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Jonathan Byers has never regretted loving Steve Harrington and Nancy Wheeler, more than right now.
Right now, he's become the designated chauffeur for the sloppy drunk pair.
Steve leans in and flicks his ear, giggling like a child, being more immature than usual.
"Jonathan— Jon— baby, look—"
Jonathan finally turns around, eye twitching in annoyance, as he gives his attention.
He sighs exasperatedly as Steve flips up his middle finger, and barks with laughter.
Nancy punches him the arm, scoffing, clearly unimpressed,
Steve whimpers, gasping dramatically and flailing.
"Jonathan! She hit me!— how can you condone such unwarranted violence!?"
Jonathan promptly ignores Steve, looking straight ahead and contemplating all his life decisions leading up to this moment.
Nancy leans over, resting her head on Steve's shoulder, like she was apologizing for hitting him.
Steve snickered, wrapping an arm around her and leaning back. Nancy finally spoke, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.
"Don't think this means anything Harrington, I'm just distracting you from being an idiot."
Jonathan cracked a smile for the first time in this drive, the sliver getting bigger by the second as Steve's face sours.
"That's mean. You're mean."
Nancy shrugged, but didn't move, in fact she got more comfortable, her body relaxing against the now offended Steve.
Steve didn't move either, as much as he calmed Nancy was mean, he wouldn't dare ruin the moment.
Jonathan sighed fondly, cursing himself for not staying mad longer.
I mean, to be fair, 13 minutes is a record for how long it takes Jonathan to go right back to being lovestruck by them.
They made it home safely to Jonathan's short-lived dismay. He honestly expected Steve to make him crash the car.
When they got in the house Steve kicked the door wide open, nearly hitting Jonathan who'd unlocked it seconds prior.
He flumped down onto the couch, kicking his shoes off, and groaning.
"I'm hungry!"
Nancy stumbled in, after, putting Steve's shoes neatly next to the couch.
"Then go make food."
Steve whined, flailing and rolling on the couch like a worm.
"But I don't wanna make it. And I don't want just anything— I want pie."
Jonathan tilted his head, slipping his coat off and hanging it up before sitting next to Steve.
Nancy squeezed herself in with the pair, sighing.
"Why pie specifically?"
Steve shrugged, running a hand through his hair.
Jonathan stood up, stretching out, his long limbs popping.
"Let's make a pie then."
Steve smiled, and Nancy raised an eyebrow, crossing her arms.
"Jonathan, why?"
Jonathan, put his hands on his hips.
"Because..we haven't had quality time in awhile.."
Steve gasps, his smile getting so wide it looked like it hurt.
He suddenly jumped up, dragging Nancy with him and wrapped both of them in a big group hug.
Nancy squirmed, but a small smile spread across her face, Jonathan flushed red, hiding his face in Steve's shoulder.
They got to work on the pie, which proved much harder to make with two drunk people, and literally zero ingredients.
Steve fucked up the lattice, Nancy put canned peaches in without draining the juice, even stranger because they weren't making peach pie.
Now they were all huddled around the open oven, looking at the sweet, soggy monstrosity.
Steve frowned.
"We fucked up the pie."
Nancy gave him an apologetic look.
"Sorry.."
Steve shook his head.
"It's fine. We wasted some good canned peaches though."
Jonathan closed the oven and sighed standing up.
"We wasted peaches, and 40 minutes we'll never get back."
Nancy piped up, trying to sound somewhat comforting.
"Well, we can buy the peaches back— we'll never get the time back though."
Suddenly Steve started laughing.
Hard ugly laughter, until he started sobbing.
Nancy looked shocked and guilty, like her joke had spurred whatever breakdown Steve was having.
Jonathan held him up as he cried and laughed, and hiccuped, rubbing his back.
Nancy started laughing too, bewildered, disbelieving laughter.
Now all three of these odd, college graduates were laughing like madmen.
Finally the laughter died down, just weirdly comfortable silence.
Nancy cleared her throat, cupping and turning Steve's face.
"Are you okay?"
Steve nodded, still smiling faintly.
"Yeah, sorry."
Jonathan still rubbing his back, shakes his head.
"Don't be sorry, we just wanna know what happened."
Steve was all of a sudden very sheepish, and embarrassed, looking away.
Nancy, turned his head back.
"Steven Joseph Harrington, you will tell me what's wrong."
Jonathan took a step back, holding his hands up in mock surrender.
Steve, makes an indignant noise.
"I think the pie affected me a lot more than it should have. I just— this was the first time we've been together, as us in awhile, and— well, it's fucked up now."
Nancy looked at Jonathan, then back at Steve.
Steve continues.
"Like Jonathan said, we haven't hung out like this in like— months, since summer, and— it's not about the pie, it's that I miss you two so fucking much and I don't fucking know how to say it half the time without sounding like an idiot!"
Nancy and Jonathan look at each other, then at Steve.
Nancy wraps her arms around Steve, as Jonathan does the same, all three of them in one tangled emotional hug.
Steve sniffles.
"Can we eat the pie...?"
Nancy's nose wrinkles, and Jonathan's face goes blank.
"I love you so much, but I would rather die than eat that pie."
Steve looked up at the pair with big puppy dog eyes.
Jonathan takes a small, nibble of the soggy, sweet pie and makes a disgusted face.
Nancy hasn't eaten, just stared at the plate like she's wondering whether cyanide would taste better.
Steve however is happily devouring the very gross pie.
It's nasty, foul, disgusting, but it made Steve happy, and if steve was happy, then Nancy and Jonathan were happy.
Steve ended up vomiting later anyway, turns out those canned peaches were way expired, even by canned food standards.
Oops.