LIKE I CAN ━ Steve Harrington ✓

00 - THE UNKNOWN

THE UNKNOWN

IT WAS SUMMER WHEN IT STARTED. The drive in, dry heat, cloudless sky with only the stars lighting the way. Some old movie was playing, Grayson thinks it might have been Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, but he'd be lying if he said he remembered. All he remembered was the sweat beads forming on his pale skin from the nighttime humidity, he remembers the way his best friends laughed at the film, light and airy as it was summer and there was nothing to worry about. He remembered the taste of salty popcorn ( popcorn later tasted on someone else's lips, but that's to be revealed ). That was the first Saturday of the summer before his junior year, summer of '83 and undoubtedly the best summer of Grayson's seventeen (sixteen then) years of living.

The summer of 1983 was a blur if Grayson was being honest. It was a flashbulb memory, all he could think of was the feeling of that night, of those many nights. The only thing he truly, clearly remembered was the way Steve Harrington's lips felt on his in the dark corner behind the snack shack that night. Tasting of salt ( revelation ) and cherry cola, the boys hid in the corner, the stars being their only lighting. Skin touching skin, hands sliding under t-shirts, pure and unadulterated passion.

It lasted a month. And a half. A month and a half of nights looking at stars and discovering each other in the bed of Grayson's cherry-red pickup truck. Warm skin against the cold metal, goosebumps but not because of the night air but because of the feel of rough fingertips meeting soft skin, meeting lips, meeting hair. ( Grayson was a musician, what musician isn't good with their hands? ). A month and a half of passion, of craving, of a skinny love neither of them cared to fix. Admitting feelings? Neither boy knew the meaning of the words. This was just fun. Just fun.

Then, it all crashed. One night in a big and lonely house, a closed bedroom door they forgot to lock and a father who came home early. Grayson remembers that feeling, too. He remembers the screaming, the cool voice of the boy he ( maybe ) loved telling him to get the hell out. Because no matter how much Grayson thought he mattered to Steve, his father's opinion of him would always matter more. A curse the boy wrought, a curse that made the boy he ( maybe ) loved always strive for the validation from those that mattered to him. It was a nasty, spine-tingling curse Grayson would never be able to fix. They were broken, but that curse held strong. Grayson ignored the eyes of Steve's father boring holes in his back as he gripped the doorknob. He remembered the goosebumps no longer caused by touch, but by bitter summer wind as he stepped into the night.

He remembered starting up his cherry-red pickup truck. Driving away. Grayson never went back to that house. Not for the rest of summer.

He saw Steve in the hallways when school started up again. His eyes suddenly very invested in the tile patterns on the floor or the slamming of locker doors belonging to people he didn't know. His eyes would train on anything else, but he knew the boy's eyes were trained on him. Always. There was no hatred there, no matter how much the two tried to pretend there was. They ignored everything that was between them.

"Oh, what happened with you and Steve? I thought you were friends?" his two best friends, twin sisters Elise and Emma, would ask him. A few times Grayson invited the other boy to the trio's tradition of Saturdays at Benny's under the guise of them befriending each other over the summer. He wouldn't tell his friends about the nights they shared or the kisses they craved from each other.

There was nothing Grayson wanted more than to go back. To go back to the summer. Back to the night they met, maybe. Back to the night they discovered who they were always meant to be. Back to the times filled with love, light, and laughter. Nothing more.

There were a million things Grayson wished he would change, but the very first thing he wanted to redo was to lock the door. Lock the door and keep their love in and everything else out. If they had locked it, they would have heard Steve's father knock or shake the doorknob. Things would be different. They might be different. Alas, he couldn't go back and he was trapped in the decisions he made. He had been reckless, stupid, and it cost him.

It cost him everything.

sorry this is short, but this prologue was intended to be more poetic than actual story so this is basically just establishing what went down between Steve and Grayson before I can start the events of season one so yeah!