I just looove these three. The title of this song comes from My Happy Ending by Avril Lavigne. Sorry about any errors in the story, I only gave this one a quick once over edit.
Disclaimer: I do not own the characters or the title.
Steve Harrington took in a deep breath as his eyes slid down the hall, to where Nancy Wheeler was standing at her locker. Barbara Holland was standing next to her, and it looked as though they were involved in a pretty intense conversation. Steve swallowed hard and pursed his lips together as he looked back at his locker, trying to gather his thoughts. He really wasn't sure what he was going to say, but it was the first day of the school year, the first day of around ten months where he was going to be faced with both Nancy and Jonathan Byers at least five days a week, and it would be better to try and get something sorted sooner rather than later.
He had no idea what was going to get sorted, though.
He had no idea of what he wanted.
Steve slammed his locker shut and turned, deciding that he would just started with a hello and then take it from there, when Jonathan walked up behind Nancy. Barb smiled widely—looking a hell of a lot happier to see him than she had ever looked when seeing Steve—and gave Nancy a quick hug, before leaving the two alone. Steve watched Barb walked down the hallway in the opposite direction to where Steve was, and then his eyes moved back to Nancy and Jonathon. Neither of them were aware of the eyes on them, and Jonathan looked a little nervous as Nancy stretched out her hand and linked her fingers together with his.
That definitely got a few looks from a few students walking past, which was understandable.
When school had broken for the year, it had been Steve and Nancy together. Definitely not a power couple that were going to win Prom King and Queen or anything, because Nancy was not the type of girl that liked the spotlight and preferred to keep her head down, but Steve was popular and widely liked, and people knew who he was. So people had definitely known that they were together.
Jonathan hadn't ever really been...Well, anybody. Steve felt nasty even thinking that, because Jonathan was somebody, and he was somebody so incredibly important, especially to Steve and Nancy...Or at least, he was somebody important to Steve.
That was over now.
Steve took in another deep breath, but it got stuck in his throat, choking him up as he watched Nancy reach up and give Jonathan a quick kiss on the cheek before shutting her locker. She turned and gave his hand a tug, and there was a small smile on Jonathan's face as they began walking down the hall, directly toward Steve. Nancy was talking, her books clutched in the hand that wasn't holding Jonathan's, and she didn't even notice Steve until Jonathan looked up and saw him, and the smile on his face dropped.
"Steve!" Came a shout from Billy Hargrove, and Steve had never been more thankful for a distraction, whipping his head to the side to where Billy was standing with Tommy Henderson and a couple of other guys from the basketball team. He almost tripped over his feet in his haste to get away from the couple that were fast approaching. Billy slapped a heavy hand down on his shoulder that was more uncomfortable than welcoming, but it managed to distract him enough that he didn't see Nancy and Jonathan quickly walk by him.
It had been weird, to begin with.
Jonathan had been a guy who had been in Nancy and Steve's classes ever since they had started at high school, and he had been around before then as well, it's just he had never really been one who Steve had paid much attention to. Admittedly, Steve also hadn't paid much attention to Nancy either, until about a year ago. He was sort of a dick, and he could be pretty self-absorbed when he didn't have someone pulling him out of his head.
But Nancy and him had started spending more time together about a month before the summer holidays began. Their little brothers had been friends for years, and so that had always been in each others orbits, but it had only been recent that they had actually started hanging out.
Steve had felt threatened at first. His relationship with Nancy was reasonably new, they'd been together just going on six months, and it was different from any of the other girls he had been with. Admittedly that was because he had never actually had a relationship before, not a proper one, just quite a few hook ups with some cheerleaders and other girls. There had also been a guy that he had made out with when he was staying at his uncle's place out of town, but that wasn't something he had ever admitted to anyone. Nancy was a virgin, and she had never been with anyone before. She had only kissed a few guys, and she really wasn't the type of girl who spent much time obsessing over him. Her friends and family came first, and Steve had always needed to work around her schedule, which he wasn't used to.
The first two months had been a bit slow, but Nancy opened up more and more, and it had been just the start of their fourth month together when they had had sex in her room, while they were meant to be babysitting her little brother and his friends.
Steve knew that Nancy really liked him, but there was just something about the way that her and Jonathan interacted that made him feel as though he was missing out. Jonathan and Nancy could sit next to each other for ages without talking, and Steve had come over a couple of times to see they both laying on the floor in her room, doing homework, their elbows bumping together and playful smiles on their faces. Also, Jonathan would take photos of her. Not creepy, stalker photos, because she was definitely aware that it was happening, but it was with an actual camera—not a phone—and Steve had seen some of them in Nancy's drawer, and they were absolutely beautiful. And then school had broken up, and Steve had kind of been hoping that they would stop hanging out, but it seemed as though they just started hanging out more.
Then Nancy started hanging out with both of them together. Nancy had told him that Jonathan was her friend, and she was pretty sure they would get on with each other if they gave each other a chance. Steve wasn't sure what he told Jonathan, but he looked just as apprehensive as they met at the Wheeler household on the first Thursday morning of the summer holidays. Mike Wheeler was there, with a new girl at their school, Eleven Hopper, and they were downstairs in the den, watching DVD's, while the older teenagers stayed up in the lounge.
It had been awkward.
And the second time was awkward.
And then the third time was a little less awkward, because they went and saw the Justice League movie and Steve and Jonathan were both incredibly disappointed, and they were raging about it for nearly two hours. Steve hadn't even realized how weird it was that he and Jonathan were talking to each other—that Jonathan was even really talking at all, really—until Nancy had told them that she had better get home for dinner. It was almost five o'clock, and as the realization that they had been talking pretty much without any prompting from Nancy, made both of them fall quiet, and Jonathan flushed red.
The fourth time they were at Steve's house, in his pool. Jonathan hadn't been keen to get in at first, and Steve had been gently jiving him, saying that it was okay, not everyone had a six pack and a beautiful body like his own. Nancy and Jonathan had exchanged looks and rolled their eyes, and then Jonathan had finally pulled off his shirt and tossed it to the side, and Steve had swallowed in surprise.
Jonathan was a lot more pale than Steve, but his shoulders were broader, and his muscles were defined. He jumped in the pool, and when he had broken the surface of the water, his floppy hair was sticking to his face, and Steve was surprised when he was struck with an urge to reach out and push away the hair that was in his eyes.
"Yo, Harrington!" Billy waved a hand in front of Steve's face. "What the fuck, man? You high or some shit?"
"Nah," Steve blinked. "What?" Billy and Tommy exchanged looks and then rolled eyes.
"Let's get to class," Tommy stated. "I'd rather not get detention on the first day." Steve looked around and was surprised to see that the hallway had mostly emptied, so the bell must have rung a while ago. He followed the other teenagers until he had to split to go to his homeroom which was two classrooms down from Billy and Tommy's. He moved to sit down at the first empty seat that he saw, which was halfway down on the left side, but just as he was about to sit, he realized that it was right next to Jonathan. It would be completely obvious at this point if he started walking toward another spare seat, because the only other two were in the other corner of the room, so Steve stiffly dropped to the seat. Jonathan glanced at him, his sandy fringe falling over his eyes, and Steve couldn't help but look back at him.
Jonathan looked sad, despite how happy he had looked when he was in the hallway with Nancy.
It was his fault.
It was Steve's fault that Jonathan was sad.
He wanted to say something to make him smile and he wanted to reach out and touch his soft hair, but he stopped himself, pressing his lips together. Jonathan seemed to see the exact moment that his face shut down, because Jonathan swallowed hard and turned his head toward the front of the classroom, where their teacher clapped her hands and were called for their attention.
A few days went past, and Steve literally felt as though his heart was slowly dying inside him, shrivelling up in his chest. From that second morning on, he had made sure to sit somewhere different in home room, so that he didn't need to be my Jonathan, but that didn't mean he didn't see the other boy. They had homeroom and also biology together, and then Nancy was in his gym class, and all of their lunches fell at the same time. There was really no way to avoid seeing the two of them together, given how small their school was, and given it felt as though Steve had this ridiculous inbuilt sensor that seemed to tug him in their direction, not caring how painful it was for him to see them together.
It hadn't taken long for all the whispers to start, and Tommy and Billy managed to find someway to bring it up up at least three times a day in conversation. First of all it had been 'did she cheat on your for that creep?' and then it had moved to 'shit, Stevie boy, you not able to satisfy her? Does that freak Byers have a bigger cock than you?'. A couple of girls had come up to Steve and told him that they were sorry that Nancy couldn't appreciate a good thing, and when he sat at home at night, doing homework, he got texts from girls that he hadn't spoken to in a while because he had cut them off when he was with Nancy.
He didn't want that.
He didn't want to move on.
He didn't want to bad mouth Nancy or Jonathan.
Jonathan hadn't stolen Nancy.
Steve and Nancy had invited Jonathan into their lives, into their relationship, and then Steve had fucked it up and abandoned them both.
It was his fault.
But it wasn't as though he could say that.
The first time that Steve kissed Jonathan, he was certain that he had screwed things up. Nancy had told him that they needed to talk to Jonathan first, they couldn't just expect him to know. Jonathan wasn't used to getting nice things or good things happening to him, and so even if they felt that they were being obvious about their feelings, it didn't mean that Jonathan was actually picking up on that.
They knew that Jonathan liked Nancy, he had never really been good at hiding that.
But Nancy loved Steve, and even though she felt something that could potentially grow to be love for Jonathan, she wasn't going to leave him to be with Jonathan. She was pretty sure she wasn't going to need to make a choice, though, and that was what she had told Steve on a hot summer afternoon when her and Barb were going to get their nails down at the mall and then take Mike Wheeler and his friends to go and see Thor: Ragnarok for the third time. She had said that he should go and see Jonathan on his own, so that he didn't feel as though they were ganging up on him.
So Steve had text Jonathan and asked if he could come over, and Jonathan had said that he and Nancy never asked if they could come over, they always just showed up, and Steve had said that it would just be him, Nancy was out. Jonathan had replied that he didn't see how that changed the fact that they usually just came over uninvited, and that made Steve smile down at his phone.
Steve had never been attracted to a guy before. Or, at least, not someone he could actually see and touch. He may or may not have fantasized about Tyler Hoechlin a few times after Nancy had forced him to watch a couple of episodes of Teen Wolf a few months ago.
He showed up at Jonathan's house a little after eleven, and Jonathan was sitting in the lounge, playing playstation, with a fan spinning in the corner of the room. Steve had had a plan to take it slow, maybe wait until he had been there for a few hours before bringing anything up, except Jonathan just looked so good, sitting there in a pair of jeans with rips at the knees and a tank top, his hair all mussed up and his lips damp from where he had just drunk from the can of sprite that was sitting on the table in front of him.
Steve had just moved in and kissed him.
No 'hello' or 'how are you?'.
Just right in there, the tips of his ears bright red at what he was about to do, ignoring the way his hands were shaking, and interrupted Jonathan's game by standing in front of Jonathan and leaning down to kiss him square on the mouth.
Jonathan had made a surprised noise and jerked backward, and Steve felt his cheeks flaming, thinking to himself that he had just made the worst mistake and absolutely screwed things up entirely with Jonathan, when the shorter boy had blinked up at him.
"What about Nancy?" He asked.
"She..." Steve wasn't too sure what the question was exactly was. What about the fact Steve was with Nancy? What about the fact than Jonathan blatantly had feelings for Nancy? "She knows this is why I came over," Steve finished, hoping that just covered any general questions.
"And she's okay with this?" Jonathan asked, a slightly hopeful gleam in his eye that Steve really hoped he wasn't misreading.
"She's more than okay with this," Steve answered honestly, remembering just a few nights ago when he was between Nancy's legs and she had moaned at the other teenagers name. She had frozen as soon as she had realized what she had said, and Steve had looked up at her, his eyes almost wild with arousal, and she had flopped back on the bed, moaning as he attacked her again with more fervor that before.
"I've never...I've never done this before—not with a guy," Jonathan stuttered and Steve couldn't help but smile nervously.
"Neither have I," he admitted. Jonathan seemed to relax slightly at that, and he put his playstation controller and leaned back on the couch. Steve wasn't sure if that was his invitation, and he didn't exactly want to dive in again and have Jonathan not respond, so he waited until Jonathan bit down on his lower lip and reached out to pull on Steve's jeans, tugging him closer.
Steve really wasn't sure how long they made out for, rolling around on the couch in the living room of the Byers household. He did know for a fact that this was the longest time he had made out with anyone and not gone any further than just kissing in years. They were both hard, Steve had been in the first couple of minutes and then when Jonathan had ended up laying back on the couch and Steve had stretched over him, he could feel how hard Jonathan was as well.
It was a different feeling, a hell of a lot different from kissing a girl and feeling a girl get turned on. But it wasn't bad.
They kissed for so long that their lips were swollen, and neither of them had realized that they had missed texts from Nancy.
She didn't mind once she found out how well it had gone.
"Steve?" Will Byers' voice was soft and Steve contemplated ignoring the younger boy for a moment. But Will was one of the sweetest kids that Steve had ever met, and he didn't deserve that, so Steve turned around from his locker and looked down. "Hey."
"Hey," Steve forced himself to smile, but Will tipped his head to the side like he knew it wasn't genuine.
"When are you coming back over?" He asked. He wasn't smiling, and Will was almost always smiling, but he didn't look angry or annoyed either. Steve wasn't sure what Jonathan had told him had happened between them, but Will wasn't stupid. One minute, Steve and Nancy were at their house almost every minute of every day, and the next, Steve was nowhere to be seen. He was guessing that Steve hadn't said anything too bad to his brother, or else Will wouldn't be talking to him at all, given the fierce devotion they had to each other.
However, as Steve looked over Will's shoulder, he saw Mike Wheeler standing there, with a nasty look on his face, glaring at Steve as though he was scum of the earth.
Obviously the boys knew something.
"Uh," Steve looked back at Will and swallowed hard. "I'm not sure, buddy."
"Jonathan is sad without you," Will got right to the point, determinedly meeting the eyes of the older boy. "And Nancy is too," Will twisted his mouth and looked over at his best friend, who was still glaring at Steve, and then back again. "Mike keeps hearing her crying in her room, and because she still see's Jonathan...He blame you."
Mike was right to blame him. It was definitely Steve's fault.
He was a complete asshole.
Nancy was the absolute sweetest person on the planet, and she was brave and loyal, and because Steve was a coward and scared, he had thrown that all in her face.
"I have to go," Steve muttered as he turned back to his locker, shutting his locker door firmly and quickly walking away. He had a class, but he walked straight past it, not even listening as Billy called out to him. He slammed open the door for the bathroom. He kicked open a few of the stalls to make sure he was there by himself, and then went into the last stall. Steve felt pressure behind his eyes and sniffed loudly, trying to compose himself.
He wasn't going to have a meltdown because a little kid talked to him.
Or because the kid told him that Jonathan was sad.
Or that he made Nancy cry.
Because in the end, they were going to be better of without him anyway.
Everything had just felt so right when it was Steve and Nancy and Jonathan. Colours seemed brighter, the good in life seemed better, the world seemed lighter.
It wasn't as though things changed all that much, they still just hung out, went to the movies, ate greasy burgers, went down to the quarry to swim, babysat Nancy and Jonathan's little brothers and their friends...It's just, everything included a lot more touching and kissing now.
Which was awesome.
Kissing and some over the clothes petting was as far as it went for nearly a month, Steve and Nancy keeping anything further to when they were alone. But Nancy admitted that she wanted to see the look on Jonathan's face when Steve went down on him, and she wanted to feel his tongue in her while Steve was kissing her neck.
Steve had come pretty quickly at her whispered admissions.
They approached the subject carefully with Jonathan, who went bright red, and fumbled through his words even more than he usually did. He admitted he was a virgin, acting as though it was the biggest thing in the world to be ashamed of. Nancy had cuddled up to his side and said that Steve was the only guy she had ever slept with either, even though she had fooled around with a couple of other guys. Steve had found it difficult to believe that he was going to be lucky enough to be one of the first people that Jonathan was going to trust enough to touch him.
It had been a bit awkward at first, because none of them had ever maneuvered around three naked bodies before, and Jonathan and Steve seemed a little uneasy at first, being naked with each other, but they worked through it. Together.
Nancy murmured sweet things to both of them, her small hands smoothing over their shoulders and their arms, calming them both. She moved to sit next to Jonathan and distracted him with her mouth, leading him back to territory that he was comfortable with, kissing, just...With less clothing. Jonathan's erection had pressed between her legs as she straddled him, her breasts crushed against his chest. Steve had watched them together for a few minutes, before his hand wrapped around his own erection.
They didn't have sex that first time, or the second.
They took it slow, not just for Jonathan's sake, but for their own.
The dynamics of three was a lot more complicated than that of two.
But it was also more fun.
The first time Steve made Jonathan orgasm using his mouth, he had come himself at just how beautiful Jonathan had looked with his eyes rolled back into his head and his slack jaw.
The first time Nancy and Jonathan had sex, Steve felt like he had died and gone to heaven.
Steve and Jonathan didn't have sex, but they had talked about it. They had also talked about how they weren't quite ready for that yet, but that was nothing for either of them to be ashamed of, because there were so many other things that they could do with their hands and mouths while they learnt each others bodies.
The best part was after though.
After they had orgasmed, and the sheets and duvets were damp and kind of gross underneath them, but they were all happy and sated and almost falling asleep. Most of the time they were at Jonathan's place, because the Will and Mike were always at the Wheelers, and Steve's mum was always home, usually getting drunk by two in the afternoon with her book club, so Jonathan's place was the one that was empty.
The afternoon sun always streamed in through the window opposite Jonathan's bed, warming the room, and most of the time they would fall asleep, even though it meant waking up, feeling sticky and like they needed a shower.
Their legs would be tangled together and they would all be touching, and everything was calm and beautiful and soft edges and Steve's heart felt as though it was so full it was going to burst out of his chest.
Steve really didn't have anywhere that he wanted to be on Saturday. His father was out of town, which wasn't unusual, and he assumed that his mother was at one of her friends, and that he had the house to himself. So he ordered in pizza, sat in the lounge with a few beers, and watched the original Star Wars trilogy.
Jonathan's favourite.
And he had ordered chicken and camembert pizza.
Nancy's favourite.
The last three Saturday nights he had been home. Probably the most consecutive Saturday nights he had been home since he turned fifteen, got a car, bulked up and joined the basketball team. Even once he had started dating Nancy, he wasn't necessarily out at parties anymore, he was at the movies with her, or making out with the pretty dark haired girl in the backseat of his car. There were always parties or gatherings for dinner or drive in movies which included smuggled alcohol or something to go to.
Those didn't stop after things had fallen apart with Nancy and Jonathan, and that first Saturday night, which was the Saturday two days before school went back for the beginning of the new school year, he had gone to a party. Billy and Tommy and Carol were all surprised that he had shown him, and there was some not-so-friendly jibbing that they thought Nancy had his balls in a vice and that was why he had been AWOL all summer.
He had gotten black out drunk, he had tried to forget all about what a mistake he had made, and then he had woken up in the morning with no memory of the night before, sprawled out in the bath tub at Tina's house.
His pain hadn't subsided at all, and so he had decided he didn't want to do that again.
Hence the ritual that had pretty much become his Saturday night.
"Steve?" Daphne Harrington called from the foyer, and Steve looked around him, making a face at the mess he had made. He really hadn't expected his mother to be home before he was ready for bed—she usually wasn't. There was no point in scrambling to try and clean things up now, though, he could already hear her high heels on the tiles getting closer and closer. "Steve?" She looked confused to see him there, and her head tilted to the side. "Are you okay?"
"I'm fine, mum," Steve tried to give her a bright smile. They really weren't a touchy-feely family, and he really didn't to get into some awkward discussion about his feelings with her.
"What are you doing here? You're never home in the weekend," she asked as she came over to the couch, leaning down to give him a kiss on his head. It spoke volumes to just how much they all missed in each others lives. "I thought you would be with Nancy, or the Byers boy." His head snapped up at that, nearly hitting Daphne in the chin as she straightened up.
"What?!" He asked, an almost sick feeling filling his stomach.
"I..." Daphne paused, before coming around to sit on the couch next to Steve. "I saw the three of you...Together." Steve tried to think of a situation where they were in public where it might have seemed they were all together. Well, they went out in public a lot together but they were never really together-together. There had only been one time when they had almost been spotted, all looking very together, and in definitely wasn't when his mother was around. "You weren't...I mean, you weren't really doing anything. It was just at the mall, you were in the food court with Nancy and Jonathan. The three of you just looked...You looked so comfortable together. And then Jonathan spilt ice cream or sundae or something on his chin and you leaned forward and wiped it off." Steve remembered clearly the afternoon his mother was talking about, and his ears burned red. "Nothing really happened, but there was just this look on your face, and on Nancy's, and on Jonathans...Maybe it wouldn't be obvious to just anyone, but it was clear for me to see."
"Oh," Steve mumbled, staring down at his lap.
"And you've been so happy these past few months," Daphne reached out and touched his shoulder. "You were always happy with Nancy, I could tell that she was good for you, but you were the happiest I've ever seen you in these past months. And I know that it's because of what you had." Steve was confused as he looked back up at his mother.
"You—" he swallowed. "You're not mad? That I was with Nancy and Jonathan? That I'm—" he didn't really know how to phrase it. He wasn't gay. Bisexual just sounded too clinical. "That I like two people? That I might—" he didn't say the word. He didn't say that he might love them. It wouldn't be right for it to be his mother to be the one to hear it the first time he admitted it out loud.
"No," Daphne told him quietly. "All I care about is you being happy."
They were down at the quarry when it had happened.
Everything had been so perfect, the whole holidays, but school was starting in five days, and Steve would be lying if said that it hadn't been on his mind. Not that Nancy and Jonathan hadn't been thinking about it, because Nancy was already talking about the AP classes that she was going to be taking and Jonathan was talking about his photography and how much he missed the schools dark room.
But they weren't thinking about it in the same way that Steve was.
He had ended the last school year dating Nancy, and never having shown any interest in having feelings toward a guy. And not just a guy, but also for a girl at the same time? The only time there was this sort of relationship was in a porn video. People didn't do this in real life.
Or maybe they did, in New York or some big cities where not everyone was stuck in their backward ways, but not here in Hawkins.
What were they meant to do when they went back to school?
Were they meant to just hold hands and act like everything was okay?
Jonathan's mum knew about them, and while she definitely didn't look disgusted when she saw them together and she had said more than once that she loved how much they cared for her son and brought him out of his shell, she still looked confused. Mike and Will both knew—they had kind of just accepted it in ways that kids did, but not everyone was like that.
His friends weren't like that.
And they still had at least another ten months before they could get out of this town.
A whole school year.
There was one kid who was out as gay, and he was mocked and ridiculed on a daily basis.
There was a bisexual girl, and she was treated a bit differently, because guys didn't seem to mind the whole girl-on-girl thing, but Carol was known for being nasty.
"Steve?" Jonathan was laughing at something that Nancy said, both of them unaware that Steve was a thousand miles away. "Hey, Steve—you good?" Jonathan was still smiling widely as he looked over to where Steve was laying back on the towel, shirtless, the sun beating down on him. "Steve?"
"I'm fine," Steve said, his voice short even though he didn't mean to take his confusion out on Jonathan. He saw the way Jonathan and Nancy exchanged looks, their smiles smaller than they had been before. Nancy was wearing a white and red plaid bikini that looked adorable and even Jonathan was swimming today, even though he usually just rolled his jeans up to his knees and splashed his feet around in the water. It was one of the last days that they were going to be able to spend the full day together, and they should be enjoying it—and each other—but all Steve could think about was next week.
"Steve?" Jonathan's voice was lower this time, and he had shuffled closer, reaching out a hand to rest it on Steve's shoulder. Usually when Jonathan touched Steve, it made him feel warm and electrified inside. Now, it just made him feel trapped, it made him feel like his skin was shrinking over his bones. Steve shook his shoulder and rolled away, getting to his feet and taking in a few deep breaths. He tried to ignore the hurt look on Jonathan's face, and he looked away from his two lovers, out toward the water of the quarry. He took in a few more breaths, trying to shake next week out of his head as he turned back around, opening his mouth to apologize to Jonathan when he heard the sound of people.
Tommy.
Jonathan and Nancy heard yelling as well, and their eyes widened as they looked around. Hardly anyone ever came to the quarry, most people went to the public pools, or there was a lake on the other side of town. That was why they always came here, so that they could be alone.
All that worry and that sick feeling in the pit of his stomach came back and Steve froze.
He had no way to explain why he was out here with his girlfriend and some guy that he had never said three words to before the beginning of the summer holiday. Maybe it would look innocent enough, maybe it would look like it was just a few friends hanging out together...But there were only two towels...And Nancy and Jonathan were currently hanging over each other...And there was a fucking condom that had fallen out of Nancy's beach bag.
The three of them were all frozen, none of them moving, and for a moment, it sounded as though Tommy's voice and the other people he was with were getting closer. But then their voices faded, and they got further away, and they must be heading out to the field that was on the other side of the trees around the quary.
When the voices were finally gone, Jonathan and Nancy let out breaths, letting out short laughs and acting as though everything was okay.
It wasn't okay.
"I can't do this," Steve blurted out, and Jonathan and Nancy looked over at him.
"Steve?" Nancy asked in confusion.
"I can't do this," Steve repeated, the sick feeling in his stomach rising until he could literally feel the bile in this throat. "I can't do this, I can't—" talking became impossible, the breath getting caught as he tried to push it in and out of his lungs. "I can't—"
"Steve!" Jonathan was in front of him, having scrambled to his feet and resting both his hands on Steve's shoulders. "Steve, you need to breathe." Steve's vision was blurring and he reached out blindly, grabbing Jonathan's arms to steady himself. He'd never had a panic attack before but he was pretty sure that was what he was having now. It took a few minutes before he managed to breathe steadily again, but he didn't let himself fully recover before shoving Jonathan's arms away. It was harsh, and there was hurt on Jonathan's face again, but there was all concern and care.
It just made things worse.
"We can't do this!" Steve stormed over to the bag on the ground, throwing out Nancy's wallet and Jonathan's shirt, grabbing out his keys. "You know that this was just some fun over the summer, right? You know this shit was never going to last, right?!" His voice was getting louder and louder, and Nancy was flinching where she was kneeled on the ground, Jonathan still standing where he had been trying to help Steve. "This shit was never going to work out—all of us?! In this town?! At our school?! With our friends?!" He let out a snort as he began backing away from them, his hands shaking and his breathing coming out short and shallow again. "This is bullshit and this is over!" He shouted at them, because he had no other words to say.
Neither of them called after him.
He tried not to think about the fact that once he drove away they were going to have to walk all the way back from the quarry. It wasn't that far from Jonathan's house, but it was still going to be a bit of a hike.
He tried not to think about the flash of Nancy's face that he caught a glimpse of when he got in the car and looked back at them, looking broken.
He tried not to think about the fact that he had pushed Jonathan away and he had been harsh, and the other teenager had still tried to help him, had still gotten to his feet the instant that he knew Steve needed help.
Steve drove away, and the tears flooded down his cheeks.
When Steve walked into Hawkins High School on Monday morning, he knew what he was going to do. He had to wait for the right moment though, and so he skipped home room, because there was no way he was going to be able to see Jonathan's face and not do anything.
It wasn't until lunch that he saw them both together, and it was in the crowded cafeteria, when he walked in with Billy and Tommy. The two were being completely disgusting, going on about some girl two years younger than them who had bent over in the hallway and flashed the thong she was wearing, and Steve knew that he could go the rest of his life and never speak to them again and it would still be too soon.
Most of the school was on lunch break at the point, Steve even caught sight of Mike, Will and their friends at a table.
Steve took in a deep breath and left his spot beside Billy and Tommy, walking over to where Jonathan and Nancy were standing, talking to Barb. He heard Tommy calling his name, but he ignored them, and he saw the exact moment that Nancy saw him walking toward her. The smile disappeared off her face, her eyes flickered between Jonathan and Steve, and she chewed down on her lower lip. Jonathan noticed a moment later, Steve was guessing she probably squeezed his hand and alerted him to who was approaching.
"Steve," Nancy murmured as he stopped in front of them. Steve knew that they caught the attention of a few people, people who probably thought that he was going to go after Jonathan for 'stealing his girl', as a lot of their fellow students thought had happened. Jonathan clenched his jaw together, a tic in his cheek, and Steve couldn't stop himself.
He reached out and touched Jonathan's hair, that overgrown fringe that was always falling in front of his eyes.
"I'm sorry," Steve said earnestly, first looking at Jonathan, and then at Nancy. "I'm sorry," he repeated. Nancy's eyes turned hopeful and her lips began to move upward in a smile. One of Steve's hands searched out Nancy's, finding hers and squeezing it hard, hoping to get some of her courage through their grip.
It worked, because Steve felt nothing but free as he leaned forward and pressed his lips firmly against Jonathan's. Jonathan froze for a moment, but then he was kissing Steve back, and lifting up his hands to fist Steve's tee shirt tightly.
When they parted, it felt as though the entire cafeteria was watching them.
Steve didn't care.
He was exactly where he was meant to be.
Let me know what you think x