You know she means a lot to Eddie, but that doesn’t mean you’re happy about it.
Jasper Avenue (Part 1)
Eddie broke up with you before you went off to school and is still in Hawkins. You’ve been trying to move on from each other, but you’re alone, drunk, with a cell phone, and have his number memorized.
‘tis the damn season (Jasper Avenue Part 2)
Winter break is here and you’re back in Hawkins for a month. It didn’t take long for you to run into the person you’ve been trying to forget for the last five months, your ex-boyfriend Eddie.
New Dress
Eddie hears through the grapevine that you want to go on more dates, and he goes into quick action.
Prom Night
You never thought it would be your fault that you couldn’t go to prom with your boyfriend, but Eddie did his part. It was you that messed up.
Girls Freak Me Out
After graduating, Eddie isn’t as in the loop with the Hawkins population, especially when someone new comes to town.
Chivalry Kills *18+
Eddie is a perfect gentleman to everyone, and it makes you feel invisible to him.
Lecture *18+
Wayne walks in on something..unbecoming. He has a special relationship with you, but now all of that is out the window.
Bathtime
Fluff, fluff, fluff with our boy Eddie.
Scare
You help Nancy out in an emergency, it brings back a painful memory, Dustin doesn’t bother to read instructions.
Done Deal
You thought you and Eddie were just enjoying each other’s company, but he takes a step that puts your relationship in more of a gray area.
The Boy is Mine (call-me-eds version)
A romantic night in at the trailer
Steve Harrington
A Family Affair *minor smut
You and Steve finally get a moment alone without your brother.
Second Date
After a disastrous first date, you and Steve give it another go.
Answering Machine
You hesitate to open up to Steve, but when it all gets too much, he can’t bear to see you suffer anymore.
Crush
Almost everyone can tell that Max has a crush on Steve. When he cancels a driving lesson to take you on a date, you think that you can take out 2 birds with one stone.
Friendsgiving *18+
You and Steve try to get through a dinner after crossing a line.
Baby *18+
Snapshots of your relationship with Steve through his most used nickname.
Steddie
Fight
Eddie and Wayne get into a fight, and he goes to Steve for comfort.
IT
Not Today (Reddie)
All Eddie wants is to be an emotional backbone for Richie, who is used to running and hiding from his emotions. He’s trying to learn and be emotionally available to Eddie, but it’s hard to change all at once.
Patience (Stenbrough)
Stan needs help in school. He hates not being the smartest one in the room, he hates having to ask for help, and he hates having to ask for help from his boyfriend.
Know-It-All (Stozier)
Stan knew all there was to know about almost everything. He’s spent almost his entire life trying to pin down just one thing about Richie Tozier, but no one could do that.
Weak (Stenbrough: Fuckboy!Bill)
Fuckboy! Bill has his claws deep in Stan.
Weak Part Two (Stenbrough: Fuckboy!Bill)
Stan gets some guts and Bill isn’t sure how to handle it.
Tomorrow (Reddie)
Eddie is leaving for college and Richie can’t quite handle it.
Jewelry (Stozier)
Richie falls in love with piercings and rings while Stan falls in love with him.
Poison (Stanlon)
Getting high has never been so stressful, but then again, everything that Stan did had an edge to it.
Eye On The Ball (Bichie)
Bill tries to cope with his role in his friend group and Richie can’t stand it.
Drive (Reddie)
All Richie has wanted is to have his license and his freedom, and there’s only one thing that might stand in his way.
Yes (Stenbrough)
Stan has had enough of Bill’s heroics and can’t help but put his foot down.
you’re sitting in a little circle at a party and steve’s sitting right up neck to you, his knee keeps brushing yours, and his fingers keep brushing over your thigh as he’s talking so intensely and it drives you crazy how insanely bonkers hot he is all the fucking time. and you see him pull out a dart and put it between his lips — he keeps talking around it as it bobs in his mouth — and he’s patting the pockets of his jeans and his shirt and he mumbles lowly (so only you can hear) “shit i think i forgot my lighter” so you’re like “lemme just grab mine” and you pull it out expecting to offer it to him, but he just leans into you and pushes the cigarette towards you with his lips, waiting for you to light it for him. he’s still looking at the group and joining in the conversation so casually, and you are literally in a daze from how hot he looks with his hair falling over his forehead and his lips puckering just a bit around the cigarette. and you flick on the lighter and hold it up for him, and he’s so focused on it, pulling a quick breath to help it ignite, and then he takes a long drag, making eye contact with you the whole time, before blowing the smoke out, away from your face, all cocky with a little “thank you” then another brush to your knee with his pinky before turning back to the group like nothing’s happened, like he didn’t just share this intensely heated moment with you alone…. hnngh
summary: in which going through a break up is hard, but what’s harder is having to spend the majority of your night in the WSQK van with your ex because no one knows you’re broken up yet
warnings: explicit language, forced proximity (kinda), a lot of bitchy!steve and bitchy!reader, dustin being dustin<3, brief mentions of the loss of a parent, eddie mentions, angst (because i fear i’m incapable of not writing angst)
author’s note: a part two will be coming !!!! (allegedly)
.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.
Your plan was to avoid Steve for the rest of your life.
It was a completely impossible plan because pretty much everything about your lives were intertwined; friends, work, even your mom was obsessed with him and you had a feeling that it was going to take a lot of convincing for you to get her to stop randomly calling him over to fix something around the house like she’d grown so accustomed to the last two years.
However, even though it was impossible for you to never have to see his stupidly cute face ever again (you wondered if you would eventually get to a point where you didn’t think he was cute), you could at least ignore him.
And that was exactly what you set out to do when you woke up the morning after the break up.
Robin would be the first one to know about it, and you were sure that she’d understand that there was no way that you and Steve could work side by side at The Squawk as sound techs/doing anything and everything else that was needed around the radio station anymore. You’d already come up with the perfect solution to that problem— he’d do mornings and lunch, you’d do late afternoons and the evening, and you two would alternate nights.
You sipped on the strongest cup of coffee, using the harsh bitterness as a form of encouragement, before leaving your house and heading to the radio station. You promptly sighed when you saw Steve’s car already parked in the nonexistent parking lot; every bit of courage you had quickly dwindled down to nothing.
The only good thing about him showing up before you was that it probably meant that he’d already told Robin about the break up, so you luckily wouldn’t have to be the one to say it.
However, the universe apparently decided not to be on your side this morning because you were entirely wrong about that assumption.
“There’s gonna be a crawl tonight,” was the first thing Steve said to you when you walked in, and you immediately knew what his words meant.
It would be stupid to bring up the break up and tell everyone now when all attention needed to be focused solely on the crawl. It was still a new thing to all of you; this would only be the sixth one, and a million things could go wrong. Therefore, you and Steve announcing your break up would be the epitome of terrible timing.
And that also meant that you and he couldn’t act like anything was wrong or “off” between you two, which meant that you’d have to go through one more day of “being” in a relationship.
Which triply meant that your plan of ignoring him forever was also entirely out of the window for the time being.
Shit.
.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.
Even though there had only been five of them so far, your designated spot on crawl nights was the passenger seat of the WSQK van. With Steve in the driver's seat and Dustin in the back doing the actual complicated work.
That set up was practically written in the nonexistent bylaws, so you knew that going against it would look weird, and you didn’t want to be the one to fuck with the “norm” and potentially throw everything else off too.
You all needed this, and you needed it to work, so you were okay with sucking it up and forcing yourself to be in a car with your ex-boyfriend for a few hours.
“Okay, I’ve tried to pretend that things don’t feel disgustingly weird in here, but I can’t do it any longer,” Dustin’s voice broke through the silence that had been prevailing in the van for the past thirty minutes. “What the hell is wrong with you guys?”
Steve sighed as he kept driving down the quiet street. “What are you talking about, Henderson?”
“Usually, I have to constantly yell at you guys to shut up up there so that I can concentrate on keeping track of Hopper, but this entire night you guys have been deathly quiet. What’s wrong?”
“Maybe your yelling finally got through to us?” Steve said, dodging the question at hand.
“I wish I were that intimidating,” Dustin responded, obviously not believing Steve’s words. “Seriously, what’s up? Did you two get into an argument about who’s prettier, or who loves the other one more?”
It was almost comical how far off from the truth Dustin was, but it made sense why he’d think that you and Steve were in some silly or lighthearted argument, because that’s all they usually were.
“We broke up last night,” You answered, not turning your eyes away from looking out the window and at the houses slowly passing by as you said the five words.
“Weird joke.”
“Not a joke, Henderson,” Steve jumped in, and if he was surprised that you had just blurted it out like this, so abruptly when you could’ve just made something up or kept avoiding the question, he didn’t show it.
“Oh,” Dustin mumbled. “Shit, what happened?”
“Enzo’s,” You answered first because you wanted to say something before Steve did.
Dustin let out a confused sound. “What?”
“It was about a dinner reservation,” You explained; it was barely an explanation, but it was pretty much the gist of what happened.
“You guys broke up over a dinner reservation?”
“Yes,” You said simply, and then immediately heard Steve scoff under his breath. You looked at him, eyes narrowing. “What?”
“Nothing,” He shrugged. “If you wanna say that it was only about that, then sure, whatever, that’s fine.”
“What would you say it was about then?”
“You being stubborn.”
You rolled your eyes and let out your own scoff. “You’re insane.”
“Okay,” He said and then turned his attention solely back to the road. He didn’t fight you on your words, which annoyed you a lot more than if he had said something more.
“Alright, none of what you guys just said helped me understand what happened between you two, so can you just do a play-by-play of what happened last night?” Dustin asked.
Steve let out an annoyed sigh. “Henderson, we’re broken up. That’s that. Why does the why and how of it all matter to you so much?”
“It matters because as a founding father of this relationship, I obviously don’t want to see it end,” He answered in a ‘duh’ tone, which made Steve immediately shake his head.
“How many times do I have to tell you that you’re not the reason that we started dating?”
“Really? So, who’s the one that told you about the girl who worked at the bookstore and who I was certain that you’d immediately hit it off with?” Dustin said, and then didn’t hesitate to continue because the question was obviously rhetorical. “Yeah, that’s right, me!”
“I knew about her way before you got back from camp,” Steve told him. “The Waldenbooks was only two doors down from Scoops.”
“Yeah, but I’m sure you would’ve never actually talked to her if I hadn’t made us go there to get the Russian to English dictionary.”
“Dude, I would’ve totally—”
“We should do it,” You interrupted Steve on whatever long winded tangent he was about to go on. “Let’s give him the play-by-play of what happened last night.”
Steve glanced at you. “You’re only siding with him because you wanna disagree with me.”
“Not true.” It was entirely true, and Steve knew that. It was why he gave you the most deadpanned look ever, and you only gave him a dry smile in response.
“Maybe this could be like couples counseling. I’ll be your guys’ therapist right now,” Dustin said, which made you slightly regret siding with him because you didn’t really like the thought of this night being turned into 'therapy hour.'
“No way,” Steve quickly responded, taking a quick look back at the teen. “I already know you’re just going to agree with her no matter what, even though your loyalties should lie with me because I’ve known you longer.”
“I promise to be a completely unbiased party,” Dustin told him. “Now, someone start the story.”
The long story short was that it had all been a stupid argument about nothing that actually felt like it was about everything, but neither you nor Steve were ready to admit that.
“We were supposed to go on a date,” Steve started before you could even think about what to say first. “I planned the whole thing—”
“Wait, hold on. Turn left at the next street,” Dustin interrupted him mid-sentence. Steve made the turn, and then Dustin was quiet for a second, taking a moment to make sure that the signal was still strong and everything was still going to plan. “Okay, continue the story.”
He was damn good at multitasking.
“I showed up at her house at eight,” Steve continued. “And when she opened the door, she immediately rolled her eyes.”
“Ouch,” Dustin mumbled under his breath.
“I could tell with the way you were dressed that we were going to Enzo’s and I hate Enzo’s,” You said, feeling the need to defend yourself.
“You’ve never said that.”
“Okay, well, I’ve never said I liked it.”
“You liked it just fine a year ago,” Steve said, and he didn’t give you any time to rebut his words before he kept going. “Just admit that you would’ve hated anywhere I wanted to take you.”
“Is that true?” Dustin asked.
You sighed as you crossed your arms and let your head fall back against the headrest. “No, that’s not true at all.”
Steve scoffed, and you didn’t have to look at him to know he was also rolling his eyes. “Bullshit.”
“It’s not bullshit.”
“Okay, so what about last week when I said we should go to the movies? Or the week before that, when I suggested just driving around and listening to music?” He asked and took a quick glance at you. “Do you also suddenly hate those things too?”
“Yes, Steve, I hate going to the movies, and I hate music, and I hate cars and driving. I hate everything, actually. Is that what you wanna hear?” The sarcasm was evident in your tone, and you looked at him only for a second before turning your gaze back to the window.
He shook his head, clearly annoyed. “It’s impossible to talk to you.”
“Ditto.”
“Are you guys sure you wanna break up?” Dustin jumped in. “You got the old married couple vibe down perfectly.”
“Shut up,” It was said in damn near perfect unison, which made you and Steve look at each other and then promptly look away.
“I don’t think it's proper etiquette to verbally abuse your therapist,” Dustin said in a tone that was almost too Dustin-like. “Especially when he’s just trying to lighten the mood.”
“‘Lighten the mood’?” Steve responded, eyebrows furrowing. “Are you a therapist or a comedian?”
That got an abrupt, quiet laugh out of you that you immediately tried to cover with a cough.
“Was that a laugh I just heard?” Dustin asked, not missing a beat. “It was at my expense, but I’m okay with that if it means we’re making progress.”
You could feel Steve’s eyes on you, but you refused to meet them. “Not a laugh, just a cough.”
“Yeah, of course,” Steve mumbled.
“Okay, we never got a final answer to that last question, so let’s go back to it,” Dustin said. “Would you honestly have hated anywhere that Steve wanted to take you on this date?”
The short answer was genuinely no, but of course, there was more to it than that, and surprisingly enough, you actually wanted to be completely truthful.
“It wasn’t about Enzo’s or the movies or any of it. It was about how you were doing everything. After all of that terrible shit happened last year, you started treating me like I was some delicate thing that would break at any given moment, and you started holding on so fucking tight, and that’s what I hated,” You said and then breathed out a sigh. “You just became so… clingy.”
The moment the word fell from your lips, you regretted it. You weren’t trying to hurt Steve, but even you could admit that was probably the worst thing you could say to him, and Dustin’s immediate surprised gasp only confirmed that.
You looked at Steve, but his eyes were planted firmly on the road, and he didn’t say anything. It was too dark to read his face, and also too hard because you could only see half of it.
The van became silent for a few moments, uncomfortably so, until Dustin told Steve to make another turn, and he did.
You kept staring at him, willing him to meet your eyes. “I’m s—”
“Sure, yeah, maybe I became kinda clingy, but at least I cared about the relationship,” Steve started before you could finish. “You stopped caring after everything happened. And I know you’re hurting, but you never wanna talk about it— about your dad, about Eddie, about anything that happened last year. All you did was push me away when I was just trying to fix it.”
You pretended that you didn’t feel so affected at his abrupt mention of your dad and Eddie. “And Enzo’s would just magically fix everything?”
“Obviously not, but I don’t know, I just wanted to do anything to help make you feel at least a little bit better,” He admitted softly.
There was nothing that you felt like you could say to that. The fact that he said “wanted” in the past tense reminded you of what you two now were to each other. And for the first time since it happened, the thought of him not being yours and you not being his anymore actually saddened you, and it was impossible to push the feeling away. It mixed harshly with the annoyance and anger that this entire conversation had already brought out in you.
Dustin broke the quiet. “Who initiated it?”
You turned back to look at him. “Initiated what?”
“The break up,” He elaborated, and for a second, you completely forgot that this whole thing was about you two explaining to him what happened.
“She did,” Steve answered.
You rolled your eyes at how irritated he sounded, as if it all had been entirely your doing. “Okay, yeah, I said the actual words, but you pretty much started it by first asking if there was any point to us being together anymore.”
Steve breathed out an annoyed sigh. “Was I even wrong to ask that when you basically just confirmed that you hated everything I was doing in our relationship?”
“No, you weren’t wrong. Surprisingly enough, you were very right,” You told him, sarcasm clear in your tone.
Dustin immediately took notice of the sharp energy shift. “Um, okay, I think we’re making the opposite of progress now, so maybe we should just—”
“Let me out here,” You interrupted him before he could finish whatever he was about to say.
Steve gave you a confused look. “What?”
“Stop the van and let me out here,” You told him, meeting his eyes just for a second. “I wanna go home, but I’m not gonna fuck up the crawl by asking you to take me, so I’ll just walk.”
He shook his head at what he considered a terrible idea. “No way, your house is like twenty minutes away from here.”
“It’s fine. I don’t care,” You said with an exasperated huff. “I just cannot be in this car with you anymore.”
“Fine,” Steve responded and pulled over to the side of the road.
“Thanks,” You said, giving him a dry smile before you got out of the van and slammed the passenger door behind you.
.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。. .・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.
The three quick knocks against your bedroom window came around one in the morning, and you were certain that it was Steve.
He was the only person who would come to your house this late, and the three knocks were his signature. There was a time when hearing the familiar quick taps would flood your stomach with giddy butterflies. Now you were only hit with something that felt melancholic because of how different things were.
You pulled back your curtain and saw him on your roof and at your window. You pushed it up a little.
“What are you doing here?”
“I wanted to make sure that you made it home okay,” He answered with a nonchalant shrug. “That you didn’t trip and fall on your walk and end up lying hurt in a ditch somewhere.”
That was exactly the way his mind worked, and at one point in time, it was the most endearing thing ever to you. It still kind of was.
You pushed your window open further so that you could step out and join him on your roof instead of letting him in your room. “You don’t have to do that anymore. You don’t have to care.”
Steve gave you a look. “Two years of caring isn’t just gonna turn off in one day.”
He was right, but you refused to tell him that.
“Everyone asked what happened to you when we made it back to The Squawk after the crawl,” He said as you two settled yourselves on a flatter part of the angled roof. “Dustin told them that you weren’t feeling well.”
You nodded at that. “Any big news to report from the crawl?”
“Nope. Same results as last time. No Vecna, no anything,” Steve answered with a quick shake of his head. “What were you doing here?”
“Putting together a box with all of your stuff that I have,” You told him. You’d been in the middle of folding his last t-shirt when he knocked on your window. “I’m not done yet, but I’ll probably have it for you tomorrow.”
“I haven’t even thought about that yet,” Steve said, which was a response that you expected because it hadn’t been the first thing on your mind either. You really only started doing it because you were angry.
After your twenty-minute walk, your annoyance from the night still hadn’t worn off, and when you spotted a smiling picture of you and Steve taped up above your dresser— that had been there since the summer you met— you got the sudden urge to get rid of everything.
You found an empty box in your garage and then started packing up his t-shirts and hoodies that you pretended you weren’t sad about having to part with, along with some movies that he had left at your house, and other random things that technically belonged to both of you but you’d rather he just have them.
“Well, you need to think about it soon because I want my Queen tape back,” You said. “I’m also pretty sure I left my one red swimsuit at your house, and it would be nice to have that back too.”
Steve nodded at your words and then got quiet just for a second. “What about gifts?”
Instinctively, your hand went up to touch the necklace hanging from your neck, but it stopped short because you didn’t want Steve to see you do it. It didn’t cross your mind yet if you should give him back the necklace he gave you on your one year anniversary; it was silver and had a book pendant hanging from it, and you still considered it the best gift you’d ever gotten from someone. You rarely ever took it off, and you especially couldn’t imagine doing so now.
“Gifts are… whatever you wanna do with them, I guess,” You ultimately answered. “You could definitely keep the Walkman I got you, if you want, but I will once again say that I want my Queen tape back.”
Steve held his hands up in mock surrender. “Got it. You will get Sheer Heart Attack back, I promise.”
“Thank you.”
A comfortable quiet began to linger, and just for a moment, you felt as if you were back to how things used to be. After everything happened at the mall, you two spent a lot of time out here on your roof, staring up at the night sky and soaking up as much of the summer weather as you could. It was during those early stages where everything between you two was new and sweet, and it was hard to be apart from one another. And even when that “honeymoon phase” settled into something more real and deeper than either of you had initially expected, it all still felt so damn good. You missed that feeling; you missed it so much more than you wanted to admit.
Just like caring wouldn’t magically go away after two years, neither would the love you had for him.
“I’m sorry,” You abruptly said, breaking the silence and sighing into the cold air. “I’m sorry that I made you think that I stopped caring about us. Honestly, I cared so much that the thought of losing you too— just like my dad or just like Eddie— really fucking scared me, so I started pushing you away instead, and I didn’t even realize I was doing it until it was too late, and at that point it felt easier to just keep pushing instead of fixing things. And you didn’t deserve that. And I shouldn’t have called you clingy; you definitely didn’t deserve that either. That was really fucked up. I’m sorry.”
That was probably the most honest you’d been in ages; to Steve, to anyone else, to yourself even. And it felt good, even as sad and depressing as your words were. Without all of that bottled up, you felt like you could breathe just a little bit easier.
“You were kind of right, though,” Steve responded. You could feel his eyes on you, and you didn’t hesitate to meet his gaze. “I did become clingy. I was basically doing the same thing as you, but the opposite version. I was so scared of losing you that I held on way too fucking tight, and I didn’t even realize it until you called it out in the van.”
It made sense; so much sense that you felt like you should’ve recognized that a lot earlier, but you had been so lost in your own head and ruining things in your own way that you hadn’t seen any of it.
“So we both messed everything up because we were scared idiots,” You concluded, and Steve let out a quiet, almost sad laugh.
“I guess so,” He mumbled as he pushed a hand through his hair. “So, now what?”
Maybe this fully honest conversation about everything was what you two needed to move in the direction of actually fixing things; one conversation definitely wasn’t enough, but it was a good start. But also maybe none of it would be enough, and you couldn’t bear the thought of things being okay only for a little bit before having to just go through all of this again.
Although breaking up last night had been a decision that was made in haste from both sides, it didn’t feel like something you should go back on now.
“Tomorrow we’ll tell everyone we’re broken up, and we’ll also tell them that we’ll be able to coexist just fine,” You answered quietly, finally looking away from him.
You almost said that you two could be friends, but the word wouldn’t fall from your lips. There was a part of you that would rather be nothing to him than have him go from being the most important person in your life to just a friend.
You could also imagine the lines getting blurred way too easily; the break up was too fresh, and you couldn’t picture having a normal, friendly conversation about random nonsense with him anytime soon.
In this moment, you were fine with going back to the plan that you’d decided on this morning— ignoring Steve as much as you could.
“Okay,” Steve nodded at your previous words, and you weren’t sure why there was a part of you that thought he was going to argue them.
“Okay.”
Another beat of silence lingered for a moment.
“I should go,” He said, and you gave him a half-hearted nod in response. “Close your eyes. I don’t want you to see how I get off the roof because it probably won’t be graceful.”
That got a soft laugh out of you, and you covered your eyes with one hand. “I’ve already seen you be 'not-so-graceful' a bunch of times up here, but okay.”
“It feels more embarrassing now that we’re not dating,” He told you, and you didn’t have time to say anything back, or really even process how him saying that for the first time made you feel, before you heard some movement next to you and then an awkward-sounding thud.
“Bye.”
You took your hand down from your eyes and saw Steve now standing on your front lawn and looking up at you.
This wasn’t the last time that you’d ever see him or even the last time you’d ever talk to him, but somehow this moment did feel pretty monumental, somehow more monumental than what happened last night— this moment weirdly felt more finite, like the true ending to something that was technically already over.
You gave him a small smile that you hoped didn’t look as sad as it felt. “Bye.”
