╭ ╮
━━━━ " 📂 "
𝙄 𝘾 𝙀 𝘾 𝙍 𝙀 𝘼 𝙈 𝙎 𝙐 𝙉 𝘿 𝘼 𝙀
╰ ╯
"COME ON, LAUR." Steve pulled her forward, although she didn't exactly know how he expected her to go anywhere because his arm was tight around her waist and she kept stopping him to kiss him.
"It was your suggestion to leave, Harrington." Any and all melancholy had been forgotten in favour of whatever the hell was to come next. Laurie smiled up at him as he came to another stop, turning to face her. "I was perfectly happy to stay right there." Right there on the porch, because nothing could possibly be real and everything was warm and blurred and the real world was muffled. Out there and the cold night air rippled against her cold skin and somewhere in her subconscious a terrifyingly huge shadow monster loomed over Hawkins, although she couldn't quite remember it just then.
"Oh yeah?" He asked, using the hand that held hers so tightly to pull her close against him, and the cool was replaced by the radiant heat of someone with enough common sense to realise it was almost November in Indiana. "You would've stayed right there?"
She nodded, smiling up at him as a finger curled beneath under her chin and drew her in, pressing an almost chaste kiss to her lips before he fell back, eyes dark under the pale blue light of the moon. "That's mean." She murmured, steadying herself on the fabric of his black blazer and when he kissed her again it was greedier, more urgent, and he grinned when she nipped at his bottom lip.
From somewhere behind them, from where Laurie believed to be the front of Tina's house - she hadn't really paid much attention to where exactly Steve was taking her, but she could only assume it was towards his car - and the sound of attempted, drunken wolf whistles sounded out. She half expected Steve to panic, but somewhere in it all he had decided that everything really was bullshit, and instead he let out a laugh, a teasing, stupid laugh as he leant into kiss her again. Her hand rose, emerging from between them as she flipped them off, smiling as she heard a crowd of laughter.
He kissed her once, twice, and then again, before a few more distracted steps over the lawn found them stood by his car and Steve leant against the door. "Your house or mine?" He asked, pulling away in a breath. She didn't like it, hands needing into the fabric of his blazer.
"I don't know where my brother is." Laurie told him.
"Ah yes, because that's so important."
She rolled her eyes. "I live in a trailer park, Steve, figure it out."
"My house is closer anyway." He hummed, an arm wrapping around her waist.
"By about five minutes." Laurie shook her head. "Parents?"
"Business trip in Michigan."
Her eyebrows raised, confused. "Both of them?"
"Talking about my parents really isn't doing it for me." But his hands were smoothing over the pleated fabric of her skirt and fingertips were flicking beneath the hem.
Laurie tilted her head, eyelashes lowered over her eyes. "Something in your pants is telling me otherwise." She hummed.
"Oh, you got me." Steve let go of her, pulling at the handle of the door and holding an arm out. "After you."
Laurie slipped down into the leather seats. "And he's suddenly a gentleman." She murmured to herself as the door was closed behind her, and she reached for her cigarettes with one hand and went to roll down the window with the other. "You mind if I smoke in here?" She asked, as he slipped into the driver's seat.
"Go for it." He replied, twisting the keys in the ignition, pressing a couple of buttons on the dashboard so that low, indistinguishable music played through, and before Laurie could really ground herself and figure out what was going on, they were off.
The drive seemed shorter than it was, but she supposed that the tension that hung between them and Steve's hand resting on the bare skin of her tattooed thigh made everything quicker. Somewhere along the way, as they drove steadily through the centre of Hawkins, she leant across the console to hold the cigarette to his lips, laughing as he took his attention off the road for a fraction of a second to press a kiss to her cheek.
Somehow, in what could only be a miracle, they pulled into Steve's driveway in no time at all and his hand left her thigh and they were stumbling the rest of the way to the door, hands no longer kept to themselves as he struggled to unlock the door for a fraction of the second before they made their way in, allowing it to slam behind them.
"You need anything?" Steve asked, pulling a hand through his hair as he left his sunglasses and keys behind on the sidetable by the door, kicking off his shoes, throwing his jacket to the side. She shook her head. "Perfect." He murmured, eyes flickering over her. "Come on."
He held out a hand, guiding her up the stairs and to his room, the low glow of the lamp leaving them silhouettes against it all. "I'm in Steve Harrington's room." Laurie couldn't help it, it was somewhat laughable. It was so warm, smelt of nothing but the scent of him, and she was enveloped in it.
"What?"
"No, I just think if you told me I'd end up here after you caught me stealing those uniforms, then I would've laughed in your face." Laurie pressed a kiss to the corner of his lips as he stood above her. "And now I'm here, it doesn't seem so funny anymore." She hummed.
"No?" He asked, as her arms hung loosely around his neck, head tilted as she looked up at him. And for a moment, he was forced into reality, past that daze that the sparse mouthfuls of vodka had given him. "You're so pretty." He murmured, his focus falling entirely upon her.
Her cheeks flushed with heat. "Shut the fuck up and kiss me, Steve." She told him, fingers dragging over his shoulders, passing over the fabric of his t-shirt to pull up at the hem, dragging it upwards over the perfect, now-messy hair. He did kiss her then, hand around her waist travelling to where the bottom of the green and yellow vest top sat and mirrored her movements, letting out a groan at the sight of black lace and the matching bars of metals that protruded from the middle.
"You didn't tell me about these." He hummed, slowly guiding her down to her bed, working to undo the hooks of her bra and threw it somewhere into the abyss, thumbing at the piercings.
"Thought you'd find 'em sooner or later." Laurie told him, head leant back against the pillows, hair splayed around her as she felt his warm breath ghost over her skin, watching him, meeting his eyes as he made his way down, kissing over her navel, pushing up her skirt.
And when he pressed hazy kisses over the matching black of her panties, her hands caught in the curls of his hair and stayed there.
✧
Steve woke up first.
He had a headache, that was for certain, and there was a sweet, cigarette-scented warmth in his nose, an arm over the waist of someone unfamiliar, someone wearing his t-shirt. His mouth tasted bitter, like he hadn't drunk any water for days and when his eyes flickered open, his gaze fell on his alarm.
Good. He wasn't late. He might feel like shit, but he wasn't late. There was that.
And he remembered it all, and whilst there was some kind of pit of despair in his stomach there was nothing in him that truly regretted anything he had done, even though there was a part of his conscience trying to convince him otherwise, he welcomed the presence of pretty Laurie Munson laid beside him, dressed in the black t-shirt he had worn the night before and still asleep.
He pressed kisses to the warm, exposed skin of her shoulder, hoping to not disturb her as he reached over to turn off his alarm. There was a tattoo there too, as he leant on his elbow to achieve his goal, tucked behind her ear. It lacked the artistry and familiarity of the rest of her collection, something crude and unpractised to the shape of it. A star, with wobbly lines and one uneven triangle
And as he stared up at the ceiling, her even breathing in time with his heartbeat, Steve realised that there was nothing within him that was willing the events of the night before to change. His room was draped in the creeping light of the morning of the first of November, and he wallowed in it, letting things ebb and flow before him with no intention of alteration.
He most likely needed a shower, to do his hair and rid himself of the awful stickiness that came with being hungover, but the urge to remain under the covers, laid beside a pretty girl as she slept soundly was overwhelming. But alas, the stillness and calm of those early hours would be disrupted as Laurie stirred, pushing the heavy covers away.
"Morning." She murmured, turning onto her back. Her lips were swollen, eyes hazy, and Steve somehow hadn't noticed the few and far between pretty bruises that stained a pattern down her neck to below the t-shirt she wore. She didn't say anything for a few moments as she took it all in, and her eyes were wide and stained with smudged black makeup as she glanced at him. "Jesus, Steve, you look like you've seen a ghost."
"You're telling me." He hummed as she turned to face him, propping herself up on her elbow to adjust the pillows. "How do you feel?" He asked, hesitantly. Would she even want to discuss it with him? He supposed the fact that she hadn't shot up out of bed to get dressed and leave was a good sign.
"Like I drank maybe a little too much." Laurie said. "You?"
"I've felt worse." Steve replied, honestly. "But there's almost... almost this weight that's been taken off my shoulders."
She stared at him for a moment, before there was a shift in movement and she laid back to stare up at the ceiling, her hand enveloping around his. Silver rings patterned her fingers, and his thumb ran over the grooves.
"Your room is like waking up and being in the middle of a really bad trip." Laurie said, as her gaze travelled over it all. "I didn't notice it last night...what's with all the plaid?"
He grinned and it soon bled into a smile. "Oh, you'll get used to it." He told her.
"You're planning on having me back?" Her eyebrows rose, looking his way as she brushed the ends of her hair through with her fingers.
He watched her expression as best she could, memories of flashing, hurried movements of kissing her playing over in her head. "Do you want to be back?" Steve asked, and prayed that he didn't sound too hopefully.
"I wouldn't mind it." Laurie pushed herself up, her arms wrapped around her middle. She looked down at him and their eyes met, and she smiled and Steve could suddenly understand why any of this had even happened. "What?"
"Nothing. You look good." He said and his gaze flickered downwards for a minute and Laurie let out a sigh of a laugh.
"I still can't believe you're into that." Her knees pulled up to her chest, disrupting the covers and Steve shook his head. "You just don't... I don't know, I thought you would've kinda just been into everything being quite... vanilla."
"Thank." He rolled his eyes. "Where'd you get them done? I don't believe for a second that it was anywhere near here."
"Eddie drove me and Robin up to Indianapolis one time... oh shit, Robin." Laurie looked panicked for a moment until he sat up beside her, pausing for a fraction of a second to regain his balance, head spinning.
"There's a phone on my desk." He told her and watched as she nodded, biting at the skin of her lips. "I would give it a minute, though, it's hardly even seven." Steve pointed out the clock and she let out a sigh, falling back into the sheets. "Tina said she would be fine if anyone ended up crashing. Her parents are out of town, visiting family in New York."
"Still." Laurie didn't quite enjoy the idea herself; the thought of waking up in Tina's house after a party like that, especially when considering the state it had been in when they had left, well before the party will have ended. "I'll call later. What about your parents?"
"Not for a while." Steve replied. "I... my mom doesn't trust my dad, so she had to go with him. They're in Detroit."
"Do you people just never have parents or shit, even guardians around?" Laurie asked, and despite the edge of accusation in her tone it was a genuine question. "I don't think my Uncle Wayne has ever gone away at all."
"I suppose that's what you do when you have money – shit, I didn't mean it like that." Steve quickly added.
"I know you didn't. Besides, you're right." She shrugged. "You live here and I live in a trailer park, and from the size of Tina's house yesterday... yeah, you're right. It's not nice though."
"I don't mind it. Stops them from arguing over things." She was watching him carefully, he could see her out the corner of his eye, shifting in place. There was a tentativeness to her now, now that she was sober and a headache was spiking at her temple and she clutched onto her duvet covered knees to steady herself. Admittedly, everything was a little hazy but nonetheless, despite her drunkness, she could remember the night before. The important parts anyway.
"What do they argue about?"
"My dad's secretary, mostly." Steve pushed himself up so that he leant back against his pillows. "She's... she's nice enough, but younger... basically everything that you see in the movies. Blonde, pretty... you know."
"Yeah. Has he cheated?" Laurie asked, plainly, bluntly.
"No." Steve replied resolutely. "He wouldn't. My mom just, well, she just doesn't trust him. Besides, she likes travelling with him, doesn't like Hawkins much."
"Yeah, neither." Laurie replied. Her fingers smoothed over the bare skin of her arms, a fingertip tracing over the black inking of numbers on her wrist. Steve stared, he couldn't help it. "What?" She asked softly, noticing him from the corner of her eye.
"I'm just thinking."
"About?"
"Your tattoos." The corner of her lips turned up, falling back against the pillows beside him. She held her arm out to him. The three numbers sat there, professionally done, soulless compared to the rest of them. There was nothing about it that agreed with the rest of them, nothing creative or meaningful and Steve... Steve could only look at that one. The numbers were digital, like that of his alarm clock, two zeroes, one seven, and it reminded him so painfully of something that Nancy had said. "How often do you get nosebleeds?" He asked.
"What?"
"You get nosebleeds, don't you?"
"Sometimes, yeah." Laurie replied. "And before you ask, no I don't know where they came from. What are you, a detective or some shit?"
Steve shook his head, pulling a hand through his hair. "No, I'm just interested." He hummed. "In you." He added hurriedly, when he caught her watching.
Her fingertips formed crescent imprints upon her bare thighs. Her mind was alight in an instance, forging past the morning light as the time flickered by in the form of a beating pair of dots counting the seconds. "...Steve." She said softly, and he recognised the term.
"What?" He asked.
"I just... I just don't know if you know what you're saying." Laurie said, crossing her legs beneath her. She avoided eye contact. "I know what Nancy said will have hurt, more than anything right now, and thaat everything is apparently bullshit but don't you want to atleast think about it?"
"No, not really." Steve replied, and there was a bitter taste in his mouth again. "Things haven't been right for a while and last night was the end of it." He continued. "Listen, Laurie, I'm not... I'm not trying to use you or anything, I don't want you to think that everything was just convienient, I... I... I wanted this to happen."
"Yeah, sure." Laurie hummed, and she pulled the covers off herself, and there she was again, long legs and tattooed knees and black lace underwear. "Where's your bathroom?" She asked.
"Door to the right." Steve replied, watching as she left and closed the door behind him.
Silence remained and there was an ache in his heart. He meant what he had said, and most definitely there was a need to discuss everything that had happened last night with Nancy, but there was no way that he could ever just go back on that. He might have changed since when they started dating, all thanks to Nancy and the Upside Down, but now all he had left was his pride.
And there was something that ached so defiantly at the implication that he made Laurie think that everything from the night before had been a mistake.
He forced himself out of bed, stretching the stiffness out of his sleep-sticky limbs until his vision swum with stars, cleaning up after himself as he went. The wrapper from the nightstand, the ashtray that usually sat barely used, the cheerleading uniform crumpled at the end of his bed. Remnants of what remained from the end of the night and the memories that hung within them, and Steve decided on something.
Laurie Munson didn't stand there and simper at him and flutter her eyelashes. Her brother was a drug dealer, she lived in the trailer park, she was covered in tattoos and Steve had gotten the idea that there was something particularly strange about her. She had a number tattoo on her left wrist, she got nosebleeds and there was an uncanny resemblance to a girl that Nancy had told him all about, who had powers and came from Hawkins Lab.
But there was something so intriguing about it all, and he pushed open the bedroom door and turned to the bathroom, where she was stood over the sink, washing her face clean of leftover makeup.
"Hey." He leant on the doorframe, meeting her eyes in the mirror.
"Hi." She replied, eyebrows crumpling in confusion as a small smile made its way onto her lips. "What's up?"
"I was thinking-"
"Dangerous."
"Fuck off." He grinned. "I was thinking," Steve repeated, "about what I said earlier."
"One of the stupid things or something else?"
"About you coming back here, getting used to all the plaid."
"Yeah?" There was a lightness to it all now, as she swiped wetted fingers under her eyes, gesturing over at a towel. He nodded, and she dried her face. "You use moisturiser?" She eyed a small pot on the counter.
"Can't have my hair look as good as it is and then not take care of everything else."
Laurie's eyes flickered. "Yeah, I figured." She hummed. "What about me coming back?"
"I think it's a good idea." He stood straight, crossing the short distance between the doorway and the counter, leaning against it as she kept her focus upon her own appearance, the attention so rapidly focused as she scanned her face, pale and pretty, dark shadows under her eyes. "I wouldn't mind coming over to the trailer park either."
"Really? I thought you would hate it, too used to all the glitz and glamour." She gestured vaguely, tilting her head as she looked over at him. "My brother can't be there." She added.
"Deal."
"You have basketball this morning, right?" She asked. He nodded. "And how much time until that?"
"A good while. We woke up early."
"I think you'll find that you woke me up." Laurie hummed. "How rude."
"Just missed all your wit and neverending charm."
"I'm sure you did. Didn't you know I'm unbelivably cool?" The sarcasm sat cool on her tongue, but despite the tension that had hung over them before she escaped to the bathroom, she was beginning to warm again. "I mean, come on, I slept with King Steve last night."
He scoffed. "Shut up."
And so she rolled her eyes and kissed him.
✧
Robin had made it home just fine, and was nursing a fine hangover, complete with the twisting turns of a need to vomit and lay there in her bed and do nothing but wallow all day. And without her best friend, Laurie had decided to disappear for the day and he dropped her off at the entrance to the trailer park with a kiss and the purposeful messing up of his hair and she trailed her way back to Number 53, dressed in a pair of Steve Harrington's jeans rolled up at the angle and the t-shirt she had slept in.
A cigarette hung from her lips as she pushed open the door. Wayne was nowhere to be found, and considering there was no food in the house she expected he had gone to the store to get at least something to last them through the week.
Eddie was in his room, having skipped out on school to organise the next Hellfire campaign and perked up at the smell of fresh cigarette smoke, emerging from his tiny makeshift room to hang around in the doorway of his younger sister's.
"How was your little dress-up party, L?" He asked, as Laurie set the makeshift cardboard ashtray on her bed and curled up on the covers, letting out a groan.
"Adorable, we got gift bags at the end and played party games." She told him. "Could've done with some live music. How was Collapsed Lung?"
"It's Corroded Coffin, and you know that, asshat... we just played a few songs." Eddie replied, bypassing any of the obvious glare Laurie was sending his way that told him to get out and let her recover, instead coming to sit on her bed. "You look like shit." He said, perfectly happily. How much did you drink?"
Laurie dared not dance around it. "Enough to sleep with Steve Harrington." She replied plainly, eyes flickering over where she had dumped her bag back over to him.
Eddie stared at her. "Woah - hold on - no way." His jaw had dropped as he sat there, legs crossing under him. "You're lying to me. Having me on, tugging my-"
"Don't finish that." Laurie replied. "I'm not lying, Ed, I slept with him. He dropped me off at the entrance."
"No freaking way. You didnt sleep with Steve Harrington."
"Can you think of anyone else who would do this to me?"
"Gnarly - did a savage... octopus attack you or some shit?"
"Fuck off, dickhead." Laurie grumbled. "He broke up with his girlfriend, decided to drink away his despair and I just happened to be his drinking buddy." She let out a groan, cigarette stubbed out on the ashtray before she covered her face with her hands. "I'm never going to forget this, am I?"
"I'll remind you every time you forget, pinkie promise." Eddie said. "But it could've been worse. Whose the new guy? Californian, awful dude."
"Billy Hargrove?" She watched as he nodded. "You're right, it could've been so much worse. But come on, Steve Harrington? Also - shit, I forgot about this - but I might have totally outed Tommy H as one of your guys."
Eddie leant against the wall, reaching for his cigarettes. "It's fine, guy's a dick."
"No way."
They sat in silence for a moment, as Eddie lit his own cigarette and offered the pack to her. She took one and lit it, letting smoke fill her lungs before she exhaled.
"Listen, Laur." Eddie looked serious. "You might regret it but don't let it fuck you up, okay?" He told her, as he watched her stare down at her knees. "If he'd broken up with his girlfriend, there's nothing to feel guilty abouut and sure, he might not be your choice in a premium lay-"
"Eddie..."
"Fine. He might not be your choice in... whatever, but it could've been worse and you could've done something far more stupid. Wheeler might not like you very much but honestly, you'll never need her approval anyway. Besides, if you like him..."
"I don't like him." Laurie replied, picking at a scab on her wrist. "But listen," she fell silent, pursing her lips.
"What?"
"He's coming over tonight. Can you fuck off for a bit?"
Eddie chuckled, standing up. "Sure. I'll go roll, we can go for a walk."
"Sounds great. You got money for food?"
"Do I fuck." Eddie scoffed, and disappeared from her door.
And Laurie let out a sigh and curled up, pulling her knees to her chest and let everything flow over her.