S O F T C O R E // Steve Harrington X Reader // Stranger Things

10. Trick or Treat, Freak

It was that day of the year again. It was Halloween. That only meant it was the day of the party. This morning Hunter was getting ready in his ghost busters outfit. "Y/n, can you take pictures for me." He said to me and gave me a Polaroid camera. I took him from him.

"Of course you dork, now up against the wall." I said to him and he laughed at me.

"I'll let that slide this time." He said to me and he stood up against the wall and started doing poses as I took his picture. Once I got to school Steve and I were doing studying together when my pencil broke. I then went to go and sharpen it. I was just thinking back to going to dinner with Barb's parents.

"Y/n. What's going on? Are you okay?" Steve asked me and I snapped out of my thoughts. I took his hand.

"We need to talk." I said to him before pulling him into a room. "I can't keep up with this whole act." I said to him and he looked at me.

"What act?" He asked me worriedly.

"Pretending like everything's okay and that nothing happened." I said to him and he grew worried I could tell.

"What are you talking about?" He asked me and I didn't know how to even say it.

"Barbara. That whole night and it seems like no one even cares anymore. Only her parents do. And now they're making themselves live in what hotels because their selling up their house." I said to him and he grabbed my hand and I didn't know what to even say anymore.

"Y/n- -" He started and I looked at him.

"But they're going to dedicate the rest of their lives trying to find her when we're the ones with the answers." I said to him and I was just speaking all of my truth. I wanted to come clean.

"I know." He said to me.

"Its destroying them and I want to help." I said to him, I wanted to help by telling them the truth.

"I know. Okay? I get it. But listen, there's nothing we can do about it." He said to me and I looked around and shook my head.

"What if we do tell the truth." I said to him and he looked at me like I was crazy.

"Well, you know that we can't do that." Steve said to me and I looked at him, why couldn't we.

"We wouldn't have to say everything just a little bit." I said to him, I just didn't want them to spend all their money going into a dead end.

"This isn't some game, Y/n. If they sound out that we told any..." Steve started before pulling the blinds down. "They could put us in jail. Okay? Or worse, they could destroy our families. They could do anything they want. Okay? Just think about what you're saying." Steve said and I looked down. He was right. Well and truly right. "Hey...hey, hey...Hey, it's...It's hard, but let's...let's just go to Tina's stupid party...wear our stupid costumes that we've been working on for a stupid amount of time, and just pretend like we're stupid teenagers, okay? Can we just do that, just for tonight?" He said to me and I looked up at him.

"Okay, but we don't need to pretend to be stupid." I said to him and he smiled at me.

"Come here." He said to me and held me in his embrace. Where it was safe. "Try not to drink a lot at the party, the last time you were drink it didn't work out okay." He said to me and I thought back to the last party Steve and I went to. I was stumbling around everywhere and having my own little party.

"But I like having a one person party." I told him and he looked at me and shook his head.

"But it's not good getting in that state." He said to me and I sighed and looked up at him.