This is my first time writing fanfiction in over 10 years but I need a creative outlet and writing is easier when the world-building has already been done! (I am all but begging on my hands and knees for feedback as this is my first creative writing effort in forever xoxo) Title from "We'll Never Have Sex" by Leith Ross
Klimpt might have painted the two of them this way: cocooned beneath a gold and yellow quilt that hangs long over the edges of Robin's twin-sized mattress. Steve lays flat on his back, tense from the shoulders down like a compressed spring but with his neck softly bent to press a swollen cheek to the top of Robin's head, all but the bandaged index finger of one hand absently carding through her hair while the other supports his neck.
Steve doesn't exactly remember falling into bed together, his memory of the last day and a half stretched wafer-thin and punched through with holes by exhaustion - among other things - but he knows Robin's touch has been a near-constant since they quietly watched Starcourt Mall shrink and disappear from view through the back window of Mr. Buckley's Buick.
She'd offered him a ride from where she was perched on a stretcher beside Max, shouted across the wet parking lot to where Steve stood alone. He'd already made the rounds by then, flitted from the back of one ambulance to another and affirmed that each kid was either unscathed or appropriately over-bandaged, but never made his way to the payphone on the far side of the lot the others had used to call their parents.
The offer turned into a sleepover invitation at some point between the looming neon marquee of the mall and the dark and empty expanse of Old Highway 77. Steve doesn't know if Robin somehow knew how the thought of returning to Loch Nora turned his empty stomach or if it was for her own sake that they didn't separate. He thinks it was a little bit of both.
When they pulled into the driveway, she'd grabbed him by one sore wrist and pulled him from the car and through her house, then guided him with feather-light fingers on the small of his back down the hallway off the kitchen, past her mother with a promise to "be good" and to explain in the morning, to the small bedroom, pushed him gently into her cluttered bathroom and demanded that he shower before even thinking of coming near her bed.
When Steve reluctantly acquiesced, she hadn't said anything about him leaving the bathroom door ajar, only tossed him some loaner pajamas and turned away to strip down to her underwear and pull on one of her father's old tee-shirts that fell to her knees. He'd emerged only half-clean, desperate to get out from under the stream of water, and didn't bother to towel dry before dressing quickly and easing himself into bed.
Now, hours later, Robin is curled up small against Steve's side, her long limbs tucked in tight, eyes hooded but open just enough to watch the rise and fall of his chest through his borrowed sleep shirt. It's soaked through - as are the too-short Hawkins High School Marching Band flannel pajama pants he's wearing - and watery blood is seeping through in places from injuries he hadn't told Robin about. Her fingers twist in the fabric. He pulls the quilt up an inch further.
They'll lay like this a lot in the coming months. Without knowing or caring if he's allowed, he'll name Robin an honorary member of The Party and daddy's credit card will buy her a Realistic TRC-214 Walkie-Talkie that matches the one he'd asked Dustin to pick out for him ("for the next time you assholes need saving, not for waking me up in the middle of the night to blab about Star War, got it?" "Star wars, Steve, Jesus Christ-"). He'll say it's so she can call him for a ride to school or band without tying up her parents' landline, but most of her calls will come through late at night. When he pulls into her driveway minutes later he'll find her standing on the front lawn in her pajamas with her arms crossed over her chest ready to take off to his big empty house, or she'll still be inside but her bedroom window will be wide open for him to slip in through.
"Hey, Steve?" It's not the first time one of them has spoken since they laid down, but Steve still twitches at the unexpected sound of her soft voice in the otherwise silent room. He hums under her hand in acknowledgment. He wonders if she's slept.
She wonders the same. "Are you awake?"
"Yeah, I'm awake." His own voice is unfamiliar to him, strained from screaming, and his throat feels swollen. He knows a purple-blue bruise is blooming on the skin of his neck like a collar, and wonders absently how he'll cover it in the July heat without the excuse of winter to hide the pooled blood fingerprints at the crook of his jaw and below his ear with a turtleneck.
"Oh."
He knows it doesn't make sense, but Steve is afraid that if he sleeps he'll wake up back in that gray box, still not sure if this reality will stick. How many times had he lost and regained consciousness miles below the earth, wondered if he'd wake up this time, wondered if he wanted to?
When he closes his eyes the usual ringing in his ears sounds like who do you work for who do you work for who do you work for who do -
He sucks in as deep a breath as he can manage, swears he can still smell mingling vodka and smoke and sweat. The ceiling of Robin's bedroom is dotted with glow-in-the-dark stars and he tries not to think of shiny gold stars on the shoulders of crisp green uniforms, focuses instead on the frosted circular light fixture overhead. It casts a yellow light over the room like an artificial sun, so different from the blue-white fluorescent lighting that snuck into shadows underground.
"Hey, Steve?" Robin asks again. He thinks maybe some time has passed, either minutes or hours he's not sure. He hums again.
"Do you remember, back at the mall? Um-"
Somehow Steve manages to tense up even further. Their unspoken agreement not to talk about the night they'd had is dangerously fragile, he realizes.
"What I…" Robin starts again, unsure, "what we talked about? What I told you in the, uh, bathroom? About me?"
Steve settles somewhat. "Yeah, I remember." The memory of his own comedown confession between bathroom stalls burns his cheeks for a moment. "But I, uh, don't have to, you know? Remember. If you don't want. Seriously - there was definitely some stuff going on with the drug shit and the stress and I'm probably last on your list of people you ever wanted to tell that sort of thing to, so like, say the word and it's forgotten."
"No," Robin says, "You don't have to forget. I don't want you to forget."
Steve lets out a breath. "Oh, okay."
"I've never told anyone though so maybe… just don't tell anyone, yeah? Tommy H. or Carol or fucking… Nancy Wheeler?" Robin squirms but doesn't put any distance between them. Steve hopes she's not uncomfortable, wishes he could make himself a more comfortable place for Robin Buckley to lay even on better days than this. Wants to be whatever she needs him to be, doesn't understand the urge.
"Tommy and Carol actually - never mind. No, yeah, of course. Your secret's safe with me or whatever. No sweat."
"Thanks, dingus. And for the record, I don't know why but I uh, I'm glad you're the first to know."
Steve snorts, struggles to keep still when pain explodes in the center of his face where his nose is definitely broken. Again.
"For the record, me too," he finally says.
They fall back into silence, though Steve can feel Robin tilt her chin up to look at him, doesn't meet her gaze and continues to blink up at the ceiling, fighting sleep.
"Hey, Steve?" once again.
He hums.
"Can I ask you to do something for me?" Robin says, her voice small.
"Sure, Robin. Anything." He means it.
"Would you-" she stops herself for a moment then tilts her head further, looking up at him from under his arm, and says the very last thing he expects to hear: "kiss me?"
Steve turns his head to look at her but even more to free up his right ear, the one Billy Hargrove didn't beat the listening out of in November of '85.
"Kiss me?" She says again, says it like a question, like a prayer, like his answer might save her. Her eyes are clear and wet with tears that barely manage not to overflow.
"Robin?"
"Please, Steve. I - please."
Steve will later learn that he can never say "no" to Robin. There will be no withholding, no lies by omission, no dumbing down or easy way outs, and every exchange between the two of them will feel like a gift passed back and forth until the end of time. Before the "of course, you don't even have to ask"s, however, there's this moment of heavy confusion because Robin's request makes no sense but who is he to deny her one kiss and her cheeks are flushed and her pretty eyes bright and wide like Nancy Wheeler's and the corners of her mouth are turned down as if he's already said "no" and then he's pressing his lips to hers.
The kiss is chaste and sweet - her lips are soft while his are chapped and swollen and split in places - and when Robin's mouth falls open it's not in the inviting way Steve is used to. He pulls back to study her carefully, tangling his fingers with hers where they've stilled against his chest. He tastes his own blood and wonders if she can, too.
Another day, with another girl, in another context, Steve might have been offended by the look on Robin's face - dumbstruck and devastated, jaw slack and tears finally spilling over - because he kissed her and now she's sobbing. But this is today, and this is Robin, and this is the still-dark morning after her first and his third time saving the world, so instead he uncurls her fingers and presses her palm to his chest.
"It's okay, Robin. C'mon, breathe with me. That's it."
He models deep breaths and does his best to ignore the way his lungs inflate against his ribs. He thinks they might be broken.
"I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm so sorry," she mumbles into Steve's shoulder, eyes shut against him. "I'm - I don't know why I… I'm sorry, I thought you were dead! I couldn't… I thought you were dead."
"You thought I was…? Hey, woah, Robin, I'm fine, I'm here. Why would I be - oh. You don't mean just now."
She shakes her head, breathing even enough now that he's not afraid she's going to hyperventilate but the tears haven't stopped.
"I wasn't dead, I'm okay Robin. We made it out and we're okay," he says, for both of them.
He remembers blinking his eyes open to the sound of her voice behind him imploring him to wake, his body restrained at the waist but slumped forward like a corpse, wonders how long she'd waited for him to come back to life, unsure if he would. A bruise is forming along Robin's jaw and Steve realizes he doesn't know where it came from, thought she hadn't been hurt - thought he'd made sure she wouldn't be hurt - and the thought of her alone, scared, hit while he hung from his bound wrists in another room, begging on behalf of both of them between blows - it makes him queasy.
"I'm sorry, Robin," he says. His heart thunders under her hand.
"I thought you were dead," she says again. "God, they just kept hitting you and then they took you away, and you - through the vents I could hear you-"
Steve swallows. He hadn't known that part.
"You heard- what did you hear, Robin?"
"Only when you were loud. I don't think we were close." Her voice is so soft now that Steve has to watch her lips to catch what she's saying when she adds, "just the screams."
Robin's hiccuping sobs are back now. "Then you stopped and it got quiet and I thought maybe you passed out, or got moved, or that they'd finally just left you alone."
"I passed out," Steve says. It's not a lie, not exactly. He'd been moved a few times first, to rooms furnished with different equipment but he had lost consciousness a number of times throughout. Robin doesn't need to know how much he was awake for. She seems marginally relieved by his answer.
"It must have been hours and hours before they brought you back and you just looked so… I checked and you were breathing but I was so sure you were going to die right there next to me." She hesitates, eyes him carefully.
"What did they do to you?" she finally asks, her voice a whisper.
Steve shuts his eyes, breathing in slowly. Lately everybody seems to want to ask him questions he doesn't have the right answers to.
"It doesn't matter. I'm fine, it's over." When he opens his eyes again he can tell she doesn't believe him, but she doesn't ask again. Steve thinks he might love her for it.
Robin looks away, up at the stars on the ceiling she must have fallen asleep under a million times. "I like girls," she says quietly, "I like girls and I've known that for, like, ever. But the whole time we were down there I kept thinking, 'God, not him.' I wanted it to be my turn just because it meant they might take a break from hurting you. And no offense, but I don't know why! You were such an asshole-"
"So you've said."
Robin nods seriously, "and I'm not brave! Not like you are - I don't do the self-sacrificial martyr shit and we've only been scooping ice cream next to each other for half a summer and I can't stand you half the time but for some reason, I seriously would have traded places with you in a second! Because nothing was scarier than the thought of you dead. And not just because I was scared to be alone, but because I feel like you're… special? To me at least, and I don't know why, and you may have loved Nancy Wheeler but I've never been in love, never even told a girl I liked her-" Robin still isn't looking at him, but the hand that Steve is holding grips him back like a lifeline. Steve's head is spinning trying to keep up because he can tell this is important. "And I just thought how could I be ready to die for someone and not call that love? I like girls but I've never even kissed a girl, and maybe if you kissed me… it would fix something in me and I would want to kiss you back."
"I think I get it." Steve thinks of the scar on Nancy's hand she shares with Jonathan Byers, thinks of bullshit. "I mean, I don't get it, not totally. But I think I get wanting to feel something differently, or right, or whatever will make things easier. Wanting to pretend until it's real."
"It's stupid, and I wish I could blame the drugs and I'm sorry because I know you like like me and I'm not trying to hurt you-"
"Hey-" Steve squeezes her hand back. "It's okay, seriously. I'm not upset, or whatever. I think I feel the same. It's not love like with Nancy - at least not the way it was when we were together - but it's like… I feel like I've known you for a lot longer than just this summer, and apparently having Click's class together. I care about you. I feel comfortable with you, or something."
"That's it! Comfortable - I feel comfortable with you. Would you believe you're the first guy I've ever cuddled with?"
Steve snorts. "Somehow I'm not surprised."
She chokes out a laugh - "I can't believe my first kiss was Steve 'The Hair' Harrington!"
Steve looks at her thoughtfully, "Well, not really. That one didn't count. Someday you'll kiss a girl for the first time, or she'll kiss you, and that'll be your first real kiss."
Robin smiles at him so wide it takes him by surprise. He wants to spend the rest of his life finding ways to make her smile like that.
"Knock knock!"
The two of them startle at the sound of knocking - both real and spoken - but after a beat they reluctantly pull apart from one another, Steve dragging the yellow quilt to the floor with him in an unconvincing show of not sharing a bed with Carl Buckley's daughter, no sir.
Robin's dad opens the door before she has a chance to invite him in (and Steve could swear he looks almost disappointed not to have walked in on something less wholesome) and offers to drive Steve back to the mall parking lot to pick up his car if he can make it downstairs in the next ten minutes, then slips back out of the room.
Robin pitches a pillow at the closed door, then falls back into bed with a whine, "it's not even seven o'clooock! I didn't realize it was already morning - guess that's what happens when you don't sleep."
"I should get going," Steve says, rising from his spot on the floor. He can feel, as well as hear, the gasp that escapes Robin's throat when she sees him uncovered by blankets in the light of morning, watches her eyes scan his body as though taking inventory of every imperfection before meeting his.
Steve knows he must look awful - he feels awful - he's avoided catching his reflection in a mirror so far but his body must be a watercolor of purple and blue if the look of his wrists is anything to go by. He's thankful the dark t-shirt hides the worst of his injuries, though the cotton sticks to his skin where blood leaked through during the night. He feels as though his left eye is close to popping out of his skull, almost wishes it would - it hurts like a bitch and isn't doing him much good, his vision through it shadowy and blurred. His body is screaming at him with every movement and the room is spinning slightly from the effort of moving to the floor then to standing.
Robin let's out a shuddery breath and the tears are back in her eyes.
Steve silently pleads with her to leave it be, ignore what he cannot, and she must understand because she swallows something he thinks is anger and instead asks, "do you have to go?"
"Yeah, uh, my parents are home, came back for the Fourth of July. My dad and Larry Kline go way back so they had to make an appearance at the County Fair or whatever." Steve looks down at the ruined pajamas he's wearing, ignores the bloody mess of their Scoops Ahoy uniforms where they sit in the corner of Robin's room. "Do you have something else I can wear? Don't want to totally freak them out when I walk in," he says, but the grin he throws her doesn't meet his eyes.
Robin pulls another long-sleeve t-shirt and a pair of dark gray sweatpants from her dresser and hands them to him. "You'll go to the doctor first thing, right? You sure you're okay to drive?"
"Yeah, of course, Rob. I told the paramedics my parents would probably rather take me to see our family doctor." Steve's already stepped behind the bathroom door to change, so Robin can't see the way the word "doctor" gives him a chill. He misses the pain-numbing adrenaline of the night before as he tries to keep from screaming with the pain pulling a shirt over his head strikes in his chest but eventually manages to look halfway presentable, from the neck down, at least.
"Shit, my hair."
"Your hair?" Robin shoves the bathroom door open and stares at him incredulously.
"It looks like shit," Steve says, pitifully, "my dad hates how long it's gotten as it is. It's whatever, just, ugh."
Robin shakes her head. "You really are something else, Steve Harrington."
In truth, Steve is worried about going home. Robin doesn't know but he can't help but feel that she knows, enough at least to reach out and settle her hand on his upper arm, remind him that he still has these last few minutes with her in this warm yellow house before he has to face his father. "Come on, I don't want to make your dad late for work," he says, and she walks with him out to the driveway where Mr. Buckley is waiting, pointedly not looking at the two of them when Robin helps ease Steve into the car, as if his daughter might lean in through the open window and plant one on Steve's broken face.
It's not too far from the truth.
"You'll check in on Dustin, yeah?" Robin asks, standing up. In just a few days, she really started to care about the kid. Steve thinks he might love her for it.
"'Course, he's probably already called my house a couple hundred times this morning. Him and his bike might be waiting for me on my front lawn when we pull in, if Mrs. Henderson let him leave her sight. Or she drove him over herself and is waiting with him - I swear, you bake a woman a single casserole and she doesn't leave you alone."
"Noted," Robin says with a sly grin, too quiet for her father to hear. "Get some sleep, dingus."
"Sure thing, Rob. You too." Robin drops his arm and he misses the contact immediately,
Steve Harrington thinks he'll love Robin Buckley until the day he dies.
I cannot express how much I appreciate any reviews, critical or otherwise. I have a few ideas for other works and would love to hear what people did/did not enjoy or would like to see. Take care of yourselves!