Summary: Steve Harrington and his friends ruin your Romeo & Juliet callback, you vow to never speak to him ever again, and Steve vows to make it up to you.
Word count: 4.6K
Warnings: x reader, it’s angsty, they fight, drama or whateva, but you know! They make it up again in the end! Steve absolutely pining for ya, mentions of Carol bullying Robin. I’m sick right now, so my writing might be dogshit. We’ll see.
Mango talks 🥭: hello awesome sauce human beings! I’m so glad people were excited for this one! I hope it doesn’t disappoint. I’ve been wanting to write Theatre Reader for a while, since I, mango, do theatre. So this is a love letter to all my theatre kiddos! Hope you enjoy 💗
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Line after line, your eyes racing on the page, and yet, it still didn’t feel right. You had been practicing this monologue for hours each passing day, but still you felt like there was something missing in your performance.
Juliet. When you saw your name on the callback sheet next to the role of Juliet you squealed. Hand in hand with Robin, you both looked absolutely mad jumping up and down in circles in the middle of the school hallway. After years of being in the Hawkins High drama department, you’ve never gotten a lead. You were ensemble every now and then, supporting roles here and there, even understudy, but never a lead. Especially not in shows as classic and timeless as Romeo and Juliet. You could really shine this time.
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Hours on hours every day you made Robin practice with you, which got a bit silly.
“O Romeo! Romeo, wherefore art though romeo?” You deliver the line with so much passion and control, missing the part where Robin actively yawns, you two have been going at this for the 76th time today. “Rob! it’s your line.”
“Shit- right, sorry.” Robin scrambles to find her page before sighing and giving the most monotone and uninteresting delivery, “Shall I hear more, or shall I uh- shall I speak at this- or whatever.” Robin gives little unenthusiastic jazz hands.
“At least pretend to be interested, I need an active scene partner!”
“Cut me some slack! Please! We’ve been rehearsing this for hours!” Robin flopped on to her back on your bed. “You got this. You’ve got it down, trust me. You’re going to get the role of Juliet, and I’m going to be the best Mercutio you’ve ever seen.”
“I don’t know Robin, Kristy Claybell is pretty good.” You feel yourself going into a cold sweat thinking about facing your competition for this role, somehow for everything it was always between you and her. You didn’t have anything against Kristy at all, in fact, you always tried to be overly nice to her because you could feel the tension, but it always seemed like she gave you the cold shoulder or was ready to stab you right in the face with a machete.
Robin rolls her eyes, “Kristy Claybell can suck a fat one.”
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You have exactly two hours and twenty minutes before your callback at the end of the school day, you take every chance you get during passing periods to glance down at your lines, evidently not making you pay attention to what’s in front of you. Before you know it, you feel a hand ruffling your hair.
“Where’s the fire?” Steve asks with a sly smirk “you’re going to kill someone walking with your head down at 80 miles per hour.” He shrugged, “had to pull you over for speeding.” Your stupid neighbor. He enjoyed messing with you and getting under your skin, playful sure, but it didn’t make it any less annoying.
“I’m practicing lines for my callback Steve” you mumble, swatting his hand and fixing your hair, which you tried to make especially perfect today for your big day and now it’s a mess. Stupid Harrington strikes again.
Dickhead.
Steve chuckles before running his hands through your hair to fix the mess he created, even pushing strands of hair behind your ear, causing slight small butterflies to form in your stomach. But that’s totally just because of the audition…
“Ah” he grabs your lines and holds it up so it was just out of reach for you. “Is this what I’ve been hearing every night? I could’ve sworn it was a cat dying or a moose getting murdered in the middle of the night, my mistake.”
“Stalker” you fired back. Your windows were across from each other, so he must’ve heard a lot, especially your fights with Robin when she tries giving directorial notes that didn’t make any sense, “be cooler.” Those were particularly loud. “What? You sit by your window and just watch me you perv?”
You tried grabbing your pages back, but Steve put his arm against you, pushing you down before he started to dramatically read “O Romeo! Romeo!” He made sure to make his voice sound impressively high pitch, he thought he was quite funny.
“Shut up Steven” you hit his arm and grab the papers, swiping them away from him before rolling your eyes. Steve has always gotten on your nerves even as children. He’d cheat in hide and seek and always been too fast to catch in tag. Annoying little bastard.
“Oh.” You mumble, “my grandparents want to know if you and your parents are coming over for dinner on Sunday.”
“We’ll be there” Steve smiles with that classic Steve the hair Harrington smile. That made you want to punch him, but also, you didn’t hate it.
“Bummer. I was actually looking forward to a peaceful dinner.” You deadpan. “Now go away, don’t you have some girl to suck face with? Or another class to sleep through?”
Steve pouts in fake annoyance before he starts walking off, when he takes a couple steps he turns around again, “oh- break a hand” giving a thumbs up.
“A leg you mean?” Steve’s face immediately goes bright red before he scratches the back of his neck.
“Yeah, yeah that.” There goes the butterflies in your stomach again damn it.
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Your palms were sweating, your face was sweating, could legs sweat? You’re not entirely sure, but they felt like they were sweating the most. When you heard it was your turn to go on stage, you swore you were about to run out of the room, change your name, and not look back.
The stage lights were blinding and you swear your body just didn’t work anymore. Mrs. Robinson gave you a smile before pushing up her glasses, “whenever you’re ready dear.” You always liked Mrs. Robinson, she was a great drama teacher. Very sweet, you always imagined her as a cat lady with exactly three cats: snuffles, tangerine, and pickle. However, right now, she was the most intimidating thing you’ve ever seen. you take a deep breath in before beginning. You could feel your body getting into a rhythm, a sense of calm washes over you as you begin delivering your lines. Mrs Robinson smiling and jotting some notes down. You always felt so at peace on the stage. There was something so special about turning yourself off and hopping into another character, it made you feel whole. You couldn’t image yourself anywhere else. It was meant for you, it was always meant for you.
Everything appeared to be going well, until the middle of your monologue you hear some snickering and claps that echoed across the auditorium. You did your best to block out the noise.
“What’s in a name? That which we call- um.” The noises got louder in the back of the auditorium, it sounded like whispers and cheers, and your mind began to go blank. Shit shit shit you’re forgetting the words. You try your best to avoid your eyes steering where the sound was coming from, but it was no use, your eyes auto directed towards the noise, Steve Harrington and his two simpleton henchmen.
“A rose, by any other word-“ before you know it, Carol and Tommy H. Started hollering and screaming through their hands in the most obnoxious and mocking way ever, Steve only sits and smiles watching you, but doing nothing to stop them. You begin to stutter, Mrs. Robinson, taking in your discomfort, turns around, takes off her glasses and begins yelling.
“You three! Out! Now!” Heat climbs all over your face as you stand on the stage, feeling vulnerable and awkward. “Harrington, Perkins, Hagen. I’ll see you three in detention!” Mrs. Robinson threatened. It didn’t have any effect though, Tommy and Carol only rolled their eyes and laughed as they hopped over the auditorium seats to exit, Steve strolling behind.
“Blow me” Carol blew Mrs. Robinson an air kiss.
“Break a leg!” Tommy shouted at you laughing deviously like the idiot he was, before blowing a whistle like noise through his fingers.
You were doing so well before being interrupted, now you’re going to have to start over and find that rhythm again, you stand back in the center of the stage ready to restart. Okay, you’ve got this, again.
“I’ve seen enough” Mrs Robinson looks down at her notes, “you can go sweetheart, thank you.”
“what?” you mutter out “oh I- I didn’t finish” you smile awkwardly, you could feel the tears swelling up in your eyes and your throat closing in.
“That’s alright dear, I’ve seen what I needed.”
“Right! Absolutely. But- if I could just take a few more minutes of your time to redo my scene-“
“That won’t be necessary” your heart fell to your stomach. You could only stare forward, scared that making any sudden reactions would result in you bawling in front of your theatre director, which would 100% be very unprofessional. There was no way your fate was being determined by three assholes who barged in to embarrass you, you worked too hard for your mistakes to not even be from you but instead outside forces who can’t even write a full sentence. When you turned your head, Kristy Claybell picked at her nails and smiled, waiting for you to get off the stage so she could blow Mrs. Robinson's mind with her talent and take Juliet right from under your nose.
You bit your lip to stop yourself from tearing up, you smiled at Mrs. Robinson and thanked her for her time before grabbing your bag and quickly pushed through the auditorium doors. You needed to go home, you needed to call Robin and tell her what a douchebag Steve Harrington was, maybe even egg his house! I mean, he was literally next door over, so it wouldn’t require much travel.
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As you swiftly ran out the auditorium, you conveniently ran into Steve and his two goons. Perfect.
“Hey” Steve smiled at you, perching himself up with one arm on a locker, you would be thinking he looked really good right now, but you were mixed with so much rage, despair, and the complete need to down some Ben and Jerry’s chocolate ice cream and cry into your dad’s arms, that you couldn’t think anything positive of him right now. You had to go home.
“How’d the rest of the audition go princess?” Tommy smiled while trying not to laugh, Carol snorted into her sleeve.
Your mind told you to walk away from them, that they weren’t worth it, don’t give them the satisfaction, but you instead turned back to look at them, trying your best not to let your throat close in and cry. “Yeah, uh-” you lick your teeth “I wouldn’t know, because after the bullshit you three pulled, I got sent home. So.”
“Woah- what?” Steve’s eyebrows furrowed.
“You ruined my audition, Steve. That’s what.” You looked up at him waiting for him to somehow justify himself, but he wasn’t looking at you. He felt guilty, it was supposed to be harmless, he didn’t think you would be the one to bear the consequences.
“It was just a joke, relax.” Carol spat at you, quite literally, with all the gum she’s smacking like her life depended on it, probably going through withdrawal from all the packs she needed to smoke.
“Okay, so I actually wasn’t talking to you, bitch.” Your voice was sprayed with venom, you’re normally a very nice and delightful human being, but you’ve been meaning to spite Carol, especially since the nasty shit she pulled on Robin. Carol accused Robin of checking her out in the girl’s locker room, while all the girls sneered and giggled, Robin couldn’t do anything to defend herself. It made her feel helpless. While you were furious for your best friend, prepared to key Carol’s car, she told you to let it go, that it wasn’t worth it. Well Robin! That was for you!
Carol scoffed, ready to have some kind of catfight with you, but Steve blocked you with his body, holding you tightly, and telling Hagen to get his girl and walk off. When Carol and Tommy finally left, you shoved Steve off of you. God, you had so much pent up rage and momentum.
“You’re such an asshole.” You shook your head and felt the tears about to fall. “Of all the things you’ve done, Harrington, this is the lowest blow.” Harrington. It made his face grimace when you said it, he’s never been Harrington to you. Steve normally, Steven whenever you were annoyed with him (playfully annoyed he would think.) He really liked Steven, the only other people to call him Steven were his parents, but it was a lot cuter coming from you. Never Harrington though, he could add this to his mental notes of you, if you called him Harrington you were really really pissed. It was like you were trying to act like you didn’t know him, like there was a social disconnect between you two.
he said your name in the quietest comforting voice “I’m sorry, okay?” He was trying to find all the right words, “look. I didn’t know that was going to happen. I swear- Tommy and Carol, I mean, they’re just idiots, you know them.” He awkwardly laughed, like that’s an excuse.
“The three of you, were just conveniently being idiots while I was on stage, that’s great, just great. Thanks for that.” you spew sarcastically, “you actually couldn’t have picked a better time!” You shrug, walking away. Steve was right behind you, swooping in to be right in front of you once more.
“Hey, hey” Steve lightly grabbed the sides of your shoulders, “I swear to you. I just came to” he pauses before looking down “watch you.. you know, and support you.” Steve feels so shy suddenly, he knows how it sounds, especially with your perv comment from earlier. Because yes, Steve did enjoy being in your presence and watching you perform, he admired it.
“Why would you ever want to do that?” To you it was some kind of joke, but to Steve it was like a rhetorical question. Why wouldn’t he? He loves everything you do, scratch that, he loves everything about you. When you were up on that stage, Steve Harrington looked at you like you hung the moon and created the stars, just for him.
“Tommy and Carol just wanted to tag along when they heard where I was going, I didn’t know they were going to do that. I didn’t, I swear.”
“And you didn’t stop it. You just let them sit there and humiliate me.” Steve stares at you now, mouth gone dry. You’re right. He should’ve stopped it. “Thanks to you, I have blown the biggest callback of my life, for the one thing I really wanted, something I worked-” the tears were working up again, damn it. “So hard for. I mean you knew that, right?” Steve looked at you like a lost puppy, maybe in a different context you would feel even a sliver of compassion, but not now. No way. “You sat by the window and listened to me and Robin rehearsing every day for hours. And now? It was all for nothing, and Mrs. Robinson probably thinks I’m not taking it seriously, so yes, please thank Tommy H and Carol for me, ok?” You give him one last sarcastic lip tight smile.
“I’m sorry- cmon, please, let me make it up to you, let me take you home, okay?” he pleaded, he’ll get on his knees if that’s really what you want “and I’ll- I’ll talk to Mrs Robinson, tell her it’s all just a big misunderstanding- “
“-What’s that going to do? You think she’ll listen to you? Steve, you failed drama twice.” It was three times. But who’s counting. “Besides, even if she did listen, what? I’m going to get a role I didn’t deserve, all because the hero Steve the Hair Harrington somehow talked me up? yeah, no thanks.” You scoffed.
Steve was determined to fix this for you, you’re more deserving of this than anyone he knew. “You know, I could turn on my charm and-“
“Jesus Harrington! Stop talking!” You put your arms out like you were about to strangle him, “You caused this. The least you could do is shut your damn mouth and leave me alone. I never want to talk to you again.” If you knew any better, you would say there were little specs of tears in Steve Harrington’s eyes. You walked out, leaving Steve standing in the hallway feeling his heart was chipping away one piece at a time.
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Over the past couple days, you have been doing nothing but bed-rotting with Robin, you refused to get up, and as your best friend, she also now refused to get up and has now more of a reason to hate Steve Harrington than she already did before. All you could think about was that on Monday when you got back to school, the cast list would be up, and you’d be nowhere on it.
Steve had also been trying to reach out:
Calling your house, you told your dad to tell him you weren’t home. Ever.
Slipping notes through your lockers, a lot of “I’m sorry” “please don’t stay mad” and “I’ll drive you home after school, yeah?” Crumbled, crumbled, and crumbled.
Shining a flashlight through your window. You and Steve used to do this as kids, it was a funny gag to annoy the other person. But now he was doing it to get your attention, which led to Robin screaming at him because the light flickering on and off over and over again was nearly going to give her a migraine.
“Jesus Christ Harrington!” Robin grabbed on to your curtains at the window before shouting, “get a clue dingus! She doesn’t want to talk to you!” Robin slammed your window shut before dragging the curtains along with it.
It was Sunday. You forgot the Harringtons were invited over for dinner, and it was petty to get the entire family involved in your drama. So, at dinner, you barely said anything at all. Not unless provoked, such as being asked a question, then you just got really obnoxious.
“Are you feeling alright?” Your dad asked you, Steve looks at you, waiting for an answer.
“Yeah, yeah, just down. You know, just some drama at school.” Now you were piercing your eyes right into Steve Harrington’s soul. Steve scoffs, he feels bad but you were doing way too much. He can’t complain though, he deserves it.
The rest of the dinner went smoothly, you were polite and cordial, made a couple jokes here and there, and was completely successful in avoiding Steve. He wishes you took at least one glance at him, because he was watching you the whole night, not even just in guilt, he always just liked looking at you, and it killed him that you weren’t looking back and possibly blushing like you used to.
By the end of the night, Mrs. Harrington was saying her goodbyes to your grandparents, making plans to have dinner again next week, and Mr. Harrington and your father were chatting about the upcoming football game and fixing the fence dividing your houses that you accidentally ran into with your car (whoops, sorry..) That just left you with Steve, who you couldn’t look in the eye. You say a blanket goodnight to everyone before exiting the front entrance and walking up the stairs to your room to get away from him.
“Hey” Steve’s breath was shaky, he followed you to the bottom of the steps, you rolled your eyes and kept walking. “I know! Okay I messed up! ” he calls out to you, he’s pleading again. “I know you don’t want to talk to me, but just, give me three minutes of your time and you’ll never have to talk to me again if that’s not what you want.”
“Two.” You deadpan.
“I’ll make it one” Steve chuckles, and you almost chuckle too, almost. “I just want to say- I’m sorry. I’m sorry about Thursday. I should’ve shut them up, maybe punched Tommy H in the face, and I shouldn’t have ruined your callback thing.”
“You’re telling me things I already know, Harrington.”
“But- but. I just want to say, before Tommy and Carol opened their mouths, you were really good. I mean! You’re always good. It’s just, seeing you on that stage reading your old English or whatever, I knew, you were the perfect Juliet. Granted, I never finished reading Romeo and Juliet for English class and uh shit fuck, I swear I rehearsed this.”
“You got 30 seconds” it was more like 15, but if he continued to flatter you, you’ll give him an extra 15 seconds just to compliment you.
“Okay okay I- I know I messed up, but I swear to you, god, no one, I mean no one is built for that role more than you. So I just came here to say, don’t sweat about that stupid nerdy cast list. If you’re not on it, it won’t be because of me, or Carol, or Tommy H, but because Mrs. Robinson is an idiot who can’t see what I see.” Your eyes narrowed. “You won’t have to worry about that list though, cause I know you’ll be Juliet, and I’m sorry I’m a dumb knucklehead that pushed you a little off course of that.” Steve finally let go of his breath, he could have the chops to be an actor too if he really tried, great breath control. “That’s all.”
You stare at him trying not to smile even a little, you wanted him to grovel a little more, but you appreciated everything you heard.
“Goodnight Harrington.”
“Goodnight.” Steve watched you walk up the steps to your room before closing your door, he caught a little glimpse of your yellow and pink wallpaper. He’s seen your room through his window, memorizing the posters on your walls and the knick knacks on your nightstand, but never has gotten the privilege to actually be physically in there.
One day though.
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The following Monday, you avoided the theatre blackbox as much as possible, knowing the list will be up and your fate will be sealed. You feel heavy, like your feet are just dragging on the ground and a rain cloud you can’t seem to shake resides above you.
“Hey!” You can hear Robin scream from behind you, she’s panting, “I have been running all over this damn school looking for you.” Robin was your other half, but right now, her sunny disposition and your melancholy existence do not mix well. She grabs your shoulders tightly before turning you around, making you squeal “have you checked the cast list?” Her tone sharp, and actually kind of scary.
“No, Rob. And I don’t plan to, there’s no point.”
“But! Did you hear who got Juliet?” She practically screams in your ear.
“Tell Kristy I said congratulations and I know she’ll do amazing as always.” You try to open your locker to grab your notebooks, but Robin had other plans.
“Oh my god, Kristy Claybell can suck a fat one.” Robin grabs you by the collar and basically drags you to the cast list, you refused to look at first, but Robin wouldn’t stop hitting you on the arm.
“Okay! Okay!” You slapped her back, your eyes traced over the sheet, starting at the bottom, assuming you’d be placed in the ensemble. When you can't find your name you keep going up and up.
“Congratulations on Mercutio.” You gave Robin a fist bump, still keeping your eyes on the sheet. “I don’t see my name anywhere.” You feel deflated, you could’ve at least made ensemble rather than nothing at all.
Robin’s eyes roll to the back of her head “You’re such a dingus.” She places your finger at the very top of the page.
Your name. Next to Juliet.
You’re Juliet.
“Holy shit!” You’re Juliet! You want to scream and jump up and down with Robin, but you feel too excited, like the happiness radiating from your body was somehow pushing you down. Plus, it was best not to gloat, Kristy and the other candidates were standing right there, but you swore someone whispered “She was definitely the best choice.”
After you calmed down, for some reason, the first thing that popped into your head was to tell your charmingly annoying neighbor. You wanted to go up to Steve and tell him your big news, but why would he care? He thought theatre was for nerds anyway, and like he said, he never finished Romeo and Juliet for his English class. Walking to grab your notebooks, you had a little extra pep in your step, you couldn’t help but do a little dance when opening your locker. When you swung it open, a note dropped into your hands.
You picked it up, and opened it with so much care, “Congratulations :) I knew you could do it.” it read. You knew exactly who this was from.
You hear someone clearing their throat right behind you, Steve Harrington, the one and only.
“When’d you slip this in my locker, stalker?” You give a sly smile.
Steve scratched the back of his neck, keeping the other hand tightly behind his back. “Right when I found out. I paced back and forth all morning for Mrs. Robinson to come out and stick the list on the board, she shook her head and rolled her eyes when she saw me.” He whispered, “I wanted to be the first person to congratulate you when I knew you’d get it.” He shrugged, he wanted to appear nonchalant.
You two look at one another, there’s something there that you can’t quite place, but you like it, you really like it. It’s like you two were magnets, pulling closer and closer to one another.
You both cough at the same time and Steve laughs awkwardly before he remembered “oh uh- I got you these.” Steve pulls his hand from his back revealing a bouquet of flowers. “I got this for you before the cast list even came out you know- like if you somehow didn’t get Juliet, I guess these would be like “I’m sorry for being an asshole” flowers, but like I thought you would get it- so actually these are more like congratulation flowers-“
“I thought theatre was dorky.” you smiled, grabbing the flowers from his hands. He was rambling and his cheeks were turning bright pink.
“No! No. It’s cool, well it’s cool when you do it.” Steve Harrington could never keep composure around you for more than a minute. The usual charm and flirtatious manner he seemed to wow the girls with never seemed to work when it came to you, he melted for you. You turned his legs to jello and you brought out the little boy in him who used to try to scare you just so you’d yell “Steven!” He loved hearing you say his name.
“I know the tradition is to bring flowers on a show’s opening night, but i already bought these and obviously these would die by the time-“ Steve was cut off when you perched yourself up to quickly plant a peck on his lips, it was quick and soft, he wish he had the power to slow down time to take it all in. He blinked rapidly, unable to process what had just happened. He definitely wasn’t mad though, quite the opposite actually.
“Thanks, Steven.” You close your locker, after grabbing your notebooks and the bouquet before walking off. You quickly turn around and walk backwards “drive me home okay?” You smile before spinning and going off to class.
Steven. You couldn’t see it but Steve pumps his fist in the air. Oh yeah, Steve Harrington was so out of the dog house.
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Mango talks! Again!: thank you so much for reading. If you want to check out more neighbor Steve, you can read:
This way!
Hope you enjoyed and thanks for reading! Check out my other works on my page <3 I am also taking requests xx
hey guys, looking for the extended post of antler guy and neighbor steve with all the headcanons added after? i thought i saved it, but i was silly and did not. links much appreciated
I saw a couple Neighbor Steve posts just now and thought, "Antler Guy and Neighbor Steve probably live in Night Vale." And then I went Neighbor Steve...there's already a Steve in Night Vale...HOLY SHIT NEIGHBOR STEVE IS STEVE CARLSBERG!!!!
