“I just thought that, tonight of all nights, you might just… give it a rest.”
Steve frowns. “Give what a rest?”
“This bullshit competition for Y/N and Nancy’s attention.” Jonathan hates the words coming out of his mouth. He knows you’d despise them as well. It’s embarrassing, groveling for his best friend’s attention and his girlfriend’s adoration.
Yet here Jonathan is, on his knees with only bruises left to show for it.
Summary: youre a makeshift emt and nancy deems you her emotional support animal, steve and jonathan are two bros sitting in a hot tub five feet apart ‘cause theyre not gay, dustin may actually be trying to kill you, and you regretfully inform joyce that robin buckley is a liar (snitch)
Rating: mature, swearing and graphic descriptions of blood/gore
Warnings: graphic gore/blood, traumatic injuries, swearing, fem!reader, use of y/n, trauma lol
Words: 7.2k
Before you swing in: hello ! lots of things happened in my personal life that made this chapter almost too daunting to write lol. but we move on ! we survive ! heres chapter 2, i apologize for the wait and truly love you all so so so dearly <3 wish i could provide a happier chapter but … enjoy !
–
Somewhere in the distance the sound of your footsteps echo into the dark, bitter night.
Clenched within your hand are your knives. Their metal glints in the streetlights as you run past every lonesome car, avoiding their collisions.
One of them slams their horn at you, screeching to a stop just before it collides into your fleeing body, but you hardly even flinch.
You don’t care.
All you do is run.
Minutes pass. You hardly process any of it.
The only indication of the passage of time are the ringing in your ears increasing in volume and how badly your chest burns for oxygen as you run as far as your aching legs will allow.
Up the crest of the hill, the Wheeler’s house shines untouched. Safe. The relief of it being intact strengthens you to keep going, to run for just a little longer, until a horrible, eerily familiar screech pierces through the silence of the night.
The mangled sound chokes you.
Only a Demogorgon’s cry could paralyze you so viciously.
“Mr. and Mrs. Wheeler?” your throat strains to be heard over the monster’s cries as you force the last of your sanity into running faster, harder, towards the Wheeler’s front door with your knives at the ready. “Holly?”
But no one answers.
Heart beating of your chest, you fling the door open with more cries on the tip of your tongue, searching through the living room and stumbling back at its disarray, but they all die at the sight of red.
Everywhere.
The red is everywhere.
It pools on the floor, drips down the walls, and covers the limp body of Karen Wheeler, leaving her almost unrecognizable.
The red glues your cowardly feet to the floor, rendering you unable to move. For what feels like an eternity you stand in the kitchen’s doorway, horror consuming you as you stare at Mrs. Wheeler’s mangled mess of a body on the ground.
Her body? Or her corpse?
“Oh my god.” Bile rises in your throat. The sharp smell of blood stings your nose and you choke back grieving gags at the knowledge of who it belongs to.
This woman baked cookies for you every Christmas, always excited to share her recipes with you. She fed you dinners, countless breakfasts, endless snacks for long days with the boys in her basement.
Karen Wheeler helped soothe your childhood wounds through her unyielding empathy.
Now she lies before you, motionless.
Yet in your horror, you remember who else the woman fed and soothed. Mike’s teary eyes looking up at his mother and Nancy’s gentle voice and Holly’s small hands all reaching for Karen in your memories.
They’d be lost without their mother. Her death would ruin them.
The realization forces you to your knees. The blood pooled on the floor soaks through your jeans and onto your skin. Its warmth unsettles you. But when you see Karen’s eyes wide and panic stricken staring back at you, your body moves to hers.
“Mrs. Wheeler,” you press your hands against her jugular, suppressing a gag at the sensation of her thick blood between your fingers. She stiffens at the touch, tries to get away from the uncomfortable pressure, but you frantically shake your head and keep your grip firm. “It’s okay, I’m right here, alright? Just-just stop moving.”
Karen tries to say something, causing even more blood to bubble over her torn skin, and you’re quick to quiet the woman once more. Her eyes beg you for answers that you can’t give her. All you can do is stroke her cheek and whisper apologies to her over and over again.
“Nancy will be here soon,” you try to reassure her, ignoring how cold her body now feels. “Just hold on a little while longer. I’m so, so sorry, Mrs. Wheeler.”
Her eyes flicker briefly, a question within them. She doesn’t know why you keep apologizing. She doesn’t know that the claw marks on her ribcage mirror the very same ones that mar your own ribcage.
“Mom!”
Nancy’s tormented scream haunts you.
“I-I found her like this.” Your knees slide against the bloodied kitchen tiles in your haste to allow Nancy beside her mother. “The blood–”
But Nancy doesn’t acknowledge your presence. She tears her jacket off and pries your hands away from her mother’s neck before pressing it tightly against the wound. “Don’t try to talk, okay? Just stay calm.”
As she consoles Karen, you follow her daughter’s lead and quickly tear off your own jacket to tie around Karen’s abdomen. As you’re messily dressing her wounds you feel someone’s hand land against your arm.
“Will she be okay?” El’s soft voice asks.
You don’t know whether she means Nancy or Karen. Maybe both.
“We need to get Mrs. Wheeler to the hospital–”
“H-Holly.”
Karen’s strained, broken vocal chords piece together only one name. The ringing in your ears crescendos into a deafening end.
Nancy quickly turns to you. “Did you find anyone else in the house?”
“No, I–” You hadn’t even thought to look for anyone else. You’d been too focused on Karen to consider who else may still be missing. Ashamed and overwhelmed, your stomach churns and your head shakes violently. “I didn’t even think to look–”
“Then where’s my sister?” Nancy’s panic swells the room. “Why isn’t she–”
Her voice dies in her throat as something catches her attention. You twist your head around, trying to find the cause, and your own voice dies at the sight of a gate to the Upside Down, slowly closing into itself upon the front door.
“Go.” Nancy snaps her attention back to El. She’s realized what you’re too afraid to comprehend. “Go, go, go, go!”
El looks between the two of you, torn and confused. She doesn’t want to leave you behind, not while covered in Mrs. Wheeler’s blood and unsure whether she’ll ever see her alive again, but you shake your head slightly, softly.
“Find Holly.” You tell El, forcing down your own urge to follow. The Upside Down almost killed you once before. “Please.”
Nothing else has to be said. El doesn’t turn back even once as she runs towards the gate and into hell. She isn’t afraid. Not anymore.
The gate closes behind her.
“You’re gonna be okay, Mom.” Nancy’s tears break you back to reality as she clings onto her mother’s limp hand. “I promise I won’t let anything happen to you.”
You reach for Nancy’s other hand. While she doesn’t accept the endearment, you cling onto it regardless to remind her that she isn’t alone. She will never be alone as long as she has you.
You’re not sure how long you kneel in Karen Wheeler’s blood listening to her daughter’s pleas to stay alive. All you know is that you never once let go of the girl’s hand. You never once stop caressing the woman’s cheek. You watch other both Wheeler women, caring for them how they’ve always cared for you.
And when you hear Mike’s urgent voice outside the house, you know what your final act of mercy will be.
No child should ever have to endure seeing their family home covered in blood.
“You can’t come inside.” They’re the only words you say to the boy at the door, blocking him from entering.
Mike’s chest heaves. “What the hell, Y/N?”
Lucas stands behind him. He catches your pleading look and understands. Squaring his shoulders, he grabs Mike’s forearm and tries to pull him back. “Mike, you shouldn’t–”
“Where the fuck are my parents?” Mike slams his body back, fighting against Lucas and shoving even harder against you when he notices the blood that stains your clothing. “Where are my sisters?”
“Mike–” You wish there was more you could do.
He only fights harder. His elbow digs into your ribcage and you know his nails will leave marks later. But you don’t blame the kid. He’s worried, terrified of what his family has become. “Let me go!”
Lucas roughly grabs Mike’s shoulders, forcing him off of you. “Enough, Mike!
“I have to help!”
“We’re not letting you inside!” Lucas screams over Mike’s insistent terror. He grabs harshly at the kid’s body, forcing him to look at you and Lucas in a vain attempt he’ll listen. “You can’t go inside, alright? We won’t let you–”
Blinding lights fill the Wheeler’s driveway. The paramedics’ arrival stuns Mike long enough to force him away from the front door. The EMTs rush inside, and just as you’ve secured Mike underneath your arms, the first of the gurneys crashes through the door.
Ted Wheeler. Multiple puncture wounds to his chest and abdomen.
Mike’s body collapses. You’re there to catch him.
Karen Wheeler follows. Nancy runs beside the gurney as she whistles off every piece of vital information she can think of to the emergency responders.
When she sees Mike, she lunges towards him and pulls him into her arms.
You and Lucas step back to give the siblings space. They’re all the other has left.
Numb fingers worry away at your nailbeds, picking at the tender skin that never has enough time to heal before its next slaughter. The sharp pain of the bloodied wounds soothes the itch underneath your skin to crowd Nancy and Mike. To fret over them, to do more than what you already have because it’s what you do.
It was all you were ever meant to do.
Lucas grabs your hands, intercepting the next wave of destruction they’ll endure.
“Enough,” he gently chides, allowing the smallest of smiles to peek back at you. “I don’t want you hurting yourself.”
“That’s what I’m supposed to tell you.” Though you smile back at him, the effort exhausts you.
Lucas notices and sighs, releasing your hands. His mouth opens as if to chide you once again, but one of the EMTs begins guiding Nancy and Mike into the back of the ambulance and you’re following after them immediately.
“I’m coming with you guys.” The tone of your voice doesn’t suggest a question.
Mike quickly grabs your hand to pull you inside the vehicle, but it’s Nancy who stops him. “You have to stay, Y/N.”
Your face pinches together. “Absolutely not. There’s no way I’m letting you face this alone.”
Nancy shakes her head violently. Her entire body ruptures at the movement, fresh tears spill down her face. “No, I need you to keep looking for Hopper.”
“Steve and Jonathan are already–”
“Then go find El!” The last of Nancy’s resolve breaks. She jumps to her feet, flings her arms out and gestures wildly as if to articulate her despair and delirium even more. “Find someone, anyone, who will lead you to my little sister.”
Find Holly for me.
A heavy burden to carry, the trust of finding one’s little sister.
Yet you’d do it in a heartbeat for Nancy. Time and time again, you would carry the burden and smile in its wake, full of gratitude.
“I-I will.” You promise her, pulling her shaking body into yours one final time. She trembles at the touch. Her hair tickles your cheek and your lips press to her scalp. “I’ll find Holly.”
“Thank you.” Nancy’s wet voice breaks you.
Your hand cradles her head. “Of course.”
“We need to get your parents to the hospital.” An EMT interrupts, not unkind, but firm.
Nancy forces herself away, but you manage to grab the back of Mike’s neck and pull his head within your reach so that you can kiss his forehead goodbye. His body crumbles at the affection, he holds your hand so tightly that it cuts off the circulation, but you don’t care.
Instead you watch as the Wheeler children crawl into the ambulance with their mother while Lucas rides with their father. They leave in a storm of flashing lights and harsh sirens.
Mike’s old, abandoned bike remains the only thing left in its wake.
You grab it, feeling your promise to Nancy etching itself into your skin.
I’ll find Holly.
The promise rings in the air around you. Its tone mirrors the same cadence as the promise you once made to Jonathan about finding Will.
In the end, you found him. But not before he became someone else. Someone different from the little bee you once adored.
Swallowing down the overheated adrenaline coursing through your system, your feet kick off the bike’s pedals, ignoring how badly your hands shake as you do so.
Jonathan and Steve will be worried about you.
Yet the knowledge of their concern isn’t enough to suppress the gory images of Mrs. Wheeler’s body on the kitchen floor from flooding your mind.
They will haunt you forever.
–
Steve stands outside the WSQK van with its engine tethered to a jeep. The owner of the vehicle, a girl you’re unfamiliar with, has her arms defensively crossed and an agitated expression of obvious disdain for your boyfriend.
Steve’s uncomfortable stance reveals that he’s painfully aware of her feelings towards him.
“Can I, uh. Offer you a Bopper?” You overhear him offer the girl, clearing his throat awkwardly.
She doesn’t bother to respond, only making the uncomfortable situation worse.
When Steve sees your silhouette in the distance, he exhales in relief and practically runs away from the girl in order to get to you. He would’ve much rather have spent his night alone with you, tucked away together somewhere no one else could find you, safe and sound.
“I’ve been missing you all night, angel.” His head tilts when he notices you’re on a bike rather than on foot. But then his eyes fall to your chest, your stained hands and stomach, and the red that cakes your body strikes Steve’s aorta so deeply that he struggles to breathe. “Y/N.”
Steve’s hands fall to your waist immediately, helping you off the bike and sitting you onto the ground in a frenzy of concern and fear. He traces every inch of your skin repeatedly, trying to find the source of the pain. “Where the hell is the blood coming from? I-I have to stop the bleeding–”
“The blood isn’t mine.” Your hands grab his, quelling their weathered fears as Steve’s expression morphs from terror to confusion.
“I don’t understand…”
“It’s Mrs. Wheeler’s.”
Despite how softly you say it, Steve hears the broken confession and closes his eyes in stunned remorse. “Will she be okay?”
The innocent question exhausts you. Mind nearly melted from the night’s events, you push yourself up and start walking towards the van. Your body moves on autopilot, brain only focusing on what comes next and the necessary steps. “We need to leave.”
“Woah, hey!” Steve scrambles after you. “Y/N, I really don’t think you should be running around right now.”
You ignore him and climb inside the van, only to startle Jonathan sitting in the passenger seat.
“Jesus, bug. You scared me–” But just as Steve’s worried eyes scoured your body, Jonathan does, too. He nearly chokes on his spit seeing all the blood. “Fuck, are you alright?”
“It isn’t her blood.” Steve answers for you, slamming the driver’s side door closed before crawling over the driver’s seat and pulling you into his lap. His fingers wipe away at the dried blood on your face tenderly, carefully, delicate in a way only love can provide. “C’mere, angel.”
He begins cleaning you, uncaring of the fact that Jonathan sits just a foot away. And while Steve’s touch has only ever brought solace to your tumultuous life, tonight it burns your skin and leaves you feeling raw, exposed.
You pull away, just out of reach. “The Demogorgon got to the Wheeler’s before we could. Mrs. Wheeler, she…”
The unnatural angle of her arm, its protrusion and the lacerations on her throat and chest and all the exposed flesh and meat of her body all echo in your mind and bring bitter bile up your throat at the onslaught of memories.
But you promised Nancy you’d find her sister.
“I was trying to stop her bleeding when Nancy and El found us.” Swallowing down the nausea, you do your best to block out the memories, but they come pouring out anyways like a ruptured dam. “We think Holly was taken to the Upside Down, just like Will was, and-and Nancy sent El there to save Holly and forced me to come here so that we can find Hopper–”
You don’t notice your tears until Steve’s gentle fingers wipe them from your face. “Y/N, you need to breathe.”
As you manage a quick inhale that leaves your weak lungs craving more, Jonathan leans over the passenger seat and lowers his voice, eyes wanting. “What about Nancy, bug? Can you tell me if she’s alright?”
Steve reels at him. “For fucks sake, man. Can’t you see that she’s barely able to get a breath in?”
“I’m sorry, is my concern for my girlfriend really that distressing to you?” Jonathan scoffs in disgust. “I understand that Y/N’s had a hard night, but from what she’s just told us, Nancy’s entire family is in critical danger and I’d really like to know how I can help her.”
They argue with each other as if you aren’t even there. As if you aren’t sitting on the floor of the van, wishing you were anywhere but here, surrounded by two boys whose childish ego battle threatens to send you over the edge.
“But unlike Nancy, Y/N is actually here. Covered in someone else’s blood.” Steve wraps a protective arm over you, pulling you away from Jonathan and deeper into his chest. “What we need to do is get her cleaned up and–”
Their voices pound inside your head until you can’t take it anymore. Until all that’s left to do is scream.
“Stop it!”
You’ve never heard your voice so shrill before. You almost don’t recognize it to be your own, but when Steve’s grip loosens in surprise and Jonathan’s eyes stare back at you wide, unnerved, you know that it had been you screamed.
Suddenly overly aware of both boys’ eyes on you, you shrink in on yourself, covering your body with your arms as you crawl out of Steve’s grasp and towards the van’s doors. “I-I didn’t mean to yell. I’m sorry, I just… We have to stick to the plan. Nancy made me promise we’d find Holly. We have to find Holly.”
Bile rises in your throat yet again. It burns through the strain in your vocal chords from all the yelling. If you don’t leave now, you’ll do something you regret.
“I-I need some air.” Hand on the door, your fingernails dig into the metal as you fling it open. The minute the fresh air hits your face, the tightness in your chest dissipates. Inhaling deeply, you throw your body up and quickly call over your shoulder to Steve and Jonathan as you flee, “don’t follow.”
You fall against the nearest tree you find just within reach of the van’s headlights. The girl Steve was talking to earlier who helps jumpstart the van gives you an odd look, but you simply drop your head to your knees and breathe in the night air, basking in the silence.
Steve watches you through the windshield, lazily returning to the driver’s seat in frustration. He picks at his nails nervously, his worried eyes trace over your exhausted body over and over again.
“We need to take Y/N home.”
Jonathan whips his head to look at Steve, completely in awe of his stupidity. “You can’t be serious.”
Steve bristles at his annoyed tone. “She’s obviously in shock and currently looks like she’s five seconds away from passing out.”
“Alright, and then what? What’s your genius plan after we tuck Y/N into bed, huh?”
“I don’t know,” Steve shifts in his seat, eyes never leaving your body just a few feet away. He watches for any more signs of distress, worried he’ll look and find you passed out moments later. “The hospital isn’t far from the Henderson’s. We can go there after, make sure Nancy is okay and maybe get some more intel.”
Jonathan rubs the crease between his brows. “No. No, we stick to the plan. Find Hopper, find Eleven, and find Holly. That’s what Y/N said, and it’s what she promised Nancy.”
“Right, but we don’t know how long it’ll take for us to locate Hopper’s telemetry tag again.” Steve’s knee bounces up and down. He hates being stuck inside the van, so far from you. “I’m worried Y/N has pushed herself too hard this time. I mean, she always pushes herself too hard, but this time she looks exhausted, dude.”
“You can’t just sideline Y/N.” Jonathan shakes his head. He did that to you, once, when he tried sneaking out of the middle school with Nancy one night to go fight a Demogorgon. Jonathan will never forget the hurt on your face when you caught them. “She’d never forgive you.”
Something stirs within Steve’s stomach at the somberness in Jonathan’s voice, obviously recounting an old, nostalgic memory. A bitterness overtakes him. “Sounds like you’d know from experience.”
“Jesus Christ,” an exasperated breath rattles Jonathan’s chest, bordering between exhaustion and disbelief. He resents Steve’s bitterness over your history together, it isn’t fair. He gets a future with you while all Jonathan has left is the history.
“What?” Immediately Steve feels defensive, caught.
Jonathan stares out the window, his own eyes tracing your silhouette. Once, proximity didn’t exist between the two of you. Once, nothing else in the world existed outside of your own, small universe where your planets orbited around each other and your suns were intertwined.
Now you can’t even bear to be in the same car as Jonathan.
“I just thought that, tonight of all nights, you might just… give it a rest.”
Steve frowns. “Give what a rest?”
“This bullshit competition for Y/N and Nancy’s attention.” Jonathan hates the words coming out of his mouth. He knows you’d despise them as well. It’s embarrassing, groveling for his best friend’s attention and his girlfriend’s adoration.
Yet here Jonathan is, on his knees with only bruises left to show for it.
“What the hell are you talking about?” Rarely does anything Jonathan says makes sense to Steve, but tonight he’s convinced the guy has smoked a stash behind your back, yet again. “No one is competing for anything.”
“Dude, ever since I got back from Lenora, you’ve been constantly injecting yourself into every one of my conversations with Y/N.” Jonathan’s own bitterness bleeds into his voice. “It’s as if you’ve become physically incapable of leaving her alone with me. She’s my best friend, we have a history together that you could never understand, and it’s fucking childish to hold it over my head as if it’s somehow all my fault that you’re uncomfortable with the history.”
Steve’s fingernails dig into the steering wheel. An old, familiar fury rises in his throat. “Careful there, Byers. It almost sounds like you forgot who Y/N is in love with.”
The words are like cold water poured upon Jonathan’s skin. “I’m not the one constantly showing off for Nancy, trying to remind her of how much better I am than you.” He swallows thickly, turns away from Steve, and says into the night, “seems you forgot who she’s in love with, too.”
Steve doesn’t say anything, obviously uncomfortable with Jonathan’s insinuation, and Jonathan latches onto the moment of vulnerability like a rabid dog.
“Which is ironic, if you ask me, because while all you can focus on is Y/N, I’m actively trying to make sure that Nancy has a chance of surviving this shitshow of a night, because I could never forget who she’s in love with, despite your selfishish delusions.”
Years of built up resentment simmer between the two men. Neither one of them has anything else to say. The battlefield has been drawn, uneven grounds left in wreckage with no clear winning side.
A series of staccato horns breaks the silence. Both Jonathan and Steve jump up in alarm, heads turning towards the direction of the sound and finding the girl they’d forgotten about, sitting in her car with nothing but disdain on her face, angrily gesturing to the van.
The sound catches your attention, causing you to carefully stand up and begin making your way back to the van, seemingly ready to finally leave.
Steve reaches for the keys and places them into the ignition. He notices the hesitancy in your steps, how slowly you drag your feet as if walking into a minefield.
“You know what, Byers?” Suddenly everything Steve has ever wanted to say to Jonathan becomes a race against the clock, to get everything out before you walk back inside the van and force the reality into another endless silence. “You’re totally right about my ‘selfish delusions’.”
Jonathan’s head falls into his hands, clearly wanting the conversation to just end, but Steve doesn’t care. You’ll be back any minute, and for once in Steve’s life he can’t bite his tongue for your mercy. Not this time.
“Y/N told me about your little phone call.” And there it is. Steve has revealed his final card, and it's dealt as a javelin to Jonathan’s stoic demeanor. He stiffens in his seat, and Steve gets a sickening sense of satisfaction watching his facade crumble. “What did you say again? Something about whether you and Y/N made a mistake?”
A ringing fills Jonathan’s eardrums. Cold, metallic ringing. The taste of betrayal and shock linger on Jonathan’s tongue, mixed with embarrassment and shame.
He never thought you’d tell anyone about the phone call.
Then again, Jonathan never thought you’d do a lot of the things you’ve done since he lost you.
Humorless laughter drips from Steve’s cruel mouth as he watches Jonathan’s face twist in shocked grief. He has him right where he wants him. “And I’m the fucking delusional one.”
Shoving the key into the ignition, the van sputters once, twice, before dying again. All Steve wants is to leave.
“I’ve known all along how miserable you and Nancy are, from the minute you decided to call my girlfriend, high as a kite, trying to get her to leave me for you.” You’re only a few feet away now. Throwing all caution to the wind, Steve lays his final blow. “Maybe if you stopped living in some idealized past life with Y/N, a past life that is dead, and instead focused on your current life with Nancy, maybe then the two of you would finally be happy. Maybe then you’d finally have your best friend back.”
Then the van comes to life, its engine loud and daunting. The headlights come on and your arm reaching for the van’s backseat doors, a question on the tip of your tongue about how long it will take to recalibrate the telemetry tag, when suddenly the question dies on your lips as you see your little brother, bloodied and bruised, stumbling up the street.
“Dustin!”
The sight of him breaks you completely.
You grab for his broken body blindly, tears blurring your vision as you cradle Dustin’s head to your chest. Struggling to breathe, you finally allow the sobs that have been building within your frigid body to come crashing out in waves, no longer able to pretend that tonight hasn’t been one of the worst nights in your entire life.
“I’m fine, Y/N.” Dustin’s body remains stiff, uncomfortable in your embrace. He places his hands awkwardly on your arms in a weak attempt to pull away, almost as if he hadn’t been expecting such a volatile reaction.
“You don’t look fine,” Steve yanks Dustin’s bike out of his hands, uncaring of the boy’s bruises and bloody nose. “You chose a spectacular night to ditch us.”
Dustin opens his mouth to argue, maybe even defend himself and provide an answer to his disappearance, but Steve cuts him off.
“Save the bullshit excuses for later,” he hauls the bike into the van and slams the door shut. “We need to leave. Now.”
Dustin looks to you for an answer you can’t give him. His eyes land on the dark stains of blood clinging to your sweater and the shell shocked tears that won’t stop falling. “What the hell did I miss?”
You wipe a stray tear, smearing even more blood on your face.
“It’s been a long night.”
–
Your back presses into the van’s floor as you stare up at its ceiling, watching the streetlamps flash across like streaks of lightning. Every bump of the rough road digs harshly into your spine, but you’ve gone numb to it.
Jonathan sits beside you, one hand pressing the headphones tightly to his ear, trying to catch any hint of Hopper’s telemetry tag, while the other hand carefully steers the antenna attached to the roof.
“And by sheer luck, Jessica was coming back from a party and I charmed my way into getting us a jump.” Steve explains everything to your brother as he drives, eyes never straying from the windsheild. “Which brings us to you, arriving looking like Rocky Balboa.”
“Y/N’s the one who looks like she barely escaped Leatherface.” Dustin quips back, slouching further into the passenger seat at the idea of you covered in someone else’s blood. “So I think I’ll be okay.”
“This isn’t funny, alright? Out of all the crawls, this was like, the one to miss.” Steve rolls his eyes. The annoyance in his voice is like a jagged edge, piercing your thin membrane of patience. “So, well done, Henderson. Really, really well done.”
You roll onto your side, finding your brother’s eyes in the rearview mirror as you hand him a tissue for his wounds. His hard gaze softens slightly, accepting the small offer, and something loosens within your chest. “Are you sure you’re okay, Dustin?”
He purposely misinterprets your question as concern for his sanity, shoving the tissue up his broken nose. “It’s a lot to process… I mean, why Holly?”
“Maybe Eleven could tell us, but it’s a bit difficult to contact her now that we’ve lost our connection to the Upside Down.” Steve not to gently reminds Dustin.
“We just have to keep trying,” uncomfortable with the quickly rising animosity, you sit up and force yourself between the two boys. “That’s what we should be focusing on right now.”
But Dustin has already latched onto Steve’s pointed finger. “You guys should’ve turned everything off the second the lights went from really bright to really dim. I’ve told you before that it means the generator is surging.”
Naturally, Steve doesn’t take the criticism well. “Yeah, great. I’ll remember that for next time, or, and this is a suggestion, you could be where you’re supposed to be.”
“Steve,” you kick the back of his seat, worried he’ll push Dustin too hard and create yet another blowout. “Leave it.”
“C’mon, Y/N!” He waves his hands in the air, exasperated. “You can’t seriously believe that the kid just fell off his bike and gave himself two black eyes.”
The indignation pisses you off. Of course you don’t believe that Dustin’s shitty excuse for his injuries. Of course the sight of his bent nose and swollen eyes makes you sick to your stomach, because Mike and Lucas fucking told you about some douchebag named Andy and you know Dustin has become only more bitter and swallowed whole by his grief.
You know the bruises on your little brother’s face were caused by angry fists. Of course you know.
But Dustin hasn’t been honest with you in a long, long time.
You’re just relieved to see that he’s still breathing.
Dustin stares back at you, almost daring you to call him out on his bullshit, but you’ve come to accept that you’ll take whatever he’ll give you. Lies and distance and all.
“Hey!” Jonathan snaps from the backseat, headphones in his hand and worried eyes on you. He sees the clench of your fists, the hardness in your shoulders and how close you are to spiraling. “Can you guys keep it down up there? I’m listening for a signal, in case you forgot.”
Steve flashes him a sarcastic thumbs up, but even before he opens his mouth you know that there’s no end to his merciless antagonization.
“Who was it?” He questions Dustin, licking his lips in anticipation, eager for a reaction. “It was Andy and his goons, wasn’t it?”
“Steve!”
“He’s always practically begging to get his ass kicked, Y/N!”
Cleaning his injuries, Dustin sighs, unamused. “Your concern for me is overwhelming.”
“We have shown nothing but concern for you since forever,” Steve keeps pushing, keeps instigating and insisting on berating your brother to the point of exhaustion. “And we’ve been repeatedly ignored, and now look what’s happened. We’re completely fucking screwed.”
The dam breaks. Dustin’s vitriol foams out his mouth.
“Correction!” He exclaims, laughing manically to himself as he falls off the edge. “We’re screwed because you don’t know how to do the most basic thing like prevent a power surge.”
All night you’ve been pulled too far, stretched too thin until you have nothing left inside you. Steve and Dustin bite back and forth at each other with viscous words and over-saturated egos and you’re too used up to suppress the overflowing aggression.
Their voices overlap in a pounding, splitting headache that numbs your tongue. Curling into yourself, you squeeze your eyes shut and breathe in through your nose, out through your mouth, anything to digest the turmoil that nauseates you.
“Jesus Christ, just admit it for once!” Steve’s hard, loud voice squeezes at your lungs, flinching at the harsh finality. “You’re wrong, Henderson. You screwed up!”
Steve never, ever raises his voice. He knows how much you despise it. You’ve spent endless sleepless nights confessing to Steve how your father used to yell at you, how his anger haunted your childhood home.
And now Steve screams at your baby brother.
You’re no longer numb.
“Stop it!” Your head nearly hits the roof of the van from how quickly you sit up, throwing yourself against the boys’ seats in a desperate attempt to get it all to stop. “Jesus, both of you just shut up.”
Both Dustin and Steve jump at the sudden outburst. Neither of them had been expecting it, both too lost in their own passive aggressive world to notice the signs of your brewing collapse.
“I’m so fucking sick of this,” the timbre of your voice shakes, unable to hide the devastation that coincides with all the anger within you. “The arguing. The snarky comments and excessive defensiveness. I-I can’t do it anymore.”
Dustin offers you a concerned glance. “Y/N–”
“You’re in desperate need of help and it’s fucking infuriating that you refuse to accept it.” No longer do you dread upsetting your brother. For months all you’ve done is tip-toe around his feelings, but in the end all it’s done is drive him further away, and you’re tired of pretending that it isn’t killing you. “All you’re doing is hurting the ones who love you.”
Steve gestures wildly. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell him!”
“And you,” immediately you turn Steve, your eyes hard and narrow and lacking their usual warmth when you look at the boy. “You need to act your own age. It’s so fucking infuriating having to deal with your insatiable need to always pick a fight with a literal child.”
“Until you both figure out whatever the hell is going on between the two of you,” hands shaking, you bite down on your teeth and spit out your final words, “leave me out of it.”
The sound of your uneven breaths become the only exhale that fills the silence in the van. Fragments of your ribcage rattle with every sharp inhale, heart on edge as it tries to piece together whether tonight has been real or if any second you’ll wake from the horrible, awful dream.
But a rough, nostalgic hand cups the back of your neck. Its presence grounds you, it soothes the sporadic beating in your chest like a magnet to a nail.
Falling back into the touch, your back presses against Jonathan’s legs, his body firm, unyielding, and you allow his touch to lull you into a bittersweet, endless silence.
No one in the car speaks.
–
The hours pass by slowly.
Steve drives the same monotonous route over and over again, the four of you waiting for something, anything to happen.
But Jonathan never gets a signal. The radios remain silent.
As the hours drag on, the exhaustion from the night creeps in. Your eyes struggle to remain open. The adrenaline crashed long ago, with the only thing keeping you going is the fear that you’ve lost Hopper all over again.
You don’t know what you’d do if that were true.
You’ve grown too used to grief, but you don’t think you’ll ever recover from losing Hopper. Not again, at least.
“One more loop around the zone?” Steve asks Jonathan, navigation being the only conversation left to be had anymore.
Jonathan adjusts the antenna and checks for any new signal. His shoulders drop when he finds no difference. “Yeah,” he sighs. “Go ahead.”
The wheels of the van veer to a turn, but just as the tired gain traction, Jonathan’s hand flies to his headphones as he grips onto it harshly, face narrowed in concentration as he listens for something. “No, wait.”
“What is it?” You’re alert immediately, crawling onto your knees as you anxiously peer at the decibel meter.
“Is it Hop?” Dustin’s voice laces with naive hope.
You shake your head, squinting at the meter, which has remained the same all night. “I don’t see anything on the decoder.”
“No, but I can hear something.” Jonathan’s body visibly strains, his eyes squeezing shut as he presses the headphones tightly to his ears. Suddenly he sits up in his seat, tired eyes now alight. “Yeah, I can definitely hear something.”
Dustin’s foot catches the base of your skull as he haphazardly crawls over the passenger seat and next to Jonathan.
“Fuck,” you duck to avoid further damage, wincing at the explosion of pain in your head. “Why is it always me you bruise?”
Your brother shushes you aggressively, shoving past you to get a better look at the meter himself just as Joyce’s voice sounds from the walkie.
“Is that him?”
Dustin yanks the headphones off of Jonathan and shoves them onto his own head, forcing the older boy to respond to Joyce. “We’re not sure.”
Both you and Jonathan stare at Dustin, baited breaths as you wait for his answer. But just as you allow a grimace of hope to build, he tears it down with one single sentence.
“No, it’s not Hopper.”
“Then what the hell is it?” You bite back tears of frustration, fingernails cutting in your palms. “What else could you possibly be hearing?”
“I don’t know, alright? It could be a million things.” Dustin wrings his hands together, anxious. His own hope has died alongside yours. “Military broadcast, TV channel, any EMI within our frequency zone.”
Yet you’re a hopeless naive. “But we’ve been driving the same route all night without hearing anything. Why start now?”
“I can’t answer that,” your brother admits, shrugging. “But I can tell you that it’s not Hopper’s telemetry tag. If it was, it would show up on the decoder. So… the search continues.”
He crawls back to the passenger seat, unphased, yet you can’t move on. You know Dustin is right. There isn’t any other possible explanation, but it still feels as if a hammer has torn a nail through your chest.
Jonathan senses your disappointment and squeezes your wrist, a silent, gentle acknowledgement of your exhaustion. Raising the walkie to his lips, he delivers the news to Joyce. “Hey, mom, um. Disregard. It’s a false alarm.”
She remains quiet for a moment before responding. “Jonathan, is your receiver in any way connected to the flux capacitor?”
Simultaneously you, Steve, Dustin, and Jonathan all cock your heads at the question, each of you trying to figure out whether or not you heard Joyce correctly. While your time at the radio tower has been limited, and while almost all of the hard labor has fallen onto Dustin’s shoulders, none of you know what the hell the woman is asking.
“Uh, sorry, mom. Can you… repeat that?” The tailed raise in Jonathan’s cadence, hints of amusement and disbelief, somehow gets you to laugh, if even for a second.
“The flux capacitor.” Joyce explains confidently. “Robin said it was down, but she and Will are working on it. I wanted to make sure it wasn’t messing with your connection.”
And there it is.
Robin Buckley.
Somehow it’s always her.
Steve catches your eye in the rearview mirror, his thoughts echoing yours. He raises his eyebrow, chuckles to himself, and you find yourself biting back a smile as well while Dustin fully turns around in his seat.
Joyce’s voice sounds from the walkie again. “Hello?”
“You gonna tell her, or am I?” Dustin asks you, highly amused.
You huff an amused laugh, reaching for the walkie from Jonathan. “I’ll tell her, though I can’t imagine it’ll sound any better coming from me.”
“Are you guys still there?”
“We’re still here, Mrs. Byers.” You answer the woman, unable to suppress the smile that won’t leave your wanton lips. “Did you, uh. Say that Robin went off with Will?”
“Yeah, to fix the flux capacitor.” Joyce’s tone shifts, teetering on suspicion. “...Why?”
“I regret to inform you that Robin Buckley is a liar,” you tell her, giggling despite your best efforts not to. “And you should probably start looking for them.”
A beat passes.
“Oh, those little shits–”
The signal quickly disconnects and the walkie shuts off.
For a brief moment, the van fills with a warm, honeyed hue. Jonathan snorts in disbelief, Steve shakes his head as he chuckles to himself, Dustin rolls his eyes, though not even he can mask his pleasure in hearing of Robin’s ability to deceive even the most vulnerable of parties.
The honeyed hue lingers as the night stretches on, though all good things must come to an end, and when the radio’s silence dregs over into the next hour with nothing to show for it, no signs of Hopper or updates from Nancy, the hue becomes bitter once more.
Eventually the beginning rays of early morning sunlight ebbs over the van’s dashboard. Its light kisses your eyelids and coaxes them shut.
Steve lays his jacket over you.
No one wakes you up.
-
⌑ series masterlist
⌑ if youd like to buy me a coffee ☕︎
⌑ thank you for reading ! feel free to like, comment, reblog, or send in an ask so we can chat <3
🖤 A Collab Fanfic, from @keer-y & Misha’s Masterlist Library.
♡ A Stranger Things Modern AU [Steve Harrington Centric]
📚+ 📁 Infodump file + all volumes and chapters (+more)
Chapter Two: “Anchovies” -> 2009
Steve Harrington x fem!reader
strangers to childhood friends + pen pals to stepsiblings to lovers. ultra emo/angsty smut, hurt/comfort. modern day au, no upside down. porn with big plot.18+
🖤 SUMMARY: Day after Fourth of July, your parents wake up with head-splitting hangovers… but you only wake up with the happiest, fullest heart ever. Because yesterday wasn’t a dream. It was real.
The fireworks. The popsicles. Adventuring around the bay together, with sunscreen on your cheeks that burned from both sunburn and laugh and blushing. All of it was a fever dream come true, and it’s only just beginning now that you and the most handsome boy you’ve ever met another full day to yourselves.
Steve Harrington’s already on his way to your boat by the time you wake up and get ready for more fun in the sun, followed by the most impromptu sleepover ever.
…maybe childhood isn’t so lonely after all.
🖤 AUTHOR'S NOTE: Next chapter, here we comeee :) pretty please with a cherry on top enjoy my Mary-Kate & Ashley Olsen throwback reference in the middle of this, plus my Drake & Josh reference ;)
This is my first ever fanfic collab, and I'm still so beyond giddy about it... plus honored that it's with none other than Jess :') It started off as a blurb request, then immediately spiraled. Which you can read here.
We post new chapters Saturday’s & Sunday’s !!
saturday = misha 🖊️
sunday = jess 🖊️
enjoy :)
Xx, misha
CHAPTER TWO
“Anchovies + M&M’s”
JULY 5, 2009
The morning after the Fourth of July is never patriotic.
No one ever puts that on a T-shirt, but they should.
No one is out there screen-printing LAND OF THE FREE, HOME OF THE DEEPLY DEHYDRATED, though frankly it would sell. The bunting sags. The flags look too bright. Every adult who spent yesterday drinking on a boat now appears to have been personally punished by God.
You wake up on the yacht to the sound of your mother groaning pathetically, like a Victorian woman dying of consumption.
For one bright, disoriented second… you think someone has been murdered.
Then you remember where you are and everything that’s led to the moment.
The Waldorf yacht (this yacht, your family’s yacht).
Yesterday’s party.
Fireworks over the harbor.
Steve.
…Steve.
That last thought jolts you awake so fast it almost feels like sitting bolt upright in church after falling asleep during the sermon. Sunlight is already needling in through the dim cabin’s shades. Not late sunlight, either. The clean, almost smug kind that says it is still very much morning… and some people are functioning beautifully. Just not anybody over thirty with a martini problem.
Another noise sounds from somewhere above you.
“Mark, if you so much as breathe like that one more time, I will throw myself fucking overboard.”
Your mother.
Alive, then. Tragic.
You bite your lip to keep from laughing and push up onto your elbows. The little cabin still smells faintly like sunscreen and sea salt, and the expensive perfume your mother wears like armor. Your limbs are pleasantly sore from yesterday in that bone-deep, good way that only comes from actual fun… the kind that lives inside of your muscles afterward and makes you feel like your body belongs to you.
You climb out from under the blanket and pad barefoot toward the tiny bathroom to brush your teeth, pausing when you catch sight of yourself in the mirror.
Your hair is wild from sleep and salt. Your cheeks are still sunkissed a rosy shade of pink. There’s a little half-moon mark on your shoulder from where your swimsuit strap sat too long yesterday.
You look… different, maybe?
Not older. Just… brighter. Like some lightbulb inside you got switched on and decided to stay that way overnight.
You know exactly why.
Especially when grabbing your cell phone off the charger, and swelling at the sight of yesterday’s candids on their camera roll.
When you finally climb up onto the deck, your father is stretched out on one of the benches in sunglasses with his arm thrown over his face like a war casualty. Your mother is curled into the corner bench in one of his old Oxford shirts, hair piled on top of her head in a disintegrating knot, scrolling on her phone like the screen personally wronged her.
They both look like shit.
There is something almost moving about how equalizing a hangover can be. Wealth, status, social poise… none of it matters when your mouth tastes like old pennies and your own spouse’s breathing makes you want to commit a felony.
Your father lowers the sunglasses just enough to squint at you. “Jesus.”
“Top’a the day,” you salute.
“How are you a person already?”
You lean against the table and reach for a bottle of orange juice from the little mini fridge. “Because I’m twelve and sober. Lousy, really.”
Your mother lets out a low noise of misery. “Don’t speak. It’s violent.”
You slowly twist the cap anyway. “Morning to you too.”
“And don’t suddenly act cheerful near me, kitty.”
“Wouldn’t dare.”
“Or a smart-alec with a resting bitch face.”
Your father huffs. “Wendy.”
You just shrug. “This is just my face. Got it from you.”
Mark makes a dry little sound that might be a laugh. Your mother glares at him without lifting her head.
“You two need anything?” you ask, because despite everything, it is hard to be entirely unmoved by the sight of your glamorous parents — now flattened into pathetic, over-served beach casualties.
“Silence,” your mother deadpans.
“Death,” adds your father.
You take a sip of juice. “Noted.”
Wendy groans again, rubbing her temple with two fingers. “We’re supposed to go back to the club tonight.”
The words come out like a diagnosis.
Your father doesn’t move. “We’re absolutely not talking about tonight right now.”
“I can’t even think in a straight line.”
“Good,” he mutters. “Try not to.”
That should probably be meaner than it is, but your mother only rolls her eyes and goes right back to staring at her phone.
There are whole marriages in the way adults talk to each other before nine in the morning.
You drift a little farther down the deck, looking out over the bay. The water is calm and silver-blue, so gorgeous that it almost pisses you off because it has the nerve to be fresh and beautiful while every adult in your orbit is spiritually in triage.
And then you see him.
Down on the dock, barefoot in swim trunks and a gray T-shirt, one hand shielding his eyes against the sun as he looks up toward the yacht like he’s trying not to be obvious about it.
Steve.
Your new one pal.
Your new companion.
Your new… best friend.
The second your eyes land on him, something in you lights up so fast and naturally that it almost embarrasses you. Because there he is. There’s your whole goddamn day, standing on the dock like summer itself decided to take shape as a twelve-year-old boy with good hair.
He catches sight of you and lifts one hand in a little wave.
Nothing big or overzealous. Just a small, boyish little hey.
Your stomach does a strange, warm flip.
You wave back so fast it nearly sloshes your orange juice. “Dad,” you call out over your shoulder, already halfway moving for the gangway. “I’m going to—”
“Mm-hm,” your father mumbles from under his arm, not remotely interested in where. “Don’t drown.”
Your mother doesn’t even look up from her phone. “Wear sunscreen.”
You glance back at both of them, a little stunned by how little convincing this is actually taking.
“…cool,” you say.
Neither responds.
Which is how you end up tearing down the dock, not thirty seconds later, with your hair still slightly damp from brushing with a wet round brush earlier and your heart doing cartwheels for reasons it absolutely refuses to explain.
Steve’s already smiling by the time you reach him.
“Wow,” he drawls. “You’re alive.”
“So are you,” you respond breathlessly.
“Barely. My mom looks like somebody exhumed her.”
You clap a hand over your mouth and laugh.
He grins, pleased with himself. “My dad’s in a hammock staring at nothing. Which, to be fair, is kind of his brand.”
You shake your head. “My parents look like casualties of war.”
“Nice.”
“Honestly, it’s kind of awesome.”
“It is,” he agrees. “I’ve been awake since seven and no one’s noticed.”
“That’s because all the adults poisoned themselves yesterday.”
“True.” He glances down at your orange juice. “That from the yacht?”
“Yeah.”
“Can I have some?”
You hand it over. He drinks straight from the bottle without the slightest bit of self-consciousness, or wariness about germs, and hands it back.
Something about that makes your chest flutter.
There’s something so absurdly intimate about this sort of thing at the age of twelve — sharing a drink, not caring. There’s still a kind of innocence to your bodies then. They belong to you in this unremarkable, practical little way that children’s bodies do. Touch is easy. Germs are theoretical. Everything is far simpler because nothing has become loaded yet.
At least not on purpose.
Steve jerks his head toward the stretch of beach beyond the docks. “Wanna go?”
“Obviously.”
And just like that, you do.
That becomes the shape of the whole day, really.
The easiest fucking thing in the world.
The two of you spend the morning down by the bay where the sand is soft and damp near the waterline and the air still has that early-day cleanliness to it. You leave your Jack Rogers sandals abandoned underneath a deck chair somewhere next to his Sperry’s, then wade in until the water reaches your knees, then your thighs, then your waists.
Steve is exactly what you suspect a dreamy middle-school boy should be: half gentleman, half complete menace.
He holds out a hand when the rocks get slippery. He says ladies first with a little bow that is just obnoxious enough to be funny. He also absolutely dunks you under the second you get comfortable and then acts shocked, absolutely gobsmacked when you come up sputtering and tackle him from the side with all the force your twelve-year-old body can manage.
You snort water from your nose. “You asshole!”
“You were talking too much!”
“I said one thing!”
“You say many things—”
You lunge for him again. Steve yelps and grabs your wrists, the both of you half-laughing and half-fighting in the water while a little wave slaps into your backs and nearly sends you both under again.
Everything about it is so stupid. So completely, gloriously stupid.
That’s why it feels so good.
At twelve, fun is still allowed to be this simple. It doesn’t have to be filmed or documented or aestheticized or explained. There’s no deeper reason for any of it. You’re simply in water with somebody who makes you laugh — so you laugh. He throws a handful of water at your face, so you scream and swear revenge. You both start daring each other into increasingly ridiculous acts of courage — jumping from the old retaining wall into the deeper part of the bay, swimming out a little farther, balancing on the slick rocks like idiots.
Steve never treats you like you’re weaker than him.
But when you start to hesitate on one of the rocks, he turns back and softens immediately.
“You got it,” he says, not coddling, just certain. “C’mon, kid.”
And because he says it like you already can, you do.
That’s the thing Steve keeps doing without seeming to notice it. Handing you your own courage back.
By ten thirty, you’re both starving and windblown and dripping in bay water as you run down the back stairs of the Harringtons’ beach house, which is all white clapboard and huge windows and that aggressively tasteful coastal decor that rich people seem to think all happens naturally if you own enough driftwood.
Inside, the whole place is still under the spell of an adult hangover.
The television is on somewhere downstairs playing a home renovation show to no one. There’s the faint smell of freshly brewed coffee, aspirin powder and expensive shampoo. From one of the bedrooms, you can hear Roz Harrington whining, “Danny, if you’re making eggs, don’t let me smell them or I’ll die.”
A lingers before Danny, from somewhere else in the house, responds.
“I’m not making eggs.”
Another pause.
“Good,” Roz calls weakly. “I’d divorce you.”
Little does she know just how much she will eat those words one day.
Meanwhile, Steve doesn’t even break stride. He just glances at you and flatly mutters, “Romance.”
You nearly choke trying not to laugh too loud.
In the kitchen, you find exactly what children abandoned by hungover adults always find eventually: enough food to survive, none of it coherent.
Steve makes you both toaster waffles. You steal strawberries from the fridge. There’s whipped cream. Somehow there’s always whipped cream in houses like this — as if no one with less than four bathrooms has ever considered dessert before noon.
You sit on the kitchen island in wet swimsuits and oversized towels while Steve butchers the waffles with the side of a butter knife.
“That is not how anyone cuts anything,” you tell him.
“It’s an Eggo, not surgery.”
“It still deserves dignity.”
He glances down at the hacked-up little squares with a pensive expression. “I think it’s too late for dignity.”
You snort. “Fair.”
Steve sprays too much whipped cream on yours, just to be annoying. You retaliate by stealing half his strawberries. He steals the bottle of orange juice again. You call him a thief. He says your legal team will be hearing from his.
The whole scene is so domestic it would be a little haunting if either of you had the life experience yet to know that.
After breakfast, you head back outside.
The day stretches out into something golden and lazy around you, and the best part is that it’s all yours.
Nobody interrupts. Nobody asks what you’re doing or where you’re headed or whether you should be under some kind of supervision. Every adult in either household appears to have silently agreed that as long as the children remain wealthy and vaguely sunlit with working cellulars, they are probably fine.
It should feel sadder than it does.
Because yes, there is a tragedy under it. Two nice houses by the bay full of adults too hungover, too self-involved, too exhausted by themselves to notice their children have vanished into a whole separate world for twelve straight hours.
But loneliness is a strange thing. It doesn’t always announce itself when it ought to. Sometimes it’s fully present and still loses… simply because there’s somebody else with you and that changes the weather of everything.
That’s what Steve is becoming, you realize slowly over the course of the day.
A weather change.
By early afternoon, the two of you are back in the water with boogie boards, inventing idiotic competitions nobody can win with dignity.
“Best cannonball,” Steve declares.
“There’s no best cannonball, there’s just splash.”
“That’s quitter talk.”
“You have quitter talk.”
“I don’t even know what that means.”
“Neither do I! Weeeeee!—”
You both laugh so hard you can barely stand upright long enough to attempt the cannonballs in question. Steve’s is objectively better. You deny this on moral grounds. He performs a little victory lap in waist-high water and then immediately gets nailed in the shoulder by a floating board, which you decide is justice.
Later, you lie on your stomach on the warm dock planks, heads hanging over the edge to watch little fish flicker through the pilings below.
Steve squints into the water. “You think fish know they’re fish?”
You turn to look at him. “What kind of question is that?”
“A valid one.”
You purse your lips, watching the schools of fish move in formation.
“…how would they know?”
He shrugs. “Maybe they have fish thoughts.”
“Yeah,” you nod slowly, still watching the little shapes move in unison under the clear surface of the bay. “Probably stuff like… oh no, people...”
Steve snickers. “Shut up.”
“I’m just saying, if I was a fish, I’d be concerned.”
“About what?”
“You know.” You gesture vaguely at the water. “The crushing inevitability of… fishhood.”
He stares at you for a second, then bursts out laughing so hard that he has to press his forehead to the dock.
You grin to yourself, stupidly pleased.
There it is again — that bright little rush every time he finds you funny.
Eventually you both drift back inside, because the sun has far become less playful and more murderous. Blistering heat now clings to your skin. Your shoulders are rosy. Your nose feels suspiciously tender and warm.
Steve takes one look at you and points. “You’re getting fried.”
You shift. “I am not.”
“You absolutely are.”
“I’m tan.”
“You’re pink.”
“That’s just my undertone.”
He squints. “That’s not a thing.”
“It is a thing.”
“On your face right now? No.”
You swat at him with your beach towel. He dodges and nearly knocks over a decorative shell bowl in the foyer.
“Jesus,” he mutters, catching it just in time. “Your undertone almost broke my mom’s dead sea life centerpiece.”
“You’re gonna get haunted by my ancestors if you keep talking like that,” you shoot back.
He reels. “What ancestors?”
You run laps around him, chanting. “Pocahontas.”
The two of you chant and battle-cry all the way back to your house.
Back at the Waldorfs’ place, the adults are somehow still barely animate.
Your father is asleep in a recliner with a CNBC ticker moving silently under the television like capitalism itself is trying not to wake him. Your mother is in bed with sunglasses on and one hand lying limply across her stomach with a half-watched reality show flickering in front of her while her phone glows in the other hand.
She lifts the glasses just enough to see you in the doorway.
“Oh,” she says faintly. “There’s my baby.”
“Hi, Mum.”
“You’ve gone brown.”
“I’m sunburned.”
She gives a sleepy little wave. “Same family.”
Then she closes her eyes again, already drifting off again.
Steve, beside you in the hall, leans in and whispers, “She’s kind of iconic.”
You smile despite yourself. “Sometimes.”
By late afternoon the adults begin — in terribly slow stages — to resurrect themselves for yet another night out.
Which is how you and Steve end up effectively left alone between the two houses while everybody showers, dresses, swears they are “never drinking again,” then proceed to discuss which yacht they’re starting on first… whilst pre-gaming.
You both freshen up too, because the sun and salt have started drying your skin tight.
After your shower, you pull on a soft T-shirt and little gym shorts, hair damp and tangled around your shoulders. The sunburn on your back announces itself with a low throbbing sting the moment the hot water stops.
You hiss under your breath.
Shit.
When you come out of the bathroom, Steve is in the hall outside your room with clean hair, a faded navy T-shirt, and basketball shorts, somehow looking both younger and cuter for having freshly showered. The whole sun-kissed, scrubbed-clean thing should not be allowed at twelve. It feels like cheating.
He notices your face immediately. “What?”
“My back hurts.”
He frowns. “Sunburn?”
You nod once.
He thinks for half a second. “You got aloe?”
“Probably.”
Turns out you do. It’s inside the big linen closet, and because the universe is occasionally a comedian, that is how you end up sitting cross-legged on the edge of your bed while Steve stands awkwardly behind you with a bottle of aloe vera gel and the concentration level of a boy trying to diffuse a bomb.
“This feels weird,” you mutter.
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
His brows pinch. “You want me to not do it?”
“No!” you say too fast, then immediately want to throw yourself into the bay. Or out the window. Whatever’s faster. “I just mean—no, it’s fine.”
Steve, blessedly, takes that entirely at face value.
“Okay,” he says. “Then hold still, kid.”
You gather the hem of your shirt in both hands and lift it carefully up to your shoulders, hugging your arms against your chest so he can see the flushed skin of your back while you keep your chest covered.
You suddenly remember your mother’s comment that she made yesterday… about how you don’t have tits yet.
And that thought alone makes you feel somehow self-conscious…yet weirdly relieved, as you stay awkwardly hunched over and silently grateful that there isn’t much of a chest you have to hide yet.
The room goes very, very quiet.
Not weird quiet. Not exactly.
Just that hyper-aware kind where every little thing suddenly feels huge. The tick of the ceiling fan. The damp ends of your hair touching your neck. The little cold squelch of aloe hitting Steve’s palm.
Then his hand touches your back.
Ice cold.
You gasp. Goosebumps race all over your arms.
“Too cold?” he asks immediately.
“No,” you blurt. “It’s just—sunburn.”
“Right.”
He says it with such simple concern that you almost laugh from relief.
Because yes, that is actually the truth. It is the cold. It is the sting. It is the weird sensitivity of too much sun and skin that feels newly alive.
It is also, unfortunately, Steve.
His hands are careful. More careful than they need to be, probably, but he doesn’t know that. He smooths the aloe over your shoulders and down the burn with the kind of solemn concentration he seems to reserve for helping. Your whole back goes cool and tingling under his palms.
You stare fixedly at your own knees and try not to combust.
Behind you, Steve is thinking in his own twelve-year-old way that girls are maybe a little more complicated than boys in certain unfortunate logistical moments, but also that this isn’t actually weird. It’s just… helping.
She’s sunburned. I’m helping. That is the whole thing.
Still, he notices the fine line of your spine. The way your wet hair sticks in strands to the side of your neck. The goosebumps that keep rising under his hands and then smoothing away.
“You okay?” he asks quietly.
“Mm-hm.”
“…you’re really red.”
You want to die. “My back is red.”
“Your face too.”
“It’s the sun!”
“Right,” he says, entirely sincere. And when he’s done, he re-caps the bottle and steps back. “There.”
You let your shirt fall back down and turn around slowly. “Thanks.”
He shrugs in that boyish little way of his. “No problem.” Then his big brown eyes land on the stack of video game cases on your shelf and his whole face changes. “Whoa.”
You glance over. “What?”
“You have Mario Kart.”
“Yeah.”
“And Smash?”
“Yeah.”
“And—hold on, is that Tony Hawk?”
You grin.
Turns out, it’s deeply satisfying to surprise a boy.
“What?” you ask, smugly. “You think I just read horse books and braid ribbon into my hair?”
Steve looks over his shoulder at you, his eyebrows practically in his hairline. “Maybe a little.”
“That’s rude,” you say mock-primly.
“It’s not rude, it’s—” He gestures helplessly at you. “You wear those little girly headbands.”
“…that means nothing.”
“It means a lot, actually.”
You climb onto the floor beside him and start stacking games. “You’re saying girls with accessories can’t kick your ass at Nintendo?”
“I’m saying I’m excited to find out.”
You do, in fact, kick his ass at Mario Kart.
Not every round. Just enough to be satisfying.
He’s louder inside than he is outside, you realize. That’s one of the funniest things about him. Around the adults, he can look almost bored into another dimension. But when it’s just the two of you on the floor of your room with controllers in your hands and wet hair drying at your necks, Steve becomes this whole different creature — animated, dramatic, funny as hell.
“No, that is complete bullshit,” he exclaims when you pass him on Rainbow Road. “That’s cheating.”
“How?!” you giggle.
“I don’t know, but you are.”
“You sound like a sore loser.”
“I’m not a sore loser, I’m peeved.”
You hum once, satisfied. “You’re a deeply sore loser who keeps falling for my mystery boxes and tripping on his own bananas.”
He slowly turns, pointing at you with his controller. “You’re getting cocky.”
“Maybe because I’m winning.”
He groans and flops backward onto the rug. “I hate girls.”
You bark out a laugh. “You literally don’t.”
“True,” he admits to the ceiling. “I think girls are great. This is awful.”
You chuckle, ignoring the nausea in your stomach as you wonder if he might have a crush on another girl at school somewhere. Someone who isn’t you.
By the time you both get hungry, the adults are fully restyled and pre-gaming for their next round of social self-destruction. Your parents are heading back to the club with the Harringtons for another night “among friends” — which in rich-people language, often means proximity to other damaged people with expensive shoes.
“You two can order whatever you like,” your dad calls out from the doorway, already checking his watch.
“Go crazy,” your mother adds, fastening an earring.
Steve’s parents are on speaker from the hall, with Roz insisting that the two of you are “sweet lil’ angels” and Danny asking if you both have your phones charged.
Steve lifts his out of his pocket. “Yeah.”
Your father nods. “Keep them on. Answer if we call.”
“We will,” you say.
And then they’re gone.
And it’s strange how little fanfare abandonment can have when dressed well enough.
The front door shuts. The house goes quiet.
You and Steve stand in the middle of the kitchen for a second looking at each other.
Then, simultaneously:
“Pizza?”
“Pizza?”
He laughs. “Okay, what toppings do you like?—no wait, lemme guess.” His expression turns cartoonishly impish. “You like… anchovies.”
Your eyes light up. “Yes.”
He recoils in horror. “I was kidding.”
“I’m not!”
“That is disgusting.”
“Pfft,” you roll your eyes. “You’re a wimp.”
“Those are fish.”
“They’re delicious.”
“They smell like if the ocean died and got salty about it.”
You snort. “That was good.”
“Thank you.”
When the pizza arrives, you order one half anchovies, half plain cheese, and Steve watches the box open like someone being shown a crime scene.
“That’s vile.”
“Try it.”
“No.”
“Try it!”
He squints at you. “You just wanna see me suffer.”
“Correct.”
Steve stares down at the little silvery strips on your half of the pizza like they have insulted his family. But then, because he cannot seem to help himself when you’re looking at him like that, he pinches off one… and drops it onto a bite of his own.
He chews.
His whole face goes through six emotions.
You’re already laughing before he swallows.
“Well?” you demand gleefully.
He helps up a fingers, then points at you accusingly. “It’s so friggin’ salty.”
“But?”
“But…” He takes another bite, smaller this time. “It’s not as bad as it…should be.”
You beam. “See?”
“That doesn’t mean you’re right.”
“It absolutely does.”
He shakes his head and reaches for another piece anyway.
This somehow devolves into a debate over what the worst possible pizza topping might be, which turns into Steve dumping M&M’s onto one slice with all the confidence of a deeply unserious little psychopath.
You stare at it in stunned silence.
He grins around the next mouthful. “What?”
“That is revolting.”
“Coward.”
You narrow your eyes… then reach for your Gushers and upend half the bag onto your own slice before diving in, staring him down without blinking.
Steve goes dead still.
Then he starts laughing so hard he has to brace one hand on the counter.
“Oh my God,” he wheezes. “You actually did it.”
“You started this.”
“You’re insane.”
You both proceed to eat your cursed little dessert pizzas anyway, because twelve-year-olds are nature’s bravest and most disgusting experimental little chefs. The Gushers burst hot and weird in your mouth against the anchovies. The M&M’s on Steve’s slice get sort of melty and upsetting.
“This is horrible,” he mumbles through a laugh.
“This is art.”
“This is child endangerment.”
Suddenly you gasp. “Wait. Have you seen that Mary-Kate and Ashley video? The one with the pizza making?”
Steve blinks a few times, but then slowly begins to grin. “It’s got that song…”
You point enthusiastically, eyes shining with excitement as you shout out the lyrics. “PUT IT IN THE PIZZAAAAAA!”
He cackles and echoes it back, which then turns into both of you looking it up on YouTube and snickering over it too hard.
There are empty pizza boxes all over the floor by the time you move back to your room with a DVD stack and sodas and the kind of silly exhaustion that only comes from an entire day spent fully alive.
You text each other from two feet away at one point just because you can.
Steve: ur room is cool
You: you are literally in it
Steve: yeah but now its in writing
You grin so hard your face hurts.
“Promise we’ll still write letters?” you ask after a while, more serious. “While I’m at school, I mean.”
Steve looks over from where he’s half-reclined against your bed. “Even if we text?”
“Yeah. We’re not allowed our phones all the time at school.”
He nods immediately. “Then yeah. Both.”
Your eyes shine. “Both?”
“Texts and letters.” He picks at the edge of the blanket under his hand. “That way if you can’t answer one, I can still do the other.”
Something in your chest goes soft.
“Okay,” you say shyly.
Steve smirks, pointing. “Digital pen pals and pen-pen pals.”
You giggle, suddenly very grateful that you’re sunburned — which helps your flushed cheeks not give you away.
The storm starts late.
Not dramatic at first. Just a low roll of thunder somewhere out over the bay while a movie plays too quietly in the background and both of you are too tired to really follow the plot anymore.
The room has gone dim. The pizza boxes sit collapsed and greasy on the floor. There’s a controller under your bed, an open soda gone flat on the nightstand, and two pillows dragged down onto the rug… because at some point sitting turned into sprawling, and sprawling turned into not bothering to get back up.
You fall asleep like that.
Not intentionally. Just because you are twelve and spent and happy in a way that makes sleep feel less like something you choose and more like being gently knocked over by life.
Steve falls asleep, too. And when he wakes, the room is dark except for the little lamp by your desk and the flicker of lightning outside the window.
He lies still for a second, confused.
Then he remembers where he is.
The movie menu screen is looping soundlessly on the TV. Rain taps softly at the glass now, the thunderstorm finally close enough to matter. Somewhere downstairs the house settles with a wooden sigh.
Then he glances over.
You’re curled up on the floor a few feet away — cheek pressed to one of the pillows, one hand tucked under it. Your hair’s gone half-wild all over again in slumber. Your lips are parted just slightly. In the low light you look… younger somehow. Softer. Small in that way children only get to be when no one is asking anything of them.
Steve blinks at you, feeling something warm and strange pass through him.
Not huge. Not terrifying.
Not anything he could name even if he tried.
Just fondness, maybe…? Pure and uncomplicated and so immediate it feels almost like hunger.
He pushes himself up quietly and looks around until he finds one of the throw blankets folded over the chair by your fully stacked bookshelf. He shakes it out and drapes it carefully over you, trying not to wake you.
You only nuzzle deeper into the pillow.
His mouth twitches into the softest smile.
Then he fishes his phone out of his pocket and squints at the screen.
1:07 AM.
There’s already one text from his dad in their family group chat.
Dad: you good?
Steve thumbs back quickly.
Steve: yeah im at hers. storm got bad. Steve: gonna crash here if thats ok
He waits.
A few seconds later, the typing bubble appears.
Dad: okay
Dad: lock the back door if its not already
Dad: love you
Steve stares at the screen for a second.
Then types:
Steve: ok
Steve: love you too
No response after that. Just the silence of a conversation that doesn’t need to keep proving itself.
He sets the phone down and looks back at the rain.
The weird thing about childhood is how often it feels enormous while you’re in it and tiny once it’s gone. A storm at one in the morning. Falling asleep on the floor. Pizza boxes and movie main menus and a pretty girl from boarding school curled under a throw blanket in the next patch of light over. The kind of night adults would later reduce to nothing with a hand wave and endearing terms like ‘harmless,’ and ‘cute,’ and ‘awh, kids…’
Harmless. Cute. Kids.
And maybe they would be right.
But right now, to Steve, it feels like one of those little moments his life has no business keeping so carefully… and still somehow will.
He finds another blanket for himself and lowers back down onto the floor… beside you. Not too close, just close enough. Outside, lightning flickers pale at the edge of the curtains. Rain keeps time against the glass.
This is the most unusual little sleepover he’s ever had.
And also?
The nicest.
He’s used to sleepovers with boys, Nerf gun wars, prank calls and gross boy movies or rowdy shouting over video games and scattered chicken nuggets. Not impromptu sleepovers with sweet boarding school girls he meets while on summer vacation…
That thought comes with another one close behind it, darker and heavier.
Tomorrow, you go home.
Tomorrow this whole strange, bright pocket of summer closes up.
Tomorrow you will still have phones and letters and all the ways that people promise not to disappear from each other… but tomorrow, you also won’t just be right here. Not in the next room. Not laughing in the water. Not letting him steal your orange juice. Not making him eat fucking anchovies and somehow winning the war against his picky tastebuds.
The sadness of it arrives so quietly it almost catches him off guard.
Steve turns onto his side and looks toward the window instead.
Twelve-year-old boys do not have language yet for a lot of the things that happen inside them. They know the feeling before they know the word. They know the ache before they know the cost. They know enough to close their eyes and breathe through it and hope morning doesn’t come too fast.
On the floor across from him, you sleep on… warm under your blanket, one hand curled near your face, breathing softly and steadily.
Steve watches the rain for another minute.
Then he closes his eyes too and tries not to think about tomorrow.
🖤 A Collab Fanfic, from @keer-y & Misha’s Masterlist Library.
♡ A Stranger Things Modern AU [Steve Harrington Centric]
📚+ 📁 Infodump file + all volumes and chapters (+more)
Chapter Two: “Anchovies” -> 2009
Steve Harrington x fem!reader
strangers to childhood friends + pen pals to stepsiblings to lovers. ultra emo/angsty smut, hurt/comfort. modern day au, no upside down. porn with big plot.18+
🖤 SUMMARY: Day after Fourth of July, your parents wake up with head-splitting hangovers… but you only wake up with the happiest, fullest heart ever. Because yesterday wasn’t a dream. It was real.
The fireworks. The popsicles. Adventuring around the bay together, with sunscreen on your cheeks that burned from both sunburn and laugh and blushing. All of it was a fever dream come true, and it’s only just beginning now that you and the most handsome boy you’ve ever met another full day to yourselves.
Steve Harrington’s already on his way to your boat by the time you wake up and get ready for more fun in the sun, followed by the most impromptu sleepover ever.
…maybe childhood isn’t so lonely after all.
🖤 AUTHOR'S NOTE: Next chapter, here we comeee :) pretty please with a cherry on top enjoy my Mary-Kate & Ashley Olsen throwback reference in the middle of this, plus my Drake & Josh reference ;)
This is my first ever fanfic collab, and I'm still so beyond giddy about it... plus honored that it's with none other than Jess :') It started off as a blurb request, then immediately spiraled. Which you can read here.
We post new chapters Saturday’s & Sunday’s !!
saturday = misha 🖊️
sunday = jess 🖊️
enjoy :)
Xx, misha
CHAPTER TWO
“Anchovies + M&M’s”
JULY 5, 2009
The morning after the Fourth of July is never patriotic.
No one ever puts that on a T-shirt, but they should.
No one is out there screen-printing LAND OF THE FREE, HOME OF THE DEEPLY DEHYDRATED, though frankly it would sell. The bunting sags. The flags look too bright. Every adult who spent yesterday drinking on a boat now appears to have been personally punished by God.
You wake up on the yacht to the sound of your mother groaning pathetically, like a Victorian woman dying of consumption.
For one bright, disoriented second… you think someone has been murdered.
Then you remember where you are and everything that’s led to the moment.
The Waldorf yacht (this yacht, your family’s yacht).
Yesterday’s party.
Fireworks over the harbor.
Steve.
…Steve.
That last thought jolts you awake so fast it almost feels like sitting bolt upright in church after falling asleep during the sermon. Sunlight is already needling in through the dim cabin’s shades. Not late sunlight, either. The clean, almost smug kind that says it is still very much morning… and some people are functioning beautifully. Just not anybody over thirty with a martini problem.
Another noise sounds from somewhere above you.
“Mark, if you so much as breathe like that one more time, I will throw myself fucking overboard.”
Your mother.
Alive, then. Tragic.
You bite your lip to keep from laughing and push up onto your elbows. The little cabin still smells faintly like sunscreen and sea salt, and the expensive perfume your mother wears like armor. Your limbs are pleasantly sore from yesterday in that bone-deep, good way that only comes from actual fun… the kind that lives inside of your muscles afterward and makes you feel like your body belongs to you.
You climb out from under the blanket and pad barefoot toward the tiny bathroom to brush your teeth, pausing when you catch sight of yourself in the mirror.
Your hair is wild from sleep and salt. Your cheeks are still sunkissed a rosy shade of pink. There’s a little half-moon mark on your shoulder from where your swimsuit strap sat too long yesterday.
You look… different, maybe?
Not older. Just… brighter. Like some lightbulb inside you got switched on and decided to stay that way overnight.
You know exactly why.
Especially when grabbing your cell phone off the charger, and swelling at the sight of yesterday’s candids on their camera roll.
When you finally climb up onto the deck, your father is stretched out on one of the benches in sunglasses with his arm thrown over his face like a war casualty. Your mother is curled into the corner bench in one of his old Oxford shirts, hair piled on top of her head in a disintegrating knot, scrolling on her phone like the screen personally wronged her.
They both look like shit.
There is something almost moving about how equalizing a hangover can be. Wealth, status, social poise… none of it matters when your mouth tastes like old pennies and your own spouse’s breathing makes you want to commit a felony.
Your father lowers the sunglasses just enough to squint at you. “Jesus.”
“Top’a the day,” you salute.
“How are you a person already?”
You lean against the table and reach for a bottle of orange juice from the little mini fridge. “Because I’m twelve and sober. Lousy, really.”
Your mother lets out a low noise of misery. “Don’t speak. It’s violent.”
You slowly twist the cap anyway. “Morning to you too.”
“And don’t suddenly act cheerful near me, kitty.”
“Wouldn’t dare.”
“Or a smart-alec with a resting bitch face.”
Your father huffs. “Wendy.”
You just shrug. “This is just my face. Got it from you.”
Mark makes a dry little sound that might be a laugh. Your mother glares at him without lifting her head.
“You two need anything?” you ask, because despite everything, it is hard to be entirely unmoved by the sight of your glamorous parents — now flattened into pathetic, over-served beach casualties.
“Silence,” your mother deadpans.
“Death,” adds your father.
You take a sip of juice. “Noted.”
Wendy groans again, rubbing her temple with two fingers. “We’re supposed to go back to the club tonight.”
The words come out like a diagnosis.
Your father doesn’t move. “We’re absolutely not talking about tonight right now.”
“I can’t even think in a straight line.”
“Good,” he mutters. “Try not to.”
That should probably be meaner than it is, but your mother only rolls her eyes and goes right back to staring at her phone.
There are whole marriages in the way adults talk to each other before nine in the morning.
You drift a little farther down the deck, looking out over the bay. The water is calm and silver-blue, so gorgeous that it almost pisses you off because it has the nerve to be fresh and beautiful while every adult in your orbit is spiritually in triage.
And then you see him.
Down on the dock, barefoot in swim trunks and a gray T-shirt, one hand shielding his eyes against the sun as he looks up toward the yacht like he’s trying not to be obvious about it.
Steve.
Your new one pal.
Your new companion.
Your new… best friend.
The second your eyes land on him, something in you lights up so fast and naturally that it almost embarrasses you. Because there he is. There’s your whole goddamn day, standing on the dock like summer itself decided to take shape as a twelve-year-old boy with good hair.
He catches sight of you and lifts one hand in a little wave.
Nothing big or overzealous. Just a small, boyish little hey.
Your stomach does a strange, warm flip.
You wave back so fast it nearly sloshes your orange juice. “Dad,” you call out over your shoulder, already halfway moving for the gangway. “I’m going to—”
“Mm-hm,” your father mumbles from under his arm, not remotely interested in where. “Don’t drown.”
Your mother doesn’t even look up from her phone. “Wear sunscreen.”
You glance back at both of them, a little stunned by how little convincing this is actually taking.
“…cool,” you say.
Neither responds.
Which is how you end up tearing down the dock, not thirty seconds later, with your hair still slightly damp from brushing with a wet round brush earlier and your heart doing cartwheels for reasons it absolutely refuses to explain.
Steve’s already smiling by the time you reach him.
“Wow,” he drawls. “You’re alive.”
“So are you,” you respond breathlessly.
“Barely. My mom looks like somebody exhumed her.”
You clap a hand over your mouth and laugh.
He grins, pleased with himself. “My dad’s in a hammock staring at nothing. Which, to be fair, is kind of his brand.”
You shake your head. “My parents look like casualties of war.”
“Nice.”
“Honestly, it’s kind of awesome.”
“It is,” he agrees. “I’ve been awake since seven and no one’s noticed.”
“That’s because all the adults poisoned themselves yesterday.”
“True.” He glances down at your orange juice. “That from the yacht?”
“Yeah.”
“Can I have some?”
You hand it over. He drinks straight from the bottle without the slightest bit of self-consciousness, or wariness about germs, and hands it back.
Something about that makes your chest flutter.
There’s something so absurdly intimate about this sort of thing at the age of twelve — sharing a drink, not caring. There’s still a kind of innocence to your bodies then. They belong to you in this unremarkable, practical little way that children’s bodies do. Touch is easy. Germs are theoretical. Everything is far simpler because nothing has become loaded yet.
At least not on purpose.
Steve jerks his head toward the stretch of beach beyond the docks. “Wanna go?”
“Obviously.”
And just like that, you do.
That becomes the shape of the whole day, really.
The easiest fucking thing in the world.
The two of you spend the morning down by the bay where the sand is soft and damp near the waterline and the air still has that early-day cleanliness to it. You leave your Jack Rogers sandals abandoned underneath a deck chair somewhere next to his Sperry’s, then wade in until the water reaches your knees, then your thighs, then your waists.
Steve is exactly what you suspect a dreamy middle-school boy should be: half gentleman, half complete menace.
He holds out a hand when the rocks get slippery. He says ladies first with a little bow that is just obnoxious enough to be funny. He also absolutely dunks you under the second you get comfortable and then acts shocked, absolutely gobsmacked when you come up sputtering and tackle him from the side with all the force your twelve-year-old body can manage.
You snort water from your nose. “You asshole!”
“You were talking too much!”
“I said one thing!”
“You say many things—”
You lunge for him again. Steve yelps and grabs your wrists, the both of you half-laughing and half-fighting in the water while a little wave slaps into your backs and nearly sends you both under again.
Everything about it is so stupid. So completely, gloriously stupid.
That’s why it feels so good.
At twelve, fun is still allowed to be this simple. It doesn’t have to be filmed or documented or aestheticized or explained. There’s no deeper reason for any of it. You’re simply in water with somebody who makes you laugh — so you laugh. He throws a handful of water at your face, so you scream and swear revenge. You both start daring each other into increasingly ridiculous acts of courage — jumping from the old retaining wall into the deeper part of the bay, swimming out a little farther, balancing on the slick rocks like idiots.
Steve never treats you like you’re weaker than him.
But when you start to hesitate on one of the rocks, he turns back and softens immediately.
“You got it,” he says, not coddling, just certain. “C’mon, kid.”
And because he says it like you already can, you do.
That’s the thing Steve keeps doing without seeming to notice it. Handing you your own courage back.
By ten thirty, you’re both starving and windblown and dripping in bay water as you run down the back stairs of the Harringtons’ beach house, which is all white clapboard and huge windows and that aggressively tasteful coastal decor that rich people seem to think all happens naturally if you own enough driftwood.
Inside, the whole place is still under the spell of an adult hangover.
The television is on somewhere downstairs playing a home renovation show to no one. There’s the faint smell of freshly brewed coffee, aspirin powder and expensive shampoo. From one of the bedrooms, you can hear Roz Harrington whining, “Danny, if you’re making eggs, don’t let me smell them or I’ll die.”
A lingers before Danny, from somewhere else in the house, responds.
“I’m not making eggs.”
Another pause.
“Good,” Roz calls weakly. “I’d divorce you.”
Little does she know just how much she will eat those words one day.
Meanwhile, Steve doesn’t even break stride. He just glances at you and flatly mutters, “Romance.”
You nearly choke trying not to laugh too loud.
In the kitchen, you find exactly what children abandoned by hungover adults always find eventually: enough food to survive, none of it coherent.
Steve makes you both toaster waffles. You steal strawberries from the fridge. There’s whipped cream. Somehow there’s always whipped cream in houses like this — as if no one with less than four bathrooms has ever considered dessert before noon.
You sit on the kitchen island in wet swimsuits and oversized towels while Steve butchers the waffles with the side of a butter knife.
“That is not how anyone cuts anything,” you tell him.
“It’s an Eggo, not surgery.”
“It still deserves dignity.”
He glances down at the hacked-up little squares with a pensive expression. “I think it’s too late for dignity.”
You snort. “Fair.”
Steve sprays too much whipped cream on yours, just to be annoying. You retaliate by stealing half his strawberries. He steals the bottle of orange juice again. You call him a thief. He says your legal team will be hearing from his.
The whole scene is so domestic it would be a little haunting if either of you had the life experience yet to know that.
After breakfast, you head back outside.
The day stretches out into something golden and lazy around you, and the best part is that it’s all yours.
Nobody interrupts. Nobody asks what you’re doing or where you’re headed or whether you should be under some kind of supervision. Every adult in either household appears to have silently agreed that as long as the children remain wealthy and vaguely sunlit with working cellulars, they are probably fine.
It should feel sadder than it does.
Because yes, there is a tragedy under it. Two nice houses by the bay full of adults too hungover, too self-involved, too exhausted by themselves to notice their children have vanished into a whole separate world for twelve straight hours.
But loneliness is a strange thing. It doesn’t always announce itself when it ought to. Sometimes it’s fully present and still loses… simply because there’s somebody else with you and that changes the weather of everything.
That’s what Steve is becoming, you realize slowly over the course of the day.
A weather change.
By early afternoon, the two of you are back in the water with boogie boards, inventing idiotic competitions nobody can win with dignity.
“Best cannonball,” Steve declares.
“There’s no best cannonball, there’s just splash.”
“That’s quitter talk.”
“You have quitter talk.”
“I don’t even know what that means.”
“Neither do I! Weeeeee!—”
You both laugh so hard you can barely stand upright long enough to attempt the cannonballs in question. Steve’s is objectively better. You deny this on moral grounds. He performs a little victory lap in waist-high water and then immediately gets nailed in the shoulder by a floating board, which you decide is justice.
Later, you lie on your stomach on the warm dock planks, heads hanging over the edge to watch little fish flicker through the pilings below.
Steve squints into the water. “You think fish know they’re fish?”
You turn to look at him. “What kind of question is that?”
“A valid one.”
You purse your lips, watching the schools of fish move in formation.
“…how would they know?”
He shrugs. “Maybe they have fish thoughts.”
“Yeah,” you nod slowly, still watching the little shapes move in unison under the clear surface of the bay. “Probably stuff like… oh no, people...”
Steve snickers. “Shut up.”
“I’m just saying, if I was a fish, I’d be concerned.”
“About what?”
“You know.” You gesture vaguely at the water. “The crushing inevitability of… fishhood.”
He stares at you for a second, then bursts out laughing so hard that he has to press his forehead to the dock.
You grin to yourself, stupidly pleased.
There it is again — that bright little rush every time he finds you funny.
Eventually you both drift back inside, because the sun has far become less playful and more murderous. Blistering heat now clings to your skin. Your shoulders are rosy. Your nose feels suspiciously tender and warm.
Steve takes one look at you and points. “You’re getting fried.”
You shift. “I am not.”
“You absolutely are.”
“I’m tan.”
“You’re pink.”
“That’s just my undertone.”
He squints. “That’s not a thing.”
“It is a thing.”
“On your face right now? No.”
You swat at him with your beach towel. He dodges and nearly knocks over a decorative shell bowl in the foyer.
“Jesus,” he mutters, catching it just in time. “Your undertone almost broke my mom’s dead sea life centerpiece.”
“You’re gonna get haunted by my ancestors if you keep talking like that,” you shoot back.
He reels. “What ancestors?”
You run laps around him, chanting. “Pocahontas.”
The two of you chant and battle-cry all the way back to your house.
Back at the Waldorfs’ place, the adults are somehow still barely animate.
Your father is asleep in a recliner with a CNBC ticker moving silently under the television like capitalism itself is trying not to wake him. Your mother is in bed with sunglasses on and one hand lying limply across her stomach with a half-watched reality show flickering in front of her while her phone glows in the other hand.
She lifts the glasses just enough to see you in the doorway.
“Oh,” she says faintly. “There’s my baby.”
“Hi, Mum.”
“You’ve gone brown.”
“I’m sunburned.”
She gives a sleepy little wave. “Same family.”
Then she closes her eyes again, already drifting off again.
Steve, beside you in the hall, leans in and whispers, “She’s kind of iconic.”
You smile despite yourself. “Sometimes.”
By late afternoon the adults begin — in terribly slow stages — to resurrect themselves for yet another night out.
Which is how you and Steve end up effectively left alone between the two houses while everybody showers, dresses, swears they are “never drinking again,” then proceed to discuss which yacht they’re starting on first… whilst pre-gaming.
You both freshen up too, because the sun and salt have started drying your skin tight.
After your shower, you pull on a soft T-shirt and little gym shorts, hair damp and tangled around your shoulders. The sunburn on your back announces itself with a low throbbing sting the moment the hot water stops.
You hiss under your breath.
Shit.
When you come out of the bathroom, Steve is in the hall outside your room with clean hair, a faded navy T-shirt, and basketball shorts, somehow looking both younger and cuter for having freshly showered. The whole sun-kissed, scrubbed-clean thing should not be allowed at twelve. It feels like cheating.
He notices your face immediately. “What?”
“My back hurts.”
He frowns. “Sunburn?”
You nod once.
He thinks for half a second. “You got aloe?”
“Probably.”
Turns out you do. It’s inside the big linen closet, and because the universe is occasionally a comedian, that is how you end up sitting cross-legged on the edge of your bed while Steve stands awkwardly behind you with a bottle of aloe vera gel and the concentration level of a boy trying to diffuse a bomb.
“This feels weird,” you mutter.
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
His brows pinch. “You want me to not do it?”
“No!” you say too fast, then immediately want to throw yourself into the bay. Or out the window. Whatever’s faster. “I just mean—no, it’s fine.”
Steve, blessedly, takes that entirely at face value.
“Okay,” he says. “Then hold still, kid.”
You gather the hem of your shirt in both hands and lift it carefully up to your shoulders, hugging your arms against your chest so he can see the flushed skin of your back while you keep your chest covered.
You suddenly remember your mother’s comment that she made yesterday… about how you don’t have tits yet.
And that thought alone makes you feel somehow self-conscious…yet weirdly relieved, as you stay awkwardly hunched over and silently grateful that there isn’t much of a chest you have to hide yet.
The room goes very, very quiet.
Not weird quiet. Not exactly.
Just that hyper-aware kind where every little thing suddenly feels huge. The tick of the ceiling fan. The damp ends of your hair touching your neck. The little cold squelch of aloe hitting Steve’s palm.
Then his hand touches your back.
Ice cold.
You gasp. Goosebumps race all over your arms.
“Too cold?” he asks immediately.
“No,” you blurt. “It’s just—sunburn.”
“Right.”
He says it with such simple concern that you almost laugh from relief.
Because yes, that is actually the truth. It is the cold. It is the sting. It is the weird sensitivity of too much sun and skin that feels newly alive.
It is also, unfortunately, Steve.
His hands are careful. More careful than they need to be, probably, but he doesn’t know that. He smooths the aloe over your shoulders and down the burn with the kind of solemn concentration he seems to reserve for helping. Your whole back goes cool and tingling under his palms.
You stare fixedly at your own knees and try not to combust.
Behind you, Steve is thinking in his own twelve-year-old way that girls are maybe a little more complicated than boys in certain unfortunate logistical moments, but also that this isn’t actually weird. It’s just… helping.
She’s sunburned. I’m helping. That is the whole thing.
Still, he notices the fine line of your spine. The way your wet hair sticks in strands to the side of your neck. The goosebumps that keep rising under his hands and then smoothing away.
“You okay?” he asks quietly.
“Mm-hm.”
“…you’re really red.”
You want to die. “My back is red.”
“Your face too.”
“It’s the sun!”
“Right,” he says, entirely sincere. And when he’s done, he re-caps the bottle and steps back. “There.”
You let your shirt fall back down and turn around slowly. “Thanks.”
He shrugs in that boyish little way of his. “No problem.” Then his big brown eyes land on the stack of video game cases on your shelf and his whole face changes. “Whoa.”
You glance over. “What?”
“You have Mario Kart.”
“Yeah.”
“And Smash?”
“Yeah.”
“And—hold on, is that Tony Hawk?”
You grin.
Turns out, it’s deeply satisfying to surprise a boy.
“What?” you ask, smugly. “You think I just read horse books and braid ribbon into my hair?”
Steve looks over his shoulder at you, his eyebrows practically in his hairline. “Maybe a little.”
“That’s rude,” you say mock-primly.
“It’s not rude, it’s—” He gestures helplessly at you. “You wear those little girly headbands.”
“…that means nothing.”
“It means a lot, actually.”
You climb onto the floor beside him and start stacking games. “You’re saying girls with accessories can’t kick your ass at Nintendo?”
“I’m saying I’m excited to find out.”
You do, in fact, kick his ass at Mario Kart.
Not every round. Just enough to be satisfying.
He’s louder inside than he is outside, you realize. That’s one of the funniest things about him. Around the adults, he can look almost bored into another dimension. But when it’s just the two of you on the floor of your room with controllers in your hands and wet hair drying at your necks, Steve becomes this whole different creature — animated, dramatic, funny as hell.
“No, that is complete bullshit,” he exclaims when you pass him on Rainbow Road. “That’s cheating.”
“How?!” you giggle.
“I don’t know, but you are.”
“You sound like a sore loser.”
“I’m not a sore loser, I’m peeved.”
You hum once, satisfied. “You’re a deeply sore loser who keeps falling for my mystery boxes and tripping on his own bananas.”
He slowly turns, pointing at you with his controller. “You’re getting cocky.”
“Maybe because I’m winning.”
He groans and flops backward onto the rug. “I hate girls.”
You bark out a laugh. “You literally don’t.”
“True,” he admits to the ceiling. “I think girls are great. This is awful.”
You chuckle, ignoring the nausea in your stomach as you wonder if he might have a crush on another girl at school somewhere. Someone who isn’t you.
By the time you both get hungry, the adults are fully restyled and pre-gaming for their next round of social self-destruction. Your parents are heading back to the club with the Harringtons for another night “among friends” — which in rich-people language, often means proximity to other damaged people with expensive shoes.
“You two can order whatever you like,” your dad calls out from the doorway, already checking his watch.
“Go crazy,” your mother adds, fastening an earring.
Steve’s parents are on speaker from the hall, with Roz insisting that the two of you are “sweet lil’ angels” and Danny asking if you both have your phones charged.
Steve lifts his out of his pocket. “Yeah.”
Your father nods. “Keep them on. Answer if we call.”
“We will,” you say.
And then they’re gone.
And it’s strange how little fanfare abandonment can have when dressed well enough.
The front door shuts. The house goes quiet.
You and Steve stand in the middle of the kitchen for a second looking at each other.
Then, simultaneously:
“Pizza?”
“Pizza?”
He laughs. “Okay, what toppings do you like?—no wait, lemme guess.” His expression turns cartoonishly impish. “You like… anchovies.”
Your eyes light up. “Yes.”
He recoils in horror. “I was kidding.”
“I’m not!”
“That is disgusting.”
“Pfft,” you roll your eyes. “You’re a wimp.”
“Those are fish.”
“They’re delicious.”
“They smell like if the ocean died and got salty about it.”
You snort. “That was good.”
“Thank you.”
When the pizza arrives, you order one half anchovies, half plain cheese, and Steve watches the box open like someone being shown a crime scene.
“That’s vile.”
“Try it.”
“No.”
“Try it!”
He squints at you. “You just wanna see me suffer.”
“Correct.”
Steve stares down at the little silvery strips on your half of the pizza like they have insulted his family. But then, because he cannot seem to help himself when you’re looking at him like that, he pinches off one… and drops it onto a bite of his own.
He chews.
His whole face goes through six emotions.
You’re already laughing before he swallows.
“Well?” you demand gleefully.
He helps up a fingers, then points at you accusingly. “It’s so friggin’ salty.”
“But?”
“But…” He takes another bite, smaller this time. “It’s not as bad as it…should be.”
You beam. “See?”
“That doesn’t mean you’re right.”
“It absolutely does.”
He shakes his head and reaches for another piece anyway.
This somehow devolves into a debate over what the worst possible pizza topping might be, which turns into Steve dumping M&M’s onto one slice with all the confidence of a deeply unserious little psychopath.
You stare at it in stunned silence.
He grins around the next mouthful. “What?”
“That is revolting.”
“Coward.”
You narrow your eyes… then reach for your Gushers and upend half the bag onto your own slice before diving in, staring him down without blinking.
Steve goes dead still.
Then he starts laughing so hard he has to brace one hand on the counter.
“Oh my God,” he wheezes. “You actually did it.”
“You started this.”
“You’re insane.”
You both proceed to eat your cursed little dessert pizzas anyway, because twelve-year-olds are nature’s bravest and most disgusting experimental little chefs. The Gushers burst hot and weird in your mouth against the anchovies. The M&M’s on Steve’s slice get sort of melty and upsetting.
“This is horrible,” he mumbles through a laugh.
“This is art.”
“This is child endangerment.”
Suddenly you gasp. “Wait. Have you seen that Mary-Kate and Ashley video? The one with the pizza making?”
Steve blinks a few times, but then slowly begins to grin. “It’s got that song…”
You point enthusiastically, eyes shining with excitement as you shout out the lyrics. “PUT IT IN THE PIZZAAAAAA!”
He cackles and echoes it back, which then turns into both of you looking it up on YouTube and snickering over it too hard.
There are empty pizza boxes all over the floor by the time you move back to your room with a DVD stack and sodas and the kind of silly exhaustion that only comes from an entire day spent fully alive.
You text each other from two feet away at one point just because you can.
Steve: ur room is cool
You: you are literally in it
Steve: yeah but now its in writing
You grin so hard your face hurts.
“Promise we’ll still write letters?” you ask after a while, more serious. “While I’m at school, I mean.”
Steve looks over from where he’s half-reclined against your bed. “Even if we text?”
“Yeah. We’re not allowed our phones all the time at school.”
He nods immediately. “Then yeah. Both.”
Your eyes shine. “Both?”
“Texts and letters.” He picks at the edge of the blanket under his hand. “That way if you can’t answer one, I can still do the other.”
Something in your chest goes soft.
“Okay,” you say shyly.
Steve smirks, pointing. “Digital pen pals and pen-pen pals.”
You giggle, suddenly very grateful that you’re sunburned — which helps your flushed cheeks not give you away.
The storm starts late.
Not dramatic at first. Just a low roll of thunder somewhere out over the bay while a movie plays too quietly in the background and both of you are too tired to really follow the plot anymore.
The room has gone dim. The pizza boxes sit collapsed and greasy on the floor. There’s a controller under your bed, an open soda gone flat on the nightstand, and two pillows dragged down onto the rug… because at some point sitting turned into sprawling, and sprawling turned into not bothering to get back up.
You fall asleep like that.
Not intentionally. Just because you are twelve and spent and happy in a way that makes sleep feel less like something you choose and more like being gently knocked over by life.
Steve falls asleep, too. And when he wakes, the room is dark except for the little lamp by your desk and the flicker of lightning outside the window.
He lies still for a second, confused.
Then he remembers where he is.
The movie menu screen is looping soundlessly on the TV. Rain taps softly at the glass now, the thunderstorm finally close enough to matter. Somewhere downstairs the house settles with a wooden sigh.
Then he glances over.
You’re curled up on the floor a few feet away — cheek pressed to one of the pillows, one hand tucked under it. Your hair’s gone half-wild all over again in slumber. Your lips are parted just slightly. In the low light you look… younger somehow. Softer. Small in that way children only get to be when no one is asking anything of them.
Steve blinks at you, feeling something warm and strange pass through him.
Not huge. Not terrifying.
Not anything he could name even if he tried.
Just fondness, maybe…? Pure and uncomplicated and so immediate it feels almost like hunger.
He pushes himself up quietly and looks around until he finds one of the throw blankets folded over the chair by your fully stacked bookshelf. He shakes it out and drapes it carefully over you, trying not to wake you.
You only nuzzle deeper into the pillow.
His mouth twitches into the softest smile.
Then he fishes his phone out of his pocket and squints at the screen.
1:07 AM.
There’s already one text from his dad in their family group chat.
Dad: you good?
Steve thumbs back quickly.
Steve: yeah im at hers. storm got bad. Steve: gonna crash here if thats ok
He waits.
A few seconds later, the typing bubble appears.
Dad: okay
Dad: lock the back door if its not already
Dad: love you
Steve stares at the screen for a second.
Then types:
Steve: ok
Steve: love you too
No response after that. Just the silence of a conversation that doesn’t need to keep proving itself.
He sets the phone down and looks back at the rain.
The weird thing about childhood is how often it feels enormous while you’re in it and tiny once it’s gone. A storm at one in the morning. Falling asleep on the floor. Pizza boxes and movie main menus and a pretty girl from boarding school curled under a throw blanket in the next patch of light over. The kind of night adults would later reduce to nothing with a hand wave and endearing terms like ‘harmless,’ and ‘cute,’ and ‘awh, kids…’
Harmless. Cute. Kids.
And maybe they would be right.
But right now, to Steve, it feels like one of those little moments his life has no business keeping so carefully… and still somehow will.
He finds another blanket for himself and lowers back down onto the floor… beside you. Not too close, just close enough. Outside, lightning flickers pale at the edge of the curtains. Rain keeps time against the glass.
This is the most unusual little sleepover he’s ever had.
And also?
The nicest.
He’s used to sleepovers with boys, Nerf gun wars, prank calls and gross boy movies or rowdy shouting over video games and scattered chicken nuggets. Not impromptu sleepovers with sweet boarding school girls he meets while on summer vacation…
That thought comes with another one close behind it, darker and heavier.
Tomorrow, you go home.
Tomorrow this whole strange, bright pocket of summer closes up.
Tomorrow you will still have phones and letters and all the ways that people promise not to disappear from each other… but tomorrow, you also won’t just be right here. Not in the next room. Not laughing in the water. Not letting him steal your orange juice. Not making him eat fucking anchovies and somehow winning the war against his picky tastebuds.
The sadness of it arrives so quietly it almost catches him off guard.
Steve turns onto his side and looks toward the window instead.
Twelve-year-old boys do not have language yet for a lot of the things that happen inside them. They know the feeling before they know the word. They know the ache before they know the cost. They know enough to close their eyes and breathe through it and hope morning doesn’t come too fast.
On the floor across from him, you sleep on… warm under your blanket, one hand curled near your face, breathing softly and steadily.
Steve watches the rain for another minute.
Then he closes his eyes too and tries not to think about tomorrow.
By mid-January, the semester had finally settled back into its familiar rhythm, but something about the space between you and Steve felt fragile. Despite your standoffish attitude when Steve brought you coffee and gummies before your meeting with Colin, he didn’t let that affect his efforts.
Here he was again, outside the journalism building for what was probably the 10th time since the party.
The cold air had turned the tips of his ears pink, and his hair was still damp from practice, curling slightly against the collar of his jacket.
He held out a coffee in one hand and a small plastic bag in the other.
“Before you say anything,” he began quickly, lifting the bag of Coke gummies like a peace offering, “I’m just here to apologize again.”
You looked from the candy to his face and sighed quietly, preparing to have the same conversation you’d been through multiple times already.
“Steve—”
“I mean it,” he interrupted, his voice softer now. “About the party. About Courtney. About not noticing you left. All of it.”
You shifted the strap of your bag on your shoulder, trying not to look too closely at the way he was watching you, like he was waiting for a verdict. This was usually the part where you’d accept the coffee and candy politely before going about your day, but even you were starting to have a hard time not forgiving him.
And you needed to keep your distance.
“It doesn’t matter,” you finally said.
The words felt steadier coming out of your mouth than they did sitting in your chest.
Steve frowned slightly, clearly unconvinced.
“It kind of does,” he replied.
You shook your head gently.
“No. It really doesn’t. You’re the captain of the basketball team, Steve. You should probably be focused on the rest of the season and I should probably be focused on my articles.”
Something in his expression changed at that.
The hopeful edge disappeared, replaced by a quiet sort of understanding that somehow felt worse.
“So,” he said slowly, “this is you drawing a line.”
You nodded.
“Colin already thinks I’m too close to you. It’s probably better this way.”
For a moment he didn’t respond. The wind shifted across the quad, carrying the distant sound of students talking as they crossed the frozen grass nearby.
“Okay,” he said eventually.
Steve looked down at the small candy bag and the coffee cup in his hand before holding both out to you.
Seeing how utterly dejected he looked, you allowed yourself to take the coffee.
But you left the gummies with him.
•
January turned into February in a series of quiet moments that never quite crossed the line you had drawn, but hovered dangerously close to it anyway. The basketball season intensified with each passing week, practices becoming longer and games louder as the team built momentum toward the postseason.
And somehow, despite everything, Steve continued orbiting your life in small, persistent ways that made it increasingly difficult to pretend the distance between you was entirely real.
He started arriving early to practice more often.
You noticed because you were usually there before anyone else, sitting along the sideline bleachers with your notebook open while the gym slowly filled with the familiar sounds of bouncing basketballs and squeaking sneakers. The first few times Steve walked over to where you were sitting, it felt accidental. He would spin a basketball idly in his hands while asking casual questions about whatever article you were working on and you would try to ignore the way his face dropped every time he’d look at your neck and notice the absence of the necklace.
But the pattern repeated itself often enough that it became impossible to ignore.
Some mornings he brought coffee.
Other mornings he left a small bag of Coke gummies on the empty seat beside you with a scribbled note saying ‘layers of flavor.’
You never acknowledged the gesture directly.
He never asked you to.
But you always took the candy with you when you left.
And Steve always noticed.
•
March arrived faster than either of you expected, and with it, the biggest tournament in collegiate basketball — March Madness.
The campus transformed almost overnight once the tournament bracket was announced, the excitement surrounding the team reaching a fever pitch as students filled the quad wearing school colors and arguing loudly over bracket predictions. Media attention intensified dramatically, with reporters from larger outlets appearing at practices and games as the team prepared for their first March Madness appearance in several years.
For you, it meant traveling with the team.
The hotel in the tournament city buzzed with constant movement the night before the game, players and reporters weaving through the lobby while television crews set up equipment in corners near the elevators. You spent most of the evening reviewing notes for your preview article, sitting at a small table near the windows while the noise of the lobby hummed quietly around you.
Steve spotted you almost immediately when he walked in.
He hesitated for a moment before crossing the room, the expression on his face softer than the confident composure he usually carried in public spaces.
“Working late, Paparazzi?”
You looked up from your laptop.
“Always.” You looked up at him with a smile.
He leaned against the back of the chair across from you, glancing briefly at the open pages of notes scattered across the table.
“Big game tomorrow,” he said.
“They’re all kinda big at this point, aren’t they?”
He smiled faintly at the response.
“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” he muttered. “You nervous?”
“I’m covering the biggest assignment of my college career,” you replied. “Of course I’m nervous.”
Steve considered that for a moment.
Then he reached into his jacket pocket and set a familiar plastic bag beside your laptop.
You stared at it.
“Steve.”
“What?” he said lightly. “They sell them in the hotel gift shop.”
You shook your head but didn’t push the candy away.
“You really don’t have to keep getting me these.”
“I know. It just makes me feel connected to you still, I guess,” he rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly before telling you he’d see you at tomorrow’s game and walked away.
After bidding him good luck, you thought more about his reasoning for continuing the candy gifts.
As much as you hated to admit it, him still taking the time to find and bring you candy also made you feel connected to him. You had spent the last few months trying to distance yourself in order to maintain your journalistic integrity, but you’d recently come to terms with the fact that you were abandoning your own integrity in doing so.
You liked Steve. There was no denying it.
The holiday in Hawkins had solidified something between the two of you that you let die before even giving it the chance to breathe.
Yes, your talk with Colin had kind of spooked you and made you feel like you had to set some boundaries, but ultimately, you knew you’d been too hard on him for the Courtney thing and were just using that as an excuse to validate the distance.
Most importantly, you knew you wanted to erase that invisible line you’d drawn and get back to how things were over break.
Subconsciously, a part of you was still worried about being personally involved with the main subject of your articles — especially when you had incriminating information that the subject himself shared with you.
As you sat in the lobby, having an internal battle with yourself, you did the one thing you always do.
You wrote.
You wrote an entire article surrounding the controversy of Steve’s dad funding the department and how that may have potentially played a role in Steve’s leadership position on the team. You wrote about his partying habits and his on-court attitude and the way he put on an act depending on who he was around.
By the time you were done, it was basically a tell-all hit piece that slandered Steve’s entire being, and, because you knew no one would ever see it, it made you feel better.
It satiated the nagging journalist in you who had felt like she was harboring this huge secret, and now that you had gotten the words out, you could move on — with Steve.
•
The next afternoon, the arena was louder than anything you had experienced during the regular season.
March Madness carried a completely different energy, the crowd roaring with every play as the stakes of the tournament hung over every possession. You sat near the sideline with your notebook balanced on your knee, trying to focus on the rhythm of the game rather than the tension humming through your chest.
Steve had been playing well all night.
Focused.
Controlled.
Exactly the kind of performance you expected from the team captain during such a pivotal game.
Until he went up for a rebound with six minutes left in the second half.
From your angle courtside, you saw the collision happen before most of the crowd did.
Steve jumped.
Another player jumped with him.
Their bodies collided mid-air.
When Steve landed, something went wrong.
His foot hit the floor at a strange angle, his entire body twisting slightly before he stumbled backward.
The sound of the crowd shifted instantly.
Concern rippled through the arena as Steve stayed down on the hardwood longer than usual, one hand gripping his ankle while the referee blew the whistle.
Your pen stopped moving.
The trainers were already running onto the court.
Steve sat up slowly, wincing as they spoke to him. After a moment he pushed himself to his feet with their help, testing his weight carefully before limping toward the bench.
From where you sat, you could see the frustration written clearly across his face.
He hated being sidelined.
You knew that much even without writing about him.
The game continued after that.
But Steve didn’t return to the court.
•
The locker room hallway outside the arena was quieter than usual after the game.
Most of the reporters had already finished their interviews and left, the fluorescent lights buzzing faintly overhead as you walked toward the training room door.
You hesitated briefly before knocking.
A voice inside called for you to come in.
Steve was sitting on one of the exam tables when you stepped inside, an ice pack wrapped around his ankle while one of the trainers finished taping it.
He looked up immediately when he saw you.
Something in his expression softened.
“Paparazzi,” he said.
The trainer finished securing the wrap before standing.
“Try to stay off it tonight,” she told Steve. “We’ll reevaluate tomorrow but it looks like it’s just a small sprain.”
He nodded.
Once she left, the room fell quiet.
You shifted slightly near the doorway before making your way over to him, setting your things down on the edge of the table he was on.
“How bad does it hurt?”
Steve shrugged.
“Looks worse than it is.”
Silence settled between you again.
Then Steve leaned back slightly against the exam table.
“You came to check on me,” he said.
It wasn’t really a question.
You crossed your arms lightly.
“Can’t a girl be worried about her friend?”
Steve raised an eyebrow.
“Friend? Not subject?” He tried to play it off as a joke, but he was genuinely taken aback by your choice of words.
“Yeah, friend.”
Another quiet moment passed.
Then he sighed.
“You know,” he said, “we never actually finished that conversation.”
Your stomach tightened slightly.
“What conversation?”
“The one where you decided we should pretend we’re strangers again.” Steve’s gaze didn’t waver before he continued, “I get why you said it. The whole journalism thing.” His voice had dropped slightly now. “But it doesn’t really change how I feel.”
Your pulse picked up.
“Steve—”
“Just hear me out.”
He swung his good leg off the table and stood slowly, testing his weight again before taking a few careful steps closer.
The distance between you shrank.
“You said I should focus on basketball,” he said quietly, “but that doesn’t mean I stopped thinking about you.”
Your breath caught slightly.
The room felt smaller suddenly.
Steve rubbed the back of his neck.
“I’ve been trying to say something for like two months,” he admitted. “And every time I see you sitting there with that notebook I forget how words work.”
Despite yourself, you laughed softly.
Steve smiled.
“There it is,” he said. “That’s the reaction I was hoping for.”
For a moment neither of you moved.
Then someone knocked.
Both of you turned toward the door instinctively as another trainer came in, wanting to assess Steve’s injuries.
Steve sighed.
“Of course.”
You stepped back slightly.
“I should probably let you—”
“No.”
He shook his head.
“We’re not doing this halfway again.”
Your eyebrows lifted slightly.
Steve reached for a scrap of paper on the counter beside him and scribbled something quickly before handing it to you.
“My room number,” he said. “Come by later tonight. We’ll finish this conversation properly.”
Your heart was beating noticeably faster now.
“Okay,” you said quietly.
Steve beamed as you left, despite the throbbing pain in his ankle. He felt more hopeful than he’d had in months. All he had to do was get through a little more poking and prodding and then he’d get to talk to you in his room. Finally talk to you.
As the trainer rotated his foot around and adjusted some wrappings, Steve’s eyes landed on the worn black cover of a notebook at the end of the exam table. He recognized it without even needing to open it.
He picked it up with a smirk, making a mental note to tease you about leaving behind your prized possession when you came over later.
He didn’t mean to, but when he lifted it onto his lap, a page near the middle slipped loose beneath his thumb.
His eyes caught a few lines of writing before he could stop himself.
Did Harrington really earn his place as captain?
The words made his stomach drop.
He let his eyes scan the entire 2 pages of handwriting.
The story about his father.
How he acts at parties.
His attitude problem.
For two months he had convinced himself that the distance you placed between the two of you was about ethics.
Professional boundaries.
Now it looked like something else entirely.
Like preparation. Like you were gearing up to stab him in the back and you needed a clear conscience first.
The realization sat heavily in his chest as he set the notebook back on the table.
When the trainer tapped his foot a moment later and said he was all set, the ache in his ankle was nothing compared to the sharp tightness that was growing in his chest.
•
You couldn’t believe how excited you felt when you showed up outside his hotel room later that night — heart racing, the scrap of paper with his room number folded carefully in your hand, your necklace back on, where it belonged. You had spent the last few hours hyping yourself up and were officially ready to confess your own feelings to Steve.
You knocked softly.
The door shifted open slightly beneath your hand.
You pushed it open further, assuming he had unlocked it in anticipation of your arrival.
The first thing you heard was laughter.
And then a voice.
Courtney’s voice?
Your stomach dropped instantly as you made it further into the room.
Steve. Tangled up with the cheerleader on the bed. Empty liquor bottles sharing the space with them.
You felt the world tilt slightly beneath your feet.
The paper with his room number crumpled slowly in your fingers.
For two months you had convinced yourself that keeping your distance was the right thing to do.
But as you stood there staring at the boy you had finally started allowing yourself to hope for, the realization that you had been wrong about him all along hurt more than you were prepared for.
You didn’t even realize you had made a sound until both of their heads whipped around towards you.
Courtney didn’t even look surprised to see you. Her expression stayed perfectly blank as her gaze slid over you like you were nothing more than a stranger lingering in the doorway. Without acknowledging your presence, she simply tucked her face back into the crook of Steve’s neck, her hand settling lazily against his chest like she had every right to be there.
But it wasn’t Courtney that finally forced your body to move.
It was Steve.
Because when your eyes lifted and met his across the room, there was no shock on his face. No embarrassment. No hurried attempt to pull away.
Only a slow, deliberate smirk curling at the corner of his mouth.
As you turned around and ran out into the hall, tears you hadn’t even known were present were streaming down your face. The long hallway was a blur as you stumbled to the nearest elevator, finger slamming into the floor you were staying on.
Within a few minutes, you were back in your room. You were mentally and emotionally drained so all you could think to do was collapse on the bed and hope sleep would come to your rescue.
But when you closed your eyes, all you saw was Courtney in his arms and that haunting smirk.
summary: winter break is over and it’s time to get back to reality. but maybe reality isn’t as great as you’d hoped.
words: 6.6k
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••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
Campus felt different from Hawkins. Louder. Faster. There were people everywhere again, voices echoing down the hallway, doors slamming somewhere in the distance, music faintly leaking from someone’s speaker two rooms down. The calm bubble that had existed around the two of you over winter break had burst the second you stepped back onto university grounds.
You unlocked your door slowly, pushing it open with your shoulder before dropping your bag just inside the room. When you turned back around, Steve was still standing there in the hallway, leaning one shoulder casually against the wall like he didn’t have anywhere else he needed to be.
For a moment neither of you said anything.
And then Steve shifted his weight slightly and looked at you with a faint, almost amused tilt to his mouth.
“So,” he said after a second, his voice low enough that it barely carried past the doorway, “are we pretending the last week didn’t happen, or…?”
Your stomach flipped in that annoying, unmistakable way it had started doing whenever he looked at you like that.
You leaned lightly against the doorframe, arms folding loosely across your chest as you considered the question. “I wasn’t planning on pretending,” you admitted.
Steve’s expression softened almost immediately, the tension easing out of his shoulders in a way that made it clear he had actually been wondering about the answer.
“Good,” he murmured.
The hallway suddenly felt much smaller than it had a moment ago.
You became painfully aware of the fact that people were still walking past every few seconds— students returning from break, arms full of bags and laundry baskets, voices drifting in fragments as they passed the two of you standing suspiciously close in the doorway.
A couple walking down the hall slowed slightly when they recognized Steve.
You felt it instantly.
The look.
It wasn’t subtle.
The girl’s gaze flicked from Steve to you and back again, curiosity plain on her face before she leaned slightly toward her boyfriend to whisper something as they continued walking.
Heat crept up your neck.
Your instinct was to step back inside the room, to create distance before anyone started making assumptions, but you hesitated, suddenly unsure what Steve wanted this to be on campus. Hawkins had been easy. Hawkins had been private.
Here, everything about Steve’s life seemed to exist under observation.
And now you were standing in the middle of it.
Steve noticed the shift in your posture almost immediately.
His eyes followed your gaze briefly down the hallway where the couple had disappeared before returning to you. Something in his expression sharpened just slightly, like he understood exactly what you were thinking without you needing to say it out loud.
Your fingers drifted unconsciously to the necklace resting against your collarbone, the three charms shifting softly beneath your touch.
Steve’s eyes followed the movement.
“You’re still wearing it,” he said quietly.
“Of course I am.”
Steve stepped closer then, his gaze still fixed on the necklace. His fingers brushed lightly against the charms where they rested against your chest, the contact warm even through the thin fabric of your shirt.
The tiny basketball shifted slightly.
“So the symbolism still holds up?” he asked, his voice carrying that faint teasing edge you recognized immediately.
You raised an eyebrow.
“Basketball for you,” you said, ticking the charms off lightly with your finger. “Camera for the paparazzi nickname.”
“And the soda bottle?”
Your mouth curved despite yourself.
“Layers of flavor,” the both of you said simultaneously.
Steve’s grin widened slightly.
Another pair of students walked past the doorway.
This time the staring was much more obvious.
Your shoulders tensed automatically.
It wasn’t the attention itself that made you uneasy; you were used to being around athletes, used to sitting courtside at practices and games with a notebook while fans and students filled the stands around you.
But this was different.
Because now you weren’t observing Steve Harrington from the sidelines.
You were standing three feet away from him in the hallway outside your dorm room while half the building seemed to notice.
And you still didn’t know what he wanted people to think.
Steve noticed the way your gaze flicked down the hallway again.
His brow furrowed slightly.
“Hey,” he said quietly.
You looked back at him.
“Relax.”
“I am relaxed.”
“You literally look like you’re gonna throw up.”
You let out a quiet breath.
“I just don’t know what we’re doing here,” you admitted softly. “Like are we pretending this is normal? Are we pretending nothing’s happening? Because if that’s the case I should probably stop standing in the hallway with you while half the dorm watches.”
Steve stared at you for a moment.
Then he huffed out a small laugh under his breath, shaking his head slightly like he couldn’t believe the direction your brain had gone.
“Is that what you think I want?” he asked.
You lifted a shoulder helplessly.
“I don’t know what you want.”
For a second he didn’t say anything.
Your chest tightened slightly in that annoying, traitorous way it had started doing more often lately.
Another group of students passed in the hallway.
One of them slowed noticeably when he recognized Steve.
“Yo, Harrington,” he called casually. “Practice today?”
“Four,” Steve replied easily.
The guy nodded and kept walking, but not before glancing at you with open curiosity.
Your instinct was to take a step back again.
Steve reacted before you could.
His hand reached out, catching lightly around your wrist, not tight, just enough to stop you from retreating into the room.
You looked up at him.
Steve held your gaze for a moment.
Then, very deliberately, he stepped closer.
Close enough that the space between you disappeared entirely.
You barely had time to process the movement before he leaned down and kissed you.
Not the quick, uncertain kind of kiss that could be brushed off as a mistake.
This one was slow.
Intentional.
His hand slid lightly to your waist as he did it, grounding you in place while the hallway noise blurred into the background.
It lasted long enough that when he finally pulled back, the stunned expression on your face made him grin slightly.
“There,” he said quietly.
Your brain took a moment to catch up.
“You just—”
“Yeah.”
“In the hallway.”
“Correct.”
“Where everyone can see.”
Steve glanced down the hall briefly before looking back at you. Then he shrugged.
“Good.”
Your heart was beating much faster than it had any right to.
“You’re ridiculous.”
“You were worried I wanted to hide you,” he said.
Your mouth opened.
Closed.
Steve leaned down slightly, brushing another quick kiss against your mouth before you could fully recover.
“Problem solved.”
For a moment you just stared at him.
Then you laughed softly despite yourself, shaking your head as you popped open the bag of coke gummies he had handed you in the airport.
“Practice is at four, right?” you asked.
Steve nodded.
“You gonna be there, paparazzi?”
You tossed one of the gummies into your mouth.
“Obviously.”
He started backing slowly down the hallway then, walking away but keeping his eyes on you.
“Try not to write anything too nice about me,” he called lightly.
You leaned against the doorframe, watching him go.
“No promises.”
Steve grinned.
And then he turned the corner, leaving you standing in the doorway with the taste of cola candy on your tongue and the distinct feeling that whatever this thing between you had become, it was only just beginning.
•
By the time you made it to practice that afternoon, the quiet confidence you had felt standing in the doorway earlier had been replaced with a low, persistent awareness that something on campus had already shifted.
It started the moment you walked into the journalism building that morning.
Normally, returning from winter break meant the campus felt sluggish for a few days. Students half-awake in lectures, professors easing into syllabi, the general rhythm of university life slowly restarting after the holidays. But the second you stepped through the glass doors with your laptop bag slung over your shoulder, you noticed the way two girls sitting at the front table glanced up from their phones and then immediately looked at each other.
Not subtly.
You recognized one of them from your Intro to Media Ethics class. She didn’t say anything, but the way her eyebrows lifted before she leaned toward her friend told you enough.
It wasn’t difficult to guess what the topic of conversation might be.
The moment had been small enough that you brushed it off at first, but the pattern repeated itself twice more before you even reached the newsroom office upstairs. A guy from your statistics lecture gave you a curious once-over in the hallway. Someone else whispered your name when you passed by the vending machines.
By lunchtime you had a suspicion forming.
By the time you arrived at the practice facility later that afternoon, it had turned into something much harder to ignore.
The gym doors creaked open with the familiar echo you had grown used to over the semester, the hollow bounce of basketballs carrying through the empty bleachers as the team ran warm-up drills across the polished court. The smell of rubber flooring and faintly stale sweat greeted you like it always did, grounding in its familiarity.
It should have felt normal.
But the second you stepped inside, one of the student managers glanced up from the scorer’s table and paused when he recognized you. His eyes flicked toward the court almost immediately afterward, like he was checking whether someone else had noticed your arrival.
You tried not to think too much about it as you made your way toward the bleachers.
Covering the team had been your assignment for months now. Sitting courtside during practices with a notebook and a pen wasn’t unusual anymore.
Still, when you settled into your usual spot, you could feel the weight of a few curious looks drifting your direction.
The first one came from a sophomore guard who nudged his teammate with his elbow when he noticed you. The second came from one of the trainers walking past the bench. Each time, the glance lasted just a second too long before shifting away again.
Rumors moved faster than you expected for a campus this size.
You opened your notebook and tried to focus on the practice drills in front of you instead.
Steve was easy to find on the court.
He was running a passing sequence near the top of the key, sweat already darkening the collar of his practice shirt as he moved across the hardwood with that same loose athletic confidence you had spent most of the semester writing about. Watching him play had always been part of the job, but lately it had become harder to maintain the professional distance that used to come naturally.
Part of that was because you had seen a different version of him over winter break.
And part of it was because he kept looking over at you.
Not constantly. Not enough to disrupt practice.
But just enough that you noticed.
At one point during a water break, he jogged toward the bench to grab a towel before his gaze drifted toward the bleachers. The moment he spotted you sitting there with your notebook open, something in his expression shifted.
The intense focus he had been wearing during drills softened instantly.
Steve wiped his face with the towel before walking toward the railing that separated the court from the seating area. He leaned his forearms casually against it, still catching his breath as he looked up at you.
“You made it,” he said.
“Shocking, I know,” you replied, closing your notebook halfway.
His eyes flicked briefly toward the pen in your hand.
“You write anything nice about me yet?”
“I’ve written that you missed two free throws.”
Steve winced slightly.
“Ruthless journalism.”
You shrugged.
“Just stating the facts.”
He laughed softly under his breath.
“Busy tonight?” he asked.
The question caught you off guard.
“Why?”
“There’s a party,” he said. “Team thing.”
You considered that for a moment.
Campus parties weren’t unusual, especially this early in the semester when everyone was eager to celebrate being back. But showing up to one with Steve Harrington— especially now that people were already looking at you differently— felt like stepping into the center of something you weren’t sure you understood yet.
Your hesitation must have been obvious.
Steve tilted his head slightly.
“Come on,” he said. “You should see the glamorous side of college athletics, too. Not just the part in the arena.”
You huffed a quiet laugh.
“I’ve already experienced a party with you and it was not giving glamorous.”
“Which is why you should give it another shot.”
He waited patiently while you thought it over.
Finally you sighed.
“Fine.”
Steve’s grin was immediate.
“I’ll pick you up at 8.”
Then he pushed himself off the railing and jogged back onto the court just as practice resumed.
You watched him disappear into the drills again, your notebook still open in your lap but your thoughts drifting somewhere else entirely.
Because even though the gym noise had returned to normal, you could still feel the lingering glances from the sidelines.
And the rumors on campus were only getting louder.
•
Music thumped faintly through the walls of the off-campus house as soon as you stepped inside, the air warm with the overlapping sounds of laughter and conversation. Strings of cheap fairy lights had been draped across the ceiling beams, casting the living room in a hazy golden glow while clusters of students crowded around mismatched furniture and red plastic cups.
Steve’s hand rested lightly at the small of your back as he guided you through the doorway.
The effect was immediate.
Heads turned.
Not dramatically, just enough that you noticed the subtle shift ripple through the room as people recognized him. A few guys from the team shouted greetings from the kitchen. Someone turned down the music slightly to call Steve’s name across the room.
But what you noticed more than anything else was the way several people looked from Steve to you with thinly veiled curiosity.
Steve didn’t seem to care.
He leaned down slightly so his voice carried over the music.
“You good?”
You nodded, even though your awareness of the room hadn’t faded yet.
“Yeah.”
He squeezed your waist lightly before stepping away to grab two drinks from the kitchen counter. You watched him move through the crowd with the easy familiarity of someone who had attended a hundred parties exactly like this.
When he returned, he handed you a cup before leaning casually against the wall beside you.
“You look like you’re analyzing the room for a story,” Steve smirked, “Relax, paparazzi.”
You were about to respond when someone approached from across the living room.
She was tall, blonde, and effortlessly put together in the way that suggested she knew exactly how she looked when she walked into a room. Her cheer uniform jacket was tied loosely around her waist, the school colors immediately recognizable even under the dim party lights.
When she reached the two of you, her eyes landed on Steve first.
“Hey, Harrington.”
Her tone was warm and familiar.
Steve straightened slightly.
“Oh, hey, Courtney.”
Your stomach tightened just slightly at the ease in their interaction.
Courtney’s gaze flicked toward you then, assessing.
“And who’s this?”
Steve didn’t hesitate.
“This is—” he said, gesturing toward you before resting his hand lightly against your back again. “Just the journalist covering the team.”
Courtney’s smile widened slightly.
“Ah,” she said, drawing the word out thoughtfully. “So you’re the one writing about him.”
Something about the way she said it made the room feel just a little warmer.
Your fingers tightened slightly around your cup.
“Something like that.”
Courtney nodded slowly before glancing back at Steve.
“Well,” she said, her voice light but her eyes lingering just a moment too long, “we’ll have to make sure you’re getting the full story.”
Then she turned and disappeared back into the crowd.
You watched her go.
Steve exhaled quietly beside you.
“What?” he asked when he noticed your expression.
“Nothing.”
But somewhere in the back of your mind, a small flicker of unease had already begun to form.
The moment Courtney disappeared back into the crowd, the space she left behind seemed to linger like the faintest aftertaste of something unpleasant.
You hadn’t expected the interaction to bother you.
Technically, Steve hadn’t said anything wrong. If anything, he had told the truth. You were just the journalist covering the team. That had always been the arrangement from the very beginning.
Still, the way the words had sounded when he said them echoed in your head a little longer than you would have liked.
She’s just the journalist covering the team.
Not your name.
Not the girl he had spent Christmas with.
Not the person currently standing beside him with his hand still resting against the small of her back.
Just the journalist.
You told yourself it didn’t matter.
The music in the house had gotten louder since you arrived, the bass vibrating faintly through the floorboards as more people filtered through the front door. Someone had turned the living room lights down further, leaving the space illuminated mostly by the strands of fairy lights zig-zagging across the ceiling and the warm glow from the kitchen down the hallway.
Steve had drifted slightly closer to the wall beside you, his shoulder brushing yours occasionally whenever someone squeezed past in the crowded room. At some point he had refilled both of your cups without asking, handing one back to you with a casual smile before taking a long sip from his own.
You weren’t typically much of a drinker, but tonight the warmth spreading slowly through your chest felt oddly welcome.
It dulled the edge of the awareness that people were still glancing at the two of you every so often.
It dulled the echo of Courtney’s voice in your head.
And it dulled the part of you that kept wondering if Steve had meant to introduce you that way.
After a little while, things felt almost comfortable again.
A couple of Steve’s teammates wandered over at different points to say hello, some of them nodding politely in your direction when Steve introduced you. A few students from the athletic department joined the circle briefly before drifting away again. The conversations stayed light and harmless—mostly jokes about the upcoming game, complaints about classes starting again, the usual background noise of a college party.
And then Courtney came back.
You noticed her before Steve did.
She moved through the living room with the kind of effortless confidence that made space naturally open around her. The red and white of her cheer jacket caught the glow of the string lights as she crossed the room, her blonde hair falling in loose waves over one shoulder.
When she reached the two of you again, she leaned one elbow casually against the wall beside Steve like she had always intended to return.
“Hey again,” she said.
Steve turned slightly.
“Oh hey.”
Courtney smiled easily.
Her gaze slid over him in a way that made your grip tighten slightly around your cup.
“So,” she continued lightly, “big game this weekend.”
“Yeah.”
“You nervous?”
Steve shrugged.
“Not really.”
Courtney tilted her head.
“Cocky as always.”
“I prefer confident.”
She laughed again, the sound bright and easy.
Something about the conversation had shifted now. It wasn’t overtly inappropriate. Nothing either of them were saying would have sounded strange if you hadn’t been standing right there.
But the way Courtney leaned a little closer when she talked…
The way her hand brushed Steve’s arm briefly when she laughed…
The way Steve didn’t step away from it…
Each small moment stacked quietly on top of the one before it.
You took another drink.
The alcohol had started to make the room feel warmer, the noise blending together into a soft blur of voices and music around you.
At some point Steve had turned slightly toward Courtney without realizing it, his shoulder angling away from you as their conversation continued. You were still standing right there, but the dynamic had shifted just enough that you felt like you were hovering on the edge of it instead of inside it.
Courtney’s eyes flicked toward you briefly then.
Her smile widened slightly.
“So,” she said casually, “you’re writing about the team this season?”
You nodded.
“That’s the plan.”
“Must be interesting,” she replied.
There was a faint emphasis on the word interesting that made your stomach twist slightly.
Steve took another drink.
“It’s mostly boring practice notes and game stats,” he said.
Courtney hummed thoughtfully.
“Well,” she said, glancing at him sideways, “at least you’re giving her something worth writing about.”
Her fingers tapped lightly against his arm again.
Steve laughed.
And that was the moment something small and uncomfortable settled in your chest.
Because he didn’t stop it.
He didn’t move away.
He didn’t say anything to shift the tone of the conversation back toward neutral.
He just stood there smiling.
You told yourself it didn’t mean anything.
Maybe he hadn’t noticed.
Maybe you were overthinking it.
Maybe this was just what parties looked like when you were standing next to someone who was used to this kind of attention.
But the longer you stood there, the more you felt like an extra piece of furniture in the room.
Your cup was empty before you realized it.
“I’m gonna grab another drink,” you said finally.
Neither of them reacted.
Courtney was mid-sentence about something involving the cheer team’s travel schedule. Steve was listening with a drunken half-smile, nodding slightly.
You waited a second.
Still nothing.
So you stepped away.
The kitchen was only a few steps down the hallway, but the shift in atmosphere felt immediat once you moved out of the living room. The air was cooler there, the noise slightly muffled by the wall separating the two spaces.
You set your cup down on the counter and reached for the half-full bottle sitting beside it.
From this angle, you could still see the edge of the living room.
Steve was standing exactly where you had left him.
Courtney had moved a little closer.
He hadn’t noticed you were gone.
The realization settled quietly in your chest.
You poured another drink.
After a minute, you slipped out the back door instead.
The cold night air hit you immediately, the sharp bite of winter clearing some of the haze from your head as you stepped onto the small wooden porch behind the house. Snow dusted the railing lightly, the backyard mostly empty except for a couple of students smoking near the fence.
You leaned against the railing and exhaled slowly.
The alcohol buzz in your system made your thoughts feel softer, but the uneasiness hadn’t gone away.
Because the truth was, you didn’t actually know what you and Steve were.
Christmas in Hawkins had felt real.
The kisses had felt real.
The quiet conversations late at night, the way he looked at you when he thought you weren’t paying attention, the way he had bought you that necklace like it meant something.
But back on campus, standing in a crowded party with half the athletic department watching…
You were just the journalist covering the team.
And Steve Harrington hadn’t even noticed when you walked away.
•
By the time you made it back to your dorm, the campus had already begun to settle into the strange quiet that always came after midnight.
The walk from the party house had felt longer than usual, the cold air biting at your cheeks while the faint echo of music faded further behind you with every block. At some point during the walk, the slight buzz from the drinks you’d had earlier had started to wear off, leaving you with a dull, restless sort of clarity that made your thoughts harder to ignore.
The dorm hallway was nearly empty when you slipped inside. A few doors were still cracked open with low music drifting out, but most of the lights had been switched off, leaving the corridor dim and quiet.
You locked your door behind you and dropped your bag onto the chair by your desk before kicking off your shoes.
For a moment you just stood there in the center of the room, staring at nothing.
Then you climbed onto your bed, pulled your laptop into your lap, and opened the first random show that appeared on the streaming homepage.
You didn’t really care what it was.
You just needed the noise.
The glow of the screen filled the small dorm room while the opening scene began to play, actors talking loudly about something you weren’t paying attention to. You tucked your legs under the blanket and leaned back against the wall, letting the familiar comfort of mindless television fill the silence.
Your fingers absentmindedly brushed against the necklace resting against your collarbone.
The tiny charms shifted under your touch.
Basketball.
Soda bottle.
Camera.
Your thumb lingered there for a moment before you let your hand drop back into your lap.
You were about 2 episodes in when your phone buzzed on the nightstand beside you.
You glanced over automatically.
Steve.
His contact name lit up your screen in white letters.
You stared at it for a second.
Then you looked back at your laptop instead.
Another buzz came a few seconds later.
You sighed quietly and leaned over, grabbing the phone just long enough to read the message preview.
your favorite athlete:
- where’d you go?
Your eyebrows pulled together slightly.
You checked the time.
1:58 a.m.
You let out a short, disbelieving huff.
Two hours.
It had been two hours since you quietly stepped away from him and Courtney in that crowded living room, and apparently it had taken him until nearly two in the morning to realize you were gone.
The thought left a sour taste in your mouth.
You set the phone back down without responding.
The show continued playing in the background, characters arguing dramatically on screen while your attention drifted somewhere else entirely.
Your phone buzzed again.
your favorite athlete:
- paparazzi?
You rolled your eyes at the nickname.
Another message followed almost immediately.
your favorite athlete:
- did you go home
Your fingers hovered briefly over the phone.
You could answer.
It would take two seconds.
But the image of him standing there in that living room, smiling while Courtney leaned into his shoulder, replayed in your head.
And the way he hadn’t even noticed when you walked away.
You placed the phone facedown on the nightstand.
The screen went dark.
A minute passed.
Then two.
Then it buzzed again.
This time the vibration continued longer.
You didn’t need to flip the phone over to know what it was.
The buzzing stopped after a few seconds.
A pause followed before your phone rang again.
You stared at the vibrating phone from across the bed and for a moment you considered answering.
You imagined the slightly slurred way his voice would sound. The confused questions about where you went. The casual tone he might use like none of it had meant anything.
Your thumb drifted toward the phone but eventually the call rang out.
You sighed heavily and reached over just long enough to flip the phone onto silent mode.
The room went quiet again except for the low dialogue still playing from your laptop.
You watched the screen without really seeing it.
A dull ache had settled somewhere behind your ribs.
Maybe you had overreacted.
Maybe you should have just stayed at the party.
Maybe none of it had meant anything at all.
Your thoughts were interrupted by a sudden knock on the door.
Your entire body went still.
You didn’t move.
A few seconds passed.
Then another knock.
“Hey.”
Steve’s voice came through the door, muffled but unmistakable.
Your stomach twisted.
You quickly grabbed your laptop and paused the show, plunging the room into silence.
Another knock echoed through the hallway.
“Paparazzi?”
You stared at the door.
Your heartbeat had picked up slightly, thudding quietly in your chest.
“C’mon,” he said through the wood. “I know you’re in there.”
You didn’t respond.
After a moment, the handle rattled gently.
Locked.
“Seriously?” Steve muttered.
You slid lower under the blanket, holding your breath like that somehow made the illusion more believable.
Silence stretched across the hallway.
Then you heard him exhale on the other side of the door.
“…okay.”
His voice was quieter now.
There was a faint thump against the wall beside the door, like he had leaned back against it.
For a moment, neither of you moved.
~
The hallway outside her dorm felt way too quiet.
Steve stared at the door in front of him like it might suddenly open if he looked at it long enough.
His head was buzzing.
Not just the normal kind of buzz either. The kind where the alcohol hadn’t worn off yet but the night was starting to blur together in strange pieces.
He rubbed a hand over his face.
When had he realized she was gone?
The timeline in his head refused to line up correctly.
One minute he’d been standing in the living room talking to Courtney about something. Cheer schedules maybe? And the next minute someone had asked him where the journalist girl went.
That had been… what?
An hour ago?
Maybe more.
Steve squeezed his eyes shut for a second, trying to replay the moment she left.
Had she said something?
Had she told him she was going somewhere?
He couldn’t remember.
All he could picture was the way she’d been standing beside him earlier in the night, her shoulder brushing his while the music blasted through the house.
And the necklace.
His brain snagged on that detail immediately.
She’d been wearing it again.
The three little charms had caught the light when she moved, and he remembered thinking something stupid about how good it looked on her before Courtney started talking again.
Steve exhaled slowly.
“Great,” he muttered to himself.
He pressed the heel of his hand against his forehead.
Had he been flirting?
His brain tried to rewind the conversation.
Courtney laughing.
Her hand on his arm.
Something about the cheer team traveling with them for the tournament next month.
Steve groaned softly.
He hadn’t meant anything by it.
He barely even liked Courtney.
But somewhere in the middle of the conversation he realized he hadn’t seen you in a while.
At first he assumed you were grabbing another drink.
Then ten minutes passed.
Then someone asked where you were.
Then his stomach had dropped in that slow, unpleasant way that meant he had probably screwed something up.
Steve shifted his weight against the wall outside her door.
“C’mon,” he muttered again quietly, even though he knew you probably couldn’t hear him.
Or maybe you could.
Maybe you were just ignoring him.
The thought made his chest tighten slightly.
Because the truth was, he couldn’t stop thinking about Hawkins.
About the way you had looked sitting in the passenger seat of his car while snow fell outside the diner windows.
About the quiet kisses on the porch.
About the way it had felt easy there.
Simple.
Here everything felt complicated.
He knocked lightly on the door again.
No answer.
Steve sighed and tipped his head back against the wall.
“Okay,” he murmured to himself.
“If you’re sleeping… that’s fair.”
But he stayed there another minute anyway.
Just in case.
~
The next morning arrived far too quickly.
Sleep had come in short, restless intervals after Steve finally left the hallway outside your door. At some point you must have drifted off with your laptop still open beside you, the glow of the paused show fading into the background as exhaustion finally won out over the steady churn of your thoughts.
When your alarm rang the next morning, the dull heaviness behind your eyes made it clear you hadn’t gotten nearly enough rest.
Still, routine had a way of dragging you forward whether you were ready for it or not.
By the time you stepped out into the cold morning air to make your way to the journalism building, the campus was already humming with the familiar weekday rhythm. Students hurried between classes with backpacks slung over their shoulders, coffee cups clutched in gloved hands as conversations floated through the crisp air.
You had your head down as you climbed the steps toward the entrance, digging through your bag for your notebook.
Which was why you almost walked straight into him.
You stopped short when a pair of sneakers appeared directly in your path.
Your gaze lifted slowly.
Steve Harrington stood at the top of the steps, leaning awkwardly against the brick wall beside the glass doors like he’d been waiting there for a while.
His hair was slightly messier than usual, the faint shadows under his eyes suggesting his night hadn’t been much more restful than yours. One hand held a paper coffee cup. The other held a small crinkled bag that you immediately recognized.
Coke gummies.
For a brief moment, neither of you said anything.
Then Steve straightened.
“Hey.”
Your stomach tightened slightly.
You hadn’t expected to see him here.
“You waiting for someone?” you asked, your tone deliberately neutral.
Steve winced a little at that.
“Yeah,” he said. “You.”
He held out the coffee first.
“It’s 75% sugar. Just how you like it.”
Your eyes flicked down to the cup.
Then to the bag of gummies in his other hand.
The familiar gesture landed somewhere uncomfortable in your chest.
“You didn’t have to do that,” you said quietly.
“I know.”
Steve shifted his weight slightly, clearly trying to gauge your mood.
“Look, about last night—”
“It’s fine.”
The words came out automatically.
Too quickly.
Steve frowned.
“It didn’t seem fine when you disappeared for two hours.”
You shrugged lightly, adjusting the strap of your bag.
“You were busy.”
“That’s not—”
Steve stopped himself mid-sentence, dragging a hand through his hair.
“I’m sorry,” he said finally, his voice quieter now. “Seriously. I didn’t realize you left.”
You let out a soft breath through your nose.
“Yeah. I noticed.”
Something flickered across his face at that.
“I wasn’t—”
“You don’t have to explain it,” you interrupted gently. The hurt was still there under the surface of your voice, no matter how much you tried to smooth it over. “You were talking to someone. I didn’t want to interrupt.”
Steve stared at you for a moment.
“I would’ve noticed if you said something.”
You gave him a small, humorless smile.
“I did say something.”
He opened his mouth again but he immediately snapped it shut.
Because you were right.
The silence stretched between you for a moment, heavy with everything neither of you quite knew how to say.
Finally you reached forward and took the coffee from his hand.
“Thanks,” you said softly.
His gaze dropped briefly when you accepted it.
“Take the gummies too,” he said, holding out the bag.
You hesitated.
Then you took those as well.
Steve watched your face carefully, like he was searching for some sign that he hadn’t completely ruined things.
“I really am sorry,” he repeated.
You nodded.
“Okay.”
Another pause.
Then you shifted slightly toward the door.
“I have to go,” you said. “Meeting with Colin.”
Steve’s eyebrows lifted.
“Your editor?”
“Yeah.”
“Is everything okay?”
You forced another small smile.
“Just journalist things.”
Steve didn’t look entirely convinced, but he stepped aside so you could pass through the doors.
As you moved past him, you could feel his eyes following you.
For a split second you wondered if he might say something else.
But he didn’t.
•
Colin’s office smelled faintly like burnt coffee and old paper.
Stacks of newspapers were piled along the edges of his desk in uneven towers, each one marked with bright sticky notes and scribbled edits. The walls were covered in framed front pages from previous years, reminders of the stories the campus paper considered its proudest moments.
You sat across from him in one of the worn chairs while he flipped through a printed copy of your most recent practice notes.
For a while he didn’t say anything.
Which was never a good sign.
Finally he set the pages down.
“So,” Colin said slowly, folding his hands together. “I’m hearing some things.”
Your stomach sank slightly.
“Things?”
He leaned back in his chair.
“Rumors,” he clarified. “About you and Harrington.”
The words hung in the air between you.
You kept your expression neutral.
“Campus rumors aren’t exactly a reliable source.”
“No,” Colin agreed easily. “But when the person writing our biggest athletics feature suddenly becomes the subject of those rumors, it becomes my problem.”
You nodded once.
“That’s fair.”
Colin studied you for a moment.
“I need to know something,” he said.
Your fingers tightened slightly around the notebook in your lap.
“Are you still capable of covering this team objectively?”
The question was direct.
Exactly the kind of thing you would have asked someone else if the roles were reversed.
“Yes,” you said immediately.
Colin raised an eyebrow.
“No hesitation.”
“There’s nothing to hesitate about.”
He leaned forward slightly.
“Because from where I’m sitting, it looks like the journalist covering the men’s basketball captain has gotten a little… close to her subject.”
The words stung more than you expected.
But you kept your voice steady.
“My job is to observe and report what happens on the court,” you said. “Not my personal life.”
Colin watched you carefully.
“And if those two things start overlapping?”
“Then I report what happens.”
Silence settled over the office again.
Finally Colin sighed and leaned back in his chair.
“You’re a good writer,” he said. “One of the best we’ve got right now.”
You waited.
“But if I get even the slightest impression that this story is becoming biased,” he continued, “I will pull you off the assignment.”
“That’s fair.”
Colin nodded once.
“Good.”
He slid your notes back across the desk.
“Game tonight,” he said. “I expect coverage.”
You stood.
“You’ll have it.”
•
The arena was already buzzing by the time you took your usual courtside seat that evening.
The energy of a home game had a way of transforming the building completely. The bleachers were packed with students wearing red and white, the marching band tuning their instruments while the cheer squad practiced routines along the sidelines.
You set up your notebook and laptop like you always did.
Steve noticed you the moment he stepped onto the court for warmups.
You could feel it before you even looked up.
When your eyes finally lifted from your notes, his gaze was already locked on you from across the hardwood.
Something about his expression looked… off.
Distracted.
The game started fifteen minutes later.
And almost immediately, it was clear something was wrong.
Steve missed his first shot.
Then his second.
Then a wide open three-pointer that normally would have been automatic.
The crowd murmured restlessly as the minutes ticked by.
You scribbled notes mechanically in your notebook.
summary: your relationship with Steve grows into something deeper as the two of you get closer. so close, in fact, that you spend the holidays with him
words: 6.0k
series masterlist
••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
When you opened your eyes the next morning, the ceiling you were staring at was definitely not yours. Sitting up abruptly, you looked around and found yourself in a bed with plaid sheets, shoved up against a wall littered in sports posters. As you swung your feet off the bed and prepared to hop down, a lumpy bundle of bath towels situated on the rug below stopped you in your tracks. The pile vaguely resembled the outline of a body and as you looked closer, you could see brown wavy hair poking out of one end.
Recalling the previous night, you remembered watching Steve fall sleep on the couch in the dorm’s lobby, but that didn’t explain how you ended up in a random bed.
You carefully hopped down and proceeded to poke the towel pile with your toe. A muffled groan came from the lump before it started shimmying around, eventually revealing a disheveled Steve Harrington. Despite the early morning bedhead and the clear hangover, it annoyed you how attractive he still was.
“Is there a reason your toe was touching me?” His voice was crackly and riddled with sleep but still held that same teasing tone he often used with you.
“Is there a reason I just woke up in your bed?” Your arms were crossed, awaiting his answer. You watched as he pulled himself off the floor and leaned against the side of his bed frame, facing you.
“I woke up at, like, 4am and we had both fallen asleep on the couch. Seemed easier to just bring you here than wake you up.” He shrugged like it was no big deal and made his way to the closet, pulling out an IU hoodie and some sweatpants.
You stared at him for a few seconds, trying to register his words and trying to not let them do funny things to your heart.
“So… you carried me to your bed instead? And you slept on the floor?” You weren’t meaning to come off as ungrateful, but you were genuinely struggling with comprehending any of the events of the past 12 hours.
“I think the words you’re looking for are ‘thank you,’ Paparazzi,” he chuckled, walking closer to you. “I had to use itchy ass towels as blankets while you slept like a princess on my memory foam mattress.”
You couldn’t help but laugh, “No one told you to sleep on the floor, Harrington.”
“Well, I certainly wasn’t gonna make you.” He said it so calmly and so matter-of-factly, standing right in front of you now.
There was a brief moment of silence as the two of you stared into each other eyes. Not awkward, but reflective.
This was a side of Steve that you’d experienced most often. The side where he didn’t act like a pretentious campus legend. The side that could banter with you back and forth without missing a beat. And apparently the side that gave up his fancy mattress just so you didn’t have to walk back to your own dorm in the middle of the night.
“Then I guess I do owe you a thank you,” your voice was lower now, almost a whisper, “so thank you.”
Steve reached up to push a piece of hair behind your ear, making your breath catch at the sudden contact, before he started speaking again. His voice was just as soft as yours.
“I was gonna try and act like I didn’t remember the conversation we were having before I crashed last night,” he began, his hand still lingering by your face, “but I do think I owe you an explanation.”
In all honesty, you had stayed up for at least an hour running through every possible thing he might’ve been trying to say to you. And most importantly, you’d spent that time running through which ones you hoped he was trying to say.
You waited.
Steve’s hand was still hovering near your face, the backs of his fingers barely brushing your hair where he had tucked it behind your ear. The contact wasn’t enough to be bold, but it also wasn’t something you could pretend hadn’t happened. It felt deliberate in a way that made your stomach tighten with anticipation.
“I remember what we were talking about,” he said finally.
Your heart skipped.
“That’s good,” you replied carefully. “Because you kinda passed out mid-sentence.”
“Yeah,” he muttered, rubbing the back of his neck. “That tends to happen when you drink half a bottle of cheap vodka.”
Your eyes narrowed slightly.
“That wasn’t the part I was worried about.”
Steve looked back at you then, really looked, and the teasing expression he usually wore around you was noticeably absent. The room felt quieter suddenly, the early morning light filtering through the blinds and casting thin stripes across the floor between you.
“You wanted to know which version of me was real,” he said.
You nodded slowly.
“And you said,” you continued, “that you act different with different people.”
“That part’s true.”
“I figured.”
For a moment, he didn’t say anything.
Then he straightened slightly, his eyes flicking toward the door before returning to yours like he was checking to make sure no one else was around to hear the conversation.
“I meant what I said last night,” he told you quietly.
Your heartbeat picked up.
“Which part?”
“The part where I said I’m not doing that thing with you.”
You studied his face, trying to decide whether he was about to laugh and play it off the way he usually did when conversations got too serious.
But he didn’t.
Instead, he stepped a little closer, closing the already small space between you in a way that felt intentional.
“You know the thing,” he continued, his voice softer now. “Where I morph into whatever version of myself people want to see.”
You didn’t respond right away.
“You’re very good at that,” you said eventually.
“Yeah,” he admitted.
There was no defensiveness in his tone. No ego. Just simple acknowledgement.
“That’s kind of my point,” he added.
Your brow furrowed slightly.
“Your point?”
Steve ran a hand through his hair, clearly searching for the right words.
“Most people on this campus have already decided who I am,” he said. “Cocky basketball captain. Rich kid. Campus asshole. Take your pick.”
You huffed out a quiet laugh.
“I didn’t decide that on my own.”
“Fair.”
“But you leaned into it.”
“I know.”
The honesty caught you slightly off guard.
Steve shifted his weight, his gaze dropping briefly to the floor before lifting again.
“With you, though…” he started.
Then he paused.
Your pulse thudded in your ears.
“With me what?”
He looked almost annoyed with himself.
“With you it’s just harder to keep doing it.”
Your stomach flipped.
“Doing what?”
“Pretending,” he said simply.
The word hung in the air between you.
You stared at him.
“That’s not exactly a clarification,” you pointed out.
Steve let out a small breath, the corners of his mouth twitching like he was fighting the urge to retreat into sarcasm.
“Okay,” he said. “Let me try again.”
He gestured vaguely between the two of you.
“You drive me insane.”
Your eyebrows shot up.
“That’s not very reassuring.”
“I’m not finished.”
He shifted again, clearly uncomfortable with how serious the conversation had become.
“You ask questions no one else asks,” he continued. “You don’t care about the whole… Harrington thing.”
“Harrington thing?”
“The reputation. The captain crap. The… whatever image people think I’m supposed to keep up.”
You crossed your arms lightly.
“I literally wrote an article calling you arrogant.”
“Exactly.”
You blinked.
“That’s a positive for you?”
“It means you actually meant it,” he said.
Your lips parted slightly, but you didn’t interrupt.
“And you still showed up to interview me after that,” he went on. “You still argued with me. Still rolled your eyes every time I said something stupid.”
“That happens a lot.”
“Yeah,” he said with a faint smile. “It does.”
The room went quiet again.
Steve glanced down at your hands before speaking again.
“When I said I’m not doing that thing with you,” he said, “I meant I’m not putting on the Harrington show.”
You felt your chest tighten slightly.
“So what does that mean?”
“It means,” he said slowly, “that when I’m being an ass to you, it’s because I’m actually annoyed.”
You snorted, “Comforting.”
“And when I’m not,” he continued, ignoring the comment, “it’s because I’m not pretending.”
Your heart thumped harder.
“And which one was last night?”
Steve met your eyes again.
“Which one do you think?”
Your breath caught slightly.
The memory of the night before flashed through your mind—the way he had looked at you in the lobby, the way his voice had softened right before he started saying something that sounded dangerously close to a confession.
“You were drunk,” you said carefully.
“That doesn’t make it fake.”
“No,” you admitted. “But it does make it questionable.”
Steve took another small step closer, close enough now that you could see the faint shadows under his eyes from the hangover.
“You want to know what I was about to say before I passed out?” he asked.
Your heart climbed into your throat.
“Maybe.”
He studied your face for a moment like he was gauging how much truth you could handle.
“I was going to say that you’re the only person here who doesn’t make me feel like I have to be that guy all the time.”
The confession was quiet.
Almost casual.
But it landed in your chest like a dropped weight.
You swallowed.
“That sounds suspiciously like a compliment.”
“Don’t let it go to your head.”
Your voice came out softer than you intended, “So that version of you is real?”
Steve’s expression shifted slightly, something more vulnerable flickering behind his eyes before he masked it again.
“The version I am with you will always be real,” he said.
You tilted your head.
“And what exactly does that mean for us?”
The word us slipped out before you could stop it.
Steve seemed to notice.
A small smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.
“I don’t know,” he admitted.
“You don’t know.”
“Nope.”
“That’s very reassuring.”
He laughed quietly.
“You want a clear answer at eight in the morning after I slept on a pile of bath towels?”
“Fair point.”
You both stood there for another moment, the tension between you noticeably different now than it had been before.
Less hostile but more complicated.
Steve glanced over at the dresser behind you suddenly.
“Oh,” he said.
“What?”
He walked past you and grabbed something from the top drawer.
When he turned back around, he was holding a small plastic bag.
You recognized it instantly.
Gummy Coke bottles.
Your eyebrows lifted.
“You hate those.”
“I don’t hate them.”
“You called them ‘flavored rubber.’”
“Still accurate.”
You stared at the bag.
“So why do you have them?”
Steve shrugged, tossing them onto the bed beside you.
“They were at the gas station.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only one you’re getting.”
You picked up the bag, turning it over in your hands.
It was already open.
Half empty.
“You ate some?”
“Had to make sure they weren’t gonna poison you.”
You laughed despite the way your chest still felt tight from the conversation.
“You’re ridiculous.”
“Yet you’re still here.”
Before you could respond, a loud knock echoed from the hallway outside.
Steve groaned immediately.
“That’ll be my teammates.”
Another knock came, followed by muffled voices.
Steve ran a hand through his hair and looked at you.
“Just ignore whatever they say.”
“That sounds ominous.”
“You have no idea.”
The door swung open a second later.
Three basketball players stepped inside mid-conversation before stopping abruptly when they noticed you standing in the room.
The silence that followed was deafening.
One of them blinked.
Another slowly looked at Steve.
Then back at you.
“Well,” the tallest one said slowly.
“This is interesting.”
Steve dragged a hand down his face.
“Good morning, Thompson.”
The guy grinned.
“Paparazzi spends the night now?”
Your face immediately warmed, both at the implication and the fact that he used the nickname you’d previously thought Steve would only use around you.
“I didn’t—”
“Nothing happened,” Steve cut in.
Thompson raised his eyebrows.
“Sure, captain.”
The other two were already trying not to laugh.
Steve shot them a glare.
“Practice in twenty,” one of them said, clearly enjoying the moment.
Thompson clapped Steve on the shoulder.
“Didn’t realize you were seducing the media now.”
Steve shoved him toward the door.
“Get out.”
The guys finally shuffled back into the hallway, still laughing.
When the door shut again, the room fell quiet.
You looked down at the bag of gummies in your hand.
“Well,” you said lightly. “That was deeply humiliating.”
Steve leaned against his desk with a sigh.
“They’re idiots.”
“They’re your idiots.”
“Unfortunately.”
You glanced back at him.
“So,” you said.
“So.”
You lifted the bag slightly.
“Can I take these?”
Steve smirked faintly.
“They were for you anyways, Paparazzi.”
You slipped the candy into your bag and stepped toward the door.
Just before you left, you looked back at him.
“Steve?”
“Yeah?”
Your voice softened slightly.
“For what it’s worth,” you hesitated, trying to decide just how honest you want to be, “I like the version you are with me.”
Steve looked at you with the softest smile that actually could’ve melted you right there. Before he could say anything, you made your way into the hallway, shutting the door behind you.
•
Something definitely shifted that morning because over the next few weeks you found yourself with Steve more often than not. After practice and games, he’d jog over to your press box seat, hand you a bag of Coke gummies and tell you to wait for him by the locker rooms. Just like clockwork, by the time you finished the bag of candy and reorganized your notes, he’d walk out of the locker room freshly showered and the two of you would leave the arena together.
Sometimes you’d head to your dorm to watch his dumb sitcom, sometimes you’d grab some food off-campus, sometimes there was no destination. Those instances were your favorite - just wandering around aimlessly talking about every little thing.
He’d told you about his over-bearing dad, his strange compilation of a friend group back home, that one summer he had to wear a sailor suit and scoop ice cream in a mall.
You’d told him about your lack of a family, the absence of any sort of friend group, the first time you ever watched a basketball game and decided you wanted to be a sports journalist.
All this time he was spending with you meant he hadn’t been hanging out with his team or going to any parties. You brought it up one night while the two of you were lying on your bed, his head on your shoulder, your laptop balancing on one of his knees and one of yours.
“So did the campus crack down on parties or something?”
He shifted his head just enough to look up at you, but not enough to remove the weight of it.
“What do you mean?”
“You’ve spent every night for the last 4 weeks hanging out with me. Are people not throwing parties anymore or something?”
He chuckled before lifting himself up and moving the laptop to the side before turning to face you, giving you and your questions his full attention.
“Nah, there’s still parties. Just haven’t wanted to go.” His eye contact was so intense that you didn’t even notice he had grabbed your hand and started mindlessly playing with your fingers.
This was a habit he’d picked up within the first few nights of your new routine. You never wanted to read too deeply into it, but you couldn’t ignore the way your heart skipped every time it happened.
“Can’t a guy prefer to spend time with a pretty girl instead of with the same sweaty guys he sees every day anyways?” He was smirking at you now, but there was a hint of seriousness behind his words.
“I didn’t say there was anything wrong with it, Harrington.” It took everything you had not to giggle and kick your feet over the compliment he slipped into his words.
A short silence lingered between the two of you, eyes still connected, hands still intertwined.
It felt like forever before Steve finally broke the quiet. He hopped over your body to jump off the bed, before crossing over to your desk drawer where his latest candy gift was resting.
“So, Paparazzi, what are your plans for winter break?” He popped a gummy into his mouth before tossing the bag to you, and settling himself down in your desk chair.
You gestured haphazardly around your room, “This.”
“You mean you’re staying here?” He seemed genuinely bewildered which made you scoff out loud.
“Not all of us have somewhere to be, Steven.” You wanted it to come off jokingly, but even you knew he could see the sadness in your eyes, the way your brows twitched into a frown for half a second.
He stared at you for a few moments longer before pulling out his phone and tapping around on it frantically, not a word being said.
You figured he just didn’t care to expand any further on the lonely life you seemed to lead so you continued eating your gummies and scrolled through your own device.
10 minutes later, Steve ejected himself from your chair and plopped next to you on the bed.
“There.”
He shoved his phone in your face and waited for your eyes to adjust so you could read the screen.
Updated Flight Details
Confirmation #DA0367
Bloomington, Indiana —> Hawkins, Indiana
2 Passengers: Seats 2A, 2B
“What am I looking at?”
“Our flight info. You’re coming home with me, Paparazzi.”
He smirked and locked his phone before grabbing the laptop and directing his attention back to the show, immediately laughing along like he’d never stopped watching.
You sat there, looking at the boy who’d just invited you to his hometown, no questions asked, so you wouldn’t be alone for the holidays.
Not wanting to make a big deal about it, but also needing to express your gratitude, you leaned down and kissed his cheek before resting your head on his shoulder. You felt him smile against you as he grabbed your hand, placing his own gentle kiss on your forehead.
You weren’t sure what kind of relationship you had with Steve. You knew it was supposed to be strictly professional so your articles could remain unbiased. But you’d grown extremely close to each other over the last semester, there was no denying that. And now you’d be accompanying him to his hometown — a place where he was probably the most himself.
As you lie next to him, eyes getting heavier with sleep, you convinced yourself the trip would be a good opportunity for subject research.
Nothing else.
•
The airport in Bloomington was quiet in that sleepy, pre-holiday way that made everything feel slightly surreal. Half the students on campus had already gone home for break, and the few that remained shuffled through security with oversized duffel bags and the glazed expressions of people running on minimal sleep.
You tugged your jacket tighter around yourself while standing in line behind Steve, watching him tap impatiently at his boarding pass on his phone.
“You know,” you said casually, “normal people usually ask before booking flights for them.”
Steve glanced back over his shoulder with a smirk.
“Normal people also don’t plan on spending Christmas alone in a dorm room eating vending machine candy.”
“That was a tentative plan.”
“Sure it was.”
You rolled your eyes but followed him through the line anyway.
If you were being honest with yourself, the moment he showed you the flight confirmation you had already known you were going to say yes.
Not because it was logical.
Not because it made sense professionally.
But because something about the way Steve had invited you—so casually, like it was the most obvious thing in the world—made it feel impossible to refuse.
The plane ride itself was short. Too short for the nervous energy buzzing in your chest to fully settle.
Steve spent most of the flight leaning back in his seat with his headphones on, occasionally nudging your shoulder when something funny happened in whatever show he was watching.
Once, when turbulence rattled the plane unexpectedly, your hand instinctively grabbed the armrest between you.
Without even looking away from his screen, Steve casually slid his hand over yours.
It stayed there for the rest of the flight.
•
Hawkins was smaller than you expected.
The airport itself looked more like a renovated bus terminal than a real travel hub, and the drive into town was mostly long stretches of quiet roads lined with trees stripped bare for winter.
Steve drummed his fingers against the steering wheel while you stared out the passenger window, taking in the unfamiliar scenery.
“Not exactly Bloomington,” he said after a moment.
You snorted.
“That’s one way to put it.”
“Don’t insult my hometown too quickly, Paparazzi.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were thinking it.”
You turned slightly toward him.
“Are you psychic now?”
“Just observant.”
The car slowed as he turned onto a residential street lined with small houses and Christmas decorations that looked like they’d been dragged out of storage sometime in the late nineties and never updated since.
Steve pulled into a driveway at the end of the block.
The house was nice.
Too nice, actually.
Big windows, manicured lawn, two-car garage. The kind of place that looked perfect enough to belong in a magazine.
You glanced at Steve as he shut off the engine.
“Wow,” you said. “Rich kid checks out.”
He didn’t laugh.
Instead he stared at the house for a moment longer than necessary before opening the car door.
“Yeah,” he said quietly. “Something like that.”
You barely made it through the front door before chaos erupted.
“STEVE!”
A blur of curly hair launched itself across the living room and collided with him at full speed.
Steve stumbled backward under the impact, laughing as he caught the kid in a tight hug.
“Jesus, Henderson,” he groaned. “You trying to break my ribs?”
“You took forever!” Dustin complained, stepping back and shoving his hands into the pockets of his hoodie.
Dustin Henderson looked exactly how you imagined he would.
Loud, expressive, and already talking again before anyone else had a chance to respond.
“And you brought her!” he added excitedly, pointing at you.
You blinked.
“Hi?”
“This is her?” Dustin asked Steve.
Steve sighed.
“Yes, Dustin. This is her.”
“The Paparazzi?” Dustin grinned.
You shot Steve a look.
“Oh my god you told them the nickname?”
Steve looked completely unapologetic.
“It’s accurate.”
Footsteps approached from the kitchen and two more people appeared in the doorway.
A girl with short blonde hair and an unimpressed expression leaned against the counter.
“Is that the famous sports reporter?” she asked.
Steve groaned again.
“Robin, please don’t start.”
Too late.
Robin crossed the room and extended her hand enthusiastically.
“Robin Buckley,” she said. “Steve talks about you constantly.”
Steve choked.
“I do not—”
“Constantly,” she repeated.
You shook her hand, trying very hard not to smile.
“Good to know.”
Another girl appeared behind her, quieter, more observant.
Nancy Wheeler introduced herself politely, followed closely by Jonathan Byers, who nodded at you from behind a camera strap slung over his shoulder.
Within ten minutes you had been introduced to half of Hawkins.
And every single one of them seemed to find the situation incredibly entertaining.
“Wait,” Dustin said suddenly, eyes widening. “Does this mean you guys are like… dating?”
Steve nearly dropped the soda he had just grabbed from the fridge.
“We are not dating.”
Dustin looked between the two of you suspiciously.
“Hm.”
You leaned casually against the kitchen counter.
“For the record,” you said, “I’m just here for journalistic observation.”
Robin snorted.
“Sure you are.”
•
The days in Hawkins passed quicker than you expected.
Steve’s friends had an easy, chaotic dynamic that pulled you in almost immediately.
There were movie nights in Dustin’s basement, late-night diner runs, long walks through the quiet streets of town where Steve pointed out random landmarks from his childhood.
Everywhere you went, someone had a story about him.
Most of them involved him doing something stupid.
One afternoon you found yourselves sitting on the hood of his car in the empty Hawkins High parking lot while he pointed toward the football field.
“That’s where I broke my wrist junior year,” he said.
“Football injury?”
“Nope.”
You raised an eyebrow.
“Then what?”
He grinned.
“Trying to impress a girl.”
You laughed.
“Did it work?”
“Absolutely not.”
•
The night of the party happened three days before Christmas.
Robin had insisted it was a “small gathering,” which turned out to mean thirty people packed into someone’s backyard with a bonfire and several coolers full of questionable alcohol.
You sat on a wooden fence beside Steve, a plastic cup in your hand while music thumped faintly from a speaker somewhere near the house.
“You okay?” he asked.
“I think your friend Eddie just tried to explain Dungeons & Dragons lore to me for twenty minutes.”
Steve laughed loudly.
“Yeah that sounds about right.”
You took another sip of your drink.
The alcohol warmed your chest in a pleasant, slightly dangerous way.
“You know,” you said slowly, “this version of you is my favorite.”
Steve tilted his head.
“What version?”
“This one.”
He watched you carefully.
“The one that laughs more,” you added.
For a moment he didn’t respond.
Then he looked back at the bonfire.
“I wasn’t always like that,” he said quietly.
You frowned slightly.
“Like what?”
“Happy to be here.”
Something in his voice made your chest tighten.
“My parents hate this place,” he continued after a moment. “They hate Hawkins. They hate the idea that I didn’t leave for something bigger.”
You turned toward him fully now.
“But you did leave.”
“Yeah,” he said. “But I’ve always planned on coming back eventually.”
“What do they want?”
Steve laughed bitterly.
“For all of us to act like this place doesn’t exist. For me to build some perfect life somewhere greater. ”
“And you?”
“What about me?”
“Do you want something else?”
He looked at you then, really looked.
“Right now?” he said.
“Yeah.”
Your heart thumped harder.
“Right now I just want things to stay like this for a while.”
The words hung between you.
The alcohol in your system made the moment feel softer, heavier.
“Steve,” you started.
He leaned closer suddenly.
Close enough that you could feel the warmth of his breath.
“You’re the first person who’s ever seen through the bullshit,” he said quietly.
Your pulse pounded.
“And you’re still here,” he added.
Your voice came out barely above a whisper.
“Yeah.”
He hesitated for exactly one second.
Then he kissed you.
It was soft at first. Careful. Like he was giving you time to pull away.
But when you didn’t, his hand slid gently to the back of your neck and the kiss deepened just enough to make your head spin.
When you finally pulled apart, both of you were breathing a little unevenly.
“Was that professional research?” he murmured.
You laughed softly, resting your forehead against his.
“Strictly journalism.”
Steve smiled.
And for the first time since you’d met him, you realized just how much it would hurt if you ever lost him.
•
The Harrington house was quiet when you woke up on Christmas morning.
For a few seconds you couldn’t remember where you were. The room around you felt unfamiliar in that hazy, just-woken-up way — soft winter light creeping through half-closed blinds, the faint hum of a heater running somewhere in the house, the distant muffled sound of someone moving around downstairs. The bed beneath you was far too comfortable to belong to a college dorm, and the blanket pulled halfway up your torso smelled faintly like laundry detergent and something warm you had started associating with Steve.
Your eyes slowly adjusted to the room as your brain caught up with the memory of the past few days.
The posters on the walls came into focus first. An old Back to the Future poster pinned slightly crooked above the desk, a Hawkins High basketball banner hung beside it, and a corkboard cluttered with photos and ticket stubs that looked like they had been collected over years rather than months.
Steve’s room.
You pushed yourself up against the headboard slowly, brushing your hair away from your face as the memories of the night before settled into place.
The bonfire.
The drinks.
The quiet conversation on the fence.
And then the kiss.
Your face immediately warmed at the thought, and you dropped your head back against the pillow with a quiet groan.
The door creaked open a second later.
You looked up just as Steve stepped into the room carrying two mugs of coffee, nudging the door shut behind him with his foot. His hair was messy in that effortless way it always seemed to be first thing in the morning, and he was wearing gray sweatpants and an old Hawkins High hoodie that looked like it had been washed so many times the fabric had softened.
He paused when he saw you sitting up.
“Oh,” he said. “You’re awake.”
“Barely.”
He walked over and set one of the mugs on the nightstand beside you before dropping down onto the edge of the bed.
“I figured you’d need caffeine after Dustin spent half the night arguing with you about Star Wars lore.”
You took the mug and wrapped your hands around it gratefully.
“For the record,” you said after taking a sip, “I maintain that the prequels deserve more respect.”
Steve groaned dramatically and leaned back on his hands.
“Unbelievable. I bring you home for the holidays and this is the betrayal I get?”
You rolled your eyes, but the warmth spreading through your chest had very little to do with the coffee.
After a moment you glanced down at the mug again, frowning slightly.
“You remembered how I take it.”
Steve shrugged like it was nothing.
“You drink coffee like a five-year-old with a sugar addiction.”
“That’s not the point.”
He tilted his head toward you, the corner of his mouth lifting slightly.
“You’re welcome.”
The room fell quiet for a moment after that, but the silence wasn’t uncomfortable. If anything, it felt heavier than the joking tone you’d fallen into — aware in a way that made your heartbeat feel just slightly louder than it should.
Your gaze drifted briefly to his mouth before you could stop yourself.
Steve noticed.
A slow, knowing smile spread across his face.
“Morning-after regrets?” he asked lightly.
You immediately shoved his shoulder.
“No.”
“Just checking.”
“You’re insufferable.”
“And yet,” he said, shifting slightly closer, “you still kissed me.”
Your face flushed instantly.
“Technically you kissed me.”
“Didn’t hear you complaining.”
You opened your mouth to respond, but he stood abruptly before you could.
“Oh, wait.”
He crossed the room and pulled open the top drawer of his desk before turning back toward you.
“Merry Christmas, Paparazzi.”
He tossed something onto the bed beside you.
You frowned slightly and picked it up.
It was a small box. Simple. Unwrapped.
You looked back up at him in confusion.
“You got me a present?”
“Well don’t sound so shocked.”
“I didn’t get you anything.”
Steve leaned casually against the dresser.
“I didn’t do it for the trade value.”
You slowly opened the box.
Inside was a delicate silver necklace.
Your breath caught.
Hanging from the chain were a few tiny charms — a basketball, an old-fashioned soda bottle, and a miniature vintage camera.
Not flashy. Not expensive-looking.
But incredibly thoughtful.
Your fingers brushed the charms gently as you lifted it from the box.
“Steve, this is beautiful,” you said quietly.
Steve rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly.
“Yeah, well. It seemed… fitting.”
You looked up at him.
“This is really thoughtful.”
“Don’t tell anyone,” he said quickly. “I have a reputation to maintain.”
You laughed softly.
“Come here.”
His eyebrow lifted.
“That sounded like an order.”
“Just come here.”
Steve stepped closer.
You held up the necklace.
“Help me put it on.”
He hesitated for half a second before climbing onto the bed behind you. His fingers brushed the back of your neck as he fastened the clasp, the light contact sending a small shiver down your spine.
When he finished, his hands lingered lightly on your shoulders.
You turned slightly to face him.
“Thank you,” you said softly.
Steve studied your face for a moment.
Then he leaned forward and kissed you.
The kiss was slower than the one at the bonfire the night before — softer, more deliberate. Your hand instinctively moved to his arm as he tucked a piece of hair behind your ear, and when you finally pulled apart your forehead rested lightly against his.
“I like Hawkins,” you murmured.
Steve huffed a quiet laugh.
“Good.”
“Your friends are insane.”
“Also true.”
Your fingers brushed the small charms resting against your collarbone.
“You’re different here,” you added after a moment.
Steve leaned back against the headboard beside you, exhaling slowly.
“Yeah.”
You turned toward him slightly.
“Why?”
For a moment he didn’t answer. His gaze drifted toward the window, watching the pale winter light stretch across the floor.
“You ever feel like people only see the version of you they expect?” he asked finally.
You frowned slightly.
“All the time.”
Steve nodded faintly.
“That’s kind of my life.”
You studied him carefully.
“What do you mean?”
He rubbed a hand across the back of his neck, clearly debating whether to continue.
“My dad loves the basketball thing,” he said eventually. “Always has. Ever since I was a kid.”
“That doesn’t sound like a bad thing.”
“It wouldn’t be,” Steve replied quietly, “if he didn’t treat it like an investment.”
Your brows knitted together.
“Investment?”
He looked down at his hands.
“Turns out when you have a lot of money,” he said slowly, “it’s not that hard to… influence things.”
A small knot formed in your stomach.
“Steve…”
He let out a quiet breath.
“I didn’t know the full extent of it until recently. But apparently my dad’s been making some pretty generous ‘donations’ to programs for years.”
Your mind immediately jumped ahead.
“You mean… recruitment?”
Steve nodded.
“Facilities. Alumni funds. Booster programs. Stuff like that.”
“That happens all the time in college sports.”
“Yeah,” he said. “But that’s not the part that bothers me.”
Your chest tightened slightly.
“What part does?”
Steve hesitated again before answering.
“Last season,” he said quietly, “my dad donated a massive amount of money to IU’s athletic department.”
You felt the weight of where this conversation was heading before he even said the rest.
“And?” you asked carefully.
Steve’s jaw tightened slightly.
“And two months later I was named team captain.”
The room went still.
Your journalist brain lit up instantly with the implications.
“Steve…”
“I didn’t ask for it,” he said quickly. “I didn’t even know about the donation until after the fact.”
“But people could assume—”
“Exactly.”
He leaned forward, elbows on his knees now, staring at the floor.
“If that ever got out,” he continued quietly, “everyone would assume I bought my way into everything. Captaincy. Playing time. Opportunities.”
Your chest felt tight.
“Did it affect anything else?” you asked.
Steve hesitated.
“Maybe.”
That single word carried more weight than a full explanation.
You swallowed slowly.
“So why tell me?”
Steve looked at you then, his expression softening slightly.
“Because you asked me once which version of me was real.”
Your heartbeat picked up.
“And if anyone could destroy my reputation with information,” he added with a small, crooked smile, “it’d probably be a journalist.”
The words were light.
But the trust behind them wasn’t.
Your fingers tightened slightly around the blanket.
“You trust me with that?”
Steve didn’t hesitate.
“Yeah.”
You held his gaze for a long moment before leaning forward and pressing a soft kiss to his lips.
“Secrets safe with me,” you said quietly.
Steve smiled against your mouth.
And in that moment, wrapped in the quiet warmth of Christmas morning, it felt impossible to imagine ever betraying him.
••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••
a/n: yay they kissed!! yay you now have really incriminating knowledge!! yay!!
He’s in way too deep now to back down.
“Yeah, I know.” Steve directs his path towards the tower’s electricity shed, pretending it had been his plan the entire time. “I’m not an idiot.”
“You sure?” You call out, annoyance clear in your voice.
Steve ducks his head and continues walking. He knows it’s best not to keep engaging with you. You’re already pissed off at him as it is.
Summary: youve really enjoyed running away from your feelings, dustin is a pain in the ass but also so is steve, youre a part of a radio show for some reason, robin endorses polyamory, and you seriously consider jumping out of a moving vehicle because of idiotic men (typical).
Rating: general, some swearing
Warnings: swearing, fem!reader, use of y/n, trauma lol
Words: 11.4k
Before you swing in: well ,,,, this is it. the final season !!!! i apologize for the delay, i work full time and have been extremely busy but i am alive !!! heres the first chapter, i hope yall enjoy and excuse the probable typos as this wasnt proof read </3
–
November 3rd, 1987.
The rush of blood pounds against your ears, deafening the silence in your head. With every uneven breath, your heartbeat steadies itself. Inside your lungs resides the cold sting of the air, reminding your body of the hill still ahead of you.
You stare at it, hunched over your knees as you struggle to return the much needed air into your lungs. The steep hill of a road has long since been worn down due to use. Its concrete cracked and freckled with debris. Your mother once told you it was the oldest road in Hawkins. The unimportant fact was once the only thing you knew about the road.
Then one November night Will rode his bike down this very hill, before disappearing, changing everything you once knew.
You stare at the stretch of road before you. Every morning you run the same path over and over again. Around Lover’s Lake, through the woods, past the Byers’ old home, before finally coming to the hill. Its steep surface always taunts you.
It knows the reason why you run. It’s embedded with the remnants of the nightmares from the night before.
Running has become all you have left to burn off the exhaustion that follows.
Your legs scream at you to rest. The lactic acid within them burns, but you’ve grown used to the sensation. Struggling to catch your breath, your fingers dig into your knees and your head falls. The lack of sleep snaps every muscle in your body.
Yet you force your legs to push off the concrete, running as hard as you physically can. You have to finish the hill. You have to keep running. It’s the only thing that drives out the screaming within your head.
“Y/N!”
Your mother’s voice causes you to trip. The landing isn’t graceful by any means. You scrape your knees, cutting the inside of your palms and fingertips.
“Oh, sorry, sweetie!” Your mother shouts from the car, parking herself next to you. You hadn’t even heard her driving so closely to you. “Though, I do feel that I need to remind you that this is exactly why I hate you running in the road. There are plenty of perfectly good sidewalks all around Hawkins.”
“Thanks for the concern, mom,” you mumble, slowly wiping your hands off on your leggings as you evaluate whether or not you can stand. The blood that spills from your knees makes you wince. They’ll be a bitch to heal. Sighing, you look up at your mother, “What do you need?”
She sticks her head out of her window even further, doing her best to make eye contact with you from the awkward angle. She flashes you an apologetic smile that you don’t trust. “Well, my sweet girl, I need your help.”
Immediately you know what she wants you to do. “No.”
Your mother pinches her cheeks. “Y/N, dear, I really need to get to work and I’ve already tried–”
“I’m not waking him up.”
“He’s your brother.”
“And he’s your son.”
“Y/N,” your mother’s usually patient and sweet voice turns fatigued. “Please.”
Sympathy floods through you. You know she’s had yet another unpleasant morning trying to wake your brother up for school. Dropping your head, you stare down at the ground. “Fine.”
“Thank you, sweetie.” Relief floods your mother’s voice. She then puts on her sunglasses, fixes her hair, and honks a friendly goodbye as she leaves. Before rolling up her window she shouts, “and please don’t get hit by any cars! Have a great day!”
Claudia Henderson speeds away in her car, leaving you to deal with Dustin all on your own.
As usual.
The walk back down the hill serves as a small grace period before the inevitable storm. You dread what will come when you walk through your front door and into Dustin’s room.
You used to love waking him up for school. You’d have pancakes ready for him on the table by the time he finished getting dressed.
Now you stand before Dustin’s bedroom door, hesitant to even breathe too deeply in case he hears you.
Fist hovering over the door, you brace yourself for impact. You knock gently the first few times, hoping the tenderness of the knocks will convince Dustin to finally let you in. “Dustin, you awake in there?”
But all that can be heard on the other side is silence.
You’ve come to expect Dustin’s silence.
Frustrated, with little patience left for the silence, you straighten your shoulders and start pounding on the door. Your fists turn red at the harshness, but you don’t care. The sting in your knuckles gets lost in the insistence that maybe today Dustin will open the door for you. You don’t care whether he gives in due to annoyance or to something else.
All you want is for your brother to let you in again.
“C’mon, Dustin,” you call through the door, voice edging on irritation. “It’s time to get up. You know mom doesn’t want you missing any more school.”
No response.
Your palm slams against the door. “Dustin!”
Yet it all amounts to nothing.
Exhausted from more than just your run, you press your head against the door and softly say, “I love you, you know.”
Silence echoes back at you.
Forcing down the tears that threaten to spill over, you close your eyes. “I’ll wait as long as you need me to for you to come back.”
It’s what you did for me.
Though it goes unspoken, you know that Dustin hears it.
“Come back, please.” Your fingers trace the ridges in the wood of the door. Faint, worn initials are carved into it, down near the hinges: D.H. He used to be such a lively, excited kid.
Grief took him away.
“I miss you.” You exhale softly, before pressing one final kiss against the door that your brother refuses to open. Swallowing down the grief, you know that you’ve done all you can. At least for now. “Have a good day at school, Dust.”
From the kitchen rings the telephone. You glance at the watch on your wrist, though you already know the time. Steve always calls just before he leaves his house to come pick you up. An old, familiar routine.
Though your fingers linger on Dustin’s door. Steve will be expecting you to answer any second, but you can’t bear to leave your brother just yet. But his room remains silent and you know that it’s useless pulling a response from him.
“Hi, angel.”
Steve’s voice is honey. It soothes the wounds in your skin, grazing over the cuts on your knees and the scrapes on your hands. Honey. An old remedy for childhood aches.
“Hi, honey.” Your finger twirls around the phone’s cord. Another familiar routine.
“You guys all set for me to be at yours in fifteen?”
You look at Dustin’s door one last time, biting your lip. It remains silent. Dustin won’t be ready in time for Steve to drive him to school. “It’ll just be me, actually.”
“Oh. Interesting.” Steve clicks his tongue. “That’s the sixth time in two weeks, angel.”
“Yeah.” Your eyes close. “Thanks for the reminder.”
Steve winces. “Sorry, I know it’s been hard–”
“I should get ready.” You interrupt your boyfriend, though not unkindly. The conversation just makes you miserable and you still need to shower. “I’ll see you soon. I love you.”
“I love you, too.” Steve mumbles softly. There’s more he wants to say, but he knows that now just isn’t the time.
The line disconnects. You don’t have any time to ruminate over the morning’s events as you quickly get ready. You’d hate to keep Steve waiting. Not when your skin buzzes at the idea of being near to him after a night apart.
True to his word, Steve arrives in your driveway soon after. He beams at you through the windshield, winking playfully as he parks the car and gets out, eager to open the passenger door for you because he knows it makes you laugh.
But as you giggle over how ridiculous Steve looks, sprinting over before you can beat him to the car’s door, movement behind the front porch catches your eye. You stop, squinting to figure out what lies behind the brustle, only to catch Dustin trying, and failing, to sneak off on his bike before either you or Steve spot him.
At first you’re stunned, and relieved, he’s even awake and heading to school.
Then you see that he’s wearing Eddie’s old Hellfire Club shirt and immediately you’re pissed off that your brother could be so stupid and infuriating.
Dustin Henderson’s specialty.
“Dustin!” You shout after him. You must not mask your anger very well given the fact that the kid nearly topples over on his bike. Worried you’ll only upset him further, you quickly run after him. “Wait, no. I’m not angry, I-I just wanted you to hitch a ride with me and Steve!”
“Fat chance.” Dustin shouts over his shoulder, already beginning to pedal away. “No way in hell I’m third wheeling with you and Harrington for the millionth time.”
“But–”
“Bye, Y/N.” And then Dustin is gone.
You stand in the driveway, watching him disappear down the hill. At least he’s going towards the high school rather than away.
How depressing it must be that your once prodigious brother now having a dwindling attendance record makes you grateful.
“Is your brother seriously wearing that Hellfire shirt?” Steve scoffs next to you, squinting at the sun.
“It’s been a rough morning.”
“Aren’t they always rough?”
You pinch the bridge of your nose, harshly squeezing your eyes shut as if that will somehow dim the sun and diminish your growing resentment. “Not now, Steve.”
“Listen, all I’m saying is–”
“Get in the car before I leave you.”
“What?” Steve whips around to face you, baffled. “I’m the one who drove here, how could you even–”
“You have five more seconds to get in the car before you find out exactly how I’ll leave you behind.”
He drops his head, slowly walking back to the car, though not without mumbling under his breath, “have fun opening your own car door.”
You smile. “I heard you.”
“Didn’t intend for you not to.”
“Start the car, smartass.”
“Yes, dear.”
–
When you first heard of New York University, you’d been twelve. Jonathan had tugged you through the woods, swatting away bugs before they could get to you. It had been the early stages of your first summer in Hawkins.
He dragged you through the thick leaves and tall grass and brought you to a giant field that slowly ascended into a hilltop. Embedded in its weeds were beautiful yellow dandelions and their white seeds.
Jonathan, long past his shyness around you, tackled you to the ground and laughed over your surprised squeals. He had made sure that your head would land on hand, safe, soft. He’s always been soft with you.
It was that day that Jonathan confessed to you that he’d always wanted to attend NYU. Showcase his photography, something he picked up earlier that winter. He asked whether you’d thought about college yet, where you wanted to go.
Truthfully, you hadn’t ever thought about your future.
But then Jonathan had smiled at you, plucking a dandelion seed out of your hair as he did so, and you knew then that you’d never be able to leave him. His dream became yours, though in the end it was only yours to have.
Until Hawkins fell under quarantine and any chance of escaping its nightmares became a dream in itself.
You would’ve been a sophomore at NYU by now, had you stopped Vecna.
Except you didn’t.
Instead, Max lies in a coma while you sit in a formerly abandoned radio station amongst everyone else suffering the consequences of that bastard’s victory.
“Count me in, pretty girl.” Robin’s gentle voice breaks you out of your spell. She looks at you expectantly, though with a fondness that makes you ache.
You’d gotten lost in your own thoughts. Again.
“Right, sorry.” You clear your throat, ignoring Steve’s concerned eyes as you straighten in your seat. Fingers hovering over the radio’s control panel, you adjust your headphones and give Robin a thumbs up. “You’re live in three… two…”
You mouth the final number before pointing both fingers at Robin, her designated signal that the show has begun, and she smiles wide.
“Good morning, Hawkins!” She greets enthusiastically. “This is WSQK The Squawk.”
Quickly you flash a notebook page at Steve, which simply has the words chicken! now! scrawled on it. He salutes you and rushes to punch the poor rubber chicken wired to a mic. It’s a job he takes very seriously.
When Robin first started her show, she was in charge of both directing Steve’s sound cues and hosting. A daunting task, but she managed to make it work.
Then Steve accidentally cued up an applause track for someone’s funeral announcement rather than the mournful piano Robin had originally wanted.
After that she dropped the cue job onto you, all but forcing you to join the production. While you protested and tried to get out of it, secretly you were relieved to have something to do in the mornings to distract yourself.
It also helps that the sound booth is so small that you have to practically sit in Steve’s lap in between cues and that he always kisses the base of your neck in an attempt to get you to break out into giggles that the entire town will hear.
Robin hates it.
It’s her fault for forcing you into the job.
“It’s my 500th broadcast,” Robin spins around in her chair after having made her usual announcements regarding the weather and cues up a celebratory song while you motion to Steve for applause. “Yeah, you heard that right, folks. Five-double-O!”
The cheesy audience applause plays over the broadcast and you can’t help but laugh. Who knew Robin Buckley would one day terrorize the town with 500 days worth of broadcasts in the midst of a military coup?
Robin goes into the monologue she’s been writing all week full of not so subtle jabs at all Hawkins has been through this year and the unrealistic regulations you’ve been forced to endure since then.
“And now, I’m stuck here with you, my fellow quarantine compatriots.” Robin says, snickering when you salute at her like the diligent soldier Hawkins expects you to be. “And, if I can be brutally honest, I couldn’t be happier. Because when you really think about it, why would you want to live anywhere else?”
You cue to Steve for a booing crowd, but Robin sees and reaches over to tear the page out.
Absolutely not, she mouths at you, eyebrows furrowed.
Lame, you mouth back.
Steve watches the interaction in amusement, deciding to resolve the issue with a sliding whistle he found the other day. Its unexpectedly pathetic sound distracts you long enough for Robin to continue her spiel.
The traitor took her side.
With a sigh, you walk over to Steve and help him find the rest of the tracks needed for the broadcast. The two of you work fluidly together, always anticipating the other’s needs and moving just where needed. He hands you a freshly brewed cup of coffee after a sickly cough tape plays and you couldn’t be more grateful for him as the liquid warms your ever cold hands.
You’re quiet for the rest of Robin’s broadcast, content simply handing Steve the necessary tapes and ordering him around via cues.
“And go on that date! Which, by the way, is exactly what yours truly is doing tonight.”
A loud, shocked gasp slips from your lips before you can stop it. Embarrassed, you clamp your hands over your mouth and pray that it escaped Robin’s notice.
You should know better by now.
Hearing your shock, Robin spins in her chair and grabs her chest, feigning pain. “Did you hear that cute little gasp, folks? It seems that Hawkins’ sweetheart is surprised that I have my own sweetheart. Or, maybe…” she leans in close to you now, wiggling her eyebrows at your horror of being publicly denounced, “she’s just jealous that she isn’t the only person in town who gets serenaded via broadcast.”
Steve just barely suppresses his laughter with a cough, which only mortifies you more. Pinching his side, you harshly whisper at Robin, “I’m not jealous! I just didn’t think you’d announce your relationship so openly!”
“Regardless,” Robin ignores your frantic explanation and cues up her next song. “This one’s for you, babe.”
Some new song plays, but you don’t hear it over your struggle against Steve’s hands around your waist preventing you from jumping over the tape player and tugging Robin’s headphones off in retaliation.
“Let go of me!” You whisper as loud as you dare, trying to twist out of Steve’s grasp.
“Not worth it, angel,” he sighs into your ear. “I’ll help you sneak coffee grounds into her shoes after this but–”
Suddenly the broadcast begins cutting in and out. Static leaks into the audio as you and Steve look at each other in alarm. Then, at the same time, you both run to the control panel, hitting every button you can think of in a vain attempt to fix whatever has gone wrong.
Probably not the most efficient method, but the two of you have never been the best under pressure together.
“What the hell?” Robin shouts, watching you and Steve running around like headless chickens. “What did you guys do?”
“Nothing!” You both exclaim in unison, just before the broadcast completely shuts off.
“Oh,” you wince. “That can’t be good.”
Robin tears off her headphones. “Shit!”
She runs out of the sound booth with you and Steve close behind. Irritation and disappointment radiates off of her skin while remorse coats yours. You can’t imagine how excited Robin had been to play her song for Vickie.
“I told you to stop thumbing your nose at the military.” Steve berates as Robin scours the station for any sign of technical issues that can quickly be resolved.
“You really think the military did this?” You ask, scrunching your nose. “I mean, Robin wasn’t as snarky as she could’ve been. I thought it was relatively tame.”
“Thank you, pretty girl.” Robin slams her hand against one of the station’s panels. “Seriously, I was just reiterating their goddamn rules, encouraging compliance!”
Steve sighs. “Right. No sarcasm there.”
“Says the dingus with the rubber chicken.”
“These are very serious people, Robin.”
“They’re morons, not ‘serious people’.” You scoff, but when you see the panic growing in Robin’s eyes, you tuck your hair behind your ears and exhale slowly. There’s only one person you know who’ll be of any use. “Listen, I’ll radio Dustin and see what he thinks.”
Robin doesn’t acknowledge what you’ve said, focused on turning some random dial she’s found over and over again without any luck.
It’s Steve who hears you, and he’s the one who grabs the walkie before you can.
“You sure you want to call the kid right now?” He asks you, holding the device over your head. “I mean, no offense, but do you really think he’ll answer after the psychological warfare I witnessed this morning?”
“He’s my brother,” the excuse has become an old friend on your tongue. You’ve repeated it every day, every time, for months now. “We have to at least try before Robin loses her mind.”
Steve wants to argue further, but Robin’s voice starts to raise and you both know she’s five seconds away from a breakdown. Reluctant, he grabs the nearest walkie and extends its antenna. “Henderson, you copy?”
You hold your breath at the silence that follows. Steve looks at you, shaking his head slightly when still no response comes. Growing anxious at the silence, you grab the walkie from him. “Dustin? Can you hear me?”
“Yeah, I hear you.” He sounds tired, edging on the annoyance you’ve become familiar with.
Yet hearing Dustin’s voice, regardless of the displeasure that intertwines within his cadence that stings your skin, causes you to exhale in relief.
“Hey, buddy. Listen, we’re having some trouble with the tower.”
“Took you long enough.” Steve snatches the walkie from you, frustration cutting through the room.
“God, you sound swell.” You can practically hear Dustin rolling his eyes at Steve’s impatience. Something you find yourself doing as well. “Let me take a wild guess, you and my sister aren’t calling to wish me a good morning.”
“You’re the one who refused to ride with us,” you snatch the walkie back from Steve, now annoyed with both of the boys. “And I know you heard me standing outside your door this morning.”
“Are you seriously calling just to berate me? Jesus, can’t you just–”
Steve cuts in before Dustin ever growing resentment spikes. “Alright, we really don’t have time for this seeing as how we’ve got a situation down here at the Squawk. The signal’s gone all wonky.”
“I was getting there,” you say through gritted teeth, glaring at your boyfriend. He takes a cautious step back. A wise choice. Exhaling the last of your frustration, you continue. “But Steve’s right. We think Robin finally pissed off the higher ups.”
“Doubtful. She was encouraging compliance.”
“Told you!” Robin shouts, which Steve waves an annoyed hand at.
Biting back a smile, you press for more. “That’s what I figured, but the broadcast suddenly went out and we can’t get the signal back. Any ideas?”
“Check the remote radio head.” Dustin suggests. Faintly you can hear a mixture of voices behind him. He must’ve just arrived at the school.
Steve crosses his arms. “What the hell is a radio head?”
“Remote radio head,” your brother sighs tiredly. “Just read the manual, guys.”
To be completely honest, you had no idea that the radio tower came with an instruction manual.
“Sure, we could read it, but…” You pause, trying to find the right words. “You know I’m pretty horrible with AV stuff. Maybe you could walk us through the more complicated parts? Help us with the terminology?”
Selfishly, you just want to hear your brother’s voice for a little while longer. Even if all he does is give curt, short responses.
You miss him.
“Find a dictionary and learn the terminology yourself.” Dustin huffs into the walkie. You flinch at the tone. “I can’t always be there to solve your problems for you, Y/N.”
Steve bristles next to you.
You try to still the slight tremor of your hands.
Despite how many times Dustin has rejected you, you don’t think you’ll ever get used to how deeply the sting cuts into your pulse.
“But what if I always want you to be there?” You hate how small your voice sounds. How, even with how hard you try for it not to, the waver in your vocal chords reveals the hurt.
A beat of silence passes. Dustin doesn’t say anything.
Instead the walkie shuts off.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Steve runs an angry hand through his hair. “Does he seriously have to ignore you every time you try to reach out to him?”
He throws the walkie onto the couch and paces the room. “It’s his tone. It’s always his goddamn tone!”
Robin turns to you, eyes weary as Steve continues to pace around the room and mumble angrily to himself. She silently asks what you want to do, but you just shake your head.
You’re familiar with Steve’s anger directed towards your brother.
You despise it.
“I don’t know how you aren’t sick of it by now, Y/N.” Steve laughs humorlessly. “I sure as hell am.”
And there it is. The insistence that you be in the middle of Steve and Dustin constantly arguing. As if you aren’t already dangerously close to losing your little brother in his grief. As if you want to constantly be begging for Steve’s understanding and Dustin’s vulnerability.
But as Steve tugs at his hair and continues to talk a mile a minute about how much your brother pisses him off, you just choose to bite your tongue. Like you always seem to do these days.
“We should look for the manual.” You say instead, needing something to distract yourself with.
Steve’s footsteps falter, having not expected you to move on from Dustin’s dismissal so quickly, but Robin seems to sense what he can’t and nods eagerly. “I couldn’t agree more!”
Before Steve can say anything else, Robin takes your arm and drags you away from him, the two of you giggling at Steve’s almost immediate protests.
It’s enough to distract you. If even for a little while.
–
Finding the instruction manual turns out to be a shockingly difficult task.
With how large the radio station’s infrastructure is, trying to find some ancient document is like trying to find a needle in the haystack.
“I swear to God this stupid thing does not exist.” Robin slams yet another filing cabinet closed. Seems her search through the office hadn’t gone well.
“It fucking better exist.” You roll your shoulders in an attempt to lessen the tension within your spine from crouching over a rack of files. “This really isn’t a pleasant experience.”
Jonathan snorts next to you. He’d shown up alongside Nancy just as you, Steve, and Robin started scouring the tower for the alleged manual. While Nancy chose to search through the bookshelf, Jonathan announced that he would search alongside you.
Something that Steve narrows his eyes at.
You choose to pretend that you don’t notice.
“Can you try Dustin again, bug?” Jonathan asks after rifling through the fifth file without any luck.
“He turned off his walkie!” Robin answers for you, rushing over to search through yet another pile of boxes.
“What’s been up with him lately?” Your head falls against the wall at Nancy’s question. Hearing your defeat, she hums to herself. “Noted.”
Eventually Nancy manages to find the manual, which ends up being a giant binder held together with a rather concerning amount of paperclips and tape. She holds it up gleefully and beckons everyone over to a table, dropping the thing down.
You all crowd around Nancy as she quickly flips through the pages, searching for anything that even remotely resembles what Dustin had been talking about.
“Wait, there it is,” Steve reaches over to point at a figure, inadvertently placing the majority of his body against Nancy’s as their hands graze. She tenses at the touch. “There it is. Remote radio head.”
It takes Nancy a second to respond. You watch as she swallows nervously, obviously uncomfortable with how close Steve has become. A thick, dark cloud of uncertain tension ebbs off them, and an unpleasant taste sours your mouth.
The taste only bitters more when you notice the way Jonathan’s disdainful eyes linger on Steve.
He knows just as well as you do why Nancy shifts away from your boyfriend. While you trust Steve more than anything, Jonathan doesn’t.
The small, innocent touch will be yet another rift between Nancy and Jonathan. It will become yet another thing you have to pretend you don’t notice. Something you can’t talk about. Not with anyone.
Steve hasn’t quite forgiven Jonathan for the phone call.
Do you ever wonder if we’ve made a mistake?
And Jonathan hasn’t quite forgiven Steve for falling in love with you.
I’ll always love you the most, bug.
Lost in your thoughts, you miss Robin asking how to find the remote radio head and Nancy’s terrifying, yet genius mind coming up with the solution: the radio tower itself.
–
Immediately you hate the plan.
You’ve never stepped foot anywhere close to the radio tower due to its unnatural size and the unease it brings you.
As you stand before the tower alongside the others, squinting against the harsh sunlight and height, you’re reminded yet again of how much you loathe the ideas Nancy comes up with.
“It’s up there somewhere,” she says, squinting at the sun as well. “It’s gotta be.”
“Are we going based on fact or a hunch?” You ask. “Because as much as I adore you, I’m getting nauseous just looking at this thing.”
Robin pokes your side. “Scared of heights, pretty girl?”
“As if you would climb up there.”
“Oh, absolutely not.” Robin laughs, looking around at everyone else. “But, that does beg the question of who will climb to the tippy top of this bad boy.”
Nancy studies the tower, unsure. “Without a harness or anything, it does seem kind of dangerous.”
You choke back a scoff. “Kind of dangerous? C’mon, Wheeler. It’s a death trap.”
“Sounds like a job for me.”
Immediately you grab the back of Steve’s jacket and yank him to your side. “I’ll kill you.”
“Sounds pretty death trap-y to me.” He smirks at you, grabbing the hand that holds him back to kiss the inside of your wrist. He caresses the skin tenderly, amused by your reaction. “Relax, angel.”
In all honesty, he doesn’t actually want to climb the tower. Steve only volunteered because he thinks you’re adorable when you fret over him. He’s about to say as much when Jonathan suddenly steps forward and puffs his chest.
“I actually think this might be a better job for me.”
What little rationality that Steve has quickly gets forgotten when Jonathan opens his mouth.
“I got this Byers,” Steve throws his jacket off and slams it against the other’s chest. A small rush of satisfaction courses through him when Jonathan grimaces at the force. “Don’t sweat it.”
“Steve Harrington.” His name barrels through your gritted teeth. You know that he’s only trying to show off for you. “Don’t you dare.”
Hearing the finality in your voice is almost enough to get Steve to back down. But then Jonathan starts taking his jacket off as well and walks towards the tower and Steve really does wish he knew how to not make stupid decisions based around his pride.
“I’ll be fine, angel.” He calls over his shoulder, unable to turn fully to look at you in fear that your beauty will break him. “Don’t worry.”
“Don’t forget about the voltage, dingus.” Robin shouts at him. “Unless you want to fry.”
Embarrassment washes over Steve. He can feel your eyes burning into his back and how eagerly you want to scream “I told you so”.
He’s in way too deep now to back down.
“Yeah, I know.” Steve directs his path towards the tower’s electricity shed, pretending it had been his plan the entire time. “I’m not an idiot.”
“You sure?” You call out, annoyance clear in your voice.
Steve ducks his head and continues walking. He knows it’s best not to keep engaging with you. You’re already pissed off at him as it is.
Finding the necessary dial to shut off the tower’s power surge, he turns it all the way to the left until the faint electric hum shuts off. One step down. Pleased with himself, Steve exits the shed and is about to brag before he sees Jonathan dangling off the tower’s ladder like a fucking idiot.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“I got this, dude.” Jonathan’s smug face pisses Steve off even more. “Don’t sweat it.”
And the race is on.
Steve runs towards the tower’s ladder and throws himself up, climbing as fast as he physically can to make up for Jonathan’s head start.
You watch from the ground, not even bothering to try and stop what’s happening. It’s embarrassingly immature. While you understand Steve’s feelings towards Jonathan, you hate how he feeds into them. Anyone can see how fragile Jonathan’s relationship with both you and Nancy has become, and everyone knows that you’ll always be Steve’s.
Yet instead of having a conversation about it, or even allowing himself to be the bigger person, Steve feeds into Jonathan’s insecurity like he’s chasing after the high.
Nancy turns away in disgust as Jonathan and Steve race to the top of the tower, and her sigh echoes your own disappointment.
“How committed are the four of you to monogamy?” Robin throws her around you and Nancy, squeezing the two of you together with a glint in her eyes.
You shove her away. “Please stop talking, Robin.”
She pinches your cheek as she grins wickedly, far too amused with the situation. “Aw, c’mon, I’m sure there’s plenty of room for more in your relationship–”
The rev of an engine cuts Robin off, its harsh sound loudly announcing Murray’s arrival. He waves excitedly from his giant cargo truck and for once in your life you’re relieved to see the bastard.
“I thought the next delivery was scheduled for tomorrow?” You tilt your head in confusion.
Nancy’s eyes draw together. Concern sketches her features. “Me, too.”
Your teeth scrape over your lips. While you’re grateful Murray’s arrival has given you an excuse to turn away from your idiotic boyfriend and best friend, you know that Murray’s early delivery can’t mean anything good.
Something is about to happen. You’re sure of it.
Murray waits for you down the hill. He rubs his hands together in anticipation, eager to show what he’s smuggled in this time.
“Ladies, hello!” He cackles in glee, yellow teeth and all. “Always a pleasure to see your beautiful faces.”
You don’t bother to mask your disgust. “Yeah. Right back at ya.”
“Santa’s brought a full sack today.” Murray ignores your indifference and opens the truck’s backdoor in a flourish. He grabs a large sack of supplies and throws it onto the ground before you. “A fresh telemetry bag. Scarcer than hen’s teeth, these things.”
He hands you the box and you carefully inspect the thing. “This is what Dustin wanted, right?”
“Correct, little miss. His requests are always the most annoying things on God’s green earth to find.” The disdain in Murray’s voice pleases you. He then turns to Nancy and hands her two large metal containers. “As for you, here are enough bullets and shells for Hop to start a small war, if he so chooses.”
Nancy accepts the containers with a small nod.
“And did someone order a salad?” Murray holds up what you sincerely hope isn’t a grenade, but when he smiles wide with a crazed look in his eyes, you know it can only be a lethal weapon he’s playing with in his hands. “A grenade salad. Ha! Get it? I hid the grenades under the lettuce, and–”
“Is there anything else?” You interject, long fed up with the man’s horrible jokes and monologues.
Murray glares at you. “You know, I work really hard to provide for your needs. A little respect wouldn’t hurt.”
You shrug. “I think I’ll pass.”
Robin snickers behind you and Nancy covers her mouth, hiding a pleased smile. Knowing he’s outnumbered, Murray purses his mouth and finishes his haul. “I also brought Gatorade for El’s battery, in case anyone was wondering.”
“God, please toss me one,” Steve slides next to you, severely out of breath and apparently alive with Jonathan, who doesn’t look any better. “I’m dying here.”
Murray happily complies, tossing the Gatorade bottle in the air, not anticipating that you’d intercept it and take the drink for yourself. “Thanks, Bauman.”
“What the hell, Y/N?” Steve exclaims, choking on his own shock and eliciting several dry, overexhausted coughs after you elbow him in the ribs. “Fuck!”
“On a tight leash, Harrington?” Murray clicks his tongue, smug.
Unscrewing the cap off the bottle, you flick the small piece of metal at the guy’s head. “Aren’t you a grown man?”
Murray steps closer to you, eyes seething and on the brink of losing all composure. “Alright, listen here, you little shit–”
“Is there anything else?” Nancy clears her throat expectantly. While she understands your prolonged annoyance for Murray, she wishes you’d piss him off after he’s delivered everything, rather than during. “We were kind of in the middle of something.”
The man inhales sharply for a moment, clenching his jaw as if to steady himself. You watch the overdramatic show of patience in obvious amusement. “Yeah, anything else, Bauman?”
“No,” Murray spits out venomously. “At least, not for you.” He turns back to his truck and fishes out an old cassette tape and dangles it in Jonathan’s face. “As for you, Mr. Byers, I know you’re allergic to jazz, but just a whirl. You might find it rather engaging.”
He then proceeds to use his entire face to wink at Jonathan, laughing to himself over a joke none of you seem to understand. Jonathan quickly snatches the tape from Murray and shoves it into his pocket, face red in embarrassment.
Jonathan’s reaction unsettles something within your chest. The strings snap together in a brutal crescendo, pricking your skin as the lines break apart inside your ribcage. Jonathan keeps his eyes down, low enough that you can’t look into them.
You dislike the way Murray presented the cassette tape. The words he used.
But it all gets forgotten when the man hits Nancy’s head with an envelope of papers. “And for the station manager, the reason for my premature delivery.”
She snatches the envelope and fingers through its contents without hesitation. You all crowd around her, silent. You’ve become familiar with the envelopes and what they bring.
The crack in your left ribcage seeps open.
Dread creeps in.
“A burn? Tonight?” Nancy asks, shaking her head. “But it’s–”
“Too soon. I know.” Murray’s normally overzealous nature falters. Even he can’t mask the worry. “Whatever they’re doing in the Upside Down evidently needs a serious injection of resources.”
Nancy flips through the pages of the leaked document. All crowded with numbers and orders, you’ve lost count of how many correspondences you’ve read through by now. They blur together, yet even as the numbers become harder to decipher due to how quickly Nancy rifles through them, you know why Murray came when he did.
“They’re requesting more supplies than they normally do,” you peer over Nancy’s shoulder, face twisting in concern. “The supply drop could take hours.”
Murray shrugs. “Two, at the minimum.”
“Which gives Hopper plenty of time for a crawl.” The rough timbre of Nancy’s voice reveals more than her words do.
The dread seeps into your lungs. Thick like molasses, you know there isn’t any use trying to escape it.
“Maybe tonight’s the night we finally find that bastard and end this.”
Murray’s words hang in the air.
End this.
But will it ever really end?
You’ve long stopped believing in miracles or that retribution can exist alongside the cruelty that predates it.
Except Nancy’s hands remain steady, without any tremor, still somehow always firm in her belief that one day Vecna’s blood will finally cease the nightmares.
You wish you had her faith.
But for now, all you can do is prepare for yet another crawl.
–
The beginning is always the same.
Nancy’s quick eyes skim through the document’s pages as instructs you to write down every piece of information she deems relevant to the crawl. What time it will begin, how many men will be sent, which route they’ll take.
Once completed, the two of you then pour over the details and try to piece them into a jigsaw code of a puzzle only few will understand.
Steve adds in pieces of his own humor in an attempt to mask the code even further, while Jonathan selects the music that will play and alert the rest of the party to be ready.
Then all Robin has to do is go on air as Rockin’ Robin with her script in hand and deliver the code while you and the others sit quietly behind her, bracing for what’s to come.
The beginning has always been the easiest.
In the midst of creating ciphers and analyzing complex military documents, you can usually convince yourself that maybe this time it’ll be different. Maybe this time the crawl will amount to anything other than disappointment and frustration.
But then you’re perpetually reminded that you will never get what you want.
Nancy always insists that she have you, Robin, Steve, and Jonathan go over what you’ve found in the documents together in the radio station’s basement with nothing but a projector to light the room.
Though you understand why she remains adamant about going over the details and plan, it's become the thing you hate most about the crawls. Being stuck in the dark, rotting basement going over the same gridlines of Hawkins that you memorized well over a year ago as Nancy recites the same plan she always does creates a misery you never thought possible.
“If Murray’s intel is correct, the supply convoy is set to reach Hawkins at 10:00 sharp. Meaning I want Hopper in the tunnels and en route to MAC-Z no later than 9:00.” Nancy motions to the military base on the gridmap with a pointer Robin jokingly got her months ago that she still hasn’t thrown away.
Nancy conveys so much confidence as she speaks. It’s a shame it centers around a topic you really, really hate.
“Barring any delays, I expect that the convoy will reach MAC-Z by about 10:15.”
“And the crawl begins." You finish for Nancy with a sigh.
Her pointer now aims at you. “Exactly, meaning Hop will be going a gentle 30 miles per hour while you, Dustin, and Steve do your best to keep up with his telemetry tag’s signal.”
“I’ll blow through any red lights we come across so we stay within range.” Steve nods to himself, satisfied with his own plan that he spoke with no one else about. A terrible plan, at that.
Your foot kicks the edge of his chair fondly, getting his attention. “And that’s why I’ll be the one driving.”
“Oh, in your dreams, angel.” He sticks his tongue out at you childishly, leaning back in his chair so his hair splays across your lap. “My car’s too pretty for you to drive.”
“More importantly,” the slight rise in Nancy’s voice is enough to snap Steve’s chair back to the ground, forcing his attention back to her. “We’ll lose Hopper if you get pulled over,” she then looks pointedly at you, “Regardless of who’s driving.”
Steve waves his hands up in surrender, knowing better than to argue with the girl. You simply place your chin in your hand, bored. Beneath the table you sit at hides your clenched fists. “Carry on, Wheeler.”
She purses her lips and exhales curtly before continuing. “As I was saying, Hop will have two whole hours to search for Vecna, which is ample time. He’s cleared zones faster, meaning all signs point to yet another successful crawl.”
Successful.
“An interesting word choice.” The molten dread within your chest solidifies to bitterness, and you don’t realize you’ve voiced your resentful thoughts until Nancy’s contempt eyes bear into yours.
“I’m sorry?” She asks defensively, arms crossed over her chest. “Is there a problem, Y/N?”
Awkwardly you clear your throat. “Nothing, it’s just…”
“We’re good.” Jonathan shuffles his feet, anxious to move onto a different conversation. He can feel a shift in the air, the charged static forming between you and Nancy that he desperately wants to avoid. “Promise.”
“We definitely aren’t good. I mean, no offense, but Zone G1 is not that exciting or Vecna-y.” Robin’s bluntness cuts through the room, voicing what you’ve been too afraid to.
Taking the risk, you swallow down your own hesitations as well and bite the bullet that Robin has inexplicably shot. “There’s nothing in the zone, either. Nowhere he could hide in that Hopper wouldn’t be able to find.”
The stiffness in Nancy’s posture sends pins through your body. Her eyes, always cunning and alert, darken into something malicious, almost even protective. She doesn’t say anything, though. She simply sets her cold gaze on the room, studying everyone before her.
“Or maybe…” Steve’s loose arm around you flicks in the air, indifferent. “He’s already dead.”
Robin shot the gun, you bit its bullet, and Steve echos its finality.
“Your plan is great, Nance, but this is crawl what? Aren’t we in the thirties now?” He continues, voicing the dread and contempt that has consumed you for months.
“Thrity-three,” you speak slowly, quietly. As if it will hide the pain that the knowledge plagues you with. You’ve written to Max thirty-three times now about the crawls. “This would be crawl thirty-four.”
Steve’s hand rubs up and down your back. Only he knows why you’ve counted each and every crawl. Why their every failure cuts deeper and deeper into your chest, like a landmine waiting to blow.
“El can’t find him in her bath and that Will and Y/N haven’t felt Vecna since the world basically fell apart,” Steve scratches his face, worried he’s overstepping with the reminder that you’re still marked, still a target. “Don’t you feel like we’re scouring a battlefield that we already won?”
“Have you forgotten what he showed Nancy? Hawkins on fire.” Jonathan stands in for Nancy’s silence, infuriated. “Karen, Holly, everyone dead.”
“And what about what he showed me?” Your anger flings from your throat harsher than you intend for it to. The anger rings throughout the room, forcing everyone to stand in its messy wake, silent. Fingers digging into your palms, your eyes close and exhale slowly. “He showed me my father. He made me relive Will’s disappearance and-and…”
Your voice trails off as Nancy’s eyes avert yours. She shifts ever so slightly, the only indication of her unease, and you choke back your own discomfort at the memory you both share.
Did you really think I’d forget her, Y/N?
The venom that had laced Steve’s voice will always fester your skin, no matter how many nights you’ve spent trying to forget them.
I can’t. At least, not as easily as your dad forgot you.
You wonder if Nancy has forgotten the venom, or if it haunts her, too.
“What I’m trying to say is that Vecna only shows your worst fears,” your fingers scratch the tabletop beneath you, unable to look at anyone. “He’ll do anything to get into your head and scare you.”
“Yeah, well he did a good job because I am scared.” Nancy blurts out, her composure finally gone. “And you should be scared, Y/N. Because if he’s still out there, I can promise you that he’ll finish you off and end our world.”
As soon as she’s said it, the fire in Nancy’s eyes dims. A frail hand covers her mouth, but the damage has been done. She drops her head in shame. “I-I’m sorry. That was unfair.”
So deeply you want to scream at her how exhausted you are of trying to hold onto a hope that refuses to be grasped after every failed crawl. You want to scream at Nancy that every morning you run until you can’t breathe because it’s the only sensation similar enough to the death that took Max from you. You want to scream that you’re sick of pretending you don’t have the same bloodlust for Vecna’s body, a yearning so intense that it terrifies you.
Above all, you just want to scream at Nancy that all your life all you’ve ever done is fail again and again in what matters the most, in protecting who you love.
To expect you to want to endure it all over again is a fate much more cruel than Vecna’s curse.
But rather than scream until your throat becomes a bloodied mess of vocal chords, you just stare back at Nancy’s mournful eyes and force a smile.
“It’s alright,” you tell her, too tired to mask the apathy. You’re sick of pretending. “Let’s just stick to the original plan for tonight.”
The frown line between Nancy’s brows only deepens. “Are you sure? If you really feel strongly about something, you know I’d trust whatever call you make.”
“I want him dead.” The words come out softly, an exhale more than anything. But they’re the only semblance of truth that you can provide Nancy.
She studies your face, eyes silently caressing the silhouette of your body. The gaze lingers on your chapped lips, your nailbeds that have been picked raw, the way your hair hides more of your face than it used to.
“Then it’s settled,” she eventually announces, gesturing to the others. “Tonight, kill Vecna.”
The declaration should provoke celebration and inspire awe. But no one stirs. Steve remains lock-jawed by your side, fingers pressed lightly into your skin to calm his own uncertainties. Jonathan keeps his head down, caught between relief and mourning. You’re no better, gnawing at your lip until you taste the familiar metallic consequence while Robin picks at her own nails and shifts in her seat, never one for being in a stuffy room for long.
She breaks first.
“Well, this was certainly a pleasant and absolutely not at all uncomfortable conversation,” Robin jumps up from her seat, wringing her hands out as if it will disperse her nausea. “And while I totally long to stay here with you guys, I unfortunately have to go make a rather doomed phone call and cancel a date that I was actually really looking forward to.”
Hand at her temples, Robin salutes the room and leaves you stranded with the ensemble to your estranged love triangle that you want no part of.
Lovely.
“I should go, too.” Desperate for air, you quickly stand and head for the staircase. “Need to call Dustin and make sure he has everything for the crawl tonight.”
Steve jumps to his feet as well. “I’ll help you call him–”
“I’d rather do it alone, actually.” You don’t mean to interrupt him, but it’s obvious how anxious Steve is to go with you and while you adore how tenderly he treats you, you’re terrified that he’ll start yet another argument with Dustin and become the crux of your brewing breakdown.
Seeing the disappointment on Steve’s face, you kiss the crown of his head, stroking his cheek. “I’ll be right back, honey. Promise.”
He sighs into the touch, mumbling softly enough so that only you will hear, “Can’t believe you’re leaving me alone with Byers and Nancy.”
“Why do you think I want to leave?” You whisper, laughing under your breath.
Steve’s eyes shine back, full of the ever present boyish charm that you stood no chance of surviving.
–
You radio Dustin a total of fourty-nine times.
Not once does he answer.
Steve finds you in a spare closet, screaming into a walkie over and over again demanding that your brother respond.
“Dustin Henderson, I swear to God if you don’t answer me I will shove Tew’s litter down your pillowcase and make sure you get pinkeye for the rest of your life!”
“What did the kid do now?” Your boyfriend comes up behind you, wrapping a loose arm over your shoulders.
You brush him off, too worried and overwhelmed to stand still. “He’s not answering.”
Steve snorts. “Shocking.”
“I’m serious, Steve.” You spin around, facing him with anxious eyes. “I’m starting to worry. He’s never been radio silent like this.”
“Are you forgetting what happened this morning? The little shit totally shut you out. Again, might I add. Like he does every time. I’m not surprised he’s decided to go full AWOL.”
“He always answers eventually.” You argue weakly, knowing how pathetic it sounds. “Dustin’s never just gone completely silent without warning.”
“The kid also never used to spit profanities at you until one day he thought it’d be a brilliant idea,” Steve shrugs. “Now it’s all he does.”
Your eyes sting in frustration, though you have nothing left to say. Not to Steve, anyways. He used to be the only other person in your life who truly understood your brother, but lately you wonder if Steve ever knew Dustin at all.
“Y/N? Steve?” A hesitant knock sounds against the closet door. “You guys in there? And, uh, are you… decent?”
Will’s shy voice accompanies the knock, and you swing the door open without second thought, startling both him and Steve.
“Where’s my brother?” You demand immediately, not bothering to acknowledge Will’s previous implications.
He stumbles back, slightly alarmed. “Dustin isn’t here yet?”
It’s the absolute worst thing Will could’ve ever said.
You barrel out of the doorway, ignoring Steve’s small yelp of pain when you accidentally elbow his chest trying to get out of the closet. Instead you start scouring the radio station, slamming every door open and shouting Dustin’s name until your tongue goes numb.
On your rampage you run into Mike and Lucas in the field, both attempting to radio your brother as well. Seeing them prompts bile to rise in your throat.
They don’t know where he is, either.
“When was the last time you saw Dustin?” You demand the minute you’re close enough to the boys, Will and Steve struggling to keep up behind you. “Why didn’t you guys bike here with him? Where did he go?”
“Woah, slow down.” Mike throws his hands up in defense. “We just got here and I can guarantee that we know shit else like you.”
Lucas rubs the back of his neck. “We gotta tell her about Andy, man.”
“Who the fuck is Andy?” Heart rate spiking, you almost pass out from how fast you turn to face Lucas. “What the hell is going on?”
“I just got off the phone with Mrs. Henderson.” Robin joins the group, unaware of the argument unfolding. “She hasn’t heard from Dustin all day.”
“No way we’re telling Y/N about Andy.” Mike scoffs at Lucas, ignoring what Robin has said. “You know that Dustin would kill us.”
Lucas slaps the kid’s shoulder childishly. “We have to! He almost gave Dustin a black eye today for wearing that stupid Hellfire shirt–”
“Where’s my brother?”
Your shout echoes off the woodline. Its reverberation cascades down your spine.
Yet no one can expel the remnants of the outburst with any semblance of what you want to hear.
“We don’t know, Y/N.” Mike murmurs, his careful hand grazing yours. He doesn’t want to give you unnecessary false hope. He understands better than anyone how painful it can be. “He didn’t meet us after school. That’s all I can tell you.”
“But he’ll be here soon.” Will offers, trying to comfort you as best as he can. “Dustin always shows up for a crawl.”
The tall grass beneath your feet tempts you to lay amongst them. You’re so exhausted from it all. “He should be here by now.”
“Yet he’s an hour late.” Robin not so gently reminds you.
“So we go and look for him.” It’s the only answer you’ll accept. You’re not going on a goddamn crawl without knowing whether or not your little brother is okay.
But a look gets passed between the boys. An underlying understanding seems to connect the three of them together, unifying against you before you can even come up with a defense.
“You know we don’t have time, Y/N.” Lucas says delicately, eyes apologetic.
“But–”
“Dustin would want us to do the crawl without him.” Mike cuts in, not unkindly, though firm. “Look, we’re all worried about him, but this is our shot at Vecna that we can’t miss. And if we don’t have your brother… someone has to step in for him.”
They want you to take your brother’s place.
Steve carefully takes your hand, risking everything when he says, “Dustin isn’t a kid anymore, angel.”
I can’t always be there to solve your problems for you, Y/N.
But what if I always want you there?
The silence that followed had been Dustin’s answer.
You just have to accept it.
“Fine,” you spit out, always prone to succumbing to the needs of others. “But the minute we’re done with this, we’re looking for Dustin.”
“No member of the party gets left behind.” Mike interlocks his pinky with yours. “Promise.”
While the gesture warms your skin, you wish you could believe that its sentiment was sacred and untouchable.
Instead it leaves a hollow pit in your stomach.
–
Everyone gathers their things in silence. No one needs to ask what to bring or where to go. You all have your designated areas and tasks from dozens of crawls before.
Nancy and Will help Mike and Lucas ready their gear for the stakeout. While you’ve always hated sending them so close to MAC-Z, you’re at least comforted by the fact that you were able to secure Bookstrordinary as their base, providing them with information about where to hide and how to escape the building quickly if they were to get caught.
Joyce helps Hopper with his bullet proof vest and readies his gun, Robin readies the radio signal, and Jonathan prepares the telemetry tracker.
You sit in the WSQK van with Steve, going over Dustin’s detailed instructions about how to signal for the tracker.
“Jesus, this kid has awful handwriting.” Steve sighs under his breath, eyes straining at your brother’s messy scrawls.
“No one in our family has nice handwriting.” You sort through your own papers, making sure you have all the necessary data from last week’s crawl. Dustin insists that you help him track the exact distance of each route for crawls as a way to compile more data that could help in the future.
You think it’s unnecessary, but arguing with Dustin never ends well.
The reminder of him tugs at your chest. You wish he was here, you wish you knew where he was and why he always chooses to run away these days.
Steve playfully tosses a pen at you. “I like your handwriting.”
“You’re easy to please.”
“Watch it, angel.”
You giggle despite the grief in your chest, tossing the pen back at him, and for a moment you’re just two kids in a car, happy and in love.
“Harrington, Henderson, you guys getting any signal? Tag is active.” Robin’s voice interrupts from the walkie.
“Yeah, just give us a second.” Steve bites the pen in his mouth and grabs the walkie. He then throws his legs over the driver’s seat and crawls towards the back of the van where the hatch to the antenna resides. He frowns for a moment, unsure what to do next. “Any idea what to do next, Henderson?”
You shake your head. Dustin never taught you. “Maybe twist it?”
Steve spits the pen out and sighs, fixing his hair. “Well, here goes nothing.”
He grabs the handle to the wheel and attempts to turn it. Except it never moves. He tugs at it with more force, but the wheel remains locked. With a frustrated huff he grabs the walkie again. “Anybody know how Henderson’s wheelie thing works?”
Robin takes a moment to respond. “Uh, there should be a safety lock under the wheel.”
“Safety lock, real necessary.” Steve laughs in disbelief, but when he sees your pointed glare, he drops the subject and tries the wheel again. This time, it moves. He turns the antenna towards the station as you hand him a pair of headphones to put on.
“Okay,” he says into the walkie. “I’m getting a signal. It’s pretty quiet, though.”
Steve slowly turns the wheel’s handle, eyes steady on the decibel meter attached to the van. “Okay, signal’s holding a steady 90 dB… But how am I supposed to monitor this and drive without Henderson?”
“Isn’t Y/N already with you?” Robin’s confusion rings clear through the static.
You crawl over to Steve and take over the walkie. “I have to track the route and time how long it takes us. Dustin uses it to calibrate the telemetry tags.”
The walkie goes quiet.
“Robin?” You look down to see if the signal somehow has been cut off. “Hello?”
“Guess they didn’t consider who to send beforehand.” Steve yanks the headphones off. “They must’ve thought Dustin would show by now.”
“He still might.” You aren’t sure why vehemently insist on believing the impossible.
Steve spares you pity, choosing to change the subject. “Who do you think they’ll send, anyways? I mean, no one really understands this stuff like Dustin does.”
“Nancy should be able to do it.” You say hopefully. “She’s smart enough to figure it out quickly.”
“As if Byers would let her anywhere near me–”
The van’s backdoors swing open.
You turn, expecting to find Nancy climbing through them, but when you see Jonathan, you freeze.
“Oh,” the words tumble out on their own as you stare at him. “They sent you.”
He fixes his jacket, eyes avoiding yours. “Don’t sound too excited, bug.”
In the corner of your eye you notice Steve’s fingers clenching the steering wheel at the nickname. You hadn’t even noticed he went back to the driver’s seat.
Knowing that nothing you can say will alleviate the already choking tension, you force a smile at Jonathan before crawling back to the passenger seat.
“You comfortable back there, Byers?” Steve asks, innocently enough. For a moment you think he’s playing nice, trying to appease you, but instead he turns to look at Jonathan with cruel, teasing eyes. “Or do you want me to get you a pillow?”
Jonathan forces the headphones on. “Just focus on driving.”
Your head drops to your hands. Running on little sleep and emotionally drained, you aren’t sure you’ll make it through the night trapped in a van with the two idiots.
From the rear window you spot Mike on his bike alongside Lucas, waving his hands in the air to signal that they’re ready to head towards the meeting point.
It’s time.
Fingers grazing over the knives in your back pocket, you turn to Steve. “Let’s go.”
He nods, starting the engine.
The crawl has begun.
–
Waiting in the hidden alleyway with Steve and Jonathan quickly becomes a nightmare.
While no one talks, the silence weighs so heavily within the van that it cracks open your chest and steals any oxygen left in it.
Your fingers trace over the papers for the crawl, scratching at the ink splotches of numbers and miles written within it and trying to busy your mind to prevent yourself from spiraling.
Steve busies himself with a snack he stole from Murray. He eats messily, noisily, and with every grotesque swallow you can feel Jonathan’s patience waning.
You dread the inevitable explosion.
“We got action.” The crackle of the walkie coming to life with Mike’s voice startles you. You’d almost forgotten why you were even stuck in the van in the first place. “Four trucks, outer east gate on Main.”
Jonathan’s hand comes up to his headphones, the other to the wheel. He readies himself for a signal. He knows how crucial the timing is.
You hold your breath as Mike counts down to the burn. If all goes well, you should be driving in minutes.
“Hopper’s in.”
You allow yourself to exhale. All Hopper has to do now is get through the gate undetected. Your eyes close, silently hoping your luck hasn’t run out just yet as you whisper, “C’mon, Hop.”
Seconds later Mike announces, “He’s flipped.”
Steve fist bumps the air. “We’re in!”
But his celebration is short lived once Joyce takes over the walkie, directing the attention to her son. “Jonathan, signal?”
Jonathan turns the wheel painstakingly slowly, careful not to go over or under. Once he finds Hopper’s signal, he walkies back to his mother, “Snagged it.”
“Should I go?” Steve asks, mouth full of food.
“No… hold.” Jonathan shakes his head. His eyes never leave the monitor as his fingers twist the wheel. You can see he’s holding his breath. “Hold… hold… Go!”
He locks the antenna’s wheel before he can lose Hopper again and Steve speeds off, flinging the van sideways at the abrupt turn. You brace yourself on the dashboard, forcing down the nausea so that you can monitor the car’s speed. You still have a job to do.
You’ve driven this route a dozen times. Looking at your notes, you notice that every time prior the military tanks consistently drove slower. Yet tonight the van flies down the route, struggling to keep up with the telemetry tag in the Upside Down.
At first you think you’ve miscalculated something. Maybe you started the stopwatch too soon, or maybe the speedometer in the van has malfunctioned in some way.
That’s when it all goes wrong.
“We’re losing him!” Jonathan shouts from the backseat, alarmed.
“How?” You spin around in your seat, fearful that he’s simply misread the decibels.
“I-I don’t know–” Jonathan’s eyes suddenly widen. “Wait, stop! We need to stop!”
Steve flings an arm over your chest as he slams on the brakes, the force nearly sending you through the windshield. He looks at you in concern. “Christ, are you alright, Y/N?”
Except you don’t hear him. Your head swarms with dread as you stumble to your feet and kneel besides Jonathan. “What the hell is going on?”
He doesn’t answer you, too busy forcing the antenna whatever way it will go in a desperate attempt to locate Hopper again. Your teeth dig into your lips.
You can’t lose him. Not again.
“We got him.” Jonathan’s relief rivals your own as you both breathe heavily against each other.
You cling to his knee, unsteady as all the dread that built its way to the crevice of your collarbones spikes your blood.
Steve’s gentle voice attempts to coax your heartbeat back down. “Breathe, angel. We got Hop, it’s okay.”
Your nails dig into Jonathan’s skin. “Then why are we stopped?”
Neither Steve nor Jonathan can give you an answer. The three of you sit in silence, all unable to voice what you desperately hope isn’t true.
Suddenly the lights in the van begin to flicker.
The rapid flash of light elicits a sickening sense of deja-vu. It’s happening again. It always happens again.
Something has gone wrong.
“What’s going on?” Steve exclaims, now rushing to join you and Jonathan in the back. “What the hell is this thing doing?”
You lunge for the walkie, shaking as you scream, “Joyce? Joyce?”
No one answers.
“Answer me!” Your vocal chords strain against your screams. “Someone answer! What happened to Hopper?”
But all contact has been lost. The radio station’s power must have gone out.
Back pressed against Steve’s chest, you sit in complete shock as the terror consumes you. You’re helpless against it. That’s all you ever are.
Helpless.
Muffled, static filled panic screeches from your bag.
“Y/N? Do you–copy?” Barely able to decipher the words, you scramble to the bag and find the source of the voice. Dustin left his personal walkie. Robin must’ve remembered.
“Robin?” The panic in your shrill voice nearly deafens you.
“There’s a–demogorgon–” Whatever Robin is saying is barely audible. The walkie isn’t within its normal range. Static infiltrates every word that comes through.
You bring the walkie closer to your lips. “Robin, I-I can’t understand what you’re saying–”
“The Wheelers!” She screams at you, loud enough that the static doesn’t drown her. “There’s a demogorgon–running towards–Wheelers!”
A metallic ringing pierces your ear drums.
The Wheelers are in danger.
Adrenaline infiltrates your veins. Every one of your senses sharpens.
You’re not far from their home. A mile, maybe even less.
You’ve spent all summer running. You could be there within minutes if you left now.
The only thought running through your head as you fling open the van’s doors is Holly, alone without her siblings in the home. She needs you.
They need you.
“Y/N, where are you going?” Steve shouts after you, already stumbling to his feet to follow you into the dark.
Jonathan isn’t any better as he tears his headphones off and nearly falls out of the van. “What the hell?”
“Nancy and Mike need me!” You’re standing in the middle of the road, torn between staying or leaving. But it was never really a decision. “Stay here, alright?”
“Didn’t you hear Robin?” Steve reaches out for you, tries to pull you back into the van. “There’s a demogorgon out there, no way am I letting you go by yourself!”
“I’m going.”
And before Steve’s hand can land on your wrist, you run.
All you do is run.
-
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