#outerspacebisexual

There was a soft knock on the door, and you didn’t need to look up to know that it was Ian.

Ian had been your best friend your entire life. His house sat opposite your own, as it had since you were born.

You heard the door push open, soft footsteps creeping closer until he sat in front of you. You didn’t look at him.

“I’m sorry you’re leaving,” he said, his voice cracking with his pre-pubescent drop. You had made fun of him for it mercilessly in the past, but now, you could only think about how you would never get to hear it again.

Your eyes clouded with tears, and he hesitantly reach out and placed a hand on your shoulder.

“We can still write to each other,” he tried again, and you knew that he had tears in his own eyes. “And I can call you, too. My dad says he won’t mind the bill.” Your heart ached as you recognised he was trying to comfort himself as much as he was you.

You sniffled. “I don’t want to go. I hate that she’s making me leave. I hate her.”

“You don’t mean that,” he said. Even at 13, he was wise beyond his years. “She’s your aunt.”

“She’s still taking me away from you.” You finally looked at him, and his own face had tear tracks running down his cheeks.

“We’ll still be friends. Plus, you’ll make new friends, too.”

You sniffed again, wiping at your cheeks. “Do…do you promise?”

Ian managed a smile as he unfolded something in his hand. You hadn’t even noticed he had anything. “Always,” he said, handing you a photo of the two of you from when you were little.

+

A pounding on the door had you waking up well before you had wanted to.

“Eddie! I need your help!”

You groaned and rolled over, pulling the blanket closer as you kicked Eddie’s legs. “Your son is here,” you grumbled.

Eddie huffed, not moving. “It’s the weekend. He should be annoying Harrington on the weekends.” His voice was thick with sleep as he slung an arm over you. “If we ignore him long enough, he’ll go away.”

Apparently, Eddie was choosing to ignore the fact that Dustin Henderson always got what he wanted.

“I know you’re in there! If you don’t come out right now, I’m breaking the window!”

Eddie pulled you closer for a second, before finally conceding. You cracked an eye open as he stood shirtless, stretching his arms above his head, giving you a clear view of his back. Your eyes drifted over his tattoos, before landing on the new scars littered over his back, chest, and arms.

They were healed, thankfully, but the raised scars were a reminder of his close encounter with Death itself. When you had gone with Steve, Nancy, and Robin to kill Vecna, you had made him promise to stay safe; a promise that he had failed to keep when he chose to save Dustin by sacrificing himself.

You could still hear your screams echoing in your ears as you returned to find him lifeless in Dustin’s arms, blood leaking from every part of his body. It was touch and go for hours, sitting beside him as he was stitched up while he was still unconscious.

You still had nightmares about it.

When Eddie turned to look at you, he saw your eyes on him and leaned forward, capturing your lips in a soft kiss that said everything he didn’t have to. I’m here. I’m OK. I love you.

And then he was at the front door, shouting at Dustin.

The scene was familiar, and you smiled before rolling over and falling back asleep.

+

“I don’t understand,” you said, spooning a mouthful of yogurt into your mouth. “Why are you letting Dustin be the DM?”

Eddie sighed from where he was sitting at your dining room table, books open all over the surface, eyeing you on the couch. “Because he needs to learn how to run a campaign properly, and he can’t do that without practice.”

You frowned. “And you’re doing all the hard work…why?”

“Because he is a total shithead and can’t seem to understand the logistics.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Kid is the dumbest smart person I’ve ever met.”

You had played D&D with Hellfire a few times for One Shots, but had never had to actually worry about how things worked in the long term. Eddie, however, had done this more times than you could count, and it still left you in awe of how his mind worked and his ability to foresee each tiny little change and adjust the story accordingly.

It was hard work, but he made it look easy.

You watched him flip through pages and write down different bits of information, his tongue darting out to brush over his lips. His hair was fluffier today, freshly washed, and you desperately wanted to run your fingers through it.

He caught your eye and raised his eyebrows. “What?”

You shook your head. You were long past feeling embarrassed for eyeing up your own boyfriend. “You’re so pretty.”

He brushed your comment off playfully, rolling his eyes, but you could see his pink cheeks as he looked back down, smile on his face.

You had your own small smile as you picked up his copy of The Hobbit, the calm quiet falling over the two of you. You enjoyed this, the soft domesticity that you two had formed over the past two years. You knew Eddie loved it, too.

It was broken, however, when a hesitant knocking on the door had the two of you looking at each other.

“Are you expecting someone?” he asked.

It was supposed to just be you and Eddie all day until that evening when the whole gang came over for a movie night. Steve and Robin having unlimited access to new movies meant that movie nights were commonplace now.

You stood and made your way to your front door, and as you pulled it open, you jaw nearly hit the ground.

“Ian?” you said, but it was more of a question.

The man was standing on your doorstep, backpack slung over his shoulder. He looked completely different from the last time you had seen him. His blond hair that had been buzzed for so many years as a child was longer, hanging just above his neck, and his teeth were straight, no doubt from braces that must have been and gone in the years since you had been gone.

He flashed a welcoming smile and hadn’t changed. “Hey, Y/N.” You couldn’t pull your eyes away from him. “Are you going to let me in?” he said after a moment, and you shook yourself out of your thoughts and threw yourself into his arms.

His backpack fell from his shoulder, and he just laughed as he hugged you back.

“What—what are you doing here?” you asked when you pulled away. “Your last letter said you were in—”

“—Maine. Yeah. I finished my college scout earlier than I thought and I decided to catch you on the way home.”

You furrowed your brows. “Indiana isn’t exactly on the way home.”

He shrugged. “Close enough.”

His eyes flicked behind you just a moment before you felt an arm snake around your waist.

You looked up to see Eddie assessing Ian. “Eddie,” you said, resting your hand on his chest. “This is Ian.”

“Ian? As is Ian from home?” He raised a brow.

You nodded, turning back to Ian. “Ian, this is Eddie. My boyfriend.”

Ian grinned as he held out a hand to Eddie. “Nice to meet you, man.”

Eddie stared at his extended hand for a moment too long, and you thought he wasn’t going to shake it, but he did. “Yeah, same. Y/N’s mentioned you a few times.”

Ian’s face dropped almost imperceivably, but you caught it just before he slipped on his usual smile. You could see Ian giving Eddie a once over. You had no doubt that he was surprised at his appearance. Eddie wasn’t quite the type of guy you had fawned over when you were a kid flipping through magazines, and while you had mentioned that he was a metalhead in your letters to Ian, you doubted the tall, long, shaggy-haired guy was what he pictured.

“Come in,” you said, stepping back closer to Eddie to gesture to your living room.

Ian sat on the couch, Eddie slipping in the armchair opposite him while you grabbed some water and glasses from the kitchen.

You poured a glass and handed it to him. “So, what are you doing here?” you asked, handing another glass to Eddie, who just raised his eyebrows as he took it from you before you plonked yourself at the opposite end of the couch.

“I’m here for you. And to see you and this town you can’t stop talking about.”

“Do you want me to show you around?” you asked eagerly. It felt slightly surreal. Ian was a reminder of your previous life, and now he was here in your current one. It felt like a weird mix that you never thought would happen.

Ian nodded. “Absolutely.”

You turned to Eddie, who had been silent, just watching the two of you. “Do you mind if I take Ian out today? I know we have plans later, so I’ll be back—” You turned back to Ian suddenly, leaning over and gripping his arm. “—Oh! We have a movie night tonight. You should totally come! My friends Steve and Robin—you remember me talking about them?—well, they’re bringing over a new movie, and the kids will be here; Dustin, Will, Mike, Lucas, Max, everyone!”

Ian was already nodding vigorously. “Hell yeah! I’d love to.”

You stood, mind whirring with everything that you wanted to show Ian, before looking back to Eddie. “You still have to do your D&D stuff, right? I can take Ian now and meet back here before everyone else gets here?”

Eddie was standing and moving for the table where your keys were before you could get another word out. “Nah, it can wait. I’ll drive.”

You blinked. Normally D&D took precedent over everything. “Yeah, sure.” You turned back to Ian, who was standing, backpack slung over his shoulder. “You ready?”

+

Eddie was sure that his brain would explode if he heard Ian laughing at something you said one more time.

He knew you were funny; it was one of the biggest reasons he loved you, but you weren’t that funny.

So far, he had driven you around nearly everywhere in Hawkins, the two of you giggling like schoolgirls in the back seat as you talked about things you had never even mentioned to him before.

Then, the two of you were jumping out of the car, you pulling Ian along before Eddie could even put the park brake on, disappearing into the arcade.

Eddie tried not to let the growing feeling of resentment climb any higher, but he was finding it increasingly difficult to keep it at bay. He knew that Ian had been a big part of your life before Hawkins. You had talked about him so many times, he practically knew the guy inside and out. And yet, having him here, on his turf? Yeah, that was chafing on his male pride.

He caught Steve’s eye through the glass of Family Video and entered the store.

“Who is that?” he asked immediately.

“Ian,” Eddie grumbled, leaning back against the counter.

“As in Ian?” Eddie only grunted in reply, and Steve only looked in the direction of the arcade. “Weird. He’s different that I expected.”

“Who is different to how you expected?” Robin said, suddenly appearing from the back room.

Steve glanced at her. “Y/N’s friend Ian.”

“He’s here?” she asked. “What does he look like?”

Steve nodded towards the arcade. “Like Billy Hargrove on steroids.”

Eddie grimaced. Great. As if he needed that comparison floating around.

“Oh,” Robin said, leaning on the counter beside Eddie. “that’s why you’re moody.”

“I’m not moody—”

She tsked. “I beg to differ. Look at the stance on you.” She gestured to his crossed arms and rounded shoulders. “That is a moody stance if ever I saw one.”

Eddie sighed, looking at the ceiling, willing whatever god was there to give him strength.

+

You were on a high when you got back to your place late that afternoon.

Ian had been just as excited as you all day. It felt like you were two kids again, racing down the streets of your hometown, getting into mischief. When you and Eddie had dropped Ian at his motel, he had promised to be at the movie night tonight.

You had still been rambling as you entered your place, Eddie following behind you. “I just can’t believe he’s here,” you said as you entered the kitchen, beginning to get ready for everyone to be at your place in a few hours.

Eddie slumped down at his place at your dining table. “Neither can I.”

“He said that he’s going to stay for the next few days before heading back home.”

Eddie scoffed. “Home.”

You paused, pulling out a popcorn bowl and placing it on the bench. “What?” When he didn’t say anything, you looked at him, raising your eyebrows. “Eddie.”

Eddie twirled his pencil in his fingers as he flipped a page. “This is your home.”

You frowned. “What are you talking about?”

“I mean, this is your home. Here. In Hawkins.” There was an edge to his voice that you didn’t like.

“I know.”

“So, why do you keep referring to it at as home?”

You blinked, trying to follow his train of thought, but getting derailed about a mile away from it. “Because it is? It’s just as much my home as Hawkins is.”

Eddie gripped the pencil so tight his knuckles turned white. “Right. I mean, why wouldn’t it be, with someone like him.”

“What is your problem?” you questioned, your voice rising.

Eddie leaned back, crossing his arms. “My problem? I guess I just didn’t expect to have to drive my girlfriend and a random guy around all day.”

“You didn’t have to do that. I said you could stay here—”

“—Oh, and what? Just thinking about all the stuff you two were doing all day? Yeah. No thanks.”

You could feel every drop of joy and excitement about today leaking from you with every word Eddie said. “Where is this coming from? You like Ian. You always said you wanted to meet him one day.”

“Well, maybe I didn’t think about the fact that he would be all over you and you just wouldn’t care.” The ice in his tone was lethal, and you physically took a step back despite the large distance between you.

“So, what? You don’t trust me?” You couldn’t keep the hurt from your voice. “Is that why you offered to drive us?”

Eddie didn’t answer. He just kept his gaze on the table. But it was all the confirmation you needed.

“You’re an asshole, you know that?”

“Yeah, well,” he said, and you thought he was going to continue, but he just sat there, content to let the silence speak for him.

You stared at him as your heart clenched painfully in your chest. “Fuck you, Eddie,” you spat, letting the words hang there with your heart, silently praying that he would say something.

But he didn’t.

And so, you turned away from him, continuing to get everything ready while trying desperately to keep the tears that clouded your vision at bay.

+

When everyone arrived at 6:00, you welcomed them into your house like normal. You and Eddie had spent the past two hours pretending that each other didn’t exist. You hoped that the tension between you wasn’t palpable enough that the others noticed.

You thought that he would apologise, but he hadn’t. He’d just ignored you the whole time, not even looking at you.

It turned out that Ian had no idea what the kids were talking about most of the time, but he engaged in conversation regardless, trying his best to keep up.

Dustin, Mike, Lucas, and Will were in the midst of trying to explain D&D to him and he nodded along attentively, but you could see the information was just going straight over his head.

Once Nancy and Jonathan arrived, Steve put in the movie. It was some new Tom Cruise action movie that was supposedly good. You knew Nancy would love it, and normally you would, too.

Everyone took their usual spots, spread out across the floor and multiple couches while Ian sat in the armchair.

You paused, staring at the two-seater couch that you and Eddie normally shared. He was already sitting there, looking straight ahead at the TV. If there was literally anywhere else to sit, you would have taken it gladly, but there wasn’t. So, you took your seat beside him, curling your legs beneath you and leaning as far away from him as possible.

If the others had somehow missed the fact that something was wrong, they would definitely be able to tell now. Normally, the two of you were practically in each other’s skin with how close you sat. You caught him glance at you out of the corner of your eye, but you didn’t look at him.

You tried to pay attention to the movie playing, but you couldn’t stop thinking about the fight between you and Eddie. Of course, you guys had fought plenty of times before, but nothing had ever felt like he had questioned your relationship. You had been talking about your future just weeks ago; he had even broached the topic of getting married at some point, to which you had agreed. It wasn’t a proposal, but more of a confirmation that you were both with each other for the long haul. It seemed so long ago after today.

Three movies later, and everyone was asleep. Everyone except you.

Nancy and Jonathan were curled up together. Max and Lucas were the same. The others were in different positions across the floor.

You stood, trying not to disturb Eddie, who had his head resting on the armrest, eyes closed, with that deep breathing you had come to know so well.

You pulled open a drawer in the kitchen, grabbing a pack of cigarettes and heading to the front door. Cracking it open just enough to let the smoke out, you leaned against the frame and closed your eyes after lighting up and taking a drag.

“I didn’t know you smoked,” Ian said, and you snapped your eyes open. He leaned against the diving wall, blocking out your view of some of the living room.

You took another drag. “I tried to kick it a few months ago. I only really do it when I’m stressed now,” you replied, dropping the ash outside.

“Are you?” he asked and amended when you looked confused. “Stressed, I mean.”

“I guess I am,” you said, eyes flicking over to Eddie’s sleeping form. He always looked so peaceful when he slept. Like nothing could possibly faze him.

“I’m glad you found a family, Y/N,” Ian said after a moment. And you looked at him. “They seem like really great people.”

You couldn’t stop the small smile that graced your face as you looked at the mismatched group spread out across your living room. “They are.”

“I was worried about you, you know? Your letters seemed really sad for a while there.” Ian’s voice had dropped, and your heart clenched. You had been really sad for months, before you became friends with anyone. Before Eddie. “But then you started talking about him.” He nudged your shin with his foot. “After that, I knew that you would be fine.”

Your eyes softened as you eyed you boyfriend laying on the couch. “I don’t know where I’d be without him," you admitted. Your voice cracked as you continued, “Sometimes I think about my life without him—” You didn’t mention the fact that you had faced monster and death on multiple occasions, but you could explain around the truth. “—I almost lost him, a bit over six months ago. And it was the worst thing I’ve ever experienced. Everything I see in my future, he is right beside me. I can’t remember a time where I ever thought he wouldn’t be.”

You wiped away a tear that escaped your eye as you finished off your cigarette.

“He loves you, I know it.”

You swallowed. “Maybe.”

Ian didn’t say anything, and you sent him a sad smile as you headed upstairs to your bed.

+

Everyone had left by the time you woke.

When you walked downstairs, the living room was empty and everything had been packed away. It was like no one had even been there.

Your back door opened, and you turned to see Eddie. He froze when he saw you, half-way in the door, empty popcorn bowl in hand. He cleared his throat and closed the door after a moment before heading into the kitchen.

You stared after him.

He washed up the bowl, setting it in the drying rack. “Everyone left about an hour ago,” he said, and you glanced at the clock. It was nearly 10:00am. “Do you want something to eat?”

You looked back at him to see him leaning against the sink, looking at you. You shook your head.

Eddie didn’t move, he just stared at you. You could see the wheels turning behind his eyes. “I—I heard you last night,” he confessed, and you closed your eyes, biting your lip. You didn’t want to think about it.

You heard him move, and he was in front of you.

His hand came up to rest on the side of your neck, just as it always did. “Open your eyes,” he asked, voice soft. “Please.”

When you did, you saw how close he was. His brown eyes were misty as they scanned every inch of your face. You own hand came up to rest on his forearm.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry for yesterday. For making you think I don’t trust you. That was me being…insecure.” He brushed his thumb across your jaw. “But I’m the most sorry for making you think that I would ever stop loving you.” He stepped closer, so that your chest was flush against his. “I love you. More than I could ever try and say.”

He pressed his lips to yours in a soft kiss that nearly took your breath away with its sincerity. When he pulled away, you said, “I’m sorry if I made you upset yesterday, too. I was just excited.” You placed your other hand on his chest, right above his heart. “You don’t have to ever worry about anyone else. You’re it for me, Eddie Munson. No one else could take my heart from you.”

Eddie grinned, a proper grin that had you kissing him again.

a/n: this ended up a lot longer than i thought it would, but i hope you liked it!

But that affirmation you had been repeating to yourself for weeks held no weight now. It had been your lifeline in all those moments of doubt and insecurity, the one thing that you told yourself over and over and over, assuring you that you were wrong.

And yet, you had been right, despite all the lies you pretended were the truth.

You heard Steve’s car pull into your driveway.

You didn’t get up to let him in. He and the other’s had borrowed your spare key, taking turns in checking in on you after your refusal to leave your house for the third day in a row.

You stayed still, curled up beneath the covers, eyes closed as Steve opened your bedroom door.

“Hey,” he murmured, coming to sit on the edge of your bed.

You didn’t reply, just barely peeking your eyes open, but he didn’t look dejected, he just gave you a tight-lipped smile—one that reeked of pity.

Yesterday, it had been Nancy who came by. She had sat right where Steve was, that same sympathetic look on her face. You hadn’t wanted to talk then either.

“How are you feeling?” he asked, just loud enough for you to hear.

The tears burned the back of your eyes. “I’m fine,” you whispered, but your lip trembled, and Steve was quick to brush his hand over the side of your head.

“You don’t need to lie to me,” he told you, the same softness to his voice as before, as if he, too, was trying to protect the quiet bubble just as much as you were. That was what you told yourself, even though you knew it wasn’t true. “Talk to me.”

Your throat ached as you swallowed back a sob. You’d cried enough these past few days. “I—I don’t know what to do.”

His hand brushed over your head again. “About what?”

“About the love I have for him. I love him, Steve.” Just saying those words out loud had you weeping. “I love him so much and it still wasn’t enough.”

Steve’s hand rested on your shoulder, and he squeezed it just tight enough to make you look up at him. “Y/N, it would have been enough for anyone else. I don’t know why he did what he did, but I do know that it wasn’t because of you.”

“But if I—”

“No,” he cut you off, tone firm—firmer than anyone had been in days. “No. This isn’t on you. This is on him.”

The words should have comforted you. He meant them to be comforting, but they didn’t help. They only caused you to think about Eddie.

And it made you think of the fact that he hadn’t contacted you at all.

He hadn’t tried to call. He hadn’t come over. He hadn’t made any effort to try and talk to you.

Maybe you don’t mean enough to him, that tiny voice whispered. Maybe you weren’t enough for him to even bother to apologise. Maybe he doesn’t want to apologise.

You clamped your eyes shut, trying to block out the awful words that just kept tumbling and turning through your mind.

Steve removed his hand from your shoulder, and you instantly missed the comfort of it.

When you opened your eyes, they fell to him—to his hands—and you frowned.

“What is that?” you asked.

“What?”

You removed your arm from the warmth of your covers to take his hand in yours.

His knuckles were bruised, the middle two split, but they had healed enough to not need to be covered.

Steve tried to pull his hand away, but you held fast. “Steve?”

“I—uh,” He swallowed and looked to the wall, avoiding your eyes. “It’s from the party.”

Your brows furrowed. “You got into a fight?” You had been so focused on yourself that you hadn’t even realised he had been hurt at all, not at the party or over the past few days.

He pulled his bottom lip between his teeth, eyes not leaving your patterned wallpaper. “Sort of.”

You studied his side profile, the way his eyes darted around, his hesitancy to answer your questions.

Steve had been with Jonathan and Nancy most of the night at the party, if you remembered correctly. From the couch at the Roland’s, you had been able to see most of the first floor and you couldn’t recall him getting into a fight. If you had, you would have at least tried to stop him. That man did not need any more knocks to the head. It must have happened upstairs—

It hit you, and you shrunk back.

“Oh,” you said, and this time when he attempted to pull his hand away, you let him.

“I—yeah. Jonathan and I, we—” He cleared his throat, standing. “I should probably go. Do you need anything?”

Jonathan had been at the top of the stairs, but Steve…Steve hadn’t come out until after. Judging by his knuckles, now you knew why. You wondered if Jonathan had even tried to stop him.

You stared at him for a long moment before shaking your head. He rushed out a hurried good-bye, and then your door was pulled shut with barely more than a click.

+

School was the absolute last place you wanted to be.

The incident wasn’t common knowledge amongst your peers, but you knew that it was only a matter of time before they found out. Already, hushed whispers trailed you; some sympathetic, some not.

It was also the first time in over two years that you didn’t have Eddie by your side as you walked through the front doors. Even before you got together, you had been friends, and his presence right beside you had become a staple in your life that you never thought you’d lose.

But you had.

The worst part was lunch.

As you grabbed your tray, your eyes immediately went to the Hellfire table out of habit, and you stopped short when you realised that you couldn’t sit there anymore.

Eddie wasn’t there in his pride of place at the head of the table, thankfully, but Jeff’s eyes found you, confused as to why you weren’t coming over.

It became obvious that the rest of The Hellfire Club didn’t know.

As you stood there, you wondered if they had known about Eddie and Chrissy. Had they been aware of Eddie’s deals with her? Had you sat across from them every day being the only one in the dark? They were Eddie’s friends first; they didn’t owe you any loyalty. That belonged to their infallible Dungeon Master. Had they humoured you while Eddie snuck out to the—

An arm slipped through yours. “I hear that the band freaks and the school newspaper weirdos have way more fun than D&D nerds,” Robin whispered into your ear as she guided you towards a table at the back of the cafeteria.

You had never been more grateful.

She saw the beholden look on your face and shook her head. “Don’t,” she said softly, and then launched into a spiel about how she had a pop quiz this morning that she most definitely flopped.

Nancy was happy to see you, eyes lighting up as she moved her bag off the table to make a place for you opposite her. Robin dropped into the seat beside you. “Hello, I didn’t expect to see you today.”

You sent Nancy a shy smile. “Yeah,” you said, picking up your fork, “I was surprised, too.”

You had been thinking about skipping school today, and the rest of the week if you were honest, but you knew that it wasn’t going to make a difference about how you were feeling. Your bubble was nothing more than a delusion that you allowed yourself to believe in anyway.

“Well, either way, it’s good to see you here.”

Robin was quick to say, “And to have you sitting with us now. You have no idea the fun we have here.”

You raised a brow. “Oh really?”

“You bet,” she told you, taking a rather large bite out of her sandwich. “Us two? We’re living it up while you losers sit around whining about whatever it is you whine about all day.”

“You don’t have to sell it to me, Rob. I believe you.”

Around a mouthful of food, she said, “Look! You’re already laughing. Proof!”

True to her word, you were grinning wider than you had in nearly a week. Being by yourself for so long had only allowed you to stew in your own self-pity. Being here, with your friends who were trying so hard to help you?

That was worth braving the school corridors for.

Robin placed a hand on your arm. “Oh, did you hear about Lucas’s basketball game? He wasn’t benched—” She immediately cut herself off as her eyes flew to something—or someone—behind you.

You tensed, already not liking the way her eyes bulged as she beheld who stood there.

“Um, Y/N? Can I please talk to you?” Chrissy’s voice was quiet, so much so that you almost missed it as you turned to look at her.

She fiddled with the sleeves of her varsity cheer jacket, the one she always wore, the one you knew that she wore when she would see Eddie.

“W-What?” you managed.

She swallowed, eyes darting around at the stares that came with being the Queen of Hawkins High. “I—I would like to talk to you, please.” She pulled the sleeve of her jacket particularly hard, and it displaced the neckline of her shirt just enough to reveal a tiny patch of discoloured skin on her collarbone.

Your throat suddenly felt like it was closing up.

You couldn’t pull your eyes from that spot of skin. Had it been Eddie? Or had it been Jason? Had Jason known that his girlfriend slept with the freak he hated so much? You had never really liked Jason Carver, but right now, in this exact moment, there was no one else on earth who you understood more.

Both thoughts had bile rising as you tried to calm your racing heart. “I don’t want to talk to you, Chrissy.”

She looked down at you, a dumbstruck look on her face. “Why?”

Your jaw dropped open, and you knew that Robin and Nancy shared the same look. “Why—Why do I not want to talk to you?” you uttered. “Because you slept with my boyfriend, Chrissy.”

Her eyes widened, and she quickly glanced around at the surrounding tables.

As she did, that feeling that you had become so accustomed to whenever you saw her slowly morphed into disbelief.

Even now, she was worried about people finding out that she was the one who fucked the freak. Even as she stood beside the person who she had stolen him from, who she had a hand in betraying.

“Are you serious?”

“Please,” she murmured, “Can we speak outside?”

“I’m not going anywhere,” you told her, voice shaking.

“But—”

You dug your fingers into the side of the table.

You had no idea where all of this anger was coming from. For days, you hadn’t been able to feel anything except a swirling pool of heartbreak and numbness. And now, this rush of hostility coursed through you faster than you could stop it.

“—Chrissy,” Nancy interrupted. “You should go.”

Robin’s hand coming to rest on your forearm was the only thing keeping your grounded.

Chrissy eyed the growing number of stares that were on her. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, and your chair was sliding back in an instant as you stood.

She shrank back at the ferocity in your eyes, mouth dropping open as you leaned forward. “I don’t want your apologies,” you spat. “I want you to fuck off.” Robin and Nancy were standing, too, Robin’s hand a hairsbreadth from your arm as if to grab you at a moment’s notice.

Chrissy took a single step back. Then another. Her eyes didn’t leave you as she raced away from your table.

You stared after her, blood thrumming in your ears and your heart pounding in your chest.

But as soon as the adrenaline rush arrived, it deserted you, and that rage became humiliation as you noted all the eyes on you.

You slumped back into your seat.

Nancy sat wide-eyed across from you. “Are…Are you OK?” she asked, somewhere between shocked and…impressed?

“I honestly don’t know,” you muttered. “I think I’m going to be sick.”

Your face burned, and you shook your head. At what, you didn’t know. Maybe at your actions. Maybe at Chrissy’s fucking ignorance.

“Well,” Robin said, brows raised as she looked between you and Nancy. “I think we can safely say our table hasn’t seen this much action in years.”

You covered your face with your hands. “I thought you said you had fun here?”

“I’m a liar.”

+

You knew that going to The Hideout for the first time since Halloween would be difficult, but you hadn’t expected it to be so hard.

You didn’t expect to see Eddie in everything.

He wasn’t actually there on the random Friday night that you, Nancy, Robin, Steve, and Jonathan decided to hang out, but you saw him on the stage.

You saw him leaning against the back wall, you standing snuggly against him, playing with his hair as you listened to the band on after Corroded Coffin.

You saw him sitting at the bar, peppering kisses along your jaw.

You saw him at the table by the window, his eyes lighting up when he spotted you coming back with drinks in hand.

The Hideout was a living, breathing reminder of everything you and Eddie had once been.

And you didn’t expect it to hurt so much.

“I just can’t believe it’s taking this long,” Jonathan shouted over the music, bringing your attention back to the group. He was rambling on about something to do with Chief Hopper and his mother, and to be honest, you were a little lost.

“Didn’t they go to high school together?” Steve asked. “They’ve known each other forever.”

“Exactly!” Jonathan exclaimed, surging forward enough to jolt Nancy who was perched under his arm. “It’s like, you’ve known each other for so long and you both know you like each other, so why are you just waiting around for something to happen?”

Steve opened his mouth to reply, but one of the bartenders appeared at the end of the table. Earl, you remembered, and from the way his face lit up, he remembered you, too.

“Y/N!” he called, and you waved politely. “I haven’t seen you here for ages! We missed you at Eddie’s set last week. I almost called you when he got so wasted he couldn’t walk, but he insisted he was fine. Stumbled out of here by himself with nothing but his wits. Stupid boy.”

Despite everything, a pang of worry shot through you. “Oh,” you said awkwardly, “I—yeah, Eddie and I aren’t really…” You trailed off, and Earl’s face fell a fraction.

“Ah, well, next round is on me,” he told you, and you sent him a grateful smile as he disappeared into the throng of people.

You weren’t quite sure what to do with yourself, and Steve picked up on it, launching back into the conversation with Jonathan.

That seemed to be your general state of being now. Unsure.

You were unsure who you were without Eddie. You were unsure how you could go forward when a small part of you kept wanting to go back. Back to the man that you had made plans with for after graduation. The man who you had promised to be with forever; promised to build a life with outside of Hawkins in less than a few months.

Eddie still hadn’t tried to see you. He still hadn’t called, or come to your house, or even tried to accost you at school like Chrissy had.

Over the past two weeks, you hadn’t even seen him in the halls at school, or the cafeteria, despite his van being in the parking lot every day.

He simply disappeared from your life, and you weren’t sure if that was a good thing or not.

The lump in your throat made itself apparent, just like it always did. It practically lived within you now.

You slid out of the booth, shooting your friends a quick glance. “Bathroom,” you said quickly, before weaving past people you both recognised and didn’t. Most of the people you only knew because of Eddie.

The bathroom was empty. A small mercy, as you locked the door and sat on the lid of the toilet, head in your hands.

Coming here so soon was a mistake. It was too much.

You pressed the heels of your palms into your eyes, quietly savouring the pressure.

You didn’t belong here without Eddie.

You didn’t belong anywhere without Eddie.

No matter how much you tried to kid yourself, nothing felt right without him.

There was a knock on the door, but you ignored it.

You hadn’t ever even been to The Hideout without him. It was his place, and you just tagged along, ringing in the perks of being with the band. Which weren’t many except maybe a few free drinks here and there.

But to everyone you met there, you were Eddie’s.

And now you weren’t.

And that hurt so much.

Someone knocked again, and this time you shouted, “Give me a minute!”

The person on the other side was silent, and you rubbed at your eyes, patterns playing behind your eyelids in a kaleidoscope of colours and shapes.

It was comforting, somehow.

The door clicked open, and your head shot up to see Nancy standing there, hair pin in hand. “Sorry,” she said, looking only slightly guilty. “I wanted to check on you. I was worried.”

You scoffed. “What if I was peeing?”

She shut the door. “Then we would have known each other a lot more intimately than we did ten seconds before now.” She eyed you up and down, eyes not missing a thing. She was so perceptive that it was almost scary. “Too much?”

You nodded. “Too much.”

“We can go, you know? We don’t have to stay if it’s making you upset.”

“I—I want to. I just—” You waved your hands around. “—It doesn’t feel right. Without him. Nothing does.”

Nancy gave you one of her closed mouth smiles. “I know it feels that way now, but it will get better. I promise.” She knelt before you, hands on your knees as she leaned down to catch your eye. “What he did, you can’t go back, no matter how much you want to.”

You chewed the inside of your cheek. “How long will it take?” You felt like a child asking questions that didn’t have an answer.

Nancy shrugged. “I don’t know. But I do know that a week ago, this would have sent you spiralling. And now, you’re not even crying.” You blinked, feeling for the first time that your eyes were dry. She smiled. “Time, honey. You just need time.”

+

“Why are we here again?” you grumbled to Jonathan as you both got out of his car on the main street.

“Because one: I need help carrying all this to the car, and two: I also need help putting it together,” he told you.

“And why am I tasked in helping you put your brother’s Christmas present together? It’s still months away.”

Jonathan sighed, all mock disappointment. “Well, you weren’t my first choice, but everyone else is busy.”

You jabbed your finger into his arm. “That’s mean, you know that?”

“Maybe if you stopped complaining so much, we’d already be done,” he teased, and you rolled your eyes.

The main street wasn’t as busy as you thought it would be on a Saturday mid-afternoon.

People still meandered up and down the street, but most were on a mission, like you and Jonathan.

Jonathan hadn’t even explained exactly what it was that you were picking up and putting together. You just knew that he was really excited about giving it to Will. And you could hardly say no to him when it was practically saying no to sweet, little Will.

“Don’t forget we have to pick Lucas and Max up from the arcade on the way back,” you reminded him.

“Why do we have to do that again?”

“Because you recruited me and I already said yes to them, so we have to combine plans.” You side stepped a large group of elderly women who pushed straight through the middle of you two. Jonathan kept walking and was a few metres ahead by the time the group of ladies finished filing past.

You stepped off to follow after him when your name was called from across the street.

Looking up, you froze as Eddie came rushing across the street towards you.

It was as if every single thought you’d ever had emptied from your mind as he came to a stop a few feet from you.

His hair was just as messy as it always was, and you noted the faded bruise on his cheekbone. You didn’t have to guess where that had come from, and the bags under his eyes were much more prominent than they normally were.

Seeing him now, your stomach churned with so many different emotions that you weren’t even sure what you were feeling.

He was a little out of breath as he said, “Can I talk to you? Please?” His dark eyes were pleading, and you fought against the urge to instantly cave, just like you always did when he shot you his puppy dog eyes.

“I—”

You were cut off when Jonathan suddenly appeared beside you. He looked beyond angry; his brows creased, and his top lip pulled back. “I thought we told you to keep your distance, Munson,” he ground out.

Eddie looked surprised to see him. He obviously thought you’d been alone. “I just want to talk, man. Please. I’ve stayed away, but I need to talk to you.” He directed the last bit at you. “Please.”

You didn’t think that you’d heard him say please so much in his life. He was practically begging.

“What do you want to say?” you asked timidly. Eddie glanced between you and Jonathan. “It’s fine, Jonathan. Just give me a minute?”

He looked unsure, but eventually conceded, shooting Eddie a dirty look as he made his way up the street just enough to give you some privacy. You had known him long enough to know that he was still within hearing distance.

“What did you want to talk about?”

When Eddie’s eyes finally found yours again, they looked pained. “I…I wanted to talk about us.”

“There is no us, Eddie.”

“I know. I know that. But I’m so, so sorry. You have no idea how hard these past few weeks have been for me. Staying away from you—”

“How hard they’ve been for you?” You laughed, right in his face. “How do you think they’ve been for me? You didn’t even try and see me.”

“Steve and Jonathan told me not to. They said—”

“I don’t give a shit what Steve and Jonathan said. You cheated on me and then just abandoned me.” Your voice wavered, and you hated that Eddie caught it.

He tried to reach for you, but you stepped back and pulled your hand away. His eyes flashed with hurt, and you squashed the part of you that felt bad. “And I’m so sorry, sweetheart. It was a mistake.”

You closed your eyes for a second, hating the way your pet name rolled off his tongue. The pet name that he hadn’t used in the weeks before Halloween. It had become non-existent once he started seeing Chrissy.

“How many times?” you asked suddenly.

He looked confused. “What?”

“How many times, Eddie?” you repeated. You didn’t want to say the words out loud.

Understanding your meaning, his eyes found the ground. He was silent for a long moment. “Six,” he mumbled.

You choked. “Six?” You took another step back.

“It—Y/N, wait—”

“—Six times you slept with her and then came home to me?”

You weren’t even sure why you were entertaining this conversation. You knew that it was only going to end up with you hurting more than you already were.

“No, I never saw you on those days,” he confessed.

You stared at him. “Is that supposed to make it better?”

His eyes widened, and he rushed out, “No, no. I’m just trying to explain.”

The melancholic agony that you’d been stuck in for weeks was suddenly sharpening. The razor’s thin edge became no longer wanting or not wanting, it became anger and rage. “There is nothing you could possibly explain to make this better.”

His voice became pleading, and he stepped towards you as if you were going to suddenly disappear. “Please, baby, it was a mistake. Chrissy—she’s not you. I want you. I need you—”

Your fist was flying before you could stop it, and you only registered what you had done when your knuckles stung.

Eddie reeled back, and you stared wide-eyed at him. His hand went to his face, holding the spot between his cheekbone and his nose.

He opened and closed his mouth.

“I loved you, Eddie,” you uttered, clutching your fist in your other hand. “I gave you everything, and it still wasn’t enough for you. I needed my boyfriend to love me enough to not sleep with other people.”

Jonathan was suddenly standing beside you.

“Fuck you, Eddie,” you spat as Jonathan took your arm. “I don’t need you anymore.”

If Eddie was going to say something, you didn’t find out, because Jonathan was pulling you up the street past the onlookers who were gawking at both you and Eddie.

“Are you OK?” he asked.

“No,” you muttered, and you weren’t sure if it was the adrenaline or just pure mania, but you started to laugh. “That really fucking hurt. I think I broke my hand.”

+

Pulling the door open to Family Video an hour before closing, you were pleased to see it was empty aside from the man you were looking for.

“Harrington,” you called as the door shut behind you, “I need a movie recommendation.”

Looking up from where he was leaned against the counter flicking though a magazine, Steve seemed both surprised and happy to see you. “You’ve come to the right place,” he declared, standing up. “We have movies galore. What are you looking for?”

You grinned as you reached the counter. “Something funny, but also a little sad, with a killer soundtrack.”

He pretended to ponder for a moment. “Sounds an awful lot like your favourite movie,” he pronounced.

“Someone has to keep this place afloat. Why not me and my little favourites?”

Steve rolled his eyes playfully. “Where would we be without you?” he joked, pulling a tape from beneath the counter and setting it in front of you.

You raised a brow. “You had it sitting back there already?”

He shrugged. “Had a hunch.”

Reaching for the cash in your pocket, you hissed when your knuckles caught the lip of the pocket. Steve noticed, and his eyes shot to your hand.

“I heard you socked Munson in the face today,” he remarked, and you couldn’t quite tell the tone he used.

“Yeah,” you said sheepishly, placing the money on the counter.

He held out his hand, wagging his fingers. “Let me see.”

Gingerly, you placed your hand in his own, watching as he studied your knuckles. Unlike his, the skin of your knuckles was still intact, but they were slowly starting to bruise.

And they hurt like hell. You didn’t know how people did it over and over again. Just one mediocre punch and you were sure you wouldn’t be able to hold a pencil for a week.

“We match,” you observed, and he shot you a disapproving look.

“Not really something I wanted to match you for.” He brushed his thumb over them, and you winced. “You’re lucky it’s not broken.”

“Jonathan already gave me that spiel,” you muttered. He had seriously ripped into you on the drive from the main street. Not only had you ruined his plans for the day and still forced him to pick up Lucas and Max, but he then had to take you to the hospital which he was less than impressed with.

The verdict had been bruised knuckles and not a break, but the doctor had advised you to lay off punching people in the face in the future.

Still looking at your hand, Steve started chuckling and you narrowed your eyes. “What?”

He shook his head. “I just can’t believe you punched him in the main street.”

“He’s the one who came at me. If anything, he chose the location,” you tried to justify.

Steve smiled. “I’m proud of you,” he said after a second. “I know it was hard for you.”

Your heart squeezed in your chest. “Thank you, Stevie.”

And you really meant it.

You had no doubt that if it weren’t for the support of your friends, you wouldn’t be where you were. If it weren’t for them, you might never have known about Eddie and Chrissy.

And as much as you had been confused and upset about not seeing Eddie in the last few weeks, Steve’s threats about giving you space were the best thing that could have happened. Because you would have gone back to him if he showed up on your doorstep. You would have continued to bleed yourself dry for him over and over again.

Steve tapped your fingers, and you looked back at him.

Like Nancy said, it would still take some time.

But you were all right with that.

The loss to Vecna was still fresh in everyone’s minds, as fresh as the giant cracks through Hawkins that had killed so many. It was still painfully fresh in your own mind. You had lost your brother Eddie, and you had left him there, in the Upside Down.

You couldn’t escape the pain that encompassed you no matter where you went. The memory of coming back to your trailer and finding him laying there with Dustin. He was already gone by then, and you had missed out on spending his final moments with him.

You could still hear your screams in your ears as your knees buckled and met the hard ground. You could still feel Steve’s arms circling you, holding you as you crawled to your brother, his eyes open but unseeing.

You remembered Dustin talking to you, sputtering out apologies and trying to explain that Eddie had sacrificed himself to save him—to save you and the others. He had told you that even in his last moments, Eddie had told him to tell you that he loved you. And no matter how much you tried to push it down, an awful part of you rose up that wanted to resent Dustin for being the one with him and not you. You knew it wasn’t fair, but you had lost your brother, and nothing was fair anymore.

The next few days had been the hardest. You had been the one to tell your Uncle Wayne, and it had made things worse, because he had been so relieved to see you. He had pulled you into a ferocious hug, just like he had done when you were a child, whispering how grateful he was that you were all right. But then his face dropped when you hadn’t answered his questions about Eddie.

Everywhere you looked, you saw Eddie. Your trailer no longer felt safe and homely. It was an open wound that housed everything Eddie had been and would never become. His graduation cap that had been hanging from the end of his bed for three years would never be worn. His guitar would never be played again. You would never come home to complain about the volume of his amp, and you felt guilty for all the times you did. The posters on his walls stared at you every time you entered his room, mocking you with reminders of Eddie on stage.

Two days after his death, Steve had found you on the floor of Eddie’s room, surrounded by torn up posters that you had ripped from the walls. Your throat was raw from the screaming, both in anger, and then agony as you tried to put them back together. As you tried to piece back together this part of your brother.

Steve hadn’t tried to tell you it would be OK. Because he knew it wouldn’t be.

He had just held you, tears of his own welling up as you sobbed into his chest, barely able to hold yourself up, hating that he couldn’t take this pain away for you. Hating that he couldn’t make this better.

Weeks later, and everything had settled into a melancholic lull of trying to get through each day without crying.

Some days were better than others. The days when you visited Max were worse. When you sat at her bedside in hospital and read the letter she had given you aloud, eyes running over the heartfelt words that she had been too scared to say out loud. You sometimes wondered if she could hear you. And every time you did, you prayed that your voice would guide her back to the surface.

You had already lost a brother. You couldn’t lose someone who was like a little sister, too.

Steve and you had grown distant. Even as the two of you curled against each other at night, the space between you seemed to stretch for miles.

There had been no fight, no angry words, you just grew further from each other as the days passed.

And you hated it.

You hated that he was right there beside you and yet he felt so far away. You hadn’t felt this separate from Steve since before you got together three years ago. Before you had really known him, back when he was King Steve, and you were The Freak’s Sister, who had been partnered together for a science project.

That seemed like lifetimes ago now, and you never thought that you would feel that way again.

Because even when he kissed you, it felt like there was a wall growing higher and higher. Even when you sat together, pressed into his side, he wasn’t there. His eyes were on the TV, but his mind was far away.

In your own mind, you knew that you were hardly any better. You knew that you were pulling away from him just as much as you wanted him to be closer.

It was as if you were stuck in a weird dance of yearning and anguish, perpetually out of step.

At first, you thought you could fix it by trying to go back to how you were before, but that only resulted in you breaking down in your car as you caught sight of one of Eddie’s tapes in the glove box. You had still been sat in your car when Steve pulled into his driveway, and he had peeled you out of the driver’s seat and into his house.

Steve had left you alone that night, citing Robin needing his help with something important as his reason. He was gone all night, crawling into bed just before dawn. Before then, he would stay up late in the house. Sometimes he would sit outside by the pool. Sometimes he would just watch TV for hours instead of sleeping beside you. But that was the first time he started to leave the house.

Every time he left, you convinced yourself that he would be back in a minute. Just a minute. He was simply driving to the store. Or he was driving Dustin somewhere. He would be back in a minute.

But the minutes always dragged on for hours, with you jerking awake at every little sound, thinking that it was him coming home.

Eventually, you started to sleep better, only waking when he climbed into bed. You always pretended to be asleep. You couldn’t face whatever it was that was keeping him from you. You didn’t want to know. So, you lived in agonizing ignorance, pretending that you didn’t notice his absence.

+

You had slept in longer than normal.

You hadn’t been woken by Steve coming home, and you worried that he hadn’t come home at all. But the blankets were pushed back on his side, and his watch sat on his bedside table.

He had come home.

Slipping out of his bed and down the stairs, you found him in the living room. He was digging through random drawers, obviously looking for something. He paused when he saw you, his eyes giving you a once over before returning to the open drawer.

“Morning,” he said.

“Hey,” you replied. He looked so tired, you thought. Large bags under his eyes, and his beautiful brown eyes were dull. You could tell that the sleepless nights were getting to him. Maybe he did sleep, just somewhere else. You shook that thought away as soon as it arrived. “What are you looking for?”

Steve closed the drawer and opened another one. “I told Lucas that he could have my old Walkman.” He sighed and closed the drawer, pulling open a different one.

You ducked into the hallway, opening the cupboard under the stairs grabbing the Walkman, before returning to Steve. You held it out to him. “Here.”

“Oh, thanks.” He took it from you, eyes barely glancing at you as he opened it and removed the tape that was in it. You took it from him, smiling as you saw it was your Bay City Rollers album.

You brushed your fingers over the track listing, pausing at ‘I Only Wanna Be with You’.

The sun was high in the sky, leaving you sweating under the hot Indiana sun as you planted an array of flowers and plants in front of your trailer.

You weren’t a huge fan of gardening, but your Uncle Wayne had started to let the weeds build up with his double shifts at the plant, so you thought it would be a nice surprise for him when he woke up to get ready for work.

You had asked Eddie if he wanted to help, to which he replied, “I’d rather die.”

You had probably chosen the worst time of day to start, but you were on a time crunch. Uncle Wayne would be up in a few hours, and you wanted to have it done.

You hummed along to the music, adjusting your headphones before unpotting a plant and placing it into the freshly dug hole. The music was loud enough that you couldn’t hear the outside world, which was just how you liked it.

The album had been a gift from your uncle when you were only nine years old. One that he had admittedly asked the woman behind the counter for when he told her he wasn’t really sure what a nine-year-old girl would like.

You had been ecstatic when you received it, and it was still one of your all-time favourites, even ten years later.

You were totally zoned out, digging the next hole and humming, and you jumped when two hands rested on your shoulders. You yelped, and if it wasn’t for the hands that gripped you tighter, you would have fallen face-first into the dirt.

You spun around to find Steve leaning over you and laughing.

You pulled your headphones off and said, “What the hell, Steve? I almost had a heart attack.”

Steve let you go as you stood. “It’s not my fault you have your music blasting. I drove right up to you and everything.”

As he said, his red BMW was parked only a few metres from you. “Yeah, OK. That’s fair enough,” you admitted. “What are you doing here?”

“I just finished work,” he said, stepping forward until you were only inches apart. “I came to hang out.”

You raised a brow. “Hang out, huh?”

Steve scoffed. “Get your mind out of the gutter, Munson.”

You laughed and wrapped your arms around his middle. “I can’t help that I have such a pretty boyfriend.”

“I still don’t know how I feel about you calling me pretty.”

“You should be flattered,” you declared. “You’re the only guy I call pretty.”

Steve dug his fingers into your sides, making you squeal. “I’d better be.”

You pushed him away, but he reached out and took your headphones from your neck. “What are you listening to?”

“Bay City Rollers.”

Steve rolled his eyes as he slipped them on. “Typical.”

“They’re good!” you defended.

“Yeah, for teenage girls.”

“I am a teenage girl, Harrington. If you have a problem with that, you can stop listening to them.” You reached for the headphones, but he slipped out of your grasp. The headphone wires pulled tight from where your Walkman was clipped to your waist.

“I never said I didn’t like them, babe,” he teased, as he slipped the headphones around his neck and turned the volume up until you could both hear I Only Wanna Be with You playing. “This is your favourite,” he said. It wasn’t a question, he knew that it was, and your heart fluttered. Steve could still make heat rise to your cheeks like you were a schoolgirl.

He pulled you close, wrapping his arms around you and swaying the two of you around to the music while half-singing-half-mumbling the lyrics. “Ever since we’ve met, you’ve had a hold on me. No matter what you do, I only want to be with you.”

You laughed as he tried to spin you and you just managed to get all caught up in the headphone wires. You untangled yourself, and Steve pulled you close again, his face just a hairsbreadth from yours. You couldn’t wipe the smile from your face if you tried, and you kissed him.

You only pulled away when the door to your trailer opened, and Eddie stepped out. “Oh, gross. Get a room,” he groaned, before taking off in the direction of his van.

You flipped him off, still smiling as you yelled, “Get lost, moron.”

The memory was so vivid that it brought tears to your eyes.

It was so distant from the way you and Steve were now. Back then, you hadn’t thought that your brother would be dead in less than a year. You hadn’t thought that you and Steve would ever be on the cusp of losing each other, even though you were still hopelessly in love with him.

Steve wrapped the headphones around the Walkman and made for the door. He was leaving again, he was leaving again, he was leaving again. That one thought replayed over and over as you looked at him. You couldn’t watch him walk away again.

“Steve,” you called gingerly.

He stopped in the doorway, but he didn’t turn around.

You bit your lip in an attempt to keep your tears at bay. “Are we…” You swallowed back the lump in your throat. You had to talk about it. If you didn’t, the tension would only sharpen until it became a blade that would hurt the both of you. “Do you want to break up?” The words hurt as you said them, as if you had turned the knife on yourself.

And for every second that he didn’t answer, for every second that the silence stretched, the knife buried itself deeper into your heart.

“No,” he said finally, and when he turned towards you, his eyes were clouded with unshed tears. His voice was quiet, broken in a way you hadn’t heard before as he said, “I love you. But I can hardly look at you.”

“What?” you whispered, afraid of what would come next.

Steve’s tongue darted between his lips as he looked at you, just like it always did when he was thinking hard.

“Steve,” you pleaded. “Please.” You didn’t know what you were asking for. You just wanted something. Anything.

“I’m sorry,” he uttered. A single tear escaped his eye, but he didn’t wipe it away.

You furrowed your brows. “For what?”

He heaved in a shaky breath. “For everything. For Eddie. For Max.”

Your breath hitched as he said your brother’s name. “Why are you apologising for them?”

“Because it’s my fault,” he admitted, voice breaking again. “It’s my fault. Because I was supposed to protect Max, and…and then I was the one who told you to come with me instead of staying with Eddie. I was selfish and I wanted you with me—” He let out a strangled cry. “And then he died. And you weren’t with him.”

You stared at him, the knife in your chest pushing even deeper than you could have imagined as you stood in front of your boyfriend who somehow thought that this was his fault. “Baby, it’s not your fault. I—”

“But it is, isn’t it?” he cut you off. “Because you wanted to stay with him. And I wanted you to come with me.”

You shook your head. “I was always going to go with you. I wasn’t going to leave your side.” Steve chewed on his bottom lip as he stared at you, and for the first time in weeks, you really saw him.

You saw just how much guilt was swimming behind his eyes, how much pain and distress was circling around in his mind. Your heart broke. It shattered into a million tiny shards as you realized that this whole time, Steve had been blaming himself for everything that had happened. And you hadn’t noticed. You had thought he just didn’t love you.

But he had thought that you blamed him.

You walked over to him, stopping just before him. “I don’t blame you, Steve,” you breathed. You hesitantly reached up and wiped his tears away, keeping your hands on his cheeks when he leaned into your touch. “I was worried about Eddie and Dustin, and I was scared of leaving them alone, but I never once thought about leaving your side. I don’t think I’ll ever not regret being there with him, but it was my decision, baby. It wasn’t your fault.”

Steve leaned forward and wrapped his arms around you. “I’m sorry. For not being here. I—I couldn’t sleep next you with all this…” He trailed off, but you knew what he was saying. “I was staying at Robin’s. I thought…I thought that you wouldn’t want to be around me anymore. And every time I saw you, all I could think about was how I failed you. Failed everyone.”

You brushed his tears away with your thumbs, holding his face tighter as you said, “You didn’t fail anyone, Steve. You didn’t fail me. I love you.”

He squeezed his eyes shut as you said it, and you knew he needed to hear it again.

“I love you, Steve.”

When he opened his eyes, they were so vulnerable, so honest. You knew yours were the same.

He kissed you then, and it was gentle, but it told you everything you needed to hear and more.

You didn’t need to tell him that it would be OK. Because you both knew it would be. It would just take some time.

Water dripped off you everywhere, and he quickly grabbed a towel and wrapped it around your shoulders. He was glad his parents weren’t home to get angry about the water on the carpet, not that he cared at all. He cared about the fact that you weren’t dressed for the late autumn chill outside. “What are you doing here?”

You swallowed and shook your head, your voice barely above a whisper. “I didn’t know where else to go.”

That he knew, because if you had a choice, you would never have willingly come to him for help.

You and Steve had had an on-and-off again, weird kind of friendship since you’d left high school. You and him hadn’t run in the same circles at Hawkins High. He was popular and sporty, while you were smart and more reserved. At least, that was what he’d thought until Dustin had forced him and you—who just happened to be in your front yard across the street from the Wheelers—into a car to help with an escaped demo-dog.

That was when he found out that you weren’t necessarily the shy type he thought you were. You had no problem in telling him he was a fucking idiot. And you proved that you were one of the bravest people he had ever met when you stood between Billy Hargrove and the kids, baring your teeth, and managed to get Billy on the backfoot.

Not that Steve would ever tell you that.

Because you and him were always at odds about something. It didn’t matter if it was a tiny, trivial thing like which street got the kids to the arcade quicker, or a giant, world-ending thing like a theory on how to escape from a secret Russian base.

You two just didn’t get on with one another, much to the annoyance of your mutual friends who teased him mercilessly about the tension between you two. A tension that he denied furiously, not only because you were the most frustrating person he had ever had the displeasure of meeting, but because you were dating Hawkins’ biggest dickhead, and had been since senior year. There was no way that you had eyes for anyone but Rob Pickett, even though he was an asshole and left you hanging on multiple occasions.

And in your eyes, Steve became the worst person in the world whenever he pointed it out. Not that he cared what you thought of him.

So, yeah. Steve knew you must have been beyond desperate to come to him for help.

He opened his mouth to say something, but closed it after a second. He had nothing.

As if you were a wild animal, Steve gently placed his hand on your back and guided you towards his room. You didn’t protest, and when he sat you on his bed, you didn’t even look at him. You just stared blankly at the wall.

Steve stood opposite you, his eyes searching your face. He wasn’t sure what to do. He decided on: “Are you OK?”

You didn’t answer him.

He sighed. “Look, I’m going to need something to go on here, L/N. You show up in the middle of the night, soaked after walking in the rain for whatever reason—”

“I broke up with Rob,” you interrupted.

The words on his tongue died, and you still didn’t look away from the imaginary spot on the wall. “Uh, right, OK,” Steve said after a moment, “But that doesn’t explain why you’re walking in the rain in the middle of the night.”

You sniffled, reaching up to wipe the water from your face with the edge of the towel. “He left me there.”

Steve’s eyes darted around the room, trying to work out if he was somehow missing something. “Left you where?”

“At the quarry.”

He blinked, and every thought eddied out of his head. “He left you at the quarry?”

You nodded.

“He left you at the quarry by yourself?”

You nodded again.

“In the middle of the night? When it’s absolutely pouring outside?”

You nodded once more.

Steve could only try and swallow down the rising anger that mixed with disbelief. Everyone knew that the quarry was dangerous, especially at night. The kinds of people who hung out there after dark weren’t the kind of people that you wanted to meet. Ever. Particularly by yourself.

And this fucking asshole had left you there. Alone.

And you had walked all the way into town in the dark while it was bucketing down.

It was a surprise that you hadn’t been fucking kidnapped, let alone fucking killed.

Steve was only shaken from his darkening thoughts when you spoke.

“I didn’t know where else to go,” you said, voice shaking. “My parents would kill me if they knew I went to the quarry with Rob, and I was so tired, and my feet hurt, and I was scared—” You hiccupped, and Steve immediately surged forward. “I was so scared.”

He placed his hands on your shoulders. “Hey, hey. It’s OK. You’re safe now.” The words seemed to calm you down a fraction, and it was only after your breaths returned to normal that he felt how icy your skin was. “We need to get you warmed up. You’re freezing.”

“I don’t have anything with me,” you admitted. “My bag is in Rob’s car.”

Steve sighed. You were getting colder by the minute. “I can take you home.”

You looked up in alarm. “My parents—”

“Don’t worry. I’ll turn on my charm.”

You scoffed. “Your charm usually has the opposite intended effect.”

Despite the tiny hit to his ego, Steve smiled. There you were.

It was on the drive to your place that the words he had said to you brought up a blurry memory he didn’t even know he had forgotten.

Steve wasn’t sure how long he and Robin had been tied up.

It had felt like an eternity. Every part of him hurt, and he could feel the blood drying on his face.

The alarm blaring made something start pounding in his head, but the high from the drug he’d been injected with drowned it all out. He had just narrowly missed having his fingernails torn off, and he was laughing about something he couldn’t remember with Robin.

The doors burst open, and the doctor was electrocuted by Dustin as he ran into the room, followed closely by Erica and you.

Steve was sure he was dreaming when you knelt before him and started undoing his restraints. You made quick work of them, and he began to fall forward, but you caught him. You placed one hand on his chest to steady him, while the other went to his face as you checked over his injuries.

“Steve? Hey, listen. We need to get out of here.”

Steve started mumbling. “The doctor. He’s going to take my fingernails. I like my fingernails.”

You gripped his shirt and pulled him up. “Doc is out cold. You’re safe now, Steve. You’re going to be OK. But we need to go, like right now.”

He could only laugh. At what, he didn’t know. Maybe it was the warmth blossoming in his chest at the thought of him being safe with you.

That was a nice thought.

+

Steve didn’t see you for a week after he managed to charm you past your parents with a bullshit excuse, one that you had tried to convince him wouldn’t work. But with a few big smiles and a little bit of confidence, you were in the house and up the stairs with no protesting from your parents.

You hadn’t looked back at him as you rushed past your parents, and he tried not to dwell on the fact that it had hurt a bit.

Now, he was standing at your front door again, this time behind a group of middle schoolers who had convinced him to drive them from Dustin’s to Mike’s because they desperately needed supplies. For what, he had no idea. And he hadn’t wanted to know until he pulled up out the front of the Wheeler’s and instead of heading inside, they ran across the street to your place.

The door swung open after their insistent knocking, revealing you.

You rolled your eyes as you saw the boys, and just stepped aside as they rushed past you with varying degrees of ‘thank yous’ and ‘you’re the bests’.

Steve stood awkwardly in the doorway. “Hi.”

“Hey,” you said. “Are you the taxi today?” You nodded towards his car across the street.

“Yeah.”

You nodded and looked around. “Are you coming in?”

Steve jolted. “Uh, yeah sure. Thanks.”

He followed you into your kitchen, where you were obviously in the middle of making something. He didn’t know what to do, so he took a seat at the bench, taking in the interior of your house. “So, where did the shitheads go?”

You pointed with the knife in your hand to a door the was ajar down the hallway. “Basement. My older cousin is a nerd, and he left a few boxes of wires and electronics stuff here when he left for college. I told Mike that he could have whatever they wanted, and now they come over and raid it whenever they need something.”

“Ah,” Steve said. The two of you fell into a silence that was only occasionally broken by the boys yelling from downstairs.

You looked better than you had a week ago, Steve thought as he watched you chop up fruit. But you were quieter than normal. Normally, you’d be three quips and an insult deep by now. He didn’t know why it bothered him.

Steve chewed on his bottom lip. “How are you?”

You stopped slicing the apple on the board, and he cringed as you looked up and raised a brow. He thought for a second that you were going to say something sarcastic, but his hopes died when you said, “I’m OK.”

He nodded slowly. “And how have you been?” He was fishing for anything.

You started cutting the apple again. “You mean since my asshole ex-boyfriend left me at the quarry by myself?” You dropped the slices into a large container. “Fucking brilliant.”

“Glad to hear it,” Steve joked. “I was starting to think you might be sad about it.”

You cracked a smile at that, before it fell and you returned to silence. “Thank you,” you said finally. “For that night. You didn’t have to do any of that for me, and you did. So, thank you.”

Steve could feel that warmth in his chest. “Don’t mention it. It’s fine.”

There was a crash from downstairs and you sighed, excusing yourself to go find out what the shitheads had broken.

Steve ran his eyes along the countertop, noticing for the first time a bunch of flowers on the counter. It didn’t take a genius to work out who they were from. They were dying, if not almost completely dead from the lack of water. That was a good sign, he guessed. That you hadn’t even bothered to put them in a vase.

They were ugly anyway, in his expert opinion. Even he knew that they weren’t your favourite. If he got you flowers—

Steve stopped that thought before it finished.

+

Movie nights had become a staple in the lives of your weirdly mismatched group of friends.

Steve and Robin managed to get the best new movies before they hit the shelves, and at least once every two weeks, the whole lot of you found yourselves spread out in someone’s living room.

This time, it was Steve’s turn to host.

He didn’t mind hosting. He honestly preferred it. His parents were never home. Plus, Nancy and you always brought food that you left there, meaning he had leftovers to eat for a week.

It was a win/win situation.

Like tonight, when you had arrived with a basket full of food that had him drooling before you’d even crossed the threshold.

“Harrington,” you said as you passed him and walked to the kitchen, “you’ll catch flies if you don’t close your mouth.”

He rolled his eyes as he shut the door. “I can’t help it when you decide to bring a truck full of food. What did you do? Raid the whole of Bradley’s?”

“That’s a funny way of showing gratitude from the guy I know for a fact loves it so much he eats it for a week.”

Steve could only chuckle as he watched you take out container after container and sit them on the benchtop. He did love your cooking; he made no secret of it.

You looked nice tonight. Better than you had at the movie night two weeks ago. That had only been a bit over a week after your breakup with Rob. He had overheard you talking to Robin about how you hadn’t wanted to go at all. But you showed up, dressed in your comfiest clothes. You also hadn’t cooked that week for the first time ever.

Steve had been slightly worried that you wouldn’t show up tonight. He was glad to be wrong about that.

“Where is everyone?” you asked, taking lids off the containers.

“Nancy and Jonathan are picking everyone up,” he said, coming over to help you.

“Great,” you sighed. “We’ll be at least an hour behind schedule.”

Steve laughed. You weren’t wrong. Nancy and Jonathan barely managed to get out the door on time on the best of days, and with them on pickup duty, he’d be surprised if the movie started before eight.

Once you were done, you leaned back against the counter, straightening your shirt. Steve eyed you up and down. “What?” you asked.

Steve shrugged. “You look nice. Who are you dressing up for?” It was half in jest, half in curiosity.

You narrowed your eyes. “Wouldn’t you like to know, pretty boy.”

Steve held up his hands in mock defence. “I was just wondering. I wouldn’t put it past you to make a move on someone now that you’re a free agent.”

You smirked. “Why the sudden interest, Harrington? You jealous or something?”

“You wish, L/N.”

That smirk widened as you stepped forward, getting into his personal space. Your eyes didn’t leave his, even as his own eyes betrayed him and glanced quickly at your lips. Barely a millisecond, but he knew you caught it. “Maybe I’m dressing up all nice for you.”

Your tone was playful, just like always, but he could have sworn that there was an underlying tone. One that made heat rise in his chest.

“I-I wouldn’t blame you.” He stumbled over his words. So much for his so-called confidence.

Your smirk turned into a smile as your eyes went to something behind you. “Look at that,” you said, still only inches from him. “Nancy and Jonathan are on time for once.”

And then you were brushing past him, leaving him blinking at the space you had been just moments before.

+

You hated the fact that you were standing on the street corner, waiting for Rob to decide to show up.

He had called you a few hours ago and said that he wanted to give you your bag back. The one that you had honestly forgotten about in all the weeks since your breakup. You had seriously debated if you needed it, but after a few minutes, you agreed to meet him on the corner across from the arcade.

You had no doubt that one of the kids would need a lift at that time of afternoon, so you agreed.

But Rob was nearly ten minutes late, and you were getting tired of waiting.

Your eyes flickered over to Family Video, grateful that you were out of sight from inside the store. The last thing you needed was Robin seeing you and berating you for meeting with Rob. It didn’t matter the reason, she would be down your neck about even speaking to the asshole on the phone, let alone see him.

You also didn’t want Steve to see you.

You didn’t know why. You had never really cared what Steve thought of you or your choices before. Of course, he gave his opinions freely, and you did the same to him, regardless of if they were particularly nice or not.

It was a surprisingly comfortable dynamic that the two of you had fallen into over the past two years. More so in the last month and a half when that line between contempt and genuine interaction had begun to blur. You weren’t sure why the back-and-forth banter had become the normal for the two of you. You hadn’t really spoken in school, but you had known King Steve from the sidelines.

When Dustin had forced you and Steve into close proximity, you had just assumed that he was the same Steve. You had begun to realise that he really had changed for the better.

You had actually started to enjoy seeing Steve Harrington, and he seemed to be around more than usual, chaperoning the kids when they came over to use your basement every time they did.

And you made the run to Family Video twice a week to rent a new movie, and just to see him. You had teased him that you would have to stop coming in because he had begun to expect you. He replied that no one could ever be ready for you.

Steve had been slowly taking your mind off your breakup with Rob one day at a time. And you were insanely grateful for it.

It made you smile, even as the cold weaved its way beneath your jacket. You would head into Family Video after getting your bag back.

You pulled your jacket closer, huffing a sigh of relief when you saw Rob’s car pull into the carpark.

He got out of his car, and you frowned as you saw his hands empty as he approached you.

“Where’s my bag?” you said, as he stopped beside you.

Rob had his hair slicked back like usual, the absolutely grating laugh leaving his lips as he said, “I had to get you to meet me somehow.”

“What are you talking about?”

He shrugged. “Well, you wouldn’t meet with me.”

“Because I don’t want to see you. What about that is hard for you to comprehend, Rob?” you spat, teeth baring as you wondered just how you had wasted two years of your life on a prick like him.

Rob stepped towards you, but you held your ground. “I know that you broke up with me, but I think you made a mistake.”

You scoffed. “The only mistake I made was ever agreeing to date you. You’re the one who’s been sleeping with other people.”

Rob looked taken aback, and you realised that he had never been on the receiving end of your spite.

You crossed your arms. “Either give me my bag back or fuck off. I’m not playing games with you, Rob.”

You caught movement out of the corner of your eye and your face dropped.

Just as you suspected, Dustin, Max, and Lucas needed a ride home, but they had gotten to Steve before you. And now he was looking at you across the road.

His face was unreadable, but you swore that you saw a flicker of hurt flash across his face. You dropped your arms, stepping towards him, but Rob grabbed your arm.

“We’re not done here.”

You turned back to him. “Yeah, we are. Don’t fucking talk to me again. Keep the bag. Maybe you can use the makeup in there to freshen up. You know, being the new town whore and all,” you spat.

Shrugging his hand off, you turned back to the carpark, but Steve’s car was already gone.

As you passed Rob’s car, you called out to him.

He turned and looked at you.

You smiled big as you showed him the keys in your hand, and his face dropped as you dragged them along the side of his car.

+

Steve didn’t show up at your house four days later with the kids.

You didn’t know why you expected him to. You didn’t know why you wanted to explain yourself. It wasn’t like you owed him an explanation.

But for some reason, the gnawing feeling in your stomach only grew with every day that passed.

You could have called him, but that would mean that he would know that you went out of your way to talk to him. Before now, every encounter you had could have been chalked up to chance or obligation.

If you decided to call him, that was you choosing to talk to Steve.

You didn’t know if you were ready for that.

“Hey, Dustin?” you called from the top of the stairs.

The curly haired boy stuck his head out so he could see you. “Yeah?”

“Did Steve drop you today?” You sounded apprehensive even to your own ears.

Dustin shook his head. “Nancy brought us here. Steve’s been moody and doesn’t want to drive us around for some reason.”

“Oh, right.” That was what you were afraid of.

Dustin disappeared again, and you half closed the door to keep the noise down.

This was a good thing, right? You and Steve had just gone back to how things had been before that night. That was what you were comfortable with. That was how things should be.

You scoffed and ran a hand down your face. God, you couldn’t even convince yourself.

After an hour of listening to the kids bicker about wiring for their new radio system, you were tempted to throw them out on the street, but you secretly enjoyed the company. You got to feed them and listen to their dumbed down explanations that were still outside of your comprehension.

There was a timid knock on the door, and you frowned as you checked your watch. You weren’t expecting anyone.

You really weren’t expecting it to be Steve Harrington, standing just as awkwardly as the first time.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hi.”

“I’m here to pick up the kids and take them to Dustin’s,” he explained.

“Oh, yeah. They’re inside.” You stepped back. “Would…would you like to come in?” You held your breath as he glanced between his car and your door. You could almost see him weighing up the two options in his head.

“Sure,” he said, and he followed you into the kitchen.

Unlike all the other times he’d been to your place, he didn’t take a seat behind the counter. He just stood with his hands in his pockets, avoiding eye contact with you.

“How have you been?” you asked, just to break the silence. “You haven’t been around with the boys.”

Steve nodded. “Yeah, I’ve been good.”

He obviously wasn’t going to ask about you as the silence descended once again.

“I’ve been meaning to come in a return the tape I rented.” I’ve just been trying to work up the courage to see you, you didn’t say.

Steve nodded again. “Cool. Robin’s working tomorrow, so you can drop it in.”

His indifference made something pain in your chest. You and Steve had always had some type of feelings towards each other; everything from hatred to respect. You had never been indifferent to one another.

Steve had never been indifferent to you.

You chewed your lip as you silently begged him to look at you. You swallowed down your pride, and said, “Listen, Steve. The other day—”

“Steve, we were waiting for you. Why didn’t you tell us you were here?” Dustin said as all four boys emerged from the basement with a wild assortment of bits and bobs.

You could have sworn that something in your heart broke as Steve pivoted and started towards the door with the middle schoolers in tow, not bothering to say anything to you, even as the others called out their ‘thank yous’.

You heard his car peel out of the street, and it left you wondering if you were totally wrong about everything.

+

Another three days went by without Steve visiting you.

You had gone to Family Video in the meantime, but he wasn’t there. At least, that’s what Robin told you, despite the fact that his red BWM was parked out front. You’d tried to not let that one hurt as you rented another movie, one you had already seen a bunch of times. It was the only comfort you had in the lonely days leading up to movie night.

You hadn’t realised just how much time you were spending with Steve until he suddenly stopped swinging by.

You hadn’t realised just how much you liked him swinging by.

And now, there was a palpable tension between the two of you. Even as you sat on opposite sides of your living room, Steve in an armchair and you curled up on the couch beside Will.

No one else seemed to want to address it. You were too scared of being rejected again to want to.

The food you had cooked had already been devoured, and your first movie already over. The rain outside provided a distraction from your thoughts.

Robin got up and put the second film in, and Steve stood.

“I’m going to get going,” he said to no one in particular.

You stood, too. “I’ll get you your food,” you said, ducking into the kitchen before he could protest. You had already packed away two containers in the fridge earlier.

Steve met you at the door. “Thanks,” he mumbled, taking them from you.

“You’re welcome. I tried something different with the sauce, so…let me know if you like it.” You hated how desperate you sounded. You had never been this person before now—before Steve ignoring you was a curse rather than a blessing.

He looked at you then, and you thought that maybe he had heard the meaning behind your words. Let me know if you want to talk to me again. He chewed on his bottom lip, his eyes roaming your face.

Last time he looked at you like this, you thought he was going to kiss you in his kitchen. But he didn’t. He just swallowed and nodded, heading out into the rain to his car across the street.

You stood there for a few seconds, staring after him as he jogged to his car to avoid getting wet.

You were running after him before you could convince yourself not to. “Steve!” you called.

He turned to you just before getting in. “Yeah?”

He attempted to shield his face from the rain. You were suddenly in front of him. And you realised you didn’t know what to say.

Steve was looking at you expectantly as the rain poured down, saturating his jacket. You could feel the water sliding down your back.

You couldn’t pull your eyes away from his. And before you could stop yourself, you leaned up and kissed him.

He was frozen for a long moment, and just as your heart started to drop and you began to pull away, his hands came up to rest on either side of your neck, bringing you closer as he kissed you back.

When he finally pulled away, he seemed dumbfounded. “What…?”

“I don’t know,” you said quickly, blinking the water from your eyes. “I just…” You couldn’t find the words.

Steve ran his thumb along your jaw. “Yeah, I get it.”

You couldn’t help it as you heaved out a sigh of relief.

You didn’t know, but neither did Steve.

And that was somehow the best part about it.

By the third hour, you had started to cry.

By the fourth, you had gone up to your room.

It wasn’t until the sixth hour that the phone rang. You ignored it once, but it rang again, the shrill noise splitting your eardrums.

You reached over to the phone on your bedside and picked it up. “Hello?”

“Hey, it’s me.” You could barely hear her over the sound of people cheering. “Hey, listen, I’m still at Lucas’s game and the gang are going out afterwards, so I won’t be home tonight.”

Home. That should have made your heart flutter, but instead it filled you with an unbearable sadness that she hadn’t been home for three days.

“Yeah, OK.” You didn’t have it in you to fight about it now.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, and the tears began to form again.

“Nothing,” you managed, palming your nose to try and stop the tears. “I’ll see you later?”

“I have work tomorrow, so probably Thursday?”

You frowned. “You aren’t coming over tomorrow night? I thought—”

The crowd surged from the gym, and she said, “Hey, babe, I’ll talk to you later, yeah? Lucas is off the bench.”

And then came the monotonous beeps to signal she had hung up.

Maybe it was the fact that she hadn’t mentioned that it was Lucas’s game that night. Maybe it was the fact that you weren’t invited to the after-game hang out.

But what stung the most was that she had forgotten you. And it was beginning to feel a lot like she was doing it on purpose.

+

That had been four days ago, and while you had been with Robin these past few days trying to help Eddie Munson, you wouldn’t exactly call it quality time together. There was a weird tension between the two of you. Like waiting for a bomb to go off, and you had no idea why it was even detonated in the first place.

When you had gone with the group to Skull Rock, you had reached for her hand, which she took, but she shook you off as soon as she could.

That had nearly been your breaking point.

Then you had held your hand out to help her into the boat, but she opted to use Steve and Eddie instead.

And when Steve decided to check out the Watergate and then proceeded to get pulled under, Robin had only looked at you once when you said, “No, Robin, please don’t.” And then she fell backwards into the dark water.

At every single opportunity, she chose someone else.

And you knew that it was only a matter of time before she chose someone else to love.

But for right now, you had bigger problems.

Not only were you frantically running after Steve, Eddie, Nancy, and Robin after jumping in headfirst after your girlfriend through a gate to the upside down, but you were desperately trying to hold together what felt like your entire leg.

While trying to help Steve, one of the bats had used its teeth and claws to grip your thigh, and when you finally managed to pull it off, it had felt like it took half of your skin with it.

You pressed your hand further against the gashes. Skull Rock was so close, and when you reached it, you collapsed onto a freestanding stone, leaning against the large boulder.

Steve was hissing in pain when Nancy tied a piece of her shirt around his stomach.

Your head felt light, but you fought through the pain to check on Robin. She seemed fine, she wasn’t limping or gasping in pain. She was rambling to Steve about rabies. That alone had some of the tension easing from your shoulders. She was fine.

“Hey, are you good?” Eddie asked, siding up beside you.

You opened your mouth to answer when you coughed and the pain that shot through your leg made you yelp and press into your thigh harder.

Eddie caught it and moved your hand away to reveal the blood staining your pants and skin. “Holy shit! Guys!”

Your head was spinning at that point, just trying your best not to pass out.

You could faintly hear the others crowding you, but you didn’t care about any of it until Robin kneeled in front of you, her hands on either side of your head, forcing you to look at her.

She was saying something, and you squinted your eyes at her lips. “Are you insane? Why didn’t you tell me?” Her voice was shrill as she tried to move your hands away to see what she could do. “How did this happen?”

“It’s just a scratch,” you mumbled.

“You’re bleeding profusely.”

“I didn’t want to bother you.”

She gripped your hand. “You’re my girlfriend.” The way she said it seemed like that was an answer, but really, it left you with more questions. Ones that your spaced-out mind couldn’t form into complete sentences. “You’re never a bother.” Maybe it was the blood loss combined with the high stress environment, but at that moment, you believed her.

You could also see the way her breath was starting to hitch as she began to hyperventilate. “Hey.” You grabbed her hand and pulled it to your chest, not caring about the blood she painted there. “Feel my heartbeat. I’m OK.”

Her hand was cold, but you held it there, her breaths slowly coming down to normal. But as she came down, you went sky high. Your dizziness became worse, the mind fog taking over.

She slipped off the leaf print shirt she had over her plain shirt and started tearing it, wrapping it around your leg to try and stem the bleeding and hold your ruined flesh together. “Love, you need to lift it for me.”

The pet name falling from her lips had you smiling, despite the pain. You were delirious. “Love,” you murmured, leaning back into the rock face again. “You never call me love anymore.” She pulled the makeshift torniquet tighter and you groaned, leaning forward until you were eye level. “Do you call someone else love instead?”

Her brows furrowed instantly, frown etched deep on her face. “What?”

You hummed, reaching out and playing with a lock of her hair, winding it between your fingers. You felt like you were floating. “I know that you don’t love me anymore. I just…wish I knew what I did.”

The logical, semi-conscious side of your brain was screaming; it was screaming because you knew that you would never have said the words out loud to her under any other circumstances.

When you look back into her eyes, she looked like she was going to cry. “Robin!” you said abruptly. “Don’t cry.” You patted her cheek with your hand as you dropped her hair.

“Hey, Eddie?” she called, ignoring you completely. “Can you help me get her to Nancy’s?”

You couldn’t remember getting to Nancy’s more than the brief flashes of nearly falling over, Eddie and Robin stabilising you.

By the time you reached the Wheeler’s street, you had started to gain your consciousness back. You were walking straight, your arm slung over Eddie’s shoulder to take some of the pressure off your leg. Robin walked just in front of you, making sure you didn’t step on the hive-mind-vines. She hadn’t said anything to you the whole walk.

“Do you have a first aid kit?” Robin asked Nancy as you entered her house.

Nancy directed her to the bathroom and Robin took you from Eddie, depositing you onto the closed toilet seat before spinning to the cabinet and pulling out the box.

She fumbled through it, gathering bandages and an antiseptic.

“Robin?” you called softly, but she didn’t respond. She just gathered the items she’d collected and knelt before you.

“This is going to hurt, and I’m sorry in advance,” she said finally, only briefly glancing at you before undoing the shirt and letting it fall to the ground. You hissed and clenched your jaw, gripping the outside of your leg.

She didn’t give you any time to get ready as she poured the antiseptic on and started wrapping the bandages around your thigh. Tears sprang to your eyes, and you bit your lip so hard you thought it would bleed. Which was just what you needed. More blood loss.

When she was done, she stood up, letting her fingers run over the bandages to ensure they were secure.

The gesture was so tiny, but it had you crying in earnest.

Robin looked at you then. Everything was muted by the darkness, but her eyes still shone in the way you loved, even as they roamed your face. You could feel her winding up to start shooting questions, her leg bouncing as she stood in place.

“What you said earlier…” she started. “What did you mean?”

Even though you had been waiting for this moment for weeks, it still had a pit of dread opening up in your gut. This was it.

“What part?”

“Oh, I don’t know, maybe the part where you said I don’t love you anymore.” The words were icy, and you had only been on the receiving end of them once before.

You didn’t know where to start. You didn’t want to have this conversation.

Robin knew you too well. “Oh, we are definitely hashing this out now,” she said, leaning back against the sink behind her. “What did you mean?”

“It’s nothing.”

“Bullshit.”

You sighed, the pain and frustration building inside you to an astronomical level. “Robin, I’m tired of you forgetting about me. I’m so sick of feeling like you don’t care about me, like our relationship isn’t worth your time.” You swiped at your cheeks. “If you…if you aren’t in love with me anymore, just tell me. Because I can’t keep pretending to be OK with being second.” Your voice broke, and you could only attempt to steel yourself for the oncoming heartbreak.

But Robin didn’t say anything straight away, she fell to her knees between your legs, careful to avoid your thigh. She reached out and placed her hands on either side of your face, just like she always did, just because you liked it.

“Love, where are you getting this from?”

“You’re never home anymore,” you said, trying your best to ignore the way your heart raced being this close to her. “You…you missed our movie marathon, and you didn’t invite me.” It sounded pathetic now that you said it aloud, but Robin brushed her thumbs over your cheekbones.

She had a guilty look on her face. “I’m so sorry I missed our movie marathon, Y/N. I did forget about it with the stupid pep rally and Lucas being all excited. I’m so sorry.”

You caught a glimpse of tears in her eyes as she looked down.

“I didn’t mean to make you feel like that. At all. I was…trying to do it for you,” she admitted.

It was your turn to be confused. “What? Why would I want that?”

She removed her hands from your face, placing them in her lap. “I—I saw the acceptance letter. For college. And your response letter to defer. I know you want to go, and I thought that if I could try and distance myself, maybe you would just do it instead of being held down by me here.”

You couldn’t stop the painful way your heart squeezed. “Robin, I want to defer because I want to wait for you. It’s because I want to wait until you’ve graduated, so that we could make that decision together. You know that I only applied for colleges to please my parents. I don’t feel held down by you, Robin Buckley, I just want to do these milestones with you.”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, her eyes clouded with tears. “I’m sorry, I—that’s literally the cutest thing anyone has ever said to me. I don’t—”

You cut her off with a kiss, and she melted into it, but pulled away after a second.

“I’m sorry,” she said again, and you kissed her quiet.

“Stop apologising, my love.”

a/n: thank you so much for requesting this! i hope you like it! <3 aeia

You gestured to him. “Just, like, appearing. It creeps me out.” Shifting your eyes back over to Steve, you could feel Eddie doing the same. From where you stood beside your open locker, you could clearly see him down the hall. Well, him and Nancy. Standing very close. Very, very close.

You’d see this happen many times before with many different girls, but this time, Steve seemed genuinely struck by Nancy Wheeler.

“Come on, Stalker, it’s lunch,” Eddie said, clamping his hand down on your shoulder, dragging you out of your slowly darkening thoughts. His sympathetic smile made you huff, but you followed him to the cafeteria anyway.

As a resident of Hawkins, you’d known Steve all your life. You’d even been friendly in middle school when your parents had gotten to know the Harringtons through some business deal. You and Steve had begun to see each other more and more outside of school. Your parents shoved you and Steve together in a room at dinners and the forced proximity aided in becoming friendly enough that you said ‘hi’ to each other at school. That had some-what awkward friendship had continued into high school, but when Steve was with his friends, he wasn’t the same Steve that you knew. He was King Steve, and you were definitely on the opposite side of the social spectrum. So, the casual chats in the hallways reduced and faded to tight-lipped smiles as you passed each other.

Your friendship with Steve had also probably been affected by your tiny, little crush on him. I mean, who didn’t have a crush on Steve Harrington at some point? He was Steve Harrington. But you knew that he was King Steve and you were little old you.

The fact that you lived in a trailer and were friends with none other than Eddie ‘The Freak’ Munson, meant that you were labelled the same. Which didn’t so much bother you as it was inconvenient. There were so many times that you, Eddie, and your other friends were berated for your satanic cults and music taste and dress sense in the halls when you were just trying to live your life.

Plus, you’d been friends with Eddie for years. Neighbours first, then accidental run-ins collecting the mail, then casual hangouts. He’d even taught you how to play guitar, though while he preferred electric, you preferred acoustic. While he slacked off at school, you actually tried. That conversation had been a sore spot in your friendship for ages; you warning him he wouldn’t graduate, him not caring. Now, you’d given up. If he wanted to risk getting kept back, then it was his funeral.

By the time you’d made it to your table, the volume of the cafeteria combined with your late night at a gig last night had a headache beginning to take shape.

You zoned in and out before Eddie clicked his fingers in front of your face.

You blinked looking up to see everyone at the table’s eyes looking at you. “What?”

Eddie groaned and leaned back in his seat. “Are you serious? I just explained it all.”

“Explained what?”

“The basics for the new campaign. We were trying to decide on what afternoon to play.”

“Oh,” you said, shuffling food around on you plate with your fork. “I don’t mind. I—uh—I don’t even know if I’ll be able to play this one.”

Gasps and noises of protest started up, but you quickly shut it down. “All right, quit it. Some of us,” you said glaring at Eddie, “have jobs because we’re poor. The next few months have me working nearly every afternoon after school.”

Eddie scoffed and rolled his eyes. “Can’t Robin take some of your shifts?”

“Nope,” you said. “She’s cutting back her hours, hence me getting more.”

“You can’t take one afternoon off a week? It's just a job. This is our brand new campaign I’ve been working on for months.”

At that, you frowned. “Eddie,” you warned. You’d already talked about your job with him numerous times.

Eddie didn’t back down. “Come on,” he continued. “This is the only campaign where all of us are finally playing, you can’t be the only one who doesn’t. Just tell your boss you need one afternoon off a week.”

“I won’t tell my boss that I need time off to play a stupid new game when he’s the one paying me. I need the money. Just because your uncle lets you do whatever you want doesn’t mean everyone else can just accommodate for you.”

Immediately, you could see the anger building in his eyes, but between your headache and seeing Steve this morning, you couldn’t care less.

He leaned forward and sneered, “Glad to know my campaign is just a stupid new game to you. I’ll be sure to not bother you about it in future.”

The guilt was slowly starting to creep in, but you were too mad to even think about apologising right now. You stood up and started gathering your things. Your headache was building to a crescendo and if you didn’t leave right now, your head was going to explode.

“Where are you going?” he asked.

“Away from you.”

He scoffed again, leaning back and crossing his arms. “Very grown up.”

You didn’t even bother to reply before turning and leaving. Your hands trembled as you got closer to the door.

But before you could make it through them and to your locker where your pain meds were, someone was standing in your way.

It took you a few seconds to recognise that this person wasn’t just standing there by accident. When you looked up from the floor it was Carol Perkins standing there, signature smirky smile plastered across her face.

You attempted to move past her, but she stepped into your way again. You heaved in a breath. “Please move, Carol.”

She tilted her head. “Where are you off to in such a rush, weirdo? Did you and your little boyfriend break up?”

“Carol, please,” you said again, but she didn’t respond. She reached up and wrapped her fingers around a chunk of your hair and pulled it. Hard. It instantly brought tears to your eyes, and you shoved her back, making her stumble. God, that fucking hurt.

You managed one step towards the door when Tommy H. was suddenly in front of you. “Did you just push her, freak?”

“What’s going on here?” Your head spun to the left to see Steve standing there. His eyes flickered between you and Carol and Tommy H. In your mind, you were relieved. It was Steve. Even though you weren’t necessarily friends still, he would help.

“What happened is that she pushed me for no reason,” Carol spat. “Didn’t your mother ever tell you to keep your hands to yourself?” She reached out and gripped your hair again. You tried pushing her away again until you felt a cold liquid running down your head. The sticky substance ran down the side of your face.

“What the fuck?” you blurted out, stepping back when she let go. One step back and then Tommy H.’s orange juice was thrown all over your shirt, making it stick to your skin as you blinked trying to see through the juice that had stuck to your eyelashes.

“Steve,” Carol said.

Your eyes shot to Steve’s.

He wouldn’t, you thought. It was Steve. It was still Steve.

You were wrong.

The drink in his hand was added to the mix of liquids already covering you. You swore you saw him grimace and a flash of something cross his face, but you were moving before you could even think about it.

The laughter from not just those three, but their friends and others in the cafeteria echoed as you race down the halls.

Your locker. You had to get to your locker.

Your hands were slippery as you tried to enter your combination, made harder by the tears clouding your vision. In the distance, you heard the doors slam again and you worked faster, finally getting it open and snatching your pills before slamming it shut and hurrying to the exit.

Fuck school.

Fuck them.

Fuck Steve.

The sunlight outside was almost blinding making your head pound worse. You needed to leave.

Your plan to escape though was foiled when you realised that you’d caught a ride with Eddie this morning.

Reaching up to touch your hair, you felt the disgusting way it had begun to dry.

The exit doors slammed open, and you heard your name being called. You didn’t turn to look at Eddie as he reached you, you just started to sob. He pulled you against him and you didn’t even have it in you to hold him, arms hanging by your sides.

“Hey,” Eddie said, pulling away and running his eyes over your face and hair, down to your ruined shirt. “Let’s go.”

The drive to Eddie’s trailer flew by as you sobbed into your hands.

When he helped you out of his van and into your house, your sobs had finally subsided to silent tears. He sat on your bed as you took a shower, and his own head was in his hands as you emerged, hair dripping onto the carpet.

He looked up and you were both silent as you stared at each other. The silence stretched until you couldn’t take it anymore.

“Eddie, I’m sorry—”

“Don’t,” he said, causing your breath to hitch. “Don’t you dare apologise to me. I’m the one who should be apologising to you.”

You shook your head as you settled back against your headboard. Your pain meds had already started working. “No, I am sorry. I shouldn’t have been so mean to you. I do want to play, but I have to work these shifts or I’ll lose my job.”

“Hey, it’s OK. I was an asshole. I’m sorry for making you feel so bad about working. I was just bummed because I really wanted you to play. It’s no big deal.”

You scoffed. “Don’t lie, Eddie. It is a big deal to you, and I’m sorry I can’t take part this time.”

Eddie shrugged and reached down to pick up your guitar from where it rested beside your bed. “We’ll do a One Shot sometime.” He strummed a few chords, and the sound instantly had your body untensing. “Are you OK?” he asked after a few minutes.

A few moments went by before you said, “I hate them. I hate him.”

Eddie just sighed. “Yeah.”

“I just don’t understand why they hate us so much. They’re so mean to you and me and Gareth and everyone who they deem not cool.”

“I mean, we do have the whole ‘satanic cult’ thing going on, to be fair.” You huffed and he chuckled, placing your guitar down on the bed beside you. “Do you want me to stay?”

He would, you knew. If you asked him to, he would stay for however long you wanted him to. But you really wanted to be alone right now.

You shook your head and he nodded once. “I’ll be home, so just come over whenever.” And then he was gone.

The silence was deafening as you closed your eyes and laid down. You mind wouldn’t stop replaying the fight with Eddie and the incident with Carol and Tommy H. and Steve. The tears threatened to start again as you thought about it.

You knew that you weren’t close. You knew that he was King Steve and popular and those guys were his friends.

But you thought he was your friend, too.

You pulled your guitar closer as you finally let the tears go, fingers flicking over the strings quietly.

Steve Harrington wasn’t a nice guy.

He was just as bad as everyone else.

You on the other hand, were faced with the daunting task of figuring out the rest of your life. While you were so fucking glad to be done with Hawkins High, your current aimlessness was damping your high. You weren’t sure if college was an option. Sure, you were smart enough, but the cost of moving to another city was more than you or your parents had. You’d saved up some money from the electronics store, and then when that closed, got a job at Family Video. Keith was weird, but so were you, so it worked well enough with just the two of you.

And he let you play whatever music you wanted within reason, so that was also a bonus.

Eddie’s absence everyday was something that you missed way more than you thought. You didn’t even realise just how much time you spent together until you didn’t. You made time to see him after he finished school and re-joined him and the Hellfire Club for a new campaign that you met up for once a fortnight on one of your afternoons off. You felt kind of weird going back onto campus, but that was trumped by the pure joy of playing with your friends.

Eddie had even made t-shirts, much to your surprise.

“I have a present for you,” he said as he burst into Family Video on a Tuesday evening.

You raised your eyebrows, placing the stack of videos you had in your hands on the counter. “Whatever it is, I don’t want it, Munson.”

“Oh, but you definitely do, my friend.” His grin was so wide you knew whatever it was, he was proud of it.

He held out a medium sized parcel. It was shoddily wrapped in brown paper and had your name scrawled on it in his signature terrible handwriting.

His eyes glanced between it and you, begging you to take it.

Reaching out to take it, you then placed it onto the counter and tore it open. When you saw the white material emblazed with Hellfire Club and the images you’d scribbled on his page one day in English, you almost cried.

“Do you like it?” he asked, almost bursting at the seams. He pulled open his jacket to reveal the same shirt.

You pulled your new shirt to your chest. “I love it, Eddie. When did you do this?”

“I got them back today. I got a bunch done for the other guys, too, and some extras for the new recruits. When I find more, of course.”

“How’s that going?”

“About as well as you could imagine.”

Your eyes fell back to the shirt as you folded it carefully and put it in your bag under the counter. “Thank you, Eddie. Really.”

Eddie waved it off. “No sweat. Wear it to our next meet up. We’ll all be matching.”

And you did. Then proceeded to spend seven hours playing in the drama room with Hellfire, laughing until you couldn’t breathe and crying over your party losing half the group to the enemy.

It brought a smile to your face as thought about it as you shelved the new releases at work. You were wearing the shirt today beneath your very attractive green Family Video vest.

You checked your watch again for what must have been the hundredth time that hour. Two minutes.

Two minutes and then Eddie was picking you up and you were headed to the mall to meet up with the rest of Hellfire to check out a brand new novelty store that had just opened up and then catching a new movie at the cinema afterwards. Gareth had mentioned he saw a D&D stand at the back of the store when he was there last week.

It would be a welcome break from the monotonous shelving and renting out videos. For the past two months, Keith had you watching a bunch of movies that he was convinced you needed to watch in order to be able to work to the best standard. “How can you be expected to be able to recommend new movies if you haven’t even seen some of the classics,” he’d said.

The classics it turned out, were just shitty movies he thought were good, even though they most definitely were not.

Movement flickered in your peripheral vision, and you were already moving as Eddie’s van pulled up.

You screamed around the counter and grabbed your bag, already flipping the store sign to ‘closed’ and locking up before Eddie could even turn the engine off.

“Someone’s keen,” he observed as you jumped in. “What if I wanted to rent a video?”

“Then I’d tell you to get fucked because we’re closed.”

He laughed, throwing his head back as you grinned. “Long day?”

You sighed and rolled your eyes. “The longest. I think we had, like, three customers all day.”

“Well,” he said, already backing out of the carpark. “Get prepared to check out some sweet new dice and miniatures, and then zone out at this movie I picked out.”

“What’s it even called?”

Eddie hummed. “To the Future? No. Back to the Future. It’s about some kid time travelling or something.”

“Sounds right up our alley.”

+

The new store turned out to be better than expected and you walked away with two new sets of dice and four miniatures. It was nearly a whole weeks pay, but you didn’t care.

Your party had walked out with similar hauls and to say you were all on a high was an understatement. And the best thing to do after spending a shit-ton of money?

Ice-cream.

Which was a bonus because your lovely, generous friend Robin Buckley just so happened to work there, and was sometimes kind enough to put your chosen frozen dessert on the house. Selfishly, you hoped she was in the giving mood because you’d already blown so much cash today. You were trying to save up for a car. Key word: trying. Turns out that purchasing a vehicle was a lot more expensive than you thought. Even a shitty car was a long way off for you on your measly wage.

As you got to the food court, you had to physically stop and grip onto the railing to hold yourself up while laughing. Eddie and Gareth did the same, while Jeff and Angus just accepted their fates and stumbled, clutching their stomachs.

“I hope you know you’ll never be able to live that down,” Gareth managed, wiping tears from his eyes.

Jeff stood slowly, taking deep breaths. “I know. Believe me I know.”

You gripped Eddie’s jacket as he began walking again, pulling you along.

The entrance to Scoops Ahoy was only a few feet away when you heard the all too familiar voice of Robin Buckley. “If you lot are any louder, they’ll start enforcing a volume rule that hasn’t even been made yet,” she called.

“I’d like to see them try,” you replied as you reached the counter. “You’d be the head of that committee, I bet.”

“Nah, I actually like fun, believe it or not.” She flipped her scoop in her hand. “What can I get the Hellfire Club on this cheery Friday?”

Robin had been wary around your friends at the start. While she wasn’t popular by any stretch of the imagination, she wasn’t labeled a satanic freak and hadn’t had much to do with them. She still didn’t know them well but was nice enough for your sake when she saw them with you.

The others ordered first and took a seat at a table while you stood at the display cabinet trying to choose.

The sound of the doors behind the counter swinging open with force had you looking up and then instantly wishing you hadn’t.

“Hey, Robin, there’s something wrong with the…” Steve trailed off as he stood wide-eyed, half-way in the door. He looked different since the last time he’d seen you. His hair was longer in a way that flattered him, even under the white ‘Ahoy’ hat. Every ounce of joy that had been flowing through your veins shriveled up and died.

Robin chuckled nervously, lowering her voice. “Oh, ha, yeah I totally forgot to mention that Steve works here now.” She was lying. Obviously. And she was so bad at it. You honestly didn’t know why she even tried.

“Steve,” you acknowledged after a moment.

He cleared his throat and came closer, letting the door close behind him.

Being this close to him after so long had your mind flicking back to the past year.

Steve had never actually left your life completely. He had called your house twice in the weeks after the cafeteria incident, but you hadn’t spoken with him, no matter how much that tiny voice in your head wanted to. You avoided him at school and ignored him when you passed each other in the halls.

But even with all of that, you still found yourself thinking about him every so often, wondering about his life. Eddie had nearly wrung your neck when you’d admitted that you would probably never stop thinking about him while you two were so ridiculously high well past midnight. He didn’t understand how you could still have any positive feeling about this douchebag at all, and honestly, you didn’t understand it either.

And now he was here, working at Scoops Ahoy, along with your pathetically bad liar of a friend.

You glared a Robin, and she shrank back. “I’m gonna go, uh, check out that broken thing,” she mumbled, and was gone before you could inform her that Steve had never even said what was actually wrong.

Steve looked back at the doors as she left, before turning back around to face you.

“Can I, uh, get you…something,” he finished lamely, gesturing to the cabinet.

You swallowed and focused on the glass. “Just a vanilla cone. Thanks.”

He nodded and got to work as you looked over your shoulder towards your table. Eddie was already looking at you, brows raised and spoon halfway to his mouth. You could almost hear his thoughts.

Steve coughed and you spun back around. He handed you the cone and his eyes flicked between you and Eddie. You reached down to pull out the money, but he held up his hand. “No, it’s all good. I got it.”

You froze, and you didn’t quite know if you wanted the ice-cream to be free anymore. “Uh, yeah thanks,” you managed after a second.

You were already on your way back to the table when Steve called your name. You cautiously turned. He had a pained look on his face as he stumbled through a sentence. “Hey, can I…you and me…can we, like, talk?”

You stared at him for long moment, and the longer you looked, the more foreign this person in front of you became.

The tiny voice in your head had instantly said yes. It hadn’t even thought twice about wanting to talk to him. You almost did, but that vulnerable part of yourself, that raw and unsure side of yourself made you hesitate. You glanced at Eddie, feeling the panic rising slightly. You didn’t even know why. There was a counter between you and Steve, and you were fine, and he was just standing there. But when you locked eyes with Eddie, the humiliation of that day and the days after became all you could see.

You breathed in, gripping the ice-cream in your hands tight enough that you were sure the cone would crack. “No,” you said. “I…No.”

You watched as like a bucket of water poured over him, the hope that you had seen was replaced with disappointment. His shoulders slumped forward slightly, and you couldn’t look as you took your seat at your table with your back to him.

You heard the door behind the counter open and close, but you kept your eyes on Eddie.

He smiled and you tried your best to replicate it, but you knew it convinced no one.

Eddie tapped your foot with his under the table and you swallowed as you pulled your attention to Jeff as he started telling a story. You knew it was an effort to distract you. And you found yourself thankful that you had such great friends, even after you’d left high school.

That thought struck you and you sat with it.

You had finished high school.

There weren’t high school bullies anymore. No one had gone out of their way to call you a freak since you’d left. You weren’t hurrying down halls trying to avoid people. You were free of all that.

When you looked back at Eddie, he was smiling, and this time, the one you returned was genuine.

a/n: hey, thanks for all the love on this series so far! i've had a few requests for a taglist and honestly i cbf sorry! i'm going to be pretty consistently posting these, so you shouldn't be without for very long!

if you also want to put in a request for anything, just shoot me an ask bc i'll start writing just normal one-shots, etc. after i'm done with this.

i'll write for steve, eddie, robin, nancy, jonathan, etc., but i won't write for the any of the younger kids bc they're not adults in the show.

i'll also start writing for other fandoms, too, but at this point i'm super in my stranger things era with season 4 atm.