Work Text:
It’s 3:26 PM on a Wednesday when Steve Harrington has the dawning realization that Jonathan Byers is in love with him.
There’s something about his eyes, a specific sort of look Jonathan gives him that sets off his suspicions because Steve is absolutely sure he’s seen someone look at him like that before in his life and it makes him go wait hold on, and then he takes the entire rest of his work shift to haphazardly piece together that it’s probably, definitely love.
“What do you do when someone is in love with you?”
He poses that question to Robin when they're closing up and she almost drops the mop she’s using to clean the floor in the bathroom.
“You are asking me?”
She sounds incredulous and Steve realizes she has every right to be. Because he’s probably had more experience with people being in love with him than Robin’s even had people she considered friends and if anyone is asking that question it should be Robin to Steve, not Steve to Robin.
“I mean like in the…”
He doesn’t know how to phrase it. Because he wants to say in your kind of way but he doesn’t know if that’s technically offensive or not or if you’re supposed to say something specific when it’s boys liking boys instead of girls liking girls.
“When it’s not, like, a girl.”
He lets Robin connect the remaining dots herself before demanding more details that Steve does his best to give while not explicitly saying things like You know Jonathan, the guy who dated Nancy Wheeler for a while after me? Jonathan, who comes around with his little brother to rent B-list horror flicks and frowns at me when I tell him they’re going to suck? Jonathan, who I smoke weed with at the scrapyard sometimes? Jonathan, who saved my life before I saved his last year? Jonathan who I maybe accidentally hooked up with a few times after the Nancy thing ended but we haven’t really told anyone else about that? That Jonathan?
“Do you even want this guy to be in love with you?”
Steve thinks about that while he rearranges the movie theater candy by the register. Robin sits up on the counter, dangling her legs over the edge, and kicks her feet back and forth as she waits for an answer.
The thing about suddenly knowing Jonathan Byers is in love with you is that Steve’s pretty sure Jonathan doesn’t realize it himself. The whole thing is blatantly obvious, and now that Steve knows he simply can’t stop knowing because it was definitely Jonathan who extended the olive branch first and invited him over when the kids were at his place so Steve could meet Will properly and it was Jonathan who first gave him a personalized mixtape unprompted when he said Steve’s music tastes were grossly undeveloped after they’d spent no less than 4 hours arguing back and forth about it and it was Jonathan who memorized his shift schedule so he could make excuses to drop by when Steve was working and Jonathan who sighed like he’d been wanting to kiss Steve for months when they were both stoned and laughing about nothing and their faces somehow ended up far too close together to not kiss each other.
“I think if it’s this specific guy, maybe, yeah, I do.”
“Well you haven’t fucked up yet, right?” Her tone is reminiscent of the one she used to use before adding a check to the You Suck board back what feels like an entire lifetime ago, “Maybe, for once, you’re doing all the right things already without even realizing it.”
He stops fiddling with a box of Milk Duds and looks back over at her.
“I never thought about that.”
Robin shakes her head and huffs something about boys and Steve laughs and can’t help but feel like he’s managed to somehow get a step ahead of whatever curve ball his life has decided to throw at him this time.
When Steve meets up with Jonathan next it’s at dusk a few days later at the scrapyard in the spot they’d claimed as their own when they wanted to feel impossible to find for a few hours.
“You’re late.”
“Maybe,” Steve says, climbing the ladder up to the top of the decommissioned school bus, knowing, yeah, he is with no viably good excuse as to why. “But you can’t be mad at me, I still brought weed.”
Jonathan gives him a suspicious look. He’s already smoking a cigarette that’s more than half gone but he takes the baggie Steve is holding out to him anyway, rifles through his pockets until he produces some crumpled-up pieces of paper which might be a leftover list or some receipts from the grocery store, and sets both down next to him, for later.
“You don’t get to dictate when I am and am not mad at you. Even if you’re bribing me.”
Despite the words, Jonathan’s face settles into a smile, a quiet, secret one. Steve thinks the whole exchange is meant to come off as snarky in a way that would usually goad him into bickering back at Jonathan in one way or another, but he doesn’t feel the desire to do so because it’s different now because he knows and all it does is make his heart swell.
He sinks down to Jonathan’s side, bumping their shoulders together, and flashes a smile of his own, dripping with charm.
“Aww c’mon, dude, you know you love me.”
Jonathan snorts, letting out a puff of smoke through both his mouth and his nose before he gives Steve that same look from days before: eyes soft, full of affection, and absolutely, completely, in love.
“You wish.”