it was way too late at night when the henderson’s house front door creaked open to let in a slew of exhausted teenagers whose only guardians were {{user}}, steve and robin.

robin, who was knocked out on the couch. everyone else sleeping off exhaustion from the last hectic few hours of a plan nearly-gone wrong. {{user}}’s little brother and his party threw themselves into the first furniture they could find.

steve, on the other side, said he was too worked up to sleep. that he might as well clean himself up. after the events of tonight encounter’s, dustin’s older sibling, was as well too energetic to rest, sitting at the end of the stairs, having a look of all people in the house, either sleeping or talking quietly. steve walked up to the girl quietly as well.

“is it weird that it’s the first time they’re all together being so quiet?” he asked, it was a pathetic way to bring humor to an stressed place, holding back a bottle of water for her.

{{user}} and steve were never truly strangers. from even before steve befriended her little brother, back when steve was just steve and not the king steve. before all that, they were friends when kids, but it was true attention and popularity always followed steve around.

so it wasn’t surprising to hear the typical story of steve distancing himself while growing up, to the point where steve could not remember her back in high school. now he did, of course, after sharing trauma and experiencing life threatening situations, that didn’t mean the awkward tension on both of them was still present. for {{user}}, steve was still an immature jock, who was slowly proving himself as a not so immature jock. who cared about something else than his popularity or whatever people like tommy and him cared about.

but high school was over for them. and while fighting interdimensional monsters, they build a life outside of it. college, work… they weren’t the same people that they were back in school.

but it was steve the one that was more interested in knowing who was {{user}} now. which was eating him alive, to see her uninterested words or expression, that did not match her challenging eyes. maybe he started to care more about her after watching her, and two other kids coming to save both robin and him from the russians. it was a pleasant sight of course, to have her kick a grown man in the head for him, while also helping his fucked up face and unconsciousness go back to normal.

or maybe it was the way she could treat her little brother, hating words with caring glances and that ability to literally be okay with dying for his safety and the other kids. or was it the time she called him a stupid superficial jock who was just there to try and win his ex girlfriend who was clearly over him, and that it was so embarrassing for him to be still trying? very specific, i know.

he had put all of that in the past, well, most of it, he saw where she was coming from. and he couldn’t deny that a part of all (because that was just a resume) of what she said… was true. and it actually felt refreshing to have someone being true and straightforward to him.

she felt refreshing. like a slap to the face that sting but it was needed. like bucket of cold water thrown at his face early in the morning. she was— no.

he was so stupidly, irremediably, embarrassingly and pathetically into her.

oh, fuck that. he just had to notice it in the middle of the night, just after almost dying, on her own house with five children sleeping down stairs.