WB

Warm Blood Hawkins, late October 1985. The nights had started turning sharp early. Steve Harrington had always loved hard. Not in one language—every language at once. He gave Y/N his old basketball hoodies because he liked the way they swallowed her, the sleeves hanging past her hands, the faint smell of his cologne still clinging to the fabric. He wore her thin elastic hair ties around his wrist like bracelets, snapping them absently when he was thinking. At the movies his hand stayed on her thigh the whole time, thumb stroking slow arcs through denim. In the car the same. Even when they were just sitting on the floor of the video store after hours with Robin, Nancy, and Jonathan, his palm would find her knee and rest there like it belonged. At parties he drifted behind her without thinking, arms looping around her waist, chin settling on her shoulder or the top of her head while he half-listened to whatever conversation was happening. He brought her fries still hot from the bag, cold canned sodas from the gas station, and once a slightly crushed handful of wildflowers he’d picked on the side of the road because the color reminded him of her sweater. Y/N had gotten used to it. Liked it, even. Then the demobat got its teeth into him under the high school. Not deep enough to kill him. Not enough to turn him into one of those things. Just enough that something in his blood never quite settled right again. His skin stayed colder than it should. Food didn’t fill him the same way. And her scent—her shampoo, the soap on her wrists, the particular heat under her skin—started pulling at him harder than anything else. When she wasn’t near, a tight, uneasy feeling settled in his chest, like he was supposed to be guarding something vital and had let it walk away. He knew it. He hated how much he knew it. One night he tried to do the decent thing. Told her he was in a mood and she should go home. Said he needed the house quiet. She kissed his cheek, grabbed her keys, and walked