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BITE MARKS | steve harrington

Steve Harrington seems to be annoyed with you about something. But that doesn't mean that you won't try and save his life.

pairing: steve harrington x henderson!reader words: 6.5k contains: angst, graphic descriptions of injury and violence, gore, canon level violence, death of a few demo bats (rip), blood (lots of blood), friends to lovers, idiots in love, miscommunication, platonic (with a capital p!!) relationship between eddie and reader, dustin henderson meddling, slight sexual tension, female reader, no use of y/n (steve calls reader henderson), she/her pronouns for reader.

author's note: this was originally meant to just be a blurb and got carried away. hope you enjoy, the action in this was SO fun!

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Steve Harrington had been acting weird around you all day. He had been snappy with you and when he wasn’t snappy, he seemed to have decided to ignore you entirely. Had you not been in the middle of yet another Upside Down crisis, you might have called him out for it, but you know now wasn’t the time.

But god, was it starting to piss you off.

You scowled as he ignored you yet again when you pointed out the fact that you were a far better swimmer than he and therefore far better equipped to swim down into the depths of Lover’s Lake to find this so-called ‘water gate’. You had been captain of the swim team for three years and could definitely hold your breath longer than Steve could and yet—he was the one tugging off his shirt and getting ready to jump into the water.

You were so annoyed at Steve and his behaviour towards you over the past few days that you very nearly missed the sight of his bare chest. But the generous smattering of hair there, the softness of his stomach and the expanse of his shoulders was hard to miss.

Robin notices you staring and raises a brow. You ignore her.

“Steve—” you repeat his name again as you reach out to swipe the flashlight wrapped in a plastic bag that Eddie had been about to hand him. “—don’t ignore me. I’m the better swimmer here, don’t you think I should be the one to—”

“Do you ever shut up, Henderson?” Steve snaps at you, his eyes flashing when he turns to finally look at you for the first time in hours. “Jesus—you’re worse than your brother.”

Your face burns with a hot mix of embarrassment and anger.

“But you’re not listening to me—”

But Steve cuts you off by snatching the flashback out of your hands. You don’t get to finish before he’s diving into the dark lake.

It’s silent then on the small boat. Eddie is avoiding eye contact with you and both Robin and Nancy look torn between checking you were okay and glancing down at their watches to see how long Steve was taking.

Thankfully—they decided to focus on Steve. You decided to glare at the lake water as though it had personally offended you.

But the longer Steve was beneath the surface, the more you found your anger towards him slipping away. Flashes of Steve not resurfacing enter your mind. Images of his lifeless body floating in the lake, of his body broken like Fred and Chrissy’s had been, his hazel eyes popped out of their sockets. You find your own eyes flickering down to the watch on your wrist.

“He’s going to be fine,” Eddie tells you quietly, his shoulder brushing against yours.

You knew Steve would be fine. You knew he was a strong swimmer. You knew that all he had to do was find the gate and come back up to the surface. Nothing dangerous, nothing life threatening.

But that didn’t stop your heart from hammering madly in your chest.

You open your mouth to respond to Eddie—to perhaps lie and tell him that you weren’t worried about Steve—but you were interrupted by the sudden sound of water gushing.

“Oh, Christ!” Eddie shrieks as Steve breaks the surface of the water, spluttering for breath. You hate that you lean out of the boat a little just to make sure he really was okay.

“I found it.” Steve announces.

“You found it?” Nancy asks, mirroring you in leaning a little out the boat to talk to Steve. You feel something tight in your chest at the sight.

“I found it,” Steve repeats, swimming closer to the boat to lift a hand to hold onto the edge. “Yeah, I found it.”

“Dustin, you are a goddamn Einstein,” Robin tells your brother into the walkie talkie in her hand. “Steve found the gate!”

Despite Steve’s reappearance, you still felt on edge. You wanted desperately to pull him from the lake, to get him out of the damn water but the fact Steve wasn’t even looking at you right now was stopping you. Your hands twitch at your sides as you watch him continue to tread water with one hand.

“It’s pretty wild,” Steve tells the group. “It’s more a snack-size gate than the mama gate.”

You bite back a laugh and of course, Steve notices. His eyes flicker to yours as he says, “but still, it’s pretty damn big.”

There was a moment, a very brief moment, where everything felt normal. You felt your hand reaching for his of its own accord and then—

The first thing that you register was the terror and confusion in Steve’s eyes before he’s pulled beneath the water for a few horrifying seconds as something attempts to pull him down into the dark depths.

“Steve?” You exclaim, voice weak a little as your hand scrambles for his. Your fingers curl into the wet skin for a few brief moments before he pulls away from your touch.

“Don’t you—”

That something below pulls Steve down a second time. And this time, he doesn’t surface.

“STEVE!” You scream his name and the terror in your voice is evident.

The others are yelling his name too—Eddie is swearing blindly, Robin is panicking and Nancy is staring at the spot where her ex-boyfriend had disappeared in horror. You stare down at your hand, the one that had briefly held Steve’s before he was dragged down beneath the depths.

You understand then why he pulled away from you. Not because he didn’t want you to touch him. But because he didn’t want you going down with him.

The others continue to shout Steve’s name, as though just by yelling it would bring him back up to the surface. But you? You’re standing up in the small boat on shaky legs.

“Henderson,” Eddie says suddenly as he watches you shrug off your jacket. “You better not be doing what I think you’re doing—”

“I’ll be fine,” you snap, your body tense and heart hammering as those images of Steve’s lifeless body creep back into your mind. “I’m not letting him—”

You can’t even say it. The word die. But it was true—you couldn’t let Steve Harrington die. You wouldn’t allow it. You had been through too much together. The first demogorgon attack in the Byers’ home. The one you both had accidentally stumbled into after you had seen Steve after his fight with Jonathan. All Steve had asked you was for directions to Jonathan’s house in order to apologise and you had gone with him because you thought Dustin, who you hadn’t seen in over a day, might be there. How that simple decision had changed both of your lives. How the next year you were back to fighting monsters alongside the guy formerly known as King Steve. The guy who once roamed the halls of Hawkins High like he owned the place was now letting you cry on his shoulder after helping you bury your cat. How he had promised you he would never tell Dustin how upset you were about Mews because you didn’t want your brother to feel bad.

And then the following summer came, where you and Steve both worked at Scoops with Robin. You spent days laughing with him and trying to ignore how elated you felt when customers who Steve attempted to flirt with shot him down. How you felt yourself sometimes wishing that you were the object of his affection instead of the girls who laughed about his sailor uniform. And then when your carefree summer turned into more Upside Down nonsense and you were stuck in that Russian base beneath Starcourt, things felt heavier. You still remember Steve’s screams as the Russians did god knows what to him. Still remember the blind panic you felt when they threw him down in front of you and you thought for a few, horrifying moments that he was dead. How you had cleaned each other’s wounds after. How Steve had cried in front of you when the dusted settled.

And now, here.

Steve—perhaps dead, maybe just barely alive—and you, standing in the small boat, shaking from adrenaline and refusing to let Steve Harrington die.

And so, despite Eddie and Robin’s yells for you to stop and think, you take a deep breath before you dive, head first into the cold lake water. It was an unelegant, messy dive, nothing like the dives you had performed during your years as swim team captain. And yet, it was your most important one to date.

You weren’t quite sure where you were going. You couldn’t see Steve, or anything for that matter. It was dark beneath the surface. So very dark. And perhaps if your fear of losing Steve wasn’t so intense, so all consuming, you may have thought twice about what you were doing. How dangerous this was. But all you could think about was the look on Steve’s face before he was pulled under. And you couldn’t give in.

Despite the fact your arms and legs quickly began to ache as you swam deeper and deeper, you kept pushing. Refused to give up even when your ears popped from the pressure. Even as your lungs screamed from a lack of oxygen. Even when the tips of your fingers began to tingle, you kept going. Because you saw a faint red glow—a large crack in the lake bed. A gate.

Every part of your body was screaming now. You kicked. You pushed through every instinct telling you to go back to the surface. To safety. To the others. But you didn’t.

Your vision begins to blur around the edges as you reach the gate. You don’t stop. Your head breaks through the strange, slimy tendrils before—air. Not fresh air. It was that clammy, suffocating air of the Upside Down. You don’t care. You’re gasping as you pull the rest of your body through the gate. You hear the thunder, see the flashes of red lightning in the clouds above. Your arms are tired, your legs close to giving up, your lungs burn and your body is soaked through to the bone. You don’t remember the last time you had felt so cold.

But a nearby yell pulls you back to the thing that brought you here in the first place. Finding Steve.

Your body turns and—you don’t have to look far. Because ten yards or so away was Steve. Still alive. Writhing. Choking. The tail of a demonic looking bat wrapped around his neck as two more bats sank their fangs into the skin of his stomach, gorging on his flesh. It was a scene ripped straight from a nightmare. But you stumble towards it anyway.

You can see the fear on his face. Can see how his legs kick to try and fight back, how his arms are trying to shove away the bats that were ripping at his flesh.

“S-Steve!” You call out, your legs screaming in protest as you rush towards him. You don’t have a weapon. You’re not even really thinking about what you’ll do to get the bats off him. You just know that you need to try.

You’re not like Nancy, or Steve. You’re not great at fighting. But the fear in Steve’s eyes had stirred something deep inside you.

Your hand slips into the back pocket of your jeans and you pull out a simple compact mirror. The one you always carried just in case. Nothing fancy. But you bend down to smash it against the hard rock of the dry and cracked lake bed. The glass shatters and you pick up the biggest shard. It was barely long enough to hold it in your palm but it was your only weapon.

You go for one of the bat’s feasting on his stomach first. The shard of glass isn’t enough to pierce through the thing’s flesh but you try anyway, going for its wings where the skin was thinner. You hacked at it madly, consumed by the need to save Steve. You barely even hear its screeches of pains as you manage to take one of its wings off in the most barbaric way. Blood spatters over your face, trickles down your neck as you pick up the bat that was wailing in agony and throw it as far away from you as you could.

You turn to do the same to the other bat. But it’s already pulled away from Steve to bare its teeth at you. You don’t move, don’t try and dodge. Because you notice the blood covering its mouth. Blood. Steve’s blood.

That moment of hesitation could have cost you if it wasn’t for Nancy Wheeler.

The bat lunges at you but instead of its fangs meeting your flesh, a wooden oar smacks it away from you before it could get the chance.

“Hey there,” Nancy says to you with a small smile before she turns to whack the bat again for good measure.

It’s then you notice not only Nancy, but Robin and Eddie. Both of them trying to stop a fourth bat from joining the party.

You don’t stick around to say hi.

Your body twists so you could try and help Steve free himself from the bat that was still choking him. Your hands, covered in the blood from the bat you had brutalised, shake as you try and pull its tail from around Steve’s neck. But the more you pull, the tighter it seems to get. You can hear how Steve gasps for air that won’t come.

“Shit, fuck!” You exclaim as you scramble for the piece of broken mirror you had used to hack the wings off of the bat’s friend. But before you could find it, Steve moves. You watch—in a mix of horror and admiration as Steve manages to turn his head to the side, grabs part of the bat's tail that wasn’t wrapped around neck and pulls it towards him. Your eyes widen when Steve sinks his teeth into the bat’s flesh, hard. Hard enough to tear its flesh away.

The bat screams, wails and unfurls its tail from Steve’s neck.

Steve doesn’t hesitate.

His hand is still wrapped around the bat’s tail as it tries to fly away. It continues to cry out in pain, blood pouring from where Steve had bit it. But Steve doesn’t let go. He stands, his bare chest heaving with a look on his face that you hadn’t ever seen before. One that leaves you breathless and unable to move from your position on the floor.

The others—who each seemed to have been successful in their fights against the bats—watch too. Watch as Steve slams the bat to the ground with a force that was enough to kill. You knew it was dead from the first hit. But Steve doesn’t stop. He slams it to the ground again. You hear its tiny skull crack against the dry rock. It’s even more savage and brutal than you had been with taking off the other bat’s wing. A final slam to the ground and then—Steve holds the dead bat down to the floor with his barefoot before he tears its body into two. You know it must have taken all of his strength but Steve made it look easy. He throws half of its body away before he spits a glob of flesh and blood onto the ground.

It’s almost complete silence for a few seconds. The only sounds being the cracking of lightning and Steve’s heavy breathing. And then—Steve stumbles.

“Steve!” You gasp as you rush to catch him.

“Jesus Christ,” he murmurs as you approach him. “I’m fine Henderson—”

“Fine?” You repeat, feeling your face burn in a mix of adrenaline and anger because how dare he try and push you away now, after what you had just been through. Your hand meets his shoulder and you gently turn him to face you fully so you could look at his wound. It was—fuck, it was bad. There was so much blood, his skin was torn, ripped and the sight made your stomach turn. “You’re missing like a pound of flesh, Steve—”

“—and I said I’m—”

“Uh, do you guys think these bats have, like, rabies?” Robin cuts in suddenly, making you and Steve both turn to look at her.

“What?” Steve asks. You wonder briefly if Robin was just talking to prevent you and Steve from arguing.

“It’s just that rabies are, like, my number one greatest fear.” Robin continues. “And I think we should get you to a doctor soon because once symptoms set in, it’s too late. You’re already dead.”

You blink. You hadn’t even considered rabies and now you were glancing over at Steve and trying to remember all of the symptoms. Try to figure out if the skin around the bite was irritated or if he looked nauseous or—

The sound of more screeching pulls your gaze away from Steve. Five, six, maybe seven bats are flying through the air towards your group. Or at least, you thought that they were flying towards you. They land a few yards away—forming a protective circle around the gate.

“All right. That’s not that many,” Steve says, his breathing still a little heavy. “We can take them.”

Before you had time to even think of a plan, of how to fight your way through this and come out the other side alive, there’s more shrieking.

Your stomach drops.

Because far away in the distance you see it. A swarm—a literal swarm—of bats. You can’t count how many there were, all you knew was it was too many. There was no way to fight out of this.

“You were saying?” Robin asks Steve, unable to stop herself.

You swallow, unable to stop yourself from imagining how it would feel to die being ripped to shreds by those bats.

“The woods,” Nancy suddenly exclaims —her face turned away and looking over at the nearby woods, the trees that were dead, had no leaves. There was nothing to cover you from bats but it was better than dying out here. “Come on!”

You don’t need telling twice. You start to run, following Nancy towards the treeline, jumping over vines and trying to drown out the sound of the bats that were fast approaching.

You don’t know how long you run for or how far. All you could focus on was following Nancy deeper into the woods and listening to the sound of Steve, Eddie and Robin running along behind you.

It was just as your thighs started to burn, just as you started to slow down and Robin had to yell at you to keep running that you realised where Nancy was taking you.

Skull Rock looked far more intimidating in the Upside Down. The large rock that almost perfectly resembled a human skull that stood tall and would provide the perfect cover from that swarm of bats.

“Over here!” Nancy calls and you breathe a little easier as you approach, turning around to check on the others.

“Don’t stop!” Steve yells at you, grabbing your arm and tugging you towards the safety of Skull Rock. “Jesus, Henderson—do you have a death wish or something?”

You open your mouth to respond—to yell back at him maybe—but then your eyes drop down to the wound on his stomach and all your annoyance at him fades.

“Steve, you need to—”

“—I don’t need to do anything.”

But the way he sways says otherwise and you decide you’ve had enough of his attitude.

“Steve. Sit down,” you tell him through gritted teeth. “Or I swear to god, I’ll make you.”

“I’m fine—”

“—you’re not fucking fine, Steve!” you snap at him. “You’re losing blood and you need to sit down. So sit down.”

There was something in your voice—something in the way you look at him—that made Steve sink down onto a nearby rock. His jaw set but he didn’t say anything, didn’t argue.

You kneel down in front of him and you can see how woozy he is. How he tries to follow your movement with his eyes but struggles to focus.

“You feel woozy?” You ask him, gently pushing him upright so you could take a closer look at his wound—the blood makes you feel a little sick but you push through it. Steve grunts in way of an answer and you glance over at Robin with a small smile.

“Good news Robin,” you say as you glance over at the others to see Robin watching you closely, Eddie anxiously pacing the inside of the cave and Nancy keeping watch on the swarm of bats above. “Wooizness is not a symptom of rabies.”

Robin smiles nervously. “That’s—yeah, that’s good,” she nods. “But Steve—if you start having hallucinations or muscle spasms or you start feeling aggressive like you wanna punch me? Let me know.”

“Robin?” Steve grunts as you adjust his position once again.

“Yeah?”

Your mouth twitches a little because you knew what was coming next.

“I kinda wanna punch you,” Steve says and you can’t help it—you laugh. Steve's eyes meet yours and his lips twitch a little as he tries not to smile.

Robin laughs too and you can tell she was close to tears—a mix of adrenaline and worry for her best friend. You could feel it too, the lump in your throat but you weren’t going to focus on you right now. Just Steve. Only Steve.

“Sense of humour’s still intact,” you hear Robin say as you start to peel off your sweater, leaving you in only your tank top beneath. You shiver but you push past it, leaning down to tear off the sleeves. “That’s a good sign.”

But Steve isn’t listening to Robin anymore. He’s staring down at you, eyes wide and suddenly feeling a lot less woozy. You don’t see it but Steve’s eyes move over you, over the goosebumps quickly forming on the skin of your arms before they move over your neck, collarbones, down to your cleavage that he could see clear as day. He forces himself to look away.

“You ready?” You ask and Steve blinks in confusion before he turns back to look at you. He had been too busy ogling to know exactly what you were doing.

“What?” Steve asks, his cheeks a little flushed and hazel eyes lifting to meet yours.

“Pull it together, Harrington,” Eddie mutters, seemingly a little amused by the situation.

Steve doesn’t have the energy to snap at Eddie. Instead, he glances down at the makeshift bandage you had made from the sleeves of your ripped sweater and then—at your face. He swallows, knowing the uncomfortableness that he was about to experience, and then nods.

“Just do it.”

You bite your lip as you press the material directly over the wound. The hiss of pain Steve lets out goes straight to your chest.

“I’m sorry,” you tell him, your voice shaking as you wrap the sleeves around his torso. “I’m so sorry. I’m sorry—”

“It’s—fuck—it’s okay,” Steve tells you, clearly in pain but pushing through it. “Don’t apologise.”

You nod but his grunts and groans of pain go straight through you. You feel awful and try to be as careful and quick as possible as you tighten the bandage just so before securing it in a quick knot.

“Too tight?” You ask breathlessly before you glance up at Steve.

“Huh?” Steve asks, trying not to focus on how your breasts had felt pressed against his chest when you had been tying the bandage. “No—it's…that’s good.”

“Good,” you breathe, resting a hand on his chest to gently push him back so he could lean against the wall of the cave. You can feel how quickly his heart beats beneath the palm of your hand. Can feel the hair on his chest against your fingers. It makes your face feel warm and you quickly pull your hand away. “Sorry, I—”

You look up to find Steve already looking back at you.

Steve opens his mouth to say something but then the earth beneath you moves. One of Steve’s arms quickly wrap around you before you could hit the ground, pulling you up and against his body. Eddie grabs Robin and Nancy manages to hold herself up in the nick of time.

You feel every inch of Steve’s body pressing against you, you can feel every breath he takes. One arm is wrapped around your waist while his other one holds the both of you upright. It’s hard to focus on the tremors of the earthquake when Steve was holding you like this. But after a minute, maybe less, it stops and you don’t want him to let you go.

But he does and you miss his touch instantly.

“Steve, I—”

“Don’t, Henderson,” Steve mutters, his jaw clenching as he turns away from you. “You shouldn’t have come after me.”

You stiffen, stepping away from him as the anger returns, apparently bubbling just beneath the surface—white hot. You want to yell at him—yell that you weren’t the only one who had risked their life for him. Yell at him and remind him that you had saved his life. Yell at him for being such an ass to you over the past few days. But you don’t. Because he was injured and you didn’t want the others to bear witness to your anger.

“Maybe next time I won’t,” you say coolly before slipping past him.

The group had decided that the only way back home was through the gate and that the only way through the gate was by taking down those bats that were now guarding it. And without weapons, you were pretty unlikely to stand a chance against a swarm of bats. And so, you headed towards the Wheeler house where Nancy stored her guns because it was the best shot you had. It was the only shot you had.

You and Steve weren’t talking to each other.

The tension between the two of you was buzzing in the air. Steve refusing to apologise or explain his behaviour and you were now refusing to even look at him.

“For your modesty, man,” Eddie says to Steve as he holds out his denim vest.

“Thanks,” Steve mutters, taking his eyes off you for a moment to look at Eddie. “And thank you for saving my ass back there.”

Eddie smiles a little. “Shit. You saved your own ass, man. I mean—that was a real Ozzy move you pulled back there.”

Steve frowns and glances at Eddie. “Ozzy?”

“When you took a bite out of that bat,” Eddie explains but he’s met with a blank expression from Steve. “Ozzy Osbourne? Black Sabbath? He bit a bat’s head off onstage.”

Steve blinks and shakes his head a little. “I don’t…”

“You don’t? Doesn’t matter—it’s very metal, what you did. That’s all I’m saying.”

“Thanks,” Steve says with a small nod.

“Henderson saving you was pretty metal too,” Eddie continues with a nod towards your figure walking between Nancy and Robin up ahead. “I mean—she took off a bat’s wing with some shards of mirror. Pretty metal if you ask him.”

Steve’s jaw clenches. He had to admit, it had been pretty badass. But it had also pissed him off that you had thrown yourself into danger like that. And it terrified him how you had hesitated at the second bat, how it probably would have ripped your face off if Nancy hadn’t been there.

Eddie notices because of course he does. He notices the subtle shift in Steve’s expression, notices how one of his hands curls into a fist.

“She jumped in right after you, you know that, right?”

That makes Steve stop for a brief second. His eyes snap back to you for a brief moment before he turns to Eddie.

“I—she did?”

“Didn’t waste a second,” Eddie says. “Not one second. She just dove right in.”

Eddie pretends he doesn’t notice the way Steve’s jaw untenses, how his eyes soften.

“Now, I don’t know what’s going on between the two of you but if I were you, I’d talk to her. Cause that—” Eddie says, nodding towards your retreating figure, “—was as unambiguous a sign of true love as these cynical eyes have ever seen.”

Steve swallows before he turns back to look at Eddie.

“But—” Steve begins, glancing back towards you for a brief second. “But Dustin told me that—that she likes you.”

There was silence and then—Eddie burst out laughing.

Steve’s face burns and he sees you glance back for a brief moment. There was a moment where your eyes met and Steve felt his chest tighten when you quickly look away.

“It’s not funny, man—”

“I—Jesus, I know it’s not,” Eddie wheezes slightly as he forces himself to stop laughing. “It’s just—Henderson—Dustin, he’s fucking with you, man.”

Steve stops walking entirely and Eddie nearly trips over a vine.

“He—he’s what?”

Eddie breathes out, finally no longer laughing as he rubs his hand over his face. “Dustin, man—he knows you like her.”

Steve swears his heart stops beating.

“He—I don’t like—”

“Cut the shit man, I can see it on your face. You like her, she likes you—”

“—she doesn’t—”

“She does,” Eddie says with such certainty that it makes Steve pause. “She does she—you didn’t see the look on her face when you first went under. When you ripped the bat in two. She fucking loves you man. Not me. You.”

“But Dustin—”

“—Dustin was messing with you. He wants you to make a move and so he probably told you that she likes me so you would get your act together,” Eddie explains. “But all it seems to have done is piss you off.”

Steve breathes through his nose and promises himself that the moment he sees Dustin Henderson again, he’s going to slap him. Probably. Maybe more a light shove.

“He’s a little shit,” Steve mutters.

“Yeah, he is,” Eddie agrees with a smile. “Funny though.”

“Sure.”

“You gonna go talk to her?” Eddie asks.

Steve looks over at Eddie as though he had lost his mind. “Right now? No way—”

“Hey! Henderson!”

Steve curses under his breath as you turn at the sound of Eddie’s yell—both Nancy and Robin turn around too.

“Harrington here is feeling a little queasy,” Eddie calls out. “Mind checking his bandages? I’m not great with blood.”

Steve glares at Eddie and mutters, “Eddie, you little—”

“I’ll be right there,” you call back.

“Good luck, man,” Eddie says, clapping Steve on the back and quickly apologising when he grunts in pain.

The moment you’re in front of Steve again, the air between you feels different. You can’t quite put your finger on it, but his eyes are softer, his expression less tense. But he still hasn’t apologised and you’re still annoyed.

“You feel queasy?” You ask him as you lean down to check his bandage.

Steve looks over at Eddie leaning against a nearby tree and glares at him.

“Yeah, um, a little,” Steve says thickly, heart racing when he feels your fingers brush the skin just above his sweatpants.

“He nearly passed out,” Eddie comments and Steve has to stop himself from rolling his eyes. “It’s a good thing I was there or—”

“Thank you, Eddie,” Steve says pointedly. “You wanna go and see if Nancy or Robin need um, need any help?”

You nearly laugh at the notion of Nancy Wheeler ever needing help but you don’t comment—not when you’re still focused on his bandage.

“Sure thing,” Eddie says, fighting back a laugh as he steps away from you and Steve. “Good luck with the um, wound Steve.”

Steve just grunts in reply, too focused on watching you to respond properly to Eddie.

He watches as you pull the bandages away enough to check the wound. He watches how your brows furrow in concern and concentration before looking up at him.

“Still okay?” You ask softly and that softness in your voice nearly undoes him.

“Yeah,” Steve breathes out. “I’m okay.”

You retie the bandage, taking a lot more care this time. Steve continues to watch you, thinking about all the ways you had taken care of him before. How Eddie had told him that you had jumped into the water right after him. How you hadn’t even hesitated.

When you finish, he’s silent and you take it as a sign to leave but when you turn to walk away, you feel his hand wrap around your wrist.

“Wait—”

You turn then to look at him. There it was again—that soft expression on his face. One that made you feel like you weren’t in the Upside Down, like you weren’t in danger.

“What?” You ask.

“I just—I wanted to say thank you,” Steve says finally, voice tight and eyes locked with yours. “Thank you for—for saving me.”

“You would have done the same for me,” you say quietly, cheeks warming at the intensity of his gaze.

“Yeah,” Steve breathes. “I would have. In a heartbeat.”

It’s quiet between the two of you then.

“Steve, if I’ve done something to upset you—”

“—no, please don’t apologise—”

“—but you’ve been off with me and I don’t know what I’ve wrong—”

That tightness in Steve’s chest intensifies and he feels so guilty for pushing you away after Dustin had told him that you liked Eddie. He knew it was childish, knew you didn’t deserve it and yet he had done it. And Dustin had done it just to fuck with him—

“Henderson, you’ve done nothing wrong,” Steve tells you firmly, taking a gamble and stepping closer to you. When you don’t try to move away from him, he feels relieved but he doesn’t dare move any closer. Not yet anyway. “Nothing. It’s me who was wrong and I—I’m so sorry for that. I’m so fucking sorry. You didn’t deserve that.”

“But why—”

“Dustin,” Steve says simply before he takes a deep breath, eyes flickering away for a breath second before looking back at you. “Dustin. He—he told me that you like Eddie.”

A beat. A moment that lasted long enough for Steve to wonder if it was too late to feign rabies symptoms.

You blink, “I mean yeah I do like Eddie,” you say finally.

Steve feels his heart drop, just a little bit. Had Eddie been wrong? “As in you like, like him?”

You look at Steve, confused before the realisation dawns on you. “Oh, no! Jesus—no Eddie he—he’s great, really but not my type. Totally not—wait, why would Dustin—say that I like Eddie?” You ask, becoming even more confused as you ramble on. “And why would that make you annoyed at me—”

“Because I like, like you,” Steve interjects before he was too scared to say it. Before he gave into his idea of faking having rabies just to escape this situation.

The admission steals the breath from your lungs. You look back at Steve with wide eyes and parted lips.

“I—what—”

Steve swallows a lump in his throat but he doesn’t look away from you. Not for even a second.

He says your name and steps closer, lifting a hand to cup your jaw, wiping away some of the smears of dried bat’s blood from your cheek. “I like you,” Steve repeats fondly, a smile spreading across his face as he looks at you. “I really fucking like you and I have a feeling you like me too.”

You swallow, your cheeks warm but you don’t deny it. “Why would you think—”

“Because you jumped in after me, because you didn’t hesitate,” Steve says with such certainty that you feel a little weak at the knees. “And plus—I saw you checking me out when I took off my shirt earlier.”

Your face burns now. “I—I did not!” You lie.

“You did,” Steve says, smiling. “Don’t worry. I liked it.”

You fight the urge to roll your eyes. “Yeah well—I could feel you staring at my tits earlier so I guess we’re even.”

It was Steve’s turn to be flustered now and as his ears and face turn red, you start and laugh and Steve can’t help but join in.

“We’re two massive idiots, aren’t we?” He asks, pressing his forehead against yours as he thumb swipes its way across your cheek again.

“Understatement of the century,” you murmur back with a smile.

Steve smiles back at you and your heart suddenly feels ten sizes too big. Your body feels warm despite the cold air in the Upside Down and despite the danger you were still undoubtedly in, it didn’t matter. Not when Steve Harrington’s eyes were flickering down to your lips before he whispers, “can I kiss you now?”

You fail to fight back a smile. “Stupid question Harrington,” you whisper back. “Of course you can.”

Steve doesn’t hesitate. He dips his head down and finally, finally presses his lips against yours. It was maddening, that first touch. Steve moved his lips against yours like he had days to do this. Like you weren’t in the Upside Down. Like the past few days hadn’t happened as his lips moved against yours, his hands dropping down to your hips and tugging you closer while you pushed him back against a tree.

He moaned into your mouth, from pain or pleasure, you weren’t sure. But he didn’t pull away and neither did you. Your hands—that you hadn’t realised had been gripping the front of the denim vest that Eddie had given him—found their way into his hair and he moaned, actually moaned against your lips this time. It was just as he pulled you even closer, just as his tongue dipped into your mouth that another tremor shook the ground beneath you.

It was the only thing that could have pulled you two apart.

You’re both breathless and clinging to each other. Steve holds you with one arm again, the other holding you both steady against the tree as you wait for the earthquake to pass. When it does, you look at each other for a few long moments before you both start to laugh again.

“We should—”

“—get going,” you finish while biting back a stupidly large smile.

“Yeah,” Steve murmurs back, breathing heavily and trying not to look at your lips—at how wet and swollen they were from the kiss. How much he wanted to do it again and again until you both ran out of air. “But when this is all over? We’re totally doing that again. Preferably not again a tree in the Upside Down.”

“It has its merits,” you muse as you force yourself to step away from Steve. You already miss his arms around you and judging by the look on his face, he already misses holding you.

“Still—you deserve better than a damn tree,” he says firmly. “And baby, I’m going to give you so much better.”

The words—the name per name—make your lower stomach tighten and that—along with the kiss—sends your mind reeling. But you shove those feelings aside as a crack of red lightning spreads across the sky, reminding yourself of the situation you needed to get out of before you could allow yourself such pleasure.

“Sure thing, Harrington.”

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