𝗨𝗚𝗟𝗬 // 𝗦𝘁𝗲𝘃𝗲 𝗛𝗮𝗿𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘁𝗼𝗻

051

"Ruby!" His hands are still on my shoulders, shaking them, but I can feel it better now, really feel it.

As my eyes awake he wraps his arms around around my shoulders and body, pulling me in tighter than he ever has, his teary eyes wet against my shoulder where he leans down to snuggle into me.

"You're alive!" He leans back and takes me in, never blinking.

Before he can say anything else I burst out the words before I overthink them,

"I love you!"

He stares at me for a moment, clearly processing what I've just said.

I start to nervously ramble, "I know it's not a fairy tale moment, we're not shouting in the rain and I'm not outside your house with a boom box but-"

He leans forward faster than lightning, creating sparks as his lips interlock with mine. Bliss fills my veins, a sugary, fuzzy feeling in my heart. Once we part he holds my face in his hands and tips his forehead onto mine,

"I love you." It's almost a whisper, but I hear it, it echoes.

All of the anxiety, every thought that I wouldn't be perfect enough, that it would never be the right time, the fear of speaking what we already knew was true, vanished.

"I'm sorry I didn't say it sooner but I thought.. I thought if I said it out loud you'd realise you didn't feel the same- that it would be too much pressure-" he continues to ramble, "that you'd think it was all just.." his whisper gets even quieter now, barely able to be heard, "bullshit.."

The thought alone makes me laugh,
Steve Harrington was afraid of me rejecting him?

A chuckle escapes my lips, "why on earth would I ever think that?"

His eyes soften with relief, as if a long term fear has just been killed, stabbed through the heart and leaving him the victor.

"Ok lovebirds are you done?" Robins voice breaks us from our romantic trance, shattering between us like lightning as I jump, suddenly aware of my surroundings.

"Sorry- Yes! Coming!"

It wasn't dramatic.
In fact it was oddly simple, but it felt like
everything and more, finally speaking a truth we both knew, putting it out into the world without fear of jinxing it.

Steve Harrington and I loved eachother. We knew that already, but damn does it feel good to say it out loud.

Life is too short not to say something like that, I really know that now.

***

We're standing in Eddie's trailer still, everyone sat around me with anxious eyes as my high is dropped to a sudden depression, remembering everything Vecna showed me.

"He showed me the classic things.. trauma, past.. but then.." flashes of memory enter my head, four gates, horror, torture, Nancy's family?

My eyes drift to find the wheeler girl, "he showed me Hawkins, destroyed, monsters entering into our world.. to our families."

She seems to understand what I'm saying and I notice her eye twitch, she's terrified, but refusing to show it right now.

"There were.. gates? Four of them.."

"Foor chimes." Max speaks up from the corner, arms crossed as she pretends to be nonchalant, "vecnas been telling us his plan this whole time."