Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Nancy wasn’t at school.

Jonathan was trying not to lose his mind with worry.

Not because they were together or anything, but— well, they were friends, weren’t they? After everything?

He worried.

Nancy always got to school before Jonathan and saved him a seat in first period. They always sat together in Physics and French, because those were the only classes they shared, because Jonathan was hopeless at both of them, and Nancy was kind enough to help him with them, because there was a certain familiarity you just couldn’t shake after fighting an interdimensional monster together.

People must’ve thought it a weird combination: Nancy Wheeler, the prim and perfect “girl next door”, chatting happily with Jonathan Byers, the weird, too-quiet loner whose brother had come back from the dead last year.

Honestly, they weren’t wrong, were they? It was weird. Not to mention, everyone in Hawkins knew about the time he and Steve had knocked each other’s lights out in the alley by the movie theater. Nancy and Steve got back together, but somehow Jonathan was still allowed in the picture? That was weird, and Jonathan knew it.

But Nancy was just so nice, and he appreciated having a real friend his age, even if it was a little awkward between him and Steve. It was just nice having someone to talk to besides his mom and his little brother.

But now Nancy wasn’t at school.

Jonathan got to class and found a seat in the back corner, because the ones he and Nancy usually occupied were already taken by Kate Ortega and Justin Ledger. He put his bag in the empty chair beside his and waited, anxiously tapping his pencil against his notebook.

He ignored Jenny McCloud’s irritated glare and told himself that it was fine, everything was okay.

As the last few late arrivals stumbled into the classroom, and students clustered together to chatter about their weekends, and the teacher tried in vain to settle the Monday morning chaos, Jonathan tried coming up with all the possible, non-life-threatening-or-world-ending scenarios to explain why Nancy’s seat was empty.

She probably just overslept. (She never did.)

Or maybe she was busy playing tongue-tango in the parking lot with Steve. (She would never miss the bell for that.)

Or maybe she ran into trouble, Mike found something Upside-Down-y again, the creepy psychic girl was back, the Demogorgon had—

A knock at the door startled him out of his train of thought, and the whole class turned to look, too.

“Sorry to interrupt, Mr. Jameson,” Steve said, turning his usual girl-swooning smile into the innocent, teacher-swindling kind. He held up a plain looking envelope. “Mrs. Perkins in the office asked me to drop this off for Jonathan. His mom dropped it off.”

Mr. Jameson huffed but waved a vague hand inviting him in, and turned back to the board to finish writing down the introductory activity.

Immediately, curious murmurs swept throughout the classroom, but Steve didn’t pay them any mind. He made his way through the messily-arranged rows of desks until he reached Jonathan’s and handed him the envelope.

“Here you go, man,” he said cheerfully, even clapped him on the shoulder like Jonathan was one of his teammates. Before he turned to go, he bent down as though to tie his shoe and discreetly whispered to Jonathan, “Everything’s fine. Just didn’t want you to panic.”

And then, like the most normal thing in the world, Steve Harrington was straightening up and striding out of the classroom, taking his perfectly-swooped hair and pearly-white grin along with him.

His mom would never send a note for him; she’d always call. Which meant this note was from Steve. Steve Harrington, of all people, sending a note to Jonathan Byers. He could only assume it was a ransom letter, or stuffed with poisoned herbs, or something, but he couldn’t bring himself to tear open the envelope; he just stared at it.

The whispers didn’t die down for a good thirty seconds, not until Mr. Jameson groaned, stood on top of his chair, and slapped the chalkboard with his yard stick a few times.

“Finally,” he said with a huff. “Now, if you’d turn your eyes to the board, please open your notebooks and begin working on the following problem: A rubber ball weighing 800 hectograms is moving 10 meters per second—”

Faced with the option of remembering physics equations or reading a note from Steve Harrington, Jonathan picked the obvious choice, and used his thumbnail to tear open the envelope.

Onto his desk fell a little scrap of paper Steve must’ve borrowed from the office lady, if the From the desk of Kathleen Perkins header was any indication.

Nance called last night– caught a bad cold. Said she’ll be back Wednesday-ish, but you can use her notes from her locker if you need help studying for the French quiz tomorrow— her combo is 11-25-3. Sit with me at lunch? I brought brownies from home!

(Not the pot kind, sorry.)

And then, at the end of the note, the guy had drawn a smiley-face. A goddamn smiley-face.

Jonathan re-read the note, just to be sure he wasn’t hallucinating.

Surely Steve knew that he always ate lunch in the parking lot, or in the art room with the other weirdos. All of Hawkins High royalty, current or former, knew there was a level of socially awkward that didn’t even pass the threshold of the cafeteria.

He re-read it again.

He distantly heard Mr. Jameson talking about newtons of Force and gravity and meters-per-second something, but Jonathan couldn’t stop thinking about Steve Harrington— the (maybe former) King of Hawkins High sweetly asking the secretary for a piece of paper, scribbling down a note just for Jonathan, inviting him to sit with him at lunch, offering him brownies, and topping it off with a goddamn smiley-face at the end.

Jonathan huffed a laugh and neatly folded the note up to slip it in his pocket.

He might be the freak, he thought, but Steve Harrington was about as weird as they came.

And Jonathan did like brownies.

Chapter Text

Mrs. Kowalczyk held the class back a whole five minutes to scold them for their latest test average—which, fair, because Jonathan himself had literally winced when he saw the grade returned to him.

But that meant he was running five minutes late to lunch, plus an extra three minutes to drop his things in his locker all the way across the school, and by the time Jonathan made it to the cafeteria, he was expecting to find Steve reuniting with his former band of jocks, cheerleaders, and miscellaneous Hawkins High royalty.

But there Steve was, sitting at a corner table all by himself and waving Jonathan over with a bright grin.

“You came!” Steve said cheerfully. “I thought I was gonna have to go find you sulking by yourself in the art room.”

“I don’t sulk,” Jonathan protested, sulking.

Steve shrugged and pushed a foil-covered Tupperware across the table, nodding for him to take a seat.

“Take as many as you want,” he said as Jonathan sat down. “They’re a little burnt on the bottom, but really chewy on the inside, so I’m counting it as a win.”

Jonathan set his brown paper bag lunch on the table and, after a moment’s hesitation, carefully pulled back the tinfoil to find a tempting stack of brownies giving off a rich, chocolate-y aroma.

“Did you really make these?” He asked skeptically, glancing back up at Steve.

“Yeah! I’ve always liked cooking, but I realized lately that I’ve never really tried baking, so I figured it was as good a time as any to practice,” he said.

His eyes were so bright and eager that Jonathan almost felt guilty for not believing him at first.

“You— you really don’t mind me trying one?”

Steve huffed a laugh and picked up the apple from his lunch tray.

“‘Course not. In fact, I want you to. Otherwise, I only have myself to judge how well I did, and I think Nance would call that biased reporting,” Steve said, resting his chin in his palm with a lazy grin.

The mention of Nancy brought Jonathan back to reality with a screeching halt, and he ducked his head quickly before Steve could notice the flush on his cheeks. A small voice in his head told him to take out the lunch he’d hastily packed himself that morning, but he grabbed a brownie and took a large bite before he could think too hard about— well, anything to do with Steve Harrington.

The sound that came out of Jonathan’s mouth was nothing short of a moan, but Steve just laughed, even as Jonathan’s cheeks warmed.

“That good, huh?” He teased. “You’re flattering me, Byers.”

Jonathan finished swallowing the brownie in his mouth before replying, lest he choke and die after moaning in front of Steve fucking Harrington.

“These are amazing, dude,” he said. “You really made these?”

Steve bobbed his head as he swallowed a bite of his PB&J.

“My grandma was a crazy good cook. I’ve got this huge box of her recipes— well, I guess it’s my mom’s, but anyway— I don’t think I could ever live long enough to try them all, but every single one is sure to be a hit,” he said cheerfully. “I think I’m gonna try doing a soufflé next.”

Jonathan wasn’t sure he knew what a soufflé was, so he took another bite of his brownie for extra time to think of a reply.

“That’s really cool, man,” he said finally. “My mom, like, never cooks. I don’t know how she’d survive without a microwave. But me and Will like real simple stuff— y’know, cereal, sandwiches, Hamburger Helper. We don’t really care if it comes out of a plastic wrapper, so long as it tastes good, y’know?”

Steve smiled and nodded.

“I get it. Well, I’ve cooked for the Wheelers a few times, and even that little asshole Mike enjoyed it. Maybe I’ll send you home with a casserole some time.”

Jonathan automatically made a face.

“Ugh, anything but a casserole. That’s dead person food, did you know? Last year, when Will— I mean, Mom and I, we got so many that we had to start stacking ‘em on the counters. I’m pretty sure we gave a bunch to Hopper. I always wondered why dead person food couldn’t be, like, brownies,” he said, holding up his own for emphasis.

Steve huffed a laugh. “Well, I promise to never make you a casserole, Jonathan Byers,” he said, holding up a hand and covering his heart with the other: a solemn oath.

Jonathan surprised both of them with the laugh that bubbled up from his chest.

“That makes you a real friend, Harrington,” he said. He grabbed his lunch bag and pulled out the half-brown banana he’d grabbed off the counter that morning.

Steve looked torn, suddenly, furrowing his brow and worrying his lip in an expression Jonathan couldn’t quite parse.

He knew he should probably ask, at least open his mouth and say something , told himself that this was how polite, normal people made conversation, but before he could even—

“Are we friends?” Steve blurted out.

Jonathan floundered, his hand freezing on the banana mid-peel.

“I— what?”

Steve fiddled with the edge of his lunch tray.

“It’s just that we kinda hated each other for a while, and pretty much kicked the shit out of each other, and were both pretty shitty to put Nancy in the middle of our bullshit—”

Jonathan frowned, wanting to interject that Nancy, though not at fault, was the center of the bullshit in the first place, but Steve was still plowing forward.

“— and then found out about you know what and fought you know what, and I really feel like that was something special? Not in a good way, I mean, obviously, but doesn’t that— I mean, like, it’s over with now, but is it really? Are we just supposed to sign the forms and pack up the trauma and pretend it never happened?” Steve rambled. “‘Cause believe me, I’d love to pretend it never happened, but also I don’t want to go back to the person I was, and Nancy says that includes making up with you for—”

“Whoa, whoa!” Jonathan finally managed to interrupt, waving his hands for Steve to, at the very least, lower his voice. “NDAs, remember?”

Steve took a few deep breaths, but apparently still found it in himself to roll his eyes at Jonathan.

“C’mon, nobody could know anything from hearing that,” he said with a half-grin, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes.

Jonathan made a face.

“Even still—”

“Well, well, well.”

A voice behind him drawled over the chatter of the lunch rush.

Jonathan didn’t recognize it, but by the way Steve went rigid in his seat and set his jaw, he knew it wasn’t exactly a friend.

“Looks like the former King found a new friend! What’s that bring your total to, Harrington? One?”

Steve didn’t take his eyes off whoever was coming up behind him, but discreetly nudged Jonathan under the table with his foot.

“Ignore him,” he whispered. “Don’t let him rile you up.”

“What’s that, Harrington?” A heavy hand clapped Jonathan on the shoulder, and he nearly jumped out of his skin. “You know keeping secrets isn’t nice. And neither is not introducing me to your new friend here. What’s your name, pal?”

Jonathan couldn’t read the expression on Steve’s face except to know that, whoever this guy was, he was bad news. But he couldn’t ignore him very well without making things worse, he figured, so he took a deep breath and turned to take a look up at their intruder’s face.

“Jonathan Byers,” he said, forcing a tight, polite smile. “Nice to meet you.”

The muscled-up blonde in too-tight jeans flashed him an icy grin, but Jonathan forced himself to not break eye contact.

“Billy Hargrove,” he said, sickeningly sweet. “Little Stevie’s usurper to the crown.”

It wasn’t hard to see why this guy had slipped into the winning spot left by Steve’s new vacancy in the Hawkins High royal court. He was good-looking, objectively, all tan and blonde and muscular. Like Icarus, Jonathan thought, and a silly part of him wondered if this boy would one day fly too close to the sun.

Billy Hargrove was attractive in a California way. Something hot and fast and trendsetting. But his good looks were so unlike Steve’s, Jonathan thought.

Steve Harrington was beautiful, distinctly Midwestern, the all-American boy next door. He was fair, freckled skin, with dark hair and even darker eyes, and he almost danced as he walked. But what was once an unconcerned, confident stride— the gait of a man— had softened since last year, quickened with a newfound anxiety. It seemed even demure, Jonathan thought, lacking the old trademark Harrington vanity.

“Well, congratulations,” he offered. “On the whole, uh, King thing.”

He winced internally, and hoped it didn’t show too much on his face.

Billy’s mouth twisted in something that looked like a smile, but Jonathan’s internal alarm system was telling him to get up and run.

“I should be telling you the same,” Billy said, planting his hands on his hips. “The rumor mill said your baby brother had something of a miraculous recovery last year. And I thought this town wouldn’t have anything interesting to talk about.”

Jonathan’s blood went cold even as his vision went red.

“He just got lost in the woods,” he said tightly. “Nothing interesting.”

Billy shrugged, still smiling, all crooked and cold.

“If you say so,” he said. “But I’ve got a little step-brat at the middle school. Says the kids call him ‘Zombie Boy.’ Apparently she’s running ‘round with his little group these days, so she gets all the hot gossip. ‘Back from the dead.’ Pretty freaky if you ask me— that is to say, not the type of kid my stepsister needs to be associating with. So how ‘bout you tell your little zombie brother to leave her alone, huh? And you can go back to sucking off Harrington here for your lunch money.”

Billy clapped him on the shoulder again for emphasis, and Jonathan couldn’t tell if it actually hurt or if he was just so angry that every cell in his body was screaming at him to punch back.

And punch back, he wanted to. But just as he swiveled around and shoved his chair back, Steve’s foot shot out and wrapped around the leg of Jonathan’s chair, holding him in place.

When he looked back, Steve wasn’t looking at him, but up at Billy, a similarly cold smile planted on his face.

“Hey, man,” he said, “No need to talk shit about some kids. Your sister decides who she’s gonna hang around. Let’s stick to picking on people your own size, yeah?”

Billy’s eyes narrowed. His nostrils flared like a bull, Jonathan thought, and Steve was waving a crimson red flag for him.

“Oh, yeah?” Billy said through gritted teeth. “Like who, pretty boy?”

“Like me.”

Steve’s voice didn’t waver, nor did his gaze, even as Billy leaned down close enough that their noses nearly brushed.

“You trying to die today, Harrington?” He growled.

Jonathan’s hands gripped the edge of the table until his knuckles turned white.

Steve cracked an easy grin and leaned back in his seat.

“Nah. Just distracting you while the principal walked over.”

“Mr. Hargrove!” Mr. Higgins called cheerfully, coming up from behind them. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you! Mrs. Perkins told me that no one ever gave you the official school tour on your first day this week.”

Billy straightened up, his face slipping smoothly into something resembling a normal smile as he turned to face the principal.

“Oh, I’ve found my way around just fine, sir,” he said in an easy drawl. “No tour required.”

“Nonsense, it’s basic hospitality!” Mr. Higgins said kindly. “You need a proper Hoosier welcome. I’m glad you’ve begun making friends so quickly, though! Thank you for welcoming our new student, Jonathan, Steve, but we must be going. Come along now, Billy.”

Jonathan glanced to the side and found Billy’s hands clenched into trembling fists, but the principal didn’t notice.

“Right away, sir,” Billy ground out. He glanced back just long enough to glare daggers at Steve and Jonathan, then fell in step beside Mr. Higgins.

Steve watched them leave the cafeteria, his mouth curled with distaste.

“God, that guy sucks,” he said, shaking his head as he grabbed the milk off his tray.

Jonathan stared at him.

“Why’d you do that?”

Steve paused, pulling the carton away from his mouth. There was a faint milk mustache above his lip.

“Do what?”

Jonathan gesticulated vaguely in the direction that Billy had left.

“Nearly got yourself killed by Mr. California?” He said, perhaps a bit too loudly; the table of girls nearest theirs did a poor job of muffling their giggles. He lowered his voice. “I could’ve taken him, you know. I took you.”

Steve actually laughed at that.

“You sure did, Byers,” he said, setting down his milk. “But I’m already on Billy’s shit-list. No reason to add yourself to it. Besides, if it’s true that his step-sister is making friends with Will, we want her reporting back good things to Billy on the Byers boys. That’s better than socking the guy in the cafeteria and being enemy number one ‘til graduation, eh?”

Jonathan frowned and took a bite of his apple, chewing slowly as he mulled it over.

Steve fiddled with the plastic wrapping on his sandwich.

“So…”

Jonathan looked up.

“What?”

Steve shrugged his shoulders, and if Jonathan squinted, he could’ve sworn he saw a bit of a pink blush rising to Steve’s cheeks.

“Friends?” He asked, sticking his hand across the table.

Jonathan huffed a laugh and took his hand.

“Alright, Harrington. Friends.”

Steve grinned and hopped up, grabbing his backpack with one arm and his lunch tray with the others.

“I’ve gotta get to American Lit,” he said. “But same place tomorrow? Nancy said she probably won’t be back until Wednesday, but— well, she and I sit at this table everyday. Trust me, I get third-wheeling is awkward, but you really are always welcome to join us. We— I’d like it.”

Jonathan hesitated, then nodded slowly.

“I’ll… consider that.”

He probably wouldn’t take Steve up on that, he thought, and by the way Steve laughed, he knew it, too. But the offer wasn’t meaningless.

“Alright, Jon. See you tomorrow, then.”

Steve turned and loped off towards the dishwashing station to dump his tray, but Jonathan immediately panicked upon seeing the Tupperware of brownies still sitting on the table beside him.

“Wait, you forgot your brownies!” Jonathan called after him, scrambling to get up and hurry after him.

Steve didn’t even turn all the way around to shoot him a smile.

“I meant to, dummy!” He said easily, lifting a hand. “Bring ‘em home for Will and your mom! Put some meat on the kid’s bones!”

And then he disappeared into the crowd of students, blending seamlessly into the chaotic Hawkins High ecosystem in a way Jonathan had always envied.

And Jonathan was left with nothing but his lunch, a dozen brownies, and a smile he ducked his head to hide.

Steve fucking Harrington.

An enigma he would never understand.