Archive of Our Own ^beta

Steve is in Jonathan Byers’ car for the third time this week.

In his defense-

Well. Actually, he doesn’t really have a defense, nor does he really have an explanation. Maybe that should bother him more than it does. Lots of things should bother him more than they do, these days, like the fact that he’s still stuck here in Hawkins, or the fact that neither of his parents seem to ever be home, like, at all anymore, despite having put up a whole fight against moving out of Hawkins even when it cracked down the middle. Or, also, that Nancy rejected him, again , or that Henderson keeps pestering him to buy him beer so that he and his dweeb friends can behave slightly less dweeb-ily, or that Jonathan’s car sounds like it’s about to spontaneously combust at any moment.

All of these things should probably, at the very least, be slightly annoying. But it’s summer and they’re all alive , and Jonathan is smiling lazily as he taps his fingers against the steering wheel in time with the music pouring from the stereo, so Steve really can’t bring himself to be all that bothered.

“You’re doing the thing,” Jonathan says in a low, warm voice, consistent with the summer breeze filtering in through their open windows. He’s driving infuriatingly slow, refusing to go even a singular mile over the speed limit - though maybe that’s just because his car simply can’t handle a higher speed than thirty miles an hour - so it’s not quite the summer joyride that Steve might have preferred, but it’s still nice. Peaceful.

“What thing?” Steve asks absently, just to be annoying.

Jonathan huffs, but he’s smiling a little as he refocuses on the road. “Your leg,” he says, exasperated, and Steve glances down to find that, sure enough, his right knee is bouncing restlessly, a nervous habit. He hadn’t even fully realized he’d been doing it.

“Huh,” he says, and stops, grinning over at Jonathan. “Sorry.”

“S’fine,” Jonathan says idly, craning his neck as he makes a turn off onto a side street. “Are you nervous or something?”

Not exactly , is the truth of it, but Steve’s not quite sure how to explain. Jonathan does make him nervous - his eyes are too deep and brown and intense, and he always has this look on his face like he knows something Steve doesn’t, and it’s infuriating. It does a weird thing to Steve’s insides, makes him feel all light and fuzzy. But it’s not a bad thing, really. It’s just a little odd. 

“No,” he says, because it’s easier, and turns back to the window. “Just wondering how it’s possible to drive this slow.”

Jonathan laughs, a warm sound, and the fuzzy feeling envelops Steve again. He ignores it, like always. “I’m going the speed limit, asshat,” he says, reaching over to swat Steve’s shoulder. “Not my fault you drive like a fucking maniac.”

“You’ve clearly never been in a car with Mayfield,” Steve mutters, shuddering at the memory, and is rewarded for it when Jonathan laughs again, a solid, reverberating chuckle from somewhere in his chest. It’s nice, a very masculine kind of sound, satisfying to hear.

He’s not really sure when he and Jonathan became this; friends, if you could call them that, though it sometimes feels like a friendship of convenience and circumstance more than anything else. They’d found a nice camaraderie during the apocalypse, when they had to either work together or die, after Nancy had rejected Steve and dumped Jonathan. A few weeks into the aftermath of the battle, when everything was still up in the air and no one really knew what to do with themselves, Jonathan had showed up on his front doorstep, car keys in hand, and awkwardly asked if they could drive somewhere. Just as a distraction, was the unspoken premise at the time. Just to feel something other than aimlessness, or at the very least be aimless together.

And now here they are. It’s been months, and the originally sporadic drives and hangout sessions have increased exponentially, enough so that Steve had actually had to turn down Robin’s offer to hang out this morning because he and Jonathan already had plans.

It’s a little weird, probably, that the opposing prong of the most fucked up love triangle he’s ever been a part of is now on equal-ish footing with his best friend, but Steve is good at not thinking about things, so he hasn’t thought about it. Not a lot , anyway.

Jonathan parks on a dirt road, a grassy expanse sprawling out beyond them, and he stretches as he clambers out of the car, tilting his face up to catch some of the sun’s heat. Steve watches for a second, vaguely fascinated by the serene look on his face, the way he moves so fluidly, so different from the jerky, easily spooked kid he used to be. Steve sometimes feels like a bit of a creep watching him, documenting his actions like he’s a scientist taking notes, but he can’t really help it. Jonathan has always sort of been a fascinating person. He’s different from everything Steve knows.

He shakes himself out of it and hops out of the car, following Jonathan down into the field a few paces before they settle in the grass, Jonathan reaching into his pocket and pulling out a baggie and a lighter.

Steve’s heart picks up pace just a little - it’s been a couple months since the first time they got high together, and it’s become pretty commonplace, ever since that first time with the two of them side by side just like this, Steve’s insides feeling weird and fluttery every time they’d passed the shared joint back and forth, lips touching the same place on it over and over. There hadn’t been anything particularly special about it - Steve had spent plenty of time getting high with Tommy and Carol in his backyard, back when he was still a grade A douchebag - but he’d found himself weirdly addicted to that feeling of quiet intimacy. Maybe it was Jonathan that made it different, with his stoic silence and gentleness. Maybe it’s Steve who’s different, now. Regardless, he takes every opportunity to do it again, and doesn’t feel the need to examine why.

Jonathan passes him the lit joint now, a practiced motion, and Steve takes a puff as he stares up at the clouds, enjoying the warm sun on his face.

“So,” Steve says after a few minutes, and pretends to ignore the amused smile that touches the corners of Jonathan’s mouth at the words. It’s kind of infuriating, how Jonathan has this seemingly endless ability to be calm and silent no matter the circumstances, no matter how awkward it is. Steve always feels like he has to say something. “How are you today?”

Jonathan coughs on a laugh, smoke from the joint wafting up into the air as he props himself up on one elbow to look down at him. “How am I?” he asks disbelievingly, as Steve flushes pink and firmly turns his head away. “You don’t care how people are.”

Steve rolls his eyes, suppressing a groan of frustration. Jonathan says shit like that a lot, which is fair enough, he guesses, except it makes it very difficult to prove him wrong. It’s even harder when he phrases it like that - because what can Steve say in response? I care how you are . That just sounds weird. It’s kind of true, but it’s weird. 

“You know what I mean,” he says instead, still not looking at him. “Tell me something interesting.”

“Oh,” Jonathan says, seemingly satiated by this, and flops back down into the grass, stubbing out the end of the joint on a rock. “Okay, sure, let me think.” He falls silent again, pursing his lips, and Steve is about to whack him on the shoulder and tell him to stop being annoying when he speaks again. “I guess, um- El dumped a whole bag of flour on Will using her powers this morning. Hop threw a fit.”

Steve snorts. “I thought she was allowed to use her powers as long as it’s not in public?”

“Yeah, I think it was more the flour-covered sixteen-year-old Hop had a problem with,” Jonathan points out, a laugh in his voice.

“Oh.” Steve bobs his head. “Makes sense.”

Jonathan’s head lolls to the side, a lazy smile stretching across his features. “Your turn. Tell me something interesting.”

Steve thinks for a minute, his head swimming pleasantly with the effects of the weed. “Um. Robin thinks she found an apartment for us in Indy. For the fall.” He’d told her they didn’t need to actually move in together - she could probably get much farther in the world than living an hour away from her hometown with her stupid friend and going to community college. She’s fluent in four languages, for Christ’s sake. But she maintained that she hadn’t formulated the plan because of him, and it was probably time he became a semi-independent adult, so here they are. Steve is too busy being pathetically, stupidly grateful for her to put up much of a fight beyond that.

Jonathan blinks slowly at him, and Steve swallows, wondering how much of that internal monologue he’d said aloud - he does that sometimes, starts rambling and only realizes after the fact because Jonathan is looking at him with that little quirk in his eyebrows, expression otherwise unreadable. This time, though, it looks like he’s in the clear, because Jonathan just smiles and goes, “You told me about the apartment already, Steve,” and- oh, right. Because they’ve already hung out this week.

God, this dynamic is strange.

“Oh,” he says, trying his level best not to feel dumb as he turns to look at the sky again, “well. I guess I don’t have anything else interesting to say.”

Jonathan laughs quietly. “That can’t be true. I thought you had that whole Dustin thing to deal with.”

Steve smiles a little at that, rolling his eyes. “Little shit really think I’m gonna aid him in criminal activity,” he mutters, and Jonathan laughs properly this time.

“It’s just beer, Steve.”

“It’s a gateway drug,” Steve says solemnly, as Jonathan nearly chokes on his laughter, wheezing too hard to point out what a hypocrite Steve is being about the whole thing, “and they’re babies .”

“They’re sixteen,” Jonathan says, catching his breath. “I let Will smoke with me sometimes.”

“Will’s, like, innocent, though,” Steve says, scrunching up his nose. “Like, he’d be safe and responsible or whatever the fuck it is people care about. Henderson has a plan . I can see it in his eyes. He wants to start shit, and he wants me to be an accomplice.”

Jonathan snort-laughs again, and Steve finds it oddly satisfying, making Jonathan Byers laugh like that, like he’s forgotten to keep up his carefully maintained facade of neutrality for a second. “You’re ridiculous,” he says, but it’s fond. It’s a weird thing, thinking that Jonathan Byers is fond of him.

Steve swallows back the weird balloon of lightness expanding the back of his throat, staring pointedly at the sky. “Yeah, whatever,” he says, knocking a foot against Jonathan’s. “I’m hungry. Can we go get food?”

Jonathan hums, sitting up and brushing grass off his jeans. “Only if you pay, rich boy.”

“Deal,” Steve says, and takes the hand offered to him before he can think better of it.

“I can’t believe you blew me off for Byers again,” Robin groans, leaning back in her chair and propping her shoes up on the sticky diner table. “What do you guys even talk about?”

“I didn’t blow you off,” Steve says, ignoring the second question and ducking his head to hide the flush on his cheeks. “I already had plans with him when you asked.”

“That’s even weirder,” Robin points out. She peels half the wrapper off an abandoned straw on the table and wets the end before blowing it directly into Steve’s face. It sticks to his forehead, and he scowls as he bats it away. “You guys are supposed to be enemies.”

Steve rolls his eyes. “Come on , Robin, I’ve told you this. We’re chill now.”

“Oh, well as long as you’re chill ,” she deadpans, then sighs, letting her head fall back. “Hey, waiter, where the fuck is our food?”

“It’s being revoked until you get your feet off the table,” Dustin replies, stopping to poke her arm as he balances a stack of plates in his other hand. “I hate it when you guys come here, you know that?”

Robin grins, kicking her feet back to solid ground and flicking his hand away. “It’s the best burger in Hawkins!” she chirps. This is, of course, very much false, but not according to the sign proudly plastered in the street-facing window. “Plus, it’s funny to see you working. At a job . You’re, like, twelve.”

“I’m seventeen,” Dustin says, resigned. “Your food will be out in five.”

“You’re sixteen and a half,” Steve corrects. “Hey, you don’t think it’s weird that I’m friends with Jonathan, right?”

Dustin stares at him for a long moment, then clears his throat. “Honestly, I think being friends with a guy your own age is probably the most normal friendship you have. Can I go clear these plates now?”

Steve frowns. “We need to have another talk about your attitude!” he calls, as Dustin stalks away across the diner.

“You’re not my dad!” Dustin shouts back, earning them both several dirty looks from the other patrons.

Robin takes a sip of her soda, widening her eyes at him over the rim of her cup. “I think you should suspend his allowance,” she whispers conspiratorially.

Steve throws a napkin at her. “Shut up. Anyway, my point was I’m hanging out with you now , so you can cool it on the Jonathan thing.”

“Okay. I just think it’s weird, is all.” She lifts an eyebrow, taking another sip of her drink. “Nancy thinks it’s weird too,” she says innocently.

Steve scrunches his nose at her. “I don’t think Nancy’s judgment about either of us is the most reliable.”

Robin rolls her eyes. “Point taken. Anyway, I scheduled a tour of the apartment for next week, you’d better not be late.”

Steve swallows hard, jabbing idly at the ice in his soda. “That’s very soon.”

“Yeah, well, you’re the one who wants to get out from under daddy’s thumb,” Robin points out, crossing her arms. “Don’t tell me you’re having second thoughts.”

“No, no,” Steve says quickly, shaking his head and flashing her a smile. “Just- thinking.”

“Mm. Don’t hurt yourself,” Robin says, waggling her eyebrows, and Steve flips her off.

Dustin reappears, carrying two plates of food and looking properly disgruntled. “I saw that,” he says to Steve, as he sets a hamburger in front of him and a salad in front of Robin. “Here.”

“Your customer service could use some work,” Steve says, wordlessly picking the onions out of his burger and dropping them onto Robin’s plate. “You could get fired, you know.”

Dustin rolls his eyes. “Please. They need me.”

“Need you to what? Snark at all your customers?” Steve asks, raising an eyebrow. “Because if so you’re nailing it.”

Dustin gives him a long look. “I’m not letting you use my staff discount anymore,” he decides, and walks away before Steve can argue.

Dustin does make a solid enough point - out of all the people Steve chooses to be friends with, Jonathan is probably the most obvious choice. He’s pretty sure that speaks more to the very strange cast of characters he’s fallen in with over the past few years than the nature of the friendship itself. 

Maybe it’s just him. Maybe Jonathan doesn’t think it’s weird at all, or maybe he doesn’t care if it is, or maybe he just doesn’t really think about Steve when Steve isn’t, like, actively in front of him. That’s probably the most likely. Historically speaking, Jonathan is less affected by things than Steve is.

And, like, he’s not going to dwell super long about the evidence of that , because he tries not to think too hard about the embarrassment that came with dating Nancy Wheeler, but sometimes the memory surfaces despite his best efforts: him, sitting on a porch with his knees pulled up to his chest, crying like a little bitch over a girl not loving him and wondering when he became the one chasing after someone else. Jonathan, stepping outside with said girl on his arm, and Steve watching from the shadows feeling like he was being gut-punched over and over as Jonathan helped Nancy into his car.

Steve had thought Jonathan would leave with her right away, that neither of them would notice he was still there, but there was a moment, after Jonathan closed Nancy’s door, where he stood there staring at the street, back turned.

Then:

“Steve, I see you over there.”

Steve had lifted his head, glared at Jonathan from the bush he was hiding behind. “You’re not even facing me,” he’d said petulantly, because he is an idiot who doesn’t understand plausible deniability.

Jonathan had sighed and turned to face him, spreading his hands out like see? Here I am, witnessing you embarrass yourself , and somehow this had been worse than the Nancy thing. “I’m just taking her home, okay? Nothing scandalous going on here.”

“Debatable,” Steve replied, uncurling his legs and stretching them out, frowning at his scuffed-up sneakers. “But- whatever. I don’t even care.”

“Liar,” Jonathan said calmly. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“With you? No,” Steve said sourly, and Jonathan’s expression, barely visible in the dim glow of the porch light, had slackened from concern into neutrality. “Fucking- it doesn’t matter. Just go away, please.”

Jonathan looked at him for a long moment, then shook his head, swinging his keys around his finger. “She’s wrong about you, you know,” he said softly. “You’re not all that fake. Although I guess maybe your life would be easier if you were.” 

Steve had pressed his lips together, silent and furious, and Jonathan had stayed there for another beat, just watching him, before sighing and crossing to the driver’s side door. “Goodnight, Steve.”

At the time, Steve had been too busy being angry, angry at Nancy for lying to him, angry at Jonathan for stealing her away, angry at everyone, maybe, for letting him ruin every good thing he ever had. But now he sees what Jonathan was trying to do that night; he wasn't trying to be mean, or condescending, or girlfriend-stealing. He was trying to be good . Jonathan has only ever tried to be good. 

Maybe that’s why, sometime in July, Steve starts hanging out at his house.

It’s not like he means to, exactly, but then again, he hadn’t really meant to start going on drives with him or getting high with him either. But he finds himself driving over to the Byers’ new house on more than one occasion, and instead of asking if he wants to go somewhere, Jonathan ends up inviting him inside.

Steve isn’t really sure why that feels significant. He’s been to Robin’s house, but that’s pretty normal for someone who you’re planning on living with, he thinks. He’d hung out at Tommy and Carol’s houses all the time when he’d been friends with them, but that was usually only because their parents weren’t home and they wanted to take advantage of that. This isn’t like that. He and Jonathan don’t do much of anything, except lay around in his room and listen to records and talk, and Steve can hear the rest of Jonathan’s family bustling around in the other rooms, and it’s- nice. He feels like he’s part of something, when he hangs out here.

He also, coincidentally, starts feeling more and more guilty the longer he does.

“Why am I here?” he asks Jonathan, the third or fourth time this happens. They’re sitting in the backyard, leaned up against the side of the house with their legs stretched out in the grass. A bee keeps landing on the toe of Jonathan’s shoe, which makes Steve kind of nervous, but Jonathan doesn’t seem to have any qualms about possibly getting stung.

Jonathan glances at him, eyebrows raised. “What, like, here on Earth?”

Steve rolls his eyes. “No, like, here at your house , dumbass,” he says, and then immediately feels bad for his choice of words. Sometimes it feels like he should be extra nice to Jonathan, to make up for all the times that he wasn't.

“Oh.” Jonathan nods slowly, considering. “Because I invited you?” he offers slowly, like he’s not sure it’s the right answer but can’t come up with an alternative.

“Yeah, but…” Steve swallows hard, watching the bee on Jonathan’s shoe lift itself a few inches in the air, then settle back down on the neatly tied bow of his laces. “Why?”

“Because I like hanging out with you,” Jonathan says idly, like it’s not entirely groundbreaking, like it’s not the highest honor he could possibly bestow on Steve. 

“Oh,” Steve squeaks. The bee turns a little to face him, and it feels like he’s being judged by the miniscule creature. “Cool?”

Jonathan laughs quietly next to him, knocking his elbow against Steve’s. “Well, don’t get too excited. It’s not like I have that much other stuff going on.”

“I didn’t think you minded that,” Steve says truthfully, suddenly very distracted by the warm, tactile feeling of Jonathan’s arm pressed against his own. “You seem like a pretty solitary guy.”

“I guess I am,” Jonathan muses quietly, fingers brushing through the grass between them. Steve envisions slotting his fingers through Jonathan’s, and then immediately banishes the image. Stupid . Why is he thinking stuff like that? Just because he’s trying to be nicer to Jonathan now doesn’t mean he needs to be all over him about it. “But to be fair, I didn’t really have a choice.”

Steve winces. “My bad,” he mutters, and Jonathan laughs.

“It’s fine. I guess-” he blows out a breath- “I don’t know, I didn’t really mind being alone before? Or maybe I just didn’t have time to think about it. But now that Hopper’s around and Will’s old enough to not need me taking care of him all the time, I don’t really know what to do with myself.”

“Oh.” Steve swallows back disappointment at being a last-ditch option, and nods slowly. “Well, I’m glad to be of service.”

Jonathan’s head lolls to the side, and he smirks at him. “I wasn't trying to insult you,” he says, “sorry. I just meant- I’ve been kind of aimless, lately, so. I guess I’m trying to say thank you. You’ve helped.” 

Steve snorts. “What, because I’m another person for you to take care of?”

The joke falls flat between them, and Steve suppresses a wince as Jonathan considers him for a long moment. “Is that what you think you are to me?” he asks quietly after a beat, and Steve’s heart leaps up to somewhere in his throat.

“I mean,” he says, a little stiltedly, wanting to look away but suddenly finding it an impossible feat to do so, “no? Not exactly.”

Jonathan shakes his head slowly, glancing away, which does succeed in making Steve’s heart rate slow to a normal rhythm but also puts a weird emptiness in his gut, like he’s done something wrong. “Being needed is overrated. Being wanted is nice.”

Steve exhales sharply. “And you like hanging out with me because- I want you?” he squeaks, cheeks flaming. 

“Sure,” Jonathan says, sounding faintly amused as he meets his eyes again. “You could put it that way.”

There’s a beat of silence as Steve processes this, and then:

“Also, the paying for my food and shit is a nice perk,” Jonathan adds, and Steve sputters something unintelligible.

“I don’t- well, I’m not doing that right now ,” he points out, arching an eyebrow.

Jonathan smiles, steadfast. “No, I guess not,” he agrees, and they’re silent again.

"Hey, Jonathan,” Steve says, one hot day in the middle of summer, as air seeps in through the open window and the fan on Jonathan’s desk whirs frantically in a pathetic attempt to keep them cool. It feels odd, sometimes, referring to Jonathan by first name - it’s too intimate, or something. He should be Byers , maybe, and there was a point where he was. There was a point where Steve wouldn't have even bothered to learn his name at all.

There was a time when Steve would have hated Jonathan just for existing. Then, after that, there was a time when Steve maybe should have hated him on principle. But somewhere along the way, even after the kind-of-sort-of girlfriend stealing and the very-much-real beating of his ass and the horrifying reality of the supernatural, Steve forgot about all those principles entirely.

“Hmm?” Jonathan asks. He’s lying perfectly still on his bed, staring at the ceiling. He does stuff like that often, Steve’s noticed - he has an ability to be perfectly still, perfectly neutral, that’s almost uncanny. Most people, by this point, would have grabbed a book off the nightstand or struck up a conversation or done something other than just sit and stare, but Jonathan doesn’t seem to require such distractions. 

Steve, on the other hand, is not calm and collected the way Jonathan Byers somehow always manages to be. He’s laying on the floor, tossing a ball up and down and kicking his legs absently against the wall - not hard enough to leave scuff marks, but enough that Jonathan occasionally sends him a dirty look.

“Did Nancy ever give you that camera?” he asks, before he can think of a better way to phrase it. He’s never been great at thinking before he speaks.

Jonathan frowns, and moves for the first time in twenty minutes, leaning over the side of the bed to peer down at him. “For Christmas, you mean?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh. Yeah, she did. Why?”

It feels incredibly stupid, now that Steve’s thinking about it, to try to take credit for a small gesture that happened nearly five years ago, especially considering the fact that it was a tiny band-aid shoved over the bullet hole of the rest of the things he’d done to Jonathan that year.

Steve definitely has grounds to hate Jonathan, but Jonathan has plenty of reason to hate him too.

He’s in it now, though, so he swallows and forces out; “Oh, well, I was just wondering if she told you it was- from her, or what.”

“It was implied,” Jonathan says carefully, and there’s a knowing tilt to his eyebrows now.

It’s so strange, how Jonathan can be so calm and Steve can be sitting here absolutely losing his goddamn mind. “Okay,” he says meekly, not willing to dig himself in any deeper, but because he can’t resist, he adds; “Um- it was good, though, right? The camera? The kind you like, and everything?”

A small smile touches the corners of Jonathan’s lips, and he carefully rolls over back onto the mattress. “It was actually better,” he says. “Mine was a cheap version of the one I really wanted, ‘cause we couldn’t afford anything better, but whoever bought the new one had enough money for the good one, I guess.”

“Oh.” Steve’s face, impossibly, flushes pinker; he hadn’t even considered that part, when picking out the new camera. He’d dragged Nancy around for a whole day trying to find one that looked close enough to the right one, and when he’d found it, they’d both examined it closely to see if it fit. He’d barely even glanced at the price tag.

“That’s good, then,” he decides quietly, but shame claws its way up his throat anyway, thick and warm like blood. All that - the nice camera and the dragging Nancy around and everything - and he hadn’t even managed a real apology to go with it. 

Just say it’s from you, Nance , he’d pleaded. He doesn’t want to talk to me.

She’d pursed her lips. Nancy had never been great at lying, until she was. She was more of a lie-by-omission kind of girl, hence the it was implied thing. Are you sure? She’d asked, hesitantly accepting the gift bag.

Steve had nodded jerkily, shrugging it off like he used to shrug everything off, until somewhere along the way he’d lost the ability to do so. Yeah. It’s whatever, I just…

Yeah, Nancy had agreed, not bothering to let him finish, which Steve had been grateful for. There was no good end to that sentence; I just can’t stand the thought of him without that dumb little camera? I just hate that I wrecked it in the first place? I just don’t want to look him in the eye if I don’t have to? 

All terribly true, except, maybe, that last one. Not anymore.

“Steve?” Jonathan asks after a beat, head lolling to the side, and Steve can just barely see the edge of his smirk. He’s not really sure when that happened - when Jonathan became the one with the upper hand, the one smirking and teasing and possessing something resembling confidence, or as close to it as Jonathan Byers gets, while Steve has been reduced to a bumbling mess of a man falling over himself for his attention. Is this how girls used to feel about him? Because if so, that sucks , and he suddenly feels very sorry for them.

“Yeah?” he replies faintly, feeling a little dizzy. 

“Was there something you wanted to tell me?” Jonathan asks, sounding more amused by the second, and Steve hates him, hates him, hates him.

(He doesn’t. It’s become a problem, lately, how much he doesn’t.)

He clears his throat, opening his mouth to say no , or maybe stop looking me like that , or just fucking confess to the camera thing already, because Jonathan definitely knows by this point and in the scheme of things it doesn’t really matter all that much.

(Except it does matter, doesn’t it? It matters so much.)

What comes out, instead of any of those things, is the unthinkable: “I’m sorry.”

Silence. Steve swallows, staring daggers at the ceiling, before carefully swiveling his head to glance at Jonathan again.

Jonathan’s head is still rolled to the side, but the amusement has slid off his face, replaced with something like awe. Or maybe horror. Steve wouldn't be able to tell. “Oh,” he says faintly, and their eyes lock. Jonathan holds it for one, two, three seconds, and then abruptly turns his head back to face the ceiling, and all Steve can see of his face is a sliver of his mouth and one of his eyes, firmly turned skyward.

He watches Jonathan swallow, Adam’s apple bobbing, and wonders when it was that he started being quite so captivated by such mundane details about him. “What for?” Jonathan asks, in a careful tone. The side of his face that is visible is entirely devoid of emotion, but Steve’s sure that if he clambered up onto the bed and peered down into those strange brown eyes of his, he’d find a deep, contemplative look in them.

Not that Steve would do something like that, of course.

He takes a breath. “Everything,” he replies, which is a cop-out answer but is the only true one that he can think of. “All of it.”

The corner of Jonathan’s mouth twitches upward, not that Steve is looking. “I think we called it even right around the time I beat your ass to a pulp,” he says, perfectly and infuriatingly calm.

Fuck it.

Steve sits up, ignoring the head rush from the sudden movement, and in one swift motion he pushes himself off the floor and up onto the bed, shoving Jonathan’s legs aside where they rest against the pillow and looming over him, his knees pressed into the mattress beside Jonathan’s and glaring down at him.

Jonathan regards him with mild interest, amusement still touching the corners of his mouth and sparking in his eyes, and Steve- he doesn’t know what it is he’s feeling, exactly. He’s feeling too much, and Jonathan is giving him too little, and he doesn’t know what he wants but he knows it’s not this.

“Listen to me, dipshit,” he says, which is an undeniably shitty way to start an apology, but Jonathan’s smile is only widening, and it’s driving Steve up the wall. “The camera was from me, okay? Is that what you want to hear?”

Jonathan lifts an eyebrow, still smiling and making no move to sit up. Steve is still hovering over him, and he’s suddenly very aware that this is- odd, probably. He also, coincidentally, does not feel at all compelled to move away.

“I don’t want to hear anything,” Jonathan replies, smirking. “You’re the one who’s having a mini stroke, or something.”

“I am not,” Steve huffs. “I just- I should have given it to you myself, because-”

-because maybe if Nancy hadn’t, you two wouldn't have-

Steve blinks away that thought. He’s not sure where it came from; he’s long since over Nancy, and any pettiness over her relationship with Jonathan surely should be dead and buried by now.

He powers on . “Because,” he forces out through his teeth, “it would have been the right thing to do, and I was a coward, so.”

“So,” Jonathan agrees seriously.

Steve hates him. He should be more hurt, surely, he should be more offended by everything Steve has done, and he should be making Steve work harder for forgiveness. But maybe that’s just it, too - Steve’s not actually sure that he has forgiveness, and Jonathan is making it impossible to tell. He thinks, sometimes, that the only reason Jonathan can be so nonchalant about the shittiness of Steve is because it’s all he expects from him. Like Steve is meeting every poor expectation Jonathan has ever had, and-

-and he’s changed, right? He’d like to believe that. He’d like Jonathan to believe that.

Maybe this is the reason that he keeps talking. Or maybe he just doesn’t know when to quit. “And I’m sorry for all the stuff before that,” he continues, eyes darting away from Jonathan’s and then back again, in time to see his eyebrows lift in real, genuine surprise. “I’m sorry for assuming the worst about you and Nance, and I’m sorry for that awful shit I said about your family, and for calling you a queer, and I’m sorry I ignored you forever after, because you’re actually a really great person and you’ve saved my life a shit ton of times and- and I don’t know why you’re putting up with me now, but I’m, uh.” He coughs. “I’m glad.”

There’s silence again, a heavier kind this time, and Steve sits back on his heels, a furious blush rising to his cheeks and also feeling, vaguely, like he’s just run a marathon or something. He hadn’t even realized how many sorry’s he’d been wanting to say until now. He hadn’t known how much he’d mean the apology.

A moment passes, and Steve resolutely refuses to look at Jonathan, staring instead at the wall with all the posters of the cool bands that Steve was too busy feigning popularity to listen to. In his peripheral, he watches Jonathan lift himself up onto his elbows, peering up at him curiously, before clearing his throat.

“Okay.”

Steve’s eyes immediately snap back to him. “What?”

Jonathan shrugs. “Okay,” he repeats, all too calm.

“Oh, you’ve gotta be kidding me,” Steve groans, slumping back against Jonathan’s headboard. He unfurls his legs, nudging the toe of his shoe into Jonathan’s thigh. “I say- all of that - and all I get is okay?”

“Sorry, did you want me to fucking propose to you or something?” Jonathan replies, teasingly enough, but Steve’s face heats anyway, for some strange reason. 

“No,” he grits out, hoping that he’s not blushing as much as he feels like he is, “I just- I can’t ever tell if you actually like me or not.”

This probably doesn’t do much to contradict the proposal comment, but Jonathan’s face, miraculously, softens, and he sits up for real, crossing his legs and letting one knee bump against Steve’s.

“Steve,” he says, with an exasperated edge to his voice, but maybe a little fondness too, “Why would I let you into my house if I didn’t like you?”

This is a solid point, but Steve wasn't a straight D student in high school for nothing. “Oh,” he says, like the fucking idiot that he is, “Yeah, I guess that’s true.”

Jonathan smiles, a real one this time. “I forgive you,” he says, like it’s nothing, “Is that what you want to hear?”

Yes, Steve’s entire body says immediately, yes, yes, yes, but he manages to cling to his singular remaining shred of dignity long enough to respond, quirking an eyebrow, “I don’t want to hear anything.”

“Bull,” Jonathan says immediately, which is fair, because it is. 

Steve scowls. “Whatever, man. I also forgive you for beating me up and stealing my girlfriend, by the way.”

At this, Jonathan actually laughs, a sharp bark like he surprised himself with it. “You deserved both those things,” he says, which is all too true. “I’m not apologizing.”

“Are you aware of how many concussions I’ve gotten in the past four years?” Steve bites back immediately. “You started a very long domino chain of catastrophic head injuries.”

The smirk is back, and Steve does not hate it as much as he wishes he did. “That explains a lot.”

“Oh, fuck you.”

Jonathan laughs and reaches over to turn up the volume on the record player, and Steve settles more comfortably into the pillows as the music washes over them.

Steve has been trying very hard not to think about the increasing frequency of his visits to the Byers’ household. This proves a difficult task, mainly because Robin keeps commenting on the increasing frequency of his visits to the Byers’ household.

What do you guys even talk about? she asked yesterday, nose screwed up as she reshelved a stack of DVDs at Family Video.

I don’t know, Steve had replied, feeling oddly defensive about the whole thing. Life, I guess. Music. Annoying coworkers, he’d added, poking her in the ribcage, and she’d squawked and batted his hands away.

Interesting, she’d replied after a minute, in a little bit of an odd tone, but Steve had been blushing too hard by that point to feel like continuing the conversation.

Regardless of how interesting it is, the summer stretches on, and Steve keeps returning to Jonathan. 

“I’m here!” he calls a few weeks later, kicking the door behind him. He doesn’t bother knocking anymore - apparently a part of being friends with Jonathan, or whatever, is that he is suddenly comfortable to walk into his house with zero preamble. He steps into the living room, and is met with two pairs of incredibly judgy eyes staring up at him from the couch.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Mike Wheeler asks bluntly, pointing a chess piece accusingly at him from the board spread across the coffee table. Will gives him a disapproving look, but glances back at Steve with an eyebrow quirked anyway, silently asking the same.

Steve flushes. “I could ask you the same thing,” he says pointedly to Mike, who replies by sticking his tongue out at him. “Is Jonathan here?”

“He’s in his room,” Will says, idly knocking one of Mike’s pawns off of the board. “Is it really true you gave him that fancy camera? All this time I thought Nancy was the nice one.”

“She’s not,” Mike says vehemently, at the same time that Steve goes, “He told you?” in a weird squeaky voice that he’s never heard himself use before. He coughs, balling his hands into fists. He’s not going to get all flustered over Jonathan Byers in front of his nerdy brother and said nerdy brother’s obnoxious best friend. He’s not .

Will shrugs. “Yeah. Only because he thought it was funny how dramatic you were about it.”

“They tell each other everything,” Mike points out, frowning at the chessboard before carefully sliding his rook over three spaces. “Check.”

“Not everything,” Will murmurs, making Mike blush for some odd reason, and moves his king over a space. “Un-check.”

 “Not a thing,” Mike says, but he’s smiling a little, watching him. Will catches him looking and smirks back, kicking his shin lighty with a socked foot.

Steve squints, and clears his throat. “Right. Well, I guess I’ll just-”

“Oh, hey,” Jonathan says, emerging from around the corner with a stack of records in hand. “I was wondering when you’d show up.” He sets the records down on the table beside Will, whose eyes widen gleefully. “For you to borrow ,” Jonathan says pointedly to him, reaching over ruffling his hair. “They’re the ones you wanted to listen to.”

Will scowls, batting his hands away from his hair. “Can you quit it with that? I thought we talked about this.”

“I think you mean ‘thanks, Jonathan’.”

Will rolls his eyes. “Thanks, Jonathan,” he says, in as flat of a tone Steve’s ever heard him use.

Mike grins, grabbing one off the top of the pile. “Bowie. Nice.”

Will smiles a little at that, pushing himself up off the couch and holding out a hand. “I forfeit,” he says, nodding to the chess board. “Let’s go.”

“Because you know you’re losing,” Mike mutters, but takes his hand and trails after him into his room, records tucked under his arm.

Jonathan settles down onto the couch they’ve just vacated, stretching his legs out along it. Steve stares after Mike and Will for a beat before joining him, kicking his legs out of the way. "Are they," he starts, staring at the abandoned chess board and thinking of a way to put it delicately, and eventually settles on, "-in love?"

Jonathan cuts him a look, wary and protective, and Steve instantly shoots up his hands in surrender. "Not judging! Just asking!"

This seems to be a good enough answer, because Jonathan relaxes again, and shrugs thoughtfully. "Yeah," he says. "Probably."

Steve nods, humming his assent. "Think they know it?" he asks, almost as an afterthought.

Jonathan snorts. "Not a chance."

“Huh.” Steve shrugs. “Cool.”

An odd look passes over Jonathan’s face, something almost like a smile, and he chuckles wryly. “Sure. Come on, let’s go outside or something.”

Steve’s not really sure when words like let’s and us and we should worked their way into both their vernaculars, because of all the people he’d ever considered being half of an us with, Jonathan Byers was maybe at the very bottom of the list.

At least - he had been. Now, he’s kind of at the top of every possible list Steve could potentially retain in his dumb, damaged brain. He doesn’t know how that happened.

He brushes the thought away and follows Jonathan out to the backyard.

Some hours later, after debating the merits of various bands (Steve is mostly contradictory on principle rather than out of any real feelings on the topic, except maybe that weird feeling he gets when Jonathan’s brow goes all crinkly with disagreement), out in the fresh air and passing a pack of cigarettes back and forth, he stumbles back into the house to use the bathroom.

When he returns, Will and Mike are blocking the doorway, talking in low voices and standing very close together. Steve smirks to himself, leaning against the table and examining the photos on the wall in his best attempt at minding his own business, until one phrase catches his attention.

“See you later, baby,” Mike hums, and Steve glances over again just in time to see him tap a finger against the tip of Will’s nose before taking off down the street on his bike.

The door swings shut, and Steve blinks. "Did he just call you 'baby'?" he asks without thinking, and Will nearly jumps out of his skin, whirling around to face him.

"Jesus, Steve," he huffs, in the exact same tone Jonathan always says it. "How long have you been standing there?"

Steve shrugs. "Couple minutes. Did he, though?"

Will presses his lips in a thin line. "No," he says, like a liar, because Steve had been standing right there and had heard the whole thing perfectly clearly, "and- shouldn't you be off somewhere trying to seduce my brother?"

Steve blinks. "I," he says, as Will brushes past him into the kitchen, still undeniably annoyed, "Sorry- what?"

He trails after Will, rather pathetically, into the kitchen, where the smaller boy busies himself filling a glass with water, seemingly unbothered about the fact that he's currently giving Steve a heart attack. "My brother," he repeats, turning around and sipping innocently. "You're always following him around."

"I am not," Steve says on instinct, before glancing at the clock and seeing that he's been at the Byers' house for nearly five hours now, which only cements Will's point. The Steve of old would never stay more than two hours in one place. He was too in demand.

Douche, Jonathan says in his head, which is fair. That's a pretty douchey thing to think. But more importantly - since when has Jonathan literally infiltrated his thoughts? 

"Sure," Will says, sounding completely unimpressed with him. Also fair. "Whatever. Just don't, like, break anything trying to sneak in or whatever. Mike said when you were dating Nancy you broke part of the gutter."

"That wasn't my fault," Steve counters with a scowl, even though it definitely had been, but- sue him. He's having a little trouble thinking right now, because apparently Will thinks that he's been sneaking in to see Jonathan, in the same way that he did with Nancy, which means that Will thinks-

He thinks-

"Will, I'm not-" he starts, but Will is already wandering away, casting him another scathing look as he disappears down the hall toward his bedroom.

Steve stands in the kitchen for a beat, staring blankly at the wall and trying to get his brain to function again. He's- he's had a lot of head injuries over the past few years, but they pale in comparison to this mindfuck; that, apparently, the idea of him and Jonathan, together, is a tangible thing in the minds of other people. Of people like Will, and maybe Mike too, who, out of all of the little dipshits Steve's had to cart around, would probably know the most about that sort of thing.

He wonders what it is that makes them think that - he knows he's desperate for Jonathan's attention, knows he's been hanging around here a lot lately, and he can't deny that there's something different about his relationship with Jonathan, but he'd just figured that was a side effect of their history, and also maybe the fact that Steve is incredibly out of practice with having real friends, bar Robin.

It's something that Tommy might have insinuated, back when Steve still gave him the time of day. He knows people talk, knows what they say about Jonathan - hell, what he used to say about Jonathan - but this is different, because it's Will saying it, and Will is not a mouth breathing Hawkins bigot. Will knows this subject intimately, and he knows his brother, and- and what the fuck, is the bottom line here.

Steve is still staring blankly at the wall, silently spinning out, when Jonathan pokes his head around the corner from the back porch, giving him a quizzical look. "Steve?" he says, and his name always sounds so special in Jonathan's mouth, like it's something other than the boring, plain, douchey name that it is, and Steve isn't really sure why he's thinking about this right now but frankly he's impressed that he's managing any sort of thinking right now at all. "You disappeared."

“Sorry,” Steve says, utterly unable to tear his gaze away from the wall.

Jonathan slowly pads into the room, eyeing him with increasing concern and stopping a couple feet in front of him. "Everything okay?" he asks hesitantly.

He's too close. Steve swallows. "Uh, yeah," he says, but it comes out high pitched and weird. He clears his throat. "Yeah, um- sorry, I'm just realizing I should probably get home soon," he manages before he can think too much about it. "It's been like five hours."

Jonathan glances at the clock in mild interest, eyebrows arching up. "Huh. I hadn't noticed."

Steve hadn't either, frankly, until now, and it's kind of freaking him out, how easily he's wasted an entire day away here, just sitting quietly with Jonathan Byers.

Oh, Christ.

"Do you want me to drive you?" Jonathan offers, still giving him that scrutinizing look, which is fair, because Steve feels like he might faint at any moment. And- oh, right, Steve doesn't have his car, because Jonathan had picked him up after work, which is- that's an odd thing to do, objectively, it makes it seem like they're-

"Nope!" he squeaks, backing away along the counter a little, "Uh- no, it's fine, it’s chill, I’m chill, I'm just gonna- I'm gonna walk," he decides, as if he's ever walked anywhere in his life if he didn't have to, and Jonathan's brow furrows in confusion.

"Are you okay?" he asks, squinting at him, as Steve finds the edge of the counter and continues backing away toward the door.

He nods vigorously, like a liar, and stumbles a little as he tries to slip his shoes on. "Yep," he says, rather unnecessarily, "Super. I'm doing great, I just need to- yeah. Um. Bye?"

Jonathan is hovering in the hall, still looking completely perplexed, but at least he doesn't look hurt. Mostly just confused. Maybe a little annoyed. But then- Jonathan never looks hurt. Sad, sure. Angry, definitely. But mostly, when he's attacked, his face just drops to a blank slate, and it's not doing that right now, so Steve's at least slightly in the clear. It would suck to have to give another dramatic apology so soon after the last one.

"Okay," Jonathan says slowly, as Steve gets his shoes on and palms at the door handle. "Um. I'll see you, I guess."

"See you!" Steve agrees in a high-pitched squeak, and then the door is clicking shut, and he is mercifully on the other side.

"Jesus Christ," Steve says out loud, and bangs his head once against the outer wall of the Byers' residence before starting off down the driveway.

Steve had managed to regain some normality, in the few days after the whole- debacle , or whatever it was. After a long walk home, followed by an hour sitting with his legs pulled to his chest on the stairs at the shallow end of the pool, followed by another hour up in his room listening to one of the albums Jonathan had lent to him, he’d come to the conclusion that, in the scheme of things, it didn’t really matter. Will assuming that he’s dating Jonathan isn’t that different from Dustin trying to get him and Robin together, really. It’s the same type of incompatibility. So he’d gone back to Jonathan’s the following day, and he’d behaved the same as always, and tucked the weirdness of the previous day back into that little cave in his brain where the niggling doubts that occasionally plague him go to die. Jonathan hadn’t brought up how batshit he’d acted, either chalking it up to heat exhaustion or one of Steve’s several oddities or maybe not thinking or caring about it at all, which somehow feels worse to Steve than if Jonathan had been judging him. He doesn’t like the idea of lacking object permanence in Jonathan’s brain. He wants Jonathan to dwell on him at least as much as he dwells on Jonathan.

Not in a weird way, though. Obviously.

That’s what he was convincing himself, anyway, right up until about this very moment.

“You’re what?” he splutters, gaping inelegantly at Jonathan, who’s sitting on the other end of the bed looking, as usual, perfectly unbothered.

Jonathan shoots him a wholly unimpressed look. “This can’t possibly be news to you. You literally started that rumor.”

It’s the beginning of August, and they’re in Jonathan’s room again. Steve’s sitting on the end of his bed - that’s a recent development, the unspoken agreement that he’s allowed to sit here, to lay beside him, to get closer - and they’d been discussing music, or more specifically, Jonathan had been rambling about music and Steve had been listening with rapt attention. And then there had been a quiet moment, which Jonathan hadn’t seemed to feel the need to fill but Steve, as usual, had. So he’d said something about Will, something along the lines of, so you think he’s a- that he might be-? Have you asked him about it? Solely for the purpose of filling the silence, and not, of course, because he’d been thinking about it, about seeing Mike wave goodbye to him in the doorway and about the things Will had said afterward when he caught Steve watching.

Jonathan had shrugged, unbothered, and said-

He’d said -

I mean, it’s not that big of a deal. I am too.

Steve swallows, mouth suddenly very dry. “Technically Tommy started it,” he replies weakly, like it even matters. “The- the rumor. And- I didn’t think it was true . People get made fun of for being- for liking-” he splutters something incomprehensible, and Jonathan lifts an eyebrow.

“Don’t hurt yourself,” he says neutrally.

Steve shoots him the finger. “Getting made fun of for being gay doesn’t mean you are ,” he says, and is frankly pretty impressed with himself for how evenly it comes out, considering.

Jonathan shrugs. “Sure, sometimes. And sometimes you are anyway. It’s not mutually exclusive.”

“Right,” Steve says faintly. “I just- I thought- when I apologized for everything, I thought-”

“First of all,” Jonathan says, before Steve can even really decide what his point was going to be, “calling me a queer is by far the least of your crimes. Second, I thought you were apologizing because it was true and you were a dick about it, not because you thought it wasn't.”

“I,” Steve says, pauses, thinks carefully, and tries delicately, “I did think it wasn't. But I’m still sorry for it, now that- I mean, since it is. True. It’s true.”

Jonathan almost looks amused. “It is true,” he says, the way you’d talk to a toddler when they needed to be placated. 

Steve scowls. “Okay, well, what about Nancy?”

Something flashes in Jonathan’s eyes, and he shrugs again, painfully neutral. “What about her?”

“Is that- I mean, how does that- work?”

Is that why you broke up , he wants to ask, but that seems insensitive. He is curious, though - had Jonathan ended things with Nancy because he wasn't into girls, because he was thinking about boys instead, with their steady hands and square jawlines and cropped hair and-

Jesus fucking Christ. Steve is losing his goddamn mind. He’s pretty sure that being friends with Jonathan Byers has irreparably altered his brain chemistry.

“I like- both,” Jonathan says stiffly, staring resolutely at the wall. “Nance and I were just- better as friends, in the end.”

Steve stares. “Both?”

“Yup,” Jonathan says, popping the consonants and fixing Steve with a look, daring him to say something stupid.

Unfortunately, not even an act of God could stop Steve Harrington from saying something stupid in any given situation. “That’s an option?” he blurts, face already flushing pink. “That’s- a thing?”

Jonathan stares at him for a long moment, a muscle working in his jaw, the jaw that gives way into flushed cheeks and creased eyelids and lips, soft and pink and-

“I’m not talking about this with you,” Jonathan decides after a long moment, and goes back to his staring contest with the wall.

Steve splutters something unintelligible. “Why not?”

“Because. You’re going to get weird,” Jonathan says, and his cheeks inexplicably flush a shade pinker. “And it’s- it’s whatever. It doesn’t matter.”

It definitely does matter, but Steve doesn’t know how to explain how or why without giving too much away and/or sounding like an asshole.

“Talk to fucking- Robin, I don’t know,” Jonathan grumbles, laying back against the sheets and closing his eyes. “I’m sure she’d love to school you.”

“Robin doesn’t like both, though,” Steve says unthinkingly, and then remembers that he’s under strict orders to say nothing about what Robin does or does not like where dating is concerned. “I mean, uh-”

“Relax, Steve, I knew all that already,” Jonathan says, eyes still closed.

Steve scowls. “What? Since when?”

“I don’t know. We talk sometimes. She told me.”

Steve would not be surprised if he looked in a mirror right about now and found his brain melting out of his ears. “You’re friends with Robin?”

“Mhm.”

“That’s- weird,” he says, for lack of a better term, because it is - Robin is his friend, and Jonathan is his- is his something, and the idea of them talking to each other, maybe even about him , makes him feel a little faint. With their combined knowledge, the two of them could probably destroy him if they wanted to. And plus also, she’s the one who’s been bullying him for being friends with Jonathan in the first place, which makes her a total hypocrite. He files this information away for later.

Jonathan opens one eye, stares at him for a long moment, then closes it again. “Objectively, me and Robin make way more sense as friends than you and her.”

Steve swallows. “Or me and you,” he agrees quietly.

Jonathan’s eyelids twitch, and he nods jerkily. “Yeah,” he says, voice soft and strange, “me and you.”

There’s silence for a beat as Steve tries to parse out what he means by that, but before he can ask, Jonathan is pushing himself up on his elbows and opening his eyes, fixing him with an unimpressed look. “Look, I don’t care. You could talk to Will, too, if you wanted to know anything, or maybe- well, Mike might be too repressed, but it’d at least be entertaining- but I am not going to sit here and defend myself to you.”

Steve flashes on Mike’s soft expression the other day, bidding Will goodbye at the doorway - see you later, baby - and thinks Jonathan might have slightly miscalculated that whole repression thing, but he wisely doesn’t comment.

He, for the briefest of seconds, allows himself to imagine a similar scene, only it’s him standing in the door with Jonathan on the other side, and him leaning in to kiss Jonathan’s cheek, and those warm words spilling out of his own mouth, and for the first time since this whole issue started, he doesn’t jerk away from the thought. He lets himself think about it, and finds that it’s, all things considered, a pretty nice thought to have.

God, he is so screwed.

“You don’t need to defend yourself to me,” he replies instead, weakly, just because he has to. At least focusing on Jonathan’s - whatever Jonathan is means that he won’t accidentally say or do something he’ll regret. “I’m- it’s cool, it’s chill, I don’t even- yeah. Whatever. Um. Yeah.”

Jonathan’s mouth twitches, not that Steve is looking at it. “Sometimes I wonder how you graduated high school,” he says, calmly enough, but there’s a teasing edge that makes Steve’s shoulders relax just a little.

“Me too,” he sighs, settling back down onto the bed beside Jonathan.

Jonathan’s knee bumps against his, and they both pretend not to notice.

“Hey,” Steve says idly, a few days later as his car chugs along the highway toward Indianapolis, Dustin sitting in the passenger seat fiddling with whatever gadget he’s got his hands on this week and occasionally making scathing comments about Steve’s driving skills. Pretty bold of him, considering Steve is doing him a favor by driving him into the city so he can get whatever spare part he’s missing for the robot-radio- whatever he’s making that is apparently impossible to find in Hawkins. “Can I ask you something?”

Dustin glances up from the gadget - it’s a radio, Steve thinks, or it used to be before Dustin tore open the back and exposed all the wires - and opens his mouth. “Don’t say I just did ask something,” Steve cuts in before he can say it, and Dustin rolls his eyes.

“Yeah, shoot,” he grumbles, a little dejectedly.

Now that he thinks about it, Steve actually has no idea how to voice the question. He doesn’t even really have a good grasp on what the question is , just that it’s there, has been there poking insistently at the charred pieces of whatever’s left of his brain ever since Jonathan uttered the words it’s not a big deal, I am too . 

What ends up coming out of his mouth is, “How do you prove a theory?”

Dustin looks at him for a long moment, long enough for a flush to creep into Steve’s cheeks. Finally, he coughs and says, “You can’t prove a theory, Steve. It defeats the whole meaning of the word.”

Steve hums, mildly irritated, and is quiet for a moment while he waits for the truck in front of him to let him merge into the fast lane. “Sure,” he says, after a moment of distracted consideration, “but, like- there are all these theories that people kind of just agree are true, right?”

“Only because they haven’t been disproven,” Dustin sniffs, like maybe he thinks no one has quite tried hard enough. 

“Right,” Steve tries again, “but, like, gravity is a theory, and it’s been like a million years since it was established and no one disproved it, so. Basically it’s been proven.”

Dustin gives him a look. “First of all, it’s been four hundred years since it was established. Second, the original description of it actually was disproven, by Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity. Third, no , it still hasn’t been proven, because the fact that no one’s come up with an alternative to general relativity in the last seventy years doesn’t mean there isn’t still a margin for error. All you can ever do to support a theory is collect more evidence.”

Steve frowns. “It’s only been seventy years?”

Dustin groans. “Dude, didn’t you ever go to school, like, at all?”

Steve grimaces. “Not really.”

“Okay, well.” Dustin huffs out a breath. “Why do you want to know? Are you trying to get into college all of a sudden? Because I’m gonna be honest, I don’t think-”

“Okay, you can stop,” Steve says, reaching over to whack the baseball cap off his head. Dustin yelps and scrambles to catch it. “No, I’m just thinking. Like- you’re saying we can’t ever really know anything for sure?”

Dustin shrugs. “Pretty much. Or else, something can be true at one time that is no longer true at a different time. It just depends on what you define truth as.”

Steve bites his lip. “How does anyone ever get anything done, then?”

“Jesus Christ, Steve, I don’t know,” Dustin gripes, leaning back in his seat and propping his feet up on the dash. Normally, Steve would yell at him for this, but today his mind is decidedly otherwise preoccupied. “I guess you just have to accept that your version of reality is the only one you’re ever gonna be able to know completely and use it to the best of your ability. What’s wrong with you today?”

Lots and lots, Steve thinks idly, and shakes his head. “I’m just… everything is so different from how it was. You know, before.”

“Shocker,” Dustin mutters, and when Steve whacks him again, he smiles begrudgingly. “Sorry. At least you’re not a total douchebag anymore, right?”

Steve rolls his eyes. “Gee, thanks.”

“I’m serious! Isn’t your life better now that you have real friends? Haven’t most of the changes been for the better?”

“I guess,” Steve mumbles, but it’s true - he probably is better this way, now that the old Steve has been disproven or whatever. Old Steve wouldn't have spent a whole afternoon driving a little dipshit around just because he asked, nor would he have been able to stay friends with an ex-girlfriend like Nancy, or been friends with Robin, or-

- or , kiss Jonathan Byers in the face. Apparently, that’s something he wants to do now, and even though he’s been working toward that conclusion for a couple days, once the thought officially pops into his brain, it seems perfectly true, no way around it. Hard, undeniable evidence.

Jesus Christ .

“I would have still preferred not to almost die a bunch of times in the process, though,” he says to Dustin, mostly to distract himself from the terrifying, exhilarating swooping currently happening in his abdomen. 

Dustin claps him on the shoulder. “You win some, you lose some, man. Get over it.”

“I miss when you used to idolize me,” Steve mutters as he pulls off to the exit.

“Hey, can you cover me if I clock out a little early today?” Steve asks, glancing at the clock. “Jonathan’s coming over and I want to make sure the house isn’t a disaster first.”

“Ooh,” Robin says, waggling her eyebrows. “Hot date?”

Steve’s cheeks redden. “It’s not like that,” he says, a little too defensively, especially since, for all intents and purposes, it’s exactly like that. For him, at least, is what he’s pretty much decided by now. As per always, he has no idea what Jonathan thinks.

Robin gives him a weird look. “Yeah, I know, dingus,” she says, like it’s obvious, which in hindsight it should have been. “I’m kidding.”

“Oh,” Steve says faintly, digging his nails into his palms in a desperate attempt to get it together. “Right.”

There’s quiet for a few moments, as Robin flips through a stack of romance movies, making faces at each of the covers. Then, clearing his throat and feeling more nervous than he has any right to, he asks, “What if- uh. What if it was like that?”

Robin lifts her head, eyes widening in faint surprise. “Oh,” she says, calibrating, and then, once her brain seems to have caught up, she goes back to her usual rapid chatter; “Oh, did you finally figure out that he’s into you? Because it’s really not a big deal, Steve, he’s not going to be weird about it if you’re not, so just-“

“What? No!” Steve yelps, face flushing crimson. He thinks of Jonathan, jaw set hard and eyes darting all over the place - I’m not talking about this with you. “Jonathan’s into me?” he asks in a small, wavering voice.

Robin stares. “Um. Is that not what we’re talking about?”

“No, I was just-” he clears his throat. “Did he say that he- did he say something about me?”

“Not really,” Robin says, still staring at him like he’s grown a second head, “I mean, not anything specific , but, like, he talks about you all the time and he’s always looking at you the way that- fucking- Tammy Thompson and Nancy and all those dumb girls at school used to look at you, so.”

Steve blinks. “Nancy’s not dumb,” he says, because he is a master at picking the least important part of a conversation to fixate on.

Robin smiles a little, turning back to the stack of tapes on the counter. “No, she’s not,” she agrees, “but that wasn't my point , it’s just that he’s, like, constantly drooling over you, and I had a running bet going with myself about how long it would take you to notice.” She flashes him a satisfied grin. “Looks like I won.”

“You can’t- prove that,” Steve insists, feeling like his heart is about to claw its way right out of his esophagus, from anxiety or hope or both. “He’s not- you don’t know that. It’s just-” he coughs- “just a theory.”

Robin snorts. “Trust me, man, it’s more than a theory. But if you don’t believe me, that’s fine.” She glances up at him, eyebrow raised. “What did you mean, then? If it wasn't you being all weird because a guy likes you?”

“He maybe likes me,” Steve corrects, and even that sounds like something to celebrate, like it’s an accomplishment that Jonathan feels something other than neutral about him, that he doesn’t hate him anymore, that he maybe spends just as much time committing Steve’s features to memory as Steve does his. 

He must be blushing, or making a face, or something , because Robin’s eyes go wide, and she drops the tape she’s holding. “Holy shit!” she squeals, jumping up and down and pointing at him. “You like him! You like Jonathan Byers!”

“Shut up ,” Steve hisses, and if he hadn’t been blushing before he certainly is now. He glances around furtively, even though there is not a single soul in the store right now, and even if there were they probably wouldn't notice or care. “I’m not saying that.”

“You do , though,” Robin says triumphantly, folding her arms. “You totally like him.”

Steve groans, covering his face with his hands and grinding his palms against his eyes. “I don’t know what to do , Robin,” he whines, every bit as pathetic as he feels. “I can’t figure him out.”

“Oh, you really like him,” Robin squeaks, bouncing rapidly on the balls of her feet. “Stevie’s in love .”

Steve grimaces. “First of all, I thought we talked about the ‘Stevie’ thing. Second, no one is saying anything about love.”

Robin arches an eyebrow. “But you admit you like him?”

“If I do, can we actually focus on the problem here?”

“The problem of you wanting to jump Jonathan Byers’ bones?” Robin asks, still wholly and obnoxiously delighted.

“Gross , don’t say it like that,” Steve hisses, and firmly turns away, fidgeting with a stack of tapes on the counter. “Also, keep your voice down.”

“No one’s here,” Robin points out, and hops up onto the counter beside him, kicking her legs and grinning.

Steve sighs, setting one of the tapes aside and glaring up at her. “Fine. I like him. Are you happy?”

“Very.” She kicks her legs against the counter again to punctuate it. “So what’s the deal with today? Is he coming over so you can seduce him?”

“Gross ,” Steve huffs again, face flushing pink, because if he really thinks about it, it’s not that gross of an idea at all, but- “No, the A/C at his house stopped working so I said he could come swim if he wanted.”

Robin waggles her eyebrows. “Sexy.”

“That was not the intention,” Steve grumbles, fiddling idly with the cash register. “I said he could bring the kids too if he wanted, but he said they’d rather go to Mike’s or whatever. It was just- me being generous.”

“So that you could get on his good side,” Robin observes, “which, by the way, you already are, because like I said, he’s obsessed with you.”

“He is not,” Steve retorts, even though the idea makes him feel like he’s glowing, a little, which is stupid and annoying and far too cheesy of a thing to feel about a guy who spends his time listening to weird music about death, or whatever. “Or- if he is,” he tries again, flushing pinker, “he actively spends all his time pretending not to be, which isn’t a good sign either.”

Robin shrugs. “I don’t know. Maybe he’s just trying to cover his ass because you used to be a dick.”

“Which is the other thing,” Steve cuts in immediately, refusing to be derailed, “is- why would he even like me, anyway? I used to be so mean.”

Robin rolls her eyes. “Look, dingus, I don’t have all day to stroke your ego, but you haven’t been like that in a long time. If you know you fucked up and you apologized, there’s not really much else you can do. And by the way, I also was around to see you act like a dick all the time, and it’s all fine now, so.”

“It’s different with you, though,” Steve mumbles, folding his arms. “I never bullied you specifically.”

“Yeah, well, I also never beat your face in like Jonathan did.” She shrugs. “Feels like you’re even.”

Steve glares. “You couldn’t beat me up even if you wanted to.”

Her mouth drops open in offense. “Um, hello , I could totally take you! I punched a Russian in the face once! I killed a Demodog with a shotgun! I Molotov cocktail’ed some freaky mind-power dude!” She curls her arm and squeezes her own bicep. “You wouldn't last five minutes against me.”

Steve grins. “I’ve also done all those things.”

“Pfft. Barely.” She grins, kicking his leg. “So you’re gonna talk to Jonathan, then?”

Steve’s eyes dart away, and he swallows hard. “I don’t know. Maybe. I- I kind of want to, but how do you even say something like that?”

Robin rolls her eyes. “Dude, if you can tell Nancy Wheeler that you want to have six little nuggets with her, I’m pretty sure you can do anything.”

Steve scowls. “You and Nancy as friends has been very annoying, I hope you know,” he grumbles. “But point taken.”

Jonathan shows up at Steve’s house approximately one hour later, with a towel thrown over his shoulder and sporting a t-shirt and a pair of slightly too-short swim trunks. Steve tries very hard not to stare.

“Weird that we’ve been hanging out at my house all the time when you literally live in a mansion,” Jonathan says idly as he trails after Steve through the house, running a fingertip over the marble countertop.

Steve flushes. “It’s not a mansion,” he mumbles, glancing over his shoulder at him. Jonathan gives him a look, and he smiles a little, stepping aside and holding the door open to let him out to the back porch. “Okay, it kind of is, but- whatever. You could have asked to come over before.”

Jonathan wrinkles his nose. “I don’t like asking people for things,” he says, which Steve supposes is fair enough, and easily steps past him and sidles over to the pool, staring at it like he doesn’t know exactly what to do.

Steve follows a few steps behind, watching him. He thought he would be more prepared for this than he is - it’s different between them like this, when it’s Jonathan in unfamiliar territory instead of Steve. He doesn’t acclimate to his environment as quickly, which is saying something.

He has a whole speech that he’s been sort of toying with, about us and theories and change , but it keeps going fuzzy around the edges, probably on account of his dumb damaged brain. Probably for the best - he has no idea what would happen if he managed to say any of it aloud. Jonathan could run away or yell at him for making assumptions or worse, go completely still and silent and leave the brunt of the disaster in Steve’s hands.

It could be good, though , the devil’s advocate, which sounds an awful lot like Robin, whispers in the back of his brain as he follows Jonathan to the pool. But then, with zero warning whatsoever, Jonathan strips his t-shirt off, and every word in the English language just straight-up falls out of his head entirely.

It’s not like he didn’t know Jonathan was attractive. Jonathan’s always been attractive, in an unconventional sort of way, the kind of face that you can stare at for hours and never get bored of, a new feature catching Steve’s eye every time he glances over. His voice, too, low and throaty and strangely warm. He’s a puzzle piece that doesn’t fit anywhere Steve tries to place him, and sometimes - sometimes he thinks that Jonathan is the only thing that is real. He’s different from the pretty, perfect life that Steve used to have, and is a grounding presence in this absurdist sci-fi nonsense that his life is now. 

He’d already come to all these realizations, first in a very objective and platonic sort of way when they were first becoming friends, and then again last week in a much more subjective and decidedly not platonic way.

Still. No amount of preparation is ever going to stop his brain from malfunctioning where Jonathan is concerned, apparently.

Jonathan glances over him, eyebrows raised and shoulders hunched. He looks faintly embarrassed, crossing his arms over his (tanned, slim, weirdly muscled for someone who spends most of his time laying around listening to weird music) torso and frowning over at Steve. “What?”

“Nothing,” Steve says quickly, shaking his head, “Nothing, sorry, spacing out.” He clears his throat and turns around, shucking off his own shirt and tossing it over beside Jonathan’s. While he’s turned around, there’s a splashing sound from behind him, and when he glances back over Jonathan is already in the pool, hair dark with water at the ends as he clings to the wall and grins up at him.

Steve, very maturely, does not spend any time mourning the sudden absence of visibility of Jonathan’s upper body.

“What’re you waiting for, Harrington?” Jonathan asks from the pool, flicking water at him.

Steve ignores the funny, bubbly feeling in his chest, and jumps in after him.

After an hour or two of floating idly in the water, carrying on with their usual conversational topics as though they’re not both half-naked and shining with chlorine and sunscreen, a fact that Jonathan seems to be handling much better than Steve is, Steve’s stomach growls. He glances over at Jonathan, who’s stretched out on the stairs in the shallow end, head tipped skyward and sun catching the planes of his face. “Hey,” he says, kicking his legs until he’s mostly upright in the water and nudging his arm, “You hungry?”

Jonathan squints dubiously at him, always so suspicious for no goddamn reason, but ultimately nods, and Steve leads him into the house through the back door.

“Okay, I know you don’t like beer, but there’s soda and shit if you want it,” Steve says, towel slung over his shoulders as he rifles through the fridge. “And then there’s, like, chips and guac, or we have-” he goes to glance over at Jonathan, and pauses when he sees that Jonathan has barely moved past the back door, shifting awkwardly from foot to foot and clinging to his towel.

Steve closes the fridge, hand on his hip. “Dude. What are you doing?”

Jonathan wrinkles his nose, glancing at the crisp white stretch of carpet between them. “I don’t want to get water everywhere,” he mumbles, cheeks red.

Steve stares at him. “You what?”

“Your house,” Jonathan says, sounding physically pained, and gestures around at the living room that connects to the kitchen. “It’s so nice .”

“Who cares? I’m already over here, man, the damage is done,” Steve points out. “Look, you can see my footprints.” He points to the hard wood of the kitchen floor, where there is indeed a trail of wet footprints, but this only seems to stress Jonathan out more. 

“You live here, though,” he insists, fingers wrapped tightly enough in his towel that his knuckles are turning white. 

Steve rolls his eyes. “God, you are so weird.”

“Fuck off!” Jonathan yelps, offended, “I’m just not used to rich people.”

“First of all,” Steve huffs, crossing the room in three quick strides and grabbing Jonathan’s wrist, “the Wheelers are plenty well-off, and that never stopped you from stealing my girlfriend , and second, it’s just water, so get over yourself.”

He hauls Jonathan through the living room and into the kitchen, Jonathan stumbling readily after him with wide eyes that keep flicking down to their point of contact. “Okay, look, the world didn’t end,” Steve says when they’re safely in front of the fridge, dropping Jonathan’s wrist and spreading his hands out like see? “Now, what do you want to eat?”

Jonathan is still staring at him, wide-eyed, but he seems to shake himself out of it pretty quickly, clearing his throat. He glances away, and when he looks back, whatever semblance of awe or insecurity had been in his eyes has vanished, replaced with a crinkly smile. “What did you say about chips?”

Steve grins and grabs the bag of tortilla chips out of the cupboard, followed by a container of guacamole from the fridge, and leads the way back outside. They sit down side-by-side at the edge of the pool, legs swinging through the water as Steve rips open the bag of chips and pops one in his mouth.

“So where are your parents, anyway?” Jonathan asks, scraping a chip methodically around the edge of the tub of guac. 

Steve shrugs. “I don’t know. New York, maybe? They’re always zipping off places for work with no warning. I guess now that I’m an adult it doesn’t really matter if we’re keeping track of each other.”

Jonathan hums, brow crinkled in thought as he chews carefully. “I think my mom would actually shrivel up and die if she didn’t know Will’s exact location at all times.”

Steve laughs quietly, letting his eyes flick over to him again. Jonathan’s hair is still damp, but it’s drying in the sun, strands of it falling into his eyes. His fingers twitch as he imagines brushing it back away from his face. “What about your location? She doesn’t care where you are?” He wonders, briefly, if Jonathan told his mom - or anyone else for that matter - where he’d be today. If it mattered enough to be mentionable. 

“No, she does,” Jonathan says, more seriously than Steve had intended for him to take it, but he supposes that’s on him for making a bad joke. He’s great at those, especially around people whose attention he desperately wants. Luckily, Jonathan never seems all that fazed by it. “But not in the same way. With me it’s like- logistically, she wants to keep track of me. With Will it’s more of a compulsion.” He half-glances at Steve, flushing a little the way he always does when he’s accidentally made himself too vulnerable. Steve wants to grab his face in both hands and hold it until Jonathan understands that he doesn’t have to be afraid of him. “I don’t know that either version is all that ideal, to be honest,” he says, laughing a little.

Steve smiles in what he hopes is a sympathetic manner, letting his fingers unfurl on the pavement between them, just barely brushing Jonathan’s wrist. “I’m sorry.”

Jonathan blinks, like he’s surprised at the response, then laughs again and looks away. “Don’t be. She’s a good mom. I didn’t mean to… it’s not like-”

“Jonathan.” In a rare moment of bravery, Steve wraps his fingers around Jonathan’s wrist, and Jonathan glances back over at him again, faintly surprised. “It’s funny how you do that,” Steve says, smiling a little. “You defend everyone else from your own feelings.”

Jonathan’s mouth opens, then closes. Steve is nothing short of mesmerized by it. His speech flits through his mind again - not the right time, now, of course, but it’s there , and it feels real for a second. Jonathan is so very real, warm skin under Steve’s featherlight touch. He wants more. He’s desperate for it, actually. When did he become this? And, more importantly, when did he become so okay with being this? “I don’t,” Jonathan whispers, a weak protest, then shakes his head and stops again, the exact type of contradiction Steve is talking about. Then he clears his throat and tries again. “I don’t do that with you,” he points out, though not as evenly as he’d probably been aiming for.

“Yeah, well.” Steve shrugs, trying to play it off. “You aren’t obligated to me the way you are to your family.”

“No, I guess not,” Jonathan agrees, a small, pleased smile playing at his lips. It feels like a victory of some sort. “I’m here anyway, though,” he observes, amusement laced through his voice, along with something else, something that sounds like what are you going to do about it?

“Yeah,” is Steve’s only answer to the spoken question, and he hopes Jonathan hears his subtext - I don’t know what I’m going to do about it. Yet . Jonathan just keeps looking at him, eyebrows drawn together and a small, baffled sort of smile on the edges of his lips. Steve runs a self-conscious hand through his hair, eyeing him nervously and trying very hard not to think about what Robin said earlier about people being- obsessed with each other, and whatnot. “What?” he asks, voice softer than he intends it to be.

“Sorry,” Jonathan says, eyes darting away, and disappointment pangs through Steve’s chest. He almost corrects him - wait, no, I didn’t mean for you to stop, you can look at me, please look at me - but Jonathan speaks again before he can. “You’re just being so nice. It’s funny.”

“Hey!” Steve yelps, blushing. “I’m- I’m nice,” he tries, but his voice sort of gives out halfway through, and he winds up sounding kind of dejected.

Jonathan looks at him again - yes! - and smiles lazily, knocking their legs together under the water. “You are,” he allows, “most of the time. But the way you are with me, it’s... you don’t have to be afraid that I’m gonna break, or something.”

Steve frowns. “I don’t think that.”

Jonathan cocks his head at him, pursing his lips. Steve’s eyes are automatically and infuriatingly drawn to them. “No?”

“No. You’re the strongest person I know.” Then, because that was just a little too honest and doesn’t quite line up with the segue into his speech he’d had in mind, he coughs and adds, “and I don’t mean to- I mean, I’m not trying to be weird or anything. I like being friends with you, I’m just- I’m not always sure how to.”

Jonathan laughs quietly. “How to what? Be friends with a queer? A poor queer?”

“No!” Steve squawks, flailing a hand around and splashing water at him with his foot. “No, it’s not about that. It’s just- you .”

Another laugh. “Okay, I’ll allow it. This would be a great example of the weirdness I’m talking about, though.”

“No it’s- I’m not being weird! Look how not weird I’m being!” Steve holds up his hands in surrender, shooting Jonathan his best I’m so very innocent and also kissable face, which has worked on a myriad of girls but never anyone who mattered. Nancy had been particularly fond of smacking him upside the head when he pulled that expression.

Jonathan doesn’t look impressed by it either, but there’s a pinched quality to his expression that indicates he’s pressing down a smile. “You’re being very weird,” he says calmly, “but I guess not any more than usual, so, fair.”

Steve scowls, dropping his hands. “Rude of you.”

The pinchiness gets pinchier, and Jonathan glances away. “Sorry. It’s just how I talk.”

“Believe me, I know.”

There’s silence for a few minutes, and then, on a shaky exhale, Jonathan asks, “So- uh. Why aren’t you being weirder, anyway? About me being- you know.”

Steve thinks about it for a minute, drumming his fingers on his knee. “I don’t know,” he answers truthfully. “I guess it just makes sense.”

“Why, because I’m such a freak that it-”

“Dude, that is not what I was gonna say.” Steve frowns at him. “I don’t think you’re a freak. Or- actually, you kind of are, but in a cool way. I- ugh , whatever.” He runs a frenzied hand through his hair, frustrated. “I’m trying to compliment you, is the point.”

Jonathan wrinkles his nose. “You’re bad at compliments, Steve.”

Steve groans, falling back onto the concrete and rubbing at his eyes with his knuckles. “I know. I think you, like, ruined all my charisma or something.”

“You’ve never had charisma,” Jonathan says bluntly, a laugh in his voice. “People just throw themselves at you because you’re pretty.”

Steve freezes, hands hovering over his own face. “I’m sorry, people what?”

He tips his head to grin at Jonathan, big and cheesy and obnoxious, and takes a little too much pleasure in it when Jonathan’s cheeks pinken. “I’m not saying it again,” he says stiffly.

“But you’re not taking it back, either,” Steve points out, still grinning like an idiot. “You think I’m pretty .”

“Yes, Steve, I share the opinion of half of Hawkins, big fucking whoop,” Jonathan grumbles. He sits up, pushing himself physically away, but Steve follows, sitting up and tilting his face up near Jonathan’s, a breath away from resting his chin on his shoulder. “Go away , asshole.”

Steve laughs, but shuffles a couple of inches away anyway, because he is a good and nice person now who respects boundaries. “Okay, well, whatever. Clearly it doesn’t work as well on you as it does with everyone else, so.”

Jonathan’s shoulders stiffen. “‘So’?” he repeats, voice husky, and when Steve glances over at him again, his eyes are dark and contemplative, staring into the depths of the pool. “What’s that mean?”

“Oh,” Steve says quietly. He shuffles a little in place, embarrassment flooding him. “Oh, I don’t know, I guess I just meant- everything’s always been handed to me, except you, which is ironic, because- uh.” He swallows hard, and Jonathan turns to face him all the way, eyes boring straight through him, legs making ripples in the water. “Um.”

Jonathan arches an eyebrow. “Because why, Steve?”

Steve might pass out. “Because you’re the one thing that’s ever actually mattered,” he whispers, heart beating hard in his chest, “and you’re the one thing I can’t figure out how to- how to have.”

There’s plain amusement in Jonathan’s eyes now, dancing and bright, and something a little more genuine behind it. He’s happy , Steve thinks, a little awed, I made him happy, somehow.

“That’s objectifying,” Jonathan says, voice infuriatingly calm, and Steve wonders what it would take to steal some of that strange confidence away, wreck that voice a little. “But kind of poetic, if you think about it.”

Steve swallows. “Thank you?”

“You’re welcome.” Jonathan tips his head to the side, peering up at Steve through his infuriatingly long lashes. “What is it you can’t figure out, exactly?”

Steve growls, folding his arms over his chest. “I don’t want to talk about this,” he says through his teeth, glaring daggers at the pool noodle floating aimlessly in the shallow end. This is not how his speech was supposed to go. In his mind, he was at least able to speak in coherent sentences.

“You started it, though,” Jonathan points out quietly.

Steve would elbow him, but he’s pretty sure any skin-to-skin contact between them right now would make him combust into flames on the spot. “Fuck off.”

Jonathan hums warmly. “Steve,” he murmurs, voice gentle, “you know I like you, right?”

“Yeah, whatever, you wouldn't keep me around if you didn’t, you’ve said,” Steve grumbles. He kicks a foot up out of the water, then drops it back in, satisfied with the ripples it sends across the pool. “I just- you’re kind of hard to read, do you know that?”

“Maybe it’s just all that brain damage,” Jonathan teases, and widens his eyes innocently when Steve whips around to glare at him. “Sorry. Trying to lighten the mood.”

Steve rolls his eyes. “You’re not very good at jokes.”

“You’re not very good at sharing your feelings.”

“Hey, like you’re any better!”

Jonathan laughs, nudging Steve’s leg with his own beneath the surface of the water. “I just said I liked you.”

Steve scowls. “Whatever.”

“Steve. You’re not getting it.” Jonathan leans in, presses a hand to Steve’s chin and firmly turns his face until they’re eye to eye. “I like you. Like how my baby brother likes Mike fucking Wheeler.”

Steve’s eyes get very wide, and he swallows, suddenly feeling very shaky. “Oh,” he says faintly, “I- uh. Is ‘fucking’ his middle name or did you just add that for fun?” he asks, voice high and strangled.

Jonathan growls, low in his throat, and the sound zings up Steve’s spine. “God, you’re an idiot,” he breathes, and kisses him.

Steve’s been imagining this scenario in hundreds of different ways since- well, since longer than he really realized until this very moment. He’s pictured a tentative, shaky first kiss on the Byers’ front porch, or a slow, sweet one in the car after one of them drives the other home. In weaker moments, when he’s alone, he’s pictured more, pictured himself throwing caution to the wind and rolling over onto Jonathan while the two of them are sprawled on his bed listening to records and making out with him for hours and hours. 

He’s thought about how it would feel, kissing a guy instead of a girl, if it would freak him out or just encourage him more to feel the brush of stubble against his own, the solidness of him, short hair instead of long strands meeting his fingertips when he drags a hand through it. 

In the end, though, none of that matters, because it’s Jonathan, and like everything else about him, it just makes sense . He’s funny like that; impossible to figure out when looking from afar, but complete and solid and undeniable when you get close enough.

It makes sense, the way Jonathan cups his jaw, steady and strong and pulling him closer. Steve’s used to being the experienced one, the leader, but it’s kind of a relief, honestly, to have Jonathan take the lead, a protective arm coming to wrap around his back and the other hand sliding up into his hair. His lips are dry and chapped, gentle but insistent when they press against Steve’s, and the angle is awkward, sitting side-by-side at the edge of the pool like this, but Steve honestly can’t be bothered. He’s moving, leaning forward with a pathetic sort of eagerness, and he can taste the smirk on Jonathan’s lips when he presses in closer and licks into his mouth.

Jonathan releases a breathy sigh, hands twitching fast in Steve’s hair, against his spine. Steve grunts faintly in response, gripping Jonathan’s shoulder in one hand and his hip in the other, and uses his hold on him as leverage as he (carefully, so as not to fall into the pool and drown) swings himself around and into Jonathan’s lap, hips grinding against each other, chests bumping as Steve rocks forward and bites at him.

“Christ,” Jonathan hisses into his mouth, both hands dropping to Steve’s waist, locking him in and keeping him close so he doesn’t topple over into the water. “Shit, okay,” he says, breathy and half-pressed to Steve’s bottom lip, and chooses to bite said lip instead of finishing the sentence.

Steve whines, melting into Jonathan’s grip, fingernails scrabbling over his bare shoulders. He, in the back of his brain, thanks whatever deity might be listening for the summer heat, their discarded t-shirts as a result, the dampness of Jonathan’s hair when he shoves a hand into it. It’s better than he imagined, somehow, more grounded, real and tangible beneath his palms, this thing between the two of them, this boy that Steve would be comfortable spending every minute of every day with. Jonathan is solid, and his hands are warm but the skin across his shoulders and chest is cool to the touch, and Steve tests the feeling of pressing his palms against him, relishing the shudders that wrack Jonathan’s body when he does so.

After minutes or hours or days, Steve pulls back, dazed and desperate, and grins as he takes in Jonathan’s appearance. He’s ruffled, hair sticking up at odd angles and lips bright red and swollen, and he quirks an eyebrow at Steve, unfairly attractive and near-glowing in the late afternoon sun.

I kissed him , Steve thinks deliriously, and it doesn’t feel quite as foreign as he thought it might. It’s just right , maybe the most right he’s ever felt. I kissed Jonathan Byers.

“I, uh,” Steve manages, his brain significantly more scrambled than usual and voice hoarse. “I like you too, for the record.”

“Mm.” Jonathan’s fingers dig into his hips. Steve releases an embarrassing little whine and hitches himself closer. “You don’t say.”

“Shut up,” Steve says, flushing. He leans back, Jonathan’s arms extending to accommodate him. He threads his fingers together at the base of Steve’s spine, holding him in place. “You’re a good kisser,” Steve observes idly, lightly teasing as he peers down at him, letting Jonathan hold him in place.

“I know,” Jonathan replies calmly.

Steve rolls his eyes. “You are also insufferable.”

Jonathan’s (very red) lips twitch. “I was kidding. I actually didn’t know, so, thanks, I guess.”

He sounds a little shy, a little nervous, more vulnerable than he usually lets himself be, and this too is unfairly charming. Steve grins, reaching up and placing two fingers under Jonathan’s chin, tipping his face from side to side. “You’re welcome,” he teases, and Jonathan rolls his eyes as he leans in for another kiss.

Their lips meet at the exact moment that gravity wins, and Jonathan’s hands slip at Steve’s back. Steve opens his eyes, pulling back just long enough to make horrified eye contact with Jonathan, and they both topple over into the pool.

It’s not a smooth affair. Jonathan’s mouth and nose knock crookedly against Steve’s, and Steve’s hands scrabble at Jonathan’s back in a significantly less sexy way than they had been a minute ago, and their limbs get so woefully tangled together that Steve actually thinks they might drown for a minute. But then Jonathan’s pushing his way to the surface, dragging Steve up with him by the arm and using his free hand to grip the wall, and they stare at each other for a moment before bursting out laughing.

“In hindsight,” Steve says, swiping wet hair out of his eyes and grinning, “we probably should have seen that coming.”

Jonathan snorts. “Yeah, probably. To be fair, you’re the one who fucking jumped me, though, so-”

“Oh, shut up,” Steve says, and paddles his way over to him, gently pressing him back against the wall of the pool. It’s shallow enough that Jonathan can just barely stand with his head above water, still clinging to the wall while Steve hooks his arms around his neck and his legs around his waist. “You’re bleeding,” he says quietly, pressing a thumb over the small bead of red collecting on Jonathan’s lower lip, right where their faces crashed together when they fell.

Jonathan grimaces. “Yeah, I think you impaled me with your tooth.”

Steve winces. “Sorry.”

“S’ fine. Doesn’t even hurt,” Jonathan says, speaking against Steve’s fingertip. He smiles around it, lip turning slightly white under the pressure, and presses a kiss to the pad of his thumb.

Steve shivers. “Still sorry.” He removes his hand, sliding it up into his hair instead. “I’ll kiss it better, how’s that?”

Jonathan snorts. “I cannot believe people think you’re cool.”

Steve wrinkles his nose at him. “I can’t believe people think you’re mysterious.”

“You were the one who said I’m hard to read,” Jonathan points out.

“Yeah, and my point was that it’s annoying , not attractive.”

Jonathan squints. “I think you’re the only one who thinks it’s attractive, Steve. Most people just think I’m weird.”

“I just said I didn’t think that!” Steve squawks, as Jonathan laughs and splashes him with water. “And you are weird. I don’t even- care , it’s whatever.”

“You’re a terrible liar,” Jonathan says, and kisses him again. The hand that’s not holding the wall is pressed against Steve’s back, warm and steady even in the chill of the pool water, and he tastes like soda and cigarettes and very faintly of blood. Steve kisses back immediately, slow and deep, and thinks I like this person, so much , and wonders why he thought he didn’t want this for so long, why he didn’t show up at Jonathan’s house the day after Jonathan beat him to a pulp and told him hey, sorry, I’m a jerk and you were right to beat me up but maybe we could call it even and just make out instead, if that works for you , and, like, that probably wouldn't have worked , but it sure would have saved them both some strife, that’s for sure.

It’s this thought that makes him pull back, breathless and panting and so full of want . “Is this- uh,” he starts, screwing up his face and blushing furiously.

“Yeah,” Jonathan says immediately, hand skating up Steve’s spine and coming to tangle at the ends of his hair. Steve shudders. “Yeah, I think so.”

“You didn’t even let me say it,” Steve says, raising an eyebrow at him and tightening his hold on Jonathan’s neck. “I could have been about to reject you.”

Jonathan hums, eyes wide and fake-serious. “Right. And were you?”

Steve stares at him for a long moment, then sighs. “No.”

Jonathan grins. “Yeah, thought so.”

“Oh, shut up.” Steve smiles, a little shyly, and kisses the tip of his nose. “It’s a yes, though?”

“Of course.” Jonathan presses his forehead against Steve’s, smiling sweetly. 

“The fuck you mean, of course,” Steve grumbles, nosing against his face, just to be closer, just to have their breath occupy the same space, the same moment in time. “You called me an idiot not even twenty minutes ago.”

Jonathan laughs. “To be fair, I think most people are idiots,” he points out, thumb rubbing soothing circles into the back of Steve’s neck. “You’re my favorite by far.”

Something bright and giddy flutters in Steve’s chest, and he honest-to-God squeaks , dropping his forehead to Jonathan’s shoulder. “Really?” he asks, voice muffled, and Jonathan chuckles quietly, finally releasing the wall in favor of wrapping both arms around Steve, hugging him close.

“Yes, Steve,” he says, skating his fingers over his spine. “Don’t know how many times you’re gonna make me say it.”

“Lots and lots,” Steve says, hands slipping away from Jonathan’s neck and trailing down his arms, trailing over the surprisingly-toned muscle there. “You should know that. I’m incredibly clingy.”

“You don’t say,” Jonathan teases, as Steve nudges further into his neck, pressing a kiss to his bare collarbones. Jonathan exhales sharply, and Steve grins against his skin, kisses him again, right at the junction of his shoulder and neck, then again and again and again, grazing his teeth over the spot until he’s sure he’s left a mark. 

Jonathan tips his head back, a soft whine escaping his lips, and Steve trails kisses back up to his face, ending up somewhere around the side of his jaw. “You’re my favorite idiot too, by the way,” he murmurs into Jonathan’s ear. He kisses his jaw firmly, then pulls back, grinning wide at him.

Jonathan’s eyebrows raise, a small smile tugging at his lips. “Mm, not possible,” he says, shrugging one shoulder, “I’m not an idiot.”

Steve opens his mouth to retort, but by then, Jonathan is already dunking him underwater.

Steve finds he doesn’t mind in the slightest.

“Last one,” Jonathan huffs, stumbling into Steve’s room carrying a cardboard box. He sets it down, then pauses, eyebrows drawing together as he spots Steve, sprawled out on the empty mattress in the middle of the floor. “Hey, it’s not break time yet,” he chides, kicking the bottom of Steve’s shoe.

Steve gazes up at him mournfully, pouting and reaching up to swipe his sweaty hair off of his forehead. He’s going to have to ask Robin how to turn on the A/C in here. She was the one who got all that technical information from the landlord. “I can’t go on,” he groans, unaffected by Jonathan’s disapproving glare. “I’m going to pass out and die.”

“What is the point,” Jonathan grumbles, reluctantly sinking down onto the mattress and hovering over him, knees on either side of his hips, “of going to the gym every day-” here he leans over, pushing Steve’s hair back with his own sweaty palm, “-if you’re not going to put your vanity muscles to good use?”

“What was the point of you coming to help us move in if you’re going to be a bitch about it?” Steve complains, as Jonathan continues running his hand through his hair and shifts to rest more of his body weight on top of him. Despite the stifling early September heat, Steve can’t bring himself to push him off.

“Robin promised to buy me dinner as a thank you,” Jonathan deadpans. He kisses Steve’s temple, then his forehead. 

Steve frowns. “She didn’t invite me .”

“You live with her now, dumbass,” Jonathan snorts. “You’re automatically invited.”

“Fair enough.” Steve leans up and smacks an obnoxious kiss to Jonathan’s lips, earning a soft chuckle from him. “I’m glad you’re here,” he adds as an afterthought, leaning back again and settling one hand at the small of Jonathan’s waist.

Jonathan grins, lopsided and easy and wonderful. “I know.” He kisses him again, soft and slow, and Steve hums happily, goal achieved as he wraps his arms around his waist and pulls him the rest of the way onto him. Jonathan kisses him more carefully than Steve’s used to, like he always wants to take his time even when they’re running out of it. They have ten days until Jonathan leaves for school, a good seven hundred miles from here, a bigger and brighter and shinier future than Steve’s ever been able to pull together for himself, even after everything that’s been handed to him. Steve has been panicking about it on and off for several weeks now, but it’s a little bit assuaged by the fact that Jonathan has been here for all of it, always right next to him and within kissing distance, so Steve doesn’t get to dwell on their impending separation for long before he is blissfully reminded of their current unity.

Well, mostly.

“Hey,” Jonathan murmurs, pulling back just enough to speak, “come back to me.”

Steve half-laughs, self-conscious. “Sorry,” he murmurs, rubbing an apologetic circle into Jonathan’s back with the pad of his thumb.

“Ten more days,” Jonathan reminds him gently, pressing another gentle kiss to his lips. “And then Thanksgiving break, and winter break, and spring break, and I’ll even let you come stay in my dorm once in a while if you’re nice.”

Steve laughs for real this time, knocking their foreheads together. “How generous.”

Jonathan grins, a true one, with teeth and everything. That’s Steve’s favorite of his smiles - the one where it looks like he just can’t help it. “I try.” 

The caustic heat of the room is still nearly unbearable, even more so when Jonathan leans in again, but Steve doesn’t fight it. This is what it is to be present - the sweat-slick glide of Jonathan’s hand against his own as he tangles their fingers together, sweet warmth between their mouths as they part and reconnect. It’s the feeling of summer, the reminder that all the evil things are gone forever, that anything else is just a minor inconvenience in comparison. It’s been a long time since Steve’s had something this easy, this real. It’s a proven theory, no matter what a misnomer the phrase may be.

Something thunks against the wall, and Jonathan rolls off of him, startled. They both glance up to find Robin standing over them, scowling. She kicks the wall again, this time with more feeling. “I leave you two alone for five minutes ,” she complains, crossing her arms. “You couldn’t even wait until you had a bed frame in here, dingus?”

“Ha ha,” Steve deadpans, gently peeling Jonathan’s arms away from himself and clambering to his feet. “We were just taking a short break.”

“Uh huh,” Robin agrees with an eyeroll. “Come on, I want to get the important stuff unpacked.”

She turns on her heel and flounces off down the hallway with no further comment, and Jonathan shakes his head as he stands and dusts himself off. “You live with that now,” he reminds Steve, waggling his eyebrows.

“Don’t remind me,” Steve replies, but he can’t manage to sound all that pressed about it. He glances around this room - his room, in his apartment, and his boyfriend standing in the middle of it, and smiles. “Come on, let’s go before she throws a real fit.”

Jonathan smiles and reaches out to take his hand again. “Happy to help,” he says, and kisses him again before they walk back down the hall.