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Steve is lost. Just utterly and completely lost. Not in the grocery store, no he’s definitely in the right aisle. Aisle 9, feminine hygiene products. Yep.
Some of the kids had slept over at his place after family movie night, including Max and El.
I shouldn't be calling it that, it's really just babysitting, he thought.
Also, he barely was able to watch the movies with Dustin trying to talk to him about DnD the entire time, trying to get him to join a campaign, and explaining their current one in extreme detail.
He was woken up at eight in the morning by Max, which physically hurt, considering the fact that they all went to bed at four. But he woke right up and moved to jump out of bed once he noticed how uncomfortable Max looked.
Her eyes were glued to the floor as she asked, “Do you have any pants I could borrow? I kinda... started my period.”
As Steve stood up, Max moved back awkwardly, ending up leaning against the wall.
“Yeah, yeah of course,” Steve answered. He found an old pair of sweatpants in the bottom of a drawer that could pass as Max’s and passed them to her.
She reached out and took them, but didn't move to leave. “I um… I’m sorry I ruined the sheets in the guest room,” She sighed. “I don’t have anything with me,” she looked up at the ceiling like she was begging to drop dead at that moment, “and neither does El.”
“Oh,” Steve says awkwardly, playing with his hair. “Let’s go, uh, check the master bathroom.”
Max followed Steve through part of the house that she knows none of them have been in before. They venture down the dark hallway leading to his parent's bedroom. It felt cold.
Entering his parents' space, Steve was more uncomfortable about where they were than why, and was able to talk more freely to Max, reassuring her.
“Don't worry about the sheets, Max. Seriously I’ve stained enough sheets and pillow cases in the past. I’ll get the blood out.” He said, scratching at his hairline.
Max finally looked him in the eye, and… smirked?
She reached up to poke at the scar that Steve had accidentally just pointed out along his forehead, “Oh I bet.”
“Yeah, whatever,” Steve mumbled. If bringing up him being beaten to a bloody pulp by Russians or having a plate shatter against his skull made Max smile, he wouldn’t stop her no matter how much he wanted to.
He used to love coming into his parent's room in the morning and watching his mom get ready in front of the bathroom mirror. It's how he first learned to do his hair. But now it was foreign and cold.
He started looking around the bathroom, careful to not move anything around. He opened the mirror to show a medicine cabinet and shut it before his father's razor could shift an inch. Steve knelt down to look under the sink, where he was able to shove all the extra hairspray and curling irons around, it was messy enough that it wouldn't be noticeable. As much as being ignored by his parents sucked, he’s realized over recent years through disappointed glances and bruised ribs that it was better than the alternative. (And now, with the new normal of Robin crashing at his place all the time, and everyone else dropping in often, he didn’t want to risk anything that would threaten to change the shifting dynamic of the group and his place.)
“Ah-ha! Gotcha,” Steve stood up with a nearly empty bag of pads in his hand. He looked at them, seeing the two dusty plastic-wrapped pads, before tossing them at Max.
Max relaxed after she caught them, “Thanks.”
“Yeah, no problem. Glad we found ‘em.”
“I’ll uh, use the other bathroom,” Max said as she moved to leave. She had lived with temperamental people before, and knew not to mess with the delicate ecosystem of the home. She saw it in Steve, the anxiety that she still sees in the mirror from the days of living with Billy and his dad. The trailer park she just moved into was terrible, but she’d take it over the constant worry over the not changing tv channel and leaving enough hot water in the shower. She thinks that might make her a bad person because she's happy it's over, and it's over because he’s dead . And there’s a whisper in the back of her mind that it's because of her .
“You can shower if you want. I’ll change the sheets and stuff.”
Max stopped in the bathroom doorway, “you really don't have to, I can take care of it.”
“You're a guest, Mayfield. I gotta at least try to be a good host so you guys wanna come back over,” Steve says as a joke, but kind of really means it.
Max nods and closes the bathroom door, not really feeling like a guest. She wouldn't mind spending all her time here instead of in her trailer with her mom who only leaves the couch to go to work. She can't imagine any other man that has ever been in her life acting this cool about her period, not even her dad, and she wished that Steve was like her brother or something. She showers, silently thanking the universe and whatever exists out there (because come on with the upside down, there's a possibility for everything and anything) for Steve Harrington, while also cursing them out for starting her period at a damn sleepover.
Steve knocks on the guest room door, right across from his room where he can see Robin still asleep on his floor through the cracked door. When El doesn't answer he peeks his head in to find the light still on and the girl passed out on the stripped mattress, the covers kicked down around her legs, pillow on top of her head. The sheets that Max is acting like need to be burned are in a crumpled ball on the floor by the door. Their overnight bags in a mess of clothes by the dresser. He smiles at El instinctually before grabbing the sheets, and quietly turning off the light and shutting the door. Steve waited until he heard the water shut off to start the washing machine, and then wandered downstairs to make coffee since there was no way he'd get more sleep.
Steve tiptoes past the boys camped out in the living room on his way to the kitchen, scattered around on couches and lazy boy chairs and the floor. Thank god they're still asleep, he thought. He didn't think that Max would want to deal with them right now.
He was thinking about pouring a second cup of coffee when Max appeared in the kitchen.
“Do you have any Advil,” She whispers.
“Here ya go,” Steve stage whispers back as he hands her the pill bottle and a glass of water.
Max sighs, “thanks for everything, Steve. I'm really sorry.”
“Hey, there's nothing to apologize for, seriously. Except for maybe waking me up after barely four hours of sleep, but you can make that up to me later by beating Dustin at Nintendo and/or letting me win.”
That earned him a smile and a sarcastic “sure.”
“Do you want anything like, I don't know, chocolate? Chocolate helps right?” Steve moves to look in the cabinet above the fridge where his mom hides the junk food.
“Mint Chocolate chip ice cream,” Max declares with her head falling into her hand as she sits at the table. “Or strawberry, actually.”
Steve sucks in a breath dramatically, “Sorry we're fresh out. I'm kinda sick of ice cream since Scoops, you know? But I have snickers, and I can make breakfast. Do you want eggs, waffles, or pancakes? Lucas finished the sausage links last time but we still have bacon somehow, and…”
Max reaches out her arm, hand faced up, asking for the candy bar, and for him to stop talking. It is way too early in the morning for this, and Steve thinks that Robin is the only one that rambles?
“I'll have an omelet if you're making breakfast. With mushrooms, please. I need mushrooms,” Max says.
Steve smiles, tossing a towel on his shoulder, “Now, that I can do.”
The rest of the house slowly woke up as the aroma of eggs and bacon spread. The kids trickled in one by one, yawning and doing a double take at the clock, wondering why Steve was making breakfast so early.
Steve heard El ask Max if everything was all good as he set down a new bottle of maple syrup in front of Robin without a word, (but with an affectionate eye roll). Robin beamed at him. Max whispered back to El so Steve could only see her smile and nod her head at him.
And that's how Steve found himself really confused in the ninth aisle of a grocery store in the next town over, after dropping everyone off at their actual homes.
He's only in the town over because of his mom's weird thing about Steve doing public things like grocery shopping. Her friends would see and talk, and her not-so-friends would gossip, and that was way more important than basic needs like food of course.
A woman that had noticed him staring at the shelves, took pity on him, “You lost?”
“Huh? No. I mean, yeah, I don't know what to uh,” Steve gestured at the entire shelf filled top to bottom with different options, not to mention the tampons that are further down.
“These for a girlfriend, or,” the woman started, pushing her cart closer to Steve.
Steve glanced at her, making sure she wasn't hitting on him. He relaxed, getting the vibe that she really was just nice and was helping him.
“No, for my… little sister,” He finished, figuring it was easier than explaining, not focusing on the joy it made him feel to consider her and the rest of them as a part of his family.
“Oh okay,” she smiled brightly and pulled two packs from the middle shelf, and handed them to him, “these should work.”
Steve looked at the packaging noticing pictures and words and numbers he didn't get about the length and wings and pictures of teardrops for some reason. He totally would've guessed wrong.
“Thank you so much. You have no idea how long I’ve been standing here.”
“No problem,” She said as she pushed her cart past him to continue her shopping.
He made a quick stop in the frozen section and easily picked out two gallons of ice cream. He wondered what El and Robin would like, but the junk food cabinet is packed with chocolate and chips, so he hopes that with all that and the ice cream, it was enough.
Steve backtracks and grabs two boxes of eggos, just to be safe.
He pays, surprisingly comfortable about what he's buying in front of a bunch of strangers, and heads home to put the ice cream and eggos in the freezer, and the pads in the bathroom, under the sink.
Now all he has to figure out is how to tell Max about how he stocked up on stuff without making her embarrassed. It's no big deal. Steve really just wants his home to be welcoming and safe for her and everyone else since they are making him feel that way about the house too.