Archive of Our Own

The second-floor hallway of Building C was always too narrow at the bell.

Steve Harrington knew this, and yet he walked through it anyway, because it was the fastest route between the communications lab and the cafeteria, and Steve Harrington didn't waste time. There was always someone waiting for him somewhere — a pat on the shoulder, a laugh at the ready, a name to call out with the easy tone of someone who knows he's expected.

— Harrington! —

Tommy Hagan intercepted him at the corner with a broad sweep of his arm, as if they were celebrating something. With Tommy it was always like that.

— Tonight at Mitchell's, you in? —

Steve opened his arms wide. — When am I not? —

The answer was automatic. Tonight at Mitchell's, the night after at someone else's, in between a few classes worth half his attention and a few girls to text back and forth with — messages that led nowhere but filled up the screen. It worked. It had always worked.

He was already rounding the corner when the hallway narrowed again and a shoulder collided with his with a force he hadn't expected.

Nobody fell. Nobody apologized.

Steve turned on instinct and found himself face to face with Jonathan Byers.

Jonathan had turned too.

Nothing concrete happened. Just that look. Theirs wasn't open hostility — only the acknowledgment of two people occupying the same space without any desire to share it.

Steve knew him by sight. He was one of those people you notice not because they're seeking attention, but for the opposite reason. Jonathan Byers moved through the world without caring what anyone thought of him, as though other people's opinions simply didn't register. No group, no position, no visible effort to fit in anywhere. He had his friends — a handful of people — and with that handful he seemed perfectly fine.

That thing had always irritated Steve in a way he'd never quite been able to explain.

— Watch where you're going, — Steve said, quietly, in the flat tone of someone who can't even be bothered to raise his voice. Not cruel, exactly, but with that cadence that made it perfectly clear which category he was filing him under.

Jonathan held his gaze for another second. He didn't look hurt. He looked almost bored — as if Steve were exactly what he'd expected, and that confirmation wasn't even worth a response.

He turned and kept walking. Steve did the same.

The first time the day started to feel strange was during the eleven o'clock break.

At first he couldn't work out what was off. It was just a feeling — something in the air slightly out of place, like when you walk into a room and realize someone had been talking about you a second before you opened the door.

Carol was laughing at something on her phone when he walked over, and she stopped too quickly. Tommy shot her a sideways glance. Nobody said anything strange; the conversation moved on as normal — and yet Steve carried that feeling with him for the rest of the morning without being able to name it.

Then he saw two sophomores laughing while looking in his direction as he passed in the hallway. He stopped. They looked away.

What.

In the cafeteria, at lunch, a half-second silence when he sat down at the usual table. Nothing dramatic — the kind of pause you could easily chalk up to coincidence if you hadn't already clocked three similar signals that same morning.

Steve ate and said nothing. He smiled at the right jokes, laughed when it was his turn to laugh. But he was listening to everything with a different level of attention than usual, searching for something he couldn't quite bring into focus.

On his way back toward Building C, he heard his own name from a group that wasn't looking at him.

He turned just in time to see two girls cover their mouths, laughing.

Okay.

The confirmation came in the afternoon, and it came in the worst possible way.

He was crossing the central courtyard when he heard the voice of someone from the group — talking to three others. Loud. Loud enough to be clearly intentional.

— ...Ashley told Tyler, Tyler told me. He found stuff on his phone that night he fell asleep on the couch. Apps, conversations, the whole thing. She says that —

— Wait. Harrington? —

— Harrington. —

A laugh.

Steve stopped.

He shouldn't have. Every instinct he had told him to keep walking, not to take the bait. But his legs didn't get the message in time, and by the time he turned around all four of them were already looking at him — Tyler, Tommy, and Mitchell, and someone else whose name Steve couldn't even summon in that moment — wearing the expressions of people who had been waiting for this.

— Hey, Harrington, — Tommy said — is it true you're into guys?

They laughed.

Not an awkward snicker. A real, open laugh, like at a joke that had landed perfectly.

— God, and he was with Ashley, — Mitchell said without lowering his voice, — wonder what she was thinking while —

— Maybe she was looking for tips —

Another laugh.

— Harrington! Now that you're on Grindr... you looking for pointers, or have you figured it out on your own? —

Steve said nothing.

This was the moment he should have said something. A denial, a comeback. He was good at that. He had always been good at that.

But he was looking at Tommy — the same Tommy who was leaning against the wall with that satisfied look, that spectator's face.

He looked at the other guys; he knew all four of them. He looked at their faces and searched for something — a sign that they'd gone too far, that it was a joke that had crossed a line, anything that might pass for regret. He didn't find it.

What he found, instead, was that none of them seemed uncomfortable. They seemed entertained. They seemed just as at ease as they had been the week before, laughing about something else entirely.

He kept his jaw still.

He kept his face still.

Something reached his eyes — not tears, but something close.

Steve opened his mouth. Nothing came out.

— Can you not see what absolute pieces of shit you are? —

None of them had opened their mouths. It took Steve a second to realize it.

He turned.

Jonathan Byers was standing about ten meters away, still, hands in his pockets. He wasn't moving toward them, wasn't raising his voice — he was simply there, wearing the same flat expression Steve had already seen on him that morning in the hallway.

The tone was so dry it was hard to answer back. He wasn't looking for a fight. He was just saying what he'd said — unhurried, unrattled — as if that space belonged to him as much as to anyone else.

Mitchell muttered something to the others, and after a few seconds they drifted off, in no particular hurry.

Jonathan didn't watch them go. He dropped his eyes for a moment, then raised them toward Steve.

Steve felt something shift inside him. A small, involuntary second of nameless warmth that came and went so quickly he almost couldn't catch it.

— I didn't need you to defend me. —

Steve took two steps forward and shoved him lightly, palm flat against his chest.

He walked away without turning around.

Jonathan stayed where he was.

He watched Steve's back move across the courtyard — shoulders rigid, steps too controlled — then looked away.

He hadn't stopped to wonder whether it was a good idea, before opening his mouth.

He never did.