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If anyone asked you about it, you would deny it, but the only reason you were desperate to go to the new carnival passing through Hawkins was that Steve would come with you. And that they had cotton candy, and fried dough, and kettle corn and—
Alright, the only reasons you were here were, 1) Carnival food is delicious, 2) Carnivals are actually so fucking fun, and 3) Steve Harrington may be the cutest human alive, and he was here with you, of all people.
Of course, you and Steve were best friends, so it shouldn’t have been that surprising. After all, best friends hang out all the time, and go places together, and are always super happy to see each other. Yeah, you were best friends, and only best friends.
Except…you didn’t want to be just “Steve’s best friend.” What hurt was that you knew that he would never think of you any other way, even though Dustin often insisted otherwise.
So yeah, maybe your friendship with Steve was a little complicated. Hell, more than a little. But you couldn’t help it, not when he managed to subvert everyone’s expectations of him time and time again to become a better person, all on his own. Or when he laughed at one of your dumb jokes, or laughed at you laughing at one of his dumb jokes. You really couldn’t help it, though even if you could, you didn’t know if you would want to stop yourself from loving Steve Harrington.
Or maybe-loving Steve Harrington.
(Having a crush on him? Being more-than-a-little attracted to him? You didn’t really know what to call it, especially when the lines of your friendship were so blurred already, and he’d suffered so many heartbreaks before. You didn’t want to come along and force him to deal with his best friend having a crush on him, too.)
Either way, it didn’t really matter. You were trying to focus on the present moment, on being at the carnival, with Steve. This was the one opportunity where you could finally have a night of relaxation and fun without any sort of impending doom or inter-dimensional monsters hanging around to ruin it. Hopefully everything would be quiet tonight, for everyone’s sanity, especially Steve’s.
After the whole mall-being-destroyed-by-a-freaky-flesh-monster thing went down, he’d become even more paranoid and over-protective. So much so, that he’d taken to stopping by your house every night after his shift at the video store, just to make sure you were okay. Sometimes his nightmares got so bad that he would come over and sleep on the small mattress you’d set aside for him, tucked carefully under the window you always left unlocked for him. You’d never tell him so, but you always woke up when he clambered through the window, ghost-pale in the moonlight, terror on his face that haunted your waking hours.
The Steve in front of you today looked so different from that pale specter that you almost couldn’t believe they were the same person. He had a breath-taking smile on his face, his hair dangling in his eyes as he took in all the bright lights and people and sounds of the carnival. He looked so carefree like that, you could forget for a second that he still had a bloodied bat in the trunk of his car, just in case.
“Hey, you okay?” Steve said, as he finally noticed your eyes upon him still, focused on him even amid the motion and lights surrounding the two of you. It always seemed to go that way with you—it was like you couldn’t take your eyes off him.
You nodded, trying to remind yourself that you were supposed to be having fun now, not reminiscing about everything bad that had happened the past few years. “Yeah, I’m good. Why, Harrington, you worried about me?” You nudged him with your elbow, pushing him just enough to get him off-balance.
He laughed and nudged you back, the two of you walking in comfortable silence, before something caught his eye. “Wait! Is that what I think it is…?” His head was turned away from you, towards his left. Suspicious, you followed his gaze to a brightly colored booth with neon lights strung along the top of it, underneath which hung an absurdly large stuffed panda. From the looks of it, it was almost bigger than Steve. Immediately, you knew what his plan was.
“Steve, c’mon, I don’t need it! Besides, you’ve failed at every other game with one of those oversize stuffed animals before…” You tried to protest, but that only seemed brighten the determined glint in his eye.
“I’ll win this time, promise! Besides, what kind of gentleman am I if I can’t win my girl a stuffed animal at the town fair?” He grabbed your hand then, pulling you towards the booth quickly, and leaving you barely enough time to register what he had said. Had he really called you…”his girl”? And did he mean it like that, or…
You weren’t given much time to dwell on it, however, because Steve finally pulled you to a stop in front of the booth, the neon lights even brighter up close. And the bear…it really was gargantuan, bigger than you could even fit into your room, much less carry. Still, Steve was determined, pulling out his wallet as he asked the bored teenager running the game how much it cost to play.
“Five dollars,” the kid said, fiddling absent-mindedly with a couple darts that were part of the game.
Nodding, Steve opened his wallet, rifling through a variety of dollar bills in various states of wear before pulling out a wrinkled five dollar bill and stuffing it in the kid’s hand. Then he moved to tuck the wallet back in his pocket, but not before something caught your eye.
“Have you kept that photo of us in your wallet this whole time?!” You didn’t mean to say it so loud, but you were too surprised to see a photo of you in his wallet, especially that photo, to register just how shocked you sounded.
Steve froze, the wallet still in his hand, allowing you to get a closer look at the polaroid stuffed as carefully as possible into the ID slot of his dollar-store wallet, so as not to mess it up. It was a little crinkled at the corners, but generally intact, allowing you to see the picture clearly. You were in it together, your arm wrapped around his shoulders as he hid his face in your neck, trying to hide himself from the camera. You were grinning, and from what was visible of Steve’s face, he was too. The background was hazy, leaving only the soft outline of a couch clearly visible. You remembered when you’d taken this picture—last year, when you’d just bought a brand-new polaroid camera and you were messing around with it at Steve’s house, during one of your weekly study sessions. He’d been failing math and english, and you were failing history, which he was excelling at, so you decided to help each other out, and study together. You’d invited Nancy, too, the first couple times, but she always seemed busy with something else, leaving just you and Steve in the end. It was fine that way, and the two of you had fun by yourselves, goofing off when you weren’t cramming for one test or another. Looking back on it, that was where your friendship really started—which explained why, at the bottom of the semi-faded polaroid, there was writing in black sharpie; “To my best friend—good luck getting rid of me now.”
There was also a heart drawn in sharpie at the end of the message, which you remembered more clearly than you really wanted to. You’d berated yourself time and time again for that, overthinking whether it was too much, or he thought it was weird, or something else, until it was replaced by more pressing, life-threatening concerns.
That reminded you—why had Steve kept this picture in his wallet all this time? And why hadn’t you noticed sooner?
When you looked back up at him, he looked less frozen and more nervous. The longer you kept your eyes on him, carefully studying his face, the more nervous he seemed to get. He opened and closed his mouth a couple times, before finally starting to speak. “Listen, I—“
“Hey, dude, are you gonna play the game or not? I’m not here to watch you two idiots ogle each other. There’s a line, y’know,” the booth attendant said, interrupting Steve right when he was about to give you en explanation. And apparently there was a line, if a dad and his bored-looking middle-school-age son could be considered a line.
Steve nodded as he turned back to the booth, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he took the darts from the attendant’s hand. Then he turned to look at you, again. “Hey…we’ll talk about this later, alright? I’m just gonna—I’m gonna win you that bear, and then we’ll talk,” he said, looking determined again as he took one of the darts in his right hand and drew it back, concentrating on the peg board in front of him.
The rules of the game seemed simple—there were balloons tied to the peg board, and you got three darts, so that if you popped three balloons, you won. Of course, in practice, aiming was its own kind of hell, especially when every single one of these games was hella rigged. (Which was only to be expected, at a carnival like this one.)
You couldn’t do anything but watch in anticipation as Steve threw the first dart, managing to catch a bright blue ballon’s side, popping it. You’d be lying if you said you weren’t surprised—it wasn’t that you weren’t supportive, but he’d lost every single carnival game so far, and there wasn’t much evidence that this would be any different.
Then he threw the second dart, and it, too, caught on a balloon, popping it. It was a red one this time, and now he only needed to pop one more and he’d win.
Finally, finally, he drew the third and final dart back, twisting it in his fingers slightly to find the most comfortable position to hold it. Then he threw it forward, and time seemed to stretch, before snapping back again to the present moment.
He’d popped the last balloon. He won!
“Steve! You did it!” You couldn’t help darting forward to hug him, too exhilarated by his first win of the day to remember the picture in his wallet and his words from before about you being “his girl” and even his promise to win something for you.
You could hear Steve laughing as you hugged him, and you could feel his grip tighten on your waist as he hugged you back. When you pulled away, he kept his hands on your waist, and you kept your hands around his neck, and being that close to him was almost a little intoxicating, because now you could see the reflections of the surrounding lights in his eyes and almost feel the brush of one rebellious strand of his hair against your forehead. You tried not to dwell on the way you could feel his breath on your face, just barely, and how close he was, and the way you could kiss him, if maybe you just leaned forward a little.
Your voice seemed insistent on betraying you, however, because you were suddenly asking him the very question you told yourself you couldn’t, under no circumstances. “Can I…can I kiss you?”
You could hear his sharp intake of breath, and could feel your smile start to curve into a frown. Of course you had to go on and mess everything up, not just today, but for your whole friendsh—
“Yeah! I mean, I mean, yes…I—I really wanna kiss you too and—“
It seemed like, if you let him, Steve would just continue to ramble helplessly, so you took the initiative and leaned forward a little, to press your lips to his. He stopped talking immediately, stiffening at first in surprise before he grew more comfortable, adjusting his hold on your waist.
And then you were interrupted, once again, by the booth attendant loudly clearing his throat.
Reluctantly, you separated yourself from Steve, allowing him to turn to the teenager, who only seemed more disinterested in his job than he had been before.
“So…I won, right?” Steve asked, smoothing his hair back nervously.
The booth attendant rolled his eyes, before gesturing to the hanging prizes of various sizes. “Which one do you want?”
“Oh, yeah, yeah…I’ll take the panda, then.” Steve gestured towards the stuffed animal hanging above his head, which was still ridiculously, obnoxiously huge.
“No can do, amigo. You’ve gotta pay the extra twenty for a chance to win that one.”
“Wait—what?! You didn’t tell me that!”
“Well, you didn’t ask,” the teenager said, leaning forward on the counter he was stuck behind. “Besides, can’t you read? It’s written right there.”
It was, indeed, written on a sign just to the left of the hanging giant panda.
“That’s—that’s ridiculous! You’re just…swindling people out of their money, just like that?! I—“
Steve looked more embarrassed than anything, as he continued to argue with the booth attendant, so you decided to step in and rescue him. “Steve,” you said, putting a hand on his shoulder to get him to look at you. “Hey, I don’t need it anyways. You won, that’s what matters right? Just let it go, it’s okay.”
He turned to face you completely then, a frown on his lips. “But—I wanted to do this for you, because…because I really like you, alright? I mean…if I wasn’t clear before when we…uhm, when we kissed…and all…”
You could feel your heart beating out a strange sort of staccato rhythm against you ribs as you looked into his eyes. He wasn’t lying, you could tell. Which meant that he felt the same as you did for him and…damn, you were an idiot. Dustin was right all along—you’d have to tell him so, later. But for now…
“I like you too, Steve, a lot. I think I’ve kinda, already made that clear, but…I wanna say it, just so you know. And…you don’t have to do anything for me, not when you already do so much for me already.”
Steve looked…awestruck, as he stared at you with a look in his eyes you couldn’t quite place. It was like…admiration, but more. Something akin to love, though you didn’t trust yourself enough to call it that. Today had already been a bit too packed with life-changing revelations to add one more to the pile.
“Hey, can you two can the love-fest and get out? My son and I,” the middle-aged dad behind you began, putting a hand on his son’s shoulder. “Have been waiting for ten minutes while you two teenagers go on and on and on. Well, I say, shut it! At least go ‘make out’ somewhere else. Think of the children! And don’t get me started on your paren—“
“We’re so, so sorry, sir! We’ll get going right now,” Steve said, grabbing your hand and pulling you away, making a desperate bid at blending into the crowd. There were much fewer people now that the sun had gone down completely, and it had gotten colder, so the two of you ended up running through the crowd, hand-in-hand, until you escaped the fairgrounds and reached Steve’s car. By then, you were both laughing uncontrollably, the hilarity of the situation finally hitting you.
“Y’know,” Steve said, leaning against the side of his car as he caught his breath, “I think that this may be the best day of my life.”
You turned to look at him, a laugh escaping your lips. “Oh yeah? I guess getting yelled at by some balding old man can really make someone’s day.”
Steve started laughing again, a snort escaping him as he shook his head. “C’mon, you know what I’m talking about!” He leaned closer to you. “I’m talking about you—being here with you, telling you I like you…kissing you.”
Even in the dim light of the distant carnival, you could still see the hints of green in his eyes, mixed in with their deep-hazel color. He was so close now, and you could almost, almost kiss him again. That’s what he seemed to be thinking of too, because he began to lean imperceptibly closer, until—
You pulled away, laughing more at his attempt at being smooth. “Oh, come on, Harrington, I’m not letting you off that easy. I’ve got 10 p.m. curfew, remember? And right now it’s just about…9:46. Better hurry, or my mom’s gonna kill you!”
He watched you get in the car, throughly disappointed. Then he realized that, yikes—you had a point. If you weren’t in by curfew your mom would kill him. As soon as the thought hit him, he practically leapt over to the driver’s seat, starting the car anxiously. He noticed you laughing at his fingers nervously drumming against the steering wheel, and couldn’t help but smile back.
Besides—this was just the beginning of…something. And maybe, just maybe, he’d get a good-night kiss.