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“So there’s this guy,” Steve starts, halfway to puking again. The revolutions of the hand against his back slow. He makes a keening noise that might mean that he wants them to continue – Jonathan doesn’t quite know what to make of it, so - daintily, after a second of hesitation and the swallowing of his pride, the circles resume.
The cold bites into Jonathan’s nose, the fat of his fingers, and the points of his shoulders beneath his thin sweater; he’d ditched all of his winter clothes in California when he thought he would never see Steve Harrington’s face – twisted up with nausea or some intense, confused feeling – again. He glances over his shoulder towards what, after everything, they hesitated to call a ‘party’ and tried to locate the red of Robin’s beret in the dark, but this far into the woods, all he can spy are trees and smoke in the distance. The sun went down a while ago – dyeing everything in a forever-twilight. When he looks up, he can see smudges of stars (what he decides to focus on, instead of Steve’s retching). Warmth bleeds through Steve’s tanktop into his hand.
He’s not sure where this is coming from – they weren’t talking before. Well, much.
I think I’m gonna be sick, Steve murmured after a long, awkward silence, stumbling in the opposite direction. They stood around the bonfire – left alone by Robin, who pulled Nancy inside, barely stifling the reason why under her breath. Jonathan took that as a silent invitation. No one went anywhere alone these days.
She’s never whispered a day in her life, Steve thought passively.
“Right,” Jonathan replies, pretending like he can fill in the blanks the longer he listens – though, mostly, he’s giving Steve the grace to ramble on, unfettered by the pensiveness that seemed to burden him earlier.
“Yeah.” Steve’s breathing, crickets, the crackle of the dying fire, laughter and music smothered by four walls. Jonathan’s reminded of the chill. Steve’s hands slide up from his knees, but he doesn’t stand. He stays in his scrunched position. Jonathan fights the urge to pull back – to shy away now that Steve’s coherent, just barely more put together than the stumbling fawn that two shots of whisky made of him. “Now, we’ve been through a lot together, me and him – Well. Not actually together, because… I mean, we were both kind of doing our own separate things, but…”
“Steve.”
“Just hear me out, alright? And this is, like, long overdue. Believe me, I’ve spent – God, I don’t know how long thinking about this. But, I don’t know. He’s changed. I’ve changed. I’m sure he’s totally going to brush me off in that blasé way of his.”
“... Blasé?”
“Yeah. It’s French. It means –”
Jonathan laughs, caught in the crux of a middle ground that is slipping out beneath him the longer Steve goes on, “I know what it means.”
“Of course you do,” and he doesn’t know whether to dip his head or roll his eyes, “NYU applicant.”
There's silence – deafening, the tapered ending of a song, and then: how do you know about that?
He didn’t even tell Nancy.
“Will and I talk,” spoken as if he is just supposed to naturally assume as much. Like he should know better. “We talk, Byers.”
Steve’s nice now, Will told him once over breakfast, so matter-of-fact it made Jonathan bite his tongue. He didn’t have the heart to argue then, and he certainly doesn’t know what to make of the scene unfolding in front of him. He tries to stay present. He tries to give Steve that, at the very least – remembering bittersweetly that his tongue had ached for the rest of that day.
It tugs at something inside of him, buried deeper than the trauma of years past (the camera, the wrapping paper that’s crumpled up in his room somewhere with a blank TO: and FROM: tag still attached), and before Jonathan can stop himself, he’s squatting with Steve. At this time of night, Steve’s a dark figure – the arch of his back is backlit by the fire and his face is in profile. Jonathan’s cheek rests against his knee, his head tilted enough to parse Steve’s expression, who is pointedly looking away from him.
“So, this guy…”
“Right,” Steve nods in that exaggerated way of his – up and down, up and down, pretending there isn’t some audible sign that Jonathan is scrunching his brows; the way he’s literally receding into himself, “this blasé guy. He, uh –” He runs a hand through his hair. “I used to think that he was – looking down on me, I guess. Pretentious – and, honestly? Maybe he was –”
“Steve.”
“Right.”
Chirping crickets.
When I'm with you, baby
I go out of my head
I just can’t get enough –
I just can’t get enough –
“’m sorry, Jonathan. Should’ve never – God.” Steve shakes his head and, suddenly, he’s looking towards him with big watery eyes and lips rouged from worrying. “All of the stuff I said about Will, and you. For breaking your camera, for –” Not being there. He doesn’t know. He stops himself, shaking his head.
“Everyone talked.” Finally, Jonathan pulls his hand back and Steve’s sure that he’s lost him. “Steve. You’ve more than made up for it, okay? So we don’t have to do this.”
“Do what?”
“This. This conversation. It’s fine.”
“Oh my god.” Steve’s hands rake down his face, stopping to scrub at his eyes. “Byers. Just listen. I screwed up then, and I’ve screwed up probably a thousand times since then – but you’re not exactly innocent here, either. I mean, those pictures –” And maybe the alcohol wasn’t the greatest idea, because he’s mouthing off and Jonathan’s starting to stand up. What he says is: why’d you take them, man? What he doesn’t is: why’d you take one of me?
“I shouldn’t’ve come out here.”
Steve twirls around, tripping over his feet and using Jonathan’s shoulders to steady himself. “Dude. Don’t freak out. I’m asking. Genuinely.”
“I’m not freaking out, dude.” Steve can barely tell, but Jonathan’s face, pale even in the encroaching darkness, has reddened a few shades. It’s cute. (It’s cold, Steve reminds himself – their hushed banter is a disintegrating vapor. He’s probably red all over, in that flimsy, hand-me-down –) “You wouldn’t get it.”
“If you’re gonna pass it off as some sorta art thing –” For some reason, he’s tapping Jonathan’s shoulder, fixing his flannel, his hands, he swears, have a mind of their own sometimes. He only notices once it's over, and Jonathan is crossing his arms under all the attention.
“It was a shitty thing to do. I recognize that.”
“Yeah,” Steve feels like the wind has been knocked out of him, lightheaded and lamenting when he recalls how Jonathan had captured him with his shirt dragged over his head. “Good.”
In the distance, the fire sputters, sending embers into the air and cascading them further into the darkness. The stars, the whites of Steve’s eyes, the lines of his shoulders all return to Jonathan marked by a surreal sort of contrast. His fingers twitch for his shutter button. He fusses with the straps around his neck.
“Good,” Jonathan repeats, biting his tongue again.
“No,” Steve laughs – though, it’s pitying, Jonathan can just tell by the lilt in Steve’s voice as it bubbles out of him. “I swear, you’re so –” Jonathan’s head whips to give him a look. Steve’s hands raise in response, calming that wild thing within Byers that he can’t seem to help but rouse. “Presumptuous. Presumptuous, Jon. I just wanna… I’m trying to apologize, here.”
“Did you stop to consider that this guy might not want an apology to begin with?”
“But you’re so not over it.”
Jonathan’s arms cross.
“Yeah. I knew it. You’re so obvious.”
“I am not –” But, Jonathan knows as the words leave him, that he’s laughing again – at Steve’s sheer audacity for calling him out on his bullshit, for raising his brows up to his forehead and looking like he’s the one who is more lucid between the two of them. It’s different than the ways in which he and Nancy dance around their issues, too scared of hurting the other person – the fear of light refracting, of tripping over themselves and appearing as anything less than perfect. Then, Steve’s laughing and Jonathan’s shoving at his chest – playfully, this time. Steve’s back hits the ground. Wet leaves squelch under his weight, dirt catches on his tank top – but, as he looks up, all he can see are stars, spinning.
Jonathan stands. Steve nearly says something.
“Let’s head back inside.” A pale hand is held out for him.
“Yeah,” Steve smiles, “okay.”