tell me what you need.
🖤 An Extended One-Shot Fanfic, from Misha’s Masterlist Library. ♡ TMWYN | <- all chapters and my series file here
THE EPILOGUE ☾⋆ Part 1 ☾⋆ Part 2 ☾⋆ Part 3 ☾⋆ Part 4 ☾⋆ The Finale: Part I ☾⋆ The Finale: Part II
Steve Harrington x Hopper!fem!reader • strangers to friends with benefits (fwb) to lovers. heavy angst, hurt/comfort, upside down mayhem, S2-S4 (-> into post S4), suspense and morbid humor, heavy plot-driven smut (...but with hella plot). 18+
SUMMARY: Some love stories begin with, “once upon a time…” Yours didn’t.
Instead, yours and Steve Harrington’s began in a cold night in 1984, in his BMW, when he asked you, “tell me what you need.”
Who knew that was the beginning of forever?
AUTHOR’S NOTE: Dear readers, thank you all for turning this one-shot-turned-extended-series into my first ever completed work on Tumblr.
Here is the happy ending, after twenty-one chapters that took us along for the ride with Steve & ‘Hoppette’ from 1984 to 1988, four all four books and a 2-part finale.
Grab your best dress or suit. You are cordially invited to attend the official ceremony for Steve Harrington & Jim Hopper’s daughter.
Xx, misha
“my heart is yours if your body creeks… and your broken bones are fears, no matter the years… my heart is yours.”
— “Bones” by Penny & Sparrow
EPILOGUE
— TWO YEARS LATER — Steve Harrington looked like he had robbed a high-end menswear store on Rodeo Drive, and somehow made it his personality… but better.
You hadn’t seen him yet, not from your perch in the pool house where Robin and Nancy were busy working their magic, along with El, but Eddie Munson? He definitely had. He’d been staring since the moment the door to what used to be Steve’s dad’s basement (now technically “groom’s prep HQ”) creaked open, and his jaw was hanging so far down low, you could’ve fit a basketball through it.
“Holy hell,” Eddie muttered, his voice raw with equal parts awe and indignation. “Steve, you look… unacceptably unfair. There’s no hope for the rest of us.”
Steve, who had just emerged in his twenty-one-year-old glory with a suit so minimalist clean that it could’ve been painted by angels… just grinned, one eyebrow twitching.
“Unfair? Nah, this is the natural state of my existence.”
“Oh, you douche," Eddie scoffed.
“You, on the other hand…”
Eddie laughed, throwing his head back, his hair in a man bun that somehow made him look like a Jesus Christ superstar who’d just wandered off a stage, and flopped onto the couch. “Oh no. Don’t even. I’m suffering over here. This is torture. How do you walk around like that and expect us normal fellas to breathe, let alone stand next to you?”
Steve rolled his eyes, but there was no real defense in it. “You’re alive, Eds. You’re breathing. That’s what counts. You’re allowed to suffer on my big day.”
“Allowed?” Eddie’s smirk twisted sideways. “I’m not just allowed, Harrington. I’m required. It’s written into the bylaws of friendship.”
“S’that so,” Steve deadpanned.
“Article One: Steve Harrington must look so goddamn good at all times that Eddie Munson multiplies his deeply rooted insecurities, regardless of being a sexy ‘bum-chic’ high school flunkout.”
Steve snorted so hard, he nearly made beer spew out his nostrils.
Eddie grinned. “Man, you’re so not ready for my speech today.”
“Yeah, well—let’s get there first,” Steve laughed, his grin wide, playful, almost devilish. “First stop is down the aisle.”
Eddie’s lip twitched before he lunged at Steve, half in a play fight, and half in mock desperation. “My man is getting married,” he shouted, grabbing at Steve’s shoulders.
“Jesus—”
“He’s off the market!” Eddie screeched, shaking harder, raising a hand as if shouting to a full crowd, even though it was literally just the two of them. “He is off the market, ladies and gents!”
Before Steve could properly retaliate, his best man popped the bubble.
Dustin Henderson came barreling down the stairs like a caffeinated tornado in a tailored suit, waving a can of hairspray like it was a weapon of mass destruction. “STEVE! Steve. I need help—my hair is a freaking rat’s nest! I’m your goddamn best man! This is a code red!”
Steve blinked, hand instinctively going to his own meticulously styled hair as he crookedly smirked at his favorite kid. “A code red…?”
“Yes.”
“Says who?” Steve arched his brow.
“Says gravity.”
“Gravity doesn’t give a shit what you think, Dust,” he said, his voice low and mock-serious, making sure to emphasize the mock disdain.
Dustin’s eyes nearly popped out of his head. “I don’t care about your take on gravity, I care about my hair!”
“Wow.”
“You know what happens if my cowlick isn’t perfect today?”
“The world ends?”
“Chaos.” Dustin jabbed a gloved finger toward Steve’s forehead. “Complete anarchy. Blasphemy. I can’t—cannot be your best man with bad hair. That’s against all laws of Harrington physics. If my hair fails, the entire ceremony is compromised.”
“He’s right,” Eddie chipped in from over in the corner, lounging back with a beer and a Cheshire grin. “The universe itself might implode.”
“I cannot fail you…” Dustin whispered it so reverently, so damn dramatically, that it took everything in Steve not to outright snort in his face.
“Dude,” Steve muttered to him, crouching slightly to inspect the mess of curls that had been placed in his hands like some kind of sacrificial lamb. “Relax. I’ve been battling hair longer than you’ve been alive. If anyone knows how to wield this spray like a weapon, it’s me.”
“Weapon?!” Eddie Munson burst in from the corner, hands shoved into the pockets of his own immaculate suit, his man bun sitting slightly askew atop his head like a black crown of chaos. “Dude. You call that a weapon? That’s a can. A measly stick! You’re lucky you’re marrying Hop, because otherwise you’d be naked in the street with a comb stuck in your teeth.”
Steve shot Eddie a look. A look that was half murderous, and also half purely unadulterated brotherly affection. “Munson, I swear to God…”
“Swear all you want, big boy.” Eddie smirked, undeterred, leaning against the edge of the bar like he owned the place, all sly. “I am undeterred because it’s true. You look like a walking ad for God’s perfect chiseling right now, Harrington—”
“Are you seriously flirting with me on my wedding day?”
“—and it’s illegal. Somebody should call OSHA or whatever, because your jawline is a health hazard.”
Steve rolled his eyes but couldn’t stop the grin tugging at his lips.
“Okay, devil, lemme focus.” He held out his hand toward Dustin, waiting to be given the can. “Hairspray.”
He took it from him… only to realize it was nearly empty.
“Dude,” Steve made a face, shaking it. “How much of this did you use, whole thing’s damn near empty—”
Dustin’s eyes flew open wide, sheer panic flooding them.
“…What do you mean it’s near empty?!” He shrieked. “Steve, you’re about to go down the aisle and—and my hair will literally ruin your moment—!”
At that absurdity, Steve threw his head back, letting out a sharp laugh. “You’re kidding me, right?”
“NO!!!
Eddie had chomped down on his bottom lip to keep from laughing, standing back like this was the greatest spectacle of his life.
Steve exhaled through his nose, exasperated and laughing at the same time. “Henderson, just—look, alright. This little can?” He jiggled it, setting it down. “It’s retired.”
Dustin stares at it like a man in mourning, whispering, “RIP…”
“So now, I’ll just have to go fetch the big daddy upstairs.”
That made Dustin’s somber expression scrunch up, cringing. “Ew.”
“You mean yay,” Steve smirked, pushing off the counter, feet sliding slightly on the polished floor, making for the stairs. “Hang tight.”
“You do realize he’s basically marrying you today too, right?” Eddie smirked like a devil, watching him go. “You’re gonna spend the entire reception fixing his hair.”
Steve rolled his eyes, already grinning at the absurdity of it all. “He’s my best man. It’s in the job description. Honestly? S’worth it. Lemme grab it—”
“No need!”
A new voice chirped, cutting into the room, smooth and composed. Everyone could hear the smile tugging at the corners of it.
Sure enough, Jonathan Byers was descending down the stairs into the furnished basement like a ghost of photographic patience and charm, two film cameras slung casually around his neck like silent, brooding documentarians, and a smirk playing at his lips. His suit was understated perfection. Black-on-black, the kind that made it clear he wasn’t trying to outshine anyone.
Except maybe Steve.
And okay, maybe he was.
Steve froze mid-step. “Byers, you sneaky son of a bitch.”
“What?” Jonathan one-shoulder shrugged impishly, sauntering down the last of the steps. “I had to meet your standards.”
“You’ve exceeded them, man,” Steve shook his head, grinning.
“Pfffft.” Jonathan waved him off, muttering, “As if.”
“Whewwwww.” Eddie fanned himself like a damsel in distress. “Mr. Byers, I’m about to get down on one knee and wife you up.”
Jonathan raised a brow, pointing toward the retired Farrah Fawcett hairspray can like he had some omniscient power over its destiny. “Well hold off on that ‘till I can fetch today’s groom his best man’s can of hair religion.”
“Dude,” Steve snorted. “I’ll get it.”
“Noooo, you’re not lifting a damn finger today. Chill. I’ll tell the boys to bring down the extra bottle.” He reached for his walkie. “Consider it a preemptive intervention.”
“Yeah, big boy,” Eddie chimed in, arms crossing. “Be a good little groom and let your servants take care’a ya today.”
Jonathan gestured to him. “What he said.”
Steve’s jaw fell, then lifted in a grin that could have shattered glass. “You’re a goddamn angel, Jonathan.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Jonathan muttered, already flicking the walkie-talkie into life as his cheeks flushed. “Mike, Lucas, Will—emergency Farrah Fawcett dispatch. Do not fail me.”
“What?” Mike squawked back.
“CODE RED, this is an emergency!” Jonathan suddenly shrieked back with an obscene amount of vigor that made Steve gape in near-laughter, as Eddie audibly wheezed.
“Emergency?” Dustin squealed, practically shaking with urgency. “Steve, you see what I’m dealing with? This is a crisis of biblical proportions.”
“Well good thing your friends’ve got your back,” Steve smirked.
Crackle. “Dustin—!”
That was Lucas’s voice.
“Ask Steve where the hell your lady spray is.”
Steve huffed a laugh. “It’s in the—”
“NAH-AH!” Jonathan scolded, finger up. “You’re off babysitter duty today. Let them work.”
Steve subtly reeled back, morbidly impressed, while Eddie arched a brow at Jonathan, muttering something along the lines of, “…okay, zaddy…” into his bottle of beer.
Meanwhile, Dustin gawked. “THEN GIVE ME THE WALKIE!”
“Say PLEASE!” Jonathan shrieked back at him.
Instant chaos erupted as Dustin shrieked into the walkie, the three younger boys squealing and squawking back as they argued over finding what was a security blanket in the form of canned hairspray. Steve, Eddie and Jonathan all just leaned back against the walls, laughter spilling freely.
“This is exactly why I live for these moments,” Eddie shook his head. “You’re telling me none of us are related, but somehow, this is peak familial energy.” Then he waved a hand, correcting himself. “Well—except you and Will,” he gestured to the wedding day’s assigned photographer.
Jonathan chuckled, shaking his head as he watched Steve wrestle a now slightly calmer Dustin into proper hair maintenance position.
“You good, man?” he asked, voice dropping just slightly amid the chaos.
Steve exhaled, grinning like a damn fool, chest still pounding with nerves and excitement. “Never better,” he admitted, voice raw with joy. “Also… sweating buckets, don’t tell anyone.”
Eddie’s grin widened wickedly. “Ohhh, I know you’re sweating. I can smell the panic mixed with your cologne. It’s delicious. Especially the sweat beads dripping down that fiiiiine hunky ass crack—”
Steve lunged at him, headlocking Eddie in a manic tussle.
And just like that, Dustin hopped onto Eddie’s back, making a scene out of absolute nothing. Eddie squawked and flailed, but Steve just held them both in a tangled mess of laughter while Jonathan, camera raised, captured it all. Snapping photo after photo like a man documenting pure happiness.
“This is exactly why we’re friends,” he murmured, both cameras clicking.
And that was the truth.
Every shout, every bicker, every chaotic collision of arms and laughter… It was perfect. Every single second of it.
Jonathan’s grin softened, and even amidst the insanity, he allowed himself a quiet moment, glancing at Steve as he kept on wrestling Eddie while keeping an eye on Dustin, laughing so hard his cheeks hurt.
And then the basement door burst open like a cannon.
Mike, Lucas, and Will came barreling down the stairs in coordinated chaos, suits slightly wrinkled but perfect for maximum roasting. Mike immediately yelled, “Dustin! Stop murdering Munson’s spine! That’s illegal!”
Lucas chimed in, pointing at Steve. “Harrington, I didn’t realize your wedding came with a free wrestling match!”
Will, ever the observer, just laughed quietly but couldn’t hide the giddy grin.
“Damn, we’re gonna need more hairspray,” he muttered.
Steve barked a laugh, squeezing his shoulder. “No kidding.”
The spray had arrived. Dustin got his hair tamed and styled to perfection, and the basement somehow became exponentially louder, more chaotic, and infinitely warmer. Jonathan just kept clicking photos. Steve had never looked more dangerous wielding a pair of scissors in his hand and a can of Farrah Fawcett hairspray in the other, and Dustin started mentally reciting his best man’s speech while the boys all laughed, teased, and shouted in their own suits.
Through it all, you could almost feel Steve vibrating with joy, even from over in the pool house, where you sat as El brushed your hair and Nancy applied your wispy, elegant makeup to perfection, all while Robin snapped a bajillion Polaroids, courtesy of Jonathan loaning it to her.
The two of you paralleled each other right now, with every bellowing laugh, every playful jab, every snapped photograph. All of it was a tether to the life that he’d built… the life you two had built together. The chaos was beautiful because it was real, messy, family without blood, love without apology.
Steve finally shoved Dustin off towards his friends, brushing off hair strands from his own suit as Mike stared at the can of hairspray, roasting it aloud but secretly wanting to spray his own mop of jet black hair with it. Lucas went on ahead and did him the honors without being asked, earning him a shrill shout from Mike — even though he let it freaking happen. Will and Dustin both had Eddie pouring them up celebratory cups of beer, insisting that “it’s fine now, we are sixteen years old,” all while their older metalhead friend just rolled his eyes while pouring them up anyway.
It made Steve grin as he leaned against the counter for a moment, taking a deep breath. Jonathan stepped closer, lowering his voice, just enough for the two of them to share the moment.
“You ready?” he asked.
Steve nodded, breathless and shaking with joy. “Ready as I’ll ever be. Hop’s waiting, and…” He sighed a laugh, lightly rolling his eyes, cheeks flushed. “I mean, hell, it’s all good from here.”
Jonathan nodded, a subtle smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
“I’ve never been this happy before,” Steve admitted, his voice raw and quiet, despite the absurdity around them that he watched in awestruck wonder.
That made Jonathan’s eyes go impossibly soft. Still steady, still nodding. But he found himself having to blink back the burn and clear his throat, shuffling on his feet, subtly shifting his weight and swallowing hard.
“…remember that time you chewed my ass out on the phone and put me in my damn place?”
Steve blinked. Once, then twice.
His grin faltered slightly. Because he was not expecting that question.
But before he could respond, he turned to see Jonathan looking back at him with the most impish, mischievous expression. Like he’d just let Steve in on a dark secret that only the two of them could ever understand.
Steve let out a laugh, grabbing him by the arm in mock retaliation. “Do not—”
Jonathan quietly cackled, eyes scrunched shut as he shamelessly let out a string of sksksksksk’s while Steve did the same. Dustin, ever the opportunist, hopped back into the fray, slinging himself towards them with his beer while Jonathan nearly shrieked with fear, sputtering laughter and begging him not to stain their suits, saying something about how he didn’t care if they are all black, “because they’ll still reek of booze.”
The room was chaos incarnate, but it was all perfect. Because downstairs, in what used to be Cam Harrington’s über expensive whisky-hoarding man cave of a basement, every single person here was exactly where they were supposed to be. You were upstairs, out back, pampered and glowing, ready to join them in just a couple of hours.
And these boys — your extended, chaotic, chosen family… were all in here, together, roaring with laughter and obscene excitement.
The house itself seemed to breathe with them, the walls soaked in history, the view from the cliffside catching the first hints of the autumn sun. It wasn’t just a home. It was a stage for the life you and Steve were building together. A messy, surreal life, filled with love, with friends who felt like family, and with the pure ridiculousness of every single day made infinitely brighter by shared laughter and shared responsibility.
Steve glanced at Jonathan again, and for a single second, there was a quiet acknowledgement, no words needed, just a bond that said:
This is right.
This is exactly how it should be.
This is how your wedding day is supposed to be feel.
And for Steve Harrington, standing there in his designer suit, grinning like an idiot, it was the absolute best day of his life.
October 1988 lays itself over the yard like a dirty little secret.
Golden, lavish and quiet in the parts that matter.
You feel it before you hear the first note, a kind of warmth that isn’t the sun so much as it’s the way the whole world has inclined toward this exact hour, just so that nothing will spoil it. Lanterns hang, not like ornaments trying too hard but like hidden witnesses; balloons glow faintly even in the day, soft as embers. Fairy lights drape the trees in the way a shy skyline might whisper to a suburban heaven. The pool is a shining planet at the center of everything, shimmering like a halo with its glowing balloons and wish lanterns, reflecting a sky that looks like it was painted for the sole purpose of flattering the faces gathered below.
And tucked away, you wait just along the edge of it all, not only because you need to be hidden until it’s time… but because you still want to see, before it’s your turn. So, you are a part of the landscape now. Not a decoration, and no longer a casualty of what happened over two years ago… and the people here have all come to witness you being claimed eternally, in sickness and in health, by the only young man you have ever loved openly, loudly, as yours.
On one side of the aisle, all the Harringtons’ guests cluster with the ease of people who know how to smile for a photograph and leave without having to prove they belong. Cam is there in a suit that makes him look like every successful man in a glossy magazine, minus the pretension that would make him unbearable. Today? He wears his control as an accessory of his tuxedo, and he is deferential where he chooses to be. Vera, beside him, looks almost like this might just be her best day too, along with her husband’s. Measured, unusually warm with the practiced composure softening into something real.
You notice small things about them. Including the way that they shake their guests’ hands, like they’re sealing a pact you can’t see, the way Vera’s laugh is brief but honest. They invited a handful of people; they brought a small, shiny slice of their circle, and everyone on Cam’s side seems genuinely glad to be invited to this intimate affair.
On the other side… your side… the chairs feel smaller and oddly treasured.
They hold faces that have held you without asking for credit in all twenty-one years of your time being alive.
Callahan and Powell are the first two that you spot in the crowd, bringing an immediate smile to your face that warms your cheeks. They’re the rarest kind of cops who have more gruffness than grief and more pride than pedigree… and they’re both grinning like proud uncles. Callahan’s chest puffs in a way that betrays him, like he wants to stand and shout about what you survived. It makes your smile lines prominent, watching how Powell doesn’t even have it in him today to reel him in, because he’s no better.
Those two are proud as hell, and love you like their own.
Friends from the station also fill your seats. People from the neighborhood who watched you grow and learned how to love you as a constant, are here to watch you step into this new chapter of your life. Ted and Karen Wheeler are murmuring to the Sinclairs, and Claudia Henderson is fussing over Erica — who looks like she’s about to combust from being so damn excited. Even Robin’s parents are present, in their slightly spacey, slightly bewildered way, clapping as if they finally understand weddings are important and, perhaps more importantly, joyous.
Even if they could’ve sworn their daughter was gonna end up in your place today. Even if they had no damn clue that their daughter loves girls, and that Steve was the first person she came out to with this confession… along with you. Even if they had no idea that, yes — their daughter is in love with Steve Harrington… just platonically.
Just forever.
“Man…” you whisper to yourself, smirking warmly at the sight of them.
Then your eye catches another soul you adore, making his way into the mix.
Jonathan steps out from amongst all the guests with both film cameras slung around his neck and a face that softens when he looks at the fray. He and Eddie trade a look. A small, ridiculous shorthand for everything they have seen together… and you feel it like a presence: the easy camaraderie, the braided trust.
Jonathan nods at Eddie, and Eddie flicks him a grin.
Showtime.
Erica rockets off like a comet with a dress and a mission to join your small bridal party. Her parents watch her go with amused pride. Jonathan wanders to the edge of the lawn like a man who knows how to frame moments, and you understand that what he will capture will not be just images, but the way that the day will feel when it’s been wrapped and stored inside memory.
And then there’s Eddie’s old band.
Corroded Coffin, in a twist that would have once been a joke and is now only very much the soundtrack of today’s redemption, sets up on the grass. The three of his boys have brought a violinist and a cellist to temper Nicotine-era rock into a reverent acoustic set that’s at once rough and remarkably tender. They tune, they smile at each other, they laugh off the nerves by telling bad jokes… and when their first chords find the air, something hushes between the chairs.
You lurk back into the shadows, because you’re the final act, and you do not want to spoil the magic that will be your “first look” at the first one to walk, but selfishly… you can’t help it.
The first to walk is Steve.
It is obscene, the way he looks, as if he stole every piece of composure that money can’t buy and wrapped it into a black suit. He walks like he wants to be noticed but like he’s also terrified that anybody’s praise might press him like an accusation. He is impossibly handsome and you are not surprised he has always been dangerous to people’s hearts; even so, seeing him move into place under the simple arbor, looking over the gathered faces with the same smirk he wore when the world was a set of dares, makes your chest want to beat out of its ribs.
Eddie stands there waiting for him, grinning like a lunatic.
Then there’s Cam, perfectly controlled, winking at Steve.
It’s small and sharp… but full of meaning. And it earns him the most dashing smile in response that he’s ever seen his son shoot in his direction. Vera’s own smile beside him reads not just satisfied, but warm. Not showy, but truly and visibly content. She almost looks amused in the way that someone does when they’re in on a private joke. But a good one. A kind one. Perhaps even a motherly one.
Jonathan begins his quiet shutter-clicking, capturing the way Steve breathes in the moment, and the way that Cam takes Vera’s hand in what must be the first time in a long while. Because the way that she turns to Cam, right as Jonathan captures the moment, takes his breath away before he reloads for the next shot.
Steve now takes his place at the altar and looks back down the aisle, eyes searching. He is not pretending anything; he is exposed in the best way, and lets himself be with his heart on his sleeve.
He knows who’s next.
And he’s already grinning about it before they’ve even rounded the corner.
Soon enough, Max and Erica grace the aisle next. Flower girls, because the universe likes surprises. Little laughter-breathing beings who throw petals as if they’re sanctifying the path.
Max’s crutches clack quietly on the cobblestone path, and Erica’s arm is a steady presence at her side. Max’s smile is the most stubborn, resilient thing you’ve ever seen; she throws flowers like she’s scattering proof that there is a path to follow home, the way she did after finally waking from her coma just barely a year ago now. And the way that she is following her gut, continuing to regain her footing… just like you did.
Steve’s grin melts into a softer thing at their approach.
Eddie mouths encouragement at them around his sappy smile, like, “Go, go, yes, my darlings — that’s right, you throw them petals.”
You want to cheer and simultaneously preserve the moment.
So Jonathan does it for you, clicking the shutter and then giving them a literal Irish heel click that makes them laugh for the next candid he snaps in a flash.
Then comes the rest of the party.
First: Mike with Nancy, arms casually linked. All grown-up, steady. The two of them are in sync in a way siblings often are, smiling in a way neither of them ever have in their life. They’re directly followed by Lucas with Robin, whose face is all bright mischief and beautiful confidence. The way that she carries herself like a woman makes Steve’s chest ache, and he’s never realized until now that one day, he’ll be in her shoes and she will be in his once she finds her own “you” in her life. And as if that weren’t enough to nearly disarm him, Lucas’s dapper walk beside her — in the form of a true gentleman — makes him beam all the more before they’ve straddled the altar on opposite sides.
Will, patient and sweetly solemn, carries the rings like an altar of possibility; Jonathan’s eyes are wet in that way photographers’ eyes get when they are witness to what the lens cannot contain, and Joyce is no better as she clasps her hands together and watches from the front row on your side of the aisle.
Dustin and Eleven walk down next like conspirators.
El’s steady presence is a straight line of all the nights that she guarded you, while Dustin is holding himself like a man on a mission: messy, fierce, almost hysterical with good nerves… and eternally devoted to his big brother at the end, waiting for him to stand beside him as his best man, while El takes her place as your maid of honor.
The two of them reach the altar and join the party lineup, with Steve gripping the two of them briefly by the shoulders, giving an affectionate squeeze while they both beam up at him before taking their places.
The whole cast of your life is now assembled beneath the late light.
Finally, Eddie raises his arms… grinning at the crowd and doing that loud, throat-rattling command like a carnival barker and a preacher combined.
“All rise.”
They do.
…and so do you.
There is that second, a universe folding onto itself… where you look at all of them, and they look back as if they are trying to hold all the pieces of you so that none of it will fall. You look down the line to Steve and there is a silence so full it has weight. The band plays something that has a violin in it and the strings tugged taut, and it feels like the soundtrack was written to accompany your breathing.
Then, finally comes the rustle through the trees as you emerge with your dad at your side, ready to give you away.
He takes your arm, steadier in posture than he’s been in years and somehow softer at the edges. Jim Hopper doesn’t do teary things publicly. He does them like a private intermission. But his face tonight is open like he’s been allowed to keep something near his chest, and he is oddly bright. Joyce sits up front waiting for him, her big doe eyes already shining with tears she will excuse as allergies later, trying to look like she’s not about to explode with joy but failing at it beautifully.
Because there you are beside her man, not in a wheelchair.
You walk.
Your legs are not a metaphor, not a promise, not an experiment. They are your ankles and calves and knees and the muscles you learned to ask to join you again. You’ve been walking for six months like someone who learns to breathe again; the difference was not miraculous in the way people in films imagine. It was brickwork. It was small, precise decisions stacked until a new house stands. And you know every person who helped them work again.
Dr. Owens, who is here in the back like a secret guardian.
Dr. Peters, who made you feel like a friend and not a patient, and now sits on Steve’s side with his husband, wearing a warm smile.
Two young women who’ve become family friends, after both serving as your physical therapists and have continued to do so, refusing to slack off for one second and continue seeing you through.
Eleven, with her telekinesis guiding your spine back into place, morning into nightfall.
…and Cam Harrington himself, who smiled a smile that admitted exactly one thing: that he had been terrified but decided to fight alongside you anyway as he offered up every resource in his possession. The money, the specialists, the group effort in seeing you through… all of it sits like a shadow that kept you warm in the nights you had nothing but resolve.
But today, you are the farthest thing from a shadow.
Your dress is a jewel of quiet obsession. It’s simple, a line that knows what it wants. No lace, no fuss, no ballroom drama. Just clean fabric that falls like a sentence and shapes itself around the idea of your body as it is: elegant in its refusal to be busy. The skirts brush the ground at your feet with intention instead of looks, and in Steve’s lovesick eyes, they look — along with you — nothing short of a revelation.
Your hair is not contrived; it all falls in soft, deliberate pieces, draping your shoulders. And your face dons only what accentuates its natural beauty, not caked up underneath a heavy mask of cosmetics. Nancy had refused to doll you up in a way that would hide your best features, and you’d nearly kissed her for knowing that’s how you wanted it before even having to tell her.
You breathe in, and the whole yard somehow matches the inhale.
As you walk, Hopper’s hand is strong in yours as he keeps your arms linked, and there is a conversation happening between you both without sound: the way his fingers squeeze, the way his shoulders square, the way he steps in cadence with you, as if he is carrying not only you down this length of turf but also all the little deaths you went through on the long route to this step.
He knows them all.
And so does Steve.
Steve, who looks at you walking towards him in a way that makes every love song make sense. In a way that puts poetry to shame, defies all odds, ruins your life in all the right ways and makes cynics weep and believe in romance. He looks at you now and sees the way you smile back at him, thinking back to that fateful night in 1984 when he’d held you for the first time, then asked you the next day, “this was a one time thing… right?”
You’d told him yes.
And you’d both never been happier to be proven wrong.
Jim presses his lips to your cheek as you reach the altar, quick and wet and full of tender gratitude, then moves to take a seat beside Joyce who hands him tissues like peace offerings. They both laugh through it, little ridiculous laughs. Your dad sits there and weeps with the kind of adult relief that could be mistaken for simple joy, except this is not simple. This is everything.
He was your first love, and you were his first love.
Even more than the woman who left you both behind.
And now, Jim Hopper is ready to watch your last love call you his.
Steve takes your hands now. The contact is an electric quiet, a pulse that steadies both of you. You lean your forehead to his for a second that lasts long enough to count the small things he needs: your breathing, the crooked smile at the corner of your full lips, the way his wrists feel under yours. He whispers something into your hair, ridiculous and tender. And you laugh, all breathy with your eyes crinkling, and he bites the inside of his cheek like he’s trying to catch a sob.
Eddie clears his throat and the day cracks open into speech.
“Alright, alright,” he says, his voice loud, laced with the kind of humor that is simultaneously irreverent and gloriously warm. “I guess technically I’m the one ordained to do this, which is funny because —and I wanna be honest… I am not telling you this to brag, but I have frequently been accused of having the moral compass of a pawnshop Jesus.” He takes a beat, brow raised. “Yet here I am: licensed and allegedly ‘qualified’ because apparently, the state of Illinois tolerates growth.”
A wheeze sounds off from the crowd, followed by a snort, then another.
Callahan and Powell. Of course.
“Anyway,” Eddie smirks boldly, “we’re here because Steve can’t stop being offensive to every eligible bachelor, and because his lady here has decided, for reasons I still do not fully understand but which the rest of us are far too delighted to question… to say yes.”
There’s a ripple of laughter that goes around like a benediction. Eddie waits a handful of beats and then drops his voice, after the bridal party has gotten themselves together again, too.
“But real talk. I’ve watched this pair for some time now. Not the whole time, because I didn’t deserve that; I came in late, as is my chaotic fashion. When everything went sideways in Hawkins. When the world was trying to chew up people for breakfast, these two kept showing up for each other in ways that weren’t showy. Not big, heroic acts. Little ones. The kind where you notice later and your throat tightens because you realize that, day by day… they’ve been being kind without wanting anything in return.”
He tilts his head and looks straight at the two of you now, as if he’s holding a mirror up to your faces.
“You ever hear a song before you catch the chorus? Like, ya know that chord progression is going somewhere and you can tell there’s music in it? That’s what I saw. I saw them in riffs and small refrains — making coffee at two a.m. on instinct, standing in the empty rooms and filling them all with twenty years’ worth of jokes, not ceding when it would have been easier to run. And trust me, as a runner myself? I know these two ain’t that. Even as they ran in literal circles around each other… I saw them look at each other and stop the room from spinning.”
Your throat clamps, and Steve’s jaw trembles. And you mouth back an ‘I love you’ to him that’s barely a sound, right after he does, then Eddie drops a line so perfectly ridiculous that it makes everyone snort and cry at once.
“…and look,” he continues, with the casual cruelty of a man who’s been an accused villain and survived and now knows how to love without flinching, “I get to officiate because I promised them I’d do three things. One: keep the vows short and merciful. Two: keep everyone awake because I only learned the words to most songs in the strip mall demo, and three: make sure Steve Harrington does not quote Madonna. So I’ll keep to my promises.”
At this, Cam is actually covering his face to muffle a sound like a man who is simultaneously stricken with humor and terrified. Vera’s smile makes you feel like you’ve been admitted to something out of untold fairytales. Jonathan lowers his camera, totally unashamed of his wet cheeks.
Eddie leans in, voice softer and suddenly more exact than it’s any right to be.
“You know when I knew they were in it?” he asks, and he doesn’t wait for an answer because the truth is a thing that needs speaking. “It wasn’t the big stuff. It was the night we were all kids in a gutter of noise and loudness and fear… and Hop here, this absolute terror of a human, she set a bowl of soup on my porch when I had nothing and she walked away before I could thank her. She wasn’t performing for anyone. She wasn’t trying to look noble. She was just being…” He grins, looking at you now, “…jus’being kind, even when life hadn’t been kind to her at all.”
Your lips parted, breath caught in your lungs. And your eyes shone back into his now, because you remember damn well how you both actually first met. Back when you’d held a gun to his head, furious at him for holding a knife to Steve’s neck, because he had no idea who the hell to trust.
That somehow feels like ages ago now, and yet like it was just yesterday.
The way that Eddie Munson has become a permanent part of your life ever since then, is truly unreal.
“And Steve…” Eddie kept going, huffing a laugh. “Steve came knocking the next day like a lunatic, asking if I’d had any more of that soup and also, was it poisoned?”
At this, Steve closes his eyes as his head falls back, face skyward as he lets himself laugh along with you and the crowd. Dustin’s giggles are pure, while Mike and Lucas snicker so hard they look like they’re twelve again. Nancy’s eyes are wide with amusement, knowing that’s not the entire story but loving it all the same, while Robin and Max know exactly how it all went down.
The crowd laughs for a long while, and it’s a little breath of fresh air to the face. Eddie’s eyes are not on either of you now. Instead, they’re locked on everyone, like he’s asking them to remember the smaller mercies.
“So that’s when I knew. Because love doesn’t always shout. Sometimes? It leaves you soup. Sometimes it ties your shoes back when you’re too tired to even remember your own name. Sometimes it looks like refusing to leave a hospital parking lot until someone has a second cup of coffee and a laugh in them again… hope in them again. Love is a practice of showing up.”
You squeeze Steve’s hands until he inhales sharply. He brings your thumb up and presses a kiss to it like a benediction. Your whole body is humming; the muscles in your calves remember every single hour, every therapist’s correction, every plastic band used like a rope in the nights you first tried to stand. You have made yourself heavy in the way you now occupy space, and Steve is holding it tenderly as if every inch has a holy name.
Eddie’s voice seems to get smaller, more dangerous. “Now, vows. Keep it short, you weirdos. Everyone’s got a backstory and a hangover and Cam Harrington has a private jet to clean up if we overrun the reception.”
Cam fucking wheezes, and Jim’s doing the same from just across the aisle, bending at the waist to get a good look at him as the wealthy ass man howls into his damn fist from unexpected laughter. Vera looks appalled in the best of ways, shoulders shaking with real laughter, while Joyce against Jim’s arm chuckling just as heartily.
You laugh with your whole chest, while Steve laughs with his throat… the sound fraying at the edges, because he knows how ridiculous he is and he knows how unabashedly he loves you.
And it’s crazy, because you promised yourself you would not be the one to make the first lyrical error. You have rehearsed a thousand quiet sentences in the dark, only to have thrown most of them away. Because you only want to speak with the kind of honesty that does not need ornament, the kind that avoids the trap of being performative. So you keep it small, not memorized… and you look him straight in the eyes and say:
“You keep my stupidity and my stubbornness intact, but make it better. And you’ve carried me like this, not because I’m weak but because I chose you to hold me, even after I fought it. Because I’ll always choose you back.”
Steve says his own vows like he hears it for the first time at the altar. His lips tremble as he answers yours with his, his strong hands cradling your fingers:
“You make me better at being foolish, and better at being brave enough to be anything. I choose you, again and again. I’ll choose you like I choose the air, day after day, night after night. Just like I have been since ‘84. But better.”
Eddie claps once with theatrical fervor and then gestures to the rings.
Will hands them to you both. They’re so small and deliberate, like handing two coins that buy a life. You slide the ring onto Steve’s hand with the same concentration you once used to thread the eye of a needle. He slides yours on, fumbling only a moment before his fingers find their ultimate place.
Then Eddie, with the smugness of a man who was once accused of literal Confederate arson and now officiates weddings pro bono… allows a beat he shares with you and Steve, as if to now savor the ridiculous miracle of being allowed into this unity.
“You may now kiss your bride,” he whispers, the words as absurd as they are sacred.
Steve sweeps you up, not theatrically but because he cannot help himself. You are in his arms and everything narrows to the press of his skin and the breath he borrows from you. He dips you right there, because he always has good instincts in the dramatic, and he kisses you like someone who thinks the world is trying to close before he gets to taste it again. And you kiss him back with just as much fervor as your dress drapes beneath you.
The first sound to shatter the hush is Eddie’s whoop; then the crowd loses its mind like a chorus of thrown confetti. Cam leaps to his feet, hooting as Vera claps like a delighted First Lady. Hopper stands and hoots with him, two men who do not give themselves to sentiment having surrendered to it, both with wet eyes and runny noses that Cam’s shades and Jim’s palms do not hide.
Callahan and Powell are not even bothering to fake it.
They are the kind of quiet men whose faces open when they think of home, and they are blubbering full-bodied sobs and no one cares. Joyce is laughing through the tissues; Jonathan’s camera clicks in a mercy of a rhythm that keeps the moment from retreating into legend. Dustin and Eleven clap too hard, and El has tears at the corner of her eyes, a luminous expression that would make any poet malfunction. Max squeals, Erica cheers. Nancy smiles and cheers loudly, never happier to see her first love find his truest love, and Robin’s a feral blubbering disaster as her hands go bright red from clapping nonstop through her tears. Mike, Lucas, Will and Dustin are a riot, losing all of their ever-loving minds, like four sons who just watched their two favorite people in the world finally tie the knot and have newfound hope in finding a love like this for themselves… including Will, who wonders when he’ll meet a boy that looks at him the way that you and Steve look at each other, but now believes that he will.
After you fall back into Steve’s arms, and into laughter and shouts and the brief chaos of family improvising itself, the sound of applauding people is a tide that might carry you away. Steve sets you down carefully, like you’re the thing most fragile and most precious, and you both stand there, not rushing, wet and breathless and wholly ridiculous, and then clasp hands like a single body, till death do you part.
Even then, there’s no severing the tie.
Little do you know, you will both live to see 100 years old.
Little do you know, six years down the line, you’ll end up pregnant with your first of six children that will have Steve’s hair and your eyes.
And little do you both know, that in the pockets of Cam’s suit, in the corner of his impossible smile, an envelope rests with a deed inside it that is, for now, only known to him. The house that once felt like a mausoleum has been paid forward entirely; the amount Steve paid collapses back into his account like a miracle, and the gift sits folded and patient until the moment is right.
For now, Cam winks at you just as Steve walks back down the aisle with you, and you grin back with the wordless gratitude of someone who knows that power can sometimes choose to be the softest thing in a story. Vera now tightly squeezes his fingers once, and he looks back at her like a man who did something real without needing an audience to understand.
When the ceremony breaks into the reception, the band cranks the volume a notch higher, not to awaken the moon but to celebrate the way this family — yours by choice and circumstance — was made loud and beautiful. You and Steve move among people who are laughing, eating, hugging. Eddie is in his element, the very image of someone who never quite belonged anywhere and now belongs with a ferocious presence. He takes the mic and, with the operatic mischief of the man you once mistrusted, he promises to make his speech short enough that “Cam’s attention span will not desert them in the middle.”
Dustin’s speech makes Steve laugh and cry.
El’s speech makes you melt into a puddle, and bark out loud with unexpected laughter.
Robin’s speech loops in all five other nuggets, who all have something to say and do it with their full chest until they’re all singing “Don’t You Forget About Me.”
You sit at the head table with your husband, side by side, and you watch all the faces you have loved for years shine back at you. Hopper squeezes your hand across the linen, and for a moment you are a child again and a woman older than the sum of yesterday’s grief. Steve kisses you like it’s private, and then dips his head into your hair to whisper something stupid and perfect that makes you snort into your Riesling. The night is already becoming a kind of myth, the kind that will be retold with laughter and a few tears, the kind that will anchor a life without expiration.
Later, after the last music dwindles down and the fairy lights seem to gather closer as if to listen, Cam hands the envelope to a notary who doubles as a wedding planner, a private extra for a family that is trying to be better than its history. You don’t see the exchange, and that is exactly the point: the gift is momentary in its presentation and then permanent in its consequence. What he has done, quietly and without sermon, is make your life less precarious financially. The house is both a symbol and home, and today it is also a line drawn: we stand here, together, and the math is no longer a threat.
You dance because you know how to move again, perhaps even better than before. You’re slow and sharp in Steve’s arms, because the world turned on you and you spun it back with grit. You whisper that you love him and he mouths it back like a prayer that’s never not on his mind. Around you both, laughter and the sound of two families still learning each other’s rhythms recompose themselves into a chorus.
And once the wine has coursed its way into your system to keep up with the buzz that was already there from pure, sober joy, and your feet are beginning to burn — now the best feeling in the world — thanks to dancing the entire night away, Eddie’s band plays one more song.
Something raw and imperfect.
Jonathan leaves the dance floor and presses a film camera to his eye, giddy and capturing you as you suddenly think of all the people who have all kept you safe: of Hopper’s hands, calloused and warm; of Joyce’s persistent love; of these six kids who stayed, these six kids who came home; of a man with a wild history of repeating senior year thrice, who now officiated your love into ceremony; of a girl you used to think was snarky, who’s now your dearest gal pal and your husband’s platonic soulmate; of his ex-girlfriend, who now feels like a sister to you; of the little girl who has literally become your sister, ever since she came to stay with you in the woods and let you hold her, then held you in return.
You look at Steve and you realize this is not an ending. It’s an adjudication: you survived. You took the fragments and put them down into a mosaic that looks like a house and a future. You let people in who had no right and they made a life with you that is bigger than they were alone. The vows you made are not a contract with a perfect future; they are a promise to show up when the world is a bear, to make the small mercies habitual.
When the night finally closes, the wishlanterns are released into the midnight abyss and drift away like tiny upstarts into the dark, and the fairy lights blink out one by one, leaving the house full but quiet. You curl against Steve on the rooftop, the two of you breathing the same cool air, and he smiles at you with that charming grin you know intimately.
“We did it, Thumper,” he says, voice all honey.
“We did,” you answer, teeth against his shoulder. “And you worried you’d ruin something...psshhh…”
He laughs into you. “Ruining things is my brand. Keeping you is the plan.”
You press a kiss to the bandage on his thumb where he’d cut himself the day you first moved in, the broken domesticity that now reads like history. The house beneath your feet is warm. The pool is a black mirror. The keys in his pocket are real, and the deed inside the pool house, amongst the vast array of wedding gifts, now awaits its turn as a quiet little monument of proof that sometimes, fathers and millionaire assholes can be saints in slow-motion.
You let the night hold you, small and enormous all at once, and you think of the soup Eddie had once been handed, of therapists who taught your legs to get up, of friends who stitched themselves into your life like a seam. The day was ridiculous and holy, as all honest things are.
Later this week, you’ll have a million small arguments about where to hang up the photograph that Jonathan captured of that stupid perfect kiss under the arbor. You’ll get impatient about the weird backsplash in the new kitchen just so that Steve will kiss you hard and shut you up, and you’ll argue about whether the dog should be allowed on the couch, whenever you both get one. You’ll become domestic in the way two people who survived learn to be: messily, meaningfully and forever.
But for now… draped in the afterglow of who you once were and who you’ve decided to be, the yard is quiet except for the rustle of two nuggets, giggling like children as they make their way back inside the main house to sleep and snack and dream about the day, just so they can all relive it, start to finish. It makes you smile, hearing them as you hold Steve’s hand until the pressure becomes a rhythm… and you fall asleep on the rooftop beneath the stars, in a swaddle of plush throw blankets and pillows, like two newlyweds who have already arrived at their honeymoon. As two people who have been on a long journey, and finally found the right room in the house where they belong.
As two people who didn’t start with “once upon a time…”
But instead, with the phrase: “tell me what you need.”
The answer was always each other.
~ La Fin.
Dedicated to my @ashkuuuu, @slutforpumpkins, @silkholland, @ashbyeto and all of you that followed this journey from the start xo
love, misha
