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"You're acting weird."
Steve startles slightly at Dustin's sudden outburst. It's been quiet in the car for the past fifteen minutes, and Steve is no longer used to the way Dustin suddenly rockets into conversations.
"Jesus, dude. You can't do that when I'm driving. And no I'm not. I'm acting completely normal," Steve says, glancing over at Dustin. He's staring intently at Steve, calculating.
"Yes you are. You're weirdly happy," Dustin says.
"What? I'm always happy. I can't smile because I get to see my little brother?" Steve demands.
Dustin narrows his eyes as his hands shift awkwardly on the steering wheel.
"Nice try. Now spit it out, what's her name?"
Steve clears his throat and readjusts in his seat, eyes firmly on the road.
"There's no girl, Henderson," he insists. Dustin huffs at him and slumps in his seat. Steve really thought the dramatics would stop after high school, but it seems to be ingrained into him. Not that Steve has much room to talk, really, but Dustin is on another level.
"I thought we told each other everything," Dustin grumbles darkly. Steve sighs. The kid really does know how to get his way.
"Jesus, kid. We do. We do," Steve mutters. He takes a deep breath.
"There really isn't a girl, Dustin," Steve says. Dustin opens his mouth to protest, but cuts himself off abruptly with a strangled huh.
"So there is a guy?" Dustin ventures.
"Is that-" Steve has to clear his throat twice. "Is that okay?" He asks.
Dustin twists in his seat to fully face Steve, and Steve can picture the no shit look on his face without even taking his eyes off the road.
"No I know, it's just," Steve trails off.
"Yeah Steve, of course it's okay," Dustin drawls, somehow managing to be reassuring and scathing at the same time. "Why the hell wouldn't it be?"
"I don't know! It's just, new, I guess. Scary," Steve admits. Dustin softens, doesn't snap back immediately.
"Yeah, I know," Dustin says. He doesn't know, necessarily, but he remembers Will, and Robin, and all the other people in his life that have come out. He knows it's not exactly easy. He studies Steve for a moment, his grip on the steering wheel, the way his gaze has barely moved from the road since the conversation started.
"How long have you known?" Dustin asks. Steve chuckles, a little self-deprecatingly in the way Dustin really hates.
"He kissed me like three months ago, so about three months," Steve says wryly. He smiles a little, like he can't help it. "Kinda put some stuff in perspective, honestly."
"What kind of stuff?"
The smile on Steve's face fades a little, and the air in the car shifts.
"I think," Steve hesitates and glances towards Dustin, nervous again. Steve is hardly nervous or twitchy like this these days, and it makes Dustin itch.
"I think I had a thing for Eddie?" Steve says. Dustin lets out a startled laugh. It still hurts, thinking about Eddie, but it doesn't sting anymore. It doesn't twist his insides into knots, doesn't make him nauseous and angry, at least not often. There's a bright ball of fondness and nostalgia, now, when he thinks about him.
"Oh my god," Dustin can barely hold back his laughter. Steve's smile comes back a little.
"Yeah, yeah, laugh it up," he grumbles, but it's half-hearted at best.
"You know I think he-" Dustin cuts himself off. Him and Eddie were close, close enough that Dustin knew that secret. He doesn't really know the ethics of outing someone who's-- who's been gone for this long. But this is Steve. He clears his throat.
"I think he had a thing for you, too," Dustin says softly, hesitantly, scared of ruining the mood again. Steve glances at him, smile a little sad, now.
"Yeah?" He asks.
"Yeah," Dustin says, "he was kinda obsessed with you, I think. I thought it was because he hated you, but now, I don't know, he told me you were very metal."
Steve laughs, eyes a bit bright. Dustin takes a breath. It doesn't sting anymore, but it hurts. A dull ache, almost always an undercurrent, background noise. He tries not to imagine a different future, one where two of the most important people in his life found happiness with each other. Safe. Whole. Tries not to find a new thing to grieve. They listen to the radio for a moment, lost in thought.
"So, tell me about this boy then. What's his name?"
Steve cringes and Dustin is immediately suspicious. Steve looks at him sheepishly.
"Jonathan?"
Dustin stares at him blankly for a moment.
"JONATHAN BYERS?!”
If he hadn't been braced for it, Steve might have swerved the whole damn camper off the road.
"Henderson," Steve admonishes.
"Sorry, sorry, that's just the last person I expected you to say," Dustin says. He sounds a bit shell-shocked. "You and Jonathan, like, hate each other."
"What? Dustin, we haven't hated each other since 1987. Well, I haven't hated him since at least '86. But we're friends now! We've been friends," Steve says. He knows Dustin knows this. He's told him about the near-monthly vacations at Robin's weird Uncle's house, and Steve moved to New York. Of course he's friends with Jonathan.
"Okay sure, but it’s Jonathan,” Dustin says, “He makes weird esoteric student films and you teach middle school. You guys don’t make any sense.” Which, okay, now he’s just being rude.
“Mmhm, and I thought we were supposed to not care about that ‘high school shit,’” Steve replies, “and I don’t see what’s wrong about teaching middle school, dipshit.”
“Nothing! Of course nothing’s wrong with teaching middle school. Leading the youth, raising the next generation, whatever. I just don’t understand how it works.” Dustin’s voice is getting dangerously loud now, and Steve is relieved when their campsite comes into view.
“I know I teach sex-ed sometimes Dustin, but I didn’t think I needed to explain how two men can-”
“Ew! No, I know how that part works! Gross, Steve!”
Steve cackles as Dustin scrambles to vacate the car before it’s fully stopped moving, blissfully free of the interrogation for a moment. The thing is, Steve thinks that Dustin is kind of right. Him and Jonathan don’t make sense, except for all of the ways in which they do.
Steve thought he’d miss Hawkins like a limb, when he moved. His home, where he became a man, where his life split down the middle and was made better in spite of it. And he does, sometimes. Misses the hard-earned safety of it, the community and the warmth. But it was always the people that mattered more. And after Joyce and Hopper moved, being so far from everyone who mattered, the only one left in Hawkins, it didn’t make sense anymore.
So, for the first time in his life, Steve left home. Landing in the same neighborhood as Jonathan made it feel like things were going to be just fine, though. And between late dinners and early breakfasts and weekends spent complaining about students and teachers alike, something in Steve… shifted. And when Jonathan kissed him that night on his couch, it felt like coming home. Like finding a new home.
“I just feel like I would’ve heard about it,” Dustin complains. It’s been almost an hour, and Steve foolishly thought Dustin had just dropped it entirely. Steve huffs a laugh as he digs through his bag for his lighter.
“What, you guys gossip about me often?” Steve asks. He doesn’t doubt it really, he gets updates from Dustin about all the rugrats all the time, usually stuff he doesn’t need to know. Then he’ll get the truer version of events from Max later, and the actual account comes from Jonathan, who gets it from Will.
“No,” Steve gives him a look, “Okay, yes, but it’s never bad, I swear. I just don’t know how this stayed secret.” It’s not that Dustin wants his friends to out each other, but this is Steve. He always knows what's going on with Steve.
“You mean you don’t know how your girlfriend didn’t catch us when you had her spy on me?” Steve deadpans. Dustin sputters spectacularly for a moment as Steve smirks into his bag, finally locating the firestarter but not the damn lighter.
“No! She doesn’t- I don’t- Jane does that of her own volition!” Dustin is all of 20 years old and he’s almost shrieking at this point.
“So you admit it! You guys do spy on us!” Steve, all of 25 years old, points at Dustin and yells in triumph, giving up on the search through his bag. Dustin crosses his arms and glares at him.
“Sometimes. Rarely. It helps. When she’s anxious. It helps,” Dustin insists, and Steve swears he’s two seconds from stopping his feet. He huffs but nods in understanding.
“Yeah, whatever, play the trauma card,” he grumbles. Dustin rolls his eyes, reaches into his back pocket, and tosses Steve a lighter. Steve pauses for a moment, arching an eyebrow at Dustin.
“Christ Steve. No, I’m not smoking. You always forget yours,” Dustin complains, snatching the firestarter from Steve and rearranging the firepit that Steve already set up.
“Just making sure you haven’t lost your mind while you’re busy changing the world at Princeton,” Steve teases.
“And I’m just making sure you haven’t lost your mind getting with Jonathan,” Dustin spits back. Steve remembers a similar conversation, six years and a lifetime ago, halfway in love with Nancy Wheeler at the end of the world.
“No, it’s not like that, I actually think I’ve found my mind, or something,” Steve says.
“What?” Dustin asks, incredulous.
“I don’t know, I think I lost the metaphor there a bit. But this is different, Dustin. Jonathan’s, I don’t know,” Steve trails off. Jonathan is deft fingers and sharp wit. He’s sharp edges and quick to anger, but quick to laughter by the same measure. He’s a bone deep, soul-sure presence.
“He’s just different,” Steve insists, dropping down to focus on actually starting the damn fire. They’re both quiet for a moment, Dustin carefully choosing his words again.
“I didn’t mean it like that. I just want you to be happy, you know? I don’t want you to get hurt, or whatever,” Dustin says, finally falling into his camping chair and cracking open his beer.
Fire finally starting to flicker to life, Steve laughs softly and glances back at him.
“Wow, thanks Henderson.” Dustin rolls his eyes again and Steve bites back a they’ll get stuck like that, knowing it’ll just get him to do it again.
“I mean it,” Dustin says, serious this time. Steve looks at him. The sun is starting to set, casting everything in orange light (Golden hour, Jonathan called it), and Dustin looks so serious, beer in hand and brow furrowed. He looks so old.
“Yeah man, I know,” Steve says softly. He sighs and deems the fire good enough to hold up on its own and finally takes his own seat and beer.
“I mean it, too, though. Things with Jonathan, they just feel right.” Like he found a part of his life, himself, that he didn’t know was missing. Everyone he loved was alive and he saw Robin and Nancy almost every month, and he got to sit here, with Dustin, and watch him thrive in college like Steve knew he would. But god, god, kissing Jonathan Byers? The sound of his laugh, the feel of his hand in his, it’s more than he even thought to ask for. It’s like being taken apart and put back together, in the best way possible, again and again.
“You really like him, then?” Dustin asks, and Steve realizes he’s been staring into space for a little too long. He wants to snark back at him, but he really, genuinely can’t help the grin that splits his face.
“Yeah,” he says, kinda lamely. He can tell Dustin really wants to laugh at him, but they’re having like, a moment or whatever.
“Alright. But if you divorce I hope you know you’ll be splitting the party in two.”
Or not. Steve just shakes his head and takes a sip of his beer.
“Watch the damn sunset, Henderson.”