#Steve x Evie

[your-unfriendlyghost]

arm wrestling

Steve s o r t a wants to let Evie win, just once, but he’s too competitive for that

He may love Soda and Evie but when it comes to arm wrestling they get no mercy

[brat-pack-it-up-boys]

The gang as kids

A 14 year old two bit who used to wait until he was sure Darry’s soc friends were gone so he could hang out with him

10 and 11 year old soda and Steve playing little league together

6 year old ponyboy who spent every waking second asking his parents for a puppy

12 year old dally meeting one of the gang members and having to awkwardly introduce himself to the others

13 and 11 year old Johnny an Ponyboy going to the same middle and elementary school and only being able to see each other at recess

9 year old Johnny who would fallow Darrel Sr around and ask him things his dad should’ve thought him

17 year old Darry who used to rush though his homework to spend time with his brothers

12 year old evie with the biggest schoolgirl crush on Steve

8 year old ponyboy who used to be babysat by Ms . Mathew’s

13, and 14 year old soda, Steve, and ace riding bikes together and racing each other home from school

12 year old dally with a secret idealization for darry

15 year old two bit who would walk everywhere with his 5 year old sister holding his hand

Just the gang when they were all kids and didn’t have to worry about big people things

[gre4zerz]

Soda being Steve and Evie's third wheel.

Soda being Steve and Evie's practice child.

They'll get Soda his own stroller and everything and just push him around until Soda eventually runs off out of boredom (they got him one of the leash backpack things after that).

[dallasgallant]

Steve will share stuff with Evie that he wouldn’t with the guys, the more emotional stuff he’d be more mortified to say with them. That being said, it doesn’t make him intelligible…

Just calls her like:

Steve: FJDKSKDODKDKKDDK!! 😭☹️🥺

Evie: Baby, what?

[jamandjazz]

Steve bet Evie couldn’t pick him up (he just wanted to be manhandled) also this was heavily inspired by @your-unfriendlyghost’s post on them cause they were so cute

[chaotic-starlight24]

Steve Randle General Headcanons

I surprisingly have a lot of headcanons for him! He actually won the poll so here he is :) The guy we all have to write because he had like 2 things about him!

Warnings: Spoilers, Mentions of abuse, Misogyny by his dad, Some angst

Steve just hates coffee. He hates the bitterness and everything. But sometimes Evie’s parents make chocolate cake, with coffee flavored icing. Steve has fallen to this trick more times than he can count and almost always ends up excusing himself to the bathroom and spitting it out in the toilet.

When he and Soda were younger, Soda actually had a relatively large friend group. They were really good friends but several times Steve felt very insecure about whether or not they were really best friends. But Soda turned to him the most, Steve was the first one to hear about him dropping out, Steve helped tutor him, they hung out most afterschool. So eventually they were never seen apart. And Steve realized that Soda really was his best friend.

The manager of the DX is very supportive of their dreams and has given Steve some tips on starting a business. He knows that they will lose money whenever the two leave and probably lose even more when they start it up, but he doesn’t care. He wants to give the world to the next generation and give them a chance in life. He’s also sure that some other car genius will work their way into the DX one day.

When they were in early middle school, Steve and him were best friends but whenever Steve was run out of the house he didn’t go to the Curtis house because he didn’t want to trouble them. So he would quietly get up and onto his roof. Then just fall asleep under the stars. 

Whenever he was run out he would also not really have much access to food and this guy needs to eat breakfast or he starts getting sick. So whenever he and Soda would go to school he would just be shaking from nausea and have a very vocal stomach. One day, Steve wasn’t let back in his house for 3 days and Soda caught on once Steve passed out in front of him. Mr.Curtis came to pick him up and assured him it was no problem and let him and Soda have a sleepover of sorts for the next couple days. From then on they left one of the windows unlocked just in case.

Steve, as many have decided, is actually quite school smart. He especially excels at science and math. He enjoys most aspects of science but especially the hands-on stuff. With math he mainly studies for it because he knows it will serve him well in engineering.

Steve really wants to open a car shop to fix cars and stuff but he also really wants to try and become an engineer and try to create better cars. But he doesn’t have much hope in being able to go and actually study engineering since there is almost no way he can pay for it and he doubts he would ever get a scholarship.

Him and Dallas probably have the most hatred for the Socs. He has grown to hate how he can have dreams but that’s all they’re probably going to be, dreams. While the socs can chase whatever they want because they have a shot. They have a chance in life. And that’s not fair. Then they have the AUDACITY to come and harm greasers. They could be using that chance in life, but no! They come over to harm his buddies!

He knows all the inner workings of cars and their bodies and their inventors and everything! You ask something about your car’s engine and suddenly he goes onto a rant about how this engine was originally and Henry Ford’s help in the engineering of engines like this and- He’s learned to dial it down once he saw how annoyed people started getting. Soda enjoys hearing him go on these tangents and Evie does as well.

Steve helps out Johnny a lot and will give him a sandwich or something and let him sit at the DX. Johnny has heard all about Steve’s dream shop and actually helped him try and come up with a name and sign design for it. They’re both mediocre artists but it turned out pretty nice!

Steve is absolutely terrified of the cops. He has read about different things they did in history that were bad (Everything that happened during segregation) and knows how quickly they are to accuse greasers. It didn’t help that his father tells him each time he is run out he better not tell the cops or they’ll take him away and give him a worse beating than his dad ever will. 

He knows Soda is extremely forgetful and has to remind him of some of the most random things. His pants? Almost forgot them on the drying line. His shoes? They were under the couch after they played a game with them. His homework? He taped it to the ceiling to see if he could focus better. A lot of school mornings were spent with Steve and Soda tracing his actions to find said items.

Him and Two-Bit are also really good friends. Steve and him work on Two’s old car and Two-Bit likes to prank him a lot. One time, Steve was going to help replace the steering wheel and Two-Bit brought one out. Frozen in a block of ice. Two-Bit was dying on the floor laughing while Steve tried to hide his grin. How does Two-Bit do this? We don’t ask.

His dad is a very masculine guy and HATES Evie. He hates Evie for all the reasons Steve loves her. She is fiery and has a quick wit. Which Steve’s dad hates because he thinks it's disrespectful to talk back, especially when a girl does it. Evie wears shorts or pants a lot because she works repairing household appliances. She’s not afraid to get her hands dirty. Which also goes against his dad’s views. Evie knows this. So whenever she and Steve walk by his house she will bridal carry him just to spite his dad. 

Steve has rather wavy hair and usually combs it to be that way (which is indeed canon) but it gets really tangled really easily. Soda likes styling hair when he’s bored but he can never style Steve’s because Steve is the only one who knows how to comb his hair without the comb getting stuck. (Those were a fun 30 minutes for Mrs. Curtis)

To those who don’t know him, Steve is not in any way a nice person. He can be very snappy and rude to strangers. 

Him and Evie are a power couple and complement each other extremely well. They are both mechanical geniuses, Evie is as energetic as he is but can also bring him down to earth, Steve is one of few who can calm her down before she goes off on someone, and they are just in love with each other. Steve can be very lovey-dovey with her and she can match that but in general Steve is much more prominent with physical affection. Evie has a bracelet that says Stevie and wears it everyday. 

Steve really likes almonds, it's his favorite snack. Especially honey-roasted ones.

Him, Johnny, and Soda were the original trio in the gang. Then as they got older they gained Dally and just kind of mushed with Two and Darry. Now they have the Curtis gang :)

Steve didn’t like Pony at first because Soda put a lot of his attention on PB. But eventually he continued to find Pony annoying at all ages. He still cares about him though. Steve is his older brother with the more common “You’re the most annoying person I’ve ever met.” outlook on him.

Steve has so many random abilities and it kind of freaks Soda and Evie out. Like one time they were all hanging out (Sandy was there too) and he was dared to try Evie’s platform heels and he was able to dance in them. Through these games it has also been discovered he can:

Write really well with both hands

Balance spoons on his face

Use chopsticks with his mouth

He and Evie actually really liked Sandy and felt utterly betrayed when they found out about her. Sandy was Evie’s best friend. Steve barely knew what to do for Soda. It was just so out of character for her.

When Johnny and Dally died, he didn't show too much emotion. He cried, he grieved with the rest of the gang, but overall he didn't feel much. Until he found the design him and Johnny did for the shop. Soda found him at the DX, sobbing on the ground next to this crappy drawing. So he sat next to him and cried with him, listening to Steve sputter out "He never had a chance! None of us do! Them Socs ar-are using them all up! With no gratitude! We'll never know what he could've done!"

"I know Steve, I know."

"Soda...What are we going to do now?"

[kaytheday]

Steve Randle and Evie Head Canon's

I just have a lot of thoughts about Steve and Evie. Particularly Steve as a boyfriend and what kind of girl Evie is. I might do a future post on what I think Evie would be like, but for now it's just them together.

Story HC's: 

They met in kindergarten. When they were playing kiss tag, Steve kissed her on the cheek and she punched him in the face. 

They kept fighting each other. He would pull her pig tails and she would kick him in the shins. 

From all this bickering, they learned that they lived near each other in the same block. 

They first kissed in 6th grade. Behind the dumpster of the Jr. High school, they kissed. Not really knowing how, but a quick few pecks and some red cheeks and they ran away. 

They hung out a lot because they lived near each other, but they dated other people for a while. 

In their sophomore year they began to fall in love for real. 

The summer before sophomore year. At a greaser party, Evie was wearing something a little more showy while chatting with her friends. Steve showed up with Soda and was absolutely enamored by her. Like jaw down to the floor, this boy could not play it cool.

But apparently, he played it cool enough because by the end of that party they were making out on a park bench near Steve’s house. They ended up staying the night at Evie's house. 

Her mom was at a boyfriend's house and Steve’s dad had always been a jerk. 

They’ve been dating since sophomore year. 

General HC's:

Think of the most disgustingly touchy couple you know. Multiply it by twenty and you have Steve and Evie. 

They literally cannot keep their hands off of each other. 

Steve and Evie will ditch Soda on double dates to go make out or do naughty things in the bathroom. 

Evie likes to hang out at the DX. She’ll sit on the counter sucking on a lollipop while Steve makes inappropriate jokes about her sucking something else. 

Steve tries to impress Evie with his skills with cars. She likes watching him flip a hood and ramble on about car nonsense. 

She is also his biggest fan at the drag races. Cheering like a mad woman while Steve beats everyone. 

 They both like to drive with Steve’s hand on her thigh while she sits in the passenger seat smoking.

There have been times where Steve is a hazard to others on the road because he can’t keep his eyes off of Evie. 

Don’t even get me started on Soda as the third wheel! 

“Oh look it’s ’ol Evie and Stevie!” All the time while they were in school together.

“Good night kids, use protection!” 

Two-Bits not much better. 

“Yeah, lace up! Don’t you two be making me an uncle now!”

Kathy and Evie are pretty good friends too. They would double date with both of them but Steve can’t stand Two-Bits antics most of the time. 

Oftentimes they hang out at her house. Mostly because her mom is never there or drunk out of her mind and Steve’s dad kicks him out once a week.

Sometimes they sit on the floor of her room while a soft record is playing. Steve plays with her soft hair while she reads a magazine. 

Steve likes hair. Though he’ll never admit it to any of the guys. He especially likes Evie’s silky black waves. 

I’ll probably think of some future head canons too.  I’ll link them here when I do! 

[foottoe101001]

The fact I’ve drawn goth Steve Randle more then anyone else from the gang is insane.

[steifel]

No but nobody understands how important Steviepop is to me. I love them soooo much!!!!

Lmk if anyone is interested in Steviepop content or wants to hear my headcanone/opinions

[awweshuuks]

Me after writing how Steve and Evie met (and some Soda and Sandy.)

[cactus182018]

It started at two

a fic for an AU I came up with for The Outsiders

It started at two, before the young couple knew it that number jumped to 5, then 7, then landing at 9 with the newest stray their middle child brought home that day. The middle son soda always had a way of finding kids nobody wanted to take care of or were unable to. They were considered strays because they followed the boy around. The newest member had joined when he was only 14 as a runaway from New York with no family in Tulsa to care for or love him. It was only natural for the boy to bring this new friend home to his parents. The loving parents accepted all the little boys their boys brought home, they welcomed them in, gave them food, took care of them and loved them unconditionally. They were considered as the neighborhood parents with so much love to give to any kid they met and that needed it or wanted it.

The entire neighborhood was shaken in 1965 when the young couple’s eldest turned 20, lost his parents and became a legal guardian of his two younger brothers in a single night. The table that year when it finally came to the holidays was the quietest it had ever been because it was the first holiday since the brothers and their friends had lost the Curtis parents and they had nearly lost three other members of their ragtag family that year following the Curtis parents, johnny got caught up in an attempted murder charge, ponyboy nearly died in the attempted murder attempt at the hand of a soc then passed out was out cold for a week before regaining consciousness, and lastly Dallas the newest member had robbed a store at the news johnny most likely wasn’t going to leave the hospital and they’d lost his pulse before getting it back although he’d already run off when the monitor started doing a long beep sound and alarming the nurses and doctors and gotten shot at least 5 times after robbing the store wanting to join johnny

Johnny, pony, and Dallas were all considered lucky to have come back to the gang after the incredibly rough week they had. That first year was the roughest for the gang because of everything that year had thrown at them. It was the first year a 16-year-old Kendi Millier-Brown joined them. She was Dallas's cousin and the only family he still talked to after leaving New York and his relatives didn't want to take in the young juvenile delinquent. The young platinum blond girl also fancied the middle Curtis brother though neither was ready for another relationship at the time the two met. She taught him to trust again and took all the overflowing love he had to give without complaint about him being considered too much to handle or too emotional. Kendi was at the table every year after that, so they had a full table most years.

The people at the table during the holidays were Darry, two-bit, Mrs. Mathews, Kathy, Steve, soda, Kendi, johnny, ponyboy, Dallas, and Evie. In 1982 the number of attendants changed, two deaths, one move, and one birth Mrs. Mathews and Kendi died Mrs. Mathews died a few years prior. Kendis death resulted in Sherley's birth and Kathy had moved across the country and hadn't been home for a long while at that point. That made the total at the table 9 that year. One year before the twins were born a young girl belonging to Dallas Winston was also born. Two years that number jumps to 13 with the birth of Steve and Evie Randles twin son and daughter.

By 1985 two-bit Mathews and marcia meyrink had their Babygirl hope Mathews, ponyboy and johnny met and took in a young boy by the name of Tex. In 1995 the total went up to 16 whenever marcia decides she wanted to celebrate as a family with two-bit. Tex's younger brother was born the next year in 1996. In the end two young adults ended up creating a family of almost 20 people even if they hadn't been there for a lot of it, they looked down and looked after their family from wherever they went to after their untimely demise. They adored their ragtag family that had grown so much compared to when it was just the 5 of them.

[your-unfriendlyghost]

Steve x Evie police station meet cute

A great idea by @dallasgallant in this post- Steve and Evie meeting after committing crimes lol totally not like in Rebel Without a Cause

In my take on it, Evie got hauled in for punching her mom’s boyfriend because he treated her mom badly. Now Evie’s in huge trouble, just for trying to defend her. Everyone’s telling her she was wrong, including her mom, to the point that she almost believes it…

But then this little angry-looking greaser guy who has the rap of a tough guy- who she’s never seen smile, not even once- tells her that he thinks she’s so cool for that actually. And it’s exactly what she needed to hear lol

Steve on the other hand was not hauled in for noble reasons. Just uh…petty theft I think

After this Steve buys her a coke or smth ig and they start hanging out

okay I actually have a million more h/cs about Evie but I’ll leave it at this rn lol

[brat-pack-it-up-boys]

Interracial marriage was legalized in Oklahoma in 1967

You bet your ass steve and Evie got married as soon as possible, they were 19, wore their old church clothes because they couldn’t afford new ones, and played Elvis as a wedding song

[wildestdreamcatcher]

modern evie def has a bunch of instagram highlights, for steve for her friends, for political stuff, for pictures of her, or for when the sky looks pretty. She only posts photos dumps of like 20 photos of her and her friends or like flowers and pretty stuff.

modern steve though has no posts and his only story highlight is just evie, everyone at school follows him though for some reason

And Evie seems like she definitely has a lot of followers too. She's very much a Pinterest girlie and everything's just really aesthetic person.

Steve's weridly popular at school and I feel like the only app he ever posts on is Snapchat.

[dallasgallant]

Truth or dare

Twobit: if you could kiss anybody in the world who would it be?

Steve: my beautiful girlfriend, Evie. 💕

Pony: she don’t count you do that anyway!

Steve: *fast* Sodapop Curtis.

Steve has two hands.

[your-unfriendlyghost]

Holy hell man, this is PERFECT!! I love this so much- their characterizations are so on point. Everything about this is so amazing I needa annotate it or something. I will be rereading this so many times you have no idea

(Also, btw I got the concept from @dallasgallant!)

Stevie Fic

This is a Stevie first meeting fic based on this amazing art and concept by @your-unfriendlyghost Like most of my stuff its not betaed. Enjoy!

*************

Evie really fucking wants to hit something.

It’s probably a bad idea considering hitting something-  well, someone-  is what got her here in the first place, but right now it feels like her options are fight or cry and she really doesn’t want to cry. 

The bench in the holding cell is cold under her bare legs, her skirt not long enough to properly cover them, but she can’t bring herself to care in the slightest, despite the fact she’s sharing the holding cell with two guys, one a drunk sleeping off a hangover in the corner, the other a tough looking greaser she vaguely recognizes from school, who’s flicking a lighter idly, clearly bored out of his mind. Her right hand is aching something awful, knuckles all split and bloody, but she clenches her fist tighter, letting the skin pull back, watches the small cuts reopen and the blood well up, filling the tiny cracks in the surrounding skin. It smarts something awful, but it’s kind of mesmerizing all the same. 

She focuses on the sharp sting, pretending the tears pricking her eyes are because of that instead of the fact that mom’s here talking to the police sergeant but she’s still never been further away. 

How did this even happen? A year ago her mother was her favourite person in the whole world. It was the two of them against the world, always had been, ever since dad died back when she was six. Mom never used to have a problem with how she dressed or did her hair, never used to care if she made lewd jokes or chewed with her mouth open because mom’s own manners were even worse and she liked them that way. A year ago if any man mom was seeing raised a hand to her mom would’ve punched him herself, fuck the consequences or the injuries, because she wasn’t ever gonna let a man know she was afraid of him, even if she was. A year ago if Evie had swung at someone for a good reason mom would’ve bailed her out and took her out for ice cream, smiled her crooked smile and told her she was right proud of her and her fighting spirit, made her promise to keep it close to her heart.

Now? Mom’s so different she might as well be a different person, and if this is the thanks Evie’s going to get for defending her, well, she can fucking fend for herself. If mom wants to simper and smile and bend over backwards for a man who treats her like dirt and Evie even worse she can fucking do it. If she wants to take his side and fuss over his broken nose while Evie’s stuck in this fucking cell then good riddance. But Evie’s never gonna throw a punch to defend her again, not ever. Hell, she might not even stick around the house. If mom’s gonna choose a man she met three months ago over the daughter she’s raised for the past sixteen years, why bother? Home hardly feels like home anymore anyway, what with Dean’s clothes in dad’s old dresser, and his presence sucking the air out of every room. Mom’s art supplies have been shoved into the closet to make room for Dean’s unemployment papers, and last week Evie got home from school to find he’d thrown out all her model airplanes. She’d sobbed- she’d been collecting them since she was six, and building the green one was the last thing she did with dad before he passed- but mom just told her to stop acting like such a child because they ‘were only toys anyway’ and went right back to cooking Dean dinner. As if she didn’t know those planes meant absolutely everything to her. As if she hadn’t scraped and saved to buy her one for her birthday every single year without fail. Like she didn’t even care.

A fresh wave of anger rushes through her at the memory, and the next thing Evie knows she’s on her feet, her fist connecting with the concrete wall. She feels more than she hears something in her hand crack, and the fresh wave of agony is definitely similar to when she broke her arm back in kindergarten, but she doesn’t even care. It feels good. She wants to hit something. She wants to hurt. She wants to throw punches the way her mother taught her in the hopes they will somehow help her forget said mother’s betrayal.

“Hey!” A cop with cropped brown hair raps on the cell door with his baton so hard the bars rattle, “knock it off!”

She glares at him for a second but drops back onto the bench. She tells herself it’s because she really does want to get out of here, preferably today, but deep down she knows it’s because the man’s cold eyes and the way he swings the baton make it clear he’d be all too happy to use it on her. 

“Crazy bitch,” she hears him mutter as he walks off,and she stiffens, suddenly wishing she’d spit on him while she had the chance. 

“What’d you expect?” A different voice answers, “These greasy chics are all the same. Wild as rabid dogs.”

A snicker. “And they dress just as poorly. My Adeline ever stepped outta the house wearing something like that she’d never be allowed back in.”

Their voices fade, getting reabsorbed into the racket of the precinct, but there words have already sunk into her skin, leaving cuts under her surface, making a home in the piece of her thats hates herself. She shivers a bit, hugging her jacket tighter around herself, and glowers at the linoleum floor, pointedly ignoring the prickling uncomfortable feeling of being watched. Between her outburst and the cop’s shouting it’s little wonder half the precinct is staring, but she refuses to give them the satisfaction of meeting any of their gazes. Besides, it’s not like she isn’t already used to being looked at like she’s a freak.

“--I mean?” Evie recognizes Dean’s voice easily, even over the din of the rest of the station, conspicuous due to its deep cadence and domineering tone, “that’s not normal behaviour, nice girls don’t do that. I really think I oughta press charges.”

Her head snaps up and she glares at him, snarling, despite the fact he’s pretending to ignore her. Even if he doesn’t see it, mom will, will know that Evie is nothing short of genuine in her hatred, that she regrets nothing. 

Besides, she knows the threat is an empty one anyway. Dean talks a good game but he knows better than to actually press charges for something like this. The cops hadn’t dragged Evieout for her side of the story yet and they’d been all too happy to put her in handcuffs- Dean’s ruined shirt and self righteous anger when he stormed in here had seen to that- but when she does get a chance to speak she’ll be all too happy to explain why she punched him in the first place, and that probably won’t go over too well with a judge.

Of course, mom could always lie for him, rendering her whole defense useless. But Evie’s trying not to think about that. Surely mom still loves her somewhere. Surely she won’t let her own daughter go to the cooler for a half baked crime even if she doesn’t. 

Right?

“It’s those friends of hers,” mom defends, letting out a trilling, fake laugh, smiling as placatingly as possible at Dean and the cop they’re sitting across from. Her eyes dart towards Evie's and away so fast she’s half convinced she imagined it, “they’re such terrible influences. She didn’t mean it.”

“She broke my nose.”

And I'd do it again, asshole, Evie thinks. Her hand is killing her, but if it wasn’t she’d have clenched her fist at the mere thought. That was the one upside of this whole situation: she’d finally been able to do what she’d been wanting to do for months. She’ll be dreaming of the satisfying crunch Dean’s nose had made when she deviated his septum for weeks. 

“She’s your daughter,” Dean continues, “Don’t you think she ought to be punished?”

“Of course I do,” mom simpers, cosying into Dean’s side, gazing up at him with such a sickeningly sweet look Evie wants to vomit,  “But don’t you think pressing charges is a little harsh? I mean, she’s never done anything like this before.”

“Well you have to do something, Caroline, she’s out of control. Talking back, giving me attitude, not listening to you either-”

He keeps going but Evie tunes him out, done listening to his bitching, God knows she already hears enough of it at home. She hates that he’s here, that he lives with them, that he’s ruined every good thing in her life. She hates the way mom looks at him. 

Most of all she hates that she only swung at him once. 

The guy across from her with the lighter is still flicking it rhythmically, the clicking sound oddly sharp, distinguishable even over the overlapping conversations in the precinct itself, but its owner doesn’t seem so bored anymore. In fact, he keeps glancing over at her and then quickly looking away every time their eyes meet. She has half a mind to tell him he’s gonna waste all the gas in his lighter if he keeps it up, or maybe offer him a cigarette in exchange for a light, but she figures the boys in blue might decide to take some issue with that and she isn’t about to get a full pack of marlboros confiscated when she only just bought them.

“Fine!” Dean is suddenly looking right at her, voice rising above the precinct for real this time, “I won’t press charges this time, but I’m sure as hell not paying her bail. She can rot here as far as I’m concerned.”

The rage is a tidal wave bursting through a dam, all consuming and back full force before she can even blink

“Like you could pay it anyway, asshole!” Her unbroken hand is slamming into the bars and he should be grateful for it because it’s the only standing between him and Evie wringing his thick neck, “Last I checked you were a broke, unemployed loser spending my mom’s hard earned money because youre too much much of a fuck up to have a single cent to your own name!”

He sneers, cruelly, but doesn’t rise to the bait. She’ll catch it for sure next time she’s in the house, and he’ll probably find something of hers to break in the meantime, but for the moment he manages to hold himself together.

“Enjoy the holding cell Evelyn.”

“Seriously?” She turns to mom, half desperate, half pleading, knowing it won’t make a difference and hoping foolishly, childishly, that it will anyway, “You’re just going to let him leave me here?”

“Evie-”

“You’re my mom.” Her voice breaks.

Mom flinches, but she hides it well. Evie notices, because she knows her tells, knows the slight trick of her left eye is her way of hiding heartbreak, just like she knows mom never really got over losing dad as much as she always tried to convince herself she did, knows Dean saw the loneliness that festered in mom’s heart and twisted it to his advantage. She knows that mom is strong in some ways but not all of them and that a part of her has given up. She just hadn’t realized until now that the part of her that gave up had given up on Evie.

“I did it for you,” her voice is shaking, and Dean could be screaming and the precinct could be burning around them and it wouldn’t matter because all she can see right now is her mother’s apologetic brown eyes and the fact that she has let her down for the last time, “for you. Not for me. And this is the thanks I get?”

“I’m sorry,” mom whispers, shame twisting her features, “but- but you did a bad thing Evie, and-and we don’t really have the money for bail right now anyway. They’ll only hold you for a day or two anyway and then you can come home and we’ll figure this out, the three of us.”

“Come home?” She can’t help the scoff that forces its way out of her throat, “You think you can leave me here, after everything, and I’ll just come home like nothing happened?”

“You don’t mean that.”

“Try me.”

“Dean’s right,” mom shakes herself and the glimpse of her true self is gone, replaced by the shell of a woman filled with Dean’s slimy thoughts, “you need a few days to cool down. You’re impossible to talk to right now.”

“Imagine how much more impossible to talk to I’ll be when I'm gone and your sack of human shit boyfriend won’t even let you try to find me!” Evie yells at her retreating back, “Huh? Huh, you fucking bitch! Fuck. You.” She punctuates the last two words with a weak rap against the bars, but as suddenly as her anger overtook her it has drained away, leaving nothing but misery in its wake.

The brown haired cop doesn’t have to rap on the bars this time to make her behave. She slinks back to the bench, a woman defeated. 

She doesn’t cry, but it’s a near thing. In fact, she still might. It’s taking a lot of harsh blinking and biting the inside of her cheek to keep the tears from falling, but she refuses to crumple here, to be weak in front of a room full of men who have already seen her humiliated and powerless, men who have actively participated in making her that way. They will not get the victory of seeing her cry too. They won’t. 

“Here,” suddenly the boy with the lighter is next to her, holding out a stained, but soft looking rag. She must have stared at him a beat too long because he clears his throat awkwardly, cheeks reddening ever so slightly, “for your hand.”

“Oh,” she’d all but forgot about her split knuckles and probably broken ring finger, but when she looks down she can see that it’s started to swell something awful, which has in turn increased how much she’s bleeding, “thanks.”

She struggles to wrap the rag clumsily around her knuckles. Without meaning to she makes the mistake of accidentally twitching her broken finger and drops the rag with a hiss, instinctively cradling her hand closer to her chest.

“Here, let me- I mean- I can wrap your hand for you? If you want?” Lighter guy offers. He’s endearingly awkward, and, Evie has to admit, kind of cute, with his thick dark hair and glowing bronze skin. He looks about as rough as most guys from their side of town, intimidating with his leather jacket and seemingly instinctual scowl, but he doesn’t seem scary. Not really. Not when he’s this kind.

Wordlessly she holds out her hand and he takes her wrist with a gentleness that’s unprecedented from such large callused hands, clearly used to hard work, as he carefully threads the cloth over and around her knuckles, covering most of the cuts without tying anything too tightly.

She’s almost disappointed when he pulls away.

“You’re real good at that.”

“Yeah well,” he grins, suddenly roguish and Evie can see how he could be mean if he wanted to, “it’s not exactly my first time bandaging bruised knuckles. Might be my first time bandaging them on a girl though.”

“Oh yeah?” Despite her misery she can feel a smile tugging at the corner of her own lips.

He nods. “You oughta join a rumble sometime, looks like that right hook of yours does some real damage.”

“He deserved it!” Evie snaps. 

“Looked like it,” The boy agrees, holding up his hands in surrender. He’s quiet for a minute, then adds, “Sounded like it too.”

Something about the way he says it makes her pause.

“He was gonna hit my mom,” she admits, shivering at the memory of Dean’s rage and the way mom had tensed, hands flying up to shield her face. She’d said after, when Dean was still screaming and everything had gone to shit that he’d never done it before, but her reaction had told Evie otherwise. “He was standin’ over her and I could see him pulling back and in that moment it felt like my options were hit or be hit. So I punched him.”

“Tuff.”

Evie blinks. “Ya think?”

“Yeah,” he nods, “I really do.”

Something in her chest relaxes at that, at not only his non judgemental assessment of her actions but his clear approval of them. She hadn’t realized how much she needed someone on her side until now.

She looks at him, really looks at him. Aside from his thick hair and smooth skin, he’s got slightly crooked teeth and a strong nose. His eyes are angry, but righteously so, but cruelly so, and there is kindness hidden in the curve of his cheek and the calluses of his hands.

“You’re Steve, right? I’ve seen you around school before with that friend of yours. The blond one.”

“Sodapop, yeah,” He gives her an odd look, slightly pleased but clearly taken aback, “I gotta be honest, I’m not used to people knowing my name and not his.”

“Oh,” It’s her turn to blush, “well, I-I guess he never really made much of an impression on me.”

“Well since you seem to know my name, does that mean I made an impression on you?” 

“No,” her cheeks are burning and she doesn’t sound convincing, even to herself, but if she’d seen Steve Randle doing pull ups when she walked past the boys gym class once and made a point of learning his name, that’s no one's business but her own. It didn’t have to mean anything. It didn’t mean anything before now. “Shut up.”

He laughs, and she should probably be annoyed because he’s definitely teasing her but it’s such a nice sound, carefree and inherently defiant, that it’s hard to do anything but enjoy it.

“Someone call for a jailbreak?” 

Before Steve can properly answer they’re interrupted.

Speak of the devil, Evie thinks, silently cursing Sodapop as he grins through the bars at Steve, flanked by an older boy wearing ascuffed letterman jacket and the brown haired cop from earlier. He couldn’t have waited to get here just a few minutes longer?

“Took you long enough,” Steve rises fluidly to his feet as the cop unlocks the cell, and nods at the other boy, “Hey superman. What’re you doin’ here?”

“Gotta be over 18 to bail someone out Steve-o,” Sodapop singsongs, before the older boy can get a word in, “an’ I figured you wouldn’t want me gettin’ mom or dad involved unless I had to.”

“Thanks man,” Steve pulls them each into one of those odd half hugs boys do, clapping the big one called Superman on the shoulder as he pulls away, “speaking of, any chance you’d be willing to sign for one more person? I’ll pay the bail, I just need your signature.”

He looks over his shoulder expectantly and Evie realizes with a start that he means bail for her.

“What? No! Steve you guys can’t- I don’t got the scratch to pay you back-”

“Well I ain’t about to leave you here by your lonesome all night, and it don’t seem like your mom’s fixing to come back anytime soon. Darry here won’t mind signin’ the papers since I’m vouchin’ for you.”

‘’Course not.” The older boy agrees.

Evie bites her lip, considering. She really, really doesn’t want to stay here, especially without Steve for company, but she also doesn’t have the funds to pay him back.

“I really can’t pay you back-”

“Listen, if you really wanna pay me back you could agree to go out on a date with me.”

“O-oh,” she smiles down at her feet, “I- yeah, I’d love to.”

“Really?”

He really shouldn’t sound so shocked. She’d basically been the one to admit to liking him, after all.

“Yeah. Really really.”

“I’m Evie by the way,” she tells him as she and Steve walk side by side out of the precinct, realizing she has yet to introduce herself, despite how long they’ve been talking.

“Oh,” Steve's grin is playful, “I know. I make a point of learning the names of pretty girls.”

“I guess I must’ve made an impression on you too, huh?”

He gently takes her non broken hand in his, twining their fingers together.

‘Yeah,” he agrees, “I guess so.”