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You shouldn’t have decided to walk. You could see the dark clouds looming in the distance, the wind drawing them ever closer to Hawkins. It was a dumb decision to make the journey to Steve’s house from yours on foot, you should have known better, should have thought your choice through.
Normally you would ride your bike to your boyfriend’s house, but the tires were low on air and pumping them up had seemed like too much effort when you were ready to leave. Why would you take the time to refill them when you could be that much closer to Steve already? At the time, the answer seemed obvious.
The logic behind making the journey on foot wasn’t entirely sound, but you hadn’t seen your boyfriend all day and you miss him. You always miss him. Sometimes, when you get too excited to see Steve, you don’t think things through. It’s embarrassing, he says it’s endearing.
You must have walked too fast, or eaten too much for dinner too soon before walking. Whatever the cause, a little past the halfway point to Steve’s house, you feel a stitch begin to form in your side. It forces you to slow down, something you don’t really want to do given how close the clouds have become. They’re nearly on top of you, and they look ready to burst. You have no choice but to accept your fate.
You’ve known all day that storms could be rolling in, but the weather report said it would storm in the morning, and the morning came and went without a drop of rain, then so did the afternoon. You hoped that by this point the rain would just hold off until night, creating a nice soundtrack to sleep to rather than a nuisance to travel in.
The whole situation is an inconvenience at most. Sure, taking your time to pump the tires on your bike would have allowed you to be at Steve’s already, and if you were lucky you would have exerted less energy and avoided the cramp in your side, but it was a bother. The simple act of adding air to the tires seemed like just enough of a setback to avoid it. You just wanted to see Steve.
Now you’re still not with Steve, you’re in pain, and the first drops are beginning to fall. It’s annoying, frustrating enough to make you grumble at the sky. Soon, you remind yourself, almost there.
The first drops to fall are hardly drops at all. They aren’t big and beautiful. They’re small, sporadic, cold. Summertime storms aren’t supposed to be so cold. The drops fall faster and faster, wind picking them up and blowing them into your face. They soak into your clothes, the fabric clinging to your skin as goosebumps break out across your arms.
Luckily it’s not a thunderstorm. It’s safe enough to be walking in the rain. Besides, you’re almost at Steve’s now. He’ll just lend you some dry clothes and hold you close, and everything will smell like him. The thought of seeing him so soon gets you to move faster again, that excitement you felt at the beginning of the walk sparking just enough to keep your heart glowing, a lighthouse in your chest. There may not be any thunder, but the elation of being so close to seeing Steve again flows like lightning beneath your skin, making your whole body buzz with it.
—♡—
Steve has been waiting for you to arrive. You should be at his house already, even if you made the trip on foot.
Maybe you got distracted, saw a cat that needed petting or some flowers too pretty not to stop for. It wouldn’t be the first time, and the distractions on the way to Steve’s house seem to be infinite. There’s always something new to look at no matter how little has changed. A small shift in lighting is more than enough to draw your eye to new curiosities. Steve tries to convince himself that there were just a few more distractions than usual, but after all that has happened in Hawkins these past few years, with everything that he knows is hiding just beneath the surface, he isn’t so sure.
He tries calling your house again, just in case you were exaggerating about being ready to head out the door. He knows you’re always a little later than you say you’ll be, he accepts this, plans accordingly, but the line just rings without an answer. You have already left.
Steve begins to fiddle with the little things in his home in an attempt to distract himself, or maybe to clear his mind, whatever it takes to keep the worry from taking over. He moves anything that seems even slightly out of place, just to ease his fraying nerves. It doesn’t help.
A peek out the window shows that it’s pouring rain, small drops falling in heavy sheets, the wind pulling the rain along at a harsh angle. Steve has a passing thought about grabbing some spare clothes for you to change into when you arrive, certain you’ll be soaked even if you brought an umbrella (he doubts you did).
His quick glance out the window also shows a shift in the scenery from his usual view. It’s not a big shift, a change that is almost washed out by the condensation forming on the windowpane, but it’s enough to give Steve pause. He looks again, a little closer this time.
There’s a lump lying in the middle of the sidewalk just a few houses over. It’s soggy—human. The lump moves, face looking up in Steve's direction as though the person could sense him standing there, watching from a distance. It’s a familiar face, it’s yours. Even from this distance he can tell you look sad, and, to be quite honest, a little pathetic.
Steve’s legs are moving him forward before he fully registers what’s happening. He’s out the door and running in your direction, crossing over his neighbor’s lawn to reach you, ignoring the way his feet slip in the mud.
The rain is cold, he notes. You must be miserable.
He’s by your side in an instant, hovering, unsure what you need from him. He wants to touch you, but he’s afraid of hurting you.
“What are you doing?” Steve practically shouts, voice laced with rising panic. He doesn’t mean to yell, not really. It’s a response to fear held over from his King Steve days—bared teeth to mask uncertainty. But you don’t really notice the volume of his voice or his harsh tone. It’s a little difficult to hear Steve even at a high volume, there’s water in your ears.
“I tripped! And then I gave up.”
You almost made it. You only needed to go a few doors down and you could have been at Steve’s, where it’s warm and dry and safe. If you had been paying more attention you would have remembered the crack in the sidewalk, the one that rattles you to the core every time your bike wheel hits it.
It’s just not your day.
Red pools around your knees, lightening into pink before fading completely. Like food coloring in a glass, the rain washes any trace of you away. It’s a slow trickle of blood, skin scraped raw during impact with the sidewalk, but it’s enough blood for Steve to be concerned. Any amount is too much in his mind.
“You’re bleeding,” he states. “and soaked to the bone. Come on, let’s get you inside.” He bends down beside you, his knees falling into the puddle where you lay, unconcerned by the additional water soaking into the fabric of his clothes. He’s already drenched from the rain, what difference will a little more water make?
He reaches beneath your arms and scoops you up, tugging until you’re leaning into his chest. You help out, just a little, but he still does the bulk of the work to get you standing again. When he moves, you follow close behind. He reaches for your hand, a familiar gesture, but the press of his palm against yours stings, a sharp pain rather than the usual and expected comfort. The touch makes you hiss slightly, a quick intake of breath, and Steve drops your hand immediately.
“Your palms too? Oh, my sweet, disaster girl. Does it hurt a lot?” His lips pull in a half smile, an attempt to comfort you, the light not reaching his eyes like it usually does. He’s too serious right now, a look you rarely see on him. Steve takes both of your hands in his, cradling the backs to avoid causing you any more pain. A quick glance shows your palms to be bleeding too, though not as much as your knees.
“It’s not too bad,” you mumble. And it’s true, they don’t hurt all that much, but between the cramp in your side and the cold rain still pouring around you, the setback from walking, the now raw and bleeding skin on your hands and knees, and the ache to just be held, it’s all just too much to handle.
Tears build behind your eyes, giving you no time to try blinking them away before they spill. They fall in heavy drops down your cheeks, searing and sticky. It’s just a couple, you can’t allow more to fall or else Steve might notice—the rain can only do so much to hide the redness of your eyes, even if the tears burning down your face blend in with the freezing rain. You don’t bother wiping them away, not wanting to draw any attention to the mess. Plus, that would mean having to pull your hands out of Steve’s gentle hold.
Steve shifts his grasp on you, taking only the tips of your fingers and curling them into his palm, the heat of him the closest thing to safety you’ve ever known.
He tugs you along until you reach his house. The inside is dry and full of the low yellow glow of table lamps, the low lighting giving the home a cozy feel. It’s a trick you learned that Steve uses to make the house feel less empty, a homely light that pulls the walls of the silent rooms in close. It makes the house feel more lived in, something Steve desperately needs when so much of his life is spent in isolation. The trick with the lights works, but it always makes you sad to see.
“Here,” Steve says, keeping hold of your arm to help you balance as you take off your wet shoes and socks. He holds you with the gentleness you’ve grown familiar with, all fighting instincts settled into dormancy again. “It’s important you dry off, and get these scrapes cleaned.”
Steve bends down to look at the injuries on your knees. His warm breath fans across the exposed skin of your thighs, finger reaching up to prod at the undamaged skin around the scrapes, not quite touching where it hurts. Streaks of crimson spill from friction torn skin. He’s not sure if the blood pooling there is making the injuries look worse than they are, not without cleaning the wounds first. He frowns at them, pressing a kiss to your thighs above each scrape, before standing once more.
You could cry again, the simple act of affection enough to be overwhelming. How could someone love you so much?
Steve takes his own shoes off before guiding you to his bathroom, where he encourages you to sit down on the side of the bathtub. Then he opens the cabinet beneath his sink, pulling everything out that he might need to clean your injuries, he even has gauze pads to clean off the blood.
“I’ve been getting hurt a lot these past few years,” Steve jokes, as if each time he was hurt he wasn’t involved in some sort of fistfight, beaten to a pulp from losing. Somehow it wasn’t the demogorgon or the demodogs that got to him, rather, it was his fellow human beings and, more often than not, his old classmates.
“Try not to get into any more fights,” you plead. “I don’t think your head could handle another concussion.”
“I won’t, I promise.” He grins. “At least, I won’t start them.”
You smack his shoulder in response, instantly regretting the act when the scrape on your palm makes itself known again. You gasp, more in shock than actual pain, but it brings Steve’s attention back to the task at hand.
He cleans your knees off first, trying to wipe away the blood before it drips down onto his floor. The gauze is warm against your skin, a nice reprieve from the cold of your rain soaked clothes still clinging to your body. He spreads bacitracin ointment across the scrapes before putting two large band aids on them, kissing each one lightly as he goes. Even that gentle touch stings, but you can’t help but grin down at Steve, who is trying so hard to be gentle with you.
It’s not uncommon for your mood to take a nosedive the way it had along the way to Steve’s, you both know that the bad days can be really hard to trudge through, but he always helps to keep you distracted, easing the pain in whatever way he can.
Steve repeats the steps of cleaning your knees as he cares for your hands, using a new gauze after the first was completely soiled. He works quickly and efficiently, the methodical nature of his process breaking your heart a little. It’s obvious how often he’s had to put himself back together. He doesn’t have to anymore though. Just as he’s helping you now, you will be there for him when he needs you—even if he tries to fight your help.
“Thank you,” you whisper when he’s all done.
“Of course,” he says. He presses one final kiss to your lips for good measure. “I’m going to grab us some dry clothes. I don’t want you getting sick.”
He leaves for just a moment, taking the warmth in the room with him. Of course he does, he’s the brightest thing you know, burning hotter than a fire, the heat of him spreading to you with only the slightest touch.
His absence is tangible, even if he’s gone for only a moment.
He comes back with two sets of clothes, both his despite having several pairs of your own tucked away in his drawers. The thought that he wants you in his own clothing, safe and dry and warm, sends a fire burning across your cheeks. Of course it does, how could it not? He doesn’t even need to touch you to make you burn.
You start to strip out of your wet clothes, grateful that you won’t have to be stuck in them for any longer.
“No, stop!” Steve exclaims before you can even get your shirt off. “If the band aids get wet I’ll have to change them again. Let me.”
He reaches out, pulls your shirt over your head gently before helping you out of your shorts. Your cheeks ignite again, heat spreading to your ears and down your neck, into your chest. Steve has seen you bare a hundred times over, tasted every inch of you, and yet this feels different. It’s almost embarrassing how tender he is, how fond as he takes you in for just a moment before helping you into his clothes, how gentle.
“I love you,” you say, unable to stop yourself, not that you would even if you could. He deserves to hear it. He brings his palms up to your cheeks, cradling you completely, thumbs sweeping light circles across the delicate skin beneath your eyes.
“I know,” Steve says, “I love you too. So much.”
Maybe you’re crying again, it’s difficult to tell anymore. You don’t think you’d mind if you are, not this time.
Steve’s half undressed by the time you get your wits about you again. His shirt drops to the floor in a wet heap, hitting the tiles with a loud splat. He smiles at you when he catches your gaze, the two of you laughing at the silliness of the sound. You ignore the way your own laugh holds a certain wetness to it—definitely crying. Your heart still hurts, bruised from just one too many small things gone wrong, but it’s not as bad now that you’re bandaged, warm, and with Steve.
“C’mere,” he says, stepping over the growing pile of wet clothing and pulling you towards him into the curl of his arms. The skin of his chest is cool and damp beneath your cheek, but he will warm up again. After all, you have no intention of letting go of him anytime soon.