STEVE

THE RAIN POURED FROM ABOVE AS IF SOMEBODY UP THERE WAS WRINGING OUT A TOWEL. They were on the rooftop of a section of Starcourt Mall, peering at what was perhaps a Russian exchange of suspicious substances. Except there was also a chance they were wrong. And a member of their huddle was sick. The mood was overall tense, with all of them scared, but not wanting to admit it.

"I still don't think you should be here," Steve said over his shoulder to Katie, who was also squinting through the downpour. They were all squeezed up against each other, but Steve had put himself closer to her because she was having a chill (no other reason). They were wearing scrunchy rain jackets that made crackling noises every time they moved. "You'll get worse,"

"I disagree on that," she said in response, huddling herself closer to her jacket. Steve rolled her eyes at her stubbornness, though inside he was glad she was here. Like an ice pack. "But I agree on the first part; we all shouldn't be here,"

"Look for Imperial Panda and Kaufman Shoes," Robin said loudly over the pattering of droplets. They really couldn't, since it was literally impossible to see. 

"I'm cold as hell," Katie muttered under her breath, clearly intending it to be only to herself, yet Steve heard her. Sympathy and worry curdled in his chest like a newborn elixir, as he shuffled a length closer and wrapped his arm around her. She looked up at him, grey eyes alight with surprise and warmth. He grinned back down, thriving in the way her full lips gently curled up from that angle. "This is too dangerous,"

Raindrops soaked her face, like sprinkles to a cupcake. Her cheeks and forehead were dotted with acne scars from a range of years ago, little hollows, dents, and bumps scattered over her slightly freckled skin. They were the finishing details to her marble, textures that made her character. They were like the dents on the moon, the different-sized roundish craters on its silver-grey surface, adding a thousand layers to her glow.

"They're with that whistling guy, ten o'clock," Dustin yelled, looking through his binoculars, which he kept getting water onto the lenses with. 

A skinny dude wearing a knee-length rubber raincoat brought a stack of boxes marked with vague logos on a red cart in front of the guys standing guard.

"What do you think's in there?" he asked.

"Chinese food?"

"Guns, bombs?"

"Chemical weapons?"

" Whatever it is, they're armed to the teeth." Dustin said seriously. 

"Great. Just great," Steve said, closing his eyes to swipe at the water clinging to his eyelashes, also because of the startling flash of the beam of lightning. 

"Maybe we should turn back," Katie said from his side. "I don't know...this seems a little above our pay grade,"

"What do you mean?" Robin asked.

"Just that- maybe if this is real Russian stuff, we shouldn't be this close and this involved, we might get hurt," she said.

Out of his slitted eyes, he saw one of the guys open a door with a white card, and the sliding machinery unveiling what looked like a room with shelves, Steve couldn't be sure.

"What's in there?" Katie asked Dustin.

"It's just more boxes," Dustin said back.

"Let me check it out." Steve said, grabbing at the binoculars.

"No, I'm still looking,"

"Lemme see it," Steve pressed. They didn't have much time.

"Hang on!" 

Steve took the binoculars with a swift move, but he hadn't noticed the cord around Dustin's neck. Thus, the stiff elasticity of the cord tugged the binoculars back out of Steve's grip, making them clang loudly against the hollow metal lining. He could hear Katie gasp underneath him, as he called for them to duck. 

They flipped over onto their backs, breathing heavily. Shit. They could be caught by Russians, actual, confirmed-to-be-evil, Russians. He pressed his arm around Katie harder so even the tip of her was indistinguishable as he felt the rise and fall of her chest echoed in her body. Steve held her close and under him as he breathed in panic. It was only when the initial first two seconds of adrenaline had passed that he realized they were holding hands. It didn't feel as special, obviously, since they were scared and their hands were both soaked with rainwater, but Steve felt the coolness of Katie's palm against his own fiery panicky one. Their fingers grabbed onto each other like how he held his bat, and he could see the whites around her knuckles. Katie mumbled an incoherent little noise in shock as she quickly unraveled her hand from his, returning him to his firestorm once more.

"Come on," Robin mouthed from his side, as the four of them began to crawl on their knees towards the rooftop exit.

"You should get a warm compress- no, a cold compress. And maybe take a shower, snuggle up against the fireplace," Steve ranted.

Katie was sitting in shotgun, as always, and they were parked in front of her house. Her hair was still wet from the rain, though she'd scrubbed her scalp dry. Her mascara had run, leaving a few clumps of black among bare lashes, and a few hair ties had fallen out. Compared to Steve, with his hands, the skin crinkled due to the cold water, a ruined mullet, and squelching socks, they looked extremely dead inside.

"Steve, it's literally summer," she said blankly. "And you must be cold, too. Wait!" she suddenly leaned up next to him, placing both hands on his arm. He felt the electric shock he always did, his eyes going wide. "It's not late at all. You should come in for dinner!"

"Uh, no, I don't wanna impose on anybody- it's, like, nine-"

"No, no, we've been eating dinner late every day! I mean, I've got Jazzercise, Nancy's got the Post, and Mike and Holly basically spend the entire day at other peoples' houses until Mom yells for them to come back," she said, the words flying out of her mouth in reminiscence of Robin.

"I still don't-"

"Oh, come on. It's not that serious, and you've been in my house before," she laughed.

Steve swallowed. But never like this. Not with Katie Wheeler. His ice pack, his angel, his Ladybird, his moon.

"You look like you need a hot meal, not cold pizza," she said seriously, and Steve shook his head with a smile at the jab at his daily dinner. "Come on,"

"Okay, okay," he grinned, and Katie beamed back before unbuckling her seat belt. He exited his car, closing the door gently. He walked around the front of the BMW, to where Katie was. To his dismay, she'd already gotten out and closed the door by herself. He met her in front of his passenger seat door, facing the door of the Wheeler's.

"The rain stopped," Katie whispered to him, the sudden drop in octave, paired with the rasp of a hushed word sending chills down Steve's spine, the kind that shocked every nerve and charged it up, threatening to explode in a dazzling fireworks display. 

"Yeah," he murmured back, feeling his words fade into the gravity of her gray irises.

"Let's go," she whispered then, looking at her feet. "It's cold out here,"

She used her left hand to tug a curl behind her hair, the black leather of her fingerless glove crinkled and scratched due to its daily use. Steve frowned as she soon stuck that hand back inside her pockets. He'd seen her scar multiple times, yet as he watched her eyes twitch slightly in its direction before hiding it firmly, he knew she had not accepted it the same as everyone else did. And the pyre inside Steve's chest roared with a cloud of sparks at the thought.

She opened the front door, and Steve was hit once more with the familiar smell of wood, scratched leather, and perfumed carpet that he'd been exposed to so many times before when he'd go into the house for dinner with Nancy. But the last time he'd been here was months ago, back when he was holding onto hope for a girl who was doing the same for him. Nancy had been good to him, and he liked to think he had been as well. Yet, she had done nothing to sedate the pyre growing in his heart, ablaze with hurt and loneliness. She had not been able to temper the fire as Katie had. He'd said it before, and he'd say it again. The fire left his soul in pieces, smoke and spark curling upwards into the moonlight. And over his ashes, she scattered the salt that would return him to sanity. Yet he never would, and the salt that seeped over the flames would only hiss at the wounds underneath. But it felt good, so, so good, to have her white arms and grey eyes embrace his charred embers. And as he stepped his first foot onto the boards of oak, he smiled slightly, ready to throw himself into her snow.

"Kathryn?" Katie's mother asked from the kitchen. "You're home late,"

"It's on me, Mrs. Wheeler," Steve came in with a grin. "Hi,"

"Hello, Steve," Mrs. Wheeler smiled at the duo. "Have you had dinner yet, you two?"

"No," Katie pulled her lips into a guilty smile. "We'll whip up something for us,"

"Okay. And Mike's coming home from Lucas's in half an hour, so a little something for him as well?"

"Sure," Katie responded, hanging her and Steve's raincoats on a rack by the door. Mrs. Wheeler smiled again before taking a mug and walking up the stairs. "Are you hungry?"

"A bit- I mean, if you are," he said, shoving his hands in the pockets of his jeans.

"Does macaroni and cheese sound good?" she opened the Wheeler's yellow refrigerator. "We have all the ingredients,"

"Sure," Steve shrugged one arm. "I can help prep,"

"Okay," Katie hummed, taking a container of elbow pasta out from a cupboard. She reached down and opened a door of another cabinet, revealing several woks, pans, and pots stacked together in a precarious tower. "Let me just-" she tried, "-Oh, I got it," Steve said, reaching for the smaller pot. He grabbed the handle and lifted the frying pan above it in an attempt to yank it out. "Shit-" the pan slid to the side, almost squashing his fingers. "Oh-" Katie held the pans underneath in place as they both tried to wrench the thing in opposite directions. Steve swore, and had to kneel down to move a lid of a pot. They got it out; a small, silver pot that smelled like pasta water.

"Finally," Steve muttered.

"Ninja, right?" Katie teased, both eyebrows up in mocking. 

"Shut up," Steve rolled his eyes, but secretly savoring the playing smile painted on her features.

"Don't sweat it," Katie hoisted the pot upwards and into the sink, filling it with water. "I've broken my right arm, like, three times,"

"I remember that," Steve turned on the stove. "Didn't you break it all the way up to your collarbone?"

"Yep," she grimaced. "Hockey. I got the injured badge of attention when I got back to school, though,"

"Hm," Steve leaned against a counter. "Did that make you happy?"

"God, no," She laughed. "Y'know, the only reason why I was so mean was because people wouldn't leave me alone in my miserable virgin kiddie pool,"

Steve tilted his head in surprise. Most girls wouldn't just toss out the fact of their virginity just like that. "That must've sucked. Having other people talk about your sex life in that way,"

"I guess. Like I said before; I wasn't into having...y'know. That, in Hawkins High language, means bitch," she poured the elbow pasta into the pot, making a shhh sound as it hit the bubbling water.

"Never had a guy you liked?" Steve grinned.

"I did, actually," she smiled as she murmured. "I had lots of guys I liked. Obviously they wouldn't ever date Ice Wheels, but I wanted them to. It was just sex, mostly, that they wanted. And I didn't like that,"

"Oh? Care to elaborate?" Steve passed her a wooden spoon to stir the noodles with. "Of course, if you don't mind,"

"There isn't much else, really. And I don't mind," the pot made hissing noises as the pasta was stirred. "Like, for as long as I remember, my older cousins would all talk about their boyfriends, and whatever, and I was into that. But when I found out what it was really about, I wasn't, well, fascinated the same way as everybody else. And-" she dried her hands on a tea towel. "-as I got older, like in freshman year, everyone was comparing themselves, literally fighting over who or how to be the best at it. It's so...messed up. And when I think about it now, I'm just...weirded out. Disgusted,"

"Oh," Steve frowned. He thought every girl, whether or not they were a virgin or not, at least wanted to sleep with a dude. At least once.

"I still feel stupid sometimes about thinking like that. Actually, I told Nancy about this once, two two years ago," she looked over her shoulder at him leaning against her oven. "And, well, she laughed in my face," she laughed her own at that. "And I didn't really blame her, I know I sound insane right now-"

"-No, no, you don't. I mean, I think it's a little fuzzy, but nobody's crazy in this room," he said, and Katie smiled gratefully at that, though he could still read a little doubt on her face.

"Guess we're polar opposites on that discussion," she said. She strained the cooked pasta, reaching for spices.

"I got the cheese," Steve told her as he took out a block of cheese. "Guess you're right. Kinda going in the other direction here, too. I mean, before junior year, I dunno, I just had this, like, inside need for it. It sounds so weird to say it out loud, but I didn't realize it then- that I just wanted somebody to be close to me. That's it," 

"I get that," Katie said. "Having a relationship, being, y'know, romantic, and not just revolving around sex,"

"Yeah. You spelled it out," Steve chuckled. "Here, I got it,"

He proceeded to try and grate the cheese against the shredder, the same way he'd seen Katie do it. Except he didn't press hard enough, and his hand thudded to the counter. Katie giggled at it. 

"You sure about that, Steve?"

"Shh," he muttered. He then pressed too hard, causing imperfect slices to shred off, leaving the bottom all rough.

"Here, lemme help you," Katie laughed, and to his shock and delight, she placed her hand over his, moving it up and down to shred the cheese. Her palm lay against the back of his own hand, and he could feel faint scars and blisters on her skin. Otherwise, her skin was buttery soft. She clearly took care of it, yet it was like the multiple healed cuts on the flesh were inevitable. Under her gentle grip, they resulted in a two-inch pile tall stack of cheese curls. "Like that,"

"Got it," Steve said, trying to tug his focus away from how her hand on his was like a giant fire blanket, smothering his inner storm in its coolness and not letting a single wisp of smoke touch his tender skin outside. 

Just go up to Kat, one time, and ask her out.

Katie cupped the cheese flakes in her hands and sprinkled them over the cooked pasta, adding a splash of cream in as well. The mixture looked extremely hard to stir, but that was expected with the thickness of Mac N Cheese.

"Do you mind going through that for a bag of breadcrumbs?" she pointed with the tip of her chin at an upper cabinet, trying to stir the mixture with a spoon successfully.

"Sure," he mumbled, admiring the way a few curls that had fallen from her hair tie fell in front of her face as she stirred, framing the sides of her skin like drapes on a curtain.

He got the plastic bag she mentioned, and shook a thick layer of crispy, salty breadcrumbs over the glass dish. They tossed it into the oven, both of them having forgotten to preheat.

"When'd you learn how to cook?" he asked, turning on the tap so she could wash the pasta pot and spatula.

"When I was three. I mean, I was washing vegetables and planting tomatoes when I was younger than that, but I was making salads at three and using frying pans at four,"

"Damn, that's pretty young,"

"I know, right?" Katie laughed, holding out her arm to him. One side of it was tanned, kissed by sunshine, and the other side of her arm was starkly pale as a contrast. And etched into the pale flesh were a series of scars, no larger than freckles individually, but they were clumped together in a pink-and-brown cluster. The skin covering them was flimsy and abnormally translucent, like someone draped plastic wrap over a patch of flesh and proceeded to blowtorch it into her. 

He let out a low whistle. "Wow. That looks nasty,"

"Yep. Hot oil, back when I tried deep-frying for the first time," she shook her head, finishing scrubbing the bowl and stacking it on the drying rack. "Can you cook?"

"No- my, um, nanny made most of the meals," he scratched the back of his head, thinking of his childhood. After his Dad left, his mother busied herself mostly with work or wine, and most of his caretaking fell to his nanny slash live-in maid.

"Nice. How was that?" she asked, leaning against the sink to match him. 

Their postures aligned as they both looked at each other. It was almost like a cooling sensation, like a mist mixing between a flaming desert and snowing tundra. Steve felt the instinct to turn back, to break his gaze from hers just like all the intense situations he'd been in before, but the gravity of her twin moons set his mind and soul back inside his ribs, where normally he would have a cloud of dust and smoke to greet him. Yet the other party of her enchantment was soothing his flames, as for once, he was able to curl up in his little cave of loneliness with Katie next to him, calming his burn wounds with only her touch.

"Uh-" it was hard to focus. "-It was good. Her name was Miss Maude. Except- yeah, I called her Miss, and then her first name. It was weird, and I was a kid. Mom would drive me to school, but Maude would pick me up, and take me to the roller rink- wait, you asked me about eating, sorry, I got distracted-"

"Oh, no, it's totally fine! You were talking about the roller rink?" she said, and Steve relaxed his shoulders in relief.

"Uh, yeah. I was...where was I- right. She'd take me wherever I wanted to go, but we'd always come back before five-thirty, so she could prep dinner. And I would do my homework in the kitchen to watch her cut up all the veggies and fry them. And then we'd eat, and my mom would come home for an hour before going up to her room. And then me and Miss Maude would work on my homework- the questions I had trouble with. And then, all of a sudden, it'd be almost ten o'clock, and she'd go 'Dear, Steven!' and she'd tuck me into bed with the stuffed animals Mom bought, and she'd read me psalms or we'd pray together before sleep- I dunno whether she was actually Jewish or not, but it was nice. And- yeah, that was pretty much it,"

He finished in a flurry, like the pull of her eyes was enough to yank out such a story in a matter of seconds.

"That...sounds fun," Katie smiled empathetically. "She sounds amazing,"

"Yeah, she was," Steve grinned. "She was with us for ten years. Then, right before my bar mitzvah, she just...stopped coming. Y'know, Mom told me since I was getting old enough I didn't need her anymore. But, I dunno. I cried for two weeks after that,"

Steve felt something tighten inside him, like a red string threatening to break into threads, as he slowly felt himself spiral undone under her pulled strings, like a puppet singing songs with every mimiced gesture. Except Steve gladly played the puppet, his heart yearned, ached, to be the object of her gaze.

"Oh, I'm sorry," she drew her lips together in a frown. "That must've hit hard,"

"It did," His right hand started fiddling with his watch, a habit his Dad had told him to quit a few weeks ago, but he knew around Kathryn Wheeler, he was safe to be him. "So, uh, I don't know how to cook,"

She blinked, as if the conversation had never turned heavy after all. "Oh. Well, I can teach you, if you'd like,"

Just go up to Kat, one time, and ask her out.

"Sure. I'd love that," he said, his heart beginning to skip a few beats at a time as he recalled Dustin's words. He stopped balancing his weight on the counter, standing up fully and clearing his throat, though he had no significant reason to. Katie's eyes widened, as he looked down at her figure, hands in front of him as if he was holding an invisible stuffed animal.

"Steve?" she asked.

It was like one of those pictures in his mom's magazines. A couple on a picnic blanket, sitting on a sandy beach at nighttime, looking up at the moon, a small bonfire in front of them. Steve was the flame, secured in its place and blaze by the glow of the silver sphere above. And though Steve stood over her now, he knew that with one flick of a wrist, she had the power, the utter control over him to destroy all he knew and loved. Except all he knew was her.

"God, I can't keep doing this, Katie," he said, looking at her pleadingly and leaning forwards and down.

"What'd you mean?" she said, hushed as she looked him up and down in an expression Steve discerned faster than a bat of her eyelashes. She was nervous, but not overwhelmed. Excited, but cautious. Years of anger, responsibility, had beaten her down to survival. It did not matter whether her soul shone, whether her heart beat, whether her mind had the ability to fill the people around her with a million constellations, only that the air would filter in and out of her lungs like a poorly coded machine. 

Except, Steve saw her. He saw her pick up pieces of her heart with bloodied hands and place them back in her shattered ribcage. Saw her get her own needle and thread and stich herself back together, all for her eyes to sparkle for something, someone that he could only long to be him. 

And he had to hear her say it. Whether she had chosen to wrap him in her ice to sooth his burns, not caring if he left her with scorch marks over her delicate, glass-like skin.

"I'm- fuck, I didn't practice this," he swore, running a hand through his hair. "I can't- we can't keep doing this. Whatever-" he pointed between them back and forth. "This is. I don't, I mean," He took a deep breath, trying and failing to calm his heart. He shut his eyes tight for a moment, before opening them again so he could look at her with clarity. "I just gotta know,"

"Steve?" Katie stood up herself, adding a few inches to her height as she straightened her spine. Her voice dropped an octave, taking on the seriousness of the conversation. "Know what?"

They were standing barely a foot apart now, the gap of air between them like a rushing river seperating two worlds of ice and fire. Her lips had pursed out the words, a whisper of the breeze from the brook. And if Steve reached out, to comb his hands through the water, he could feel the coolness of her skin. But Steve wasn't going to do that, not yet.

"Know- I have to know what what this is. What we-" his eyes widened desperately. "-Are. If you plan on doing this for a while, or anything else. Because-"

His heart tightened for a moment, in fear of failure, fear of losing. Whatever wicked game he'd made himself play with everybody around them. Miss Maude. Nancy. Tommy and Carol, sorta. And even, fuck it, his parents. He had to do this right this time, pass the test with an A+, or else. He was trapped on a Ferris Wheel, and this time, it was Kathryn Wheeler that he reached for with every loop. He had to conquer them based off their characteristics, their softness, stubbornness, unravelled history. And he knew it was wrong, to think of them all as some kind of test, and as he looked back up, her irises only affirmed it. She was not some kind of game to win, and they both knew it. 

No, Katie was different. She'd always been different. Angelic. Electric.

"-I can't lose you like the others," he finished in a ragged breath.

"I-" she stuttered, and for a moment Steve thought he failed. That he accidentally took two steps off a cliffside instead of one. But Steve was foolish to think that her gravity would not hold him steady. "You won't lose me. I mean-" she took a breath, as if prepping for a confession herself. "I've got my problems, but you've never been one of them. Ever,"

"Really?" the question was murmured in nothing more than a rustle of a leaf, a small crunch in a sunlit forest. And Steve could almost feel himself lift off the ground, caught in moonlight and slowly rising up to the heavens. 

"Y-Yeah. Steve, you've- helped me, a lot. And I'd never do anything, or- throw any of it away," she said, eyes rounded like a vision on a beach of a dark sun.

"But I can't-" he tried to force the words out like tea leaves in his throat. "You can't just say that. Everyone says that,"

"Steve-"

"Just- can you promise me? That you'll never go away?" he said, pleading for the bare minimum, as he watched her eyes round in compassion, himself reduced to a mere corpse and barely beating heart. 

And in that moment, as he trembled under the fear of it slipping behind his gaze. He'd never been so immersed in it until he felt he was on the verge of losing. Looking at his racing heart, quickened breath, he'd never understood what love was until he realized how scared he was if he was to lose it.

"Of course. I promise," she said earnestly, and placed her hand over his heart. Her left hand, the one that was covered by her glove, seperated him by two layers of cloth. Yet he could lean all of himself against her touch, as it seemed to burst into a cloud of fireworks, flying up at thousand miles per hour. He took an intake of breath, as a few of of his burn marks healed into flesh, as if he was curling up inside an igloo. He resisted the urge to close his eyes, to relish in the moment of contact, the touch he craved so bad. And the smile that was written on Katie's face was enough to heal the marks written over his body in black-hot ink.

"Okay," he whispered, and barely heard himself say it.

"I'm here to pull you up, remember?" she asked softly, and Steve smiled at the memory, placing his own hand over hers.

The material of the leather was rough, and harsh to the touch, yet her exposed fingers were soft, and seemed to weave the two back together, like two worlds with a scar between them. And they stayed like that until Mike busted through the door a few minutes later, dripping wet.

━━author's note ━━

MY HEART IS GOING BADABADABABA RN AWWE also 4000 words?? what

also also, steve's never come into contact with the concept of asexuality before, so he's going to take some time to fully understand it. he's going to get it eventually, but it's an entirely new idea that goes off most of his knowledge of girls and sex, so he's gonna need a minute to process. and it's important to know he'd never hold it against kat, he's just learning 😄