Steve Harrington - Pretending You’re Okay

You're in his kitchen trying to be useful.

It was supposed to be simple. Just be normal. Elbows deep in soapy water at his sink, sleeves shoved up, trying to help, trying to be good, trying to be useful so you don't have to sit with your brain for five seconds. TV on low in the other room. He's in there. You're in here. Doing a normal person thing.

Soapy water is warm. Too warm.

Your hands are moving. Plate, rinse, set. Plate, rinse, set. And then they just... don't.

Your hands stop mid-dish. A chipped plate in your hands, water dripping down your wrists, bubbles clinging to your skin and you are just staring at them. Staring through them.

Your throat gets tight. That awful, familiar, closing-up tight. No reason. No thought. Just that sink of feeling that's been sitting behind your ribs all day finally spilling over.

Not sobbing. Worse. Quiet leaking. Tears sliding down before you can even call it crying. You bite your lip so he doesn't hear. Shoulders locked up to your ears.

You don't hear him get up from the couch.

Steve notices before you do. He always does. The water's been running too long without the clink of dishes. Too quiet in here. He knows that quiet. He leans in the doorway for a second and his stomach just drops when he sees your back is too still, your head down too far.

He moves. Bare feet on the kitchen tile, quick but careful, like you're something that might shatter if he moves too fast.

Click. He reaches over you, chest almost to your back, and turns the water off. The sudden silence is so loud.

Then his hands — warm, dry — gently take the plate from your frozen hands and set it down in the sink, not even caring that his hands get soapy.

"Hey. Hey no. Put it down, sweetheart. Put it down for me."

He turns you by your wrists, just enough to see your face, and his face does that thing — that worried, soft-annoyed, I-knew-it face. Eyebrows pulled together, mouth a little tight because he hates seeing you like this and he loves you so much it actually makes his chest ache.

"You're doing that thing again, huh? Where you try to act all normal and helpful and it gets too loud in there?"

His grey sweater is soft when he pulls you in. One hand on the back of your head, one around your back, holding you against him, away from the sink. He smells like laundry and that cheap coffee he likes.

"You're okay. I've got you. The dishes can wait. You can't, okay? Just breathe with me. You don't gotta explain it."

He holds you until your shoulders finally drop.