Thank you to everyone who has messaged me about the first part of this fic. It’s so encouraging to get requests and your very kind comments, I hope you all enjoy.
A follow up fic to “Patch Me Up”.
Following on from the night Steve and the kids left Reader to save their friends. Steve is still hoping there may be a chance to redeem himself.
Warnings: None, angst I guess, and a little swearing.
The all too familiar rumble of a car engine, filled the quiet street, and you pulled the curtains closed sharply. You pulled a record from your shelf, placing it on your player, gently dropping the needle as a car door slammed shut outside. As soon as the sound started to pour out of the speakers you turned up the volume, hoping that perhaps the signal that you didn’t want to come out would be clear.
You flopped back on your bed, staring at the ceiling. How the fuck did things get so complicated?
There was a quiet knock on your door, and you reluctantly got back up from your bed, turning down the music and opening the door wide enough to see who was knocking. Ready to give Steve Harrington a piece of your mind if he had managed to sweet talk your parents into gaining access to your door.
It was your mom. She gave you an apologetic smile and you knew what she was about to tell you. You sighed opening the door wider to allow your mom to come in, while you slumped back down on the bed.
She went to your curtains, pulling them back open, a groan leaving your lips as you moved away from the light, closing your eyes.
“He’s here again, honey,” she said, the bed dipping as she took a seat at the edge.
“I know.” You sighed, getting up to sit next to her, intently focusing on the laces of your sneakers.
He had turned up at your house for a few days now, after you had refused to speak to him on the phone. It had been two weeks since he had been delivered to your doorstep by four middle schoolers after getting the shit beaten out of him by Billy Hargrove.
Two weeks since he had left you screaming at him in your driveway, while he drove off into the night.
“Look, I don’t know what happened between you two, but maybe you should at least hear him out?”
“Mom, Steve and I haven’t been friends in a while, he isn’t the same.”
Neither were you. No longer willing to take things at face value, a question to everyone’s motivations.
“People change, honey, but he was always a good kid. With a hard life. Maybe he lost his way a little, but, like I said, people can change.” She gave your shoulder a nudge with her own, and you groaned.
“Plus I think if he turns up here one more time, your dad is going to lose it.”
Your mom had been remarkably restrained up to this point, she had been about to question you about it that first morning, until she saw the look on your face. Your father had briefly looked up from his paper, a scowl on his face, before he returned to his morning routine.
“Fine. I guess I can talk to him.” You try to ignore the smile that graces her face, always knowing that your mom had a soft spot for Steve, it’s probably the only thing that has saved him from your dad’s wrath.
“I’ll let him up.” She says, getting up from your bed, “Just remember to keep the door open, for your dad.” She added with a wink that made you groan inwardly, your cheeks flushing hot at the implication.
You flop back on your bed as your mind races through what just could come of Steve Harrington walking through that door into your room. The memory of screaming into the night in your driveway was still so fresh. A sick feeling in your stomach that the car that sped down your street was heading for doom. While you kneeled hopeless in your driveway.
You sat up again at the quite knock on the door frame. Your door opening slowly to reveal in the doorway an uncommonly sheepish looking Steve Harrington. He didn’t enter, instead leaning up against the door frame, waiting for an invitation.
He looked infinitely better than the night he had been laying on your couch while you tended to his wounds. The gash above his eye, had healed up, the bruising faded. His bottom lip still slightly swollen and marked.
“You look good,” you mutter while he stands just inside of your room, “I mean,” you examine the laces of your shoes again, “you look better.”
He pushes his hair back from his face, “Yeah. Thanks.” He shoved his hands in his pocket, shifting his position up against the door. “I had a good nurse.” He adds, with a smile, as if if he can smile enough you might just catch it.
You keep your face straight. Trying to quell that feeling in your gut that is relieved to see that he is okay. The deputy had told you as much as soon as you had finally worn them down enough that night to give you some information.
He had gone to the hospital, the police were with him, so were the kids and he was okay. Once that was confirmed you allowed yourself to give into that anger again.
“You going to stand in my doorway all afternoon?” There is an edge to your tone, as you set the rules about just who is in control here. Your letting him in, not the other way around.
He takes a seat next to you on the bed, the bed dipping under his weight as he maintains a safe distance between you both. You note how he chooses to sit next to you on your bed, not the safer option of the chair near your desk. You don’t know whether to be flattered by his bold choice of seating position or annoyed that he thinks he can win his way back so easily.
“I didn’t want to see you again,” you admit, moving away, putting a further distance between you, while you concentrate on the material of your jean shorts. Pulling at a loose thread, near the pocket.
“I know,” he sighs, raking a hand through his hair, “But, I couldn’t leave things the way they were.”
“You mean when you drove off in the middle of the night, with a possible concussion in a car full of kids to some undisclosed location, and I had no idea where you were, if you were okay, if they were okay.” The calm facade dissolves giving way to the barely concealed anger. The hurt and betrayal seeping through your words.
“I know,” he repeats, his head bowed, unable to meet your eyes.
“I was so fucking scared.” You berate yourself for the tears welling in your eyes, reliving the moment when you thought you might lose him again. “You just turned up at my door.” You sniff loudly, trying to keep yourself from losing your words to the sobs threatening to take hold.
His hand reaches out to lay over your hands in your lap, stilling your fingers from fidgeting.
“Some really messed up things happened and I couldn’t let you get dragged into them.”
“Do you know how many times in my mind I had imagined what it would be like to have Steve Harrington turning up on my doorstep? To go back to how things were.”
It was embarrassing, how much you had wanted Steve, your friend back. But he was another person now, one who had ignored your in the hallways, who had point blank told Tommy he had no idea who you were.
You had cried into your pillow, every night for a week. Your mom sitting next to you, her hand gently on your shoulder, while you refused to tell her what was wrong. What you had lost.
“And it wasn’t even like you were gone, I still had to see you everyday, be invisible to you, and yet still want you to notice me like some … airhead.” You shook your head, embarrassed to let all of this out, but it was as if the floodgates had opened and you were powerless to close them now. Your emotions spilling out of your mouth, you couldn’t stop them now if you tried.
“And then, you asked for me, you came to me and I guess I felt, like maybe, for a brief moment things might go back to the way they were.”
He goes to speak and you put up your hand, stopping him.
“And when you left,” a sad chuckle leaves your lips, “same old King Steve. Using people for what he needs and just letting them go again.”
“What we were going to do that night was dangerous, Y/N. I saw an opportunity to protect you from it and I took it.”
“Protect me from what? Just tell me Steve. You want to make things right, then tell me.”
He took a deep breath, his hand moving to his hair again. As he looked out your window. “You wouldn’t believe me. I wouldn’t.”
“Try me.” You say determination written across your face.
And he does, the whole thing. The events of the Christmas previous, the lab, the killer dogs and the dirty secret that threatened to consume the town of Hawkins.
You try to comprehend what he has told you. How it could possibly be true. A little concerned that maybe Billy’s beating actually did cause some permanent damage.
“Honest, Y/N, it’s true.” You meet his eyes. And true or not, he believes it. There is a fear there that is genuine.
“When we drove off that night we were going to try to distract it-them from attacking Chief Hopper and Eleven - the girl from the lab-, and there was a chance we wouldn’t make it back to the surface.”
You shake your head in disbelief, it’s like something out of one of your sci fi novels, so unbelievable that no-one, not even someone with the confidence of Steve, would use as an excuse to why they go driving into the night with a pile of middle schoolers. So unbelievable it has to be the truth.
“You had just helped me, despite everything, I couldn’t repay you by allowing you to involve yourself. To risk having you hurt. After everything I had done.”
“I can’t believe, all this time, there has been this thing around us.” To think that there was this other worldly force in their small town, and that so many people were involved in the cover up.
“So things can go back to normal.” You give a nod of understanding. He’s said his peace, apologised and now you can go back to ignoring each other in the hallways. Pretending not to notice each other, not to care.
“Maybe that’s not what I want.”
“Since that night, I kept asking myself how I ended up your doorstep. I mean you’re right we hadn’t spoken in two years. But I guess,” he takes a deep sigh, “I needed, to feel safe. The only place that has ever felt like home.”
The look in his eyes, makes your breath hitch. An actual genuine admission from Steve Harrington.
“I was a massive asshole. I thought I had everything I wanted. I thought people liked me, loved me even, but it was all a lie. One I had fooled myself into believing. But when I was here, I felt it.”
His eyes meet yours and despite the fact that you want to look away, you can’t, this has been what you have been waiting for, isn’t it? You had played this conversation in your own mind so many times, exactly what you would say, and now you can only sit there.
“Not because I was King Steve, or popular, because I was me. Just me.” His hand moves over yours and your heartbeat speeds up, while you remind yourself not to fall back into old habits so easily. “And that that was enough.”
“What do you want Steve?” You ask, afraid of the answer. Afraid of the rejection, but holding onto a hope of something else.
“I thought maybe we could start with ice cream?” He asks, a smile beginning to form on his lips as you raise your eyebrow. “Mint Choc Chip right?”
You manage a nod, still not sure exactly what it is you’re agreeing to, but his warm smile makes you want to take his hand, and see where ice-cream with Steve may lead.
