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bananarama-fantana · 5 years

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Trouble in Paradise

Steve Harrington story (updated re-post)

chapter one - chapter two - chapter three - chapter four - chapter five - chapter six - chapter seven

Chapter One - ‘Homecoming’

Word count: 3465

Warnings: smoking, drinking, pretty much just a bunch of teen angst (I didn’t sleep for three days writing this so the only real warning is to always stay hydrated and sleep)

Masterlist

I wasn’t bitter.

I kept telling myself that. I wasn’t bitter and I certainly wasn’t a bitch, even if Carol wanted to say otherwise. I just had that icky feeling I got.

It all seemed far too reminiscent of the Homecoming dance my junior year, when he’d asked out Holly Peterson and the pair had stood up on stage shamelessly sucking face with cheap plastic crowns on their heads for everyone to see, all the other cheerleaders swooning, the American high-school dream. I remembered the first half of the night, with Carol and the vodka she’d stolen from her mom’s (not so secret) hiding place. We were sitting on the ledge next to the sinks in the girls bathrooms while she did her mascara and her hair, listening to her bitch about Tommy and the cheer-team and practically every other person in our school. I’d had my dress pulled up to my knees, ruining all the creases, drinking as much as I could stomach to try and cover up that same icky feeling.

Carol was a friend out of convenience more than anything, a bitchy older sister who I let drag me around to parties to get drunk with. I had only really seen her have actual emotions a couple times that I could remember, once when Tommy cheated on her the first time and she’d cried all the way through 5th period, and the next after her brother told her he was joining the army. Other than that she was just Carol all the time. She was never really someone I wanted to spend time with but despite being one of the most popular girls in school she really didn’t have that many other friends. Ever since Kathy Gates caught her giving a blowjob to Kathy’s long-time boyfriend Pete, the whole crowd turned on her like an angry mob. On some level I kind of felt sorry for her, she was still a person after all and the whole thing had been him, not her, but at the end of the day Pete and Kathy exchanged their promise rings and Carol spent her time with me instead. Before I knew it, I was dragged into the whole charade right next to her, like the Wicked Witch of the East and the Wicked Witch of the West: the twisted sisters of Hawkins high.

“And like she’s got this smile like she thinks she’s fucking better than me all because she’s vegetarian!” she was saying, adding about the millionth coat of mascara to her eyelid.

“That’s total horseshit, I saw her eating a cheeseburger like last week,” I replied, jumping down from the ledge next to her and straightening out my dress.

The dizzying air full of hairspray and perfume was nauseating in itself. Music was already playing in the sports hall, the drums from Venus by Bananarama echoing along the corridors, reminding me painfully of the whole bullshit scene that awaited me back at the dance. It took a couple seconds to realise just how drunk I was after standing up, almost going over on my ankle, trying to walk in my borrowed pair of sequined high-heels. Carol was cackling as she watched me.

“Way to be a light-weight, Y/n!”

“I’m fine,” I protested, pushing fingers over my scalp to try and give my hair a little more volume. I had looked better in the car but this would have to do.

“You look like shit,” She said, continuing to laugh. I gave her a dark look as she took the vodka from me with a face like the Cheshire Cat. “I don’t know what the fuck your being a bitch about though, Clark obviously wants to screw you,” She said before taking a drink.

Clark was my date that night, a senior and a douche. He wasn’t the type of douche Carol would hang around with though, he was a kind of pretentious douche, he went to college parties, smoked Marlboros, he’d read Bukowski’s ‘love is a dog from hell’ and now he thought he was the shit, I had talked to him once at a pool party in the suburbs and figured just as much. Carol liked him because he had friends who were in college, I only really liked him because he had good weed. To be honest there was really only one reason why he was my date though.

Steve fucking hated him.

Even the memory of that way of thinking still made me feel ill. It had always felt pathetic. Every girl in the whole school was looking at Steve the same way I was and that made me sick to my stomach. There was a big part of me that wanted to scream that he wasn’t even that great. Sure, he had the hair and the looks and the charm, but the guy was a dufus, a total airhead, he was barely making it through high school and he wasn’t even smart enough to care.

I had known him longer than I could remember, guessing that we must have first met in kindergarten some time, growing up in that same small town world right beside each other our whole lives. Somehow always reflecting the other, like parallel lines that only really crossed during games of tag or dress up, or when he used to pretend to be a wizard or a knight, wielding a twig as if it were a sword to fight off all kinds of mythical beasts: a childish fantasy, foreshadowing a nightmare that would come to life just a decade later. In elementary school I would let him use my pencil sharpener and borrow my sacred coloured pens even though we weren’t that close. In middle school I had helped him with his English assignment when he never even bothered to finish reading the book, he called me a genius that day and it made me blush. He tried out for the basketball team and kissed Macy Johnson behind the bleachers the same day I got my first period and choked on my first cigarette, one that I had been given by one of the older girls as right of passage. In Freshman year I stood in the halls and listened to the story of how the newly appointed ‘king Steve’ had lost his virginity to a sophomore, while he ate rice pudding out of a little plastic cup in the cafeteria and read a poem I had written anonymously in the school paper, arguing with Tommy that he thought it was actually ‘pretty good’.

It wasn’t until I had been raked into the whole Carol business that we really started hanging out though, with her and Tommy playing tonsil tennis every minute they were within reach of one another, leaving me and Steve to sit and talk about ‘whatever’ to fill the time.

It was those nights at his house, sitting at the edge of his pool or in his car talking about just life or getting high or drunk or just sitting that made me realise how much I really liked him. Not just some school girl crush like in the 8th grade but actually knowing him and seeing him and thinking he was magic.

I liked to think he was different with me, as sad as that sounded, that I'd gotten to meet the ‘real’ Steve not just the douchebag facade, but that kind of thinking only breaks hearts faster. Carol didn’t know about any of it at that point, at least I hadn’t told her about it, but that night at homecoming was sort of the end of our sisterhood, at least as it was back then.

“Clark would screw a fucking lamppost if it laughed at his jokes,” I replied, giving her a look.

“Yeah but he’s cute though so why not?” Carol said easily.

“I’m not in the mood”.

“You’re never in the goddamn mood! I mean Jesus, I’ve got Tommy, Steve’s got Holly, if you’re planning to ditch Clark you’re just gonna’ look dumb!” That was the thing with Carol, she always had a picture in her head. What she wanted people to see. What she wanted all the other cheerleaders looking over at her to see and be jealous. I was her ‘best friend’ but I was more like an accessory.

The mention of Holly brought bile up in my throat again, making me wince, the icky feeling coming back, “I need another drink”.

Carol had pulled me back to the sports hall not long after that, happy with how she looked now. The sight that awaited was not a happy one, however, someone having clearly succeeded in spiking the punch. The whole room descending into a chaotic mess of filth; sweat, saliva, and showering glitter, with every other couple seemingly attached at the mouth.

It took no time before Carol and Tommy were all over each other already and something about that made me feel even more sick than before. Clark had been waiting around at the door talking to some girl, he was saying something about how he’d not been to a school dance in years, he thought he was too good for them. It took me a while to spot Steve in the crowd, whispering something in Holly’s ear while he handed her a drink and she played with his hair. He looked great. The whole thing was a disaster.

“You guys wanna go outside for a smoke or something?”

“Sure, baby,” Carol had replied to Tommy sweetly, at whatever point during the dance, leading the group outside into the night.

We were a motley crew, hiding behind the bike sheds round the corner of school to smoke. Avoiding the teachers, making us feel like adults for once, high on teen rebellion. Tommy and Carol just continued to feel each other up, holding cigarettes between their fingers now as well. Clark looked pretty put out, I almost wanted to just tell him to go talk to that girl again but Carol had told him to come and now all he was doing was standing around awkwardly trying to look cool while I gritted my teeth and bit down harshly, ignoring him and smoked my cigarette.

Holly was still giggling at all of Steve’s stupid fucking jokes, fluttering her eyelashes in her nauseating powder-pink cardigan. I had heard them all before too many times to count, each time somehow worse than the last.

“Hey, are you okay?” Clark’s voice broke me out of my enraged trance.

“Yeah, why wouldn’t I be?”

He pointed at his lip, indicating mine. I'd been biting it again, so hard it had started bleeding. I swore to myself, trying to wipe it away.

“I’m fine, it’s just a habit.” He looked sceptical.

“Again?” Steve laughed, coming closer to hand me a tissue with a goofy grin and a cigarette between his teeth. A few nights prior I had bust my lip on the side of Steve’s pool after falling flat on my face. I had been pissed off with him that night but he was used to it, he probably just thought Carol was driving me nuts again. He hadn’t even laughed when I had fallen, just scrambled quickly over to me in a string of swears and curses, asking if I was alright and helping me to my feet.

The rest of the school week had been spent with him nagging me every two seconds that I needed to “quit biting at it, Y/n. It’s never gonna heal if you keep biting it like that” all while Holly stood next to him, fawning over him, hand on the back of his head running fingers through his hair.

“I’m fine, I’m fine, it’s nothing,” I reassured, dabbing at the blood. I couldn't even feel the pain through the buzz, the blood was the only problem.

Holly gasped, hands coming up to her face, “oh no! She’s got blood on her dress!”

“Shit!” The dress wasn’t mine, it was a rental, and they were never going to accept it back looking like that.

“Hey, it’s fine you can get that shit out with like baking soda, right?” Clark said.

Steve scoffed. “What are you, man, a serial killer?”

Steve had never liked Clark so when he had rocked up to the dance with me hanging on his arm Steve hadn’t been impressed, whispering to me under his breath that I “could do better than that douchebag” not because he liked me or anything but just because I was his friend. He had said before that I was the only friend he had who he could have a real conversation with. We were just kind of like that. I didn’t like Holly either and I had told him just as much, he had just put it down to me having a thing against cheerleaders, I always said I thought they were all too uptight.

“What the fuck is your problem, asshole?” Clark bit back, Steve loving finally getting a raise out of him, he’d finally hit the gold he’d been digging for all night.

“Look, just drop it, Clark,” I cut in before Steve could say anything more and cause a scene.

“No, I’m not gonna just drop it, Y/n. I came out here with you for a good time and all I get is this moron riding my ass the whole night!” He said, gesturing to Steve.

“Leave then, man, go talk to Sadie fucking Lawson, that’s what you really wanna do,” steve sang back.

It was then that Carol broke her silence.

“Holy fucking shit!” her eyes were wide as she wiped her mouth, stepping forwards and looking right back at me, “I just figured it out!”

She looked at Steve and then back again. I let in a sharp breath.

“What the fuck are you talking about Carol?” Steve said exasperatedly. She was just laughing now. I closed my eyes, I knew what was coming.

“You don’t wanna fuck Clark, because you wanna fuck Steve!”

“What?” Tommy cut in, holding her arm and turning to look between us, he started to laugh too, “Oh my god. You’re right!”

I sighed, they were drunk, they were just drunk.

“Look, shut up, man. That’s obviously not true!” Steve was saying awkwardly, looking over at me cautiously, “Right, Y/n?”

When I didn’t immediately reply Carol and Tommy burst into more laughter, making my guts churn. It was like someone was suffocating me from the inside and stabbing me all at once, and all I could do was stand there and look into Steve’s painfully oblivious eyes.

“‘Course not, they’re just drunk,” I finally breathed out, running a hand through my hair and avoiding his eyes again.

“Bull-shit!” Carol yelled.

“Shut the fuck up, Carol,” I had snapped, feeling tears stinging at my eyes, the vodka pushing my emotions right to the surface, with a vengeance. She stopped laughing after that.

“What did you say to me?”

“I said, shut up.” It was a simple answer, that was silently begging her to just ‘stop’. But she didn't, taking a step towards me.

“Hey woah- woah, calm down, okay?” Steve brought his hands up between the two of us. Carol and I had fought before and it was never pretty. People at the dance had started to wonder over now too, after hearing all the ruckus. A crowd of spectators forming around the spot, drawing more attention.

It felt like the whole of Hawkins high was watching my life fall apart.

Over a year later I had still never quite managed to live it down, the whole school somehow burying my friendship with Carol in a night. We hadn't spoken again after the fight, which had somehow escalated so far that she had tried to rip out a chunk of my hair. I had stopped hanging out with her altogether the next day.

At one point she had called me late at night saying she missed me, but I knew that if I brought it up in person she would pretend it had never happened. But over the course of our high school lives we still went to the same parties and now, in senior year, the whole thing felt just like dé jà vu.

“You still like him, don’t you?” She was yelling over the music, drunk out of her mind.

Steve was dancing with Nancy Wheeler this time, dressed as Joel and Lana from Risky Business. The perfect couple to all appearances. The perfect couple, perfectly happy.

“You’re such a bitch, Y/n,” she slurred when I ignored her, repeating herself for about the fifth time that night. “Has anyone seen Tommy?”

“God! Carol, he’s an ass!” One of her new friends, Nicole, was groaning beside me. I guessed they had broken up again but I didn’t really care.

“Yeah, but I miss him,” she pouted, steadying herself on the sink and sliding herself across the tiled floor of Tina’s kitchen.

"I miss Steve,” I thought aloud, taking another sip of that weird drink and wincing. I really was that drunk, huh?

“Steve’s an ass!” The friend stated confidently.

I thought back to the Byers house last year, the demogorgon ripping through the wall and Steve hurling himself at it with no hesitation.

“He’s not so bad.” I shrugged.

Carol laughed. “He’s totally an ass!”

I liked to think I had changed a lot in a year, but Carol hadn’t. It was almost comforting. At least some things hadn’t changed. Despite Hawkins lab and inter-dimensional beings trying to eat everyone's face off, Carol was still the same-old Carol.

“Don’t you have a boyfriend anyway? Weren’t you dating some college guy, uhh... Pete something?” Nicole asked, leaning closer. She certainly seemed to know a lot more about me than I knew about her.

“He’s not my boyfriend,” I answered with a grimace. In truth Pete was barely even a friend, sure I had slept with him but that had mostly just been because I had been drunk and he had been there, even if he was total dogshit in the sack. He sort of reminded me of Jonathan Byers when I first met him, he had a similar demeanour, granted a bit more put together, but mostly just watched a lot of Japanese horror movies. He didn’t keep to himself as much as Byers did though.

I had been surprised when Jonathan showed up at the Halloween party, when he told me Nance had invited him I was even more surprised. I hadn’t spoken to either of them at all since last year, I had seen him at the record store on Main Street a couple times, or in the halls at school and smiled, but that was it. The year before had left us all pretty broken, all starting when Jonathan’s brother had gone missing. A couple weeks later I cut my hand, heard a noise and thought nothing of it only to be woken up by something coming through the wall above my bed. I hit it with my bedside lamp at first, screaming at the top of my lungs, but it had done nothing, not even a scratch, so I ran out, still screaming like hell. The neighbours hadn’t heard me, they were in florida.

There was a quilted blanket my nana had given us lying out in the living room that night and when I hit the bottom of the stairs I had somehow kicked it into the fireplace on accident, the whole room going up in seconds. Whatever that thing had been, it had crawled back to where it came from, cowering away from the flames.

When the police and the firefighters showed up they thought I was insane, told me I must have been hallucinating from all of the smoke. Nobody believed me, not one, not until I spoke to Jonathan.

A year later here we all were, all four of us who had been there, signed the NDA's and everything, bound to secrecy. All in the same room but never further apart. Jonathan met my eyes across the room, he had been watching Steve and Nancy with just as much jealousy and disdain as I had, cradling a red solo-cup and a growing ball of hatred in my gut.

I hated to admit any of it, hated myself for still liking Steve, hated him for becoming less of an asshole, but most of all I hated that this time it was different.

This time he was in love.

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