Can I get a Chicago deep dish with bacon and side of breadsticks and ginger ale
i just carry the name
pairing: steve harrington x reader
w/c: 1.8k
warnings/tags: angst. this is angst with little hope. arguments, ptsd, mention of major character death, husband! steve
a/n: i am so sorry
masterlist // pizza party
The rain hadn’t stopped in days. It was the kind of steady, gray March downpour that made the whole town feel like it was underwater. Your house on the edge of Hawkins felt smaller than ever in 1992- three years into a marriage that was supposed to be the part where things got better.
It didn’t.
Steve came through the door late again, shoulders tight, jaw set. You were already on the couch in the dark, one of his old sweatshirts swallowing you, the TV on with the sound off. You hadn’t eaten. You rarely did on days like this.
He dropped his keys into the bowl by the door so hard the ceramic cracked against the wood.
“You didn’t eat,” he said.
“I’m not hungry.”
“You’re never hungry anymore.” He stayed by the door like he was afraid to come closer. “And you didn’t call. I left a message at Robin’s earlier. Figured you’d be there.”
Your stomach twisted. “I was just… sitting.”
“Bullshit.” He finally moved, pacing into the living room, running a hand through his hair until it stood up in wet spikes. “You’ve been sitting in the dark every night this week. You flinch when I try to kiss you goodnight. You wake up crying and you won’t even let me hold you half the time. And last night-” His voice cracked. “Last night you said his name again. Clear as day. ‘Eddie, please-’ like you were begging him not to go.”
You swallowed hard, throat already tight. “It was a nightmare, Steve. I can’t control what happens when I’m asleep.”
“You can control what you do when you’re awake.” He stopped pacing and looked at you, eyes red-rimmed and exhausted. “You can control the fact that you still keep that stupid guitar pick in your jewelry box like it’s some kind of holy relic. You can control the way you go quiet every time someone plays Metallica in the car. You can control how you look at old photos when you think I’m not watching.”
Tears stung your eyes immediately. “He was my best friend. I watched him die right in front of me. That doesn’t just… go away because we got married.”
Steve laughed, short and bitter. “There it is. Again. ‘He was my best friend.’ Like that explains everything. Like I’m supposed to just nod and smile while my wife is still in love with a dead guy six years later.”
“I am not in love with him!” Your voice rose, shaky. “He was my best friend, Steve! We grew up together. He gave me that pick before everything went to shit. Before the bats. Before I had to stand there and watch him get torn apart while I couldn’t do a single fucking thing to stop it!”
“You think I don’t remember?” Steve shouted back. “I held Dustin while he screamed his name! But I’m still here. I’m the one who married you. I’m the one trying to build a life and every single day it feels like I’m losing to a ghost!”
You stood up, hands shaking. “You’re not losing to anyone! This isn’t a competition! I love you, Steve. I chose you. But losing Eddie broke something in me that I don’t know how to fix, and every time you throw it in my face like I’m cheating on you with a dead man it makes it worse!”
“Oh, so now it’s my fault?” He stepped closer, voice cracking with fury and hurt. “I’m the bad guy because I notice that my wife still cries over someone else? Because I notice that you talk to Robin about him more than you talk to me? Because every time I have a flashback- every time I wake up thinking I’m back in that Russian elevator or those tunnels- you’re the one who can’t even look at me sometimes?”
“That’s not fair-”
“No, what’s not fair is me coming home every night wondering if today’s the day you finally admit you wish it had been me instead of him!” The words exploded out of him. “At least then you’d still have your precious best friend and I wouldn’t have to watch you grieve someone who isn’t even here while I’m standing right in front of you!”
You felt the tears spill over, hot and immediate. Your chest heaved. “How can you say that to me? After everything? After we got married thinking maybe- just maybe- we could have something normal? You think I enjoy this? You think I like waking up screaming his name? You think I like the way you look at me like I’m broken?”
“I think you’re still in love with him,” Steve said, quieter now but no less vicious. “And I think no matter how many times you say ‘best friend,’ it doesn’t change the fact that part of you died with him that night and the rest of you is still back there in that trailer park. And I’m here trying to hold together a marriage that feels like it’s already over.”
You stared at him, sobbing openly now, shoulders shaking. “I can’t keep having this fight. It’s the same thing every time. You accuse me. I defend myself. You get more hurt. I get more exhausted. And nothing changes. We just keep bleeding on each other.”
“Then maybe stop running to Robin every time it gets hard,” he shot back. “Maybe stay and actually talk to your husband instead of treating me like the enemy.”
You wiped your face with both hands, voice breaking. “Robin doesn’t accuse me of being in love with a dead man. Robin doesn’t make my grief feel like a betrayal. I’m going there because I can’t breathe in this house right now.”
You turned and walked to the bedroom. The duffel bag was already half-packed from the last almost-fight. You threw in more clothes with shaking hands, tears dripping onto the fabric.
Steve followed you, standing in the doorway. “So that’s it? You’re leaving again?”
“I need space,” you choked out. “We’re not fixing anything like this. We’re just making it worse.”
“Space.” He laughed again, wet and angry. “Right. Go to Robin. She always knows exactly what to say, doesn’t she? Probably tells you I’m the problem. That I’m insecure. That I don’t understand what you went through.”
You zipped the bag and shouldered it, turning to face him. Your voice was raw. “She tells me the truth. That we’re both fucked up from what happened. That watching your best friend die in front of you doesn’t have an expiration date. And that accusing me of still being in love with him while I’m trying to survive the memory isn’t love- it’s fear. And I’m tired of being afraid with you.”
You pushed past him. He didn’t grab you this time.
The drive to Robin’s was a blur of rain and your own ragged breathing. By the time she opened the door, you were soaked and crying so hard you could barely speak.
She pulled you inside without asking questions.
You stayed.
Five days turned into a week of replaying every word in your head on a loop. The way Steve’s voice had cracked on “I’m losing to a ghost.” The way he’d looked at you like you were already gone. The way your own sobs had interrupted your sentences until you couldn’t finish a thought.
On the sixth night you called him from Robin’s kitchen, hands shaking around the receiver.
He picked up on the second ring. “Yeah?”
“It’s me.”
A long pause. You could hear him breathing, shaky. “You coming home?”
“Not yet.” Your voice was hoarse from days of crying. “Not until you agree to therapy. Real therapy. Both of us. I can’t keep doing this, Steve. The accusations. The same fight every week. It’s not getting better. It’s just getting louder.”
Another silence. Then his voice, low and rough: “So that’s the deal? I go to therapy or you don’t come back?”
You closed your eyes. “It’s not a deal. It’s the only way I see us not destroying each other. You accused me of being in love with Eddie. You said I wish it had been you who died. Do you have any idea what that did to me?”
“I was angry,” he snapped, then immediately sounded smaller. “I was scared. I still am. Every time you leave it feels like proof that I’m right. That you’d rather be with his memory than with me.”
“I’m not with his memory!” Your voice cracked. “I’m grieving my best friend who got ripped apart in front of me while I stood there useless! And instead of helping me carry that, you keep throwing it at me like it’s some kind of crime! Therapy or I don’t come home, Steve. I mean it.”
You heard him exhale, long and tired. For a second you thought he was going to hang up.
Then: “Fine. I’ll call tomorrow. Individual. Couples. Whatever. Just… come home. Please.”
It didn’t sound like relief. It sounded like surrender.
You drove back the next afternoon with your stomach in knots.
Steve was on the porch when you pulled up, arms crossed, face unreadable. The rain had finally stopped but everything still felt damp and heavy. He didn’t rush to hug you. You didn’t rush to him.
“I made the calls,” he said when you reached the steps. His voice was flat. “First appointment’s next week. Both of us. Separate sessions too.”
You nodded, throat tight. “Okay.”
He looked at you for a long moment. His eyes were bloodshot. “You really weren’t going to come back unless I agreed, were you?”
“No.”
Another silence. He rubbed a hand over his face. “I hate this. I hate that we’re here. I hate that every time I try to tell you how scared I am it comes out wrong and you leave.”
“I hate that you think I’m still in love with him,” you whispered. Fresh tears burned. “I hate that you said I wish you’d died instead. I hate that we keep having the same fight and it never ends.”
Steve’s jaw worked. He looked away, toward the wet street. “Maybe it doesn’t end. Maybe this is just what we are now.”
You didn’t argue. You didn’t have the energy.
Inside, the house smelled like stale coffee and the faint trace of the cigarette smoke from the habit Steve had picked back up. He made dinner neither of you really ate. You sat on opposite ends of the couch. The TV stayed off.
That night you lay in bed with your backs to each other. You stared at the wall and replayed the argument again- the part where he’d said you were still in love with a dead man, the part where you’d sobbed that he was your best friend and you’d watched him die. The part where he’d asked if you wished it had been him.
You heard Steve’s breathing hitch once in the dark, like he was crying too, but neither of you turned over.
The therapy appointment was on the calendar.
The fights still felt endless.
And the ghost of what Steve had accused you of still sat between you like a third person in the room- quiet, heavy, and unwilling to leave.
