I Love You, I'm Sorry // Steve Harrington x Reader

"Steve, what's going on?"

Song - Look After You - The Fray

The next day Nancy, Steve, and I decide to go to the library to study and work. Nancy has to study but Steve just looks over his paper and I read a book.

It's when Nancy gets up to sharpen her pencil that I notice something is wrong with her. She doesn't come back in the usual amount of time so I look over at her and notice her staring off into space. Our table is at a weird angle so I can't see what she is staring at but I know she is looking at something.

"Steve," I whisper and nudge his leg under the table.

"Hm." He hums.

"You should go check on Nancy. I think somethings wrong, look at her." I whisper back and he looks up from the paper and I can see some worry shining through to the surface and he stands up.

I watch as he walks over to her and places his hand on her shoulder before she snaps out of her trance. I notice that a lady who from behind could be mistaken for Barb comes out from behind the shelves and I abandon my book at the table to go talk to her.

We lock ourselves in a small office off to the side of where we were seconds earlier.

"I can't keep doing this." She sighs.

"What?" Steve questions.

"Pretending like everything's okay."

"What are you talking about?"

"Barbara. It's like no one even cares. It's like everyone forgot. Except for her parents, and now they're selling their house."

"Nance-"

"And they're going to spend the rest of their lives looking for her."

"I know."

"It's destroying them!"

"I know. Okay? I get it. But listen, there's nothing we can do about it."

"Yeah, we could tell them the truth!"

"Nancy we all know that we can't do that. 'Sorry guys but your daughter was kidnapped by a eight and a half foot tall monster. The only proof we have is a picture and some scars on y/n's side. Peace out!' no we can't do that." I exclaim.

"Y/n's right you know we can't do that." Steve blinks like he's in shock she would even suggest such a thing.

"We don't have to tell them everything." She sighs.

"This isn't some game Nance. If they found out that we told any..." He pauses and shuts the blinds to the room before coming back to his spot. "They could put us in jail. Okay? Or worse, they could destroy our families." He whispers.

"He's right Nancy we can't just go out and tell people what happened. Do you have any idea how much power they have?" I exasperate.

"They could do anything they want. Okay? Just think about what you're saying."

She does that thing where she gets upset and looks down at her feet and it completely melts Steve and stops him in his tracks.

"Hey... hey, hey, it's hard, but... let's just go to Tina's stupid Halloween 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?"

"Okay."

"Come here." he motions towards her and pulls her in for a hug.

I'm very tempted to hug both of them and say something stupid like "group hug!" But I refrain.