Legendary | s. harrington (18+)

chapter five

AFTER around half an hour of trying to find Jonathan, Eve turns towards the door to try outside, but her shoulders knock by a red-faced Steve. Surprised, Eve watches him speed towards his car. Eve spins to follow him but first she grabs two unopened bottles of beer from the table near her, and then runs after him.

"Steve!" His hand wraps around the handle of his car door. Having recognised the voice his head unwillingly turns to the side but all he wants is to go home, she can see that from the strain on his face. "Don't..." Eve takes a deep breath as she reaches him. "Don't drive like this." She wasn't sure how much he'd had to drink and she can see the tear stains on his puffy cheeks. Her dainty fingers ghost the hood of his car. Eve hadn't actually drank anything yet, but she was worried for his safety. She would have been for anyone if she'd seen them try and drive from this party.

Steve just shakes his head. He wants to tell her to go inside and have fun, but he can see from her eyes that they are wide with worry, her eyebrows are turned up in concern and he knows she isn't going anywhere. Not only is he confused by it, but irritated. He pulls at his door anyway, embarrassed that his tears are still fresh on his face, only for her to push it shut. "...please." Frowning, Steve looks at Evelyn's face.

"What?" Why would her 'please' matter to him?

"Just follow me, okay?" And Evelyn starts waking in the opposite direction and away from Tina's house. Steve looks back at his car, his head cloudy with emotions, and for some reason he finds himself following her. Maybe it is because he wants to think about something else, anything, because he wasn't sure if he was dying or not from the pain in his chest. Evelyn wasn't making sense either and the sincerity in her was foreign and confusing and it wasn't like he was going to let someone walk off into the shadows of Hawkins after everything that had happened to Will a year prior. He sighs and turns to follow her.

As they walk in silence, Steve eventually catches up to her side, but empty and upset, he has nothing to say. Steve looks forwards, not being able to see anywhere that they could be going so when she stops and guides him away from the main road, beneath a metal barrier and sits down on some dusty concrete, he is very confused.

"Sit." She says, beckoning him down as she hikes up her dress and throws her legs over the edge. He sits beside her, careful not to fall, and lets his legs dangle over the cliff edge too. He looks to her face to see what she was about to say, but she doesn't saying anything, she is busy looking at the horizon. He does the same, and is welcomed by the cities in the distance with their lights like a constellation having fallen out of the sky. It is quite beautiful. And it is a clear distraction. He realises, while his eyes jump across each artificial star somewhere in the distance, that she is trying to help him, and he smiles.

"Here." Eve says quietly, passing him one of the unopened beers she's been holding. "You looked like you needed one of these." Steve takes it and tries to smile a thanks, but instead busies himself trying to open it. Eve sees him and waves her hand out for his attention, "Watch." She mumbles, and places the bottle against the edge of the rock beside them. She puts her palm on the lid, lifts her hand and smacks the bottle lid against the edge. It flicks off and they watched it fall down below, tumbling over the edge and into the trees somewhere beneath them. Steve mimics her and smiles when he succeeds to open it with a dull thud. "Careful though, sometimes it catches the glass and it chips. It can cut your mouth." With that, they are swallowed by silence again. The only sound are Steve's gulps from the bottle. After what feels like an hour at least, Steve puts his head in one hand and runs his fingers through his hair.

"She doesn't love me." Eve looks at him in alarm. His voice makes her jump, but the pain in it burns her. Steve struggled to force the words out of his mouth, his breath shaking. He had tried to hold it in, but he was in such turmoil and he hadn't made it home.