#jon: do you even want a gf? (are you gay?). steve: no!!! (Aro)

[carolperkinsexgirlfriend]

Aro4Aro Stancy Break-up AU Part 2

Part 1

As his fingers clutch Steve Harrington’s steering wheel hard enough that his knuckles turn white, Jonathan wishes he’d stayed at the party. The music was loud and vapid, the punch was rancid, but at least then he wouldn’t be alone in a car with a boy he barely knows past saving each other’s lives that one time in his living room.

He can still almost feel Steve’s hand in his, the way his fingernails raked over Jonathan’s still-bleeding palm until his colossus caught and held onto the bandage. Even when they’re sitting across from each other at lunch, pretending that they’re three normal teenagers, Jonathan swears they’re still in that living room. Nancy’s shooting and Steve’s still swinging the bat.

He takes a deep breath, letting it out slow.

“She said it’s bullshit,” Steve says.

Jonathan clears his throat. “What is?”

“We’re bullshit.”

“We?”

“Me and her,” Steve says. Jonathan can feel him looking at him. He keeps his eyes on the road as Steve laughs. It sounds wet. “Maybe just me.”

Silence falls in the car like a fog. Suffocating. Steve lingers in it the way he usually doesn’t. At lunch, in the halls, even when there’s nothing to say, he’s saying it anyway. Sports, schoolwork, what they’re having for lunch. It’s like silence strangles him. It’s strangling Jonathan now.

“You’re not bullshit.”

He risks a glance in Steve’s direction. He’s crying. Jonathan feels his throat close up.

“You don’t get it,” he says, voice cracking in the middle. They both pretend not to hear it, don’t question the long pause before he continues, “there’s something wrong with me.”

“What do–”

“I love Nancy,” Steve says. It hits Jonathan, suddenly, that he’s in no way equipped to be Steve Harrington’s couples counselor. His only working example of a relationship growing up had Lonnie Byers as half of it. Steve continues unimpeded. “She’s literally perfect, Byers.”

Jonathan nods, waits for Steve to continue. When he doesn’t, Jonathan says, “that doesn’t mean she’s perfect for you.”

Steve sobs. Just once, before getting himself back together. It sounds raw and wounded in his throat. Jonathan’s hand twitches.

“There’s something wrong with me,” he says again, sounding frantic. “I should love her, right?”

“Steve–”

“So, why does saying I love her make me feel nauseous?” he asks, steamrolling over any response Jonathan could even think of giving. That’s okay. He’s got nothing. “Why do the fucking date nights and the fucking parties and all the fucking gestures make me want to run?”

“I don’t–”

“I love Nancy,” he says, slamming his open palm on the glove compartment for it to open, sending CD’s spilling onto the floor. Steve barely seems to notice. “It’s good sometimes, right? Like, when we’re all sitting at our lunch table, and I say something stupid and you both laugh at me, but Nancy does it behind her hand because she at least pretends to be nice to me. That’s good, right Byers?”

Jonathan feels choked up, keeps his eyes on the road, wonders how a night could spiral so quickly, wonders where he’s going to sit at lunch tomorrow. “Yeah,” he says, swallowing the knot in his throat. “It’s good.”

“But why do I feel the same about hanging out with you as I do her?” he asks.

Jonathan doesn’t say anything, waits until they’re at a stop sign with his foot firmly on the break to glance over at Steve. He’s curled in on himself, hands shaking in his lap. It reminds Jonathan alarmingly of that night, when he’d seen Nancy and Steve unravel in the face of monsters that crawl from the walls.

“Tell me what you mean,” Jonathan says, but he thinks he knows.

“What’s the difference,” Steve asks, like he’s picking each word out of his brain with care. “Between a girlfriend and a friend?”

Jonathan thinks of Will, how sometimes he looks at Mike like he’s so bright it hurts. He thinks of the way Steve’s eyes had looked almost afraid as he’d slung slurs in Jonathan’s direction in the heat of the moment.

There’s a pit sinking in his stomach. He swallows it down. “Do you–” he stops.

“Do I what?”

The air feels charged as Jonathan takes his foot off the break, continuing his drive to Steve’s house.

“Do you even want a girlfriend?” he asks.

Steve breaths in like he’s been punched. Jonathan feels sick.

No more words are exchanged. The silence hangs like a noose. Jonathan settles into it.

When he pulls up to the empty, encompassing Harrington house, he thinks he gets why silence is something to be feared for Steve Harrington. There’s no lights on in the Harrington house, no cars in the driveway. It doesn’t feel right to drive away, Steve silhouetted in the light of the moon, the shadow of his own front door hanging over him.

When Jonathan pulls into his own driveway, his Mom’s left the porch light on, welcoming him home.

#aro4aro stancy break-up au #steve harrington #jonathan byers #my fic #jon: do you even want a gf? (are you gay?). steve: no!!! (Aro)