If You’re Lonely In Your Nightmare Let Me In.
How awkward it is now to be climbing through Jonathan Byer’s window in his time of need, like some stray dog that doesn’t know where else to go–keeps following around the poor guy who doesn’t know better than not to feed it.
There’s a faint record spinning and Jonathan’s voice, he’s humming softly to the tune– soft, unguarded. Unaware. For a moment, a kinder notion Steve hesitates, half-in, half-out. He shouldn’t be here. It’s too weird. Too late.
Steve heard a loud clang like something’s been dropped, his back turned as he slithers his left leg through the window.
Jonathan exhales sharply. “Jesus,” he mutters, half rubbing his forehead in ache and half in relief. “I thought you were—” He stops, any fear formed thought dying just as it comes. Then, quieter, uncertain: “I thought you were something else.”
Steve doesn’t ask what something else means. Jonathan looks at him for a long moment, and then—almost begrudgingly—nods him inside. “..I’ve gotta be up early..”
“I’ll be quiet,” Steve says like he’s making a promise he doesn’t believe in. Jonathan doesn’t respond; he just lifts a hand in something that isn’t quite an invitation but Steve follows Jonathan like he doesn’t know what to do with his hands; snakes an arm around him in a quick, awkward embrace. The kind that’s over before it can mean anything.
“Steve,” He starts like he’s testing the name, feeling the shape of it in his mouth. He doesn’t know what to say. Doesn’t know what Steve wants from him. Steve breathes out something that’s almost a laugh but too unkind to reach fruition
“I don’t know why I’m such a—” He stops, shaking his head. “I don’t even know what I am.” He murmurs as he drags his palm against his waterline, rubbing the skin raw and red And Jonathan nips his thumbnail, chews a little because he doesn't want to overstep to ask why Steve is crying, to ask him to share, to want it.
“Hey.” Jonathan coaxes, sitting up slightly, “Just sit down.” Quiet, steady. Steve ignores his pleas, his mouth opens and closes as though he defends and accuses himself in the same thought.
His shoulders are knitted far too tight, a bowstring that someone keeps turning and turning bound to snap. Steve moved without looking first, as though his body had already given up any face of dignity.
It’s graceless, thoughtless, like something inside him, has already caved, a dent curling around the rest of him, bracing for impact.
His legs fold beneath him as he sinks down, forehead pressing into Jonathan’s thigh an arm without any conviction holding his waist, scared to fall. Panicked Jonathan only watched, wasn’t sure if he was hyperventilating or fit to vomit, and then he heard it, couldn’t deny it for the sake of it.
Steve Harrington is crying.
And not quiet, careful crying. Not the kind you can swallow down. A repentance, the scorpion pleading his nature.
Steve Harrington was crying, face buried in Jonathan’s pajama pants. Cigarette holes littered the fabric like the freckles on Steve’s back.
“You’re alright,” Jonathan whispered, the sound just barely breaching the record that continued to spin. He tried so hard to be quiet, not to give away he was scared. Steve trembled beneath him, something like a candle melting without grace. Hot wax pooling at the bottom in unformed clumps waiting for purpose.
“I’m sorry..” It's uncomfortable, crying. Steve doesn't mean to be such a sobbing mess over the newly washed sheets, Jonathan always did the sheets and pillowcases on Fridays. Steve supposed it was weird he remembered things like this but Steve always noticed
even if it was weird.
“You don’t have to—” Jonathan stops, sighs, starts again. “You don’t have to say anything.” It comes out quickly, strained. Crying does not equate abuse. Crying is not Will hiding in the closet. Crying is not the touch of an open palm.
It’s just Steve, muffled in Jonathan’s pajama pants.
Jonathan swallows, teetering. To ask. Not to ask.
Instead, he exhales, lets his fingers drift hesitantly to Steve’s back, a barely-there touch.
“You’re alright,” he says, even though neither of them believe it.
Steve shakes against him, pleading for Jonathan to make something of it. To make him better and new.
“Robin and I are over,” Steve whispers, painfully simple. Steve hugs at Jonathan’s belt loops, closer and closer and it almost hurts, his knees bend against his stomach, the ache of the position against his rib.
Jonathan, unknowing they were anything sighs.
“I’m sorry,” he says finally, voice quiet.
“Me too.” Steve doesn’t ask for what. Jonathan doesn’t say. And in the silence, the record keeps spinning.