Consider this an exorcism of all of my Steve Harrington demons post Season 2. Please enjoy!

I don't own anything in Stranger Things.

Steve Harrington had always considered himself pretty thick-skinned. Some people might've thought that "thick-skinned" translated into "thick-headed", which he had a rather strong distaste for. Steve couldn't remember any particular moment where he gave more than two shits about his social status, if only because he knew that it was cemented in place since sixth grade. Now? Now was a different story for entirely wrong reasons.

A few days had passed since the…events. After a day of babysitting middle schoolers, dragging himself around Hawkins three time over, waking up in the back of a stranger's car to find a teenaged girl behind the wheel, and wandering into an alternate dimension version of Little Shop of Horrors, Steve had quite a resume filler on his hands. If only he wouldn't be laughed out of every building this side of the border for even the mere idea of it. When he got home in the waning hours of the morning, Steve wanted nothing more than to climb into his bed and sleep until his eyelids crusted over and his skin rotted off and he sunk into his mattress like it was going to swallow him up. But, well, he's a high school senior with appearances to keep up and classes to attend. It wasn't as though life was giving him too many options.

The weekend passes with little consequence, giving him minimal time to heal up and the opportunity to fabricate a story of how his face has gotten so bashed up. It wasn't pretty, but he'd take a week's grounding over whatever else those bastards in Hawkins Lab had planned for him if he blabbed. Or worse: Hopper.

Monday morning, November fifth. The day arrives like any other. Steve wakes up exactly eighteen minutes before his alarm. There's no noise outside, because even the birds have flown south by now and no man in their right minds would want to mow a lawn in forty degree temperatures. So he sits. And thinks. And contemplates his own circumstances until his alarm rings and his mother bangs on his door, telling him to move. The trance broken, Steve clambers out of bed, shivering in silence.

He washes his face, does his hair and teeth, dresses, and goes downstairs for breakfast. His mother has laid out a granola bar, two aspirin, and a bottle of water for him, which he takes halfheartedly, his appetite long abandoned.

On his way to school, he passes Maple Street. Steve's hand hovers over his turn signal on instinct until his remembers that, well, he really doesn't have much of a reason to head over there anymore.

He expected to feel a wave of bitterness wash over him, maybe perhaps a rush of anger or even something smaller. A spark of some vaguely negative emotion to stir inside of him, perhaps, but goddammit, all Steve feels is exhausted. Achingly exhausted, the kind of tiredness that muddles your mind and turns your brain into fog. Maybe it was a good thing in hindsight; Steve couldn't behave irrationally, today of all days.

And so, he pulls into the parking lot of Hawkins High School by himself. The spaces are dotted with high schoolers, some who are desperately trying to do their homework in the fading minutes before class and others who are just chatting without worry to their friends. It's peaceful in a way. Steve isn't really feeling it, but at least things are still relatively normal to the general public. Maybe today isn't going to be as hard as he thought.

Barely ten steps away from his car, some sophomore with a baby face that Steve doesn't even know catches sight of him and stares, wide-eyed. "Jesus, Steve, what happened to your face!?" he asks, openly pointing at his nose as if trying his goddamned hardest to make as much of a scene as possible.

Steve shoots him a warning look that sends waves of pain right back through his face. "Yell a little louder next time, why don't you?" he says humorlessly.

The baby-faced sophomore's cheeks go bright red, spreading right to his ears (which, Steve isn't going to lie, is immensely satisfying). He opens his mouth again, but before he can say anything, his friend—some sophomore girl with blonde hair—places on a hand on his shoulder as if she thought the kid was going to rush someone twice his size. "Look, just drop it, Kyle," she murmurs, not nearly soft enough.

"Yeah, Kyle," Steve mocks, feeling drained all over again, "just drop it."

Baby-Face Kyle looks as though he's just been slapped, but Steve didn't much care to stick around any longer. He promptly turns on heel and heads across the parking lot. Fortunately, the two sophomores have enough common sense between them not to chase him down, so Steve slings his backpack over his shoulders and marches on.

To be fair, Baby-Face Kyle's reaction is something Steve should've expected. His long trudge down the asphalt turns heads, and not in the way that they normally did. He figures that his face probably looks pretty fucked up, because it feels pretty fucked up and that's probably enough to create a semi-decent image of how he must look to the rest of the student body. Steve's eyes sweep the cars, occasionally locking gazes with someone. It's always brief. Those who catch his eye dip their heads again. Packs of girls that crowd together bend their heads into their circles, stealing glances that he sees, of course. The air becomes tight all of the sudden, and his lungs occasionally seem to neglect their jobs to take in air. Each stare is like another slash across his already messed-up face, until he swears that he feels blood trickling out of his cuts again and smells the metallic stench of it fill the air.

His scanning serves two purposes. Steve was never one to back down from a fight, no matter how hopeless it was. It's something that he and Billy Hargrove appeared to share: a begrudging admission for Steve, and not one that he would dare utter aloud. If these assholes wanted to stare at him like he was Bozo the goddamned circus clown, then Steve isn't going to spare them the entire view of his fucked-up face.

The other reason is Nancy. And Jonathan too, he supposes. Steve hopes that she has a ride to school now that they're…taking a break. That is the way that Steve likes to describe it. Not completely over. Just taking a break. It's far, far better than any of the alternatives.

Plus, there's the added benefit of at least knowing that the two of them won't gawk at him as if he's the Creature from the Black Lagoon.

The morning is still cold and crisp, and Steve shoves his hands in the pockets of his blazer, forcing the fabric closer into his chest. It's a gray, cloudy day. Fitting. It doesn't seem like the sun had any more reason to come back to Hawkins anymore.

By the time Steve reaches the front steps of the high school, he's positive that he hasn't seen Nancy or Jonathan anywhere in the parking lot or on the school grounds. Maybe they were taking it easy for the day? Will and Mike had both had a shitty couple of days, not that anyone here really knew the reasons behind it, so maybe the two of them were using it as an excuse to keep their siblings company.

Or maybe they're out on Lover's Lake, doing God kno—

No, no, Steve, focus.

His fears dissipate almost immediately when he catches sight of a familiar face. Jonathan walks hurriedly through the rows of cars, glancing back over his shoulder like a guilty man would do. He's dressed simply today. White t-shirt, jeans, sneakers, jacket. It creates an illusion of normalcy that Steve didn't buy for one second.

"Hey, Byers!" Steve calls.

Jonathan raises his head at the voice and freezes, his expression panicked for one brief heartbeat. It's so swift that Steve wonders if he's imagining it, but Jonathan starts moving again before he could really contemplate it, and then the dude's face back to its usual unreadable form. Jonathan's pace picks up significantly until he stands next to Steve on the front steps of the school, observing all the other kids before them.

"Hey man, " Jonathan greets him breathlessly, then adds, "you look like shit."

"So I've been told."

Jonathan snickers. Steve didn't think it was even possible for someone to snicker, but Jonathan Byers is so quiet and so reserved that even his normal laugher sounds hushed. Steve crosses his arms, "How's Nancy doing?"

There it is again. That sharp, quick expression of pure dread. Steve has seen it a few times before, and everyone wears it differently. It manifests itself in different ways. A dart of the eyes. A clench of the fists. Jonathan Byers' reaction is to furrow his eyebrows, as if he thinks he could cover his eyes with them. "She's good," is his response. Nice and controlled. And even though Steve couldn't quite see them, he figures that Jonathan's eyes would reveal a surplus of buried emotions should he choose to search them.

He decides to drop it.

"It's weird," Steve jerks his head towards the cars, "How many of them do you think even know what happened on Friday?"

Jonathan clicks his tongue thoughtfully. "Probably none of them. And none of them will ever know, anyway."

Steve bites his lip, his teeth nipping the scab in the right corner. "This is all such bullcrap, you know that?"

"Couldn't have said it better myself," is all Jonathan says.

For a minute or so, the two of them stand there, lost in each other's company. Jonathan is the first to peel away. "I have some photos I need to develop. Sorry man," is how he excuses himself, his eyebrows once again dipping down. Steve just nods in a way that he hopes is supportive, and watches Jonathan round the corner and disappear into the building, feeling slightly resigned.

And then it's Steve again, all alone on the front steps, his face looking like a battlefield and his mind buzzing like an air raid. Some kids come by him, clapping him on the shoulder. One even calls him by his old moniker. King Steve. Apropos, in a way. King Steve ascendant, returned from war, watching over his kingdom of paper subjects.

Please follow, fav, or review if you enjoyed and I'll see you for the next chapter!