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i.
Lucas doesn’t know what he’s been feeling, recently.
It begins - as many things in his life begin - while he is watching Max. Not in a creepy way, he swears. It’s just that he can’t seem to take his eyes off her, ever, and it’s gotten worse after recent events. Max, who came back from the dead. Max, who recently got rid of her last cast, the one on her right arm that was littered with doodles. Max, who is going to physiotherapy and doing exercises and trying her very best but who he knows is endlessly frustrated at the slow progress she’s making.
(He doesn’t think it’s slow. He thinks she’s the strongest person he knows. Maybe, he’ll even tell her one day.)
Anyway, he is watching Max after they spent the afternoon at Steve’s place - originally, it was supposed to be another pool party that Steve begrudgingly agreed to hosting but it’s been raining all day, so the pool party got turned into a spontaneous movie afternoon, including popcorn that Steve magicked up from somewhere. They’re all gathering to go home now, separated into two groups (Eddie was also at Steve’s house when they arrived, for some reason, as he often is these days, and he agreed to drive Lucas and Dustin home.)
Max is going with Steve, and Lucas watches her as she gets up from the white, stainless couch, wobbles with her crutches and then falls back against the cushions. He wants to jump up from where he’s sitting on the floor, wants to help her get up, but Steve’s at her side before he can even react.
(Lucas would never admit this, but he thinks the sixth sense Steve seems to have whenever one of them has a problem is kinda cool.)
“You good?” Steve asks, and Lucas watches as he and Max have a silent conversation with just their eyes. Then, Steve nods. “Carry you to the car?”
Max nods, curtly, and Lucas can see the tears gathering in the corner of her eyes in frustration, and anger, and he doesn’t know what to do with himself.
Steve is already crouching in front of the couch, so he doesn’t have to lean down any farther to reach out with his arms and say, “alright, spud, up you get.”
It looks practiced, the way his arms work around Max’ shoulder and under her knees. When he lifts her up, his muscles visibly strain and he exhales a loud huff. Max clings to him with her arms around his neck and it’s only because Lucas is always, always watching her that he spots it - a faint blush on her cheeks.
His brows furrow.
Why would she be embarrassed by - oh, yeah.
His eyes flick to Steve’s biceps, to his broad shoulders, to the way his jeans cling to his thighs as he walks out of the room with Max in his arms. He gets it.
In a strictly neutral way, obviously! He can appreciate when a man looks good, right? That’s normal, right? He gets that, objectively, Steve is good-looking! Obviously Max would feel a bit flustered. He gets it. He would be too, probably.
Anyway, he follows after the two of them like a slightly dazed deer, almost stumbling over a carpet and bumping his knee against a table in the hallway.
He is fine .
He watches as Steve runs through the still-ongoing drizzle to his car, gently puts Max down in the front seat, ruffles through her hair and closes the door behind her. Lucas is still standing there, watching, not even taking note of the rain wetting his clothes until Eddie honks from his van and wakes him from his trance.
“Come on, Sinclair, I don’t have all day!”
“Why, got a hot date?” Lucas snarks back as he climbs into the van next to Dustin.
“Yeah,” Eddie throws him a smirk, “very hot. Gonna get high with Harrington and watch Alien.”
(It’s clearly a joke, Lucas tells himself. See? Eddie also jokes about Steve being hot, it’s a thing guys do. It’s just the objective truth.)
ii.
It’s Tuesday evening and he’s trying to cram for his math exam the next day when his walkie crackles awake.
“Lucas!” Max’ voice comes through, her grin audible even through the tinny speakers. “Come outside! Come have a look at this!”
He wonders what it could be that has her so excited.
He sneaks out the front door - his parents are both dozing off in front of the TV, they won’t notice his absence for at least twenty minutes - and finds Steve’s car sitting outside the house.
There’s low voices, and a figure moving around behind the car, and then Steve steps forward.
“May I present -“ he drumrolls on the roof of his car for a second like a fucking dork, then announces, “The one, the only, Max Mayfield!”
And Max comes out from behind the car - or, she rolls, more like, because she’s in a bright red wheelchair.
“Ta-da!” Steve says, making a grand, sweeping motion with his hands that is very Eddie-esque.
Lucas stares. Max is sat in her new wheelchair that he didn’t even know she was considering getting, but it fits her perfectly, and she’s grinning, even if there’s that shy blush on her cheeks that she gets when she doesn’t quite know what reaction to expect from someone that Lucas loves so much.
“Holy shit!” Lucas exclaims, and then, when he watches Max’ eyes widen, adds, “ Good holy shit! You look so cool! The color is awesome!”
Max gives him one of her soft, private smile that she reserves for special occasions, and Lucas feels his insides turn to jelly.
Steve knocks on the top of his car, again. “Alright, spuds, I’m giving you five minutes, then I have to take her home again.”
He climbs into the front seat of his car, pointedly closing the door behind him.
Lucas takes a few reluctant steps towards Max.
“How long have you had this?” He asks.
“Arrived today. Steve helped me pick the model.” She doesn’t elaborate but Lucas knows that Steve probably did a lot more than just help her pick the model.
“It looks cool. Can you do tricks in it?”
Max laughs, quirks her eyebrows in a way that is so very her . “Not yet, but just you wait, before you know it, I’ll be doing them non-stop.”
Lucas grins at her. “Yeah, you will.”
(His voice is softer than he usually allows it to be and he doesn’t mind one but.)
“What did the others say?”
“You’re the first person to see it. Other than Steve, obviously.”
“Oh.” Now Lucas’ cheeks feel warm, and he can’t stop grinning. He bounces back and forth on his soles.
“Yeah,” Max says, smiling back at him.
Steve, the asshole who really isn’t an asshole ruins the moment by opening the car door again.
“Alright, kiddos, we’re leaving. Mayfield, get in the car, I’ll take care of your new vehicle .” He drawls out the last word in a ridiculous accent that Lucas thinks is supposed to sound like an English butler, and Max giggles.
(It’s the best sound Lucas has ever heard in his entire life.)
“Help me?” She says, looking at Lucas, and Lucas moves closer, holds out his hands so she can grip them and steady herself as she gets up. She takes the few steps to her car on her own, barely putting any weight on him, but she doesn’t complain about his arm around her waist, and Lucas certainly isn’t gonna complain, so he leaves it there until she’s safely in her seat.
He turns to look at Steve, who has already folded the wheelchair and is now stowing it away in his trunk where it fits perfectly - Lucas doesn’t doubt that Steve made sure when they picked the model that it would. As he lifts the chair, his shirt rides up with the motion and reveals his stomach and the red scars against his tan skin. Lucas’ eyes linger, because the scars kinda look badass.
(No other reason.)
(He doesn’t want to look at how sun-kissed Steve’s stomach looks, because he sees that every time they have a pool party at his place, it’s nothing new, and it’s definitely got nothing to do with how he the strip of skin leaves so much to the imagination for Lucas to fill in from memory, and anyway -)
And anyway, the shirt falls back down when Steve closes thie trunk with a slam and throws Lucas a smirk.
“Kiss her goodbye, you nerd,” he says and Lucas pulls a face, but he does bend down and press a kiss to Max’ cheek.
(He watches them drive away and his heart beats just a little bit faster. No one needs to know about that, though.)
iii.
Steve helps him with some hooping techniques on the weekend. Well, Lucas says hooping techniques, he mostly means shooting the shit and seeing who can make the most dunks in a row .
As ridiculous as it sounds, it does improve Lucas’ performance on the field, if only making him more comfortable in his abilities. It’s great, and Lucas is grateful that Steve takes the time out of his schedule to support him in what his other friends are still kind of making fun of, and Lucas would rather be caught dead than admit it but Steve is actually really cool to hang out with sometimes.
Anyway, that’s all fine and dandy, but then one day they meet up at their usual spot, the basketball hoop down the street from Lucas’ house, and it’s been swelteringly hot all week, and Steve shows up wearing short shorts and a cropped shirt.
And Lucas, well.
Listen.
It’s just, a lot, okay? Seeing someone looking like he came straight from a Wham! music video, and then he’s also really funny and good at basketball at the same time, and he pats Lucas on the shoulder when they’re finished and pours a bottle of water over his head and his cropped shirt reveals a sliver of his stomach and Lucas wouldn’t be able to pull his eyes away from the sight even if a ten-foot demo-dog was standing behind him.
Yeah.
That’s how serious this is.
(He stutters something about a good game , and Steve grins and holds out his hand for a high-five and it’s still normal, kinda dorky Steve. He’ll be fine.)
(He won’t.)
A few weeks later, Lucas’ older cousin Matthew is in town.
Matthew, who grew up in Indianapolis, who is tall and broad and has a gold ring dangling from his earlobe and the most neatly trimmed Afro Lucas has ever seen outside of MTV music videos. He’s staying with Lucas’ family while waiting for some friends to pick him up for a road trip, or something, it doesn’t really matter, because Lucas invites him to come play basketball with him and Steve that Saturday and he agrees immediately.
That Saturday, Lucas observes something weird.
Steve, cool, calm and collected and kind of dorky Steve is flustered. There’s no other word for the way his cheeks flush when Matthew blocks him from taking a shot with his whole body, their shoulders pressing together, staying that close for longer than you usually would during a real game. And yet - Steve looks flustered, but he doesn’t look uncomfortably so. Lucas watches as Matthew says, “nice shorts!” in reference to Steve’s bright yellow short shorts, and watches Steve flush, and then murmur something in response that Lucas can’t make out but that has Matthew throw back his head with laughter.
(If either of them were a girl, he’d say they were flirting. Neither of them are, though, so he forgets about that thought quickly.)
iv.
He arrives at the next hellfire meeting, which takes place in Mike’s basement as they have been since the spring break events, just as Steve’s car pulls up. He frowns, drops his bike on the floor and turns to stare at the car. As far as he was aware, Jonathan was dropping off Will today, and he and Dustin were coming by bike, and neither of the girls wanted to join, so who is Steve dropping off -
Ah.
Eddie gets out of front, waves in Lucas’ general direction and then moves to the trunk, taking out his bag with his D&D supplies and letting it drop to the floor. Steve gets out from behind the drivers seat and joins him in front of the open trunk, knocking their shoulders together. There’s a cigarette dangling from his lips already, and Lucas watches as he casually reaches out into Eddie’s personal space and pulls a lighter from his leather jacket, lighting the cigarette and then dropping it back into the pocket, patting it - and the side of Eddie’s stomach - twice.
They’re talking to each other, too quiet to make out, and then Eddie leans over to pluck the cigarette from between Steve’s lips and take a drag, himself, and there’s something about the intimacy of their movements that makes Lucas feel like a creep for observing. Still, he can’t seem to take his eyes off them and he keeps watching as Steve murmurs something to Eddie and Eddie guffaws and promptly chokes on the smoke he just inhaled. Steve just slaps him on the back until he stops coughing, a smug grin on his face, and then his eyes flick over to land on Lucas.
Again, he murmurs something to Eddie, and this time, Eddie slaps him on his shoulder with a wide grin, and as his arm drops back down, Steve catches his wrist with his right hand just for a second, holding it in a loose grip and then dropping it with a small smile on his face that Lucas hasn’t seen yet. Again, he thinks, this is too intimate to be observed, and he can’t even explain what he means because what they’ve been doing is perfectly normal! He shouldn’t feel a weird, fluttery feeling in his stomach at the sight of Steve’s fingers around Eddie’s wrist, what the fuck is going on with him! What is happening!
He is ripped from his thoughts by Eddie bending down to grab his bag from the floor and jogging over to the porch of the Wheeler’s house, where Lucas has been standing.
“Let’s go, Sinclair, The game waits for no man!”
He passes him and enters the house. Lucas is left standing next to his bike. Steve crouches down to stub out his cigarette on the floor, stands up again, turns to Lucas and lifts a hand in a wave. He gets into his car and drives off, and Lucas follows Eddie into the house.
(He absolutely does not think about the strange closeness to Eddie and Steve when they thought no one was watching. It does not keep him up at night.)
(Shut up.)
v.
Steve paints his nails and it’s a problem.
Maybe Robin painted his nails, or Eddie, or Nancy, or he did it himself, but either way, Steve picks them up to take them to the arcade and his nails are a pretty baby blue and Lucas. Well.
As he said, it’s a problem.
(Not like that , okay? He’s not a prejudiced asshole, he doesn’t think badly of Steve just because he has painted nails. That’s not the problem.)
The problem is that Lucas can’t stop staring.
It’s just that he’s never seen a man with painted nails. Or at least not like this - Eddie has chipped black nail polish on sometimes, but that fits in with his whole edgy freak image, that makes sense with his leather jacket and the long hair and the rings.
Steve, though.
He’s always been preppy, masculine, wearing jeans and ugly colourful polo shirts and swinging a spiked bat at monsters and right now he’s up front, his fingers tapping along to fucking Wham!, of all things, and his fingernails are painted blue.
Lucas is the first to be picked up and they drive mostly in silence until they reach the Henderson’s house. Dustin is already sitting on the stairs up front, and when he gets into the seat up front reserved for him, the first thing he does is grab Steve’s hand.
“What’s this, man? When did this happen?”
Steve raises an eyebrow, and for a second, he almost looks shy, nervous even, and it’s only because he’s Steve , and Steve doesn’t get shy, or nervous, that Lucas ignores that thought.
Steve pulls his hand out of Dustin’s grip and puts the car into gear. “Got a problem, Henderson?” He asks.
“No!” Dustin yells, and then rambles on, “I just never saw them before and they are new that’s why I asked and who painted them, anyway? Also, the colour doesn’t match your shirt,” - he’s right, Steve’s bright red shirt clashes with his baby blue nails in a very confusing, not entirely flattering combination.
Lucas, during this whole ordeal and the bickering between the two up front that follows about what radio station they should listen to, is still caught up on the nails.
(Men can paint their nails? A voice in his head asks. Even men like Steve, with their BMWs and their sneakers and their basketball skills?)
(They can! They can! They can!)
(His chest feels weird, all of a sudden, and even though it’s kind of a good feeling, he ignores it, and joins Dustin in bullying Steve for his taste in music.)
(The next time him and Max hang out at her place, she asks him to paint her nails, like he’s been doing ever since her arms were both broken. They’re long out of casts now, but still unstable and shaky sometimes, and Lucas suspects that maybe, maybe, Max gets a thrill out of their hands touching just like he does.)
(She asks him to paint her nails in a bright yellow and when he’s done, and mostly happy with how they turn out, he impulsively paints the nail on his left pinky finger in the same colour.)
(“There, now we match,” he says, tries to play it off as a joke, but Max just grabs his hand and inspects the colour, hums approvingly.
“Pretty,” she says, and Lucas doesn’t know why his heart beats faster, all of a sudden. Then, Max leans forward and kisses him, softly, mindful of the still-wet nail polish on both - both! - their hands, and Lucas stops thinking for a while.)
vi.
“Eddie and I are dating,” Steve announces to them the next time they’re all together, hanging out in Steve’s parent’s living room after a movie night, waiting for Hopper to pick up Will and El.
Chaos breaks out.
Not really. Just a bunch of consecutive statements, and with each of them Steve looks less and less nervous - which, you know, he didn’t even look nervous in the beginning because he’s Steve , and Steve doesn’t get nervous.
“Wait, what?” yells Dustin, and continues yelling, “you’re like our dads! That’s gross!”
“Why would Eddie date you, he’s way too cool for you,” sneers Mike, his heart clearly only half in the insult, and tries to move out of the way of El’s swat.
“Boys can date?” El asks, after successfully swatting Mike.
Max grins at Steve and says “congrats,” and Lucas is pretty sure she’s going for a sarcastic tone but failing miserably because her smile is too wide.
Will is quiet, and says, “thanks for telling us,” and there’s something in his tone that makes Lucas wonder if there’s something else he wants to add, but can’t say quite yet.
Eddie, for his part, drapes an arm around Steve’s shoulder and grins at them all. “Don’t worry, just because mummy and daddy are together now doesn’t mean we’ll love you any less.”
“Dude,” Steve exclaims and elbows him, but the joyous expression on his face and the fact that he remains safely tucked against Eddie’s side ruins the intended effect considerably.
(There’s something about their closeness, about the fact that they really aren’t just friends having a friendly tussle, that makes Lucas dizzy.)
And, well. Lucas’ head is spinning, and spinning, and he doesn’t know how to stop it, and it bursts out of him before he knows what’s happening - “I thought you liked girls?”
Steve’s eyes land on Lucas with a searching look, and Lucas tries not to squirm even though he feels like Steve can see right through him, like he can read all of the tumbling and twisting thoughts in his brain like a book. The corner of Steve’s mouth quirks upwards.
“I do,” he says, and then adds, “I like girls and boys. It’s called bisexuality.”
And Lucas’ world tilts off its axis, and then lands safely back on a different axis. Or something. He’s never been the strongest at metaphors.
He nods, and Steve nods back at him, as if understanding something about Lucas that Lucas doesn’t understand about himself, yet.
The moment is broken by Hopper honking outside, and then everyone is off, running to gather bags and shoes, Max rolling ahead in her wheelchair, until they are waving El and Will off and then piling into Steve’s car, Max in the front and the boys in the back, and the wheelchair in the trunk and Eddie on the porch, a hand raised as Steve steers them out on the road.
(Something about him staying at Steve’s house while Steve isn’t even there solidifies their relationship in a way that Lucas can’t explain, and while Dustin pesters Steve about details of his relationship, Lucas stares out into the dark night for the remaining drive, trying to make sense of what he’s feeling.)
Steve drops Mike off, first, and then Max, and then, while he’d normally drop of Lucas first, he pulls up to Dustin’s house and says, “get out, shithead, I gotta talk to Lucas about some basketball stuff.”
Dustin pulls a face of disgust, fist bumps them both and disappears into his house, leaving Steve and Lucas sitting alone in the quiet car.
After a moment, Steve sighs and runs a hand through his hair. “Get up front, will you?” He says, and Lucas clambers out of the backseat and into the front seat.
Steve starts the car again and drives off, towards the woods, idly making his way through the night without a rush.
“Uh, I live that way,” Lucas says, and gestures, and Steve huffs.
“I know,” he says. “Just thought we’d talk for a sec, and we can’t really do that when your house is two minutes away from Dustin’s.”
Lucas remains quiet.
Steve taps his hands against the steering wheel, his blue nail polish now chipped in a few places.
“You’re okay with me and Eddie dating, right?”
“Yeah, of course!” Lucas exclaims, and then shuts up again, because he might’ve sounded a bit too enthusiastic, just then.
(His head is spinning, and his heart is beating a million miles a minute.)
They’re silent, and Steve taps his hands against the steering wheel as if he’s waiting for something, patiently, and Lucas stares at his chipped nail polish, and the words leave his mouth without his permission. “I didn’t know you could like girls and boys.”
Steve stills his hands. “I didn’t know until a few months ago, either,” he says, a peculiar tone to his voice.
They’re silent again.
(Lucas heart beats, and beats, too fast, and his head is spinning again.)
(Then, a deep breath.)
(He’s safe here.)
(This is Steve, with his dumb colourful polos and his dad jokes and his spiked bat and his chipped nail polish, and now that he’s thinking about it Steve was definitely flirting with his cousin, which, gross, but this is Steve, and his tight jeans, and his short shorts, and his biceps that carry wheelchairs and bikes and even a sleeping Dustin, once, with ease.)
(He’s safe here.)
So, he says,
“I might be that, too.”
“What?”
“Bisexual.”
And as the word leaves his mouth, a weight lifts off his chest, and he feels like he’s going to burst, and Steve gives him a soft smile.
(And that’s the best thing about it.)
(Steve gives him a soft smile, like he’s so, so proud of him.)
(He grins back.)
“Nice,” Steve says, and, as if through magic, pulls up to Lucas’ house right then.
He offers Lucas a fist, and Lucas bumps his against it, and can’t believe how much weight can lie in such a small gesture.
“See ya,” he says, and gets out of the car.
“Sweet dreams, shithead,” Steve replies, and when Lucas gets to the front door and turns around, he’s still waiting in his car, watching him with his window rolled down.
“Don’t let it eat you up,” he calls, and Lucas nods.
Steve nods, too, just like earlier, understanding passing between them. Then, he grins. “And don’t let the bedbugs bite!”
Lucas flips him off.
Steve laughs, and drives off into the night.
(Lucas lies in bed that night, and for the first time in a while, he falls asleep within moments.)
(The next time they’re all at Steve’s for a movie night, Lucas arrives wearing his mother’s rose-pink nail polish. When Steve spots it, he grins and holds out his hand for a fist bump. Their nails match.)