Love Is A Battlefield (A Stranger Things/Steve Harrington Fanfiction)

Chapter Thirty-One: Goodnight, Barbie

I walked into Steve's room and sat down on his bed.Steve came running back in, the first aid kit in his hand.

"Ok, I got it." I nodded, motioning for him to come over. He did, sitting beside me on the bed, and I turned my back to face him. I blew out a nervous breath before reach behind me and carefully pulling the back of my shirt up, exposing the wound. "The shower did that?!"

"My back was what was exposed to the monster. The rest of me was either hidden by the ground, or by Will. Whatever this thing is, it doesn't react kindly to heat, and it likes the cold, and I think maybe it...I don't know...left residue on me or something."

"Can I..." I glanced over my shoulder at him and nodded, watching out of the corner of my eye as he hesitantly put a hand on my back, inspecting the wound. I gasped as his fingers made contact with my skin. "Maybe we should go to the hospital-"

"And tell them what?" I asked.

"I don't know! Burns are easy to explain, we can make something up-"

"It'll be fine, Steve. It looks worse than it is. Just put burn cream and a bandage on it and it'll be fine."

"You're sure?"

"Yes." He sighed but nodded, taking out the cream and putting it on a cotton swab before placing his hand on my back and dabbing it onto the wound. I sucked in a breath as the cream made contact with it, and Steve hesitated at the sound. "Its fine. Keep going."

He did so, lathering it in cream before gently pressing gauze against it and taping it in place.

I bit my lip, squeezing my eyes shut as his fingers skimmed along the edges of the medical tape, causing me to shiver. He finished patching up the wound, and I expected him to take his hands off of me, and that would be that. I let my shirt fall, and he lowered his hands from the bandage in order to allow it to, but instead of taking his hands directly off of my back, he allowed his fingertips to slide down my sides, lingering on my waist for only a second before finally moving his hands. My eyes widened at the contact, and I turned around to face him, only to find him directly behind me, my nose brushing against his, causing me to gasp as I felt another jolt of electricity, similar to what I'd felt in the kitchen.

"What are you doing?" I asked, putting a hand on his chest to pushing him away from me. He stopped me from doing so by putting his hands on my face, holding my head in place, causing my eyes to widen.

"Shut up, Barbie." Before the last word could even fully leave his lips, he was leaning in, fully prepared to kiss me. I wanted this. I had wanted it for way longer than I realized, but deep down I knew that he didn't want it for the same reasons that I did. He's hurt, both by Nancy and everything going on with Billy, he doesn't actually like me. Not the way that I like him. I shoved him away from me before his lips could brush against mine.

"What are you doing, Steve? You have a girlfriend. Nancy is one of my best friends-"

"She's not my girlfriend." He said, sitting back and running a frustrated hand through his hair. I furrowed my eyebrows.  "She doesn't love me, Riley. You heard her say it."

"Well even if she doesn't, I'm not your rebound. I've got enough crap going on without you using me to make yourself feel better." He furrowed his eyebrows.

"That's what you think is going on here?" He asked.

"Isn't it?" I asked. "You barely know me. We've had what, three serious conversations in the past year we've been friends? Outside of playful insults and everything that's been going on in my life recently, you don't know anything about me, so please fill me in on how this could be anything more than a coping mechanism for you." He scoffed, shaking his head and getting off of the bed, leaning against the wall and looking out the window at his dark back yard.

"I know you, Barbie." He said, not looking up at me. I raised my eyebrows skeptically.

"Enlighten me then. What do you know about me?" He turned his head to look at me, half of his face illuminated by moonlight.

 "I know that you wear your hair up all of the time because you hate it when the back of your neck gets hot. I know that you chew on the end of your pens when you're bored in class, and you bite your lip when you get nervous or when you're thinking really hard. I know you say that you're fine all of the time, and you put on a happy face, regardless of if you're actually ok or not, but most of all, I know you have feelings for me." I shook my head, crossing my arms and looking away from him. "I knew even before you did, and I like you too."

"You might like me, Steve...but you love Nancy, and that's not just gonna go away overnight." I said.

"Yeah, you're right. I do love Nancy," he said, "But I can't make her love me back. So either I can sit around sulking and trying to get over her, which will take who knows how long, or I can not waste anymore time and try to start a relationship with someone who I know cares about me as much as I care about them. And I meant everything that I said on Halloween. I can be myself with you in away that I can't with anybody else, Nancy included, to the point where...there have been a lot of late nights the past few months where I found myself wishing that I had met you first." I furrowed my eyebrows. "I never felt good about it. I always felt guilty afterwards, but its true. You know? Same with Nancy and Jonathan, maybe...maybe we just all met the right people at the wrong time."

"Do you mean that?" I asked, standing up and crossing my arms.

"No, I'm kidding, this is all a massive prank." He said sarcastically, coming over and standing in front of me. He reached out, putting his hands on my shoulders and lightly rubbing his thumbs across my arms. "Yeah, I mean it. And yeah, this whole Nancy thing hurts like Hell, but at the end of the day, maybe its for the best. Maybe we should just accept it and be with the people who are actually good for us, instead of trying to salvage the relationship just because we want things to go back to normal." I gently pulled my arms from his.

"I see your point," I said quietly, "And if I'm being honest, the less logical part of me knows that I do have feelings for you, and I would love to just forget about common sense and act on them but I just think it would be a bad idea right now. Even if you and Nancy are broken up, it happened today, and even if you aren't using me for a rebound, the other thing I can't handle is to think that this is actually going to happen only to get hurt when you and Nancy decide to get back together."

"Nancy and I aren't-"

"You don't know that." I interrupted. I sighed, tucking my wet hair behind my ear. "I like you, Steve. I really like you, and I know you like me, but if you're serious about this then we need to wait until you're absolutely sure that there's no chance of you and Nancy working it out. Maybe...Tina told me at school today that she took my coat to Nancy's house after I left it at her house on Halloween. So how about, after school tomorrow, you take me to go get my coat, and you and Nancy sit down and have a talk about where you stand. Then we can talk about seeing where this goes." He sighed.

"Ok." I nodded.

"Ok. Now, I'm going to bed. Goodnight HAIRington."

"Goodnight, Barbie."