#i have to still mask n hide shit n phrase it specific ways to even receive the bare minimum lmao but im just so over doing anything more

[troop-scoop]

Mistakes & Regrets XV

Summary: When a trip to your Dad’s hometown of Hawkins goes wrong, you end up in the year 1983, and have to learn how to cope with being stuck in the past.

Pairing: Steve Harrington / Future!Reader (like, a really slow burn)

Warnings: Swearing, implied homophobia, Steve being emotionally hurt :( 

• • •

There was always a certain smell to Halloween, that being of fake blood, cheaply made costumes that smelled like the warehouse they’d been stored in, as well as the smell of candy that lingered in your pillowcase until your dad insisted you wash it.

You always loved the smell of Halloween, the cheap plastic props of toy swords and wands, the cheap fairy wings made of wire that were covered in an elastic looking chiffon with glitter glue patterns. 

The cheap grease paints that stank up the entire house the year that Daniel went as a clown, and your pa went as a plague doctor, not liking how pale his eyelids were underneath the mask, so he painted his eyelids with grease face paint like it was eyeshadow. 

There was a very specific smell to Halloween, and a certain feeling you always got leading up to it, even when you were getting older. But in the past year, it felt like you’d matured more than you should have. 

It was because you’d been forced into this situation by your own stupidity. Living on your own by age fifteen in a time period you’d only seen in movies. Using the 300 dollars you idiotically always carried with you because you didn’t have a bank account yet, as your only thing to live off of. 

Halloween wasn’t the same, and you doubted it ever would be. Nothing would ever be the same. Holidays were never a happy time for you, friendships were hard to develop, and you couldn’t be normal with Nancy or Jonathan, or any of Will’s friends because they knew when you were from. Thankfully the boys were told to be quiet by the government about that part. And silently, you were thankful you never told them that Will was your father.

Romantic relationships seemed completely out of the question to you now. The awkwardness of still being considered new hadn’t worn off, and nothing about the idea of dating a boy in Hawkins in the 1980s felt right. 

The only normal relationship you had was your friendship with Steve. You had friends at school before, but never once had you been this close with one before. You usually hung out with him or Jonathan, and everything about it flowed like a friendship should. You’d gotten into a few arguments like friends usually do, the most notable being the year before when Will was still gone and you punched him. 

You didn’t regret it. He deserved it, but every once in awhile, you’ll feel the ache in your fist again. It had been a pretty impressive blow for someone whose last fight was in second grade with a boy who had called your fathers a few slurs to your face. 

You dealt with those people plenty of times. The schools you went to always having kids from two different neighborhoods. One was normal, and felt like a community. But then there was the one with the heavy right-winged parents who taught their children to be cruel.

You left a bowl of candy on the porch for the kids who came by. Not wanting to be overwhelmed by the sight that would just remind you too much of home and have you crying outside Hopper’s cabin with Eleven carefully peaking out the window in a few hours. It was the only safe space you could go to feel close to anyone when you were breaking down, other than the fully reclined passenger seat of Steve’s car after you bombed a math quiz.

But there was a very big difference between the two breakdowns. One being superficial, and that you could recover from, something stupid that you knew wouldn’t matter in a year. But the other, was caused by the biggest life changing moment in your life, whose repercussions you were still facing in the form of anxiety and ‘ptsd’ according to Owens. 

The steam surrounded you while you held your knees to your bare chest, tears mixing with shower water while the scenery around you refused to pass. This episode captured how you remembered the Upside Down perfectly. Every night or day you’d spent there being so dark you could barely see two yards in front of you, the air around you cold but the water hot and practically burning your skin. 

But you heard the front door open, and you opened your eyes, seeing the bathroom go back to normal. The ugly yellow tile back, while your tears shifted from being out of tear to relief. 

Grabbing onto the edge of the tub you pushed yourself onto your feet, acting like it hadn’t happened by calmly washing out the suds from your hair that had grown far longer than it had been in September of 83.’ 

Turning off the faucet you stepped out and grabbed the grey towel from the hook, wrapping it around your body and taking the safety pin from the counter and used it to keep your towel from falling. Opening the bathroom door, steam pooled out from the doorway.

Looking over to the living room, where you saw Steve sitting on the couch, head in his hands and his back rising and falling in such a way that it was hard not to notice that he was holding back tears. 

“Steve?” You questioned. He looked up and then quickly averted his gaze when he saw you in the towel. 

“Jesus, I’m so sorry.” He blurted out. 

But you noticed how his eyes seemed red, and not from lack of sleep or alcohol. It looked like he’d been crying. His hair disheveled, no doubt from running his hands through it 

You took strides over to him and sat practically hip to hip with him, not caring if you were soaking wet or in just a towel. “What happened?” 

He shook his head a bit, looking to the carpet, running his dominant hand through his hair while he tried to process what to tell you. He finally looked up at you. “Have you ever loved someone before?”

“Other than my parents? No.” You answered. 

“It’s intense. it’s . . . it’s really scary sometimes to be vulnerable in front of the person who you think also loves you, because they say it,” He was sad, angry and didn’t know what to do. “I. . .” He started to tear up and in a heartbeat you had your arms around him. “She. . . Nancy doesn’t love me.” Steve’s voice broke halfway through his sentence, trying to hide the fact that he was on the brink of tears.

“What’d she say?” It was like your own problems were completely miniscule to Steve’s. But that was a more recent coping mechanism, where you avoided your own problems in favor of helping somebody else.

“She called me bullshit. Said we were pretending everything was fine, that we were pretending to be in love, that me and her were pretending we didn’t kill Barb.” 

At that you tensed up. The thought that Nancy blamed Steve for Barbara’s death, made you angry. It wasn’t either of their faults for not being there when Nancy had apparently told Barbara to go home.

“You’re not bullshit, and what happened to Barb wasn’t your fault. Shit happens, people die. No one knew that was gonna happen to her.”

You weren’t looking directly at Steve, but you could tell he was breaking down, head on your shoulder, and body exhausted, leaning into you for comfort that you gave him without question. “You can cry, Steve.” It was a simple sentence, but it carried a lot for Steve, who had never once been told that by anyone. Usually being shamed with the phrase ‘real men or boys don’t cry.’ And he let go, holding onto you and letting the tears go down his cheeks while you ran a comforting hair through his hair, smoothing down his hair so the strands rested like they usually did. 

You’d never experienced the kind of heartbreak he was going through, you’d experienced the kind where you had ended up completely alone and scared in a scary place, with the added layer of knowing you’d never see your parents again as a teenager. 

But his was worse. He found love, he grew to love Nancy. And they’d been together a year, which alone was impressive, since teenagers couldn’t even seem to keep a job for more than three months. 

He couldn’t have ever anticipated that she’d be cruel, call him ‘bullshit’ and blame him for what happened to her friend. 

But you knew according to movies, tv shows and books, that eventually, you wouldn’t have your family anymore. That at some point, you’d be alive, and your parents gone, But you just never anticipated it to happen this way. So maybe you were on the same level of heartbreak, just two different types. 

“I know,” You comforted softly his quiet tears made your own tears build up, but you forced them away, opting to let this be about him, and what he was going through. “You’re not bullshit.” You told him. 

• • •

Flinching away from the cotton ball that the nurse held up to your cheek, you glared at the middle aged woman. Mrs. Luna was always meaner that Mrs. Kenna who always greeted students with a warm smile and actually did care about them and if they were okay. 

Mrs. Luna let out a harsh breath through her nose out of frustration, deciding to turn her attention over to the boy who sat by the counter, a poster of the food pyramid over his head had you wishing it was a real pyramid that would fall on him. 

“Annalise, are Y/n’s parents coming to get her?” Mrs. Luna demanded of the secretary who was in the front office, the door connecting the two rooms open so the women could interact. 

“Will Byers should be here soon to pick her up.” The main secretary informed while standing at the printer, which you could see through the doorway where you sat by the Nurse’s desk. 

You weren’t afraid of anything as a child, heights always seemed like fun, and while you didn’t like spiders, you weren’t afraid of them. You weren’t afraid at the thought of getting hurt, and this entire situation proved that, since you’d been the one to technically start the fight, by throwing the first punch. But at least you, a second grade girl had beat a fifth grader in a fight. He was more bloody than you, and clearly in more pain, even though he tried to hide it. 

Turning your head to the side you looked to the health posters garnered towards kids, things about eyesight and bones in a cartoon style so it fit the elementary school. 

“Mr. Byers. . .” You heard the secretary greet your dad. “And Mrs. Cortez.” The dread filled you when you realized that Joseph’s mother was here. She was the type of mother who everyone on campus was scared of because it seemed she didn’t tolerate any other child other than her own.

“So it was your child who hurt my son?”

You heard your dad give a spiteful chuckle. “Get a grip, Janet.” He spoke the woman’s name with venom as he approached the nurse’s office, still in the sweatpants and t-shirt he’d worn when he dropped you and your brother off that morning.

Giving a nervous smile to him when he came into the linoleum floored room, he gave you a look mixed with disappointment and something else. “Hi, dad.” You said in the happiest voice which had Mrs. Cortez scowling at you when she walked in after your dad, approaching her son. 

He kneeled down in front of you, examining your face, hands gently holding your jaw to keep you in place. “Guess I should see the other guy huh, baby?” 

You laughed, even if it hurt your cheek where the scrape was that Mrs. Luna had tried cleaning. 

“You encourage that behavior?” Mrs. Cortez asked harshly, arms crossed and when you let your eyes wander over to her, you noticed how there wasn’t a single wrinkle in her pantsuit, and how the clothing she wore made her even more intimidating to you.

“None of your business.” Your dad shot back, grabbing your hand and helping you out of the plastic blue chair. The two parents never liked each other. Mrs. Cortez didn’t like your parents because they were gay, and your parents hated her because she was rude, and didn’t understand where boundaries were. 

“Can you call Ms. Perez? I’m signing my son out too.” 

You had to listen to the bickering between your dad and the woman, while you and Joseph glared at each other until Daniel got to the front office, confused and holding the book he’d basically been forced to check out from the school library. Your dad had checked you both out, and gotten you into the car before driving home.

The rest of the day was mostly quiet, with Daniel doing the simple worksheets at the dining table with you, while you worked on your times tables, using the laminated paper that Pa had made for you. 

Your dad  made you both lunch, which was just leftover spaghetti that Pa had made. Sure, Will was the one who worked from home, and helped make Halloween costumes, and drew things with you at the coffee table while reruns of Ed, Edd, and Eddy played, but Tom was the better cook, and better at helping with homework.

“Hey Danny, can you give your sister and I a few minutes?” Will asked, picking up the plates from the kitchen table, looking over to Daniel who nodded and got up, happily going to his room where his action figures were. 

You looked up at him, holding the scented marker in hand, coloring in the certain sections of the coloring page with every answer you got. 

Will placed the plates in the sink and walked over to the table, sitting next to you, an arm resting on the top of the back of the chair, right behind your head. 

“What did he do?”

You stayed quiet, continuing to color in the flower, going a little bit out of the lines, still not having the best of hand/eye coordination. 

“What did he say?” Will rephrased the sentence. 

“He called you and Papa fags and fairies.” You answered quietly, keeping your eyes on the paper until Will reached over, taking the pink marker from you and capping it.

“You know how everyone says you’re like me?” 

Nodding you answered. “Yeah.”

He nodded a bit with a smile. “You are a lot like me, but you’re also like your pa. I’ve seen him punch one of his college professors for saying the same things about us before.”

You smiled up at him a bit, and saw his smile grow a bit. “Listen to me, sweetheart, you never, and I mean never, let anybody push you around. I let people push me around all throughout school, I was nothing like Pa, so I’m glad you are, even I get calls to come pick you up at 10 am, and even if you get suspended for a week. I think it’s stupid for them to expect you not to do anything. Never be afraid of getting in trouble if what you’re about to do is the right thing.”

• • •

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#steve harrington #steve x reader #steve harrington x reader #steve harrington x you #Steve Harrington slow burn