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Chapter Warnings: slow burn friends to lovers, minor character deaths, depictions of loss and grief, discussions of wounds/scars, constant miscommunication, language, drinking
Chapter Summary: you and steve have to find a way to work together and raise your goddaughter together. that's a lot easier than figuring out how you feel about him at any given moment.
Fic Summary: You and Steve can't stand to be around one another... but you have to learn to coexist and raise your goddaughter together in the face of the apocalypse.
It felt wrong, sleeping in Carol and Tommy's bed. The pillow smelled like her shampoo, the mattress was a little caved in where Tommy slept. You turned over and buried your face in the pillow, hiding yourself in the ugly floral bedspread that Carol had registered for. Peach and teal. What kind of lunatic picks peach and teal?
You were trying to believe that they'd be back soon to relieve you from babysitting duties and let you be on your merry way, but with what you had seen, it was hard to believe in much of anything. Grey dust was still raining from the sky when you woke up. Smoke poured from the cracks in the earth, and the night was washed in an eerie red glow.
Something was wrong with Hawkins. A rot in its very foundations, a festering disease. It had been that way for a while— a curse, maybe. That's what your parents thought, at least. The devil is in Hawkins.
And then there was the Steve Harrington of it all.
Steve, who was sleeping on the couch because there wasn't a spare bedroom. Steve, who you could hear making breakfast in the kitchen while Samantha slept. Steve, who was acting like everything was completely normal between the two of you.
You tried to remind yourself that there were more important things going on than your personal issues with Steve. That Samantha might have lost her parents, that the world (or, at least, your world) was carved into quarters and the gray gunk hadn't stopped falling down like rotten snow.
And still… you could hardly even look at him.
Being around Steve had a particular way of twisting up your insides. In making the nostalgia of having him in your life tangle with the ache of being burned by him over and over again. Sometimes you'd see him rocking the baby and there would be a second of longing, a tiny spark snuffed out by all of your anger and hurt.
Steve dropped something in the kitchen, you could hear the clatter against Tommy and Carol's cheap laminate floors. He was trying to be civil, but it just felt like putting a band-aid over a severed artery. You'd keep bleeding and bleeding and bleeding if you stayed around him.
You made yourself get up and look like a human being again. The baby was pretty much sleeping through the night before the quake, but her routine had been completely scrambled. You weren't sure if babies had the capacity to miss their parents, especially so young, but you thought that maybe she did.
But, god, you were exhausted. Your eyes hurt, your head ached, and you hadn't showered in a frankly irresponsible number of days. It felt wrong to shower in your missing friends' shower, using their soaps, drying off with their towels. But afterward, you stared at yourself in the small bathroom mirror through the thin sheen of fog, hair dripping onto your shoulders.
At least you felt a little more human.
By the time you finally joined Steve in the kitchen, he had already made you a stack of pancakes. They were slightly misshapen, and a little burnt, but you were so hungry you could have eaten a lump of charcoal. And you could always drown them in syrup.
He poured you a glass of orange juice, and leaned back against the counter while you ate. The entire time, you were conscious of his eyes on you, his constant attention. After a few bites, you put your fork down and met his gaze with a look of incredulity.
"What?" You asked.
"Finish eating first," he said. "You've barely had anything for the last few days."
You looked out the window, brows furrowing. The grass looked wrong— leached of color, brittle. Everyone was on orders from the military to stay indoors until the adverse weather event was over, but no one was listening. At least half of the street was packing up to leave.
With the way things were looking, with military trucks driving up and down streets… you didn't think that was such a terrible idea. Fences were already going up around the town's perimeter. Who knew how long until escaping Hawkins was impossible?
You took another bite of your pancakes and gave him a look. There, happy? You dropped your fork against the dish and raised an expectant brow. "Just say whatever you're going to say, okay?"
But Steve shook his head, arms crossed. "No, you're always grumpier on an empty stomach—"
"Steve, the sooner you drop the performance of being my very best pal, the better things will go for both of us," you snapped.
Jesus, his insistence on pretending to be an amazing, upstanding guy was driving you fucking crazy. Not once had he addressed the enormous elephant in the room that was your last conversation. Not even an apology, not even an acknowledgement.
Hey, sorry I called you beautiful and said I missed you then fucked you in the backseat of my car, only to go totally radio silent because I unilaterally decided that it was a mistake. Breakfast?
How were you supposed to raise a kid with him?
Babysit. You had to remind yourself it was just temporary. That it was babysitting. That there was still a shred of hope that Tommy and Carol would be fine.
"Fine," he said. His mouth formed a thin line as he looked at you. "I think we need to try to be civil for Sammie's sake."
There was a flutter in your jaw as you clenched your teeth. A flicker of restraint. Of course he would say that. "That's very noble of you to suggest, Steve," you said coolly.
It was his turn to show restraint. His eyes rolled, just a bit, and he shook his head. "I'm being serious. How we feel is at the bottom of a very long list of things to worry about right now." He ran a hand through his hair and your eyes flicked to his throat, to the bruises and cuts circling it. He winced at the minor stretch, just a bit, just tiny enough that you noticed.
Huh.
"It's not just Sammie I'm worried about. It's her parents, it's my family, it's my friends, it's the weird gray shit pumping into the air, it's my job, it's…" he shook his head and took a shaky breath. "So can we please just… not have to worry about this."
Steve made a gesture between the two of you, a casual flick of his hand. You thought it was funny that almost a decade of knowing someone could be bundled up and contained in this and a dismissive wave.
Years of one-sided pining that he knew about and never discouraged. All of the meddling into your first relationship. The wedding. How can he just pretend like none of it ever happened? Like it didn't still effect you?
A sick feeling soured in your stomach. As you put your fork down, you regretted the fact that he was right to suggest you eat first. "I think that's totally unfair," you argued. "You hurt me, and I'm just expected to be the bigger person and ignore it? Do you know how much it sucks to be around you?"
Steve, to his credit, knew not to answer that. He rubbed a hand over his jaw and sighed, looking anywhere but your eyes. The hand that rested on the table tapped restlessly, his knee bounced. He was a bundle of frayed nerves and unspoken words.
"Alright, fine," he said finally. "Hate me, scream at me, ignore me, I don't care. But none of this changes the fact that they're not going to find Tommy and Carol out there. And you know that."
Your bottom lip wobbled and you shook your head. "Don't say that. They're still finding people. They rescued Helen Parker and her dog just last night."
Helen Parker and her yappy poodle were one in a million, you knew. The National Guard had hit a wall in their recovery efforts. But still, you were insistent. The alternative was facing reality, and listening to the voice that had been whispering in your ear since the night of the earthquake.
Steve closed his eyes and sighed. "Helen Parker was trapped in rubble in her own house. It's different."
"And Carol and Tommy's car could be, like, pinned under a fallen tree, or something," you argued. "Maybe they weren't at Lover's Lake. Maybe they were on the road coming home when the quake happened. We don't know, Steve."
"It's been four days," he said, his brown eyes glossy. He sniffed, nose crinkling, but he didn't break your gaze. "I think we know."
It was hard to swallow around the huge lump in your throat. Hot tears pooled along your lash line, blurring your vision and threatening to fall. You forced yourself to look away from him, out to the dead grass in the backyard before the first tear of many fell. To your tear-filled eyes, everything looked like a sick, gray haze.
You hated that he was right. You knew. You had known since you walked into the Red Cross outpost at Hawkins High with your missing posters on special pink paper so they'd stand out in the sea of faces. Futile. Useless.
You'd spent the past few days grieving, in your own secret way, and dreaming that they'd walk through the front doors and go on and on about how crazy things were out there. But sitting at the table across from Steve, with your future staring at you down the barrel, you just felt pissed.
Carol always swore that you and Steve would end up together, just like in MASH. As her final joke, she shackled you to him forever. She really did have a sick sense of humor.
"Yeah." Your voice wavered, like it was shameful to even speak it out loud. Like as soon as you uttered the words, they'd walk through the door and hate you for giving up on them.
You'd seen the cracks in the earth— the deep wounds that cut into the town. You saw the way they bit into houses like they had been carved with a scalpel, saw the rot that bled from them.
The president had given a message from the Oval Office the night before to speak about the horrors that had unfolded in your little town. He made it clear that Hawkins was a federal disaster area. Jim next door said that pretty soon, the body count would start to rise.
It wasn't fair, you supposed, to tie up the living with the red tape of waiting seven years for someone to be presumed dead. In cases like this, you just knew.
Samantha whined, the soft noises crackling over the cheap speaker of the baby monitor. You cleared your throat and wiped your eyes. "My shift," you said firmly. "Get some sleep, Steve."
He agreed, begrudgingly, and retreated into Tommy and Carol's bedroom for sleep. You wondered if you should stop thinking of it as theirs.
Watching Samantha was the easy part. It was the quiet downtime that ate at your soul, chewing it up and spitting it out malformed and wrong.
You held Sam that night, sleeping peacefully, and you heard Carol in your mind. Her voice at sixteen telling you how she didn't want to be a mom until she was, like, thirty. You'd be a good mom though, she had assured. This assumption, of course, had been based off of how well you took care of her when she'd been drinking too much. The stick in the mud, the responsible one.
You held her daughter, and you felt so unsure. You'd never known if you wanted to be a mom before, and you really didn't even know in that moment, after the choice had already been made for you. And, god, it made you feel awful.
So much of who you were was owed to Carol. The house you had grown up in was cold and austere. You figured that they had wanted a son, but realized they didn't quite care for children after you were born. And that made you the unfortunate result of their attempt at a legacy.
Going over to Carol's house as a teenager felt like stepping into an entirely different world. They were loud and brash, open and frank. There were no secrets or holds barred. She seemed to know everything about the world, and she taught you all she could so you wouldn't be left behind.
How could you run away now when her little girl needed you to protect and guide her in the same way?
As you stared down at her sleeping face, those long lashes and her rosy cheeks, you felt the curtains closing on what might have been your life. Whether you liked it or not, you'd be playing understudy in a role you didn't even audition for.
Angst squeezed at your heart at the unfairness of it all. You heard your mother again, as you usually did in times of crisis. Life's not fair, and then you die.
You tried to be a good guardian, babysitter, parent, whatever to Samantha. You'd brush past Steve, wordless, awkward, and try to handle each task as it came up. Steve slept while you watched the baby, trying and failing to muffle out the sounds of her wails and your anxious rambling.
Here, let me help.
No, I've got it. Just go back to sleep, okay? I'm fine.
You should have accepted his help, but you just couldn't. It felt like rolling over and showing your weak underbelly, and that was the last thing you ever wanted to do in front of Steve Harrington.
It was stupid and stubborn, and neither one of you was any better for it. In fact, you were barely keeping your head above water. Stressed, grieving, and trying to put on a brave face. Babies can see feel when you're anxious. Like dogs. At least, that's what Tommy had told you once.
In any case, your method to the madness wasn't working. Sam was a mess— her sleeping schedule was off, she was irritable and whiny. It was impossible, or maybe unattainable, to make things go back to normal in this state. After a few days of chaotic avoidance of each other, you cornered Steve in the shower-foggy bathroom.
"We need to talk" you said, and really tried to keep your eyes on his face and not the low slung towel, or his chest hair, or… wait. "Oh my god, what happened?"
Each side of his torso was stitched to seal up jagged cuts marring his flesh. His back and arms were raw and scabbed in two long paths, like angel wings. Just by looking at him, you'd think he was chewed up and spit back out, but he acted like it was nothing out of the ordinary.
"Earthquake stuff," he said, eyes flicking to meet yours through the mirror. "It's fine. I'm managing. It's just kind of sore, or something."
It didn't look like he was managing. He had an open bottle of extra strength ibuprofen on the counter and a nearly-empty first aid kit. Your brows knit together. God, he was so infuriatingly stubborn.
"C'mon, Steve, have you even seen a real doctor?" You asked, brows knit. Your fingers just itched to reach out and soothe the damaged flesh. Just by sight alone, you knew things weren't fine. The skin was red and angry and swollen around his clumsily done stitches. It was grossly evident that this had been a slapdash patch up. "Steve," you said firmly. "Let me help."
He sighed, relenting, and raised a brow. "You're not going to kill me, are you?"
"No," you said with a casual shrug. "No way, I mean, good childcare is pretty hard to find. Now shut up and let me get an idea of what's going on. I'm the one in nursing school."
Well, to be fair, you were still pretty much covering your basics at college and were considering switching majors before you officially went for nursing school. But Steve didn't need to know that. Besides, your parents were both doctors, which meant you had a pretty good starting point. You would read medical textbooks for fun before you met Carol. Anything to impress mom and dad.
"So… I think a few of your, uh, gaping wounds are infected," you said, grimacing at the sight. Thick black thread haphazardly zig-zagged the gouges in his side, some of which had an oozy look that made your stomach turn. "And whoever stitched these closed did not know what they were doing."
Based on his affronted expression, you gathered that he was the one who had stitched some of them. "And you do?" He asked.
You shrugged, a tiny smile twitching at your lips. "Are you kidding? Any time there was a tear in my teddy bears, my dad taught me how to close it up with sutures." He made a face, nose wrinkling in distaste. "What? We could spend all night commiserating about parents' bad choices, but I'd rather get this cleaned up."
He braced himself against the counter with a groan as you grabbed a washcloth from a nearby cabinet. You cleaned your hands meticulously, then wet the washcloth under the warm tap. "Okay, so I'm going to just… clean the area, and it'll probably hurt, but just remember that getting sepsis would hurt way worse."
Steve grimaced, eyeing you warily as your hands got closer to his sides. "Work on your bedside manner," he said with a frown.
Noted. You took a deep breath, and wondered if you were more nervous than he was. You sure felt like it.
As soon as you began cleaning his wounds, his fingers curled against the lip of the counter and squeezed. Your gaze flicked up to meet his, apologetic. Nobody ever said taking care of him was going to be fun.
"So," you said, trying to distract him as the cloth brushed against his tender sides. "I think maybe we need to come to a truce."
A sharp hiss escaped him as the cloth brushed over the deepest gouge in his side. The muscles in his abdomen went taught, and his chest heaved with restraint. He met your gaze with flushed cheeks and bitten lips. "Is that what you came in here for? A truce?"
"Well, touching your gross, infected wounds wasn't my top priority, I'll say that much," you replied, biting your lip as you gently cleaned the scabbing at his hip. "I borrowed one of Carol's parenting books and I've been skimming, a little. And what I've gathered is that babies need structure and routine."
Steve groaned as you pressed the washcloth against a particularly tender set of stitches. His stomach quivered, and you watched as his knuckles went white against the counter. It was hard to hear him panting and groaning without your mind flashing back to the wedding and his backseat.
A sick, evil part of you wanted to apply a little more pressure, just to hear him cry out again. But you couldn't let yourself go down that path, which was a one way ticket to longing and wanting that you didn't want to revisit.
So you remembered the last time you'd both been in this position. It was the summer after ninth grade, after he borrowed and crashed the dirt bike Tommy got for his birthday. He slid across the asphalt parking lot of Bradley's Big Buy and got a gnarly road rash on his knee.
He rode on the back of your bike all the way to your house so you could use your first aid kit to patch him up. When he cried as you cleaned rocks and dirt from the bloody scrape, he made you promise not to tell anyone.
The thought had never even crossed your mind.
It seemed like he'd grown a thicker skin since you were both fifteen. He winced and groaned, but there were no tears tracking down his cheeks as you cleaned him up. Just a solid resolve and a keen ability to mask when he was in pain. You wondered when that had happened.
"Structure and routine," he echoed, his voice wavering as you moved to his other side.
"Mhmm," you hummed, brows furrowing as you took in his right side. This side was worse off for sure, but you were admittedly a little puzzled about where the injuries had come from. The flesh marred in starry, web-shaped patterns. "It's, uh, good for their development, apparently."
It was hard to look at him and not feel a little bit of pity. It all looked so painful— pink and raw. What earthquake could have caused this?
Steve didn't notice your confusion. He was probably too lost in the pain to notice much of anything. "Smart, yeah. Routines. Parenting books," he panted, swearing under his breath as you focused on the ragged, mangled flesh just above his hip. "I should do that."
You took mercy on him and made quick work of the rest. When you dropped the washcloth in the sink, he deflated with relief. His breaths were shaky, but his grip on the sink slowly relaxed.
"Well, actually, it's exactly what you tried to say in the kitchen a few days ago," you admitted. "Y'know… being civil, putting the past behind us for Sam's sake."
He nodded, swallowing hard as you wrapped his abdomen in sterile bandages. If he was pleased that you had admitted that he had been right all along, he didn't say anything. He stayed blissfully silent as you fastened the dressing.
"I just think, you know, our lives will be much easier if we're not taking day-shift and night-shift," you said, with a quick flick of your eyes from your handiwork up to his eyes. "And you're right. There are worse things going on in the world than our bullshit problems."
Steve swallowed, nodding. "Yeah, you're right. We're both adults."
Barely. You were struggling with the basic tasks of finding time to feed and bathe yourself while juggling a fussy three month old. You understood why Kimberly Wright had dropped out of school in junior year after she had her own whoopsie baby. Kids were tough.
"I just think, you know, we don't have to be best friends, but we can be a team." You looked at him and gave your best attempt at a smile. See? I'm being totally selfless right now. He smiled, just a bit, and nodded. "And that starts with me calling my mom to get you some antibiotics, and you taking the bed while you're healing. I'll be just fine on the couch."
His expression fell, and he followed you from the bathroom and into the hall, constricted a bit by the fluffy towel wrapped around his hips. "Hey, no," he argued. "No way. I'm on the couch. I like the couch."
You turned, making a face. No one liked the couch. It was springy and stiff, and you could hardly get comfortable and doze without the creaky metal waking you back up. And the constant exposure ugly floral pattern made you have weird nightmares.
You paused by the landline on the wall and shook your head. "Humor me," you said. "Just while your antibiotics run their course." He shook his head again, totally insistent. Steve was stubborn, but so were you. He put his hand on the landline to keep you from making the call.
"I'll sleep on the floor," he challenged.
"And I'll still sleep on the couch."
An impasse. It happened a lot when you spent time together.
That night, you both wound up laying in Tommy and Carol's bed with an impenetrable wall of pillows drawing a boundary between the two of you. You stared up at the ceiling, breathing slow and steady, wondering if Steve was asleep too.
The sheets rustled as you turned onto your side. Your eyes fell to the stack of pillows, and you watched as the tufts of Steve's hair that showed above it shifted as he turned too.
"I hate this bed," you finally said, cutting through the stillness of the dark room. "I hate sleeping where they slept. I hate this house, actually."
Steve sighed, and as you watched, his hand came over the peak of the pillow barricade and pushed it down so you could see each other. "Well, my uncle is still taking a look into everything," he said, his voice soft in the quiet of the night. "I'm thinking we can sell the house, pay off the mortgage, put it into an account for Sammie…"
You sighed. "And go where, exactly? I doubt either of our parents would be willing to invite a baby into their homes."
Steve shrugged. "My parents packed up and left last week," he said casually. Before you could gauge how he felt about that, he brushed it off. "But they're still wiring checks to pay utilities. I guess they didn't want me homeless. So… y'know, that's an option."
"I can't believe they just left," you whispered. Your parents really didn't have a choice but to stay. How could they ethically leave Hawkins Memorial in a time of crisis? But Steve's parents thought things were bad enough to leave and still left him behind.
He just shrugged. "Dad's financial firm has an office out of Indianapolis, and they're being put up in a hotel until they find something suitable."
You hummed softly. You'd never really cared much for Steve's parents, even when you were kids. They were grossly negligent and terribly callous. They got onto Steve's case for any minor slip-up, and didn't care to wait for you to leave before they really laid into him.
There had been so many times that you had to sit in a stunned silent while they yelled at him, saying all sorts of awful things that you didn't think parents should say to their children, especially not in front of their children's friends.
Your parents had their own issues, but Steve's… well, you really shouldn't have been surprised that they left him in Hawkins.
"Yeah, I mean…" you trailed off, brows knitting together as you imagined packing up your things and moving your things into Steve's house. "There's more space. We wouldn't have to share a bed."
"Yeah," he said, his voice softer. "She'd have a lot of space to play when she gets older. In the yard, in the pool. I could turn the basement into a real playroom."
There was something wistful in his voice, like he was already seeing a bright, happy future there. The next generation of Harringtons brooding in their nest.
You weren't sure how your future looked, or what it could possibly be. Sam was under your care— her parents had willed it so and, for better or for worse, you stepped up. You were a parent now, and anyone you dated would have to be okay with that.
If by some miracle you found a guy who was ready for that kind of commitment, he'd also have to be okay with coparenting with Steve. And, god, you'd have to be okay with whoever Steve brought around. Just the thought made your stomach turn.
"We should try to get some sleep," you whispered. "And hope that Sam sleeps through the night tonight."
"Mm, here's hoping. Goodnight." Steve rolled back over, and the pillow slowly puffed back up to seal the barrier between you. You echoed the sentiment, a soft whisper, and turned to face the ceiling.
When you were in eighth grade, Steve ran away from home. At least, that's what he had called it. Really, you weren't sure it counted if you only went one house over and no one was there to notice you were gone.
But he climbed up to your window with his backpack stuffed to the brim with his worldly possessions and asked if he could stay. It was the first time he'd ever been left alone and he didn't know what to do, but the house was big and even if he wouldn't admit it out loud, he was too scared to be alone.
That night, Steve laid next to you in your tiny twin bed. He took up too much space for your comfort, your feet were too cold against his calves, and he kept getting mouthfuls of your hair when he turned on his side to get more comfortable.
"No wonder my mom has her own room," he mumbled after your elbow dug into his ribs again. "This is the worst."
But, eventually, you found a way to sleep comfortably. Your head on his chest, his arms slung around you. He didn't even complain about your cold feet.
He did that a lot after that— just sneaking into your room and staying the night when he needed to get away. When you got a queen sized bed in Freshman year, it felt like Steve was happier than you were to have more space when he stayed over.
But by that point, you would have killed to be pressed against his side, hearing his heartbeat thrumming in your ear, squished in that tiny twin sized bed. But it was still nice, for a while, to give him a safe haven away from home.
You felt the stirrings of that with Steve across the pillow barrier. The urge to curl into his side and hear his pulse like the sweetest white noise. You were the one who needed that safety now— to be held and told that things would be fine. A quiet, comfortable place away from all of the uncertainty.
But you couldn't break down the pillow-y walls between you. They were just a physical manifestation of what had been set in stone the previous summer. The one person you wanted that comfort from was the person you could never accept it from. You swallowed and turned to face away from the pillows, letting the soft rhythm of Steve's breathing lull you to sleep.
As if rewarding your minor ceasefire, Samantha slept until morning.
April drew to a close, and in May, your best friends were officially been declared deceased. It was fair, given the circumstances. It made it so their wishes could be carried out, whether you were ready for them to be or not.
Steve's uncle had done his job perfectly— ironing out the details of the will, confirming its legitimacy, and reading it to the family. He did, however seem a little uninterested by the banality of estate law. He was used to prosecuting tax fraud and white collar crime, not reading wills to crying loved ones in his cramped office.
It was relatively simple— You and Steve had been named Samantha's guardians and conservators, and everything was supposed to be passed onto her. Not that anyone had expected anything to go differently. Tommy's Dad's focus was on his new, younger wife and step-kids. Carol's parents were older and her father had broken his sobriety.
It was the best you could all do for Sam, and no one stepped up to argue. So, in the eyes of the law, you and Steve were officially parents.
After, he sat in the backseat of your car and kept Samantha occupied as you drove. You could hear him cooing softly, jingling a little rattle while she babbled and grabbed at his hands. You caught his eyes through the rear view mirror, briefly, then looked back at the road.
The military was trying to find a way to cover up the giant chasms in the roads. A few makeshift bridges had been constructed, but Steve had insisted that you drive the back roads around them, just to be safe.
You didn't have any complaints.
"So," he said, as you turned into the residential streets. Everywhere you looked, for sale signs popped up like weeds. They must have all been empty, you figured. Quarantine had been in place for weeks, and there was no escaping Hawkins now. "I invited a couple of friends over later. Just so they can officially meet Sammie. Is that okay?"
A couple of friends. You hated that your mind immediately went to the worst possible outcome— that friends meant girls and girls meant sharing a roof with a horny, tomcat version of Steve Harrington. Not that you were jealous, or that you had a reason to be. It was just… inconvenient.
"Oh, uh, sure," you said, trying to give a totally unbothered, totally nonchalant nod. "Yeah, totally."
He smiled, and you heard him coo a soft yay to Sammie. "They're excited to meet her. Both of you."
Both of us. You almost doubted it, but Steve sounded nothing but sincere. He patted your back on the way into the house as he carried in the car seat. Affable, easy.
You wished more than anything that you had taken to your new circumstances the same way that Steve had. He made everything look so manageable, a real duck to water. He woke up in the morning before you did to tend to Sam and still seemed so chipper, like he was made for this shit.
He didn't seem to mind losing hours of sleep, or the total lack of privacy, or the living, breathing biohazard that was your tiny roommate. His skin was clear, his hair still looked perfect, he fucking glowed. It was as frustrating as it was enviable.
A couple of hours later, Steve was buzzing around the house, tidying up the kitchen, cleaning up bottles, putting away toys. For once, he was the bundle of nervous energy. You helped where you could, but nothing seemed to ease his anxiety. When a knock finally sounded at the door, Steve nearly jumped out of his skin.
"Okay, the odds of them saying something really off-putting are high," he explained as he walked towards the door, "but they're great. You'll love them, I promise."
You nodded, offering your best attempt at a reassuring smile. Samantha was perfectly content in her bouncer, kicking her hands and feet at the little spinning toys. Steve had made sure she'd just been fed, changed, and rested so everything would go perfect. It was clear that above everything, how he presented himself to these friends mattered.
He ran his hands through his hair a few times, stood a little straighter, and opened the door. And as soon as he did, there were balloons. Steve groaned, immediately rolling his eyes at the sight.
"Robin, no," he muttered, smacking a big foil balloon that said, "It's a girl!" His frown wasn't entirely genuine— he at least seemed a little amused. "What the hell am I supposed to do with all of this? And how expensive is helium under quarantine?"
Robin, who you vaguely remembered from that awful day at Scoops Ahoy and, more recently, making you a peanut butter and jelly sandwich on another horrible day, pushed through the door holding a bunch of balloons in her hand with a shit-eating grin. "This isn't even me," she insisted. "This is from sweet, sweet Miss Claudia, who drove us here out of the kindness of her heart because you're too busy to be our chauffeur anymore."
The second figure at the door walked in with a limp, his expression a little cloudy and guarded. Steve took the hat off of his head and ruffled his curls with an affectionate smile. "Hey, Henderson," he greeted, and carefully placed the hat back down. "I'm glad you made it. I have your favorite in the oven."
You stood in the doorway to the kitchen, just sort of… watching. It was their moment, and that was totally fine. You figured they'd do their thing, and you'd just make yourself scarce. But Steve glanced over, eyes wide as he realized he'd forgotten to introduce you. He waved you over and you hesitantly joined them.
"You've met Robin, she's graduating in a little over a month," he said, gesturing towards her. "And this is Dustin, he's still just a freshman."
His affection towards the two of them was glaringly obvious, as was his desire for you to like them. It made sense, you figured. His friends were going to be around a lot, and you were his roommate and co-parent and… a lot more that you didn't care to explore.
You were rightfully confused about how and why he became friends with a fifteen year old, but you figured that was a long conversation that would be better served for the quiet of your bedroom. The fact that you shared a bedroom with Steve still made your insides flip uncomfortably when you thought about it for too long, but you wouldn't tell him that.
You introduced yourself to them both, but you couldn't shake the familiarity behind the name Dustin Henderson. You never babysat him, you didn't think, but something about Henderson stood out. "Mondale," you said with a snap of your fingers, expression brightening. His brows furrowed a bit, expression wrinkling with confusion. "October of '84, I phone banked with your Mom for Mondale. She's so cool."
Steve grinned and nudged the teenager. "Hear that, Henderson? Your mom's cool."
Dustin grimaced, feigning annoyance. "Okay, it's fine when someone else says it, but you're not allowed to say it."
They scrapped back and forth for a while, but you could tell that there was some sort of disconnect there— a strain. You didn't know this kid, and you hardly knew Steve anymore, but you could see the tension written on their faces and oozing from their body language.
"Steve, you left your baby on the floor," Robin called from the living room. Now sans balloons, she crouched down beside the bouncer, gawking down at the baby. She reached out with her finger, the nail painted a chipped blue, and Sam wrapped her own hand around it and pulled.
"Yeah, Robin, she's supposed to be there, it's fine," he said, almost affronted that she'd assumed he had been negligent. But still, he bounded over and settled beside her to gush over the baby together.
"You can sit," you told Dustin, patting the cushion beside you. "Hurt it in the earthquake?" You gestured towards his leg brace and he gave a curt nod. Clearly there was more to say, but he didn't elaborate, and you didn't push.
But he sat next to you on the couch, quiet and observant. Robin had taken Sam out of the bouncer and Steve was showing her how to properly hold her. She was a bit clumsy, but she managed eventually.
"I'm sorry." The comment pulled you from reality, right back into that quiet, gnawing grief that had been eating at you since the earthquake. Dustin looked at you, his eyes glistening in the dim lamplight. "About your friends."
You swallowed around a lump in your throat and gave a weak smile. You saw then what that shadow was over the teenager. The need to say something more, but the inability to. The sorrow and the anger, the empathy. He had lost someone, and the world was just moving on around him. You understood it. You were living it. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry too."
His brows furrowed. "Did Steve say something?" He asked, throat bobbing. You watched him spare a glance towards Steve and Robin on the rug, where they were jingling rattles and toys for Sam's amusement.
"No," you assured, giving a quick shake of your head. "I could just tell."
After a while, Steve approached with Samantha in his arms, smiling down at Dustin. "Do you want to hold her, Henderson? She's super calm right now, and she wants to hear all about your dungeons and your dragons and stuff."
Dustin hesitated, glancing between Steve and the baby. "No thanks," he said, then quickly added. "Maybe later." Steve's brows furrowed, but you gave him a look. Don't push it.
You hadn't realized how much you missed talking to people until dinner. The past few weeks had been fully occupied with Steve and Sam, and you were unwittingly losing your mind from boredom.
Your social life was limited to Steve Harrington, who you couldn't bring yourself to talk with about more than meaningless small talk and Samantha, and the odd neighbor or acquaintance you saw at the supermarket. Wow, sure is bleak out there. Hope the quarantine doesn't last too long.
Sure, the dinner conversation was mainly just Robin rambling about losing her job at Family Video and struggling to find any business in town that was hiring, but you'd missed talking about anything other than the baby, and dinner, and breakfast, and your dead friends.
"Steve told me you were going to nursing school before Hawkins went all Big Brother," Robin said once the plates had been cleared and Sam was dozing in your arms. "That must've been nice."
You laughed, shaking your head. "Actually, I'm still a freshman, so I was just getting my basics done," you explained. "And I was going to change majors, I think. I dunno, I guess now the universe decided the college isn't for me."
Steve's brows furrowed. "Wait, are you not going back?"
You laughed, shrugging flippantly. "Probably not," you admitted, meeting his gaze. You hadn't been aware that it was even in question. "I mean, I feel like my college fund is better spent towards Sam. And I wasn't even sure what I wanted to do, so it was probably a huge waste of money to just spin my wheels."
Frankly, you had enjoyed college, but you didn't have a good sense of what exactly you were supposed to do. Your roommate had been dreaming of becoming a physical therapist since she was in middle school. The cute guy you studied with wanted to study geology and research prehistoric bugs. There were people who dreamed of wall street and ad campaigns and plastic surgery and teaching kids…
And you… you didn't want to be a nurse. But it's what made the most sense, given your family and their priorities. Not good enough to be a doctor, apparently— they never set their sights that high for you.
"You didn't like any of your classes?" Robin pressed. "I mean, geez, you're not giving the rest of us a grand picture of college life."
You took a slow drink of your water to give yourself a moment to think. "No, I mean… I loved college. I loved my classes. I could have taken every one in the course catalogue and been happy, y'know? Maybe by the time quarantine ends I'll have figured it out and can take night classes, or something."
Steve looked a little relieved at that answer, but you weren't sure why he'd care. Pretty soon, one of you would need to find a job, obviously. And Hawkins wasn't entirely a bustling job market. It was maybe the worst possible time to be suddenly thrust into parenthood… and the best possible time to have a trust fund and rich parents.
"We're, uh… we're moving back into my place, actually," Steve said after an extended lull in the conversation. "Not sure when, but… I think it's the best thing we can do for everyone. And, y'know, we'll be rent free until Quarantine is done."
They shared a look, the three of them, and you weren't sure what it meant. But the mention of the quarantine ending made them all a little fidgety. It was strange, but the world was pretty strange.
After dinner, when the dishes were cleared from the table and Steve and Dustin were talking in the backyard, Robin sidled up to you at the sink.
"Okay, so I don't mean to overstep," she began, which was the single most obvious clue that someone was seconds away from overstepping. "But the first time I met you, you were, like, homicidal towards Steve and now you have a kid with him."
Your nose wrinkled. It felt weird to hear it described like that— having a kid with Steve. That made you think of planning and baby showers and intention, not clumsy coparenting. Technically correct? Yeah, sure. But it didn't seem to match with the reality of what you experienced every day.
"So you two, like, made up, right?" Robin questioned, leaning against the counter top. She handed you the occasional dish to rinse and wash, then dried them when you were done. It had been a while since you'd had someone to confide in, which meant your hackles were up. How could you possibly know if she was approaching you earnestly? "I mean, by the looks of it, you're both doing okay. And, y'know, Steve will give us, like, tiny details about you and Sammie, but when it comes to how he's handling everything? He's totally Fort Knox."
"What sort of details is he giving out about me?" You asked, brows furrowed. There was an itch in the back of your mind— a buzzing little sensation of need. That soft, mushy part of you that desperately wanted to know what Steve thought about you.
Robin shrugged. "You know, just that he's known you since you were kids, you really love disco, you're in nursing school. Which I guess he was technically wrong about. Oh! And you used to date Dolphin Danny."
You put down the the glass you were cleaning, brows furrowed incredulously. "Dolphin Danny? Steve called him Dolphin Danny?"
Robin's eyes went wide and she shook her head quickly. "Oh, no, that's just what some of my friends used to call him because he was so unnaturally smooth." She paused, a smile playing at her lips. "But, honestly… Steve wasn't entirely complimentary of our aquatic friend."
You scoffed. Shocker. And frankly, the fact that he still seemed to hold a grudge against Danny made annoyance creep up your spine. Part of you wanted to dig. Did Robin know about last summer? Did she know about your humiliating feelings for him before that?
But you swallowed down that curious urge and answered her original questions. "We called a truce for Sam's sake. And, y'know… we don't really talk about how we're feeling about anything. It's just easier to avoid those types of conversations."
Robin's brow knit as she dried the final glass. Your hands and sleeves were wet and soapy as you turned to face her completely. "Why? Because you guys had sex?"
"What?" Your jaw ticked as you looked out the sliding glass doors to the backyard. You wanted to grab the nearest heavy object and just—
"Wait! Steve didn't say anything!" Robin assured quickly. "I'm serious, I told you, Fort Knox. But your conversation at Starcourt last year was very loud."
You sighed and ran a hand over your eyes, still a little sudsy. On one hand, you were terrified to confess anything to this near-stranger, especially considering she was Steve's best friend. But on the other… your only other confidant was dead.
So you steeled yourself and nodded. "Fine. I mean, yeah, the fact that we had sex once doesn't help," you said finally, stepping closer. "And obviously you cannot tell Steve this, but it's this huge elephant in the room at all times and I feel like I'm the only one who sees it."
"I'm sure he sees it," she replied, casting a brief glance out the glass doors. When you followed her gaze, your heart did a little skip.
Steve was standing beside Dustin, one hand on his arm, brow knit with concern as he spoke. If you were worried about this kid you barely knew, obviously Steve was.
You watched him lift a hand to his face, rubbing his eyes, pinching his nose. It was glaringly obvious that Steve needed glasses, and by this time of night he always had a bit of a headache from concentrating too hard to read the newspaper or a recipe card or the parenting book he stole from Carol's nightstand.
It had become a habit, once you brushed your teeth, to leave out two ibuprofen and a glass of water for him. Neither of you had to say anything. For the entire time that you'd known each other, you did tiny things without having to speak about it.
Steve kept your favorite hand cream in his backpack. You always had a bag of toiletries for him in your bathroom in case he had to get out of his house for the night. He wore a hair tie on his wrist for you in middle school, and still kept a banana clip in his glove box in case you were out and needed to pull your hair up.
When you looked back at Robin, she had a tiny smile on her lips. You felt exposed and vulnerable in a way that you hadn't been in a long time with anyone but Carol. You swallowed and tucked a strand of hair back into place, feeling like you'd inadvertently exposed a soft part of yourself.
You'd been doing a lot of that lately.
The pillow barrier in your bed had been chipped away. Maybe six was ridiculous. And then even three felt like too much. One pillow between your bodies was all that remained. At night, when Steve rolled over, he pulled it into his chest anyway. Like there wasn't a wall at all.
So he looked over at you— laying on his side, down pillow tucked against his chest— and frowned. "Do you think it's weird that Dustin wouldn't hold Sammie?"
You yawned softly and gave a tiny shrug. "I refused to hold babies until Sam. It's kind of awkward to hold someone's baby, anyway. It's like, one wrong move and someone's going to freak out."
"I thought it might be good for him," he admitted. "What's more comforting than a baby?"
A tiny laugh escaped you. "Literally so many other things."
It was quiet for a while. You closed your eyes, thinking Steve had fallen asleep. You were right there too, but his voice broke through the quiet.
"You liked them both, right?" He asked. "They liked you for sure."
You nodded, meeting his gaze in the dark. You liked Dustin even though he seemed to be a mirror into your own grief. Maybe because of it. You liked Robin for her motormouth that kept the quiet from creeping into your brain. And you liked that neither of them seemed inclined to handle you with gloves on.
"Yeah, they were great," you said softly, and it was totally honest, for once.
Steve smiled at you in the dark of the room like it was the greatest news he'd ever heard.
The next few weeks moved along with an alarming sense of normalcy. The routine was almost comforting by that point— a steady ebb and flow of the day with the odd disruption.
Steve took his coffee with sugar and milk in the morning and liked his eggs fried hard with bacon and buttered toast. You learned to make it how he liked so he could sleep in since he usually cared for her overnight. But,really, there was no sleeping in for Steve— most days, he got up before Samantha did so he could go for a run around the block. He'd come back sweating, take a cold shower, then join you and Sam in the kitchen just as you started to warm her bottle.
The weather was pleasant enough that you could take Sam for walks in the stroller around the block. No more freaky gray snow rained down, which was one less thing to worry about. The rot in vegetation seemed to have been temporary. Everything seemed normal, until you saw the bare shelves at the grocery store or passed a military truck on the street.
And, sometimes, Steve would freak out about the tiniest thing. The house had bad wiring, so using the toaster made the light above the sink flicker. Every time, without fail, his breath would hitch and he'd go pale.
Sometimes, he'd have a nightmare. You'd wake up to the sound of him crying out in his sleep, chest heaving, drenched in sweat. You'd turn over, still a little bleary from sleep and hear him murmur about Russians and monsters and speak complete gibberish.
"Steve," you whispered once, when you could sense his abject terror. His breath shuddered when you grabbed his arm and stirred him awake. Wide eyed, panting like he'd just run a marathon. Not quite back into reality yet, with his eyes darting around the room. "Hey, you're fine. It was a bad dream."
You both sat up against the headboard while he calmed down, and your hand stayed against his overheated skin. Your thumb rubbed along his bicep, tracing gentle circles there. Whatever it was, he didn't talk about it, and you didn't ask. It hadn't been your place to for a while.
At the end of May, you called the Hagans and Perkins over to take whatever they wanted of Carol and Tommy's things from the house.
Tommy's dad was inclined to get in and out. He held Samantha, briefly, but just as quickly passed her back into your arms. It just hurts too much, he had said. Frankly, you weren't sure of how much you believed that. He carried out a family watch, Tommy's letterman, the TV, and the entire entertainment system.
Carol's parents didn't want to leave. They sat with you on the sofa while Steve helped Mr. Hagan pack everything away. Together, you flipped through the many photo albums that Carol had collected in her brief life. You ran your hands over pictures of you at summer camp, the photos overexposed and blurry. Then in high school, sitting on the trunk of Steve's car. That one was framed back home, sitting in your empty bedroom on top of your dresser.
God, you missed her so much it felt like she'd carved out part of your soul and taken it with her. But beyond that, it was a physical ache. A hole carved into the pit of your stomach that just hurt when you missed her.
How was she already gone? How was that fair?
Your heart sank when Mrs. Perkins opened up the wedding album. The cover was pillow-y, made with satin and lace. It framed a photo of them cutting their cake in a heart shaped window.
You had never looked at the photo album from the wedding before. It hadn't been ready until you were already at school, and even then, it was still a sore spot for you. Carol's mom turned the page with so much reverence— fingers running over the page, tracing the images of her daughter.
As she flipped through, your selfish gaze stuck on the photos of you and Steve. Posing against the floral backdrop, stiff and tense in your pink wedding clothes. Your smile was nearly a grimace, his hand was hovering over your waist. A tiny smile played at your lips as you looked at the two of you— not even a year younger, but so different.
The Steve that you spent every day with was so different than the Steve in that picture. And the Steve in the picture was so different than your Steve growing up. You felt so different too— like years had passed since the wedding.
If you knew then what you did now, would you still have done what you did? Would he?
"Do you want to keep some of these?" Carol's mom asked, tearing you from your thoughts and back into the present. You swallowed at the photo on the page— you and Steve dancing, smiling, happy. Right before you'd gone and screwed everything up.
Because you knew what you were hoping for when you asked him to go out for a smoke.
"Sure, I'd like that," you said.
They left with a few boxes of Carol's things. Sentimental items that you hadn't realized meant so much to them. The half-empty bottle of Carol's favorite perfume, a ratty teddy bear from her closet, a glass ballerina on her vanity, her class ring, the diary from her nightstand, her wedding dress. Boxes and boxes of ephemera that they felt captured the essence of their girl.
You wondered what your life could be boxed into, or if your parents would be more like Mr. Hagan. Surely someone out there might want a small part of you if you were gone.
"How are you feeling?" Steve asked that night as he fed Sam in the nursery. "About moving tomorrow, I mean."
You shrugged, picking at your cuticles. You'd felt guilty all day after giving away Carol and Tommy's things, like you were packing up one part of your life and transitioning into the other. On one hand, you couldn't wait to get out of their house so you could stop feeling like you were living in a mausoleum. But on the other, it felt serious and grown up to move into your own place to raise Sam.
"I don't know," you confessed. You sat on the floor beside the glider, just to feel close to him. You were terrified, frankly, and sad. You'd have your own room in Steve's house— his mom's old room with the fireplace. And even though you'd always felt like her room was so glamorous and chic, you couldn't help but feel a tug of dread when you thought about going back to sleeping on your own.
Steve's hand fell upon your shoulder, and you peered up at him. A comforting smile played at his lips. "Hey, it'll be fine," he insisted. "It'll be good to get out of here, right? I think it'll be good for both of us."
You nodded and looked back at the floor of the nursery, at the ugly peach rug that was definitely going in the donation pile. Steve really believed that things would be good for the two of you… and you wanted to believe that too.
In the morning, you woke up to a gaggle of high schoolers in your kitchen and Steve serving breakfast. Sam was in your arms, still sleepy and dozing against your chest.
"Moving crew," Steve explained as he passed you a stack of pancakes. "Hey, it's free labor, we've just gotta feed them."
As you ate, he pointed out each kid and named them. You tried your best to remember names and faces, but it was seven in the morning. It was busy enough that Sam stirred and cried, which signaled Steve to start warming her bottle.
Routine. It was crazy how easy it was to take care of her. Like instinct.
You knew Dustin and Robin, and you recognized Nancy from the Steve of it all. It wasn't lost on you that him ditching you to hang out with her was the straw that broke the camel's back… for you at least. Not that it was Nancy's fault— you and Steve had both been loving and hating that shared possessiveness, and it just happened to come to a head in '83.
Then there was Lucas, who Steve explained he practiced basketball with and had made a buzzer-beater shot to win the varsity basketball championship just a few days before the earthquake. Mike, who was Nancy's little brother and didn't like him that much and really didn't talk to him. And Will who… yeah, he didn't talk to him that much either, but he seemed nice enough.
But you recognized Will. Zombie Boy. Another page in Hawkins' weird history.
"You know so many kids," you said with mild amusement as Steve finally sat down and passed you the bottle. Sam began to suckle on it greedily, her tiny hands holding the bottle alongside yours.
Steve made a face, affronted but sheepish. His cheeks colored with a ruddy blush and he ran a hand through his messy morning hair . "Hey, I'm a mentor."
In his defense, you weren't sure that was entirely untrue. Why else would so many people show up for him when he needed help, if they didn't know he'd do the exact same things for them? That's what was so baffling about being around Steve Harrington.
It felt like two paradoxical versions of him lived in your head— one made up of things he'd done before the earthquake, and another based on the person you lived with. There was callous, asshole Steve who haunted you like a boogeyman. It was like any time you let yourself acknowledge that he was good with Sam, or was being sweet, your brain had to remind you of how shitty he'd been in the past.
Maybe he is a good guy, the voice in your head said. And then another louder voice would remind you, but that just means that he's only really awful to you. You weren't sure which voice you wanted to listen to more.
Anyways, packing was easy when nothing was really yours. Steve, Lucas, and Nancy made quick work of breaking the nursery furniture down and loading it into her station wagon. First trip, Steve called, and then they were driving across town to your old neighborhood.
"How are you doing?" Robin knocked on the door to the bedroom, where you sat on the floor folding some of Carol's clothes for yourself. An old concert tee she had definitely stolen from your closet, a parka you'd always liked, cute tops she'd gotten from Gadzooks.
You looked up and shrugged. "Fine," you insisted. "Just trying to save some things from the donation pile. Want anything?"
Robin sat on the floor beside you and shook her head. "Yeah, it's not really my style. No offense." She helped you fold the rest of the clothes you'd picked, only seeming to pass mild judgment through her expressions. Even so, the two of you fell into a quiet rhythm as you worked "Don't take this the wrong way, but you have anyone you can talk to? I mean, besides Steve and the nonverbal infant."
Heat flooded your cheeks as you tried to stammer your way into an excuse. It felt shameful to admit that, no, you had no friends to talk to. "I mean, Tina is at Purdue, and the military blocks communication outside of the city," you managed. "And obviously I can't talk to my friends from college for the same reasons. I'm an only child, my parents aren't the emotionally supportive type, my best friends are dead…"
You grimaced sheepishly at your own self-pity. "Sorry," you said. "No, I guess."
"I was just going to say that, y'know, we don't want you to be lonely," Robin continued. "We're a bit of a ragtag bunch, but if you need friends to help you through this… there's plenty of those to go around."
A tiny smile played at your lips. "Yeah? You sure there's room for a hopeless chump who has no idea what her future looks like?"
Robin's smile was warm and inviting. "Oh, you'd be in great company. Lots of chumps around. We're all feeling a little hopeless, but we're working on that."
A small laugh passed your lips as you closed the box of things you wanted to keep. Working on it was a better outlook than you'd had in months. "Is this a formal invitation to join the band of misfits?"
"Oh, absolutely," she said as she stood up. "I'm tired of being outnumbered by kids all the time."
That night, with the rest of the group piled around the TV watching whatever tape they could scrounge up, you slipped away to your new bedroom. It still smelled like his mother's perfume— the scent of florals and dusting powder nearly suffocating.
Sylvia Harrington put every cent of commission she made from real estate into designing her bedroom. At least, that's what it felt like. The bedroom suite was done with pink faux marble and gold accents. The mirror above the dresser was etched with frosted swans and lilies, framed with gold.
It was pretty and delicate and luxurious. It was the kind of room that someone who has their entire life in order comes home to. So as you put your picture frames and knick-knacks on the dresser, it almost felt like sacrilege. A little girl playing pretend as a grown-up.
You dropped your meager boxes of clothes onto the floor in the closet and took the moment to marvel at Sylvia's en suite bathroom. Pink tile around the tub, a glass block shower wall, the gold swan faucets. You nearly laughed, but couldn't help be charmed.
"It's pretty ridiculous, huh?" Steve stood in the doorway, arms crossed over his chest. He looked so content, so relaxed. He must've been happy to be home, especially without his parents. "This is her happy place. I'm surprised she didn't carve it out and carry it out of Hawkins with her."
A soft laugh escaped you. "I can see why," you said. You flicked the tap on with your fingers and watched the swan spit a perfect arc into the pink tub below. It was so ridiculous, but you supposed it made sense. A little slice of luxury to retreat into. "Well… her loss. I'm taking a bubble bath tomorrow. I checked the closet and she left all of her fancy soaps and lotions."
It was quiet as you stood there, the water still pouring down the drain. You shut it off and were met with a quiet drip, drip, drip as water beaded off the beak. You crossed your arms over your crewneck—the soft one you got from college orientation.
"Did you need help unpacking anything?" He offered. "I saw more boxes by the dresser. Did you stop by your parents' place?"
A tiny laugh escaped you as you nodded. "Mm… Yeah, it didn't go very well," you replied with a shrug. "They'd already packed up my things and made sure to tell me how disappointed they are with my choices. Oh, and they give their warmest regards to your parents, of course."
That conversation with them had been brutal. Maybe keeping them at arms length since the quake had been shitty, but you were trying your best to manage with the equally shitty hand you'd been dealt. And, in your defense, they never really cared if you checked in with them before.
You knew their problem wasn't with your distance— they were embarrassed that their perfect progeny was a college dropout teen mother living in sin. It didn't matter that the baby wasn't yours and that you were most certainly not committing any sins with Steve except for your own wrath and stubborn pride.
Well… there was the envy you felt when he talked with Nancy and Robin in that easy, charming way. And sure… sometimes you'd wake up in the middle of the night feeling hot all over and pulsing with need because of particularly lustful dreams about the same person you shared a bed with.
So maybe you were living in sin, but not the way that they thought.
"I like what you've done with the place so far," Steve insisted as you both walked back into the bedroom. "It feels like a real person lives in here."
You thought your lava lamps and stuffed animals and photo frames cheapened the room, just a little, but Steve's compliment felt earnest. He poked at the plasma ball on the dresser and the pink light traveled to his fingertip. His eyes went to your framed photos, and you wondered if he was searching for himself in them. He wouldn't have to look far
"I remember this," he said, turning to you with a pink frame in his hand. It was the four of you during Summer of '82. He'd had a pool party to kick off summer break and you'd made whatever girl he was dating at the time (Lori, maybe?) take the photo of the four of you on the deck chairs. "Tommy brought vodka and we mixed them into cherry ICEEs. I never understood how you could drink so much and never get sick."
You laughed and shook your head. Honestly, you'd never been particularly heavy handed, but you didn't want to spoil the illusion. He placed the photo back reverently, but his gaze softened as he noticed the pile of photos on the dresser. He picked them up, flipping through the wedding photos with an impassive expression.
Do you see what I see? You wanted to ask. How good things could have been? Or maybe you just see how badly I messed up. This would've been so much easier if all that happened between us was a stupid high school fight.
"No frames for these, huh?" He asked, meeting your gaze.
Heat bloomed in your cheeks. Just owning them felt like being caught in a lie. "Mrs. Perkins thought I should have them," you explained, even thought that didn't quite clear up why they were with all of your other prized photos and not tucked away in an album or a box.
Steve nodded and sat them back down quietly. "I'll get back to the movie, I guess." It was like a bucket of iced water had been dumped on both of you. All of the warmth and openness dashed away like it had never been there to begin with. And it was all because of the pictures.
"Yeah, I'll go check on Sam and make sure her monitors are set up right," you said, hands twitchy and fidgeting in front of you. He gave a nod, and you slipped out of the room before either of you felt inclined to say anything more.
It was better that way.
At night, you couldn't sleep. The bed was too big, the room too quiet. You'd gotten used to the soft cadence of Steve's breathing, the warmth and dip of a body on the mattress beside you. You put an extra pillow beside you, just so that you could pretend that he was on the other side, but it wasn't that easy to trick your lonely brain.
Without meaning to, you'd grown to rely on that closeness. The promise of someone else near you, the comfort of that silent intimacy. Just like sharing beds as kids, but this time you were the one who needed the company.
The monitor crackled to life and you sat up, eager for the excuse to get out of bed and away from your thoughts. You crept up the stairs, but Steve was already in Sam's room, cradling her to his chest.
You watched through the doorway as he rocked her in his arms, shushing her gently in the dark of the night. His hair mussed, his expression soft and tender. "I've gotcha," he murmured softly. "It's just a new house, peanut, you're okay."
Something wrapped around your heart and pulled. Something that traveled through your nerves like pure electricity. A funny feeling at the base of your spine and fluttering around your chest. You had to look away from the sight of them before it got too overwhelming.
Before he noticed you there, you hurried back down the stairs and into your lonely bedroom, where you stayed awake until the morning. If Steve noticed the shadows under your eyes, he said nothing. It was better that way.
In July, Steve got a job. You'd both been debating who would be leaving for the workforce, but you'd been dragging your feet. The only jobs you'd heard were still hiring were the candy-stripers at the hospital (on a volunteer basis) or the construction gigs around town. Not exactly your idea of a blossoming workforce.
And, somehow, Steve got a gig with Robin at WSQK.
"Who's even running the station?" You asked from the living room floor after he told you. Sam was crawling around the rug, chasing after a ball that she had thrown moments earlier. "I thought the DJ left before quarantine."
Steve sat on the ground next to you and Samantha immediately diverted her direction to crawl back to him. She slapped at his knees, babbling happily, and you felt a sting of jealousy. "Nancy's the station manager, kind of."
Your brows furrowed deeply, and you shook your head. "I'm sorry, Nancy Wheeler? Kind of? And how is she kind of going to be paying you?"
Just by the way he swallowed told you all that you needed to know. "Jesus Christ, Steve," you muttered. "When we talked about work, it wasn't just so we could get out of the house. It's so we can put food on the table. You can't just go play DJ at The Squawk all day without a paycheck to show for it."
"Well," he said, scratching the back of his neck. "We still have your college fund and my trust fund, right?"
"Great plan, Steve," you huffed. You grabbed Samantha and stood with an exasperated sigh. "Let's drain our savings. I mean, Jesus, you really don't think sometimes."
His jaw ticked. He stood and followed you into the kitchen, his frustration evident in the scowl he wore. "Don't talk to me like that," he said, his voice the sharpest you'd heard it. "I'm not an idiot."
"I never said you were an idiot," you shot back. Samantha pulled at your hair until you winced at the tug at your roots, so you shifted her back to your other hip with an annoyed huff. "I said you don't think. There's a difference."
He rolled his eyes, staring at you from across the room. He stood by the sink, you leaned against the fridge. Stalemate.
"What I'm helping with at the radio station is really important," he insisted. "This isn't just about money, there are more important things going on."
You exhaled sharply, expression cold. "Like what? I don't think getting a job at the station so you can spend all day impressing Nancy Wheeler is more important than providing for Sam."
Steve laughed incredulously and ran a hand over his eyes. "You're the exact same person you were in high school, you realize that? You always think you know what's best, even if you have no goddamn clue what's going on. And you're still just as jealous, and possessive, and bitter."
His words were like a knife to the gut, twisting cruelly. Your bottom lip wobbled, an you could see the flash of regret in his eyes, if only for a moment. His expression went impassive just as soon as you thought he might apologize. Your mistake.
"And you're still a self-centered asshole," you snapped back. "Congratulations on fooling everyone else, Steve. It's actually impressive, you even had me there for a little while."
Hurt flashed across his expression— that sad puppy dog face. You just wanted to scream and rile him up more. Really lay into him and dig your claws in until you were both raw and bleeding. Sam pulled at your hair again, and you remembered the little girl in your arms. You needed to get out of the house. "We're going to the store," you said firmly. "Don't follow us."
Steve, to his credit, did what he was told. You'd retreat to bury your hurt in your responsibilities, he'd lick his wounds while you were gone. But, for now, your cards were on the table. Both of you.
Bradley's was useless between restocks. Quarantine panic meant everyone rushing to the stores when they heard about restocks, leaving shelves bare between. Sure, you could get the odd can of soup and bruised apple in the interim, but you had to plan your grocery trips accordingly.
Really, there wasn't any reason for you to go to the store, but you'd needed to get out.
Samantha babbled as you pushed the cart, pausing at a shelf of strawberry cake mix. Score. The butcher counter was scant, but you managed to grab a few chicken breasts for dinner. A bag of frozen broccoli, some rice.
You turned your cart towards the baby aisles and froze. Danny Miller stood at the end-cap, debating between Old Spice and Irish Spring, his thick brows furrowed. He was still just as handsome as he had been in high school— more probably. He'd grown into his looks, his hair was styled much better, and he even seemed to have body hair.
Huh. Dolphin Danny no more.
You were considering reversing and going a different way, just to avoid confrontation, but Sam had other plans. She fussed, impatient and bored in the cart, and her soft cries drew his gaze. Danny looked up, and you watched recognition pass over his features.
Fuck it. You waved and continued on your way, pausing beside him. "Hey, I didn't know you were in Hawkins."
"Yeah, I was home for spring break and after the earthquake I stayed around to take care of my Nana," he said. He put the Old Spice back on the shelf, apparently fine with Irish Spring. "I heard you moved in with Steve."
There wasn't a question there. His gaze flicked from your face down to Samantha, and you felt a sick pit of dread in your gut. And you hated that shame you felt, the tiny, selfish urge to pretend like she was a tiny blip in your life. Like that part of you didn't matter.
"Um, yeah," you said with a long exhale. You fidgeted, running a hand through your hair just because you weren't sure what else to do.
Before you could elaborate and say yes, but… Danny laughed and shook his head. "I kind of figured that you two would get together after we broke up," he admitted. "I mean, you two always had this sort of weird thing."
Heat flooded your cheeks as you tried to laugh it off. "We're not together," you insisted. "And there. isn't a thing. I mean, we're living together, but it's because of Sam. Her parents died in the earthquake."
His gaze softened, just slightly. "Oh, well, I'm really sorry," he said.
You could feel that he was going to walk away, and you should have let him go, but it had been a weird day, and you just needed something. An itching need to be someone outside of that house. It didn't occur to you that you were doing the exact same thing you'd done at sixteen when you dated Danny in the first place— using him as an outlet for your feelings about Steve. It didn't matter.
"Um, maybe we can grab lunch sometime and really catch up," you suggested. A desperate, last ditch attempt to salvage the conversation. Samantha was overstimulated by the store and had begun to cry louder, even as you rolled the cart back and forth to soothe her.
Danny's gaze filled with sympathy, and you knew that no matter what came out of his mouth, the answer was going to be no. "Uh, maybe," he said with a half-smile. "I've actually gotta head out, but it was good seeing you. Good luck with the, uh, baby."
You rubbed your eyes with the heels of your hands until purple stars sparked your vision, and sighed deeply. Sam blinked up at you when you opened your eyes, clueless as to what you were thinking and feeling. It was nice, you thought, that she didn't seem to have a concept of what a mess you were. Yet. You kissed her forehead and wheeled into the baby aisles to grab whatever they had, just to be safe.
Steve was on the phone when you got home. Sam was asleep in her car seat, and you did your best to juggle the grocery bags and her without dropping everything. It'd just ruin your mood worse.
You dropped the bags by the front door and carried her up to her crib. Steve was still talking when you made it back down. And you shouldn't have, but you crept into the butler's pantry and listened, just a bit.
"— she's gonna figure it out," he said, sighing exasperatedly. "I mean, she's right. It looks weird for me to take a job where I'm not even getting a paycheck."
He huffed, and you heard his head thump against the wall again as Robin spoke into the receiver. You could have run to Mr. Harrington's old office and picked up the phone, but didn't want them to hear you on the line.
"I know, but…" he trailed off. "Yeah, yeah, I know. But you're not the one who has to make excuses and lie all of the time. You don't have to live with her. I'm the one who has to spend every day watching her become more and more like our mothers while I'm becoming just like my dad."
He paused, and you heard the soft, frustrated exhale of his breath as he listened to the other line. "Whatever. You're really unhelpful, you know that? Alright, Rob, bye." The phone clunked back onto the receiver, and you high tailed it back to the door to grab the groceries.
When Steve passed you on his way upstairs, he didn't meet your gaze.
That night, with Sam asleep and Steve in the kitchen on the phone with another one of his friends, you took advantage of the giant, fancy bathtub and Sylvia Harrington's expensive soaps. You lit tea lights and sank into the hot water hoping you could wash away your horrible day.
Frankly, you'd never seen the appeal of wine before, but you were going stir crazy between the seven month old baby and the quarantine and Steve. You had stolen two bottles from the shelves in the basement and poured obscenely large glasses. Wine was nice when your day had been so shitty. It blurred the sharp edges of your thoughts, but hadn't taken them away entirely. At least, not yet.
Steve found you a quarter of the way through bottle number two, singing along to your The Smiths cassette. The water had gone lukewarm, and the bubbles had become more of a thick foam, but you didn't move to get out.
"I called you for dinner an hour ago," he said.
"Yeah, I couldn't hear," you replied with a shrug, avoiding his gaze. "I'm actually really busy in here, if you wouldn't mind leaving."
"You're drunk," he said plainly, staring down at you with his arms crossed and a very serious expression. And it was so absurd that you had to bite your lip to keep from laughing. "Do you really think that's a good idea?"
You shrugged and finished the last swill of your glass. Anyway, you thought his question was really, really dumb, so you didn't bother to answer it. "Yeah, actually it's a great idea. I really understand our mothers now," you said instead. "Actually… if I'm already just like them, I figured I should really commit to it. I wonder if your mom left her Valium?"
Steve closed his eyes and sighed. "Jesus Christ, you were listening to my phone call? That was totally out of context."
Before you could grab the bottle to pour another glass, Steve pulled it away. "Drink some water," he muttered. He grabbed the half-empty bottle and walked it over to the sink. You followed, head spinning a little as you stood, and wrapped yourself in a fuzzy pink towel.
"You're such an asshole," you muttered, fighting him for the bottle as he poured it down the sink. It was stupid, because it was already mostly drained and glugging down the drain, and the running water just made it slippery and hard to grab.
When he finally gave up, you pulled it to your chest and held it like it was something precious— chest heaving and a big pout on your lips. Steve crossed his arms, sleeves soaked to his elbows. Wine had splashed onto your throat and dripped in rivulets down your chest, disappearing between your breasts beneath the towel.
"You're ridiculous," he said, jaw ticking. You watched him run a hand through his hair, making it stringy and damp where it flopped over his forehead. You exhaled slowly, like you could fight the word vomit that was itching to crawl up your throat.
But, as your track record showed, you had poor judgment while drunk. "Why?" You demanded, arms crossed, lip wobbling.
Steve threw his hands up, exasperated. "Why, what? Why are you ridiculous?" He shot back. "I think the liter of wine in your system is a good enough answer. You're drunk and we have a baby to take care of."
You gestured clumsily, like you were brushing his words out of the air. It was like you were fighting to pull the words from the jumbled mess of feelings in your brain. You shook your head ardently, which made tendrils of your months-old perm fall from your banana clip. "No, no, no," you mumbled, frustrated with your own inability to express yourself fast enough. "No, that's not what I'm talking about."
Steve sighed. His sleeves left wet blotches where his arms were crossed. He waited, eyes narrowed, then he shook his head with a scoff. "I'm not a mind reader, alright? What?"
You took a slow breath through your nose and swallowed hard. "The wedding," you managed. And barely, because the lump in your throat seemed to be suffocating you. "Why?"
Steve swallowed and shook his head. "Jesus christ, I'm not having this conversation with you while you're wasted."
That only made you angrier. He wouldn't talk to you about it sober, he wouldn't talk to you about it drunk. He might have been fine stepping around the elephant in the room, but every day that room felt like it was shrinking.
You swallowed. Your mouth tasted like a vineyard, and you were soaked from the bath and dripping into a puddle on the floor. You lifted the bottle to your lips to take a long swig, but it was so hard to swallow.
"I just need to know why," you said, nearly pleading. "I've felt so crazy for the past four months. I've felt like I'm the only one who remembers what happened. I know you want to move on and ignore it, but I can't."
He sighed, chewing on his lip for just a moment before he spoke. "You were going to college, and I was sending in applications to Scoops Ahoy and The Gap. You had things to look forward to, but I wasn't even good enough to get out of this stupid town."
Your lip wobbled. You'd never thought that, not even once. You stepped back and sat on the edge of the tub. The bottle clunked against the pink tile as you sat it down and looked up at him.
"I wasn't going to be the thing to hold you back. I didn't want you to be tied to a dead-end, Hawkins loser, so I pushed you away. I thought it was noble, but then our friends had to die, and it was all for nothing. And either way, you already hated me."
You sniffled and shook your head. "I never thought you were a loser," you insisted, the easiest way your drunken mind could respond.
Steve shook his head. "You didn't have to." He sighed and shook his head. "Let's get you to bed."
After you'd gotten into your pajamas and brushed the taste of wine from your mouth, you walked back into your bedroom and watched Steve turning down your bed. He looked up, his expression unreadable, and stepped back.
You crawled into bed and watched him walking towards the door. You sat up quickly and your head spun. "Wait," you said quickly. He turned and you frowned weakly. "I just sleep really badly when I'm alone."
His mouth twitched, just a little, and he nodded. "Okay, yeah," he replied. "I'll be back."
You were already asleep by the time he came back, on your stomach, drooling into the down pillows. But in the morning when you woke up to the sound of Sam stirring over the monitor, Steve was right there beside you.
You had your answers, for better or for worse. You just didn't know what you could do with them.
Thank you for reading!! I'm really curious to know how you're all feeling about Steve + what you think about what's going to go down between them moving forward... was reader valid for her crashout, do you think reader can ever be a part of the friend group while being shut out from the truth... let me know!! i love talking with you all!
when boy bands sing a love song addressed to the listener does that imply all 5-10 of them are in love with you at once. that seems like a lot of pressure i don't know if i want to be the nucleus of the boyband polycule.
turnnoffyourmind
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