Original auther: nailriddenbat

Prom was ending. Groups of teenagers rushed out of the dance hall while couples lingered behind, determined to share the last two dances together. With their bodies moving slowly and their heads pressed together, they were sharing whispers of love and promises. It was practically a picture perfect moment.

Then there was you, Y/N Henderson.

You sat off to the side at a round table pushed far back into the room. Your dress was perfect and your hair was perfect. You glanced down at your hands, your nails fresh and polished. That was perfect too. But you were alone and this night had been far from perfect.

Earlier in the night, you had wandered through the crowd with your clutch under your arm and a glass of punch in your hand. You looked around, trying to catch a glimpse of your date, and eventually found him out in the hall with other classmates. They were laughing as they passed a flask around, heads thrown back. You took a deep breath before stepping up to him, tapping him on the shoulder to say, “Hey. I couldn’t find you in there, almost thought I lost you.”

Billy Hargrove turned around, a smirk etched onto his face. “Y/N,” he said in a long drawl.

He was drunk. Plastered. Wasted. Inebriated.

You smiled up at him nervously. “You okay, Billy?” you asked, almost worried about what sort of answer you would get.

“Oh I’m great,” Billy reassured you as he slipped his arm around your shoulders. “Listen…” he trailed off as he led you away from the others. “I know that we had plans for after prom, but Tommy over there,” he stopped to point at his friend, whose face was twisted in disgust as he held the flask up to his mouth, “Well Tommy’s throwing a house party, so I think I’m going to go there instead.”

Your heart dropped into your stomach. Blinking rapidly, you pushed his arm from around you as you spoke in a low tone, “Billy I already bought the tickets for the amusement park. It’s for their after prom special, and I can’t get my money back.”

“Well you can still go!” Billy said optimistically, waving his hand as he began to walk backwards to the group. “Have a great time. Really. I hate amusement parks anyway.”

You opened your mouth to speak again but by that point, Billy and the others had migrated further down the hall. Your eyes watered as your shoulders began to tremble, inhaling suddenly as you looked up at the ceiling to blink the tears away. You shut your eyes tight as you whispered to yourself, “Shit.”

You were called out of your little trip down memory lane by Mr. Clark, your little brother’s science teacher who had been recruited to chaperone this evening’s prom.

“Y/N, are you okay?”Mr. Clark reached out to you, concern filling his entire face.

You wiped away the lone tear that you didn’t even realize fell and nodded your head, trying to clear your throat. “I’m good, Mr. Clark.” Liar.

He smiled slightly, “Well the last dance is coming up. You might want to gather your things so they don’t sweep you out of here when they come in to clean. Do you have a ride home?”

“I do, yes,” you answered his question, sitting up straight in the chair. “I’ll be out of here soon.”

Mr. Clark nodded his head slowly, patting you on the shoulder before walking away. You rolled your eyes, annoyed by your own behavior and you began muttering to yourself, “Get yourself together, Y/N. This is what everyone warned you about. Did you listen? No.”

You leaned down to slip your shoes back on before standing up. You grabbed your clutch, making sure you had everything you needed before heading for the exit. A second later Ed Sheeran’s voice filled the room, the song ‘Perfect’ beginning to play.

You couldn’t help but your roll your eyes again, more tears filling your eyes. Of course they would play your favorite song from your favorite artist on a night that was supposed to be magical and wonderful and romantic, but ended up being miserable. Despite the bitterness slowly bubbling within your body, you couldn’t stop yourself from turning around to look at the room one last time.

You turned back around after a brief moment, head tilted down towards the floor as you began to walk. Your hand gently lifted the skirt of your dress with one hand so you could walk a little easier.

“Hey, Henderson,” a voice called out from ahead of you.

You looked up and felt as if your heart was going to stop.

Standing there with his hands tucked into the pockets of his pants in all of his beautiful, suited up glory, hair perfectly coiffed as always, was Steve Harrington.

“it’s the last dance,” he stated the obvious.

You nodded your head, not sure if you had a voice to use. He was supposed to be with Nancy Wheeler. They were together earlier in the night. You had seen them before.

Steve smiled a little as he walked over to you, gently taking the clutch from your hand and leaning towards his right to side to rest it on an empty table.

“Steve, what are you doing?” You spoke up in a quiet manner.

“I am about to dance with you,” he gave you that stupid grin of his before he took you by the hand, leading you right onto the dance floor for what was your first, and last, dance of the night.

Your heartbeat escalated as he slid his hand around your waist, holding it against your back gently to pull you into his body. The other cradled your hand gently as he looked down at you, his eyebrows pushing together. You sighed and looked away, knowing exactly what he was wondering. “Go ahead,”you told him.

“Go ahead with what?” Steve tilted his head.

“Tell me all about how everyone was right and I should have listened to Dustin when he lectured me about Billy, and how I brought this onto myself,” you trailed off.

“Oh see…” Steve leaned down with a small grin, whispering in your ear. “I was just going to say that you look perfect tonight.”

He sang the words in your ear going along with the song as it played. He spun you around quickly and watched as your dress twirled around you. You were thankful that the lights were so low so Steve could not see your cheeks flush immediately. When he pulled you back in, you two swayed slowly in silence for a moment. You broke the silence a few seconds late, “What happened to Nancy?”

He took a deep breath, his head tilted back a bit. “Nancy is with Jonathan Byers,” Steve admitted to you.

Your eyebrows raised so high, you were convinced that they would get lost in your hairline. “That’s…confusing,” you said to him.

“What’s so confusing about it?” You tired not to get distracted when his tongue darted out slightly, licking his lips as he spoke.

“What’s confusing is that Jonathan was not here tonight. He stayed home. If Nancy was with you all night, as your date, then how did she end up with him?” You started to ramble. You rambled a lot when you got nervous.

He spun you around again as he moved you across the dance floor, the song continuing in the back ground. “I could tell Nancy didn’t want to be with me and Nancy could tell I didn’t want to be with her. I told her to take the limo and pick Jonathan up while I came back here.”

You stopped moving suddenly and looked up at him. Your mind was racing to try and keep up with what he was saying. When you stopped, he looked down at you and asked if you were okay.

“Why did you come back here?” You jumped right to the question, not really feeling up to wasting anymore of your time.

He took a deep breath and shrugged his shoulders and you watched as his eyes moved around the room. “Y/N…”

“Cut the bullshit, Steve. Why did you come back here? Why didn’t you want to be with Nancy? And why, if you didn’t want to be with Nancy, did you ask her in the first place?” The questions kept rolling. You couldn’t hold yourself back and eventually began trying to pull yourself away from him.

“Hey, hey, hey, hey!” Steve pulled you closer, his hands reaching up to hold onto yours carefully. “Y/N I only asked Nancy because I found out you were going with Hargrove.”

Your eyes went wide and you tried to tug your hands away from his, whispering harshly so the others dancing around you wouldn’t be disturbed by the unfolding drama. “I agreed to be Billy’s date because he was the only one who stepped up to ask me!”

“Well I was going to ask but-”

You cut him off quickly, “How was I supposed to know? You use your dumb, ‘Oh seem like you don’t care’ approach, which you stupidly taught to Dustin, and I’m supposed to pick up on that? I am not a mind reader, Steve Harrington. If you had just…”

“Grown a pair and asked you to be my date to the prom, we could have had a perfect night together? Or maybe have grown a pair years ago, and asked you out instead of tip toeing around you, we could have had plenty of perfect nights together?” Steve asked, his lips slowly starting to turn upwards into a smile. He began rocking you back and forth slowly to the music, his hands holding yours against his chest.

You exhaled, failing to hold your angry and frustrated expression for much longer. You stepped closer to him again, resting your head against his chest. The words were practically tearing at your throat to escape. Eight letters, three words. You have wanted to tell him for years. All the memories of being his friend, tutoring him, giving him advice on other girls and patching him up after one of his fights, and there were plenty of fights, were replaying in your head as if it were a movie and you were watching it on a loop. You shut your eyes tight as you feel his lips touch the top of your head gently, your name reaching your ears as he whispers it.

“I’m an idiot,” Steve said softly. You smiled a little, as did he, and shortly after you picked your head up.

“You are an idiot,” you couldn’t help but agree with him and that caused him to chuckle. Your voice grew soft again. “Answer my question, Steve. Why did you come back here?”

Steve dropped your hands and brought them up to cup your face. His hands were soft and you could feel your cheeks heat up as he brushed the pad of his thumb over your skin. He whispered the words along with the song, “I have faith in what I see. Now I know I have met an angel in person and she looks perfect. I don’t deserve this. You look perfect tonight.”

Your eyes filled with tears, for what seemed to be the hundredth time that night, and you felt compelled to break it up. “I always knew you were an Ed Sheeran fan,” the sarcastic comment rolled off your tongue almost effortlessly.

“Shut up,” Steve laughed shortly. His head dropped to yours, resting his forehead agains yours. Your eyes fell shut and you tried to keep your breathing in check, feeling as if your heart was about to explode and your stomach would flip. Your head was tilted upwards and within seconds, Steve Harrington was kissing you. He moved slow and carefully, and you couldn’t help but think that his lips were softer than you could ever have imagined. Your hands came up to touch his wrists gently as you kissed him back, a small part of you needing to feel him to know that you hadn’t dreamt this entire. The music had cut off and you could hear the other couples start to gather their things, and when you opened your eyes the room was much brighter.

Steve looked down at you softly as you looked around. He dropped his hands and trailed them down your arm slowly to grab your attention and when he had it, he gave you another smile. And with that smile came those eight letters and three words. “I love you.” They were whispered so only you could hear. “I have always loved, Y/N Henderson. And I’ll beat myself with a nail ridden bat for the rest of my life for taking so long to tell you.”

You laughed and shook your head, squeezing his hands. “No nail ridden bat needed,” you stepped even closer to him as you looked up at him. “I love you too, Steve Harrington. Always have.”

He hummed, smirking slightly. “It’s because of the hair.”

“Oh it is definitely because of the hair,” you joked with him playfully, unable to stop yourself from smiling.

“Of course it is,” Steve winked at you and laced his fingers together with yours. He pulled you off of the dance floor and grabbed your clutch.

“Where are we going?” you asked him as you two headed for the staircase going downstairs.

“We have a date at the amusement park,” Steve turned to you with a smile and winked at you.

Prom had ended. Groups of teenagers lingered around outside while others rushed to jump into the limos and cars waiting around for them. Laughter filled the air. It was a beautiful sight, definitely a picture perfect moment.

Then there was you, Y/N Henderson with Steve Harrington.

You rushed up the street with Steve as he led you in the search for the small car your parents had rented for your use that evening. Your dress was perfect and your hair was perfect. You glanced down at your hand holding onto Steve’s, your nails still fresh and polished. That was perfect too. You weren’t alone and this night had just become perfect.