin lifts her hands in surrender. 

“Okay.” Nancy taps her pen, happy to change the subject. “Tower entry. Operation, what are we calling this?”

Steve hesitates. “Operation Beanstalk.”

“Because we’re climbing into the clouds and fighting a monster?” Robin’s face lights up. 

“And maybe stealing something valuable.” Dustin adds.

“Small children, to be exact.” Murray mutters.

“Fine. Operation Beanstalk. We climb. We enter the Abyss. We end Vecna. We get the kids.” Hopper exhales. 

The room goes quiet again. He looks around at all of you. 

“This is it.”

You feel Steve’s shoulder brush yours. Just barely. The room shifts naturally back into logistics, ropes, harnesses, climbing order, contingencies if the tower starts to fail.

Steve nods along, contributes where he can, forces his brain back into the plan. But some traitorous part of him keeps replaying the words you’d said.

We’re just friends. That’s it.