Chapter Text
In January of Steve Harrington’s junior year of college, Jonathan Byers breaks up with him.
It’s not the end of the world or anything. They didn’t even date very long. Only five months, actually – not even half a year. In fact, after the breakup, Steve only spends, like, three days eating Ben & Jerry’s straight out of the carton and rewatching New Girl. That’s practically nothing.
And it’s not even the relationship he’s mourning, not exactly. It’s hard to mourn something you only had a short time, especially when the signs have been there for at least a month now. It’s more like he’s mourning the things he knows will change, almost. Steve has known Jonathan since freshman year, after all, and they’ve been friends-ish since they were sophomores. Jonathan was already integrated into Steve’s friend group; he got lunch and went out on the weekends with Steve, Robin, and Nancy all the time - sometimes Argyle, too, but Argyle was more Jonathan's friend than Steve's, and Steve hasn't actually seen him around since he and Jonathan broke up. Jonathan has lived in the apartment next door to Steve’s since their freshman move-in day; Steve is used to going over right after class or on the way to the dining hall or waiting outside Jonathan's door to meet Nancy and Robin at the Starbucks cafe. He isn’t used to leaving his apartment and scurrying toward the stairs to avoid running into Jonathan without giving a second glance at his apartment door at all. The absence of Jonathan in Steve’s life feels weirdly and awkwardly tangible, almost, in ways Steve is still trying to get used to.
But Steve is dealing. Their college campus is huge, after all, and he and Jonathan aren’t the same major; they’ve never even had a class together. Really, the only place Steve has to avoid Jonathan is their apartment building, which is easy enough when it seems evident that Jonathan is trying to do the same.
So Steve is fine. In fact, he’s already gotten rid of all the stuff Jonathan left at his apartment in the two weeks since their breakup. Granted, it wasn’t much – just a t-shirt and a phone charger, which kind of says it all – but still. Sure, maybe Steve doesn’t quite manage to delete Jonathan’s number, but he does change his contact name to DO NOT TEXT, which is just good, anyway.
So Steve is moving on. He’s doing good. He’s doing great, actually.
Or he was, until he pulls up his Spotify app as he’s getting ready for bed one night and sees there’s already a song queued up that he’s never even heard of before.
At first, Steve stares at the screen, confused.
And then, everything clicks.
“Fuck,” Steve swears under his breath.
“So, wait a second,” Robin says the next morning, sitting at a cafe table across from Steve in the campus Starbucks. “You guys had a joint Spotify account?”
“Wrong,” Steve says. “We still have a joint Spotify account. I mean, it started as mine, technically, but Jonathan’s been mooching off of it for free for months now.”
Nancy, sitting at her girlfriend’s left, looks skeptical. “And you just now remembered this?”
“It slipped my mind, alright?” Steve says defensively. “I haven’t been listening to music lately. But last night I pulled up Spotify, and sure enough, Jonathan’s been listening to weird, sad 80’s music without a care in the world, on my account, that I pay for after he dumped me – ”
“Okay, I’m sorry,” Nancy interrupts, holding up a hand. “But…why exactly did you think it was a good idea to share a Spotify account in the first place? The student payment plan is, what, five dollars a month? Robin and I don’t even share one. And we live together.”
“So what, now it’s my fault for being economical?” Steve demands.
Nancy rolls her eyes, taking a sip of her latte.
“You know what’s funny about this?” Robin says, a smirk on her face that Steve doesn’t trust on principle.
“Nothing?” Steve suggests.
“You and Jonathan have, like, the complete opposite taste in music.”
Steve sighs, long and suffering. “Yeah, Robin. I’m aware of that.”
Nancy sets down her coffee cup. “Look. I get things are…weird between you two right now. But can’t you just…text him?”
“I would rather die.”
Nancy rolls her eyes again. “Steve, come on. Just ask him to stop using your shit. Two-minute conversation, tops. No big deal.”
“No, fuck that,” Robin says, shaking her head. “Just boot him right off your account without saying anything.”
Steve tilts his head. It’s certainly an idea.
“I mean, it’s your account, isn’t it?” Robin says. “Change the password, remove all his devices from your account – however it works – and then you’re good. Let him suffer alone on Apple Music, or whatever.”
“Jonathan has an Android,” Steve reminds her.
Robin shrugs, unbothered. “All the better, then.”
Steve sighs. The thing is — Robin and Jonathan are friends. Or, they were friends. They got along pretty well due to their mutual interest in movies and music and making fun of Steve. But then Jonathan broke up with Steve two weeks ago, and now – well, Robin isn’t exactly his biggest fan. Something she hasn’t bothered to keep a secret.
Nancy, on the other hand, is suspiciously quiet, sipping her latte while pointedly not glancing at either of them. It’s not out of the ordinary, Steve supposes; this situation might be as awkward for her as it is for Steve. Yes, Nancy’s loyalty is to her girlfriend, whose loyalty is to Steve, but Nancy and Jonathan have always been close since they had that class together freshman year. Technically, Jonathan was Nancy’s friend before he was Robin’s or even Steve’s. It’s because of this that Steve has wondered at several points if Nancy has kept in touch with Jonathan since the breakup, but he hasn’t asked. Not because it isn’t any of his business, but because it’s probably best for Steve’s health if he tries not to think about what Jonathan’s up to nowadays at all.
Which is exactly why Steve needs to figure out what to do about this Spotify problem before it becomes a problem problem.
Besides - if Steve asked, Nancy would probably say no regardless of the actual answer, and Nancy Wheeler is a terrible liar.
“You think that would kick him out of my account?” Steve asks Robin. “Just…changing the password?”
Robin shrugs. “I mean, I think so.”
“Huh,” Steve says. He takes a contemplative sip of his iced latte, then nods. “Okay. I’ll do that, then.”
“There we go,” Nancy says, a little too eager. “Problem solved, then.”
And it probably would’ve been. Except then Steve puts it off; spends the rest of the day focused on making it through his education classes and student teaching, and by the time he gets back to his apartment to work on the assignment he’s been putting off for weeks, the conversation has slipped his mind completely. And he typically likes to do his homework without any background noise, but after an hour of sitting in the silence of his apartment, it starts to feel like too much, too deafening, and suddenly Steve is hyper-aware of how big and quiet and empty his apartment is, how lonely —
He lets out a frustrated sound and snatches up his phone, pulling up Spotify to search for the first instrumental study playlist he can find, but before he can even search for anything at all, Phoebe Bridgers starts blaring out of his phone speaker.
Steve blinks, then scowls.
Jonathan.
Angrily, Steve types “study” into the Spotify search bar, then mashes the play button on the first playlist he comes across, cranking up the volume on his phone. He thinks, surely, that this will do the trick, that this will be the end of it. Hell, for all Steve knows, Jonathan forgot they shared a Spotify account in the first place. Maybe this will give Jonathan the reminder that, actually, this is Steve’s account, that he pays for, and if Jonathan’s going to dump him then the very least he could do is give Steve the courtesy of logging out of it, thanks. Maybe Steve won’t have to change the password or boot Jonathan off or, God forbid, talk to him about it. Maybe —
Steve’s instrumental study playlist abruptly switches off, and Phoebe Bridgers begins loudly blaring from Steve’s phone again.
For a moment, Steve just stares at his phone screen in disbelief. Then his hand tightens angrily around his phone, so tight that there’s a second where he thinks he might actually crack the screen.
Here’s the thing — Steve likes Phoebe Bridgers just fine. But he only started liking her because Jonathan made him listen to her music a year ago, as part of his attempt to musically educate him, or whatever, and the reminder of that grates in his chest, sharp and painful. Add to it that it’s Jonathan playing it, on Steve’s Spotify account, without even seeming to care, and that feeling worsens.
Because where the hell does Jonathan get off? Listening to his shitty pretentious music on Steve’s account, as though he thinks he’s allowed after dumping Steve on a random Tuesday afternoon and then avoiding him and not even trying to reach out for two fucking weeks, like Steve had never even meant anything at all?
What a fucking asshole.
Sure, Steve could boot Jonathan off his account. He could remove Jonathan’s devices and change his password. With the click of a few buttons, Steve could make sure Jonathan never gets back into Steve’s Spotify account again.
But that would be too simple. Too easy. It wouldn’t be enough, Steve thinks. He needs to do something. He needs to get back at Jonathan, somehow, because if he has the audacity to pull this kind of stunt, then Steve is going to give that audacity right back to him.
And so – Steve begins to plan.
freshman year
two and a half years before the breakup
Steve’s freshman apartment building is a dump.
“It’s not that bad,” Robin – Steve’s best friend, roommate, and just about the only sentimental thing he brought from home – says when Steve tells her this. She’s lying on the floor – which is kind of disgusting, given they haven’t had a chance to sweep or mop anything yet – because she insisted she needed a break before she brought in any more boxes. Steve, admittedly, is also itching for a break, but he’s only unloaded half of the stuff from his car, and he’s pretty sure he can’t justify one until he’s at least brought everything inside.
Besides — no way he’s lying on that disgusting floor.
“There’s a very suspicious stain literally three inches away from your head, you know,” Steve points out to Robin. “Better hope it isn’t blood.”
“Ew,” Robin yells, automatically sitting up and scooching to the right.
Steve rolls his eyes. “While you uselessly lie around and contract gross college kid diseases, I’m gonna be getting the rest of my stuff from my car, by the way.”
The last thing Steve sees when he ducks out of their apartment is Robin flipping him off.
As he jogs down the steps to the parking lot, Steve pulls out his phone. He texted his parents an hour ago to let them know he made it to campus, and maybe it’s stupid, but Steve was expecting — well, a response, at the very least. But his only notification is a TikTok Dustin sent him thirty minutes ago, and nothing from his parents at all, and really, if his parents weren’t even going to bother to help him move in then why did he think —
Something thuds into Steve’s chest, and Steve falls backward, landing flat on his ass in the stairwell, and when he looks up, he finds another guy his age lying flat on his ass across from him, a turned-over box of clothes on the stairwell’s landing.
“What the hell,” the guy says angrily.
“Shit,” Steve curses. “Fuck, dude, I’m so sorry, I – here, let me help you with that – ”
He crawls down the few steps to the landing, then crouches to haphazardly shove the clothes strewn across the steps into the guy’s box. He feels bad, because he’s pretty sure they’re gonna get wrinkled like this, but also, most of them look like they were already wrinkled beforehand, so maybe it’s fine?
“Here,” Steve says, quickly putting the last shirt away and carefully folding the box flaps closed as he pushes it toward the other guy. “I’m really, really sorry, I swear it was a – ”
And then he looks up, meets the other guy’s gaze, and his mouth abruptly clicks shut.
The guy is white, kind of pale, with light brown hair that hangs over his forehead – not in a long way, like Steve’s, but not in a bad way, either – and a few strands are falling into his eyes, like maybe he spends a lot of time having to brush his hair out of his face so he can see better, and his eyes are narrowed and brown and bizarrely intense, and –
The guy scowls. “Watch where you’re going next time.”
Steve blinks, but before he can respond, the guy snatches his box from Steve’s hands and marches up the steps, and right into the apartment next door to Steve's.
Shit.
now
As it turns out, it is extraordinarily easy to exact revenge against someone whom a) you’ve known for two years b) you dated for five months and c) lives only three feet away from you.
Look, Steve has — unfortunately — spent an enormous amount of time with Jonathan Byers. He knows around what time Jonathan wakes up and around when he goes to bed, he knows he showers at night and not in the mornings, he knows when he goes to class. He knows what times Jonathan makes dinner and what times Jonathan washes the dishes and what times Jonathan settles down to read a book or watch a movie. He knows Jonathan, which means he knows exactly how to exact his revenge.
After the instigating Phoebe Bridgers incident, Steve doesn’t retaliate immediately. Revenge requires patience, and Steve can be a patient man when he needs to be. In fact, he spends two whole days lying in wait and curating a list on his Notes App he aptly titles Songs That Will Piss Jonathan Off.
It’s mostly pop — a lot of Taylor Swift, because Steve never managed to win Jonathan over on her music, despite his lectures on her lyrical genius or his insistence Jonathan would probably actually like folklore and evermore if he just pulled his head out of his pretentious ass; and a bunch of K-pop, because Steve and Robin had a phase their sophomore year and it nearly sent Jonathan over the edge. Anything that Steve knows Jonathan would hate gets added to the list, and after Steve feels confident in his selections, he waits.
He only waits a day before the perfect moment falls right into his lap. It’s a Thursday night at 10:00 PM, and as Steve is lying in bed and scrolling through Instagram, he hears the distant sound of the shower in Jonathan’s apartment switching on, and then, music playing faintly. Steve sits up in bed quickly, already pulling up Spotify. Apparently, Jonathan’s listening to some Mitski song Steve has never heard of it, and suddenly Steve can imagine it. He can imagine Jonathan waiting outside the shower as he queues up the perfect playlist to listen to, because he’s one of those people who refuses to do anything without music playing, kind of like Steve never starts eating dinner when he’s at home until he’s already got something to watch pulled up on his phone. He can imagine Jonathan picking the perfect sad, angsty music, setting his phone in the glass cup on his bathroom counter – because he’s too cheap to invest in an actual shower speaker – and then, only then, stepping under the water, far out of reach of his phone.
Steve waits until the song is halfway over before he finally hits play on his queued-up selection.
Immediately, the Mitski song stops, and through the wall emerges the cranked-up bass of "Cotton Eye Joe."
Steve has no idea how Jonathan actually reacts, but he can imagine it all the same. He imagines Jonathan – in the midst of scrubbing shampoo into his hair, perhaps – snapping his eyes wide open, looking confused, before glaring at his phone across the room and muttering bitterly under his breath, “Steve.”
It makes Steve smirk just thinking about it.
He lets the first chorus and verse play before he starts looking for another song to play next, grinning all the while as he imagines Jonathan suffering through his shower in sullen silence, the twangy beats of "Cotton Eye Joe" echoing from all the way across the room, and –
The song abruptly cuts off.
Steve frowns down at his phone, but before he can click play again, his screen switches from "Cotton Eye Joe" right back to Mitski.
“What the hell,” Steve says, mashing the back button, but Cotton Eye Joe only plays for a few notes before Jonathan switches it right back to Mitski.
Steve can’t believe this. He can’t believe Jonathan actually got out of the shower, that he walked all the way over to his bathroom counter, is presumably standing there still, dripping water all over the floor, just to stop Steve from gaining the upper hand.
Un-fucking-believable.
But it’s fine. Vengeance requires patience, right? So Steve waits, lets the song play through until almost the end, until Jonathan would’ve presumably returned back to the shower, and then, just as the closing notes end, Steve switches right back to "Cotton Eye Joe" before the next song can even begin to play.
For a moment, all Steve hears from Jonathan’s apartment is the music and the sound of the water running.
And then, barely audible, Steve hears a muffled, angry, “Damn it.”
Things escalate very quickly from there.
Jonathan doesn’t even wait twenty-four hours before retaliating – he starts the next morning off by blaring his sad angsty music out of Steve’s Amazon Echo, and does it again at several points throughout the day, interrupting Steve in the middle of studying or watching TV or heating something up for dinner.
It’s all the typical shit Jonathan listens to – alternative stuff or sad 80’s indie rock songs – which makes it the exact opposite of the kind of music Steve actually likes. Still, he doesn’t actually recognize most of the songs. Steve, on the other hand, is more specific with his approach. Throughout the day, he randomly presses play on songs that he knows will piss Jonathan off, songs he knows Jonathan specifically hates. The first time he plays a Justin Bieber song, he hears Jonathan’s audible curse even through the wall between their apartments.
He plays three more Justin Bieber songs that day alone.
So Jonathan ups his game and starts getting creative, too. Not with song choices, necessarily – he’s still mainly sticking to the weird indie stuff that he likes but that Steve can’t stand – but with when he retaliates. It’s funny – Steve forgets that Jonathan knows him, too; that he still remembers Steve’s habits and schedule.
He is very quickly reminded of this when about four days into their Spotify feud, as Steve is jogging at 6 AM on the gym’s treadmill to the beat of a Carly Rae Jepsen song, the music abruptly switches to "The Sound of Silence" by Simon & Garfunkle and Steve gets so surprised he loses his stride and almost trips and faceplants on the treadmill.
Jonathan strikes again later that night while Steve’s lying on his couch, watching some stupid YouTube video to distract him from the silence of his apartment and the video cuts out and Spotify starts blaring Imagine Dragons out of his TV instead. The joke’s on Jonathan, actually, because Steve unironically enjoys Imagine Dragons. But it’s the principle of the thing. Jonathan can mess with Steve all he wants, but during his stupid YouTube video-watching time? Well, that’s just crossing a line.
So they go back and forth, Steve coming up with more and more unique songs to disturb Jonathan’s peace and seeking out the best times to strike with them, and Jonathan dishing it right back at him, until suddenly it’s been a week of them feuding on Spotify, and neither of them has shown any signs of stopping.
“So let me get this straight,” Robin says after Steve’s explained the entire thing to her and Nancy, the three of them at their usual spot in the campus Starbucks again. “You guys are arguing through…Spotify?”
Steve rolls his eyes. “It’s not arguing. It’s…”
But then Steve trails off, because, well. Actually, it sort of is arguing.
Nancy arches her eyebrows. “And how is this better than kicking him off your account, exactly?”
“Because kicking him off would only be a mild inconvenience,” Steve says. “This, on the other hand, is actual revenge.”
“Okay, but what do you get out of this?” Robin says. “Because it kind of just sounds like you’re just wasting a lot of time.”
“I’m not wasting time,” Steve says. Then he thinks back to the two whole days he spent last week curating a list of songs to annoy Jonathan and amends, “I’m not wasting much time.”
Robin looks dubious.
“Oh, come on,” Steve says. “You’re the one who told me I should kick him out and change my passwords without even saying anything to him.”
“Yes, and you’ll notice how what you’re doing isn’t any of those things.”
“Oh my God.” Steve nudges Nancy. “Come on, back me up here.”
Because if Steve knows Nancy Wheeler – and he does – he knows she will. Nancy is almost as chaotic as Steve is. She just hides it under several layers of cardigans and excellent grades.
But Nancy just stirs her straw around her iced coffee cup and begins, “Well…”
“Oh my God, you too?”
“I’m just saying,” Nancy starts defensively. “As someone who dated you in the past – ”
Steve groans. “Oh, here we go.”
“Now, wait, let’s be fair here for a second,” Robin cuts in. “Would we really call what you two did dating?”
“We went on two dates, which means dates, plural, so…yes. Technically,” Nancy says.
“Excuse you?” Steve says. “It was three dates.”
“I thought we decided the third date didn’t count.”
“None of that counts as actually dating,” Robin insists, incredulous.
“Whatever,” Nancy says dismissively. “The point is, I’m the person sitting at this table that has the most relevant experience here, so I figured it’d be helpful if I offered my two cents.”
Steve lifts an eyebrow. “Yeah? Which are?”
“Just talk to him, Steve.”
Steve groans.
“I’m serious!” Nancy says. “I get things are awkward and you don’t want to see him, but this weird feud is only going to make things way worse. If you just communicated for once – ”
“For once?” Steve echoes. “What are you talking about? I communicate all the time. I’m great at communicating.”
Nancy takes a sip of her latte and mutters around her straw, “You weren’t on our dates.”
“Hey!”
“I’m just saying – ”
“No, absolutely not,” Steve says. “I’m not taking advice from the same person who avoided me and Rob for a week because you realized you had a crush on the guy you went on a few dates with’s best friend and panicked.”
Robin snorts, then quiets when Nancy shoots her a look.
“Look,” Nancy says, her tone slightly gentler. “I’m just saying that clearing the air with Jonathan would probably make you feel better than doing this whole…weird revenge plot thing.”
“You love weird revenge plots,” Steve accuses.
“Steve,” Robin says. “Look, we’re just a little concerned. That’s all.”
Steve’s eyebrows lift. “Concerned?”
Robin fidgets in her chair. “Well. It’s just that…I’m not sure how any of this is gonna help you, y’know. Move on.”
Steve’s eyes widen. “Move on? From what?”
Robin just looks at Steve expectantly, while Nancy pointedly lowers her gaze to take a sip of coffee.
Steve huffs. “Guys. I appreciate the concern and everything, but I’m fine. Alright? We barely even dated. Hell, we didn’t even last six months, remember?”
Robin looks skeptical. “So, what? Three dates with Nance counts as dating – ”
“Two,” Nancy corrects.
“But almost half a year with Jonathan doesn’t?”
Steve flounders for a moment. “I – that’s not what I said.”
“It kinda is, though.”
“Oh my God, I – look, this isn’t a big deal! I’m just messing around. It’s not like I keyed his car or some shit. And I had to retaliate somehow, alright? You have no idea what it’s like having an ex disturbing your day with his shitty music and screwing up your Spotify algorithm. Seriously, guys, all he listens to is, like, sad 80’s music, or Mitski, or The Smiths.”
“I listen to Mitski and The Smiths,” Robin reminds him.
“Yeah, but not on my Spotify.”
Robin gives Steve a look but doesn’t answer.
“Can I just remind you both that Jonathan is the one using my shit after dumping me and not even trying to talk to me about it for three weeks?" Steve points out. "Like, is it really such a crime that I try to fuck with him a little bit after all that?”
Robin continues to say nothing, but Nancy looks across the table at Steve for one long, assessing moment, before she says, “You know what you need?”
“I’m sure you’re going to tell me regardless.”
“You need a rebound,” Nancy decides.
Steve rolls his eyes.
Nancy leans forward, conspiratorial. “Did I ever tell you that my friend Chrissy thinks you’re hot?”
“Who’s Chrissy?” Steve asks.
“Cunningham,” Nancy says. “Short, blonde, cute, friendly. On the cheerleading team.”
Steve’s eyebrows lift. “Oh?”
Robin groans. “God, please don’t subject him to poor Chrissy.”
Nancy ignores her. “She and a couple of other friends are going out tonight, you know. What if the three of us all went, too? You could take a load off, I could hype you up, you could get laid for once…”
Steve’s eyebrows arch higher. “I like getting laid,” he offers.
Robin rolls her eyes so hard Steve wouldn’t be surprised if she’d strained something.
“So is that a yes?” Nancy asks.
Steve thinks about it. It’s not a terrible idea. And it’s not like he has any other plans; there’s no basketball practice this weekend and no upcoming assignments he needs to worry about for next week.
Still, something hesitant twinges in Steve’s chest all the same. He hasn’t been with anyone since – well, since. And he hasn’t had to try to flirt with anyone new for even longer than that.
It just…it feels like a lot. Especially so soon.
Then again…it would be nice to get laid.
“Sure,” Steve says finally. “Yeah, that sounds fun.”
Robin bites her lip as if she’s holding back from telling Steve all the ways she thinks this is going to be a bad idea.
Nancy, on the other hand, just grins.
It is, actually, fun. Steve drinks enough Tequila Sunrises to get pleasantly tipsy, but not drunk, he dances to live music with Robin and Nancy, and he somehow manages to charm the socks off Chrissy. It turns out Nancy was right – Chrissy is cute, and she laughs at all of Steve’s jokes even if they aren’t all that funny, and yeah, maybe she isn’t exactly Steve’s type, but a rebound is a rebound, and it doesn’t seem like Chrissy’s looking for anything serious, either.
Besides – who doesn’t love a cheerleader?
The two of them bow out of the bar only a few hours into the night – Nancy shoots Steve a grin and a thumbs up as they leave – and neither of them wastes any time once they’re back at Steve’s apartment, Chrissy kissing Steve immediately after the door’s closed behind them as Steve quickly tugs off her jacket. It doesn’t take them much longer to shed the rest of their clothes and make it to Steve’s bed, both of them panting loudly, hands roaming everywhere, before Steve finally pulls back and reaches for a condom from his bedside table.
“This okay?” Steve asks her.
Chrissy bites her lip and nods.
It’s good, is the thing. It feels like it’s been forever since Steve has been with someone like this, and every breathless sound Chrissy makes beneath him spurs him on, makes him rock the bed harder, and –
Somebody once told me the world is gonna roll me –
Steve abruptly freezes.
Chrissy frowns up at him. “What’s that?”
But Steve’s already whirling his head around to find the source of the loud, blaring music, his gaze landing immediately on the Amazon Echo lit up on the desk across his room.
Steve narrows his eyes.
Fucking Jonathan.
“Um,” Chrissy says tentatively. “Is that…yours?”
“Uh, yeah. Sorry,” Steve says, carefully reaching for his phone on the bedside table and frantically punching the pause button until the music cuts out and the room goes silent again. “It’s been, uh, glitching.” He sets his phone back down, then turns back to Chrissy, trying for a smile he hopes looks both genuine and casual. “Sorry.”
Chrissy blinks up at him, confused, then she smiles again. “That’s okay.”
Steve’s smile widens. “Great,” he says, then he leans down to kiss her again, and Chrissy arches up into him as he starts to move.
They barely make it another two minutes before the song starts playing again.
“God damn it,” Steve hisses, pulling away from Chrissy to snatch his phone off his bedside table again.
“Um,” Chrissy says. “Does it always glitch by playing Smashmouth?”
“Yes,” Steve says, aggressively punching the pause button again. “I mean, no. I mean – sorry. It’s…complicated.”
Chrissy bites her lip, looking skeptical.
“You know what?” Steve says. “Let me just…go unplug it.”
So he slides carefully out of Chrissy, stands up from the bed, then crosses the room to yank the Amazon Echo plug out of the wall with what’s probably more force than necessary.
“See?” Steve says triumphantly, turning back to Chrissy.
Chrissy blinks, then smiles again, but it’s more hesitant this time.
“Now, where were we?” Steve says, and Chrissy’s smile softens into something more genuine as he crawls over her again, and when he pulls her back into a kiss she goes willingly.
Not even a minute later, his phone speaker starts blaring “All Star.”
“Fuck,” Steve shouts, pulling away from Chrissy to clamber for his phone again and slam down on the pause button. “Shit, fuck, I’m really, really sorry, just hang on – ”
But Chrissy is already sliding out from underneath him, reaching for her shirt from where she’d thrown it off at the edge of the bed.
Steve lowers his phone. “Hey, wait, where are you going?”
“You know,” Chrissy says stiffly. “If this whole thing was just a joke to you – ”
“What?” Steve says. “Whoa, hey, no – ”
“Because if you really didn’t want to sleep with me, you could’ve just said so,” Chrissy continues angrily as she tugs back on her underwear and skirt, then bends down to pull on her shoes. “Instead of dragging me all the way back to your apartment just to suddenly change your mind and play some stupid prank – ”
“Chrissy,” Steve says, reaching for her. “I promise it isn’t a prank, please just let me explain – ”
But Chrissy’s already standing, pulling away from him. “Goodnight, Steve,” she says hotly without even a glance over her shoulder, and then she marches out of his room and out the front door, letting it slam shut behind her.
For a moment, Steve just sits there, stunned.
“You know what?” Steve finally says aloud. “Fuck it.”
He stands abruptly, rolling off the barely-used condom and tossing it in the trash before yanking on his shirt and jeans, and then he marches out into the hall, right up to Jonathan’s door.
“Hey!” Steve shouts, pounding on the door. “Come on, Jonathan, quit fucking around, I know you’re there – ”
The door opens.
It’s funny – Steve and Jonathan live on the same hallway, just a few feet away from each other, and yet, Steve has managed to go three weeks without even running into him. He hasn’t seen Jonathan since he broke up with Steve, actually, and as illogical as it sounds, Steve kind of thought he’d just…never see Jonathan again. Not just because he hadn’t wanted to, but because it felt impossible to imagine anything else. It felt impossible to imagine Jonathan living his life afterward, on his own, like Jonathan should’ve just ceased to exist the second he walked out of Steve’s life.
But here Jonathan stands, wearing jeans and a ratty flannel alone in his apartment at almost one AM, and he looks –
The same. Jonathan looks completely, absolutely the same.
Something in Steve’s chest clenches and twists.
Jonathan looks at Steve for a long moment, his arms crossed in front of his chest, expression flat, and when he does finally speak, all he says is, “Hey.”
Steve feels like he’s going to explode.
“I hope you’re prepared to come up with a good story for Nance,” Steve says finally, forcing his voice to sound measured, even as he feels his fists clench down at his sides. “Given you just ran her friend out of my apartment because she thought I was playing a prank.”
Jonathan’s mouth twitches, just barely. To anyone else, it would’ve looked like a muscle spasm. To Steve, it looks like Jonathan’s trying to hide a smirk.
“I take it she’s not a fan of Smashmouth, then,” Jonathan says, and for a moment, Steve’s vision blurs so hard he sees red.
“First of all,” Steve grits out. “The Smashmouth thing isn’t even funny anymore. That was, like, 2012 humor. Do better. And secondly – cut it. The fuck. Out.”
Jonathan’s eyes flash. “Me? You’re the one that started it with the stupid “Cotton Eye Joe” shit last week!”
“It’s my account, Jonathan! I’m the one fucking paying for it! You’re the one who’s been mooching off it scott-free because you’re too fucking broke to fork out five dollars a month – ”
Jonathan lets out a short, humorless laugh. “Fuck you, Steve.”
“No, you know what?” Steve says. “You don’t get to do this, alright? You don’t get to fuck off and not speak to me for three weeks while you keep using my shit, like you didn’t – ”
Like you didn’t break up with me, is what Steve meant to say, and even though that is what happened, actually saying it out loud suddenly feels too vulnerable, and Steve lets his voice break off instead.
An awkward, silent pause lingers between the two of them for a moment before Jonathan finally says, “I forgot it was your account.”
Steve blinks. “What?”
“I said,” Jonathan says. “I forgot it was your account. That first week, after – ” He stops short, then clears his throat. “I was just so used to using it, I forgot it was yours.”
It had idly occurred to Steve that this might be the case. Hell, even Steve had forgotten for a moment that they shared the account. But for Jonathan to have completely forgotten while still using it for the two weeks after the breakup, as though he wasn’t even thinking of Steve at all –
“So I wasn’t using it to be a dick, or whatever,” Jonathan mutters. “I really just…forgot. So if it pisses you off that bad that I’m still on it, just change your password and boot me off, or something.”
Steve lifts his eyebrows. “What, and give you the satisfaction of me forfeiting?”
“Forfeiting?” Jonathan echoes incredulously. “What, like you think this is some weird, revenge game?”
“Isn’t it?”
Jonathan rolls his eyes. “Jesus Christ, you are so fucking dramatic – ”
“Bold coming from someone who’s clearly just as invested in this as I am.”
Jonathan scowls. “I’m not invested.”
“Yeah?” Steve says. “Then you log out. Delete the app, sign up for your own account, whatever the fuck. You can end this just as easily as I can.”
Jonathan stares at Steve silently, working his jaw, but he doesn’t answer, and it feels like there’s something hot racing up Steve’s spine, a sensation not at all unlike how he’d felt just five minutes ago in his bed with someone’s hand on his dick.
“Yeah,” Steve says. “That’s what I thought.”
“God,” Jonathan says furiously. “You are such a fucking asshole, you know that?”
“Yeah?” Steve says, smirking. “I’ll show you exactly how much of an asshole I can be, Byers.”
And then he turns and marches away, back into his own apartment, satisfyingly slamming the door shut behind him.