Don't You Want Me? ✵ Steve Harrington

Chapter 24

The group walked aimlessly through the woods on the train tracks, all of them hoping they wouldn't run into more baby demogorgons and none of them really knowing where they were walking to.

"You're positive that was Dart?" Lucas asked.

"Yes," Dustin said, his temper a little short. "He had the same exact yellow pattern on his butt."

"He was tiny two days ago," Max reminded him from the back of the group.

"Well, he molted three times already," Dustin replied.

"Malted?" Steve asked, thinking about how good a chocolate malt sounded and then about how he wanted to take Kim to get milkshakes for their first date.

"Molted," Dustin corrected. "Shed his skin to make room for growth like hornworms," Dustin explained.

"Well when's he gonna molt again?" Kim asked, Steve rubbing small circles on the back of her hand.

"It's gotta be soon," Dustin shrugged. "When he does, he'll be fully grown, or close to it and so will his friends."

"Yeah, and he's gonna eat a lot more than just cats," Steve said, his flashlight roaming in the shadows of trees in search of more monsters.

"Wait, a cat?" Lucas asked, stopping Dustin and the rest of the group. "Dart ate a cat?"

"No, what?" Dustin said quickly. "No."

"What are you talking about? He ate Mews," Steve told the group.

"Steve," Kim said, shaking her head. "You're really not helping." As the boys continued to argue, Kim let go of Steve's hand and fell back to talk to Max. "Hey, you okay?" she asked the younger girl. "I know all of this can be really shocking and scary to come to terms with."

"Yeah, I'm fine," Max lied. "The boys were right though, you are pretty awesome."

Kim forced out a small laugh. "Yeah, well, someone had to risk their neck so you dumb asses wouldn't die."

Max smiled as Kim wrapped her arms tightly around her. "Yeah, thanks for protecting us." After a minute Max laughed. "I should have chosen different people to try and be friends with."

Kim smiled at the joke. "Yeah, rookie mistake."

"Hey guys!" Steve called, trying to get everyone's attention. "Guys!"

Kim let go of Max and rushed forward to hear what her boyfriend - was he her boyfriend? - was listening to.

Lucas caught up to the two older kids and put his binoculars to his eyes. "It's the lab," he announced. "They were going back home."

•••••

The group ran as quickly as they could to Hawkins lab, totally clueless to the fact that people they cared about were trapped inside there with hundreds of those demogorgons.

"Hello?" a familiar voice from near the front gate called to them. "Who's there?"

"Who else is out here?" Kim whispered to Steve.

"No clue, just stay behind me," he warned, lifting his bat in case he needed to protect everyone again.

Kim, ever being able to willingly run from a fight, stepped in front of him while she rolled her eyes.

"Kimmy?" Nancy and Jonathan exclaimed as the group stepped out of the tree line. Their eyes scanned the rest of the group, wondering why the two teens had been out with a group of kids this late at night.

Kim let out a breath, dropping her bat to the ground and pulling her two friends into a tight hug.

"What are you guys doing here?" Nancy asked.

"What are you doing here?" Steve asked, still defensive about what had happened between them.

"We're looking for Mike and Will," Nancy replied.

"They're not in there, are they?" Dustin asked, looking at the creepy lab.

"We're not sure," Nancy said quietly. "Why?"

Answering her question, the sound of a demogorgons roar rang out through the night, the sound emanating from inside the building.

The group continued to argue and talk over each other as they tried to explain what they had been doing, and why they were at the lab in the first place.

"The power's back," Nancy said loudly, cutting off the other's voices.

Jonathan rushed to the security booth and tried desperately to open the front gate with no result.

"Let me try," Dustin said, trying to shove Jonathan out of the way.

"No, no, hands off," Jonathan protested.

"Let me try, Jonathan!" Dustin snapped.

Kim and Steve exchanged a look, trying not to laugh at Jonathan's shocked face. Nancy gave them a curious look before turning back to Jonathan and the kids. Steve tried to intertwine their fingers, but Kim pretended like she didn't notice and pulled her hand away. It's not that she didn't want to hold Steve's hand, but she still wasn't totally sure where Nancy's relationship with him was. If Steve and Nance were still together she would just pretend like the kiss and everything else had never happened.

The gate slid open, having nothing to do with Dustin hitting buttons, but he claimed it as his victory all the same.

•••••

Once Nancy and Jonathan had driven through the gate to pick up Mike, Will, and whoever else might still be alive in the lab, Steve turned to Kim. "So what was that?" Steve asked, trying to keep the hurt from his voice. "When you pulled your hand away."

"I just-just," Kim tried to come up with the right words. "Make sure Nance knows it's really over between you guys before anything else happens with us, okay? I don't want her to think that you were cheating, or that I betrayed her."

Steve understood, but it didn't make him any less frustrated. "Well, with the way she was looking at Jonathan-"

"Steve," Kim cut him off. "Just talk to her and then we can-can, I don't know. What would we be?"

Steve smiled down at her. "Well, I was thinking boyfriend and girlfriend," he said cockily.

"Yeah, that sounds pretty good to me," she whispered back, not wanting the kids to hear their conversation.

"Guys!" Max called, staring at the open gate as two cars sped around the corner.

Without thinking, Steve and Kim rushed forward, pulling the three younger kids out of the road so they wouldn't get run over. Hopper's police car stopped in front of them and he quickly ushered them in. Steve and Kim helped the younger three into the back of the car before Steve climbed in and pulled Kim into his lap.

"Okay, let's go!" Steve yelled at Hop. He still had his arms tightly around Kim, not wanting to ever let her go.