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Lucas can admit, only to himself though, that when Steve Harrington started helping them save the world he had been kind of excited. Not in a lame way like all the girls who swoon over him, but in a really very macho way because Steve was really, really cool, cool in a way nerdy kids like Lucas shouldn’t ever be in close contact with. Ever since he started dating Mike’s older sister — who Lucas will tell anyone except Mike he’s had a crush on since he knew what crushes were — Steve has been a sort of peripheral woah on Lucas’s radar. If anyone asks he hasn’t been listening to every bit of gossip that floats its way down to Hawkins Middle about Steve ‘the Hair’ Harrington, but that would be a lie.
After the second time they save the world and Lucas meets Steve Harrington and has to restrict himself to hanging back while Dustin gushes about “how fucking amazing and cool and hot” (Dustin’s words, definitely) he is. He watches while Steve swings a bat and throws himself in front of Demodogs and saves Mad Max (who is definitely like, maybe, really uhh, more good looking than Steve Harrington). Most of what he remembers about that night are Max’s fingers cold and clammy in his, and the wild glint in Steve’s eye, the way he moved with the bat in the fog, his low whistle echoing out across the car wrecks in the moonlight, and Max’s scream.
He had known then, sort of, that Steve had helped save the world before. Knew from what Mike had heard from Nancy that he had hit the Demogorgon with the very same bat he wielded that night. It was nothing to seeing it in action.
After that night Max mercilessly needles him about his crush on Steve Harrington.
It’s whatever.
It’s like having a crush on — on — Lucas doesn’t know. GI Joe . Having a mancrush on Steve is like the most straight gay thing ever. (It’s not like he wants to kiss Steve, he wants to be Steve. Will is the one who won’t stop looking at Steve’s arms. Most of the eye contact he and Will make is accidentally over Steve’s biceps but Lucas is pretty sure Will isn’t eyeing them up as inspiration wink wink, if you get what Lucas means.) Max says that’s stupid, but it’s so irrevocably true, Lucas doesn’t know what to tell her.
Then he sees Steve against Billy Hargrove. Slamming into him just after he’s had Lucas by the throat. Just when Lucas thought he was going to die because he was, because he was — And then there’s Steve, throwing himself between them and a monster once again. Sometimes, if Lucas closes his eyes, he can still hear than plate shattering over Steve’s head, see the woozy way he’d half stumbled into the wall. The way he’d spit blood. The punches, one, two, three, four… slamming his head down into the floor, Billy’s laugh . Lucas doesn’t like to think about how he’d gone from that to standing in the tunnels between them and the Demodogs. (But he does think about it, and thinks about how he wants to be that. Standing between his friends and the danger, between Max and whatever comes next.)
They see Steve a lot after the whole thing. He becomes their unofficial, unpaid babysitter. Not that they need one, they’re old enough to look after themselves.
Still, he’s pretty good for car rides and advice and money (he seems to have a lot of it and doesn’t care when they max out his card at the diner, or the arcade, or anywhere really). Steve gets him through a lot of break-ups with Max even though he’s probably cheating by giving intel to both sides. He gets them to a lot of dates as well and even though Dustin proclaims he’s Steve’s favourite (and maybe is) Lucas is pretty sure they’re at least Steve’s favourite couple.
That summer is amazing, before all the shit goes down. Always trips to the arcade, dates with Max, getting Steve to sneak them into the movies once he gets the job with the stupid sailor outfit he still somehow manages to make cool. (Lucas isn’t jealous that Steve makes the whole suburban white dad look work, he isn’t Max! )
And then shit does go down and the only good part about finding out his sister has been involved in all his shit is that it was with Steve, so she’s one hundred percent safe. Even though he’s shaking and shit, shit his parents must be so worried and it’s Erica his baby sister and — and — and — Steve pats him on the back. “Don’t worry kid, I’ll look after Erica. Not that she needs looking after, good head on her shoulders that kid.” And then he’s strolling off to commandeer Dustin’s tower thing for his imaginary girlfriend.
Max appears by his shoulder. “Don’t faint,” she says drily.
“Shut up.”
He gets a lot of that from her after it’s all over (he wishes he would get it more, but she’s folding in on herself and he doesn’t know how to help her without El here, when Billy had been such a monumental cunt) and Steve starts helping him with basketball so he can make the team. Sometimes Max comes along and does flips on her skateboard while he runs up and down the court with Steve in his stupid tiny shorts and crop top that should look dumb as hell but Steve somehow pulls off. Max stops coming though, and slowly Lucas stops seeing her at all.
They never break-up, is the thing. Lucas doesn’t know what to do.
Steve shoots, scores. “I dunno, Lucas. Sorry, kid.” He does look so genuinely sorry it hurts to look at. Hurts more maybe that seeing his face punched out, by Russians or Billy Hargrove, and still so handsome like GI Joe, Lucas wants to peel his scalp off and wear his ridiculous hair as a helmet to save him from whatever’s coming. “I’ve been trying to get through to her too. I think she could really use a friend, right now, and I know she isn’t making it easy to do that right now, but just try.”
He doesn’t think he tries hard enough. Not as hard as Steve would try. Because it’s just so easy being the basketball jock. (It’s not easy, but it feels like it could be. This is how Steve was, right? King Steve.) And there’s Eddie now, Eddie who Dustin and Mike are obviously a little bit in love with, but Lucas just wants to be Steve Harrington, king of the world , not king of the outcasts.
The end of the world comes again.
And Max —
He almost fixes it, they’re so close.
So, so close.
They were meant to see a movie.
And he shouldn’t have ever let her put herself on the line like that. He knows exactly what she’d say right now: “It was my choice, Lucas. And you couldn’t have stopped me, I wouldn’t have let you.” But she’s not here and might not say anything ever again.
They were meant to see a fucking movie, it seems so stupid now. He can still see the edge of her silver irises, the unseeing eyes.
She was dead, she had died. He had felt her, lifeless, in his arms. The uncanny weight of her, falling strange and uneven like a bag of sugar, unreal like a doll. The way her head had lolled back.
His throat still hurts from screaming for Erica.
He doesn’t think seeing Steve will hurt more than when he saw his mom and dad and burst into tears, but all Steve has to do is walk in (still in his army jacket, face bloody) and squeeze his shoulder, and all he can think about is Max teasing him for having a massive, fat crush on Steve fucking Harrington and he bursts into teary laughter. Steve kneels down beside his chair, big brown eyes all confused and worried, droopy and tired.
“Woah, kid are you okay?”
The tears and laughter are making his black eye ache. “It’s just… just thinking about something Max always says.”
He smiles one of those unabashed, unashamed smiles that are so kind Lucas feels like maybe he can’t scalp Steve and steal his hair. “Oh yeah, what’s that?”
“S’about how I have this massive, stupid mancrush on you,” Lucas hiccups.
Steve cracks a grin. “Oh, I knew about that one.”
“‘That one’,” he echoes, giggling.
He winks. “I know about everyone’s crushes on me, and everyone else. It’s a sixth sense, a superpower, the only thing I’m not stupid about. That’s how I always know how to get you and Max back together, because I know how much you two like each other.”
Lucas sniffs, loudly and unattractively. “You should probably go and talk to Eddie then, he’s had a crush on you ever since he saw you waiting for us after Hellfire one time. He always asks about you. And I can tell you like him ba — What, why do you look like that?” That is fucking, heart broken.
“Oh, kid. I’m sorry. Eddie’s —”
“Oh.” Lucas stares at Max, all wrapped up in plaster. Her head seems so small and wonky. Her freckles stark against the white, pristine pillow.
Steve squeezes his shoulder. “Sorry I didn’t get to know him better.” He swallows. “I would’ve liked to.” That’s as much an admission as any, Lucas feels brave knowing that Steve is that brave. “Why don’t you tell me something else about Max? Something else that made her laugh.”
Lucas pauses, still staring at Max in the bed. He can’t look at Steve because he can tell Steve is crying by the rounded notes of his voice. “Well, she hated Hellfire,” he starts.
Maybe Max won’t ever wake up, but maybe at least Steve will remember her just like he does.