Reminiscing (Stranger Things, Steve)

[Justforawhile]

Hi there, first time posting a fic. I've written millions, but thought I would share some Steve Harrington-- we can never get enough. This is post season two, so relationship spoilers involved. Rated PG for Steve's favorite swear word and a little kissing/innuendo. The fic jumps between present-day Steve and flashbacks to, let's say around 7 months before? Maybe more, maybe less, up to you. Please please give feedback, I know I didn't include spellings, maybe in the future if I'm brave. Enjoy

 

    Steve rolled over to his other side and closed his eyes again. After trying for about ten seconds, he knew there was no hope of falling back asleep. He lifted his head and looked at the clock on his desk. 11:27. He had slept through half of the school day. Groaning, he sat up slowly and willed himself to push the covers off. He noticed a sticky note on his desk next to his alarm clock that said “Called you in-- Mom,” and he immediately and thankfully pulled the covers back over himself. He had been feeling under the weather for the past couple days and, at the moment, his head was throbbing with congestion. Wondering if there was any decongestant left in the medicine cabinet, Steve draped his blanket around his shoulders and pulled on some socks before shuffling down the hall to the bathroom.

    He opened the cabinet to a few bottles of prescription medications, a razor, some painkillers, and half a bottle of cough syrup. The last time he was sick, Nancy had taken care of him. Her mother always had a large stock of over the counter meds on account of her three young children.

 

    “Here, take this,” Nancy said as she handed Steve a small bottle with a nozzle on the top.

    “What the hell do I do with this?” he asked, eyeing the product.

    “You spray it up your nose,” Nancy replied. “Here,” she said as she took the bottle back from him and placed the tip gently inside his swollen red nostril. “Sniff in when I say go, and try not to flinch.”

    Steve looked very doubtful that this would go well, but obliged with a precarious, “Alright.”

    “Okay. One, two,” Nancy counted as she held the decongestant to the side of her boyfriend’s nostril, “three-- go.” On go, she pulled down on the nozzle and the sudden mist made Steve jump backward.

    He started coughing and swearing. Nancy tried to stifle a laugh as Steve tried to stifle a sneeze, making his eyes water. “What the hell was that?”

    “That’s what it does!” Nancy explained through her giggles, which at this point, she couldn’t contain. “I told you not to flinch!”

    Steve rubbed his nose furiously with the side of his hand. “You could have at least told me what it would do, Jesus, Nance.” He gave a mighty sniff and immediately went back into a position where she could get the other side of his nose. “Alright, hit me again.”

    Nancy laughed again. “Are you sure you’re okay with that?”

    Steve held up a finger, a lingering look of confusion on his face. Nancy waited for him to reply, but after no change came from Steve, she raised her eyebrows at him. He inhaled sharply and his eyes closed. Realizing he was about to sneeze, Nancy grabbed a tissue from the box over the toilet and thrust it into her boyfriend’s hand. He blindly grabbed the tissue and slowly raised it to cover his nose and mouth. After being stuck for another five seconds with his nostrils flaring helplessly, he inhaled again and sneezed into the tissue, loudly and with a noise that made Nancy cringe. He winced as well, and succinctly blew his nose into the tissue before crumpling it and throwing it in the trash. He coughed into a fist and got back into a squatting position with his hands on his thighs. “Okay. Hit me again.”

    Nancy chuckled and said, “Bless you, you moron. Alright, brace yourself.”

 

    Steve closed the medicine cabinet. He caught a glimpse of his pallid complexion and steadily reddening nose, and coughed harshly into his elbow. He felt feeble. He usually had some reason to keep his strength up-- so Nancy wouldn’t worry about him too much. Without her around to be his motivation, his body was tired and weak, and he didn’t really have much of an appetite. He didn’t even have the motivation to do his hair. Sighing, Steve knew his only option to relieve his stuffed sinuses was to resign to getting a glass of water.

The rundown teen slumped down the stairs, careful not to trip over the blanket trailing behind him, and went to the kitchen sink. He pulled a glass from the cabinet, filled it, and promptly downed the whole thing. After pausing for a while to let the water work its way into his system, he refilled the glass and took another couple sips before moving to the couch.

Steve grabbed the remote and turned on the television. Not much was on during the day but he knew The Price is Right would be a good place to start, so he flipped through channels until he found it.

 

“I got Risky Business from the video store,” Nancy said as she sat down on the couch next to Steve and placed a bowl of popcorn between them.

“You really didn’t have to do that, Nance,” Steve said, but he couldn’t hide his wide grin. He had been waiting to show Nancy this movie ever since he saw it in the theater with his pals. It was kind of a dude movie, but it was epic. An instant classic-- there was no way she wouldn’t love it.

Nancy smiled. “I know,” she said, “but you never shut up about it and you deserve some kind of treat while you’re feeling miserable.”

Steve took a tissue off of the coffee table and blew his nose. Before he could stuff it inconspicuously into his pocket, Nancy took the used tissue and got up to throw it away. “Oh, Nancy, really, I can do that myself. I don’t want you to feel like you have to--”

She came back into the room with a trash can and placed it in front of her boyfriend. “There. Now neither of us have to get up, and you don’t have to stuff them in your pockets like a pack rat.”

Nancy nudged Steve in the arm and settled in under the covers with him, putting the bowl of popcorn in his lap. She grabbed the remote and started the movie. Not more than a minute into the VHS, Steve lurched forward with a desperate sneeze that caught him off guard, launching the popcorn on his lap all over the sitting room.

“Oh shit, Nancy, I’m so sorry, I’ll-- what?” Steve tried to apologize, but noticed his girlfriend was laughing breathlessly, clutching at her sides. “What? Oh, you think this is funny? Laugh at the guy that’s sick and got popcorn all over his girlfriend’s house, sure, how compassionate. I suppose you’re not gonna help clean this up?”

Nancy only laughed harder, and even Steve couldn’t hold back his laughter enough to keep up the act. Soon, they were rolling around in fits, and neither of the couple could breathe. Unfortunately for Steve, that meant a coughing fit to follow.

When his spasms died down, Nancy helped him settle back onto the couch and put his head in her lap. She covered him with the blanket and started running her hands through his hair.

“Careful, this took hours,” Steve mumbled jokingly, as he let himself drift into the peaceful trance that Nancy usually put him in when she played with his hair. He didn’t make it twenty minutes into the movie before drifting off.

 

The studio audience cheered as Steve’s glazed eyes wandered from the television to the pile of tissues on the floor at the foot of the couch. He would have to clean those up later. He grabbed a tissue from the box in front of him and blew his raw nose, finishing by dropping the tissue onto the growing pile. Disgusting. He took another sip of water and ran a hand through his untidy hair.

The telephone rang. Groaning, Steve got off of the couch and made his way into the kitchen where the phone was.

 

“Hello?” Steve tried to quiet a cough.

“Steve?”

“Nancy! Hey… where are you?”

“I’m outside the school, lunch just started… You’re not here.”

Steve gathered himself for a moment, completely flattered that Nancy would call him in the middle of the day to check up on him. “Yeah, no, I’m at home. Not feeling too hot.”

“Still?”

“Yeah, it really only got worse since yesterday,” Steve replied regretfully. As if to prove his point, he held the receiver to his chest to muffle the sound and coughed again, painfully this time. “How’s school today?” he tried to ask nonchalantly to change the subject.

“I’m coming over as soon as chemistry ends. Are you alone?”

“No, my mahh…” Steve’s voice faltered as he prepared for another sneeze. He really didn’t want Nancy worrying too much, or hanging around him too much and getting his cold, so he tried his best to force the sneeze back down out of his nasal cavity. His attempts got him virtually nowhere, because a violent sneeze escaped him followed immediately by another, just as forceful as the one before.

“Bless you.”

Steve rolled his eyes at himself. “Thank you,” he replied, and sniffled, giving into his own vulnerability. “What was I… Oh right, yeah, my mom’s off work today at six so I won’t be alone.”

“Steve, that’s not what I asked. I don’t want you to have to sit around sick, waiting for your mom to come take care of you.”

“I don’t need anyone to take care of me, I’m seventeen years old.” Steve wiped his nose on his sleeve. “Besides, don’t you have that algebra assignment to do?”

“You can help me with it. Come on, Steve.”

He paused, thinking it over. If she really wanted to see him that badly, he might as well just give in. “Yeah, okay, come on over. After school, alright? I don’t want you missing classes just because I have the sniffles.” Besides-- he wanted to see her just as badly as she wanted to see him.

 

“Steve?”

Mrs. Byers was on the other line. What on earth she was doing calling his house in the middle of a work day, he had no idea. “Mrs. Byers?”

“Hi, honey. I’m calling because Jonathan said you mentioned feeling a little under the weather in gym class yesterday? I’m so sorry to hear that. I just want you to know that if you’re not up to it, I can get someone else to watch the boys tonight.”

Steve felt a little strange knowing that Jonathan had bothered to mention how he was feeling to his mother, but he assumed he was just being over-protective of Will. The kid had been through a lot in the past few months, so it was no wonder his older brother was a little cautious.

“Um, yeah, I’ve got a small cold but it’s really no trouble for-”

“Oh, no no no, I don’t want you up and running around after a bunch of kids if you’re not feeling well.”

“Really, Mrs. Byers, it’s nothing, it’s just-”

“I can get someone else. Don’t worry about it, Steve. Just sit back, stay at home, put on a movie, it’ll be much better for you. Take it easy, get some rest, okay?”

Steve closed his eyes. As much as the little shits drove him up the wall, at least they were company. Maybe he would work on some of his college applications later instead. “Yeah. Yeah, no problem. Thanks, Mrs. Byers.”

“Okay, talk to you soon, honey. Bye.”

“Bye.” Steve hung up the phone. Well, he thought, he might as well do what she had suggested.

He dragged his feet back over to the couch and turned the TV off. There weren’t any movies he really wanted to watch at the moment, so he put his feet up and laid down.

 

“Is that better?”

“Mmm, yeah, that’s good.” Steve sunk further into the couch as Nancy massaged his arches over his thick socks. He had to encourage her to be a little less gentle, but her hands were surprisingly strong when she wanted them to be. “Maybe after this we can…”

Nancy raised her eyebrows but continued her work. “Maybe we can what, Steve Harrington?”

He grinned, contemplating his next move. “Well I was gonna say maybe after this we can switch and I can rub your feet instead, but it seems like you’ve got something else on your mind.”

Nancy gave him a cross between a laugh and a scoff and tossed her hair back. “You’re the one getting ideas, here. You’re sick, remember?”

“So? Does that mean I can’t give you a foot massage?” Steve propped himself up on his elbows.

The younger teen narrowed her eyes at him. “Don’t think I don’t know what you’re asking for, here. We can do that when you get better, okay? You need to relax.”

“And what better way than--”

A pillow to the face cut off the rest of Steve’s sentence, and he felt his girlfriend tackle him back into a laying-down position. He moved the pillow out of the way and saw Nancy’s face hovering over his. He brushed her hair behind her ear. “I love you, Nancy.”

Nancy’s smile softened. “I love you too, Steve.”

The couple laid still, looking into each other’s eyes. ‘Nancy kissed him softly on the lips. “Wait,” he said, shifting his head away, “I’m probably still contagious. I mean, you saw me yesterday.”

She shrugged. “That was yesterday. And besides-- I wouldn’t be able to help myself anyway.”

Steve grinned and kissed his girlfriend.

 

Coughing still as harshly as before, Steve turned onto his other side and curled himself up under the blanket he had carried down from his bed. After a shiver wracked his body, he looked around for another blanket lying on the couch. He saw one over in the second sitting room and contemplated for a while whether it was worth getting up. When he stood he could feel a lot of pressure in his sinuses, but he knew it wouldn’t be able to get to sleep without it.

Steve swore to himself that this was the last time he was getting up today and went to fetch the blanket. He tried to shove another memory of Nancy away, but it was like a sneeze; Steve had never been good at holding them back.

 

The thick knitted blanket fell on top of the gray fleece one. With his eyes closed, he mumbled “Thanks,” and pulled both layers closer to his chest.

“Open,” he heard Nancy say, and he did as instructed. A thermometer slid into his mouth and he closed his lips around it. “Under the tongue.”

“Mmknow how it worksh,” he replied out of the corner of his mouth.

Nancy crouched down beside him, bringing them face to face. “I know you do, I’m just reminding you. To make sure it’s accurate.”

“Nansh, you don’ haph to worry abou’ me,” Steve tried to protest, but his voice was feeble and he was nearly asleep.

“Shh,” his girlfriend soothed. She reached out to smooth his hair out of his face. “Only a couple minutes. Just sit tight.” She continued to run her fingers through his hair, waiting for his temperature to read. She checked her watch after two minutes, and gently removed the thermometer from Steve’s mouth.

“What’s it say?”

“99.6.” Nancy stood up. “Not too high, but not very low either. Do you want to me to stay? Your mom should be home in about an hour.”

All Steve could do at this point was give a soft moan. He felt Nancy kiss him on the forehead, and gave into the wave of sleep that had been waiting.

He could only assume that she had left at that point, because when he woke up, she was gone and his mother was heating up dinner.

 

Steve felt his own forehead with the palm of his hand, then with the back-- trying to feel at least something-- but shivered and gave up. He sat back down on the couch again, second blanket in hand, and wrapped himself in both. He sneezed again and sniffled. He tried his best to edge the second one away, but it came anyway. After another more explosive sneeze, Steve grabbed a tissue, used it up, and threw it towards the pile in front of the couch.

He had somehow forgotten about the pile of trash until now. He knew he had to clean it up at some point, but he had made a promise to himself not to get up again that day. Steve curled up again under his blankets and waited for sleep to wash over him.

 

 

End of part one?? Let me know where you want it to go. I'm thinking visitors, but who should it be? Nancy? Dustin? Both? I'm not a Steve/Jonathan fan, but who knows? Also let me know if I screwed up the spacing at all, I copied and pasted and it got all weird :/ lol. Thanks for reading!! Please comment!!

 

[beau34]

I loved the Steve/Nancy interactions! Please continue, maybe possibly Nancy could catch it and some caretaking from Steve? Just an idea, love this!

[JQLovesSneezes]

I can never get enough of this boy. <3 I love this first part, Justforawhile! I think the flashbacks and present happening together works well (and pulls on my heartstrings). I think it would be really fun to have both Nancy and Dustin show up at some point, it could give you some opportunities for some funny stuff to happen.  And they're both awesome... so... xD

And I think your spacing is fine! Even if it's not what you intended, it didn't make reading it difficult or anything. 

[Sneesee]

Love this!!! Yay for a Steve fic! So well written, and I think the flashbacks are so perfect!!! Thank you for writing this! And more, please. 😊

[gingerbreads]

I love steve so much and I love this. he's so precious and idk why there isn't more fic of him on here 😭👌

[Justforawhile]

Next part should be up within a week! Thanks so much for the feedback, guys <3

[Justforawhile]

This part's pretty short, but I promise there'll be more soon, probably the last part. It's also a little emotion heavy, but hopefully you guys can enjoy it anyway

 

Steve was in the middle of a very strange dream. He was at his locker at school when Nancy tapped him on the shoulder and announced that she was now dating Billy as well as Jonathan. The two boys appeared out of nowhere and took turns kissing her, one after the other, backing Steve into his locker. Confused and hurt, he was then sucked inside his locker (which just so happened to be a portal to the upside down) by a Demodog. Before he even had a second to think to battle the monster or try to escape, it proceeded to join the group taking turns kissing Nancy. Steve, stuck in the upside down, had no choice but to watch the foursome in horror. Just when he thought it couldn’t get any weirder, Dustin appeared and told Steve that in order to get out of the upside down, he too must kiss a Demodog. What Steve could only assume was Dart showed up and gave Dustin a sweet peck on the lips, causing Dustin to disappear into thin air. Dart rounded on Steve, but instead of kissing him he bared his teeth and set thousands of other Demodogs after him.

Steve jolted awake. His heavy breathing turned into coughing which he muffled in his arm. The fit made his back hurt, so he groaned and rolled onto his side. Sleep had apparently increased both his chills and his runny nose. He rolled his eyes at his own miserable situation and grabbed a tissue from the steadily emptying box on the coffee table.

He didn’t really want to sit around and watch TV all day, so he blew his nose loudly and asked himself what else he could do. He still had a couple college essays he could proofread again, he had some physics homework he had been putting off for a few days now, or he could just order some pizza for himself. Option three was his favorite. Steve slouched into a sitting position and looked toward the opposite wall at the phone. If only he had powers like that tiny girl, he could probably get the cord to reach the couch. Instead, he had to get up.

After checking the clock and realizing just how long he had slept, Steve shuffled to the phone and dialed for Domino’s. He cleared his throat a couple times before answering and ordered one large double pepperoni, his usual solo move. He noticed that, on a positive note, at least his appetite was in check.

He was told it would be delivered in 30 minutes (otherwise he’d get a discount) and grabbed himself another glass of water. Nancy would have disapproved of the pizza, but there was one thing she always considered a necessity during any kind of illness--

 

 

“We’ve got cookies and cream, rocky road, and plain vanilla. Pick your poison.”

Steve craned his neck even though he couldn’t see the freezer from the living room, and responded with a strangled “Cookie…” He cleared his throat and tried again. “Cookies and cream.”

He heard his Nancy shifting things around in the freezer, and soon she emerged with two bowls, two spoons, and a pint of Ben & Jerry’s. “You know I’ve never seen you sick before,” she said as she knelt down at the coffee table to spoon out the ice cream. “Does your mom give you any kind of special food when you’re sick?”

Steve shook his head. “I mean if it’s a stomach thing she’ll make me eat toast with bran in it or some shit like that… Honestly I don’t know what ‘bran’ is, but it doesn’t taste good.”

Nancy laughed a little. “Sounds appetizing. Especially with an upset stomach. But you know what is good?” She handed Steve the bowl of ice cream. “Cookies and cream. My mom says ice cream soothes your throat, and I certainly do not disagree.”

Steve massaged his throat a little before replying, “Well I won’t say no to some of that at the moment.”

This caught Nancy’s attention, but as a fairly new couple, she didn’t want to seem too clingy. In all honesty, that hadn’t even discussed whether they were a couple or not. They had gone on a couple of dates and kissed a few times, but it had only been about a month, and this particular boy had a certain reputation that steered her intuition in the direction of “not a couple”. She focused on her ice cream and asked, “Has it gotten worse?”

Through a mouthful, Steve answered. “Only a little, but it wasn’t great to start out with.”

The pair sat in an almost awkward silence, eating their ice cream. After a few seconds, Nancy asked if Steve wanted the TV on and, eager for something to break the silence, he nodded. He had never been vulnerable around her before, and it was still pretty important to him to impress her. He finished off his ice cream and glanced at the girl sitting next to him. God, she was beautiful.

He caught himself and backtracked. Beautiful. He hadn’t realized before, but Nancy really was something different than the other girls he had been with. Kind, warm, smart, and respectful not only of others but of herself. That was uncommon with girls their age. She knew her own limits and wasn’t about to let anyone tell her who to be. It was obvious that she liked him (she had brought him to her house to take care of him for God’s sake) and still held her ground about only going to first base. While frustrating, it was, he admitted, pretty admirable.

Nancy caught his gaze and jolted him out of his current daze with a small smile. “What?” she asked. She knows exactly what I’m thinking about, that’s why she’s asking, Steve thought. How does she always know exactly what I’m thinking about?

Not yet ready to tell her his newfound “feelings”, he responded with a cool, “Nothing,” and gave a half-smile-half-shrug. That’ll drive her nuts.

Apparently it had, because after a couple minutes of watching Knight Rider, she turned to him and said in a flustered manner, “I kind of… I want… nevermind.” She lowered her head with a bashful and slightly embarrassed smile.

With any other girl, Steve would have considered this mission accomplished. With Nancy, he wanted more. “What is it, Nancy?” He tilted his head and caught her eye when she finally looked back at him.

“...I just wanted to say that I hope you feel better soon. That’s all.” She meant more by it, and Steve could tell. For the first time, and not the other way around, he was starting to be able to tell exactly what she was thinking about, too.

 

Steve batted away at this vivid memory like a fruit fly. No more, he told himself. It’s time to move on. Although it was hard to do when there were reminders of Nancy everywhere, and even more so when he saw her walking down the hallway with Jonathan Byers. In the one year he had dated her, he had been sick four times and she had been sick three. Four, if you counted breaking your arm. It wasn’t exactly sick, but in every instance they had been there for each other. He was with her at the hospital, she was with him when he had mono, and when he passed it to her, he was by her side. The hardest part was that he didn’t know whether he wanted Byers to take that place or not. If he really was a replacement, then what was it that made Nancy turn to him? If he and Jonathan were the same kind of guy, then why wasn’t she with Steve? And if they weren’t, and Jonathan played an altogether different role in Nancy’s life, was it better or worse than Steve’s had been? If Jonathan weren’t as good of a boyfriend, then Steve would feel cheated and Nancy would be hurt. If he were a better one, then that was a harsh reality for Steve to face. He would have to accept that it truly was all his fault, he wasn’t as great a guy as he thought he was, and Nancy deserved to be with a better man.

A knock on the door disturbed his thoughts. He checked the clock-- it hadn’t been nearly half an hour, but he mentally shrugged and pulled out his wallet. Pulling out some cash, he opened the front door.

“How much?” he asked, leafing through the cash he had on him. “I should have-- oof!”

He gave a small grunt as he felt a forceful hug tighten around his abdomen. Steve looked down to see the curly top of Dustin’s head, and his eyes widened.

 

[ellwren]

Just found this and it’s great!

[Hygge]

I am so ready for an emotionally heavy finale lol. So gooooood