The first time Joe saw Steve, he was sixteen and furious with the world.
The rain was falling in grim sheets, slicing through the grime of the back alley where Joe had learned to disappear. He'd just gotten his first scar — a cigarette burn from his mother's latest boyfriend — and all he wanted was a place where pain wasn't currency.
Then Steve stumbled into the alley.
Bloody. Thin. Beautiful. Terrifying.
Joe had seen boys like him before — broken, angry, dangerous. But none of them had that look. The look that said I don't care if I burn everything to the ground as long as I feel something.
"You're bleeding," Joe muttered.
Steve didn't answer. He just sat, back pressed to the wall, chest rising in shallow, ragged breaths.
Joe gave him his jacket anyway.
That night, something ignited. Not quite love — not yet. But longing. Longing to be needed by someone who didn't just take.
They stayed friends after that. Barely.
Steve was always distant, always sharp, always watching the world like it owed him a fight. And Joe — Joe kept trying. Bringing food. Sharing music. Standing between Steve and every punch that tried to land.
But you can't make a ghost love you. You can only offer your hands and hope it decides to haunt you gently.
🖤 Dialogue Scene (Age 19)
JOE: "You don't have to keep running, you know. You could stay."
STEVE: (snorts) "And do what, Joe? Make pancakes? Get a dog? You don't know what I've done."
JOE: "I don't care. I know who you are."
STEVE: (quietly) "That's the problem. You think I'm someone worth saving."
(Joe doesn't answer. He just sits beside him, shoulder to shoulder, not touching but close enough that Steve's silence isn't so loud.)
But loving Steve wasn't gentle. It became an ache. A consuming obsession. And when Steve fell for someone else — when he started following that quiet-eyed FBI agent — something inside Joe cracked.
He could feel himself unraveling.
And he'd rather destroy everything than be forgotten.