#https://archiveofourown.org/works/42173625/chapters/107960376

[kedreeva]

Steve gets to have the talk with Jonathan that he wanted to have at the end of S1

I know who sent this one, and I know why she went on anon, and I SEE YOU, SUNSHINE.

collected on AO3

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It doesn’t take long for Steve to feel out of place in the too-bright waiting room. He’s exhausted and achy and still reeling from spinning his entire life hard 180 degrees only to find himself in utter freefall. He’d already had his own injuries looked at and been told to have someone keep an eye on him for his concussion, but there was no one at home, so he’d collapsed into the nearest unoccupied chair.

But now the lights are too bright and the kids had all shot up to see their friend when he woke up, and the adults had either gone with them or disappeared for business, and Steve finds himself once again alone. The silence - or near-silence anyway - is nice, but every time the dying light down the hall flickers, his heart kicks his ribs and he’s right back in Jonathan’s living room. He’s watching the girl he loves point a gun at his face while his misconception of the world as a safe place falls apart behind her.

He heaves himself to his feet, and heads for the door.

The chill November air greets him sharply, and he welcomes the way it braces him. He doesn’t go far – not supposed to be alone – just leans against the cold bricks of the front entrance to take a few deep breaths. He closes his eyes, head tipping back against the stone.

The door opens to his right, and he hates the way his hands twitch for a weapon, so he sticks them in his pockets as Jonathan joins him. He doesn’t know what to say, how to break the ice; he’d broken too much already in the past 24 hours. How can the knowledge of what he’d said live right there beside the knowledge that he’d lay down his life for this boy without a single thought? Sorry isn’t big enough to bridge the gap he'd made between them.

“How’s your brother?” he says, because he has to say something or he’ll crawl out of his skin and they’ve had enough of that tonight.

“Alive. Happy to see his friends,” Jonathan says, not looking over as he leans back against the wall now that he’s had an invitation. He puffs out a laugh. “Maybe not as happy as the kids were to see him.”

Steve manages a thin smile around the shards of his heart. He cannot imagine having friends that care that much, the sort that would go to the ends of the earth for him, that would burn it to the ground to save him. Tommy’s loyalty ended at a single rejection.

Jonathan may have rightfully kicked Steve’s ass, but he’d also taken his hand. He can still feel the gut-pull shiver of Jonathan demanding jump and his own instant and unthinking obedience. He can still see the flicker of lights through the window. He can still hear his one, crystal thought: he can’t leave them.

Not Nancy. Them.

“They’re good kids,” he says quietly. “Your brother too.” His breath twists up in his lungs as his face pinches up. “Look, I uh- I shouldn’t have said what I said about him. Or you.”

Jonathan remains quiet, not looking at Steve for so long that Steve nearly opens his mouth to continue the apology he’d gone there to make, but Jonathan beats him to the punch again. “It was pretty shitty of you. Honest, but shitty.”

“It wasn’t,” Steve says, and then quickly amends- “Honest, I mean. That’s why- I don’t know, dude. Maybe you knocked some sense into me. I was being a huge dick to you because I couldn’t handle my own problems.”

“King Steve has problems?” Jonathan asks, though it sounds more like a barb than a question.

Steve pulls a hand from his pocket to run it through his hair. “I guess,” he says with a little shake of his head. “I don’t know what it is about Nancy. It’s like… she’s the first person that’s ever looked at me like she just… expects me to be a better person than I am. And the crazy thing is, when she looked at me like that, I wanted to be, I just… I didn’t know how. I either had to climb up to her level or drag her down to mine and when I saw I saw the two of you, I was just… I dunno. Furious.”

“It wasn’t like that,” Jonathan says. It’s not the truth, Steve knows; or at least, it’s not the whole truth.

“It was, but that’s not- that wasn’t it. I thought it was, but it wasn’t,” Steve admits. It feels weird to say it aloud. “I thought I was mad that she… would come down to my level, I guess? After I let myself think… it doesn’t matter. And I was mad at you for… I dunno. Being the reason.”

“Nothing happened, Steve,” Jonathan says, a little hotly.

“That’s not true,” Steve says. “I mean, yeah, okay, you two didn’t screw or whatever, but… something happened. She went to you for help. Not me. Or, y’know, it’s- it’s worse than that. She did come to me, and I was too much of an asshole to help her. I was too worried about my dad’s opinion. He’s not even- It’s stupid. I should have helped her sooner. I was furious at myself for not listening to her. I should have.”

Jonathan doesn’t argue that, and Steve tries again to pull the knife of the realization from his gut, but it doesn’t move. She’d needed help, and he’d walked away, and he’d gotten exactly what he’d deserved for it. He’d gotten off easy, looking back.

“Well, you can’t go back,” Jonathan says, almost as if he’d read Steve’s mind. “None of us can, after this. There's only forward.”

“Yeah,” Steve agrees. He’s going to try to get back to normal, or make a new normal at least. He’s going to make sure they think this is over, and then he’s going to do his level fucking best to forget any of this ever happened.

Almost any of it, anyway. Maybe not the part where he's trying, now.

“I’m sorry,” he says, trips over the words in his rush to make good on his decision. “I meant- I meant to say that, before. It’s why I… came over to your place. I wanted to apologize. Even before the monsters.”

He’d wanted to apologize once the monster had gone, but Nancy had rushed them into the cars and told him to meet them at the school gymnasium, and then they’d been so frantically trying to find where the kids had disappeared to that nothing had even been explained until they finally sat down at the hospital. Steve still isn’t sure he totally understands, but he’s not sure if there’s explanation missing or if it’s the concussion talking.

“I already… told Tommy and Carol off, that bridge burned pretty goddamn quick. I cleaned off the theater sign. I was coming to apologize to you, and then I was going to see Nancy, and apologize to her, too,” he adds, remembering the speech he’d thought about the entire drive out to Jonathan’s house. “I want to do better. I messed up and I don’t know if I can make up for it, but I want to do better.”

“Okay,” Jonathan says. Simple as that.

“Okay?” Steve echoes dumbly.

Jonathan shrugs and pushes away from the wall. “Yeah. You want to do better- okay. But, I’m freezing my ass off out here. Come back inside.”

Jump.

Steve pushes away from the wall, too, and follows him inside.