Jailbird || Stranger Things

thirty-eight ➵ behind the scenes

June, 1985

     It wasn't often that Steve Harrington found himself seeking the backup of Jonathan Byers, or even Nancy Wheeler anymore, but he had run out of options.

    So making at least one of them sit down for one second it was.

    "Wait, I'm sorry, can you repeat that last bit?"

    Nancy clutched a cup of soda, sat in Scoops Ahoy as Steve let out another groan in annoyance at having to repeat himself.

    "I think I like her."

    Nancy stared back at him, eyebrows furrowed in both confusion and shock. On her rare day off, she'd sacrificed her free time to visit her ex-boyfriend at work, only for him to come out with this?

    What the hell was going on?

    "Look, I can't talk to anyone else about this—"

    "No, no, Steve," she reached forward, lightly touching his hand, "It's not a problem. I'm just confused," she admitted. "What do you mean, you think?"

    "Well, I—" Steve paused, narrowing his eyes as he stared back at her. "What?"

    "Johnathan and I," she shrugged, leaning back in her seat in the booth and taking her hand away from his, "We thought you guys knew from like last November. We for sure thought you'd have at least realised by prom. We saw you the morning after, remember?"

    Steve's eyes widened. He'd totally forgotten.

    It wasn't like Steve and Teresa planned to fall asleep on the couch in the early hours of the morning. After a shared bottle of incredibly expensive, vintage whiskey, Teresa had taken a look at the Harrington collection of tapes, and found a copy of the 1960s Rat Pack classic of Ocean's 11. Steve didn't even need to be persuaded before he put it into the player. After more alcohol, he just accepted they would clean up the rest of the mess later.

    Neither of them knew when exactly they fell asleep, or what exactly happened, but a few things made clear what they got up to while drunk.

   Particularly the fact that Steve's sweater and shirt were found on the back of the armchair, and the way they woke up completely intertwined. Well, until Teresa fell onto the floor from the sudden shock anyway.

    Jonathan and Nancy, holding two cups of coffee each, didn't say anything about it, but both Teresa and Steve could tell they were itching to do so.

    While Steve was completely over Nancy at that point, mostly due to her moving on with Jonathan, as well as for reasons he didn't realise until bout a month later, he didn't know if Teresa even felt the same way. How could he? They never talked about it.

    Although their friendship got much, much closer after that talk.

    "Have you been thinking about this since prom?" Nancy asked, shaking Steve out form his thoughts.

    "Yes!" Steve leaned back in his head, staring at the table and the hat in his hands in confusion still. "We're friends."

    "So?"

    Steve stared back at Nancy, unsure how to proceed. "I don't know how to be friends with a girl I'm into who doesn't know," he replied, trying to work around his situation in a way to not hurt Nancy's feelings.

    In response, the girl shook her head, lifting her cup to drink. The moment allowed her to gather her thoughts.

    She and Teresa had had this conversation a few times. That even though Nancy's feelings towards Steve hadn't been entirely deep—if she could say that—they had dated. It was just one of those things that made Reese feel like she was betraying a friend.