amess

This isn't the first time you've been paired up with him, nor would it be the last, you're certain. However, tonight's forecast called for snow and plummeting temps; accurate as ever as the evening grew near, with grey-white clouds blanketing the skies, flurries fluffing up by the minute.

You tried warning the others about the weather, understanding that crawls were usually non-negotiable, keeping flexible to the military's burn schedules, unbeknownst to them.

It still had to happen; any chance to find and defeat Vecna is a chance to end this nightmare, once and for all.

And that's never your call to make.

Creaking the passenger side door open, the first greeting that hits you is a miffed grumble, "Jesus, took you long enough."

"Yeah, hi to you too, Steve," you deadpan, careful to climb in backwards, kicking as much snow off your boots as you can before shutting the door.

He gives you a once-over, poorly stifling an ill-fitted chuckle.

Rolling your eyes, you glare over at him. "What?"

"You look like that kid from A Christmas Story with all those layers."

"Ha-ha, very funny." You struggle to cross your arms, puffed up and padded down with your winter coat.

"There's heat in the van, y'know." Glancing over his shoulder, he throws a thumb to the back of the van. "That box of stuff is back there, too, but… kinda just a waste of space, don't you think?"

"Oh, for the love of—" you crawl between the front seats, shoving Steve's shoulder in the process. Reaching the medium-sized cardboard box, you drag a well-loved and worn blanket out. "We've been over this, Steve."

"We get it, your circulation sucks, or whatever. I don't see how that's anyone else's problem."

"If I have to put up with you leaving all those goddamn Boppers wrappers around, you can deal with the emergency box." Holding a hand up, you add, "Which, is for everyone, by the way."

"Yeah, well, a sleeping bag's a little much. And extra socks? A sweatshirt? C'mon—"

"Last week Dustin was glad I packed that sweatshirt when it dropped to 40 degrees at night," you settle in the back, unlocking the wheel on the ceiling. "Because you refused to shut your window."

Exasperated, he throws his arms up. "The cold keeps me awake! Sue me!" Steve turns around, lip curled upward in disgust. "Also it's gross you just… leave socks for other people to use."

"They're new and I wash them if they get used! I wash everything in here, you fucking mor—"

"Hey, guys, you good to go?" Robin's voice through the tinny speaker of the walkie disrupts the insults you had on standby for Steve.

Glaring at Steve while he reflects his own sharp stare, you respond, "As good as we're gonna get."

There's no room for Steve to bite back; you're already tugging the headphones over your ears, focused as you fidget with the knobs. Your main concern isn't him, it's tracking Hopper to keep this as successful and safe of a crawl as possible.

Steve's gaze lingers, but it softens, deflates into one of dejection. You feel his eyes on you, but ignore it, thinking he's still trying to hold out on the sign of animosity; it's not that.

Despondency plagues him whenever you're around, and he resorts to cynicism, trapped in its ugly cycle. You hate him, why should he play nice in return?

It's easier to allow bitterness to keep distance between the two of you. Easier to forget how you and Steve were just in reach of something more.

Until you just… left. 

 Friendship break-ups are sometimes harder than romantic ones.

No one ever talks about that weird gap, suspended between acquaintances and beyond, falling into potential friendship, drifting back off into something bitter, a bond you only shared, tip-toeing along a jagged edge.

You'd drift in, drift out.

Grew close, just enough for hope to thrive, only to push him away.

In, out.

All while longing for something more, desperate to ride out a wave that drifts back and builds momentum, only to crash ashore into nothing.

So you cough up water, take a few deep breaths, and dive back in again.

Turns out, that shit gets exhausting over time. Especially when you discover a grim truth, hidden from the start.

When you're not treading water to stay afloat, it's swimming through a naval minefield in murky waters; drift into one, and you're blasted into overthinking what went wrong, what stopped the bond from blooming. And all it takes is one 'what if?' to shift course and bump into one these mines, ruining your day completely.

What if you hadn't moved away after Starcourt's explosive demise, deciding on a fresh start by leaving this nightmare of a town behind?

What if you and Steve were able to become more, if not stay friends, and he had just been honest about the Upside Down from the beginning?

What if you allowed that friendship to swell into something more? Standing him up on a date that could've changed everything; a wave ready to ride out naturally, only to retreat. Withdraw like the ocean before returning full force as a tsunami; why follow the tide out just to trap yourself in the path of imminent destruction?

If you stayed… would it have been worth it?

The two of you were star-crossed; Steve was still hung up on Nancy when you discovered your feelings for him. When he moved on, you found someone else. It almost turned into a sad, little game; when one was ready, the other had been redirected elsewhere.

It was even pitiful, the way you two barely had a friendship to build on, because one wasn't ready, and the other got tired of waiting.

Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

Your time outside of Hawkins brought you steps away from turning fully into stone; get hurt enough times, you refuse welcoming anyone and everyone in so easily. One too many soured relationships had you settled on the idea that maybe you just weren't meant to share love like that.

That hurt transforms your body as a shield for your heart, ribs hardening into steel cages as an added last line of defense; you were one heartbreak away from adding electric barbed wire for good measure.

No one would get in again. Not if you could help it. Not like that.

Coming home wasn't an easy choice, but it was the only one that felt right. Your friends were still here, who you loved as family— bonded through unholy tragedies rather than blood, still family all the same; you had to check on them. You couldn't leave them hanging again.

Because your first thought upon hearing of the destruction, was what if any of them died?

Then you return to find out the worst what if came true: someone among the group died; Eddie's gone. And Max? Well… she's closer to a tragic ending than most of you.

You suffocated yourself in distractions, helping your parents to pack up and move out, promising you wouldn't be too far behind, that you needed to check on your friends immediately.

Unfortunately, coming home right before the town went into quarantine was not part of the plan.

Time away had you forget how downright stubborn Steve could be if he set his mind to something, and all he wanted was to break your walls down, at least to find common ground.

That was still far too much give, and not enough take for you. They're not uncharted waters, you just know you're not meant to navigate them, and know damn well Steve would just stand by and watch you sink.

Those what ifs of your past resurfaced, pulling you under, taunting you to open your mouth when there was nowhere to breathe.

The last place you needed to drown in emotions you couldn't afford was in a town under quarantine. Locked in, fenced off from the rest of the world, with someone you barely had a chance to build a friendship with. Someone you always yearned for more with, yet royally fucked up any chances with.

That more, those chances, they're thousands of meters below a rough, choppy surface, down to the pitch-black depths of the abyssal zone; it's just not in reach, and you've protected your heart this long, you didn't need all that effort to go to waste within a impulsive dive, head first into what would certainly make your heart implode.

You can only tread water for so long, though.

"Hop's going as slow as possible tonight, so we don't have to speed, alright?"

Steve only shoves an aggressive thumbs up over his head, tongue prodding into the side of his cheek.

"I mean, it'll pick up if he hitches a ride on a military truck for a while, but—"

"Yeah, yeah, I get it. Don't go fast unless necessary." He grumbles under his breath, "I'm not stupid."

And that stings, because you genuinely weren't insinuating that. In fact, you're certain you've never insinuated that before.

"Steve, I wasn't trying to—"

"Don't." His shoulders tense up, grumbling out, "Unless it's about this crawl, I don't wanna talk. You focus on your job, I'll focus on mine."

His flat tone and curt demeanor makes your stomach churn. Nights like these where you're forced together have you longing for the past. Before you knew of the Upside Down, before he was trapped in a bunker below Starcourt, before you left like a goddamn coward.

Ever since you returned to Hawkins, it's like he resents you for protecting yourself. Your peace. Your sanity.

What the hell was the point of continuing to stick around, pour your heart into a friendship that only opened if you brought the crowbar?

Despite the mutual loathing, you and Steve make a pretty solid team when kept strictly to business.

Keeping up with a telemetry tracker while stuck in a snow storm is tricky, to say the least. Neither of you have a problem blaming the other for what's outside of your control, though.

"Jesus, Steve, slow down." It's hard to sit upright as he keeps his speed— a speed that normally wouldn't be a problem, if it weren't for the slick roads. You hiss under your breath,"Fucking lead-foot."

He hears you, snapping back, "You wanna drive? Huh?" His eyes stay fixated on the road. The windshield becomes more obstructed as the snow gains momentum, falling heavily onto every surface within reach. "By all means, be my guest."

"God, you're such a bitch."

"Me?! Have you ever heard yourself talk for even, like, five seconds?" Steve's tempted to turn around to shout at you, but he keeps whatever cool he has left— which isn't much— and continues driving safely. "You're so fucking rude, and- god- you're so annoying, so fucking annoying."

"That's bold, coming from a pain in the ass like you…" you grumble, trailing off as the signal on the tracker drops; Hopper stopped moving. "Steve. Steve!"

"What?! Christ, can't you shut up—"

"Stop!"

"How come I have to stop, but you can keep bitching and moaning—"

"I meant the van, asshole!"

Steve slams on the brakes, hoping to skid to a stop, but the van keeps moving.

Gliding. Coasting. The van's skating on the slick road, completely out of control.

You throw the headphones aside, scrambling to the front to peer around Steve's seat. "Dude, what the fuck?!"

"Shit, shit, shit!"

Steve's death grip wraps around the wheel, knuckles turning white; he's ready to turn it toward the shoulder to get off the road, but you grab his arm and hold him in place. Eyes darting to the floor, you see his foot is still weighed down on the brake pedal.

"Wait— watch it! Harrington, keep the wheel straight!" Voice trembling from the frenzy. Steve's about to slam his foot down onto the brake when you panic, "Fuck, get your foot off the brake!"

Despite sliding, you don't spin. Snowfall rushes around the van, limiting visibility to just a few feet ahead. Even as the van slows, it fishtails. Steve frantically switches into low gear, breaths heavy and jagged as he releases control.

His right arm shoots out, bridging between the seats to brace himself and create a barrier to hold you back. Alarmed, he shouts, "Stay down!"

You don't move in time before impact, but you're projected into his arm with force, restraining you from hurtling over the seats and into the dashboard. The van's wheels rumble as it veers off the road, the ditch finally slowing you down to a halt.

Adrenaline rushing, you pant as you're frozen against his arm, processing that absolute disaster.

"Shit…" Steve gasps, trying to catch his breath. "… You okay?" Scanning over your figure, unable to find immediate concern beyond the fear on your expression, his shoulders begin to relax.

"Uh-huh," you rasp out, glancing up at him. "You?"

He nods firmly and swallows. "M'okay."

Static harshly shoves into the van, with Robin's voice following close behind.

She drones out, "Angry Lovebirds, do you copy? Hellooooo? Where the hell did you two go?"

You cringe at the code name, wishing you could shrink on the spot and disappear.

"Why the hell does she still call us that?" Steve gripes, running his hands over his face. "We've never— I don't even—"

Her voice drops to a mutter and cuts Steve off, asking as if the others aren't on the same channel, "Please tell me you two didn't kill each other."

"Oh my god," Steve rolls his eyes with a groan, head falling back against the seat.

In reluctant favor of answering Robin, you leave the warmth of Steve's side to grab the walkie. You curse yourself inwardly at the misplaced feelings.

Thumb jabbing in the talk button, you exhale a winded response, "We're good, we, uh…" Your eyes meet Steve's before darting away. "We hit black ice, though."

"Shit! Can you make it back safely?" She adds, "We were trying to get a hold of you guys, 'cus we had to call off the crawl. It didn't work out."

So the two of you slid on black ice… for nothing.

Fantastic.

"Um, hang— h- hold on." Turning to Steve, you noticed smoke rising on the other side from the van's hood. "Oh, fuck."

Steve jerks his head up, jumping into action. He kills the engine, immediately cutting off the warmth from the janky heater. Throwing his jacket on, he flings the driver's side door open and jumps out. Snowfall drifts sideways from the wind, and he winces as it pelts into his face.

"Guys?" Nancy's voice takes over now, concerned with the delay. "What's the status on the van?"

"Uh- well, it's actually—" You forget to release the talk button, shouting after Steve. "Wait! I'm coming with!"

Releasing it, a booming voice immediately floods through the speaker. "What the hell is going on out there?"

Hopper.

Oh, boy.

Meanwhile, Steve stands firm, shouting over the brutal, howling wind, "No, you're staying put!" He bites back on his own shivers, already creeping down his spine as he slams the door shut.

Well, can't say you didn't try.

Flicking your thumb against the talk button, your explanation comes to life with nervous laughter. "Hop! Hi. Soooooo… we're stuck in a ditch."

You can just imagine the drawn out sigh he lets out before responding, pinching the bridge of his nose, and all.

"Okay, where are you exactly?"

The glass of the back door window is freezing as you try to peek out. You huff your breath onto the glass, rubbing your sleeve against it to clear it up. It barely helps, with snow and frost beginning to coat it completely outside.

You squint through the narrow opening between patches of snow, gaze landing on the landmark in the near distance.

Groaning, you punch the talk button with your thumb. "The fuckin' cemetery."

"Language."

"Hey, I'm an adult! Last thing on my mind right now is censoring myself," you grumble into the walkie.

"How the hell did you two end up out there? That's not where I was in the Upside Down."

So, not only did the van throw you and Steve around like rag dolls on a failed crawl, but the tracker was off.

Way off.

"I- I don't know."

A frustrated shout cuts through the whistling squall outside. The van rocks as Steve kicks the bumper, cursing wildly at the shoddy engine.

"I thought you said you could handle tracking?"

Your blood begins to boil. Now's not the time for some trivial debate, not when you're possibly stranded in what's shaping up to be one of the worst snow storms Hawkins has seen yet.

There's no chance to respond when another voice, congested and hoarse, cuts in. "She can, she's actually good at this."

Dustin Henderson is a goddamn good egg, even while battling the flu.

You wish Hopper could see the smug grin on your face right now.

"I personally think Hop lost the tracker—" silence cuts in for a second, returning with Hopper scolding him; they have to be fighting over the damn walkie. "Watch it, kid. I didn't lose shit."

You slam your thumb down onto the talk button within another pause, mocking back, "Hey, Hopper? Language."

Another pause draws itself out, and eventually Robin returns with an exasperated huff. "You and Steve did nothing wrong. Hopper definitely lost the tracker."

"I didn't lose the fucking—"

The talk button is released on her end, abruptly interrupting Hopper's rant.

"Anyway… we're not that far from the station, right?"

"Five miles an hour in that van might take way longer, but you're not making it here on foot in this weather. It's not safe."

Woven into the wind is a muffled "son of a bitch!". The hood slams shut, jostling the van before Steve yanks the van door open, gracelessly stumbling inside.

Snow sticks to his hair, his clothes, slowly melting to leave him like a freezing, wet dog.

"This is fu- fuck, it's cold—!". Steve huffs out a mirthless chuckle, appearing nowhere near amused. "S'fucking ridiculous." His teeth chatter as he gripes, eyes falling on you, then to the walkie. "Give m- me that."

Steve's hand brushes against yours as he snatches the walkie from you, frigid and stiff. It takes a few tries to hit the talk button and hold it in successfully.

"Can anyone come get us? The van's f- fucked." With his jaw this tight, he's about to crush his teeth to dust. For a second, his eyes flicker to you, and you swear there's a flash of something genuine within the hazel. "Leaving the engine run is a d- disaster waiting to happen, so we can't use the h- heat."

There's silence on the other end; lack of an instant answer usually never fares well for any of you.

Scouring through the emergency box, you pick out a small, rolled towel, handing it over to Steve. For once, he doesn't look at you like you're nuts for keeping the damn box stocked.

He accepts it with a trembling hand, murmuring a both grateful yet defeated "Thanks".

"It's too dangerous for anyone to drive out, and way too dangerous for you two to try walking back. The nearest tunnel is at least a mile out from you, give or take on where you two ended up exactly in the cemetery."

Steve exhales roughly through his red, wind-bitten nose, handing the walkie back to you. "You t- take it. M'too pissed off to be nice ri- right now."

Nodding solemnly, you grab it back, responding to everyone. "Okay. We'll just… tough it out. I got some stuff to stay warm, so we should be okay for a few hours at least." Sighing, you glance up at Steve, laying out the now damp towel on the dashboard. "But the second it's safe enough, someone needs to come get us."

Hopper presses the talk button early, releasing a weary sigh first. "We'll try when we can."

That's not good enough, not for you, and not for Steve; the two of you cannot be stranded here overnight.

Together.

Alone.

"No, you'll do it when you can. I warned y'all the weather would be shit. You get us out of this mess the moment this storm slows down. Got it?"

A lengthy pause begins to irritate you the longer the seconds pass.

"Yeah, kid. I got it."

In defeat, you chuck the walkie aside, swallowing down the urge to scream.

It's no use to be angry now; best to bury those emotions and redirect that energy into something useful. Like helping Steve.

Even if he doesn't really deserve your help to begin with.

"Okay, Harrington, here's what's gonna happen." He turns slowly, heavy-lidded with fatigue settling into his expression. "I think the clothes in here are your size—"

"How the hell do y- you know what size clothes I wear?"

Would it kill him to be nice? Or quiet? For just five fucking seconds?

"To keep this shit on hand if we need it, and you're welcome, by the way." You toss a t-shirt with the radio's logo on it, wool socks, and sweatpants his way. "There's a reason I asked everyone what their sizes were months ago."

Steve catches it all, just barely, but he's left dumbfounded. Through chattering teeth, he snaps, "Wh- why the hell do I want these?"

"Are you kidding me? Dude, you can't stay in those clothes. You're gonna get hypothermia."

"Whatever," he starts peeling off his clothes, and you take that as a cue to turn around. A faint comment slips under his breath, "It'd be better than being stuck here."

It's still audible enough to you, clear enough to sting. You feel like a damn fool for thinking Steve was finally presenting something other than hatred, for once.

"You're not the only one who doesn't wanna be stuck here." Rubbing your eyes, you sigh.

There's no way you can last the night in here without killing one another; it's too long to put up with his bullshit.

Unless…

There might be one shred of hope left. And okay, sure, it's more a thin, fraying thread that could lead to nothing, but you won't know until you try.

You bundle yourself back up, zipping up your jacket, winding the scarf around your neck tightly, tugging your hat over your head. Steve notices when you're slipping your hands into a pair of mittens.

"Hey, whoa—" Now comfortably changed, he clambers to the back, a little too close for comfort. "No. What are you doing? You're not going out there."

But you ignore his concern, if it's even real to begin with. "That gas station's still down the road, right?"

"Maybe? I don't— that's not—" Frazzled, he stumbles over his thoughts. "You're not walking down there in the snow." His fingers fight against stiffness, winding around your wrist shielded under your coat. "You need to be safe."

"Why? So you don't get the blame if something bad happens?" Irritated, you yank your hand back. "Just… wait here. I'll be quick."

"Quick? Yeah, right. It's not that close by foot." Steve, still stiff from the cold, clumsily shoves in front of you to block the back doors. "Your circulation sucks, remember?"

His attempted smartass comment fails miserably as concern seeps through the cracks of his tone.

"And you said it wasn't your problem," you retort, shoving him aside. "Look, it's right down the road. Maybe we'll be lucky and they'll have coffee, or something hot. We both could use something like that right now—"

"You brought your thermos! I haven't seen you use it once." He runs a hand through his damp hair, sighing. "And even if they did have coffee, it'd be ice cold by the time you got back."

"Oh, you watching my every move now, Harrington?" Your voice drops low, dry, sick of this conversation. "That's precious."

He doesn't react, only argues, "What if it's closed?"

Your eyes dart away from him, faltering. "T- there's a pay phone outside," you really thought it'd be easier to shake him. "I can call someone to get us out—"

"No. Now you're just being ridiculous." One hand perches on his hip, while the other waves wildly as he speaks. "Who the hell's coming out after curfew? Especially in this?"

You shrug, shrinking into yourself with a weak lie. "… I might know a guy?"

"Cut the shit, what's out there that's worth freezing to death for, huh?"

"I'm trying to leave you the fuck alone, Steve!" Seething, the explosion silences Steve, guilt and shame softening his expression. "I'm not thrilled to be stranded here with you either, but I was willing to play nice! I was willing to get along, but you don't want that, and that—" You bite back tears, ones born of anger, maybe even a hint of rage. "That's fine. Just trying to make it easier for us both, give some space."

"Wh… what?" He's dumbfounded. "When I said I didn't want to be stuck here, that wasn't about you—"

"Oh, please. Like I buy that for a fucking second."

"I wish you would!" He exclaims, voice fracturing with panic. "You really think I want you to freeze to death 'cause we can't get along? That's the last thing I'd want."

"Yeah, well…" your hand lingers over the handle, glaring back at him, returning the jagged comment to sender. "It'd be better than being stuck here."

It's tempting to tack on "with you" at the end, but you bite your tongue. You're not even sure if you'd mean that.

Eyes set forward, you miss his sullen, wounded stare, etched into his features when you exit the van. You're plunging head first into regret once your boots hit the snow. Instead of swallowing your pride and climbing right back in, you feign indifference as you slam the doors shut without looking back.

The doors never reopen, and he never calls for you; it's clear how much of a relief the space is for both of you.

If you tell yourself enough times that it's better than being stuck in that doomed ice box on wheels with Steve all night, maybe you'll begin believing it.

Before the Upside Down, before losing his friends, losing Nancy, losing the cheap crown on his head in his fall from grace— Steve could fall asleep with ease. His head could hit the pillow and he'd be out.

The typical high school blues were enough to send any teenager into stress-induced sleep loss, but the Upside Down's daunting reminder that the fight was only dormant, forced full blown insomnia to become his closest friend.

Exhaustion would lead him to eventually sleep, but he'd fight it off as long as he could; you can only handle the bloodcurdling screams and cries of your friends dying in your dreams so many times before giving up on sleep completely.

Every creak in his house on nights home alone— loneliness all too common in that house— had him holding his breath, waiting for sudden movements to echo out again. Every light bulb, flickering on its way out for good, froze him in fear of who, or what, lay in wait on the other side. And if a detail, no matter how small, is enough to keep him from sleep, that's an open invitation for his mind to spiral.

Tonight, trying to rest in the van, he notices a gap; it's thin and barely noticeable, between the flimsy plywood floorboards underneath the shag carpet. Steve feels it every time he tosses and turns; it always digs into his left hip, slightly uneven from the other board it should be snug against.

He flips to the right, but no, that feels wrong; he's not a right side sleeper. That changed after '84, and he's not exactly sure why, but he sleeps better on the left side.

And on his back? He doesn't even dare, not after a sleep paralysis episode after those fucking bats attacked him. That one and only episode he felt pinned to the bed, like a bat was choking him all over again. His scars ached for hours after, the one around his throat singed through his skin like some god-awful, hellish rope-burn.

So, yeah, Steve can't sleep, clearly not from the cold; turns out, that sleeping bag of yours was a good idea. He won't outright admit that though. Or, how your emergency box actually was, and continues to be, useful.

He tries to rest, flip-flops between sides to get comfortable, but the minutes you're gone only accumulate in his mind to a concerning degree, like the heavy snowfall outside. Every second that ticks past is a second too long without you.

By car, the gas station is a few minutes away. By foot, in weather like this, bundled up in excessive layers? Shit, even he'd struggle to move quickly. He'd definitely get sick, too.

Time passes, snow builds, and Steve continues to overthink. Eventually, he wonders, Am I really that fucking awful to be stranded in the snow with?

What the answer would be to you, he already knows. You think he doesn't give a fuck, and it's not like he's done much to prove otherwise.

To you, Steve's fears to let you go out into the cold were only linked to the clear concept of: if you got hurt, he'd be to blame.

To Steve, though, it goes beyond blame; he's scared, now rueful, that he didn't fight harder to make you stay, because the thought of losing you more than he already had terrifies him.

The possibilities of what could go wrong were endless: you, losing your way, disoriented from the blizzard. What if you froze to death out there? Or got caught being out past curfew? Though, Steve's pretty sure the military doesn't give a fuck about two idiots stranded in the snow.

The wind howls and whistles, whipping around the van as the snow falls diagonally. Every now and then, he opens each door to slam it again, shaking off the snow outside; there's too much buildup to keep an eye out for you.

He checks his watch; you left about an hour ago. The footprints that trailed behind you are now covered over with fresh snow.

Steve's tempted to radio everyone at the station— assuming they stayed in for the night with the storm— but that means admitting he didn't stop you. He didn't protect you.

You're your own person, though. You don't need to be babied, or protected.

Sure doesn't stop Steve's protective side from caring about you.

It's not like anyone could come out to rescue either of you in the first place. But if you're gone and he says nothing, he'd never forgive himself if you got sick. Or worse.

Jesus, what if you're already freezing to death?

In the midst of internal panic, a thud! with fierce force slams against the van outside. Steve jolts upright, startled enough that it clears his damn sinuses while his heart races.

There's another thump, with a few more to follow, inching towards the passenger side door. It flings open, snow sprinkling in as you flop forward, face against the seat.

"Jesus Christ," is all Steve can manage to say, because he's grateful to see you, alive, but also, you're such a fucking idiot.

You crawl into the van, collapsing onto the floor. "'Idn't wanna get th'carpet wet," you mumble through your teeth, jaw rigid, struggling to close the door as the handle slips through your weak grip.

"C'mon, sit up for me." Steve guides you into the seat while you struggle, clumsy like you're intoxicated, yet your limbs are stiff. Under your freezing wet clothes, he can feel you shiver, practically vibrating uncontrollably.

When you're settled up right, he shoots an arm between the seat and wall, barely managing to grab the door handle and slam it shut.

"Ow… S'loud," you groan.

"Shit, sorry." He drags the box over, rummaging through it haphazardly. A pair of sweats and a sweater lay at the bottom, warm and ready to wear. He lays them aside, leaning over the seat to unzip your coat.

"D- damn, a'least flirt with me first," you slur, lips a muted shade from their normal lively color.

It's a joke, but not an invite for playful banter; Steve bites his tongue, quickly helping you out of your coat. He unwinds your scarf and tugs your hat off, dropping all of them to the driver side's floor.

Your clothes are soaked underneath, too. Though you're still pretty covered, he can see how strained your muscles are from stiffening.

Steve peels your puffy vest, hoodie, and sweater off next— Jesus, he forgot how layered you were. And it still didn't help.

"You're an idiot, you know that?" The fondness in his tone sneaks through the disapproval. When the air hits your skin, damp and frigid, gasp, face twisting from discomfort; it feels like sharp needles prickling along your arms.

"M'fine," yet you look far from it— hair tangled and soaked, frozen in spots, skin dull of its usual shine and shade, lids weighed down like you're drunk and sleepy, even a little puffy.

Funny how concerned you were of him getting hypothermia earlier, when you're already there.

And by funny, it's fucking scary, because there's no way to get you to a hospital tonight.

Really, he doesn't think it's that severe, but at any stage, hypothermia's nothing to fuck with; you're still suffering no matter what, and he hates to see you in pain.

Hates that he just admitted that to himself, too.

"Bullshit," he contends as he pulls another small towel from the box— seriously? You thought of everything with this box.

He'll thank you later. Maybe even apologize for being such a dick about it if it saves your asses.

Steve lays the towel over your head, gently tousling your hair against the fabric to help it dry. You shiver violently, "Hey, the sooner you get changed, the sooner you'll feel better."

"Said m'fine," you grit your teeth, attempting to shove him away, but your arms are still weak and stiff. "Jus' put the heat on."

"We can't run the engine, remember?" Steve throws the towel onto the driver's seat; that's a problem for future him. "C'mon, you can't stay in your clothes."

The moment the words leave his lips, he cringes, waiting for you to snidely remark, insinuate he's a pervert, but you're quiet.

Yeah, you're worse than he thought.

"I'm gonna help, okay?" There's no protest from you. He reaches down to the hem of your shirt, tugging up, but pausing before it passes your belly button. "This alright?"

"M'yeah, s'kay."

If you weren't tumbling into a life threatening condition, he'd poke fun at how wasted you sound.

Steve's perceptive, keeping an eye on your reaction, ensuring he's not hurting you. Prioritizing your safety doesn't make the reveal of you, half naked, any easier to deal with.

Shirt thrown to the side, Steve scrunches his eyes shut, scolds himself internally to behave, don't be a creep. He leans from behind the seat, over you to unbutton your jeans— Jesus Christ, why the fuck did you wear jeans? They're practically painted onto your form after all the ice and snow sunk into the denim.

He sucks in a breath, "Uh… can you get them off yourself?"

"S'okay, jus' leave 'em like this."

"It's really not," he sighs, climbing between the front seats and sliding down to the floor before you. The space is limited, incredibly limited, and he's contorting in a way he's never folded before, just to fit here. And for you, of all people.

He finds the chair's lever, shoving it back as far as it can go, though not much of a difference exists.

"Okay, c'mon, boots first."

Steve undresses you with care, tries not to notice the position you're both in, how close his face is to your core. How he's imagined on lonely, late nights, him kneeling for you, while he strokes himself, cock twitching as always while wondering what you taste like.

Every last ounce of self control is gathered up to keep his composure. You're in your underwear. Nothing else.

And your underwear? Yeah. That's wet, too; bra sticking flush to your chest, nipples peaked enough to reveal their shape through the fabric. He dares to take a lower peek when your eyes flutter shut as you sigh— out of concern, not pleasure, he reminds himself— and the fabric against your core is damp, hugging to the shape of your puffy lips.

He scrunches his eyes shut, runs a hand down over his mouth as he thinks … fuck me.

You shiver and twitch and whimper as the near-numbness finally settles into fucking freezing. It shatters whatever trance Steve was falling into.

"Honey," he frowns at himself immediately, because where the fuck did that come from? "You need to warm up."

There's no way to suggest sharing heat without sounding like a total pervert. Every choice of words could definitely be taken as suggestive, at best.

At worst? Steve's coming off as Hawkins' biggest douche-bag.

"Don't wanna," you whine, petulant and pained.

"It's this or freeze to death," he forces himself to deadpan, afraid of coming off as too concerned.

"You'd— bet that'd make y'happy."

He's not sure if he should file that comment under the usual banter the two of you have, or something worse.

"It wouldn't." Steve crawls up, hands gripping the sides of your seat as he tries respecting your space— the little bit left, at least. And still, he stumbles, catching himself right before he headbutts you. "Shit. Ah— shit, I- I'm sorry."

If he makes eye contact with you right now, it is game over. The whine you just released, though likely in pain, doesn't help his already wound-up, touch-starved thoughts.

"Okay. Okay," he sighs, more to himself, finding his balance again. "C'mon, we're gonna use that sleeping bag of yours to stay warm."

You're slow, painfully, agonizingly, moving at a snail's pace, while Steve moves you out of the seat. He's patient, cautious, already trying to press his body against yours to share warmth from the moment you begin trembling.

"Slow, take it easy," he guides you to the carpet while he murmurs softly. It's a miracle you make it to the back safely, considering how frozen stiff your joints are. "Doing okay?"

That's a dumb fucking question.

"Other th- than my t- t- tits freezing off, m'f- fine."

When you flash a curl of a smirk, just the tiniest one, Steve still feels relief. It's a speck of relief, but he'll gladly accept.

About to sit from your kneeling position, he grabs your hips to stop you. Steve clears his throat, awkwardly releasing you.

"Sorry, just, uh… your, uh… the—" he nods vaguely to your chest, eyes lingering for a second too long, wondering how soft you'd feel. By the time he peels his eyes away to drift lower, he gulps. "Those need to come off."

"Wh- why?" You pout, body violently trembling the longer you go without warmth.

"Just work with me, okay? Dry clothes aren't gonna warm you up enough on their own." He huffs, kneeling near you. "M'not trying anything funny, I promise."

Leaning close, Steve's face is near yours while his hands reach around your torso. His fingers skate up your cold skin, bringing about his own shivers, finding your bra clasp and unhooking it.

Poorly strangling a gasp, it still manages to slip past your lips, and he's almost certain it's because you're in pain. Nothing else.

But it sure sounds like it stems from another source.

Hovering his touch, he halts, eyes wide as they dart to meet yours. "Did I hurt you?"

"N- no, just co- c- cold." Teeth chattering, you grab onto his shoulders weakly as he removes your underwear. He bites back the urge to yelp from how bone chilling your touch is.

You hold your balance against him while shifting onto one knee, then the other, to step out of the soaked garment. "'Vry'thing hurts."

He hears you, knows you're hurting, but your panties, soaked and bunched up in his grip, make his cock twitch. The fabric is nowhere near his face, but your scent is dizzying; he wonders if they're only soaked from the snow, or yourself, too.

What stands between him and dirty thoughts is your fragile state; you need help, not him as… some horny creep.

Steve pushes past the tempting thoughts, for your sake.

"I know," he murmurs, heart aching, wishing he could take that pain away instantly. "It's gonna be okay, promise."

He guides you into the sleeping bag, eyes off and away from your figure out of respect. When you're settled, he rips his clothes off, save for his boxer briefs. One glance down his body and he's reminded how scarred he still is. He falters, swallowing thickly; what if you notice them? What if you're disgusted by him?

That's not like you, though; you've never been shallow like that.

Your teeth clatter together so loudly, it breaks him from those looming insecurities. With a deep breath, he finally slides in next to you.

Steve zips the sleeping bag up, arms hooking around your torso to pull you flush against him. He weaves his legs between yours, careful not to press his thigh against your core. He has to throw his thoughts as far away from you as possible; the last thing either of you need is a poorly timed hard-on.

He thinks of the time he broke his arm in sixth grade, falling off the seesaw at recess. Tries focusing on the concept of race cars and the specific tires they use. Forces himself to wonder how broccoli grows, or if it really matters to separate the dark garments from the lights when doing laundry.

That tangled trail of curiosity leads him to wonder what life outside of Hawkins must be like these days, and if they're forgotten to the rest of the world.

The last one's bleak, so he redirects to thinking about aquariums, and if fish sleep— they sleep, right?

God, he really wished he paid more attention in school. Did they even talk about any of this stuff? What the hell does he care if race cars use specific tires?

Whatever.

It's a challenge to keep his thoughts on a steady path away from you, because every time you breathe, your bare chest pushes against his, and that's— no. Just no.

The plush of your breasts squish up against him, nipples poking through his chest hair and into him like an accusing finger, shaming him for fighting off a natural response to a naked figure entwined with his own.

Doesn't make it any easier that your breaths are shallow, because logically, he knows it's because you're freezing. But every so often, you make these faint gasps as you shiver that sound closer to pleasure than pain.

That's not the case, and he feels guilty for letting his mind wander that far.

Okay, focus. Think about… concrete. Sure. That. Must be fascinating to pour that shit for sidewalks and—

"How come your underw- wear is on but not mine?"

Well, that's not fucking helping when you just out right ask it like that.

Steve's face burns up, rushing out, "Didn't wanna make you uncomfortable."

Your heart is pounding so viciously, he can feel the thumping against his own body.

Which, yeah— you have hypothermia. Of course your heart is working overtime. Just from that. Only that.

He reaches outside the bag to throw a worn, knitted blanket over your bodies, hoping for extra warmth while he's zipping the bag back up.

"Please tell me this shit is helping," he murmurs, fighting the urge to gently rub your back; this isn't supposed to be some kind of cute, intimate moment. And rubbing to create heat isn't helpful for hypothermia.

He doesn't remember why, just that it's unsafe for a situation like this.

"S'helpin'," you shudder against his skin, face tucked into the curve of his neck. Your lips brush against one of his sensitive spots, and he gulps, praying you don't notice. "I sh- shouldn't have lef-f- ft."

Steve doesn't scold you, but he doesn't disagree. "I really wish you didn't." He shivers, nowhere near as violently as you have, but exchanging body heat with someone in this state isn't all rainbows and sunshine. "I wish I didn't let you go. I should've gone with you, or had you stay here while I went out."

The words ache with more desperation than he intends.

"I'm a b- bi- big girl, s'my choice," your body involuntarily twitches, rutting into his bulge.

"A- ah—" Steve manages to swallow down the breathy moan before it can fill the van.

"Sor- sorry. Did I h- hurt you?"

He's quick to shush you, gently, rushing out, "I'm fine." One hand wanders to your head, delicately threading your damp hair through his fingers. "How are you feeling?"

"Fu- fucking cold."

"No shit," Steve dryly retorts. "You have hypothermia, dumbass."

You hum out what he thinks was a shaky hum. "Surprised y'even kn-know anything about i- it."

"At least something good came from me being a Boy Scout for one year," he snorts. "That, and I know how to start a fire... which, not very helpful while snowed into a van. Don't know much more than that."

You don't respond. Whenever he's shared something personal of his past, even just a passing comment, you groan and fuss about "learning Harrington lore against your will". The lack of that snarky response is just another sign of how unwell you're feeling.

Shifting cautiously, your arms bend slowly, snaking between the two of you. Steve's breath hitches, wondering what the fuck you're doing.

Your hands travel north, both to his relief and disappointment, cupping over your chest. "M'sorry, m- my tits hurt." And sure enough, the attention is brought to your stiff nipples, harder than minutes ago, brushing up against him through the gaps between your fingers.

Steve doesn't have the chance to panic, not when he fails to stifle a chuckle before it slips out. That comment was the last thing he expected to leave your lips.

"Be n- n- nice!"

"Sorry, sorry!" He relaxes against you again, tries not to dwell on how much of your figure he can feel against his. "Are you getting any warmer?"

"Why? You h- hate this?" Your tone is dry, but he can feel the curve of your smirk against his neck. "Want me to go back outside?"

The lighthearted energy drains quickly; Steve feels his heart drop just at the mere thought of you enduring the blizzard.

Like a fucking fool.

"Don't joke about that," he mutters, daring to speak aloud, "I thought you were dead."

The shrill, whistling wind draws out the lapse in conversation.

"… Didn't th- think you c- cared."

"I do, it's just—" Steve huffs, pausing. "We can talk about it when you're feeling better. Deal?" You nod slowly, sighing. "Do you think you could sit up? Just for a few seconds?"

You were feeling warmer, still cold, still aching, but nowhere near the severity you felt before your return. "Um… I g- guess?"

"Just hang tight okay? Where's your thermos?"

"S'up by th'cup h- holder," you nod to the front. As soon as Steve moves, you begin to harshly shiver again.

He's quick to snatch it, unscrewing the top to pour out whatever you had inside into it. The warm aroma hits him head on. "Hot cocoa? Damn, if I knew that, I woulda' stole some."

"You could h- have some f'ya' want."

"Maybe later, but you need to drink something warm." Steve slides a hand under your back, arm curling around to lift you upright. He tries to ignore the sleeping bag falling off your chest, leaving you exposed. "C'mon, just a few sips."

"N- no, m'cold, wanna get back in."

"I know, honey, I'm sorry." There it is again, a slip up without warning. Like it's natural, familiar.

You manage to sit up, resting against a crate on the shelf behind you. Reaching a shaky hand out, Steve gently pushes it aside. "I got you, try to keep still for me."

He eases the mug top to your lips, cautiously tilting it while you sip on the hot cocoa. It's slow, but Steve's relieved you're not at the severe stage, where you wouldn't be able to drink anything at all. "That's it, a little more… s'good for me."

Oh god. He's one step away from praising you with a 'good girl, and now is not the time or place for that.

"Promise it'll help," he assures, feeling horrible for dragging you out of the warm cocoon of the sleeping bag. Yet he's desperate to try everything, anything, as long as it brings your temperature back up.

You finish off the mug with a gasp. Steve takes it away, watching as that muted tone in your lips begin to fade. It's subtle, but it's a change for the better, nonetheless. A step in the right direction.

"Can't say th- that shit to me," you pant, forcing an airy, uneasy laugh. "I'm gonna start thinkin' y- you're— you like me, or something."

Oh, if only you knew.

"C'mere," Steve murmurs as he gently brings you close. Guiding you back into the sleeping bag, he slides in cautiously next to you, zipping it shut around the two of you. "Don't make this weird, okay?"

"Make wh- what weird?"

Arms winding around your waist, he reels you in, body flush against your own. It's like every goosebump on your skin brushing up along his he can feel. Every shiver runs out of you and into him, like an electrical current.

The gasp that leaves your lips is unexpected and sharp. "Fu— fuck, Steve, m'so c- c- cold."

"I know, sweetheart." He tangles his legs between yours, large hand reaching up to cradle the back of your head. You bury your face into his shoulder, shivering violently. "Just stay close to me."

"M'tryin'," you whimper as your hips shift closer. If Steve didn't know any better, he'd think you were trying to rock your hips against him, as if you're aching for relief, release.

The airy, shattered, "oh, god", sure doesn't help his imagination either. His cock twitches again.

"You're okay," he reassures, not just for you, but for his filthy mind to chill the fuck out. When you roll your hips again, he seizes them, grip tightening to end the attempt. "Don't— hey." You huff as he firmly holds you in place. "Hey, listen to me. No sudden movements."

"S- sorry, jus'thought friction would help," your teeth chatter as you force you words through them. "… Oh my god. Wait. Oh my god, no, wait."

You sound mortified.

"What?" Steve defaults to panic once more. "What's wrong?"

"I- I swear to go- god I didn't mean it like that." You untangle yourself from him, limbs haphazardly knocking into his own with the limited space in the bag. "I just— friction causes he- heat, and I didn't— I wasn't tr- tr- trying to—"

He nervously chuckles, not at you, just— well, shit. How should anyone react in a situation like this?

"S'okay, you're okay." The reassurance seems to help; you relax against him once more, still trembling from the cold in your bones, though. "Can't warm you up too quickly, it could make you feel worse."

"Well that's fu- fucking stupid."

He chuckles, taunting, "You're starting to sound more like yourself again." It's much more endearing than he wanted to sound.

There's no response, just your steady breaths in spite of your jitters. You hum, winding your embrace around his torso, burying your face into his neck again.

Steve's about to lose it; you've got to stop resting your lips on his skin.

Talk about something else. Anything.

"Hey… thanks for helping earlier," he mumbles. You lean back to meet his stare with a perplexed one of your own.

"Hm? Wi- with what?"

"The black ice," he clarifies. "I panicked and blanked out, forgot how to handle it. I could've fucked up real bad… could've wrapped us around a tree, or something."

"We still ended up in a ditch—"

"Alive. It sucks, being stranded in the storm sucks, but we're alive, thanks to you."

You shake your head, cuddling closer to him, still shivering, still unable to shake the cold. It's not warm in the van anymore, but it'd be more tolerable if you weren't recovering.

"You know how to dr- drive this damn t- thing," you quip, shuddering and clinging closer to Steve. "S'like a fuckin' boat."

Steve laughs heartily, tightening his embrace around you. "Guess we make a pretty good team."

"When we're n- not trying to ki- kill each other."

Emboldened, Steve's lips brush against the top of your head; it's not quite a kiss, but it's enough to be noticed. Enough to mean something. They linger as he takes a deep breath, voice rumbling low against your scalp.

"… We don't have to fight all the time," he suggests, fingers skating along the length of your spine. You arch your back, pushing the hardened peaks of your nipples against his chest. He swallows down a moan. "We don't have to hate each other."

"S'jus'easier," you slur, though, he's not sure it's from the cold.

"Yeah? Why's that?" Face still buried into his shoulder, you shake your head. "No, c'mon," he hopes the low, gentle rasp in his voice is enticing. "You can tell me."

It's quiet for a moment, swirling gusts of wind providing filler noise among your shallow breaths.

"'Cus liking you means letting you in," you're shuddering as the van sways, wind strong enough to sneak into the drafty vehicle. "Letting you in m- me- means this is real, and that's just a set up to be let down— be a let down to you, eventually."

He has to be hallucinating from the cold. Or maybe you're still delirious. There's no way you just said that.

"… What?"

Because since when do you care about letting him down?

"You've been hurt enough, I didn't want to add to that hurt." Steve feels you shift with a whimper, has to swallow back the cocky remark he'd make if you felt better. "Your heart's always g- gonna be elsewhere, anyway."

Steve would do anything— hike through this blizzard, move mountains, face a swarm of demo-bats— if it meant he could use a time machine, return to the moment things shattered before they could flourish. He'd do anything to fix it all.

"Even when it was elsewhere, it—" Your trembling brings him to a pause, a reminder how real this all is. After hoping for so long that you'd return, dwelling too much on the anger of you just… leaving, fleeing so quietly, so abruptly— you're here, in his arms. "You were always in it, but I didn't want hurt you, either."

And look where that got the two of you.

Steve's stunned into silence by your confession, tumbling out in unstoppable waves.

You trail off with a huff, tensing up; Steve's unsure if the cold's at fault, or if teasing went too far. "It's hard to… to trust. It scares the hell out of me."

"Scares me too, but look at you. You're trusting now."

"It was that or freeze to death, Harrington."

"Still chose to trust me after everything between us." His voice softens, moving on autopilot— courtesy of his heart— as he cradles the side of your face. His cheeks grow warm as he whispers your name, just loud enough to be heard over the howling winds outside. "Thank you. For trusting me."

The pads of your fingers press into his skin as you tighten your hold around him. "Thanks for not letting me die."

We're not out of the woods, yet, he thinks. But you should be able to keep warm now.

"I used to hate that you couldn't relate to what Robin and I went through last summer," Steve's got no reason to hide this anymore. "Truth is, I was relieved you called out sick that day."

An aching warmth bleeds through his chest with the confession, one that he hopes is enough to warm you up, even a little.

Or, maybe that's just because Steve's bare chest is pressed up against yours, still generating heat like a human furnace for you.

"I still have nightmares, and I—" He chokes up, arms tightening around you. You return the squeeze with reassurance, leaving patience and silence for him. "Sometimes, in them, they're hurting you, too… and I- I can't do anything but watch."

It feels like is heart is caving in all over again; he had done so well ignoring the hurt, but now…

Now he realizes he only bottled it up, shelved it away for darker times.

And dark times have arrived; here you both are, trapped in a goddamn, broken down, radio station van in the middle of a blizzard.

"Then you just… you left. You stood me up. You were gone not even a month later. We were finally getting close—"

"And I f- fucked it up." A sigh rumbles out of Steve; he doesn't agree or disagree, just… acknowledges it. "This is gonna sound so dumb, but I felt… guilty, for calling out that day. I should've been th—"

"No. I mean it. It's a relief you never went through that shit. And then in the spring…" Except, you came back. Right after the destruction, but you came back. Colder, yet braver than you left. "I get it. I don't blame you for leaving. You were scared." He swallows thickly. "… But so was I."

Scared is an understatement.

He's feared for his life before, the year prior, and before that. He was scared for Nancy, hell, even Jonathan, the night they tried to trap the Demogorgon in the Byers' home.

He was terrified in the junkyard, plastering on a brave face for the kids. No way in hell would he let them down; he was gonna succeed or die trying— to Steve, no other choices existed.

He was convinced he'd die down in that cursed bunker with Robin, and if it weren't Erica and Dustin— two children— that anticipated fate would've played out to truth.

And the Mind Flayer— Jesus Christ— that fuckin'… thing. A grotesque terror on monstrous legs; too many damn legs, arms, everything, if you ask Steve. He can't think too hard about what exactly it was made up of, who specifically turned essentially into human jam and—

Yeah. No. He really can't stomach it. Just like the nightmares of losing you leave him shaken for the rest of the waking day.

Most nights, Steve has to double, sometimes triple check the locks on the doors before he goes to sleep. He latches all the windows. Sometimes unlatches just to re-latch, jiggling the window's frame, just to be certain it's closed. Every room, every hallway, holds a night-light's subtle glow for peace of mind.

Peace of mind from what, exactly? A Demogorgon? Demodogs? The Mind Flayer? The Russian guards, and flayed former classmates? All this time later, he hasn't been able to pinpoint which exactly he wants peace from the most. They're all equally fucked up, all royally fucked him up.

Steve knows his efforts are not enough to stave off these fears forever. They never are.

And Vecna? He's still processing that. After all, it hasn't even been one year since it all happened.

Less than one year since Eddie died, slowly killing Dustin with each day that passes without him; the more Steve tries to be there for the kid, the more he's pushed away. It's taking a toll on Steve, trying to be mindful of Dustin's grieving, trying to remind this kid he's not alone.

Less than one year since Max technically, in clinical terms, died, for over a minute; even a second considered dead is way too fucking long, and for a kid her age? Too damn soon. If it weren't for El reviving her, the party would be in shambles— yet they're on the verge of crumbling while Max is in a coma, anyway.

If anything happened to any of these kids, it'd devastate the rest of them. It'd devastate anyone in this little, yet forever growing, found family Steve's tripped and fallen into years ago.

And you.

You— he can't even stomach the idea of your safety being threatened. It only circles back to the nightmares he still has of you. He fears one of these days losing you will come true, and… and—

It hits him like a nuclear missile, dead on.

He didn't want you to leave earlier, to go out into the storm, because he was afraid one of his greatest fears, losing you, again, would come true. This chance to fix everything, at least make peace with what never came to be, has been right in front of you both for months since you got home.

Instead, it's been spent stuck in a cycle of hate, giving and taking sharp glares and words only dripping in venom.

So much wasted time—

"Steve?"

Reality settles in around him again, eyes focusing on you, remorse taking hold of every thought crossing his mind.

Unexpectedly, even to him, Steve blurts out, "I'm sorry." When your brows furrow, the remorse floods out. "I- I'm sorry for not being honest from the start—"

"You were trying to protect me, I get that now." He feels the tension dissolve out of you. "I'm sorry too." Your voice trembles, not from the cold this time. "Can we… start over?"

A smug smirk curls along his face. "Um… we can, but it'd be pretty awkward to start over like this."

"Oh my god, Steve."

"What? I'm just saying!" He chuckles with a shrug. "When we met, I had strawberry ice cream stains on my shirt, and I got, like, maybe three hours of sleep the night before. This seems incredibly different, considering we're both naked."

"You're not the one fully naked." You stifle laughter, rolling your eyes.

"Oh, what, I'm sorry— did you want me to be blunt instead? Because I am really fucking sorry if I get hard." Flustered, he rambles as you blink up at him, wide-eyed. "Seriously, you keep rubbing against me like that and it's- I'm— fuck."

Your hips are rolling into him again as the corners of your lips gradually quirk upward. "Okay," you say simply, not matching your devious smile.

"… Okay?" Steve scoffs.

"I mean… it's not like you're the only one struggling here," you admit, brash and certain. "Can't tell you how wet I've been since you started holding me."

"Oh, trust me. I know." Steve bounces back, stifling a smug chuckle. "Felt it the whole time."

Mortification contorts its way into your face. You hide again, head falling forward to rest on his shoulder.

"Hey, nuh-uh, no hiding. I thought it was hot." His fingers trail down your spine, sweeping to your side. He rests his hand over the curve of your hip, drawing slow circles into your skin with his thumb. "… Still do."

A shrill, piercing whistle whirls past the van, leading in a wave of howling wind, rocking the van. The instant jostle nudges you against him completely, It taunts you and Steve as you dance around you feelings.

The van's frame sways and creaks as the blizzard continues. You shift, trying to get comfortable, until your thigh presses against Steve's bulge and he hisses under his breath.

"Fuck, shit, fuck—"

Yeah. He's hard.

He tangles himself into you, thick thigh flexing against your slick heat. All carnal desires aside, he's sure fucking relieved to feel some part of you completely warm.

Thinking of being warm, and staying that way, leads him to speaking unfiltered. "Might not be the worse way to keep each other from freezing to death."

"Uh-huh…" you sound breathy, the last of your animosity towards Steve long disintegrated by now. "S'good idea." A shiver down your spine sends your hips bucking forward; Steve's curious if it from the cold or not. "S- sorry, m'sorry, I keep—"

Steve shushes you delicately. "Don't be sorry, take what you need."

Your thighs tighten around his, clit throbbing against him. Arousal builds onto his bare skin the more you drag your cunt against him.

"Just go slow, okay?" His reminder is tender, faces close enough to touch, breaths picking up speed. "Slow, slow, sweetheart. I'm not going anywhere."

"Yeah but—" your fingers hook under his waistband teasingly, breaths growing shallower. "Want you n- now—"

Steve grabs your hands, pulling them up within eyesight. He needs you clear-headed. "Hey, I mean it. We gotta be smart about this."

He doesn't expect you to frown, ego visibly wounded in your expression; what did you hear out of what he said?

"We don't have to do anything if you're not into it."

"No, no, I'm—" Steve puffs his cheeks out, exhaling quickly. His arms rope you back in, pressing up against him with a gasp. "You were freezing to death less than an hour ago—"

"Not to death."

"Only 'cause you came back before it was too late." And that he kept you stable, but he's not seeking recognition for that. His hands rise to cradle your cheeks, forcing you to look him in the eye. "Last thing we need is your heart over-exerting itself."

"But you're the one who suggested—" you collect your thoughts with a deep breath. "You're sending mixed signals, Steve. Do you want this or not?"

"I do, but I want you safe and warm. So, let me take care of you, alright?"

"Okay…" Steve looks down as you trail off, noticing your mood shift. Concern draws your brows together, tugs your lips downward and hushes your voice to a whisper. A cold finger traces the scar around his neck, and he gulps. "When did this happen?"

He was dreading this, grateful you'd been so delirious while recovering that you didn't notice the freshly healed skin, taut and pink— now a little purple from the cold, he's sure; this kind of weather always promises to emphasize souvenirs of the past.

"Last year," he trembles; the more he focuses on trying to breathe steadily, the more he shakes. "… Bats."

"The same that…" He hears you hesitate, holding that one, brutal truth on the tip of your tongue, only to soften it for both of your sake. "Same ones that… that attacked Eddie?"

"Yeah, I guess." Steve shakes his head, "I don't know how I survived and he didn't." His voice drops, laden with guilt. "Kinda fucked up if you ask me."

"Do they hurt?" You ask so tenderly, sincerity woven within your words. It pricks hot tears in Steve's eyes, ones he blinks away quickly.

No one ever really asks Steve if he's okay. Not like this. Not when it comes to the Upside Down.

"Yeah," he croaks out. "Sometimes, yeah." Unprompted, he adds, "Not as much as the headaches, though."

"How often do you get them?" You ask, but Steve only shrugs. It's not enough to quell your concern. "Steve…"

He doesn't need you to know just how bad it gets sometimes. The warning signs leading up to a flare— like how his neck aches and stiffens, how his vision doubles, and the ringing in his ears only grows louder.

Steve doesn't want to worry you, or anyone, of the throbbing, consistent pain; how similar it feels to being cracked in the skull with a fist, something he's experienced more than once— one time too many. The agonizing throbbing that morphs into pounding, and sometimes he can feel it behind his left eye, like it's still swollen shut.

Sounds become unbearably sharp and jagged to his brain. Too much light enrages him. They're more than just headaches, he knows that. Yet he bottles it all up, because emotionally, he can't afford to not be okay. He has to show up for everyone else.

Acknowledging him, you hum softly; he's grateful you've never been one to push him too far on a subject he'd rather avoid. "Should I, um—" you clear your throat awkwardly, "avoid them? The scars, I mean."

Not like this one's much easier to talk about.

Steve's shoulder's tighten while his breath hitches, sharp and obvious and shit, he wishes he caught that in time. That wish strengthens when you grimace.

"I'm sorry. That's— I'm not trying to be rude, just wasn't sure since sometimes they hurt—"

"S'okay," he relaxes after a deep breath. "Don't worry about 'em."

You hum, tracing the one along his neck with your finger. The warmth left in the wake of your touch is another reminder he's safe with you.

It's when your fingertips trail up to his face, palm caressing his cheek before resting there, that his heart skips a beat. And when you gingerly sweep your thumb against his cheekbone, his breath hitches.

"Whenever your headaches start… you'll tell me, right?"

When that simple question, loaded with empathy and laced with tenderness, leaves your lips, something within Steve breaks.

"It's… it's okay, I can handle it on my own."

For the first time, those words aren't convincing enough to lie to himself.

"Steve," you whisper, head shaking as the color of your irises bore into the hazel of his. "You don't have to handle anything on your own."

It's so direct, so honest— how can he even respond to that?

There's so much to say— how he'd always put the kids before himself, no questions asked. How he wants to do his part and keep everyone safe, during crawls and beyond. How his trauma, chronic and relentless, stays bottled up and shelved away, only to have manifested into a physical curse on every nerve ending in his entire being— and he still keeps it hidden away.

The past you narrowly escaped while he was beaten to hell and back, that's not yours to carry, it's his.

"I won't let you handle it alone," you whisper, challenging his unspoken thoughts. "Not anymore."

Feelings for you that he forcefully sunk long ago, rush to the surface and consume Steve. It's overwhelming, and words aren't enough; he surges forward, his lips finding yours while you squeak with surprise.

Steve breaks away, presses his lips to your jaw, kisses down your neck while his hands caress the shape of your figure. His touch is gentle, yet sturdy. Firm, yet sweet.

You bite back a moan, teeth pinning your bottom lip down, but you still shiver. He knows he's making you feel good. If you won't say it, he certainly feels it in the way you grab him, anywhere you can find purchase; his hips, his arms, his back, leaving behind little divots from your finger tips, dug into his skin.

He moves lower, one hand pausing on your breast, kneading it tenderly, kissing down your chest to pause at the other side. His lips gently lingering against the sensitive, pebbled peak is all it takes to begin unraveling you.

The gasp that slips out is one beyond what Steve's dreams could even imagine. His cock kicks as he flicks his tongue on your nipple.

"Shit, Steve…"

He sucks softly, a distinct pop! filling the confined space when he pulls back. He looks up with a thread of spit tethering him to your skin, and you look wrecked already.

He can't even wrap his mind around how devastatingly fucked out you'll look when he's through with you.

"Coulda' kept each other warm all this time," Steve breathes, kissing across the valley between your breasts to the other side. His tongue flits out, lazily teasing your nipple while tweaking and pinching the other. "You just had to be stubborn, huh?"

"Only 'cause you- you— a- ah, fuck…" your hips roll up into his, cunt grazing against his clothed cock, sticky and warm and slick and god… if you weren't so fragile right now, Steve would love to ruin you immediately.

If, you know, you were into that.

His cock twitches as his mind drifts, curious as to what the hell you're even into, and if he'll be lucky enough to have more chances to find out.

The two of you just have to survive this night first.

"'Cause I what?" He should be a little softer, a little kinder, but the edge is returning, and only because of your wanton, needy squirming. "Finish the sentence."

You gasp as Steve nudges his knee between your legs, parting them to flex his thigh against your cunt. You're soaked enough to glide yourself effortlessly against him.

Except, Steve grabs your hips, hovering above you while pinning them in place.

"Finish. The. Sentence."

You clamp your legs tight around the one against your core, but he plants his hands on your thighs, pushing them apart to admire your glistening cunt.

"I wouldn't h- have left if you weren't so m- mean!"

"Yet you're a mess right now." He withdraws, only to use his thumbs to part your folds. "Look at you, dripping and pretending like you're not into this."

Steve licks his lips, one thumb casually gliding up from your hole through your folds, resting lightly over your clit. You jolt from even the slight pressure.

"Bet you were this wet before you left."

Your brows knit together. "I wasn't."

"No?" He taunts you, pad of his thumb circling your clit, so close to where you want him, yet so deliberately distant. "Hm… you sure?" Your hips twitch while you gasp, inflating his ego as he simpers. "Seemed like earlier you were pretty fuckin' soaked."

"From t- the snow!" The more flustered you become, the more Steve's confidence grows, bordering onto being cocky. "Jesus, I was outside in a blizzard, in case you forgot."

Steve laughs. He laughs; it's cruel and runs straight to your throbbing clit, adjacent to his teasing touch.

"I don't think so, sweetheart." With a smug grin, he adds, "Doubt the snow would make you smell this damn good either."

"Steve!" You gasp, taken aback. The line's almost tacky, straight out of a bad porno, but Jesus Christ, he can't help himself around you.

"In fact—" he reaches out of the bag, retrieving the garment in question. Reservations long buried under the snow, he brings the pair to his face, eyes rolling back as he huffs in your scent. A guttural groan tears through him, while you're left speechless. "Been wanting to do that all fuckin' night."

Jaw hanging ajar, you whisper, "Holy shit, Harrington."

The smug expression falters, "Too much?"

"No," you breathe out, "fuck, no."

Relief revives his smirk. "Good. I'm far from done with you."

Trailing wet, painfully paced kisses down your body, Steve begins unzipping the sleeping bag; he'd rather not suffocate in that while going down on you. If anything keeps him from breathing tonight, he prays it's only your slick cunt smothering his face.

He's gentle, mindful, caressing your sides slowly to keep you warm. It softens the mean streak he just held out for your sake.

Parting your legs, he glances up to you. "Doing okay?" His lips drag along the plush of your left thigh, gentle, pointed kisses trailing closer to your core. His strong grip digs into your thighs before switching to the right one. "Need to hear you, honey."

"Mhm, yeah, I'm—" Steve parts your slit, moaning softly as he takes you in. "M'good. Promise."

"Good," he husks, leaving a chaste, open mouth kiss over your core. "Don't wanna neglect this pretty pussy."

You huff with an affectionate eye roll. "Swear to god, Steve, if anyone else said shit like this to me, I'd leave instantly."

"So what you're saying is…" Steve's lips linger on your folds, tongue teasingly flitting out, barely meeting your clit. Your legs twitch while you whimper. "I'm the exception?"

"D- don't let it get to your head, Har—" Sharply, you gasp as he spreads your core apart with his thumbs, only to spit on your puffy clit. "Fuck."

He leans in, mouth working languidly as his lips meet your glistening slit. It's already written in stone that the taste of anyone else won't ever compare; you've effortlessly wrecked him.

And he's already ruined you with each drag of his tongue, leading to your clit to suckle tenderly. He looks up, hoping to see you slowly unravel, and he does; your eyes roll back in time while you clench around nothing, rolling your hips to chase his tongue.

The soft sounds from his mouth cause you to throb, feeling every hum and groan, hearing him lave at your arousal. Hooded stare weighed down with lust, he continues watching you fall apart on his tongue.

Steve's moans tremble through you, with gravelly murmurs in between; every oh shit, and fuck, and little praise in between is enough to roll waves of heat through you. He must be able to feel it.

"See? You just needed to get warmed up." Your hips jolt against his mouth as he laps at your clit, while a thick finger circles your hole. He grins smugly. "Be good for me, and I'll keep you warm."

Your clit throbs against his tongue, and Steve moans. It's almost as pornographic as the sound he let out minutes before. His arms hook around your thighs, tugging you flush against his mouth.

"Is this all it takes to shut you up?"

Though drained and still trembling, your fingers tangle through his hair, pulling to trap his mouth against your pussy. He notices the light pressure in your grasp, mindful of his mention of headaches earlier.

"I dunno, I- I should be asking you the same damn thing."

The switch is subtle, tiny, but it's enough to send Steve's eyes rolling back into his head, whimpering as he bucks into the floor of the van.

"Oh…" you grin deviously. "You're into that, huh?"

The ounce of power, that microscopic switch, falls apart instantly as Steve leans back. Warmth withdraws along with him, your hands fall away, and all pleasure ceases. He slides two fingers up the edge of your folds, spreading them apart to spit directly onto your clit; you twitch and gasp.

"Hey!" Exasperated, you yelp, "Why'd you stop?!"

Steve doesn't answer, only runs his hands along the back of your thighs, gently nudging your legs to fold closer to yourself. He reaches your hips, pushing up to throw a nearby blanket underneath your back.

"What— what are you—" His mouth is back on you, tongue delving into your slit, running around your clit before puckering his lips. "Ohmyfuckinggod— Steve—"

You gasp when he mouths sloppily at your cunt, making out with it, taking his time to explore this part of you he's already dreamed so much of.

This part, this sweet, tight, hot part of you that he's fucked his fist to the thought of almost every night since you've moved home.

Not even his wildest dreams could've conceived what you really taste like. Your scent. How soft you are. And pretty, so goddamn pretty.

And as your hardened personality thaws out, the real you— the one Steve's always pined over— finally melts through.

He's missed you. So, so much.

The obscene sounds, all of the slurping and suckling to make you fall apart, fill the van. Walls clenching around his fingers as they barely enter you, your body sucks him in greedily.

"Jesus Christ," Steve breathes, getting sloppier as you get louder. He angles his fingers differently, and with the way he's got you positioned, you're blindsided by an orgasm shattering through you.

"Oh my god, oh my god—" he brushes up against your sweet spot, triggering your legs to shake around his head. "Fuck!"

Your high's barely over as he kisses your inner thighs, eyeing up your puffy, dripping folds.

"Got one more in you?" His lips and chin glisten with your essence in the low light. You nod breathlessly, hand over your chest as it rises and falls rapidly. His demeanor softens. "Hey, look at me."

Dazed, your eyes flutter open. They lock with his, full of concern.

"Should we stop?" You shake your head, but the silent conformation isn't enough. "Need you to say it if you want it," there's a flash of dull pain as he nips at your inner thigh, kissing away the sting immediately. His hand pulls away, leaving you empty and needy.

"I- I want it."

"Want… what?"

Exasperated, you whine while throwing your head back, "Oh my god, Steve."

"C'mon, you can tell me." He begins taunting you, "Usually you have no problem running that mouth of yours."

"You're so fucking insufferable sometimes, I sw- swear to god." The tremble in your voice is more from aftershocks than the cold.

Even when you were nice, you had an edge, and he missed that, too.

Steve crawls over you, nose nudging against your own. His fingers feather and tease along your slit, retreating as you buck your hips to chase his touch.

"There she is," chuckling, he slips a finger back into you, leaning down to murmur against your lips, "There's my girl."

As you gasp, he takes the chance to kiss you, really kiss you this time. Your back arches while he pumps into your slick heat. Lips parted against your own, slotted together, tasting yourself on his tongue while he licks into your mouth— it's all so goddamn dizzying for the both of you.

You break apart when you palm him over his boxers, rendering Steve speechless for a moment.

"Who knew that'd shut you up so easily too," you snicker, giving a gentle squeeze to his bulge, eliciting a sweet gasp from him. "Fuck, Steve. You're…"

Cheeks heating up to a rosy pink, he freezes, eyes darting down between your bodies, then back to you. "What? What's wrong?"

"Nothing! Nothing's wrong. I- I just…" Keeping an airy touch, you trace a finger along his cock. He whines pathetically, head falling forward onto your shoulder. To muffle his sounds, he mouths at your skin. "You're so… big."

He sighs; yeah, he should've expected that.

"It's not a bad thing! No part of you is bad!" You're tumbling into a nervous ramble. "That stuff doesn't matter anyway, y'know, size and whatever. I just- I don't know—" you clear your throat with an awkward laugh, rushing out, "Idon'tknowifyou'llfit."

Steve blinks as the words sink in.

Oh.

"Hey, shh, s'okay," he chuckles softly, confidence flowing back. "We can try, if you want. But there's no pressure."

"I wanna, I really want to, it's— I'm— you—"

He cuts you off with a kiss. There's a soft hum reeled out of you, shaping his lips into a smirk against your own. It's short and sweet, resting his forehead on yours as you break apart.

"One step at a time, okay?"

He's back between your legs as before, allowing you both to relax as he tries to take this slow, almost at a lazy pace, but that lasts all of five seconds.

Because one more taste of you, and Steve's a fucking goner.

Steve juts his face into your cunt, tapering his tongue to fuck into you as you're grinding onto his face. He grants your wordless wish, sinking a finger into you again. In search of that sweet, sacred spot, he curls it, grazing somewhere inside that makes hips rock with desperation while you cry out.

"Harder," he grunts into your core, the rumble of his order going straight to your clit without direct touch. He yanks you closer to his face— as if it's even possible at this point— and his gaze travels away from you, rolling to the back of his head, groaning as you're the only taste on his tongue. In way too deep to speak, he just hums with satisfaction, laced with an air of praise.

Licking into you, the strong bridge of his nose nudges against your clit as it throbs. You buck forward accidentally, but he happily accepts, burying his face between your thighs. He slides another finger into you and smirks as your legs begin to quiver.

"Steve…" You cover your mouth, but he yanks your hand away, while leaning back to spit onto your cunt again.

In between flits and laves of his tongue, he husks, "Wanna hear you again." The vibrations of his gravelly voice are what send you to the edge, but his tender encouragement is what seals the deal. "It's just us, honey. C'mon," he coaxes. "Lemme hear those pretty sounds you make."

Steve works overtime, meticulous in the speed he pumps his fingers, while your essence drips down his hand. The curls and flattening of his tongue between your folds, lapping up every drop you have to offer. Eventually rubbing his nose against your clit while he both tongue and finger fucks you simultaneously.

Bliss rolls through your body, luring out whimpers of his name and babbles of praise.

"Steve—" you gasp, back arching up as your tangled fingers anchor him to you. "Fu- oh my god, fuck—!"

You tremble, you gush, you unravel at the seams, and he'd keep doing this, and only this, all night if you'd let him. Watching you fade into such a fucked out state has his cock throbbing, sandwiched between himself and the van's floor.

Steve feels sticky; that much he expected. But… his boxers are damp, tacky against his skin, along with his tummy, where the tip of his cock lay snug under the waistband.

Oh, no.

"So, uh…" he kisses your core, smirking as it clenches around nothing. Kissing your thigh, he peers up through his lashes at you. "… How hard is it to wash cum out of a sleeping bag?"

Dazed, you're still smiling, dopey and giddy and sighing, "Mmm, dunno. Can't be that difficult—" your eyes pop open before you study Steve, still between your legs. "… Why?"

"No reason, really, just— I'm just curious—"

"Steve."

"M'yeah?" His eyes shift away for a second, guilty.

"Were you— oh my god."

"What?!"

A taunting, victorious smirk comes to life. "Did you hump the fucking floor?"

"Well, when you put it like that…" Steve cringes, blushing intensely. "Kinda?" Your playful stare narrows down at him. "It's not like I was trying to! It just— I— you—" he groans, burying his face into the plush of your inner thigh.

The embarrassment's worth it to hear your laugh, genuine and breathy woven into your comedown. "Better on the damn bag than the actual rug."

He could fall asleep here, so cozy and warm between your legs. You card your fingers through his soft hair, gingerly scraping along his scalp, earning his content hum.

Steve lifts his head to be met with your longing stare, soft, weary smile. It's impossible to hide his own smile. "What?"

"Come back up," you shoot out grabby hands. "M'cold."

"Oh," he snorts, crawling back into your arms. "Is that all I'm good for?"

"Nah, your tongue is pretty great, too."

Rolling his eyes, a smile peeks out as he zips the bag back up, cuddling close to you. Your leg swings over his hip and he reels you in. Fatigue settles in, and it's not long before you're drifting off.

You're not cold anymore, with most symptoms finally fading or completely dissipated; he figures it's safe to sleep. Hell, he could use the rest, too.

It's not until the first, faint snore, that he realizes his goddamn, sticky boxers are still on, and he doesn't have the heart to move you.

A little discomfort is worth it if you're safe and sound in his arms, but… Jesus Christ, this is going to be one long fucking nap.

Steve's unsure when the two of you shifted in your sleep, but with the limited space in the bag, you've ended up spooning him.

It's… kinda nice. He's never been the little spoon before, not with anyone he's ever cuddled with.

By some higher power or sheer, dumb luck, you're warm— fucking finally. You're clinging onto him from behind and nuzzling your face into the crook of his neck.

Steve's breath hitches when your lips graze his neck. He chokes back a whine as you brush your soft figure against his back.

He gently murmurs your name into the dark while your arms tighten around his torso. You hum in return, soft and content.

Splaying out your fingers, they creep down his body, teasing around the waistband, dipping just below the elastic of his briefs.

"Mm—" Steve bites back some kind of pathetic sound. "Baby, what're'y'doin'?"

The pet name blooms heat under your cheeks. He hears you hum, feels you shrug. Your fingers sink a little lower, brushing up against the head of his cock.

"S'okay?"

"It- yeah, but—" Steve gasps when your thumb sweeps over the slit on his tip, still tacky from when he came in his boxers earlier. Now, on top of that, arousal weeps his slit on command by your touch.

"But?"

Your hand begins to retreat, until Steve grabs it, shoving it toward the base of his cock. His hips buck into your palm, groan rumbling deep from his throat.

Whether it's because Steve's been touch starved, or just really, really into you (both. it's totally both), your fingertips tracing down his shaft cause him to twitch.

He can feel himself pulsate into your palm as your grip winds around him. You only pump once, twice, three times, and he's quick to begin unraveling.

"I'm not gonna last if you keep doing that," Steve whines, bucking into your fist. "I can't— ah… f- fuck—" he grumbles, forcing out, "I— dammit, I can't afford to come in my pants again. I only have one pair!"

"Then take 'em off," you giggle. "Need you in me."

Any other circumstance, Steve would allow the teasing to drag on, but he can't take any more tension. He flips over to lean above you, switching positions; you're the little spoon now, and you're flustered from the sudden change.

As you roll to your left side, you lean on your elbow to prop yourself up. Steve hastily plucks a condom from his wallet, still in the crumpled, damp jeans he discarded earlier and within reach.

You keep your legs bent as Steve settles behind you, backside on full display to him. Glancing over your shoulder, you've got a perfect view of him, already reveling in the way he's struggling to keep himself together while rolling the condom down his length.

Hand at the thick base of his cock, he drags the ruddy tip between your folds, teasing your clit before catching at your entrance. He repeats the taunting motion, smirk building with each whimper and whine you set free. One last drag through your slick slit, Steve rests the head at your entrance, pushing in only a little bit.

"Still okay?" He asks, eyes flitting to yours. One might think he sounds groggy from a nap, but he's just pussy drunk already.

"Yeah, mhm," your breathy reply makes his cock kick in his hand and against you. "Ju- just go slow, okay?"'

Steve leans down, planting his lips on your forehead. "Promise I will."

And he does; inch by inch, he slides into you, stretching you out to a limit you've never reached before. In awe, he watches himself disappear inside of you, breath hitching the further he goes.

"Fuck— fuck, you're—" his eyes roll back, twitching against your tight, warm walls. Hips tilting, you push your ass back to help him ease in. All it does is make Steve a total wreck. Pathetically, he strains out through bated breath, "…Might need a minute."

"Yeah?" The teasing edge he secretly loves so much is returning; a sign you're feeling more like yourself. "You look like you could use ten."

"Keep it up," he huffs, "you're gonna need a few days 'til you can walk again."

Steve's hips reel back, dragging out torturously slow as you banter on. He leisurely slides back in, stretching you out. Again, he pulls out, even slower this time.

"We talkin' business days? 'Cause tomorrow's the weekend, and I'd love to not be in recovery—" He slams into you, bottoming out in one thrust. "— Christ, Steve! What the—"

Fully retreating, his shaft caresses your silky, slick walls. Fingers wrapping around the base of his cock, he teasingly glides the tip of his cock through your folds, dipping into your entrance.

With each push back, he pulls out; your desire is only met with taunting, dangling bliss just in reach.

"You done talking logistics yet?"

Though your jaw falls open to quip back, only a gasp tumbles out. With another snap of his hips against yours, he fills you again.

That stretch isn't dizzying on one end only; Steve has to gulp down steady breaths to relax. He's wanted this, wanted you, for years now.

No way is he fucking this up now with a pitifully swift finish.

"N'you were worried you couldn't take me," he patronizes, yet your walls clenching around him mercilessly wipe the smug grin off his face. "Jesus fuckin' christ."

"Maybe you can't take me," you dare to challenge him. The teasing ignites something deep within, and, well, you're the one who started a fire you most likely can't extinguish.

Steve lifts the leg closest to him to rest it against his torso. You roll a little more onto your back as he straddles your leg against the floor; similar to missionary, but the angle hits so sinfully as he sinks back in. 

Then, without mercy, void of warning, he relentlessly pounds into you.

Already at a loss for words, all you have to offer are sharp gasps. The plush of your body bounces with each of his thrusts, enticing his grip of one hand to dig into your hip.

What he doesn't expect is your hand to glide down your form, conforming to your curves until your fingertips brush over his knuckles.

Steve's breath hitches, hips stuttering with a faltering pace. Hesitantly, he laces his fingers between yours, and to his surprise, your grip doesn't falter.

It tightens.

Just like the choke-hold his feelings for you have on his heart.

"Don't get sappy on me now," Steve teases, fighting off his own emotions. His eyes flicker down to your hands intertwined, cock twitching inside you when you tighten your hold on him.

The gesture is small, but his heart flutters; what's meaningful to Steve is something you're probably not even thinking twice about. He rolls his hips against you, slow and deep, hoping to distract from his feelings.

"Wouldn't dr— oh!" You gasp, eyes rolling back as he hits the spot that makes you weak. He hears you murmur his name, strung together with expletives under your breath. "W- wouldn't dream of it."

Fog blankets the windows as each thrust rocks the van on its frame. Sweat beads at your brow, and there's relief found in the sight. You feel so warm, only reminding him mere hours ago you were freezing to death.

But you're here, underneath him, closer than he ever imagined to be outside of his dreams. You're here, warm, coherent, safe.

Safe because of him. Alive, because you chose to trust him.

That plucks at his heartstrings, too.

"Steve?"

Your voice is breathy, but concern is laced throughout, tugging him back into the present. He locks eyes with you, but you're blurry. He registers your hand extending to rest on his cheek, instinctively leaning into your tender touch.

"Hey, slow down," you swipe your thumb across his cheek, and it glides against his skin with ease. Too much ease. "Baby, stop for a second. You're crying."

Baby.

Anytime he's been called that, it never felt right. But hearing it from your lips is a whole different story.

Wait, did you say he was crying?

"Sorry, I…" he trails off, glancing away and kissing your palm, panting heavily against it. "M'okay."

"Steve—"

"No, I swear. I'm just—" he shudders out a breath, one with relief. "I'm glad you're okay."

"So much for not getting sappy," you tease, but when Steve only halfheartedly smiles, you fall back into the energy he has. "Hey, I'm not going anywhere. I'm okay."

"I know." He nods, hair flopping in his face. "I know, I know that. I know."

Maybe if he repeats it enough, he'll believe it.

"St—"

He cuts you off abruptly with a kiss, insatiably slotting his lips against yours. His tongue runs along your bottom lip, silently pleading for more. When you oblige, parting your kiss-swollen, wind-bitten lips, he groans, thrusting without warning into you again.

You break the kiss reluctantly, grabbing his face. "Steve. You should—"

"I'm fine, I mean it," he whispers against your lips, sloppily rocking into you. "I'm okay. Promise."

And, really, he is, he just didn't think those emotions would sucker punch him right now.

You gasp again as he hits your sweet spot, eyes falling out of focus into a dazed stare. "M'gonna cum," you rasp out, staving off a strangled moan. "Steve, I'm— I—"

He unsheathes himself from you, and it pains him to do so, whimpering as the chill of the air around erases your warmth. He glances down to your cunt, watching it clench around nothing.

"Why'd you do that?" You're breathless as you manage to ask, and the heartbroken look on your face almost tempts Steve to give in. Instead, he runs a finger through your folds, dripping and enticing as his touch drags over your throbbing clit. "Oh my god, this is the second time tonight you've done that!"

"M'not letting you finish that easy," he teases.

You whine, tossing your head back against the worn pillow, now damp with sweat. He restrains himself from splitting you open again, ignoring how needy his cock is, throbbing, red, and leaking at the tip.

"Up," he orders, throwing the sleeping bag off your tangled forms. Eager for more, you sit up, a little too quickly for his liking. Immediately his tone softens with concern, "Okay, wait. Careful, slow— Don't need you passing out."

Steve's hand finds your cheek, lips planting on yours, kissing you so sweetly. He smiles against your lips before he rolls a blanket up while nodding to the carpet. "You okay on your knees?"

"Okay?" You climb onto all fours, teasing, "I'm pretty fuckin' great on my knees."

Steve shakes his head, though his smile doesn't fade, "Jesus Christ, and I had the bad lines?" He places the blanket under your tummy, hiking your hips up with the extra support. "That help?"

It's a small gesture, one he probably doesn't think twice about, but it sure sticks with you anyway. "Uh-huh." You wiggle your ass, impatiently eager to be filled again.

His large hands slide over the curve of your backside, squeezing and kneading the doughy flesh. Your core glistens with arousal, practically begging for indulgence.

And Steve? He's in a trance, mouth on you for the third time tonight; he can't get enough of you. No one has ever tasted like you. No one's ever felt as soft as you, been as soaked as you. No one sounds like you, or shows the tiny yet impactful levels of intimacy you do with him.

No one's like you. No one could even compare.

"Fuck…" he lowly sighs out, nose nudging between your folds. "Didn't think you'd get this wet again."

"I—" You cut yourself off with a strangled gasp as Steve's tongue flits out, curling at your entrance, but not quite dipping in. "Hhhohmygod."

Thick fingers drag through your folds as he pulls back, teasing in circles around your throbbing clit, never touching it directly. You push your ass back, but he grips your hip firmly, holding you still.

"Steve," you whine.

"I know, I know," he murmurs, leaning in to suck crudely on your clit, one final time. Lining up with your entrance, one hand roams to your hips, the other, guiding himself into you. "Gonna take real good care of you, honey."

You're already clenching with a gasp. "Can't be saying— a- ah!" Steve nudges the tip into you, barely past the head's flare when you whine out. Sinking in, the delicious stretch lures you both under its spell. "S- sayin' sweet shit to me like th- that."

"I mean it," he groans, eyes rolling back as your tight heat envelopes him again. "Every damn time, too."

"What, this isn't a h- heat of the moment kinda th- thing?"

"Not even close, sweetheart." He digs his grip into the plush of your ass, slowly entering you again. Hypnotized, he watches himself disappear inside of you with each thrust. "Jesus Christ… suckin' me right in."

You nudge back into him. Steve chokes on his breath as your ass slams into him. "I- I need more."

"Yeah?" Thumbs on your lower back circle softly on your skin. He watches the goosebumps rise with satisfaction. "How do we ask for more?"

"Jesus fuckin'—" irked, you grumble. You slump against the pillows beneath you, whining, "Please."

"Please… what?"

"Steve, I s- swear to god—"

"Go ahead," he juts his chin out, smirk strong as he feels a power trip within reach. He wishes you could see how smug he is from there. In a slow retreat, he drags himself out of you, leaving you empty, cold, miserable. "Keep up the attitude, we'll see what happens."

"You're such a—" Steve slams back into you, knocking a cry from your lungs. His cock kicks against your tightening walls. "Oh, fuck…" You clap a hand over your mouth, but Steve yanks it away.

He pins that arm behind your back, thrusting hard and deep.

"Such a what?"

"Nothing. Sh- shut up an' fuck me already." When he doesn't move, you breathe out reluctantly, "… please?"

Steve snaps his hips against your ass, bottoming out within you. The sudden stretch shoves a cry out from the back of your throat.

"Aw, see?” He drags himself out, tauntingly slow. “Not so hard to ask for what you need, huh?" He thrusts again, sinking in to the hilt, "Thaaaaaat's my girl." He moans, rumbling deeply as he fills and stretches you all over again.

 The condescending comment should be that, only that, but instead your breath hitches. It's one that unexpectedly makes Steve's heart jump, his stomach flip; he wonders if you feel the same. 

"I… Yours?"

 Though you can't see him in this position, Steve's eyes flicker away, tongue darting out the corner of his mouth as he tries focusing on fucking you instead.

"Mhm, if…" He groans when your free hand reaches between your thighs, underneath you both to grip his balls and massage them. "Oh, shit, honey… s- so good…"

Fatigue still rests heavy in your limbs, and even with the pillow supporting underneath, you begin to sag down to the floor. It's not much help that you're not holding your own balance anymore.

"Hang on, I got ya'." It's such a basic phrase handled with care, passion coupling with his actions; a strong arm winds around your waist as his thrusts slow. He hoists you back into his lap, kneeling back on his heels while you're sat back onto him.

He moves again, and you cry out from the new angle, feeling him even deeper than moments before. It's almost toointense; your trembling legs are a sign of that.

"Hey, hey, shhh," Steve kisses your neck softly, leading up to your jaw. "Need a minute?" You shake your head, breaths rapid and shallow. "Wanna stop?"

"God, no," you nearly sob, tightly clenching around his cock, almost to keep him inside you. 

"Okay, okay." He kisses your cheek, lips lingering against you as he demands gently, "Tell me what you need."

"Y- you."

Steve chuckles, nuzzling his nose against your jawbone, unable to keep his lips off of you. If this is the only time he has you, he wants to kiss every inch he can reach.

"I'm right here."

Your lips part, but your breath is taken away with each thrust; you can only manage a nod while you whine and gasp.

The smell of sex hanging heavy above you both, the plap plap plap of skin slapping on skin, filling the van alongside your filthy moans; the two of you could put a porn studio to goddamn shame.

And then, there's the mouth on Steve among all of this.

"This pussy all mine?" His head falls back with a throaty groan, hips twitching off-key as embers smolder low in his belly, a fire that's always been easy to build off of.

It's only fair to match his energy.

"Dunno…" You turn your head as he leans over your shoulder, holding you flush against him while relentlessly, sloppily fucking into you. "This cock all mine, Harrington?" You burst into giggles among the breathy sighs. "Got me saying the dumbest shit, that's h- how much I like you."

He doesn't just twitch inside of you, he kicks, with little room to move within your tight walls. The whimper that pairs is one too delicious to ever imagine once, just once.

No, he'll never get enough of you. Not now. Not ever.

"S'all yours, honey," his nose prods into your cheekbone when he kisses the round, soft side of your grin. Huffing and puffing, thrusting into you relentlessly, he adds, "M'all yours."

Steve drives his cock deep within your cunt, dizzy as the stretch barely lets up. The fingers gripped around your chin ease up, two teasing at your bottom lip, tracing it softly. You're so fucked out already, it doesn't register what he's trying to accomplish. Not until he pushes them past your lips. That's when you take him in.

Even just two fingers are thick enough to softly gag you, while your tongue licks and laves at his digits. Warm and wet, you leave him a wreck as he quietly imagines fucking your mouth instead.

God, he hopes this isn't a one time fling; he wants you like this all the time.

"Fuck, you're unreal."

You try and fail to whimper his name around his fingers, drooling onto yourself and his hand.

Steve's fingers slip away, hands sliding down your neck. He loosely holds, gives a gentle squeeze, pushing you right up to the edge. You lean into his palm, tightening around him as you give into trust. His thumb caresses the side of your neck

"St- Steve, m'gonna— I—" his other hand finds your clit, coaxing you to fall into bliss with a steady, tender touch.

"C'mon, come for me," he husks in your ear while his own thrusts stutter, cock pulsing as he follows you into a shared high. He slurs out, "Thas'it. Fu- fuck—"

He spills into you, and you gush around him, yet it's so much more than that. There's a closeness you've craved, finally satiated as you're intertwined and losing yourselves in well-overdue bliss.

Trying to anchor yourselves to one another, there's desperate grasping in tandem with sounds rooted in indulgence. You've got your arm curled behind to tangle your fingers through his hair. Steve's greedily planting his fingerprints everywhere he can reach, digging pressure into every muscle and curve. You pull, he squeezes; the two of you claim one another through frantically passionate touches.

Beyond the lust, this is what you've always longed for with Steve; even if it didn't pan out the way either of you wanted, maybe it was needed to all fall into place.

Wrapped around one another, sweat still drying, smell of sex finally fading, the two of you revel in the afterglow together. Any walls— built with years of spite, grudges, and loss— between you have been demolished.

That doesn't ease Steve's nerves, though.

"Would you…" Steve trails off as self doubt's choke hold tightens on his heart. You lift your head, chin resting on his chest as your eyes find his.

All animosity in your gaze vanishes; he never thought he'd see the day.

"Would you wanna, uh, go out?" Like he didn't just rail you into oblivion, shyness creeps in. He braces himself for rejection, and maybe this question should've waited until after you're dug out from the snow. "Like, on a date, I mean."

Eager, you tease, "Promise I won't stand you up this time."

"Not like you can leave town this time anyway."

Though you scoff, it's playful. There's a smile he never imagined he'd see again, paired perfectly with your sincere laughter that reassures him.

The light in your eyes that radiates a soothing warmth, like spring sunshine on his skin, is back.

"Not sure I'd leave if I even had the chance," you admit. "Not without you."

And the sincerity in those words, it comforts him. Grounds him. For once, just once, the two of you could have something stable, constant, that isn't a threat to your lives.

There's a comfortable silence between you; the blizzard's howling gusts don't sound so lonely and hollow anymore.

"Might be smart to get dressed before the morning." Steve grimaces, reaching between his legs to slide the condom off. "… and clean up first."

"You would ruin the moment with something like that," you groan as he ties it off, sliding an arm out of the sleeping bag to throw it into a small trash bin nearby. "Besides, we're warm and cozy, and—" he smirks, reaching for the zipper next while you whine. "Ugh, no, c'mon— don't open it!"

Steve shrugs, amused. "Then you can explain to whoever ends up rescuing us why we're naked in the middle of a—"

"Okay, okay!" You grumble, stretching over Steve to zip the bag open. Begrudgingly, you shimmy out, rushing to grab the emergency box for clothes.

Despite your protests, Steve helps you get dressed as you grumble over the soreness, no longer numb from the cold. With teamwork and grace, you're back in warm, dry clothes, and Steve follows suit. He helps you back into the sleeping bag, snuggling up next to you once zipped up.

It's effortless, though mindful, how you tangle yourselves around one another. Your leg is thrown over his thigh while you rest on your side. He faces you, slotting his leg between yours and reeling you into his embrace. You tuck your head under his chin, inviting him to kiss the top of your head— and he does.

"We're taking the weekend off," you murmur. It's not a question, it's a firm statement. "No crawls. Not unless they're absolutely certain we're ending this."

"No crawls," Steve agrees, chuckling softly into you hair. "Stay over this weekend? I know it's not the most ideal first date location, but we don't really have the greatest options right now, and—"

"Okay."

"Oh." He pauses, relieved there was no hesitancy from you. "Okay. Yeah. We'll do that."

This might take some getting used to, the whole not being at each other's throats all the time thing. He can't complain, in fact, it's a welcomed change.

"The others can wait, we got catching up to do," you nuzzle your face into his neck, voice vibrating against his throat. "And we'll be dry this time."

He hums with a chuckle low in his throat. "Not sure you could say that for yourself, but sure, okay."

"Steve."

The two of you are too wrapped up in one another to notice the snow finally slowing to something serene, teasing back and forth like you used to. This banter without venom, it's natural now, and he hopes it stays. He hopes you stay. By the way you're so at ease in his embrace, Steve knows you will. 

Because Steve never hesitates.

Never acts like affection is something shameful.

Love pours out of him, as naturally as body heat.

If your hands are cold, he interrupts himself halfway through a story just to catch your fingers and tuck them into his jacket pockets alongside his own, rubbing warmth back into your knuckles while continuing his sentence without missing a beat.

If you yawn during movie night, his arm is around your shoulders before the sound can finish leaving your mouth. “C’mere, sleepy girl,” he murmurs automatically, pulling you sideways against his chest.

If your shoelaces come untied in the middle of the sidewalk, he drops immediately to one knee with a distracted, “hang on, baby.”

Rainwater hisses along the curb while he reties the bow tighter this time, fingers quick and practiced, one hand steadying lightly against your ankle. His knuckles brush your skin through your sock and you have to stand there, holding your breath until your lungs ache with it, staring down at the concentration pulling his brows together.

Wondering what it must be like to love someone with your whole heart and not feel like it’s going to break you open.

He’s warm everywhere, your Steve. Warm hands, warm mouth. Warm stomach pressed against your back beneath blankets. He smells like laundry detergent and faint cedar cologne rubbed into the collar of his jackets. Sometimes vanilla chapstick, sometimes mint gum. Always Steve.

And the kisses are constant too.

Quick, thoughtless ones, born entirely from fondness.

The corner of your mouth while waiting for the microwave to beep. Your forehead when he passes behind you in the kitchen. Your shoulder while you lean over the sink brushing your teeth side by side. The back of your neck when he reaches around you for orange juice in the fridge, mumbling a sleepy, “morning, honey,” against your skin before kissing beneath your hairline.

Sometimes he just looks at you for a second. Expression softening imperceptibly, like some private thought crossed his mind, and then he leans over and kisses your cheek with this quiet little hum in his throat.

Like loving you tastes good.

And god, the neck kissing.

It’s terrible.

And right now, in the middle of a museum gallery so quiet you can hear shoes squeak against polished floors, he’s doing it again.

You’re trying to read the plaque beneath some enormous renaissance painting—something about divinity and grief, oil on canvas—but Steve is behind you, arms folded around your waist while he scans the museum brochure one-handed.

One of his hands has slipped beneath your cardigan, warm palm spread low across your stomach.

“Okay, so,” he murmurs near your ear, voice low enough that the sound vibrates through you, “there’s the Greek sculpture thing upstairs, or... there’s apparently a room with these like, tiny dollhouses?”

You wrinkle your nose. “That sounds horrifying.”

“Right?” His lips brush the shell of your ear as he speaks. “Like what if one of them’s haunted?”

Then his mouth finds the hinge of your jaw.

One lazy, distracted kiss.

His lips are soft, slightly chapped from the cold outside. Warm breath spills across your skin afterward, making your pulse jump beneath his mouth. He lingers there, nose nudging lightly against your neck while he keeps mumbling off different sections of the museum.

You feel the shape of his smile against your skin when he finds another ridiculous exhibit.

“Apparently there’s a room that’s just chairs.”

“That can’t be true.”

“No, I swear to god.”

Then his mouth drifts lower.

Open-mouthed kisses this time.

Slow enough that warmth blooms beneath every press of his lips. You feel the faint scrape of his teeth catch your skin playfully before he smooths over it with another softer kiss, his thumb stroking across your stomach.

Your entire body tightens around the feeling.

The worst part is knowing that he isn’t trying to fluster you.

Steve isn’t performing intimacy.

He just never second-guesses affection.

Unlike you.

For you, every touch feels catastrophic.

The second Steve touches you, awareness crashes through your body all at once—your pulse, your breathing, the weight of his hand, whether your hair smells okay, whether your stomach feels too soft beneath his palm, whether someone across the gallery can see this.

Whether you deserve to be loved this openly at all.

“....and Robin said there’s some painting of a guy eating his own son which honestly seems kinda—”

He stops, hand stilling against your stomach.

“Babe?”

You blink hard, staring at the plaque without reading a single word.

Steve leans back, concern creasing immediately between his brows.

“Hey,” his hand slides higher, rubbing gently over your ribs. “You okay?”

“Hm? Mhm.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

Another lie.

Your skin still burns where he kissed you.

And underneath all the panic is something worse.

Fear and hunger, knotted so tightly you can’t separate them anymore.

Wanting him closer, wanting him to keep touching you forever. Wanting to crawl inside every warm, gentle thing he gives you and stay there.

Not knowing what you’d do if he ever stopped.

Because as terrifying as it is to be loved this softly, you think losing it might actually destroy you.

“You wanna sit down for a sec?” Steve asks quietly. “I think I still have that granola bar in my bag if you’re hungry.”

You almost laugh, because of course that’s where his mind goes.  

Care.

Always care.

“No, I’m okay,” you say quickly, forcing a smile. “We can keep going. The uh, Greek sculpture thing sounds good.”

He watches you for a beat longer than comfortable, thumb rubbing against your hipbone through your jeans.

“Okay,” he says finally.

His hand slides up your arm, gently fixing the cardigan slipping off your shoulder. His fingers brush your neck in the process, absentmindedly smoothing your hair back into place too.

And then, because he’s Steve—because affection lives inside him so naturally he doesn’t know how to love except with his whole body—

He reaches down and interlaces your fingers with his.

Warmth immediately fills the spaces between your knuckles, his callused fingers curling around yours with steady, secure pressure.

He keeps holding your hand the entire walk toward the staircase, thumb stroking across your skin while he talks about haunted dollhouses and ugly marble babies and whether you think ancient Greek people had chest hair.

And isn’t it terrifying, how quickly your body has learned what safety feels like in someone else’s hands?

...

It isn’t just the touching.

You almost wish it was.

Because that would be easier to understand.

A touch can be explained away:

Steve’s just naturally affectionate. Steve likes physical contact.  

But it’s not just that.

It’s the way he loves you without condition. Without making you earn it first.

A few weeks into dating, he showed up at your apartment carrying a bouquet so enormous it nearly blocked his entire face.

When you opened the door, all you could see were flowers.

Soft cream roses crowded against pale pink delphiniums, petals curling delicately at the edges like silk ribbon. Deep burgundy dahlias bloomed low in the arrangement, velvety and dark as spilled wine, white baby’s breath drifting between everything like tiny bursts of snowfall.

And hidden right in the middle were your favorites.

Blue hydrangeas.

Dusty-blue petals clustered together like storm clouds at dusk, edges fading lavender where the light caught them.  

You had pointed them out exactly once while passing a florist downtown.

Three seconds, maybe.  

You remembered slowing briefly in front of the shop window because they looked beautiful beneath the warm yellow display lights. Rain had just started misting softly against the sidewalk and Steve had been halfway through ranting about some middle schooler trying to rent an R-rated horror movie with a fake ID. You’d smiled at his story before murmuring, almost absentmindedly, “Those are so pretty.”

That was it.

You hadn’t even thought he heard you.

But Steve Harrington has a habit of holding onto the tiniest details about you like they're something precious.

“Baby, I swear to god,” Steve was saying now as he stepped inside your apartment, nudging the door shut with his foot, “I had the craziest day today. This guy at work tried to return a tape completely melted.”

The bouquet landed in your arms before he shrugged off his jacket.

“Melted,” he repeated, horrified, running a hand through his hair. “Like, fully warped. Looked like somebody cooked that thing in a microwave.”

You stared down at the flowers.

The bouquet was heavy enough that you had to support it with both arms. Thick stems pressed cool and damp against your palms beneath layers of cream florist paper, the wrapping folded slightly unevenly around the flowers and tied together with rough twine that looked suspiciously hand-done.

Not florist-perfect, but Steve-perfect.

The flowers smelled dizzyingly alive: sweet rose perfume softened by rainwater and the cool, earthy scent of freshly cut stems.

“…um, Steve?”

“—and Keith asked me if I did that,” he huffed, toeing off his shoes. “I mean, can you believe that shit? What does he think I do at work all day, destroy tapes for fun?”

“Steve.”

“Yeah?”

You blinked at him slowly.

“What’s…” Your throat tightened strangely around the words. “What’s this for?”

He looked down at the bouquet like he’d genuinely forgotten he walked in carrying it.

“Uh…” His brows lifted slightly. “Flowers?”

He laughed softly after saying it, confused.

But you didn’t laugh.

Because your brain was already doing what it always did: rummaging frantically for conditions. For expectations and hidden meanings tucked beneath kindness.

Your heartbeat started creeping unpleasantly high in your throat.

Was it an anniversary?

Oh god.

Had you forgotten something?

Your stomach dropped, dates scrambling uselessly through your head too fast to follow. One month? Six weeks? Was there something couples were supposed to celebrate this early? Had Steve done something thoughtful and now you were standing there empty-handed like the worst girlfriend alive?

The cellophane crackled beneath your tightening grip.

“Did I…” You cleared your throat quietly. “Did I forget something?”

Steve’s forehead wrinkled.

“Huh?”

“The flowers.”

“What about ‘em?”

Your voice came out impossibly small. “Why’d you get these?”

“Uh, ‘cause I…” He huffed a tiny laugh through his nose, head tilting. “’Cause I wanted to?”

His confusion only made your chest tighten more.

“Is it our anniversary or something?”

His frown deepened. “What? No.”

“Then… why?”

Steve stared at you for a second, slightly open-mouthed now, the soft amusement on his face fading into gentle concern.

“Baby, they’re just flowers.”

You stared back helplessly.

“But why?” you asked again, quieter this time.

“Well, I…” He shrugged one shoulder slightly. “I saw them. And I thought about you.”

The apartment suddenly felt very quiet.

You looked back down at the bouquet in your arms.

The hydrangeas were even prettier up close, petals shifting between pale blue and soft lavender depending on how the light hit them. Tiny sprays of baby’s breath caught between larger blooms like stars scattered through clouds.

A single sunflower tucked near the back, drooping sideways because Steve probably had the bouquet strapped into the passenger's seat on the drive over.

Your throat burned.

“That’s it?” you asked quietly.

Steve let out a soft breath through his nose.

His socked feet whispered against the floor as he stepped closer, one hand rising to cup your cheek.

Big enough to hold the entire side of your face, his palm enveloped you in warmth. Your lashes fluttered at the feeling of his thumb sweeping beneath your eye, brushing over the apple of your cheek, soothing something there without even knowing what hurt.

“Yeah,” he said softly. “That’s it. I saw ’em and thought you’d like them.” His mouth tugged into a small smile. “You stared at those flowers for like, ten minutes.”  

You huffed weakly. “It was not ten minutes.”

Steve’s smile widened, encouraged by the sound of your laugh.

“There was this whole wrapping station thing too,” he added, gesturing proudly toward the bouquet still overflowing from your arms. The cream paper rustled softly as he touched it, uneven folds bunching around the stems where the twine had already started slipping loose on one side. “The lady kept trying to help me but I told her I could handle it.”

He tipped his head, inspecting his own work. “Pretty good, right?”

You looked down again.

The wrapping really was crooked. One corner folded inward strangely while another flared too wide, baby’s breath poking free through gaps in the paper.  

It couldn’t have been more beautiful.

Steve’s grin turned sheepish, one hand rubbing the back of his neck. “Honestly, I think she stopped helping 'cause I was stressing her out.”

A quiet bubble of laughter escaped you, and the second it did, you noticed the way his face changed. Grin softening, eyes gone warm at the realization that he’d made you smile.  

That was the other unbearable thing about him.

How carefully he watches for your joy, waiting for the next chance to do it again.   

He really had done all this just because he wanted to.

No special occasions—he just saw something beautiful and immediately thought of you.

You blinked quickly, staring down at the velvety rose petals before he could notice the dangerous sting gathering behind your eyes.

Nobody had ever remembered little things about you before.

Not enough to act on them later.

Certainly not enough to drive across town carrying an absurdly oversized bouquet because of one passing comment you barely remembered making yourself.  

But Steve noticed everything.

The tea you always reach for when you’re sick. The songs you hum in the car without realizing. Which side of the bed you like to sleep on. Which sweatshirt you wear when you’re sad. The way you peel pepperoni slices off pizza before eating.  

The flowers you paused to admire for three seconds on a rainy sidewalk weeks ago.

Your fingers tightened carefully around the bouquet.

“Thank you,” you managed quietly.  

Steve smiled, stepping closer until the bouquet crushed lightly between your bodies, cellophane crinkling in the quiet of the apartment.

“Yeah. Anytime, baby,” he hummed, bending down to press his smile into the curve of your mouth, as natural as breathing.

...

You don’t know why you get like this.

Why your body reacts like it’s bracing for impact when all he’s doing is being gentle. Why his affection makes your chest ache the way it does.

Why your first instinct is always to freeze.

Body going stiff whenever Steve wraps himself around your back in grocery store checkout lines, chin hooked over your shoulder while he complains about magazine prices and rubs his thumb beneath the hem of your shirt.

Sometimes he brushes your hair behind your ear mid-conversation and keeps talking without even realizing he did it. Sometimes he reaches for your hand in his sleep, eyes still closed, finding you beneath the blankets when his body notices your absence before he does.

And you wonder why, in all those sweet, wonderful moments—when he kisses your forehead while waiting for the microwave to beep, when he pulls you against his chest during movies, when he drops to his knees on dirty pavement because he doesn't want you to trip over your laces, when he holds your face in both hands like it’s something precious—you feel this horrible urge to apologize afterward.

Sorry I’m difficult. Sorry you picked me. Sorry you don’t realize yet there are easier people to love.

Love had always arrived transactional before him.

Conditional.

Dependent on being easy enough, pretty enough, quiet enough, useful enough.

But Steve loves you without condition.

And being seen that intimately by someone so good—someone as warm and earnest and sincere as Steve Harrington—feels unbearable sometimes.

Maybe that’s why nights like this overwhelm you so badly.

A fancy dinner downtown stretches long past sunset, candlelight flickering gold across Steve’s face while he steals bites from your plate despite insisting twenty minutes ago he was “seriously so stuffed.”

Wine leaves his cheeks faintly pink by the time you leave the restaurant. His tie hangs loose, crooked around his throat, top buttons undone and sleeves rolled to his elbows. Summer heat still clings to the sidewalks even this late at night, thick with blooming jasmine spilling from flower boxes outside storefronts. Somewhere farther downtown, music drifts through open bar doors, muffled bass and laughter carried through the warm air.

Steve's hand never leaves your lower back, fingers flexing gently against you whenever the crowd thickens, pulling you instinctively closer to his chest.

By the time you drift into the park, your heels are dangling from one hand and your body feels pleasantly heavy from the wine.

The grass is cool beneath your bare feet. Damp earth presses between your toes as you wander deeper along the meadow paths, fireflies blinking through the dark around you like floating embers.

Steve is halfway through retelling some ridiculous story his students had told him earlier that day, pausing every other sentence because he keeps getting distracted trying to kiss you.  

Grass stains smear across the knees of his expensive slacks when he finally pulls you down beside him into the field.

“Steve,” you protest weakly, glancing at his pants.

“What?” he asks innocently, tightening his hands around your waist.

“Those are gonna stain.”

“Mm.” He kisses the corner of your mouth, grin lazy. “Worth it.”

You lose track of time there.

Talking between kisses, lying shoulder-to-shoulder in the grass while Steve points out constellations he names wrong on purpose just to make you argue with him. His fingers comb slowly through your hair while your head rests against his shoulder, skin sticking together in the humid night air.

And by the time he gets you home, you’re half-floating.

Steve crowds you against the apartment door before the lock has even clicked shut.

Both hands on your waist, lips sealing over yours. The force of it nudges you softly into the door, his body fitting against yours as he grunts low into your mouth like he’s been holding himself back all night.

Sweet burgundy wine still lingers on his tongue when his lips part against yours.

He’s warm everywhere.

Warm hands sliding beneath your dress, warm mouth against your throat. Warm breath ghosting over newly exposed skin every time he pauses to look at you.

And he does pause, constantly.

Heavy-lidded hazel eyes drag across your face, your throat, the curve of your body beneath his hands, lips gone slack from that third glass of Merlot though his smile tells you he’s drunk on more than just the wine.

His palms skim along the back of your thighs while he kisses down your neck, the soft scrape of his stubble pulling a shaky breath in the shape of his name.

He smiles against your skin, feeling your fingers clutch tighter at his shoulders.

“C’mere,” he murmurs softly.

The bedroom lights stay low when he walks you backward toward the bed.

Blue comforter wrinkling beneath you when he eases you onto your back, following you down, kissing over every inch of exposed skin while your heartbeat stutters harder with each press of his mouth.

Broad palms smooth upward beneath your dress while his lips trail lower, the slow descent of it dizzying; his mouth dragging across your collarbone, the center of your chest, down your stomach, your ribs, each kiss separated by warm breaths and playful nips that make your muscles jump.

And when he kneels at the foot of the bed—nudging your legs apart carefully, lovingly, thumbs stroking slow circles into the soft skin inside your thighs as he settles himself in between—he lets out this quiet little sigh.

Like nowhere else on earth could possibly compare to this.

“Pretty girl,” he murmurs against you, pressing the words directly into your skin. “You’re so beautiful.”

His fingers hook beneath the waistband of your underwear while he glances up at you through heavy lashes, tongue darting briefly to wet his lower lip.

You reach for his hair quickly, panic flaring.

“Steve,” you whisper. “Wait.”

His hands still immediately where they rest on your hips. “What’s wrong?”

You swallow hard. “Nothing, I just...”

Your head spins pleasantly and horribly all at once from the wine and the heat and the sweet boy kneeling between your thighs looking at you like you hung the moon.

“I should shower first.”

His brows pull together. “Why?”

“Because,” you laugh weakly. “I’m sweaty.”

Steve smiles at that, like it’s the sweetest thing he’s heard all day.

He leans in even closer, nose brushing over your clothed mound before he presses a slow kiss there.

“Baby,” he murmurs against you, “I don’t care.”

“Steve...”

“I mean it.”

His hands glide upward along your waist, warm and heavy as velvet, fingertips grazing your ribs on the way up.

“I like you like this,” he says softly.

Then he takes in a breath.

A deep, deliberate pull through his nose, the warm drag of air against the damp fabric making your thighs twitch around him.

“You smell good,” he murmurs, kissing you there again. “Like summer.”

Your face burns, but Steve only smiles wider, already halfway gone.

“Just stay,” he whispers. “Let me take care of you. We can take a bath after, promise.”

He turns his head to the side, nose nudging affectionately along your inner thigh before he closes his lips around the sensitive skin there. The suction is soft at first, teasing warmth into you before the pressure deepens just enough to sting pleasantly.   

A new love bite starts to bloom, petal-soft and tender, like a flower kissed awake by rain. His mouth traces over it, soothing the flush of it back into softer color with gentle, unhurried pecks.

“So pretty,” he murmurs, pressing another kiss over the bruise-tinted skin. “My perfect girl.”

To be loved this intensely feels like it could swallow you whole.

Like the warmth of it could burn straight through you.

You don’t even realize you’ve started crying until your breath catches sharply in your chest, a raw, jagged gasp tearing from your lungs.

Steve’s head snaps up instantly.

You jerk your face away in horror, both hands flying to cover your eyes before he can see.

God.

Oh god.

Not now.

Why now?

“Baby, are you—”

His voice cuts off the second your breath stutters again, louder this time.

The mattress jolts beneath you as he pushes upright, fast enough that the bed frame gives a small protesting creak.

“Hey, hey—what’s wrong?”

You can feel him at your side immediately, his quick, uneven breaths brushing against your hands where they're pressed tight to your face.

“Baby, what happened?”

His fingers curl around your wrists, firm but impossibly gentle.

Always gentle.

“Did I hurt you? Did I do something?”

“N-no,” you choke out immediately.

“Then what?” His voice starts to break slightly, turning sharp with worry. “What is it? Honey, what’s wrong?”

You shake your head helplessly, unable to form the words, unable to explain.

The lamp clicks on beside you. Warm amber light spills across everything at once: rumpled sheets and discarded clothes, Steve kneeling beside you, shirt open at the collar, belt buckle undone and tie hanging loose around his neck.  

The flowers from dinner are on the dresser.

Slightly uneven in their vase, waterline crooked, the hydrangeas beginning to open wider in the warmth of your apartment.

Embarrassment crashes over you like a wave.

Perfect.

A night he’d planned so carefully—reservations at the candlelit Italian place downtown, your favorite wine already waiting at your table, flowers arranged before you’d even walked through the door—

And now you’re crying halfway through sex because your brain can’t handle something as simple as being loved.

You turn your face away again instinctively, shoulders curling inward, but the tears don’t stop. They come harder, messy and humiliating, gasps of air ripping through your chest no matter how hard you try to swallow them down.

You feel Steve’s hand slide up your spine.

Slow, slow passes between your shoulder blades, fingertips pressing gently.

“Hey,” he whispers. “Hey, it’s okay. You don’t have to hide, okay? You don’t have to hide from me.”

“I’m sorry,” you choke out, wiping at your face uselessly. “I-I don’t know w-why I’m—I’m sorry, fuck, I’m sorry—”  

“No, hey, don’t apologize, baby. Don’t say sorry.”

You resist him weakly when he tries to gather you in his arms.

You can’t look at him.

Can’t stand the thought of seeing the concern on his face after ruining this.

“I just—” You let out a shaky breath, voice cracking completely. “Fuck, I-I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

Steve stills at that.

Then slowly, carefully, he takes your wrists fully in both hands.

You let him this time. Arms trembling the entire way down as he lowers your hands into his lap. You still refuse to meet his eyes, staring instead at the heavy rise and fall of his chest. His crisp white shirt is wrinkled, open at the collar, a faint pink bite mark just above his collarbone where you kissed him during the taxi ride home.  

His gaze presses into you, heavy and intent, trying to read what you can’t say.

“I need you to look at me,” he says quietly.

“I can’t.”

“Yeah,” he answers immediately. “You can.”

Another tear slips down your cheek. He catches it without hesitation, wiping it away with the pad of his thumb.

“Please,” he whispers, softer now. “Look at me.”

You finally do.

Steve’s hair is a mess, chestnut strands falling across his forehead where your fingers had been tangled moments ago.

His eyes—warm honey and green and amber all blurred together beneath the low light—are pained, tight with worry and unbearably expressive.

“There's nothing wrong with you,” he says, unshakably certain. “Nothing.”

His lips are swollen from kissing you, parted slightly with how hard he’s breathing.

It’s so painfully clear, how panicked he is.

Steve’s face never hides anything

It doesn’t know how to.

When he’s happy, it shows in the soft wrinkles at the corners of his eyes.

When he’s worried, it gathers in his brows, in the tight set of his mouth.

And when he loves, it radiates from him so naturally it feels endless. Like sunlight.

You wonder what that must feel like.

To love someone without fear.

To offer tenderness without expectation, without the quiet dread that grows the more there is to lose.

He reaches up slowly, clearing tear-sticky strands away from your temples, thumb brushing beneath your eye. Still trying to read what hurts, the furrow in his brows asking without words.

You want to tell him.

For him, you’d try.

But the truth feels monstrous once it reaches your throat.

How do you explain that being loved by him feels unbearable sometimes?

That every touch lands somewhere deep inside you that still expects pain?

That he gives and gives and gives, asking for nothing in return, and yet some terrified part of you waits for the bill to come due?

How do you explain that it makes you feel broken, not knowing how to take something he gives so easily?

You part your lips, throat dry and aching.

Steve waits, thumb rubbing soothing circles into your wrists.

Patient.

Always so fucking patient with you.

“I just...” Your voice shakes. You stare at his mouth instead of his eyes, because it’s easier than being seen.

“...I just really love you.”

It rushes out so quickly.

And in a horrifyingly beautiful moment of clarity, you realize it’s the first time you’ve ever said it to anyone.

Ever.

Steve goes still. His brows soften, eyes drooping at the corners. His lips part soundlessly for a second.

“Oh,” he breathes.

You feel his hands twitch against yours, squeezing your fingers unconsciously.  

“I love you too,” he says, immediate and certain. “I... I love you so much it’s kind of insane.”

He watches you for a moment, thumb rubbing slow over your knuckles.

“Is that... is that why you're crying? 'Cause you love me a lot?”

A small, startled laugh breaks through your tears; it sounds so simple when he says it like that.   

It isn’t simple.

But maybe it also is.

So you nod, watching him visibly come back to himself, drawing out a shaky breath, shoulders dropping heavily like he’d been bracing too, just in a different way.

“Okay,” he murmurs. “Okay. C’mere.”

This time you don’t hesitate.

You fold into him, feeling his arm wrap securely around your back, the other cradling the back of your head.

And what you always used to brace against—tonight, you sink into willingly.

“I’ve got you,” he murmurs into your hair.

You let your eyes slip shut, burying your face in the crook of his neck, fingers crinkling his shirt as you hold on tight.

“I love you,” you whisper again, the words pressed softly against his skin.

Thank you, you mean.

Thank you for being gentle with me. Thank you for waiting. Thank you for loving me like it’s easy.

Thank you.

With a huff, you sluggishly lift up your arm, checking the time on your old watch. It was just getting into the evening, and with no sign of the heat dimming down just yet, you accepted defeat. 

With no energy to do anything, you decided then and there that the rest of your day would look the same, you laying on your floor until it cooled down enough so you’d be able to have a decent amount of sleep. Your plans, however, were rudely interrupted by knocking at your front door. 

You lift your head up slightly, eyes training past your living room to the front entrance, “Are you fucking kidding me?” You groan, seeing a blurry figure waiting through the stained glass next to your door. 

Only when three more knocks echoed through the house did you grudgingly pull yourself up, almost limping to the front door due to your lack of energy. You were frowning when you opened the door, face to face with your closest friend. 

“I know.” Joel nodded, looking almost smug at your unamused expression. “How you handlin’ it?” 

If even possible, your face contorted further into a frown, shaking your head slightly at him. “I’m sweating from places I don’t even feel comfortable naming.” You deadpanned, biting your lip to smother a smile. 

Joel hummed, his eyes quickly raking over your figure before coming back to rest on your face, “Tommy’s got people working on getting the units workin’” 

You interrupt him, “Okay… Joel? Inside, please. The heat is literally hitting me on the face and I’m about to just lose my cool.” 

With a nod, he stepped inside the border of your house, gently closing the door behind him. “Do you even have any cool to lose?” He joked.

You glare at him for a moment before going back to your kitchen, slumping down on the floor. “They’ve been trying to get them to work for ages, I will go out there myself and get them to work if I do not hear that thing running anytime soon.” You point to the air conditioning unit in the living room. 

“They’ll get it sorted. Don’t think they particularly appreciate workin’ in this weather fixing somethin’.” He said, groaning as he sat down adjacent to you, head leaning back against your fridge. 

He suddenly frowned, looking over his shoulder slightly at the fridge behind him, then he was up, knees cracking beneath him as he moved to where you were, nudging you out the way. You looked at him confused. He nudged his head towards the fridge, “Go sit there.” 

You complied, moving to sit where Joel had been, an instant flush of cool hit the back of your neck. “Dammit, why didn’t I think of this.” You mutter, pressing your back against the cold steel.

“Heat‘s messin’ with ya, huh?” Joel chuckled, tilting his head slightly. You shake your head in response, gently closing your eyes and untensing your limbs. 

You met Joel four years ago when Tommy had introduced you to him. He’d just arrived at Jackson, and you’d been assigned to be his patrol partner which was only supposed to last a couple months, but you’d been such a good duo, Maria had decided to make it permanent. 

Over the past couple months though, your relationship with him had seemingly changed. With recent struggles brewing between him and Ellie, you seemed to always be by his side, for his comfort but also your own. You didn’t always have to talk with him, a lot of the time you’d sit comfortably next to each other, doing your own thing whilst he strummed on his guitar.

The boundary line was ever so slowly becoming blurred, feelings becoming confusing. But like a lot of topics that required confrontation, you push it to the back of your mind, adopting the quote; out of sight out of mind. 

“What’s got that head worked up?” Joel mumbled in front of you, dragging your mind back to reality. 

You looked at him for a moment, blinking slowly. “Nothing.” You plainly say, smiling at him gently before closing your eyes again. 

The next day wasn’t any better. 

The air conditioning still wasn’t working and your tactic of closing the curtains to deflect the heat, was now failing. Rather than lying on your tiles, moping all day, you had resorted to hanging out in The Tipsy Bison, a cozy makeshift bar in the middle of Jackson. 

The only reason you’d packed up the courage to be in such a social setting was due to the cold drinks offered there and most importantly, it had a big fan mounted to the wall that actually worked. It was a step up from how hot you were yesterday, and the drink in your hand was helping to cool your skin. 

The leather next to you sunk as someone sat down in the empty booth you were sitting at. You turn your head to your left, coming face to face with Tommy; Joel’s younger brother. “Hi,” He smiled, “Fuckin’ steamin’ out there.” 

You raise your eyebrow, a smile tugging at the corner of your lips, “Steaming?” 

“Yeah.” Tommy nodded, leaning over to peer into your glass, “Some people are out there, sweatin’ their gooch off, trynna get air working for lazy folks like you.” 

A pair of women next to your booth look over at his words, eyeing you and Tommy down. You quickly look away. “Can you not speak like that in public?” You huff, close to speechless. 

Tommy laughs loudly, finding himself hilarious, but suddenly his demeanour changes and he turns to you with a serious look. “So… How’s Joel?” 

You look at him for a moment before answering, “He’s your brother, ask him yourself.” You’re silent for a second before you smile, “Why’re you here bothering me? Go get the air working.” 

He shakes his head, a smile spread wide across his face, "Just have to get out the heat for a fuckin, minute. Saw you here... Haven't talked for a while."

"And the first thing you wanna do is ask how your brother is?" You ask, tilting your head slightly at him.

He looks away from you, sucking in a breath, "Feisty."

“Tommy, if it’s not cold in my house tomorrow I’m gonna kill you.” You warn, a warm breeze filing through the cracks of the windows.

"Jesus, woman." Tommy says, shaking his head slightly, “Venom.” He stands up and adjusts his jeans, “Every word you spit at me is laced with venom.” 

You laugh gently, gesturing your head towards the front door, "Go work some more." You watch as he walks away, an unexplainable pit in the bottom of your stomach. You avoid the stares coming from the booth again.

People talked a lot in Jackson. Usually it was all rumours, secret words whispered behind a hand as you walked by, it brought a sense of familiarity back, considering they were acting like they were in high school again. 

They noticed things, could see the little things, like how you and Joel were always together, seemingly always just alone. You supposed it gave them a sense of familiarity too, finally being able to talk about something other than the end of the world. 

Sometimes it made you feel good, knowing other people could see Joel was focused on you, watching as he turned down other women just to talk to you. Aside from the odd insult you’d hear every now and then, you weren’t bothered by the rumours. 

On your way home, you decided to stop by Joel’s. The side gate was unlocked, the hinges creaking quietly as it gently banged open and closed. Hot wind. Adding onto the heat. You could hear him before you saw him, the gentle strum of his guitar, a low hum. You round the corner, stopping by the edge of the house to watch him, a smile tugging at your lips. 

He sat in a chair he made himself on his back porch, he’d made you a set also, specialised carving in the wood. He had a leg crossed over the other, his foot jerking to the beat of the song he was playing, you vaguely recognise it being a Pearl Jam song. His hair’s getting longer, you can see the curls at the base of his neck, greying slightly.

You step up the little steps up to the porch, the floorboards under your feet creak, Joel flinches slightly, looking over at you. “Sorry,” You smile, brushing out the fabric of the dress you’d thrown on, “Keep playing.” 

He shakes his head slowly, gently lifting the guitar off his lap and placing it by his side, “No free shows here.” He smiles at you, leaning back in his chair. “So… Cooling ain’t on.” He’s trying to rile you up.

You roll your eyes, moving closer to him. “Don’t remind me.” A gust of warm wind blows past, a shiver of annoyance rushes through your veins. You move to the railing, the wood burns your hands for a second, having been exposed to the naked sun for so long. 

The chair creaks behind you, heavy boots thumped closer until he was standing beside you. You watched as he moved to grab onto the wood, he too flinched back slightly at the contact, you smile. “Ellie…” Joel starts, “Think she’s warming back up to me.”

“That’s good, Joel.” You can hear him breathing, deep and calm. He looks down at you and you look back, “I’m glad.” You add, stepping sideways slightly to bump into his side. You stayed at his house until the sun had set well past the horizon, different constellations appeared back into the clear, dark sky. Only then did you decide to go home, praying to yourself as you walked back that someone had fingers lucky enough to get some cold air working.

You’d always heard about ‘the third time, the lucky charm’, and you’d never given it much thought. But today, you decided you didn’t believe in it, because it was the third day of this mini heat wave, and it was even hotter. 

The sheets were damp beneath you when you woke up. Thin sheets, minimal clothing and the open window had done nothing to help aid the temperature; you were at your breaking point, further being pushed when you discovered the air conditioning had still not been fixed. 

You tried to remain grateful, understood that the people working on it had limited supplies, that they too had to endure the heat, and the pressure to get it done. Feeling bad for your frustration over something they could not control, you made some lemonade for them all, bringing over a jug and some empty cups to where they were stationed. A small good deed to redeem your attitude. 

“Fucking heat.” You mumbled to yourself, wiping your hands on your dress, stepping up to your front porch, reaching for your door. Before you could open it, someone cleared their throat behind you, making you jump. 

Joel laughed, moving up the stairs to meet you, “I scare you?” He looks down at you innocently, waiting for you to answer him, a little curl falls in front of his face. 

“Yes, Joel.” You huff, opening your door aggressively, “You scared me.” You step inside, waiting for him to walk in before closing the door. 

He shrugs off his shoes, leaving them by the entrance, “It’s actually cooler outside.” He points out, moving into your living room. 

“I don’t even want to think about that.” You shake your head, brushing past him to the kitchen, pouring two glasses of water. “Reckon we could sit out the back?”

Joel nods, gratefully taking his glass from your hand, “Lead the way.”

Your porch was small, a perfect size, filled with plants, two chairs and a little rug underneath. Joel went straight for his usual chair, sitting down with a grunt. You vacated the chair next to him, leaning back with your glass nestled in your hands. 

Joel was silent beside you, eyebrows furrowed and eyes zoning out into your small backyard. You followed his gaze, admiring the wooden fence surrounding your home. He and Tommy had built it for you after you’d complained for a week straight about the old rotted wood that once stood there, now you were blessed with privacy you’d once had years ago. You’d never kept your promise to pay them back with some of your cooking, you suddenly remembered.

A flicker of movement catches your eye, a small, grey bunny slips through a crack in the fence. You tut under your breath, shaking your head. Joel’s body moves; he’s laughing. “Don’t even start. It’s barely a crack, I’m not bloody fixin’ it.”

“I didn’t say anything!” You laugh back, but your eyebrows furrow slightly as you take in Joel’s posture. His smiles faded again and he’s back to zoning out. You nudge him gently, “What’s up?”

He suddenly stands up, placing the glass by your feet, it’s only then you noticed he hadn’t had any of it. He goes to your railing, leaning over it. “It’s gettin’ harder. Every day, I’m fightin’ it, and I don’t think I can anymore.” He starts, leaning his head to the right slightly, making sure you could hear every word. He sighs, “Don’t think I want to anymore.” 

You place your own glass down, standing up to join him. “I don’t understand.” You see him hesitate, his body tenses slightly, you can hear his jagged breathing. A warm wind blows past you both, you watch as the trees sway gently in it. 

Joel looks at you then, turning his whole body towards you. “Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me this isn’t mutual.”

You watch him quietly, almost taken back at his forwardness. “Joel…” 

“No.” He interrupts, taking a step closer, “Tell me this isn’t in my head. I mean, fuck, baby. I love how we are now, but god do I ever wish it was something more.” 

A conversation you’d fought so hard to push to the back of your mind, words you’d dreamt about saying, planning out the best sentences to say that would articulate your feelings best, yet you stand in silence. Something inside you tingles, something deep in your stomach that travels up your body to your head, something goes fuzzy. Then you’re moving to him and closing the space between you, your hands moving to hold the back of his neck as your lips connect to his. It’s sort of an awkward angle, your head tilted back to be able to reach his face, you’re almost on the tips of your toes.

He takes a second to react, his hands awkwardly hovering by your sides as you first press your lips against his. As you moved to pull back having sensed his hesitance, Joel reached out. His hands move to your back, pulling you back to his chest tightly, firmly pressing his lips against yours. You feel him harden against your abdomen and he moans into your mouth with exhilaration, teasing his tongue against yours.

You worry for a second, worry that things were moving too fast. You’d spent years pent up, hiding your deepest feelings and forcing yourself to keep your hands away from him, but with every little movement, every spark sent through your body, your worries slowly started to vanish. As his hands move down your back to fondle your ass, you finally decide you don’t care. 

He squeezes the flesh between his hands, slapping it gently before he pulls away from you, looking pained as he does so. You watch him carefully, waiting for his next move. “Can I taste you?” He asks gently, his hands moving to ball the fabric of your dress. He spoke the words with such softness, such innocence, you faltered, almost uncertain if he meant what you were thinking. His fists tighten further, pleading with you with his eyes.

You take a gamble and nod, you think you’d like whatever he meant anyways; he doesn’t wait another second. He gently moved you backwards, your back pushed up against the railing of your porch, using it as a stabiliser as he moved down to his knees. “Careful.” You mutter, acknowledging the tenderness and soreness he often experienced with his aging body.

He doesn’t respond, instead, he bunches your dress in his hands and shoves it up, exposing your cunt hidden by a slightly damp pair of underwear. You reach down and hold your dress up, clutching it tightly as he brings two fingers up to your clothed clit, rubbing it gently. The sensation tears a moan from your throat, your fingers tightened around the fabric of the dress. As Joel slowly circled your clit, you doubled back and remembered that you were outside, you’d have to try and be quiet. Joel, on the other hand, didn’t seem to care, he probably found it to be a competition. ‘How far can I go without informing the entire neighbourhood I’m fucking my best friend on her porch.’

He finally tugs down your underwear, leaving it hanging by your ankles as he gently spreads your knees further apart. He was taking his time, you noted, savouring every second. You didn’t have any patience for savouring. “Please.” You moan, one of your hands let go of your dress to move to the back of Joel’s neck, pulling him closer in between your legs. “Just do it.” 

You could see him debate with himself for a second, tease her more or give in. He decided to do the latter. He looked as desperate as you felt as he gripped the sides of your thighs, looking up at you once more before he connected his mouth with your clit. He used his tongue in replacement of his fingers, circling your clit as he used the rest of his mouth as a suction. You jolted in place, mouth strung open and eyebrows furrowed together as he worked his way through your body. You could feel every movement his tongue made, the slow pressure of release in your abdomen quickly built its way up, finally forcing another moan from your throat. You tightened your hand around Joel’s hair, tugging the curls at the base of his neck, eliciting a deep groan from him. 

You knew you weren’t gonna last long, not as he moved one of his hands to play with your clit as his mouth moved further down, his tongue pushed into you slightly as he fully engrossed himself in you. His other hand rotated between holding your hip and moving back down to your thigh, squeezing the flesh beneath his palm, the sensation somehow pushing you further into euphoria. You take your hand away from his neck, moving back up to your dress, you let go with your other hand, moving it down the base of your body to where his hand was resting on your hip. 

When he felt you hold onto him, he adjusted your hands so that he was holding yours, fingers gripping you tightly as his mouth moved back up to your clit, his other arm moved around to the backs of your thighs, pulling you closer to his mouth. He was moaning gently into your clit, you could feel the vibrations pushing you closer and closer to the edge. Your orgasm took you by surprise, arriving so suddenly you could hardly think as your legs began to shake and your fingers gripped so tightly around Joel’s hands, he winced. You don’t know how loud you were being, your senses were all out of whack. The high seemed to last forever, your clit throbbed gently. Your heart was beating out of your chest, the slight tremors in your legs not ceasing even after he’d slowly moved backwards, away from your cunt. 

“Fuck.” He whispered quietly, admiring you once more before he hauled himself up, giving you no time to react as he crashed his lips against yours, pulling you so tightly against his chest you struggled to breathe. “Fuck that was sexy.” He muttered against your lips. Resting his forehead on yours for a moment. Behind you, you could hear a back door open. The sounds of a quiet hum dragged you back to your senses, you’d forgotten to stay quiet. 

“Inside.” You mumble, dropping your dress back down and pulling up your underwear. He closed the door behind you when you walked in, you were still trying to catch your breath. It was hot inside, hotter than it was outside; your hair stuck to the back of your neck. Joel approached you quietly, brushing your hair away from your neck with the back of his hand. He laid a gentle kiss there, when he pulled away you could still feel his lips on your skin. 

You pulled your dress up over your head, leaving it to drop down next to your feet. You stood before him in nothing but your damp underwear. Joel inhaled deeply behind you, his hands hesitantly reaching out to turn you around. His eyes immediately dropped down, taking in every feature, every curve. You could feel every callous on his fingers as he moved his hands down your shoulders and over your breasts, teasing your nipples gently for a moment before moving back up your body, where his hand ghosted the front of your neck.

He tugged at his shirt then, pulling it off his body before moving to his jeans, his fingers fumbling with his belt. You smiled at him softly, brushing his hands aside and helping him out of the material. It was your turn to stare now. You traced your finger along every scar splattered across the length of his body. He watched carefully as you did so, bringing his hand up to your cheek. After what seemed like forever, you retracted your hand back to yourself and started moving backwards towards the couch. Joel followed you wordlessly, not taking his eyes off you. 

When you reached the couch, you gestured for him to sit down. He complied easily, leaning back into the couch, just watching you. You moved to stand between his legs, your nipples hardened further in anticipation. Slowly, you moved down and took your underwear completely off, throwing them somewhere behind you. As you did so, Joel moved to take his off, leaving you both bare and vulnerable. It seemed as if your body was moving on autopilot, everything started to seem so unreal. As you stood before him, his eyes wild and desperate, you found you couldn’t really remember how this had happened so fast. 

Was it just a buildup of hidden emotions? Or had something happened that made him snap? You breathed in deeply, debating with yourself. Telling yourself that you could still back out. Label what happened outside as two lonely people who got desperate. You caught yourself, pushing those thoughts to the back of your head. That’s not what you wanted to do, you couldn’t understand why you were fighting against it so hard. You recognised a glimmer of fear within the thoughts. Fear of opening up to someone, maybe. 

Joel called your name softly. You blinked, focusing back onto him. “Stop thinkin’ so much.” He said, sitting up a little straighter. “If you don’t want this, that’s fine. Don’t freak yourself out ‘bout it.” You furrowed your eyebrows, you did want it. You blinked again, internally scolding your brain for a second before you moved forwards. You straddled his lap, knees resting on either side of his thighs, your hands rested on his chest. He looked at you silently, searching for any sign of discomfort. 

“I do want this.” You whisper, “It’s just new.” Joel nodded slowly, leaning back into the couch. You smile softly, your fingers subconsciously trace patterns on his skin. It was getting harder to ignore the warmth in your lower abdomen, you could feel yourself getting wetter for him, more desperate for him. He was in the same boat, his cock lay firmly against his stomach, the tip of him a deep pink. You reached between your legs, grasping him firmly in your hand. He was big, for a second you hesitated, it had been a while. 

“We’ll take it slow.” Joel grunted, leaning his head back for a moment. You gripped him tighter, slowly moving your hand up and down, causing a deep moan to slip out his mouth. You teased him like that for a little while, watching his reactions curiously. After a few minutes, he leant his head back up to look at you, “Enough.” He practically growled. You smile at him in response, finally lifting your hips up slightly. You both watched as his cock slowly slipped inside you, small moans of pleasure and release sounded out into the room. The initial stretch hurt, you had expected it but it still caused you to completely stop. Joel stayed still until you were ready to keep going. 

After that you didn’t need to stop. Even if you did have to, you weren't sure if you could. You were fully sat on Joel’s lap, his cock nestled deep up inside you, his pubic hair brushed against your clit as you slowly circled your hips. Joel was gripping your hips so tightly, you could already feel them bruising, with every move, a small moan or grunt huffed from his lips. A couple minutes had passed of the slow circling, you had passed the point of desperation. With a slight sigh, you adjusted yourself so you were leaning more of your body weight on your feet before you slowly lifted yourself up the length of his dick, then abruptly sat back down, the sudden movement had Joel moaning loudly, his hands moved to the bottom of your ass to help you bounce up and down continuously. 

You fucked yourself on him hard, your ass connected with his thighs with a satisfying noise, your moans increasingly getting louder. At one point, you leant back slightly, resting your arms on his thighs as you continued to move on top of him. Joel took this opportunity to play with your clit again, his movements precise. You could feel sweat accumulating on your back, the hot environment mixed with this, you didn’t care. Not when Joel moved forwards in what looked like an uncomfortable manner, desperately connecting his lips with your breasts. “Fuck, Joel.” You gasp, feeling his teeth graze against your nipples. 

So caught up in the feeling of Joel inside you, you almost missed the sound coming from behind you. You faltered in your movements to try and listen out for what you’d barely heard over the sound of your own cries, Joel immediately sat up, his hands moved to your waist. “What is it? Are you okay?” You quickly shush him, furrowing your eyebrows. 

Then, a wooshing sound was heard and a cool breeze suddenly followed, flowing over your skin and cooling you instantly. You look at the air conditioner, a new little green light you’d never seen before was on. “Oh.” You say, now completely still in Joel’s lap. You were about to say something, but before you could, you were being manoeuvred around, taking the breath away from you. Joel lay you on your back, still sheathed fully inside you. It seemed that any sense of patience and tenderness had disappeared, instead, a more unforgiving and relentless version of him came out, he fucked into you hard, harder than you could ever expect from such a careful man. 

You threw your head back, wrapping your legs around his hips as he thrust into you, grunting in your ear. One of his hands moved up to palm your breast again, squeezing it roughly before he let go and moved further up your body, resting on your throat. His movements faltered for a moment, his eyes shut close before he resumed the pace. Grunts were replaced with soft moans, almost whimpers as his hips collided with the backs of your thighs. You barely had time to warn him, you managed to let out a strangled moan as you came, your body tightening around him. He came quickly after you did, his body practically collapsing against you as he shot his cum deep inside you, his heavy breath heating your skin. 

Friday had a way of loosening men up in all the worst ways.

By noon, the air smelled like cut lumber, diesel, sweat, and sawdust, the kind of smell that clung to skin long after the day was over. Hammers rang out in uneven bursts, a nail gun snapped somewhere near the back, and country music crackled low from a radio somebody had balanced on an upside down bucket by the porch steps.

Joel stood near the stack of framing lumber with a pencil tucked behind one ear and a tape measure hanging from his belt, scanning over the plans in his hand with the kind of focus that made most men think twice before interrupting him.

“Hey, I’m just sayin’,” one of the younger guys called from the far side of the site, loud enough for half the crew to hear. “If I’m takin’ her somewhere expensive, least she can do is not make me sit in the damn car for forty-five minutes waitin’ on her.”

A couple of snorts of laughter answered him.

Joel didn’t look up right away. He kept his eyes on the plans, jaw set, trying to decide whether the floor joists were gonna be a bigger problem than the mouths on his crew.

“She ain’t even late in a normal way,” another guy said, dragging a gloved hand across his forehead. “Nah, it’s always some little emergency. ‘Babe, I gotta redo my eyeliner.’ ‘Babe, I don’t like my hair.’” He pitched his voice higher in a cruel imitation. “I’m starvin’ by the time we leave the house.”

That got more laughter.

Tommy, who was up on the temporary decking checking measurements, sighed loud enough for Joel to hear. “Here we go.”

Joel still didn’t say anything.

He should have. He knew that. He knew the shape of this kind of conversation and exactly where it usually went. But sometimes, if you cut in too early, it only encourages idiots to perform for each other. Men like that got louder when they thought they had an audience.

“Mine puts on lipstick to go buy milk,” another one said. “Milk. From the damn grocery store. I told her, sweetheart, the dairy aisle is gonna fall in love with you.”

The laugh that followed was uglier than the last one.

Joel’s eyes lifted.

He knew these boys. That was the thing. Boys, most of them. Old enough to swing a hammer, young enough to still mistake being dismissive for being funny. He’d worked with all kinds over the years: good workers, lazy workers, drunks, hotheads, quiet ones, fools. The loudest were usually the least sure of themselves. Had to fill the air with something before anybody noticed there wasn’t much beneath it.

Still, that didn’t mean he had to listen to it.

“Hell,” the first one went on, encouraged now, “I don’t even get it. They complain they ain’t got enough time, then they spend two damn hours in the bathroom paintin’ themselves like they’re headed to some red carpet thing.”

Joel folded the plans once.

Another voice chimed in. “And then you gotta tell ’em they look pretty like you ain’t been lookin’ at the same face for three years.”

Tommy winced and muttered, “Jesus Christ.”

That was enough.

Joel started walking before he even fully decided to. He stopped a few feet from the group gathered around the sawhorses—three of the younger subcontractors and one laborer with more confidence than sense—and looked at each of them in turn.

Nobody spoke.

Joel nodded once. “Y’all done?”

The guy in the baseball cap gave a half shrug, half grin that died fast under Joel’s stare. “We’re just talkin’, man.”

Joel’s face didn’t change. “Ain’t what I asked.”

Silence.

He slipped the folded plans under one arm. “I said, are y’all done.”

“Yeah,” one of them muttered.

Joel took another step closer. “Then maybe y’all can get back to work and quit runnin’ your mouths long enough to remember I’m payin’ you to build a house, not stand around bitchin’ about women who apparently still choose to go home with you.”

Tommy turned away, rubbing a hand over his mouth to hide a grin.

One of the younger guys, John maybe, ducked his head. “We were kiddin’.”

Joel fixed him with a look. “That so?”

“Yes, sir.”

Joel hated being called sir. Normally he’d say so. Right now he let it stand.

He hooked his thumbs through his belt and looked between them. “Tell me somethin’. You got a woman at home who takes time gettin’ ready to go out with you, and your first thought is to complain?”

Nobody answered.

“That woman picked out a dress, did her hair, stood in front of a mirror decidin’ she wanted to look nice, and you somehow made that an inconvenience to you.” His voice stayed level, but the disappointment in it landed harder than if he’d shouted. “That what we’re doin’ now?”

The laborer with the red bandana shifted on his feet. “Didn’t mean nothin’ by it.”

Joel’s eyes cut to him. “That’s usually when a man oughta think a little harder about what’s comin’ outta his mouth.”

Tommy climbed down from the decking, landing beside them with a thud. He didn’t interrupt. Didn’t need to. He knew Joel well enough to hear the line in his voice that meant this wasn’t just irritation anymore.

Joel went on, “You wanna know what I hear?” He tapped two fingers against the rolled plans. “I hear a bunch of fools complainin’ that somebody gives enough of a damn to wanna look good standin’ next to ’em.”

That got their attention.

One of them tried to laugh it off. “It ain’t that deep, Joel.”

Joel turned his head slowly. “No?”

“No, I just mean—”

“I know what you mean.” He took a breath through his nose. “You mean you’re too young and too selfish to understand that not everything a woman does is for your convenience.”

The site has gone quiet now.

Even the men who hadn’t been part of the conversation were listening, pretending not to.

Joel looked down at the open toolbox on the sawhorse, then back at them. “Some of you got girlfriends. Some of you got wives. And near as I can tell, not one of you sounds near grateful enough for the women keepin’ your lives stitched together when you go home actin’ like this.”

Nobody met his eyes.

“Maybe she takes too long in the bathroom,” Joel said. “Maybe she changes clothes three times before dinner because she wants to feel pretty. That ain’t foolishness. That ain’t vanity. That’s her wantin’ to feel good in her own skin, and if your reaction to that is to stand around mockin’ her with other men, then you’re a bigger idiot than I thought.”

Caleb swallowed. “We weren’t mockin’ them.”

Joel gave him a look so dry it bordered on pity. “Son, if you’re gonna lie, at least do it convincingly.”

Tommy barked a laugh and turned it into a cough.

A few of the older workers smirked into their sleeves.

Joel kept going, because now that he’d started, he knew exactly what was bothering him. It wasn’t just the words. It was the casualness of them. The way men could take something tender and make it small just because they didn’t know how to hold it properly.

“My wife,” he said, and that alone changed the air, made everybody listen closer, “can take as long as she damn well pleases gettin’ ready for anything she wants. Grocery store. Dinner. A walk down the block. I don’t care if she’s puttin’ on lipstick to sit in the livin’ room and watch television. If it matters to her, it matters. End of story.”

That landed.

Because when Joel spoke about you didn’t sound like a man making a point for the sake of winning. He sounded like a man stating a universal truth.

The laborer scratched the back of his neck. “Yeah, but women don’t do all that for us anyway.”

Joel’s brow lifted. “Well, congratulations. That’s the first smart thing anybody’s said in five minutes.”

A few snickers broke the tension.

Joel didn’t smile. “No, they don’t do it all for you. That’s exactly the point. Maybe she does some of it for herself. Maybe it’s fun. Maybe it makes her feel confident. Maybe it’s the one damn thing in a day that’s just hers. And maybe instead of complainin’, you oughta learn enough respect to keep your mouth shut and tell her she looks beautiful.”

The man in the cap looked down at his boots. “Alright.”

Joel’s expression hardened. “That ‘alright’ better means somethin’.”

“It does.”

“Good.” He glanced between all of them. “Now pick up your tools and get back to work. We’re behind, and I’ve had about enough of hearin’ how burdensome it is that women continue to exist as full human beings.”

That actually got a real laugh, even from a couple of the guilty ones, though they had the decency to look embarrassed about it.

Joel let the silence sit a beat longer, then pointed at the framing on the east wall. “John, if you’ve got enough energy to complain, you’ve got enough to finish bracin’ that corner.”

“Yes, sir.”

Joel’s stare sharpened.

Caleb sighed. “Yes, Joel.”

“Better.”

The group broke apart at last, muttering to each other in lower voices now, heads down, hands moving quicker than before. Tommy stepped up beside Joel and watched them scatter back into usefulness.

For a second neither brother said anything.

Then Tommy glanced at him. “You feel better?”

Joel bent to grab the level off the sawhorse. “Not especially.”

Tommy’s mouth twitched. “You know they’re all scared of you now.”

“They oughta be scared of bein’ stupid in public.”

Tommy laughed under his breath. “That speech about your wife?” He nudged Joel with an elbow. “Bit dramatic.”

Joel shot him a look. “Wasn’t dramatic.”

“No?” Tommy grinned.

Joel set the level against the brace and adjusted it with one hand. “You got somethin’ useful to do, or you plannin’ on botherin’ me the rest of the afternoon?”

Tommy leaned against a stud, folding his arms. “I am doin’ somethin’ useful. I’m watchin’ you pretend that wasn’t personal.”

Joel didn’t bother looking at him. “Go measure somethin’.”

Tommy ignored that completely. “You thought about her, didn’t you?”

Joel checked the bubble on the level, shifted the brace half an inch. “I’m workin’.”

Tommy rocked back on his heels, pleased with himself now. “So when those idiots were yappin’ about women takin’ forever in the bathroom, you were thinkin’ about her sittin’ at the mirror?”

Joel let out a quiet breath and straightened. He should’ve known better than to engage. Tommy had the kind of nosiness only a younger brother could get away with, half affection and half appetite for trouble.

Joel grabbed the drill. “Tommy.”

His brother laughed. “Alright, alright.”

But he didn’t move away yet, and after a moment he said, softer this time, “You know, you were right.”

Joel glanced up and Tommy shrugged one shoulder. 

Joel shook his head, but there was no real heat in it now. “You’re annoyin’.”

“Runs in the family.”

Joel drove the screw in with more force than necessary. “Go to hell.”

Tommy laughed and pushed off the wall at last. “Can’t. I work for my brother.”

Joel watched him go, then looked back out across the site.

Work picked up again in the wake of the interruption. The radio came back into focus. Men shouted measurements, wood scraped against wood, someone swore after dropping a box of nails. The day moved on the way it always did, one task into the next, one hour bleeding into another until the sun shifted.

But Tommy was right.

Of course he’d thought about you.

He had the moment those boys started talking.

He could picture you too easily.

Standing in the bathroom in one of his old shirts, hair pinned back, leaning close to the mirror with that concentrated little crease between your brows. Sitting at your vanity—your vanity, the one he’d built with his own hands after seeing your face fall when the one you wanted sold out before he could order it—surrounded by brushes and powders and little bottles that all looked nearly identical to him and yet somehow never were. Looking over your shoulder to ask him which earring. Holding up two lipsticks and asking if one looked too dark. Smiling when he got the answer wrong but tried anyway.

He never mocked any of it. Never would.

Half the time he didn’t understand what half those products were for, but that had never seemed like a reason to dismiss them. They mattered because they were yours. Because they brought something bright into your face. Because he had learned, over the course of loving you, that attention was a kind of devotion all its own.

That was the part those boys didn’t get.

Loving somebody meant noticing. It meant learning the shape of their rituals, even the ones that didn’t belong to you. It meant understanding that intimacy wasn’t just the big things like the hospital visits, funerals, marriage vows, bad nights or worse mornings.

Sometimes it was remembering the exact height she liked a table because she tended to hunch if it sat too low. Sometimes it was sanding the edge of a drawer three extra times so it wouldn’t catch on her dress. Sometimes it was building something beautiful out of wood and patience because she had looked disappointed for all of two seconds and that had been enough to undo him.

Joel drove another screw into place and exhaled slowly.

He hadn’t meant to build the vanity quite as elaborate as he did.

At first, he’d only intended to make something simple. Clean lines, sturdy legs, decent storage. Then he’d remembered the way your face had lit up describing the one you’d wanted, the little details you liked, the mirror shape, the drawers, the finish. By the end of it, he’d spent nearly three weeks in the garage after work, pretending he wasn’t enjoying himself every time you wandered in and tried to peek beneath the tarp he kept throwing over it.

When he finally brought it inside, you’d looked at him like he’d hung the moon in the bedroom with his bare hands.

That expression had stayed with him. It still did.

“Joel!”

He turned at the shout.

One of the crew was waving him over near the back of the house. Something about the window framing looked off. He tucked the level under his arm and headed that way, slipping back into the rhythm of the job because there was always another problem to solve, another correction to make, another young man to stop from ruining good lumber with bad math.

The afternoon wore down by inches, the light changed and the heat eased. By the time they started packing up, Joel’s shirt was stuck to his back, his shoulders ached, and there was sawdust worked so deep into the lines of his hands it would take a brush to get it out.

He signed off on the delivery order for Monday, checked the lock on the storage trailer, and made sure the site was squared away before anybody left. Tommy came up beside him with a clipboard tucked under one arm and a half finished bottle of water in the other.

Tommy studied him for a moment. “You tell her about this?”

Joel frowned. “About what.”

“The little feminist awakening you had in front of the crew.”

Joel shot him a flat look. “That what you’re callin’ it?”

Tommy grinned. “I’m callin’ it funny as hell. And yeah. You should tell her. She’ll eat that up.”

Joel shook his head and started toward his truck. Tommy followed for a few steps before peeling off toward his own, still smiling to himself like he’d been handed some private joke he planned on keeping.

Joel climbed into the driver’s seat, shut the door, and let the quiet settle around him for a second. He dropped his head back against the seat and closed his eyes just long enough to feel the day in his bones. Then he started the engine and pulled out onto the road.

The drive home wasn’t long, but it was long enough for his thoughts to drift where they usually did at the end of the week.

To you.

Maybe you’d be on the couch with a blanket over your legs and an episode of the Gilmore Girls half watched because you’d been waiting for the sound of his truck.

God, he could picture it so clearly it almost made his chest ache.

He thought, not for the first time that day, that the men back on that site had no idea how lucky they were if there was somebody waiting for them at all. They have no idea what a privilege it was to be known that intimately by another person. To have your favorite plate set out before you asked. To be greeted by the sound of their voice from the next room.

Joel flexed one hand on the steering wheel.

He thought of you in front of a mirror again.

Of your careful hands. Your patience. The little pleasure you took in things most men would dismiss because they had never learned how to look properly. He thought of how easy it was, in a world this ugly, to sneer at softness just because you didn’t know what to do with it.

He also thought, with a private heaviness he never quite voiced, of how much of your life lived in those little rituals. The tender ordinary things. The things he catalogued without meaning to. The products lined up on the vanity. The order you used them in. The brushes you reached for first. The colors you favored when you were happy, or when you were quiet, or when you wanted him to notice.

Joel always noticed.

And somewhere deep beneath that noticing lived the old anxiety he carried like a second spine, the one that made him prepare for loss even in the middle of joy. It came uninvited, as it always did, whispering its ugly what ifs into the back of his mind. What if one day you were too tired. What if one day your hands hurt. What if one day life turned cruel in some new and inventive way and you couldn’t do these things for yourself anymore.

He hated those thoughts. Hated the shape of them. Hated that fear had taught his mind to brace for impact even when nothing was wrong.

But still he learned.

The names of things. The purpose of things. The order of them. Not because he expected praise for it, and not because he ever intended to say any of this aloud. Only because if the world ever tried to take some small comfort from you, Joel wanted his hands ready, wanted to know enough to step in gently and give it back.

His throat tightened a little, and he swallowed it down.

By the time he turned onto your street, the sun was lower, the sky softening into streaks of amber and pale blue. Home came into view steady and familiar, porch light not yet on, the windows warm with the first signs of evening.

Joel eased the truck into the driveway and killed the engine.

For a second he stayed where he was, one hand still on the wheel, looking at the house like he did every now and then when the day had been long enough to make him feel the full weight of what waited inside it.

His true home.

Then he got out, shut the truck door, and headed for the front porch with sawdust on his boots, tiredness in his shoulders, and the faintest trace of a smile pulling at one corner of his mouth for no reason other than the simple fact that he was almost home.

You.

He pushed the front door open with one hand, already loosening up a little at the simple fact of stepping inside, and was met at once by warmth, soft lamplight, and the unmistakable smell of something good waiting in the kitchen. Then, Joel set his keys in the bowl by the door and shrugged out of his jacket.

“Honey?” he called, voice carrying low through the quiet.

“In here!”

Something in your tone made him pause.

A kind of carefully held excitement you were trying, and failing, to disguise as casual. Joel’s mouth pulled almost into a smile before he even saw you. He followed your voice into the kitchen and found you standing near the stove.

There you are, he thought, with that immediate, quiet hit of relief he never quite got used to.

You turned when he appeared in the doorway, and your face lit in a way that still undid him a little, no matter how many times he came home to it. “Hi.”

Joel leaned one shoulder against the frame for a second, just looking at you. “Hi, baby.”

He heard the roughness in his own voice and saw the way your eyes softened at it.

You crossed to him without hesitation, and he opened an arm automatically, catching you against him with all the ease of a long habit. Your hands slid around his middle carefully, as though you knew exactly where the day tended to settle in him, and his palm spread over your back. He bent to kiss the top of your head first, breathing you in, then your temple, then finally your mouth, the kind of kiss that means that he was finally at home now, and home meant you.

“You smell good,” you murmured against his mouth.

Joel huffed a tired laugh. “Smell like sawdust.”

“But it's sexy,” you said, pulling back just enough to look at him.

That did make him smile. His thumb brushed once at your waist. “That so?”

“Mmm-hmm.”

He let his gaze move over your face, lingering a beat too long because something about you felt gently charged tonight.“You been waitin’ on me?”

You widened your eyes with exaggerated innocence. “Maybe.”

Joel studied you. “That look usually means you’re hidin’ somethin’.”

You gasped softly. “I’m offended.”

“No, you ain’t.”

You tried not to grin and failed. Joel watched the smile break across your face and had the strange, familiar thought that if he died tomorrow, this would be the shape of heaven in his head. You in the kitchen, looking pleased with yourself. The light warm on your skin. The house quiet around you both. Something cooking. The weekend beginning at the edges of the room like a blessing neither of you had earned but both of you needed.

He brushed his knuckles along your cheek. “What’s for dinner?”

Your whole expression brightened. “Sit down and I’ll show you.”

That got a low chuckle out of him. “Bossy.”

“Just tonight.”

“That’d be a first.”

You swatted lightly at his arm, laughing, and he caught your wrist before you could move away, tugging you in just enough to kiss you once more, this time with a little more intent, enough to make your breath catch and your fingers curl against his shirt. Then he let you go before either of you leaned too far into it, because there was still dinner on the stove and because he knew that if he stood there kissing you too long after a week like this one, he might never make it to the table.

He washed up at the sink while you moved around the kitchen putting the last things together, and Joel watched you in the window reflection while the water ran over his hands. You kept glancing at him like you had something else to say. Something you were sitting on. He knew you well enough to spot the tells now; the little smile you bit back for no reason, the extra care you took with the plates, the way your body seemed almost too still whenever you were trying not to blurt something out too soon.

“You gonna tell me what’s got you lookin’ like that?” he asked, drying his hands on the dish towel.

You set a plate down. “Like what?”

“Like you’re about two seconds from spoilin’ your own surprise.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Joel pulled out his chair and sat, eyes never leaving you. “Baby.”

You laughed, soft and guilty, and finally brought the plates over. “Fine. Maybe I’m just happy it’s Friday.”

He accepted that with a slight tilt of his head, though they both knew that wasn’t all of it. “That much, I believe.”

Joel took the first bite of the tender meat you've cooked for him and closed his eyes for half a second before he meant to.

You noticed, of course.

“That good?” you asked, trying not to sound too pleased.

He opened his eyes and looked at you over the table. “You fishin’?”

“Yes.”

Joel leaned back slightly in his chair, chewing, making a deliberate show of considering it. “Might be the best thing I’ve eaten all week.”

You laughed, and the sound of it loosened something in him he hadn’t realized was still tight.

That was the thing about Friday nights with you. The workweek wore him down and you gathered him back together. Not all at once. Just piece by piece. A hot meal. Your voice across the table. Your foot brushing his under it. The look on your face when he reached for a second helping like he hadn’t spent the whole drive home pretending he wasn’t hungry.

He told you a little about work. Not too much. Just enough for you to follow the shape of his day. A delivery that came late. A measurement that had to be redone because somebody hadn’t listened the first time. Tommy nearly stepping backward off the decking because he’d turned around too fast while arguing with one of the electricians.

You laughed at that. “Was he hurt?”

“No.”

“Then I can laugh.”

“You already were.”

“I know.”

Joel watched you talk, watched your hands move when you got animated, watched the way you leaned in when you were interested in something he’d said as though there might still be new things to learn about him after all this time. It made something warm and almost painful spread low in his chest. He’d never been very good at making speeches about love. But if anybody had asked him where most of his peace lived, he would’ve had to point right here. To this table. To your voice. To your company at the end of the day.

At some point your foot slid against his calf beneath the table and stayed there.

Joel’s eyes flicked up.

You were smiling down at your plate, pretending not to notice what you’d done.

His mouth twitched. “You bein’ sweet, or are you up to somethin’?”

You looked up, all innocence again. “Can’t it be both?”

He held your gaze for a beat, then reached for his glass. “That answer concerns me.”

“It should.”

He laughed under his breath.

When the plates were nearly empty you rose to clear the table but when Joel started to stand with you out of instinct, you pointed at him.

“Sit.”

He blinked. “Excuse me?”

“I mean it. You worked all day. Sit there.”

Joel settled back slowly, one brow raised. “You order me around awfully easy for somebody this small.”

You gathered up the dishes with a smile. “And yet you listen.”

“Sometimes.”

“Most times.”

He gave you a dry look. “Don’t push it.”

You disappeared into the kitchen with the plates, and he sat there listening to the music of you moving around… water running, cabinets opening, cutlery clinking softly against ceramic. Domestics sounds. He loved them with a ferocity he kept mostly to himself.

When you came back, you weren’t empty handed.

Joel’s eyes dropped to the plate you set in front of him, and he went still for half a second.

Not just any pie. Apple pie. His favorite. Still slightly warm, the crust golden, the scent of cinnamon and butter rising up before it had even properly touched the table.

You folded back into your seat trying and failing to look casual. “There’s ice cream too, if you want it.”

Joel looked from the plate to you. “You made pie?”

Your expression softened. “I did.”

“For me.”

The corners of your mouth lifted. “Well, I don’t know many people who get this emotional about apple pie, so yes. For you.”

Something in his face must have shifted, because your own expression gentled further.

Joel glanced back down at the dessert and let out a quiet breath through his nose, almost a laugh, almost not. “Christ.”

“What?”

He looked at you again. “Nothin’.” His voice came out lower than before. “Just… thank you, baby.”

You leaned your chin into your hand. “You’re welcome.”

He took a bite, closed his eyes and opened them again. “That’s real good.”

Your smile went luminous. “Yeah?”

“Mm.” Another bite. “Dangerously good.”

You watched him with such open fondness it made him shake his head a little and look back at the plate, because being adored that plainly still makes him blush some days. 

“There’s more,” you said after a moment, like you couldn’t possibly hold it in any longer.

Joel looked up, chewing slowly. “More pie?”

You laughed. “No. Although yes, there’s more pie. But that’s not what I meant.”

He set his fork down. “Alright. Go on.”

Your eyes brightened immediately. “I restocked everything.”

He frowned mildly, trying to follow. “Everything.”

“For the weekend.” You started counting off on your fingers. “Coffee. The good kind you like.”

Joel felt an involuntary little stab of gratitude so strong it was almost ridiculous. “You got coffee.”

“I got coffee,” you confirmed. “And beer.”

His brow lifted. “Beer too, huh?”

“And your barbecue chips. And the pretzels you pretend you don’t like that much but somehow always eat. And those peanuts Tommy keeps stealing every time he comes over.”

Joel stared at you for a second, then leaned back in his chair with a quiet exhale, one hand coming up to scrub over his beard. “You’ve been busy.”

Your face softened into something tender. “I wanted you to have a nice weekend.”

There it was again, that precise, deadly thing you did to him without even trying. You said simple sentences that landed somewhere deep because they carried more than the words themselves. I wanted you to have a nice weekend. As if his comfort was something worth planning for. As if the shape of his rest mattered enough for you to think ahead about coffee and snacks and the exact beer he reached for first.

Joel looked at you for a long moment. Then he said, quieter, “C’mere.”

You got up at once and crossed the space between you, and he drew you gently between his knees, one hand settling at your hip while the other curved around the back of your thigh. He tipped his head back to look at you properly. Your hair had fallen forward a little, your expression open and sweet and expectant, and the simple sight of you there, taking such obvious pleasure in taking care of him, nearly undid him.

“You didn’t have to do all that,” he said.

“I know.”

His thumb rubbed once over the fabric at your side. “Then why’d you?”

You looked at him like the answer was the easiest thing in the world. “Because I love you.”

Joel’s throat moved.

He knew better than most men how dangerous those words could be when spoken carelessly. How people used them as decoration. As habit. As currency. But you never did. When you said them, you meant them all the way through.

He rested his forehead briefly against your stomach and let the quiet sit. Then he leaned back enough to press a kiss there through your shirt, right above your navel, and felt the little shiver that ran through you.

“You keep this up,” he murmured, “I’m gonna start thinkin’ again that you’re after somethin’.”

You smiled down at him, fingers slipping into his hair. “Maybe I just missed you.”

That, too, he believed.

Joel turned his face and pressed another kiss to the heel of your palm before letting you go. “Alright,” he said, clearing his throat a little as you stepped back. “Now I’m definitely suspicious.”

You laughed, gathered the pie plate, and turned away before he could see too much of whatever was passing over your face. Joel watched you go, watched the sway of your body as you moved around the kitchen, watched the little lightness in you that had only grown since he came through the door.

He knew now with certainty that you had something planned, he just didn’t yet know what shape it would take.

Once everything was cleaned up and the kitchen restored to order, the evening softened around the two of you. Joel checked the locks out of habit, turned off the extra lights, and came back to find you already collecting his towel from the linen closet before he could ask for it. He took it from your hands with a low, amused noise.

“Baby, I can get my own towel.”

“I know you can.”

“Then why am I bein’ supervised?”

You stepped closer and smoothed a hand over the front of his work shirt, over the dust and wrinkles and the tiredness still hanging off him. “Because you’ve had a long week.”

Joel looked down at you. “And?”

“And because I like taking care of you.”

His expression shifted into something softer, more serious. “I know you do.”

You held his gaze for a moment too long, and once again that same curious charge moved through the room. Not enough to name yet. Just enough to feel.

Joel tipped your chin up with two fingers and kissed you slowly, until your body leaned into his and the hem of his shirt bunched a little in your fists. When he pulled back, he lingered close enough that your breath still crossed his mouth.

“I’m gonna shower,” he said.

You nodded. “Okay.”

He narrowed his eyes slightly. “You say that like you’re plannin’ somethin’ while I’m gone.”

You widened your eyes. “Maybe I’m just going to… fold laundry.”

Joel let out a short laugh. “That lie was insultin’.”

“Go shower, Miller.”

The way you said it, bossy and faintly pleased with yourself, made him shake his head as he turned toward the hallway. “Yes, ma’am.”

He heard your little triumphant laugh behind him all the way to the bathroom.

The shower was hot enough to ache pleasantly over his sore body. Joel stood under it longer than usual, one hand braced on the tile, letting the day rinse off him in layers. The dust fell away first, then sweat, then whatever lingering irritation had stayed with him from the workplace. By the time he stepped out, the mirror had fogged over, and the house beyond the bathroom door had gone quiet in that particular evening way that meant you were no longer puttering around downstairs.

He dried off, wrapped the towel low around his waist, and dragged one hand through his damp hair before stepping into the bedroom.

And stopped.

You were waiting for him.

Not in bed, not curled up under the covers with a Jane Austen book or half asleep with the lamp on. You were seated at the bedroom vanity with your back mostly to the door, posture straight, legs crossed at the ankle, like you’d been there long enough to settle into the moment. The vanity itself caught the warm glow from the bedside lamp making you look almost ethereal. He looked at the whole scene at once and felt something inside him go very still.

You’d changed into a nightgown while he was in the shower, your hair arranged just so, your expression reflected in the mirror as you looked at him through it with a smile too small to be innocent.

Joel stayed by the bathroom door for a second, towel slung low, water still cooling on his shoulders. “There it is.”

You turned slightly in the chair. “There what is?”

“The surprise.”

You tried to look confused. “I don’t know what you mean.”

He huffed a laugh, already moving toward the bed. “Sure you don’t.”

Joel sat down at the edge of the mattress, elbows resting loosely on his knees for a second as he took you in. Then his gaze dropped to the box in your lap—black and white stripes, tissue paper peeking out the top—and his mouth twitched.

“Sephora,” he said.

Your face brightened at once. “I went today.”

“I can see that.”

“You said I should get myself something nice.”

“I did.”

“And I listened.”

That made him smile properly now. “I’m learnin’ that can be dangerous.”

You angled the box toward yourself protectively. “No take backs now, Miller.”

“Ain’t askin’ for any.”

He leaned back slightly, one hand braced on the bedspread, and watched as your fingers slipped beneath the tissue paper with excitement. He recognized that look on you too. The one that made you seem younger and softer all at once.

You glanced at him over your shoulder. “Do you want to see?”

Joel’s eyes moved from your face to the box and back again. “Baby, you know I got no earthly clue what half that stuff is.”

“I know,” you said sweetly. “That’s why I’m going to explain it to you.”

He laughed under his breath and settled in, already knowing he was done for. “Alright, then.”

And because it was you asking, because it mattered to you, because he loved the sound of your voice when you got excited about something, Joel gave you his full attention.You shifted in the chair until you were facing him a little more fully, one leg tucking beneath you, the Sephora box still balanced carefully in your lap like something precious. Joel stayed where he was at the edge of the bed, damp hair curling slightly at the ends, towel slung low around his waist, watching you with attention.

You dipped a hand into the box and pulled out the first item. “Okay. We’re starting easy.”

Joel’s mouth twitched. “That suggests we ain’t stayin’ easy.”

“We are not.”

He nodded once, resigned already. “Go on, then.”

You held up a sleek bottle. “This is primer.”

Joel frowned faintly. “Primer.”

“Yes.”

He leaned forward slightly, forearms braced on his thighs. “Like paint.”

You stared at him for a beat, then sighed. “I knew you were going to say that.”

“Well, it’s called primer.”

“It is not a paint primer.”

Joel tipped his head. “How do I know that?”

“Because this one costs thirty eight dollars and if I ever put it on a wall, you’d have me committed.”

That earned a low laugh out of him.

He reached for the bottle, and you handed it over. Joel turned it in his hand, studying the label with the seriousness of a man trying very hard not to look like he was reading another language. “So what’s it do?”

“It goes on before makeup.”

“Hence the name.”

You squinted at him. “You can either be respectful during my presentation, or I can pack everything up and go to bed.”

“Presentation?” he repeated, eyes warm now. “Baby, are you givin’ me a seminar?”

“Yes.” You folded your arms. “And if you’re lucky there’ll be a practical demonstration.”

Joel’s gaze flickered over your face for half a second, before he handed the bottle back. “Now that sounds promisin’.”

You ignored the way your stomach fluttered and went on. “Primer makes everything sit better on the skin. It helps smooth things out, helps makeup last longer, and sometimes it gives you a certain finish.”

He blinked. “A finish.”

“Yes. Glowy. Matte. Blurring. Hydrating.”

Joel was quiet for a second. “That all different from just… face?”

You laughed. “Yes, Joel, that is different from just face.”

He gave a solemn nod. “Alright. Good to know.”

You placed the primer on the vanity and reached into the box again. “Next: concealer.”

Joel watched the little tube appear in your hand. “Lemme guess. Covers somethin’.”

You pointed at him. “See? This is good. You’re learning.”

He leaned back a little, smug enough to annoy you. “I ain’t dumb, darlin’.”

“I didn’t say you were dumb.”

“Your tone did.”

“My tone is educational.”

“That so?”

“Yes.”

Joel’s smile deepened, but he let you continue.

“Concealer can be for dark circles, redness, blemishes, whatever.”

His brow furrowed almost immediately. “You don’t have any of those things on your pretty face, baby.”

You stared at him, then softened a little despite yourself. “That’s sweet, but that’s not the point.”

He looked genuinely unconvinced. “Seems like the point exactly.”

“No.” You set the concealer down with a small huff. “The point is not fixing some horrible flaw. It’s just… enhancement. Evening things out. Playing around. Feeling put together.”

Joel nodded slowly, eyes still on your face. “Alright.”

You narrowed yours. “You still look like you disagree.”

He shrugged one shoulder. “I can disagree privately.”

“You are not disagreeing privately. Your whole face is disagreeing.”

A laugh escaped him then. “You know my face too well.”

“I do.”

That landed softly between you.

Joel’s gaze stayed on you and you had the strange feeling that he was not just watching you talk… he was memorizing you. The way your fingers handled each item. The way your voice changed when you were explaining something you liked. The way you lit up when he listened properly.

He did listen properly. That was the thing.

You cleared your throat and reached for the next item before the moment got too soft to bear. “Okay. This one is blush.”

Joel nodded. “I know blush.”

“Oh?”

He gestured vaguely toward his own cheekbones. “Pink.”

You blinked at him. “That is both offensively simple and, unfortunately, correct.”

He looked pleased with himself.

You held up a compact and opened it, letting him see the soft rosy color inside. “Blush goes on the cheeks. Sometimes a little on the nose too. Depends on the look.”

“The look,” he repeated.

“Yes.”

“You got multiple looks?”

You gave him a flat stare. “Joel.”

“What? I’m askin’ questions.”

“Of course I have multiple looks.”

He held up both hands in surrender. “Alright, alright.”

You turned slightly toward the mirror and tapped your cheek. “Blush can make you look healthy, fresh, sweet, sunkissed, romantic—”

Joel interrupted. “Sweet.”

You glanced back. “Yes.”

He tilted his head. “You already look sweet.”

Your expression betrayed you then, a little smile creeping in despite your best efforts. “You can’t just say things like that in the middle of my explanation.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m trying to be serious.”

Joel looked at you for a beat, taking in your face, your excitement, the slight pink that had risen in your cheeks before you’d even put any actual blush on. “That may be the problem right there, baby.”

You laughed softly and reached into the box again. “Fine. No more compliments until the end.”

“That doesn't sound natural.”

“It’s a rule now.”

“Seems harsh.”

“You’ll survive.”

He considered that. “Debatable.”

You had to look away for a second because the sight of him sitting there barely dressed, all broad shoulders and damp hair and sleepy amusement, making himself the world’s most attentive audience for a makeup breakdown, was almost too lovely to process in one go.

You pulled out a small palette next.

Joel squinted. “That one looks expensive.”

Your face changed instantly. “It was a little expensive.”

“A little.”

“Mmm-hmm.”

He extended a hand. “Lemme see.”

You passed it over carefully, and Joel turned the compact in his fingers. The palette was heavier than he expected, the case clicking softly when he opened it. Inside were shades of brown, gold, rose, and deep muted plum, each one arranged so prettily it almost did make sense that you’d looked delighted pulling it out of the bag earlier.

He studied it in silence for a moment.

Then, very seriously: “These are all nearly the same color.”

Your mouth fell open. “Joel!”

“What?”

“They are not.”

He looked at the palette again, then back at you. “Baby, I’m lookin’ at seven versions of brown.”

You snatched it from him with exaggerated offense. “This is taupe. This is a soft rose. This is bronze. This is a champagne shimmer. This one is mauve.”

Joel blinked slowly. “That last one was definitely still brown.”

“It was not.”

“Looked brown from here.”

“You are impossible.”

He grinned then. “Maybe. But I’m listenin’.”

You held the palette protectively against your chest. “Eyeshadow,” you informed him, in the tone of someone recovering from a great insult, “is what you put on your eyelids.”

“I gathered.”

“It can change the whole mood of a look.”

He raised a brow. “Can it?”

“Yes. Soft. Smoky. Dramatic. Fresh. Sultry.”

Joel’s expression altered at that last word, barely. “Sultry, huh?”

You pretended not to notice. “Yes.”

“And you’re sayin’ that like it’s a normal thing to tell me while sittin’ there lookin’ like that.”

“Like what?”

He looked you over once, slowly enough to make your pulse jump, then brought his eyes back to your face. “Like you know exactly what you’re doin’.”

The silence that followed lasted a beat too long.

Then you cleared your throat again. “Anyway. Moving on.”

Joel let out a quiet laugh but didn’t argue.

You pulled out a fluffy brush, and his brow furrowed. “That one for paint too?”

You gasped. “Joel!”

“I’m kiddin’.”

“No, you’re not. You think all of this is construction supplies in disguise.”

He looked at the brush. “You gotta admit there’s some overlap.”

“There is absolutely no overlap.”

“That primer still sounds suspicious.”

You shook your head, smiling helplessly now. “This is an eyeshadow brush.”

He gave the brush a dubious look. “Seems too soft to do much.”

“It’s not supposed to do much. It’s supposed to blend.”

“Blend what?”

“The eyeshadow.”

Joel leaned back and rubbed a hand over his jaw. “Alright, hold on. So first you put color on your eyelid.”

“Yes.”

“Then you use another tool to sort of… smear it around.”

“It is not smearing. It is blending.”

He nodded gravely. “My mistake.”

You pointed the brush at him. “Mock me again and I’ll use this against you.”

Joel looked at the brush, then at you. “Sweetheart, I am not afraid of a tiny fluffy weapon.”

You fought a smile and lost badly. “You should be.”

“What, you gonna do my makeup in my sleep?”

That image hit you so suddenly and vividly that you nearly laughed. “Honestly? You’d look gorgeous.”

“Would I?”

“Yes. Maybe a nice neutral eye to enhance your hazel eyes or something soft and romantic with berry tones.”

Joel gave you a long look. “You flirtin’ with me or threatenin’ me?”

“Bit of both.”

“Mm.”

His voice dropped on that little hum in a way you very deliberately chose not to think about too hard.

Instead, you kept digging through the box and grabbed a lipstick. “Okay. This one you know.”

Joel’s gaze landed on the tube and warmed immediately with recognition. “Now that one I know.”

You looked pleased. “You do?”

“Yeah.” He pointed lazily. “That’s similar to the color you wear when we go out somewhere nice.”

You paused.

Then slowly: “What?”

Joel shrugged, like this was obvious. “The darker one.”

You blinked at him. “You know this shade?”

“Could pick it out in a lineup.”

You stared.

His expression shifted, a little wary now. “What?”

“Joel.”

“What.”

You turned fully toward him on the stool, lipstick in hand. “Are you telling me you can identify my lipstick shades?”

He frowned as if the question itself were strange. “Some of ’em.”

“Some of them?”

“Well, not by all the names,” he said. “Those names are ridiculous.”

You narrowed your eyes. “What do you mean, ridiculous?”

He held out a hand, and when you passed him the tube he read the label aloud with a face like he was being personally offended by it. “‘Rosewood Whisper.’” He looked up. “That’s not a lipstick shade. That’s some fancy car freshener scent.”

You laughed so hard you had to grab the edge of the vanity.

Joel kept going, encouraged now. “Y’all never just call somethin’ red. No. It’s ‘midnight garnet seduction’ or ‘velvet sin’ or ‘spiced fig dream.’ Sounds like a fancy cocktail menu.”

You were laughing openly now, shoulders shaking.

He pointed the lipstick at you. “And I’m right.”

“You are a menace.”

“I’m observant.”

“That is not the word I would’ve used.”

Joel smiled and handed it back. “It’s the one I’m usin’.”

You twisted the lipstick up and held it near your mouth. “So which one is this, then?”

He squinted. “That’s not the darker dinner one.”

“No.”

“And it’s not the peachy one you wear with that cream sweater.”

Your eyes widened. “Excuse me?”

Joel blinked once. “What.”

“You know the peachy one?”

He shifted slightly on the bed, suddenly looking like a man who had stumbled into revealing more than intended. “Baby, I got eyes.”

“No, no. That’s not just eyes. That’s data collection.”

A reluctant smile pulled at his mouth. “You say that like it’s criminal.”

“It is deeply suspicious.”

Joel looked down, then back up at you. “You want me not to notice?”

It got you in the chest a little.

Your voice softened without permission. “No.”

He nodded once. “Then I'll keep noticing.”

You looked at him for a moment, then turned back toward the mirror before he could see too much on your face. “Well,” you said, trying for lightness and getting only halfway there, “for the record, this one is newer.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. And it’s not for every day.”

Joel watched your reflection. “Special occasion?”

You glanced at him in the mirror. “Maybe.”

His eyes held yours there for one quiet second before you broke the look and set the lipstick down.

You reached for another item. “Okay, next: highlighter.”

Joel exhaled. “That one also sounds like office supplies.”

“It does not.”

“It absolutely does.”

“It makes the high points of the face catch the light.”

He nodded slowly. “Now that, I understand.”

You blinked. “Really?”

“Sure.” He pointed gently toward you. “Bit on the cheekbone. Maybe here.” He gestured near the inner corners of his own eyes with shocking accuracy. “Makes things brighter.”

You stared at him, deadpan.

Joel’s mouth twitched. “Why’re you lookin’ at me like that?”

“How do you know that?”

He shifted one shoulder. “Seen you do it.”

“When?”

His expression was almost offended now. “What d’you mean, when?”

You let out a breathy laugh. “No, I just—I don’t know. I didn’t realize you were paying that much attention.”

Joel went quiet.

Then he said as a matter of fact, “I pay attention to you all the time.”

The words settled over the room.

There was no vanity in the way he said it. He sounded like a man stating something as ordinary and unremarkable as the weather, when to you it felt like being handed his heart in the simplest possible form.

You swallowed. “I know.”

His gaze lingered on your reflection. “Do you?”

The question was gentle enough to hurt.

You looked down at the highlighter in your hand, then set it beside the rest. “Yeah,” you said softly. “I do.”

Joel didn’t answer right away. He just watched you, something tender moving beneath the calm of his face, and then the moment loosened because he cleared his throat and tipped his chin toward the clutter spreading over the vanity.

“So how much of that did you buy?”

You laughed, grateful for the release. “Rude.”

“I’m serious.”

“You told me to treat myself.”

“I did not expect to finance a full cosmetic expansion.”

“Expansion,” you repeated, grinning. 

“Looks expensive enough to be one.”

You picked up two little containers. “These were mini sizes.”

Joel narrowed his eyes. “That means they’re small.”

“Yes.”

“Not cheap.”

You sighed. “No.”

He nodded like a man whose suspicions had been confirmed. “Thought so.”

You held up another gloss tube. “This one was on sale.”

He gave you a long look.

“It was!”

“That phrase’s dangerous in your mouth.”

“It’s not dangerous.”

“Darlin, every time you say somethin’ was on sale, somehow three bags appear.”

You put a hand to your chest. “I can’t believe you’d stereotype me like this in my own bedroom.”

Joel laughed and the sound of it curled around you like a warm blanket.

He rubbed his hand over his beard and nodded toward the products. “Alright. So what else we got.”

You brightened immediately and began lining them up in order like you were preparing to teach a masterclass. “Skincare.”

Joel made a face.

You caught it instantly. “Don’t.”

“I didn’t say nothin’.”

“Your face said enough.”

He leaned back on one arm. “How many steps?”

You looked away. “That depends.”

Joel groaned quietly. “Baby.”

“It depends on the night.”

“That means too many.”

“It does not mean too many.”

“How many.”

You started counting under your breath. “Cleanser. Serum. Moisturizer. Eye cream if I feel like it. Sometimes an exfoliant, but not every night, obviously. And then if my skin is dry, maybe—”

Joel held up a hand. “I blacked out halfway through that.”

You laughed. “No, you didn’t.”

“Felt like I did.”

“Skincare is important.”

He gave you a skeptical look. “You’re twenty seven, not ninety.”

“That has nothing to do with it.”

He watched you for a second, then asked with suspicious sincerity, “Is that why there are so many tiny bottles in the bathroom that all look exactly the same?”

You gasped. “They do not look exactly the same.”

“They absolutely do.”

“That one has niacinamide.”

He stared.

You lifted another. “This one has hyaluronic acid.”

He kept staring.

You held up a third. “And this one is peptides.”

Joel blinked once, then slowly dragged a hand down his face. “You just cast a spell at me.”

You burst out laughing.

“I’m serious,” he said, though he was smiling too now. “That sounded illegal… like drugs and that stuff.”

“It’s not illegal, it’s skincare.”

“Same difference.”

You shook your head, still smiling, and then your fingers dipped back into the box one more time.

Joel watched your expression change before the product even cleared the tissue paper.

His brows lifted. “What’s that look for?”

You bit back a grin. “Nothing.”

“Sweetheart.”

You looked over your shoulder at him with eyes far too innocent. “This one’s just… funny.”

Joel straightened a little. “Funny how?”

You held the tube in your hand but didn’t show him yet.

He narrowed his gaze. “Why’re you hidin’ it?”

“Because you’re going to be immature.”

Joel actually looked offended. “I am never immature.”

You stared at him.

He waited.

Then one corner of your mouth lifted. “That was embarrassing for both of us.”

A laugh escaped him. “Alright, fine. Little bit.”

“Little bit,” you echoed, unconvinced.

You turned the tube in your fingers, smiling to yourself now, and Joel could already tell from the expression on your face that whatever came next was going to amuse you entirely too much.

He shifted closer to the edge of the bed without even meaning to, curiosity plain on his face now. “C’mon, then. Lemme see.”

You looked at him, still grinning. “Promise you’ll behave?”

Joel met your eyes. “No.”

That made you laugh again and you lifted the last item slowly, ready to show him the thing you already knew was going to make him lose it.You held it up between two fingers with a grin you were making absolutely no effort to hide now, the little metallic pink tube catching the warm bedroom light as you turned it toward him.

Joel squinted at the label.

Then he went very still.

His eyes moved across the words once. Twice.

And then, exactly as predicted, he barked out a laugh so sudden and unguarded it startled even him.

You pointed at him immediately. “Don’t.”

That only made it worse.

Joel bent forward, one hand over his mouth now, shoulders shaking as the laugh hit him again, deeper this time, rough and helpless and impossible to stop. He looked up at you with tears of amusement practically threatening in the corners of his eyes and repeated, disbelieving, “Better Than Sex?”

You stared at him, trying very hard to look stern and getting nowhere. “Joel.”

“Baby.” He shook his head and laughed again. “No. I’m sorry. I know I’m supposed to be respectful, I do, but that is the dumbest damn name I ever heard in my life.”

“It is not dumb.”

“It is ridiculous.”

“It’s marketing!”

“Marketing by a thirteen year old boy, maybe.”

You slapped a hand over your mouth to stop your own smile and failed miserably. “You said you were going to behave.”

“I very specifically did not promise that.”

“That doesn’t mean you get to be mean.”

Joel sat up a little straighter, still grinning, and held out a hand. “Lemme see it.”

You hesitated just long enough to make a point, then passed it over. He took the tube carefully, turning it in his fingers like maybe the name would somehow become less absurd if he looked at it from another angle but it did not.

He read it aloud again, slower, like he was trying to understand how a real company with a real boardroom and real adult employees had come to this decision. “‘Better Than Sex.’” He looked up at you. “There was nobody in that office brave enough to stop this?”

You laughed despite yourself. “Apparently not.”

Joel stared down at the tube. “Who approved that?”

“People smarter than us, probably.”

“No, ma’am.” He handed it back with quiet authority. “Ain’t no smart person names a mascara after sex.”

You took it from him, smiling now. “That’s because you don’t understand branding.”

He leaned back on the bed again, one hand braced behind him, expression dry. “Then explain it to me.”

You drew in a dramatic breath and straightened in the chair like you were about to defend a thesis. “Alright. The point is not that the mascara is literally better than sex.”

Joel immediately cut in. “Well, that’s disappointin’, because that is very much what they printed on the tube.”

You glared at him. “Would you let me finish?”

He made a little go ahead gesture with his fingers, though the smile was still pulling at one corner of his mouth.

“The point,” you repeated, “is that it promises drama.”

Joel’s expression remained skeptical. “Drama.”

“Yes. Big lashes. Volume. Length. Impact.” You held the tube up between you both like a piece of courtroom evidence. “It’s not subtle. It wants attention.”

He looked from the mascara to you. “So the mascara is flirtin’.”

You narrowed your eyes. “I hate that you made that sound logical.”

Joel’s mouth twitched. “Ain’t wrong.”

You rolled your eyes and unscrewed the tube, pulling the wand out with a soft wet click. “Look.”

He leaned forward instinctively, curious despite himself now, watching as you angled the wand so he could see the brush.

Joel frowned. “That’s it?”

You looked at him. “What do you mean, that’s it?”

“It’s just a little spiky stick.”

“It is not a spiky stick.”

He pointed. “That’s absolutely a spiky stick.”

“It’s a mascara wand.”

Joel nodded once, solemn again. “That’s what I said.”

You shook your head, smiling in spite of yourself, and turned toward the mirror. “You are impossible to educate.”

“Yet you persist.”

“Because I’m committed.”

“To what, exactly.”

“Improving you.”

Joel’s low laugh followed you into the mirror. “Good luck with that.”

You angled closer to the glass and lifted the wand to your lashes. “Okay. So mascara darkens them, lengthens them, thickens them—ideally.”

“‘Ideally’ don’t sound confident.”

“Because some mascaras clump.”

Joel frowned. “Clump.”

“Yes.”

“That bad?”

“It can be.”

He was quiet for a second. “How many problems y’all got in that industry?”

You laughed under your breath. “More than you could possibly understand.”

He watched your reflection carefully as you started applying the mascara with slow, practiced movements, the brush catching at the roots and pulling upward. Joel had seen you do this before, of course. More than once. But there was something different about being invited into it this closely, being talked through the steps like he belonged there in the middle of the ritual instead of merely passing by the doorway while it happened.

He found himself following every little motion.The steadiness of your hand. The slight concentration in your face. The way your eyes widened a touch as the lashes separated and darkened.

“Waterproof,” you reminded him, glancing at him through the mirror.

Joel nodded. “That part I understand.”

“Do you.”

“Sure. Means it won’t run if it gets wet.”

“Exactly.”

He folded one arm across his chest. “Good for rain.”

You smiled. “Yes.”

“Cryin’.”

“Yes.”

“Humid weather.”

“Yes.”

Joel considered that, then squinted at the tube as if he could extract more information from sheer suspicion. “And that’s it?”

You took your time with the other eye, far too aware now of the way he was watching. “Not exactly.”

His voice changed a little. “No?”

You kept your gaze on the mirror because looking at him directly would’ve been too much too soon. “No.”

Joel waited.

He had that patience when he wanted to. He could make silence feel like a gentle and guiding hand at the small of your back. You felt him watching as clearly as if he’d touched you, and it made your skin go warm in places you were trying very hard not to think about yet.

You cleared your throat softly. “It also says it holds up against sweat.”

Joel made a small thoughtful sound. “Alright.”

“And…” You adjusted the wand, pretending great interest in the angle of your lashes. “Other… things.”

Joel didn’t move right away, didn’t speak either. The quiet between you lengthened until it had weight, and when he finally did say something, his voice came out rougher than before.

“What kind of things.”

You looked at him in the mirror then.

There was the answer.

You turned back to the mirror and gave your lashes one more slow coat. “Fluids.”

Joel let out a breath through his nose that might have been a laugh if it hadn’t sounded so much like restraint. “Darlin'.”

“What?” you asked, all false innocence.

He looked at the back of your shoulder, then up to your eyes in the mirror again. “You know exactly what.”

You capped the mascara with careful fingers, buying yourself a second. “I’m explaining the product.”

“That's what this is.”

“Yes.”

He nodded once, but his eyes stayed on you. “Seems awfully selective.”

You smiled faintly. “It’s an important feature.”

“Is it now.”

“Mmm-hmm.”

Joel leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees, gaze intent enough to make the room feel smaller. “So let me get this straight. Some genius came up with a mascara named ‘Better Than Sex,’ and then another genius decided to advertise that it survives…” His eyes moved over your face, dipped to your mouth, then back up. “Fluids.”

You swallowed, trying not to show it. “That seems to be the implication.”

He sat with that for a second. Then, very dryly, “That may be the most committed sales pitch I’ve heard all year.”

You laughed, but it came out weaker than before.

Joel watched you set the tube down on the vanity, watched the way your fingers lingered on it for a fraction too long. “And you bought this because…”

“Because it had good reviews.”

“Mm.”

“And because it’s supposed to make lashes look dramatic.”

His gaze flicked up to the mirror again. “Mission accomplished.”

Your breath caught a little at how simply he said it.

You looked at yourself then, partly to avoid looking at him. The mascara had done what it always promised to do: your lashes looked darker, longer, fuller, framing your eyes in a way that made your whole face read differently. Less soft. Less sleepy. Sharper somehow. More deliberate. Your eyes looked bigger, yes, but definitely not innocent.

You turned on the stool, one hand settling in your lap. “Well?”

Joel didn’t answer immediately.

He just looked.

His gaze moved slowly over your face, taking in what had changed. The lashes now casting longer shadows against your skin. But he was not just looking at the makeup. He was looking at you inside it. At the way you wore it. At the confidence that had crept quietly into your posture because you knew you looked good and you wanted him to know you knew.

It made his heat tighten behind his ribs.

“You’re pretty,” he said at last.

You made a face immediately. “Joel.”

“What.”

“That is not a serious review.”

His mouth twitched. “Didn’t say it was.”

“I’m asking about the mascara.”

“Mm.” His eyes stayed on yours. “And I’m answerin’ honestly.”

You tried not to smile and failed. “Be specific.”

Joel let out a quiet breath, like he was indulging you, but there was no impatience in him. Only attention. “Alright.”

He stood then.

Joel crossed the small distance between the bed and the vanity until he stood just behind your chair, close enough that the warmth of him slid over your bare shoulders before he even touched you. In the mirror you watched him lift one hand and rest it lightly on the top edge of the vanity, caging you in without quite meaning to. His other hand came to your jaw, fingers rough and warm as they tilted your face very slightly toward the light.

Now you could barely breathe.

Joel studied your reflection and yours alone, his eyes narrowed in concentration as if he were trying to get this right. “They do look longer.”

His thumb brushed once, barely there, near your chin. “Darker, too.”

You kept still.

His gaze lingered. “Makes your eyes look…” He trailed off.

You looked up at him in the mirror. “Look what?”

Joel’s eyes met yours there. For one suspended second he seemed to debate with himself. Then he gave in, just a little.

“Like trouble,” he said quietly.

Your heart stumbled.

He looked down at you then and whatever he saw on your face must have reached him, because something in his expression softened even as the heat stayed.

You tried for lightness. “That’s not very technical.”

Joel’s mouth curved. “You want technical?”

“Yes.”

He leaned down just enough that his voice brushed near your ear. “Alright, then. They make it hard to look anywhere else.”

You exhaled shakily.

He stayed there a moment, close enough that your whole body had gone aware of him in pieces. The smell of soap from his shower. The quiet scrape of his thumb when it moved once more against your skin.

Then, because you needed the thread picked back up before it snapped entirely, you looked at the mascara on the table and said, with a little too much brightness, “And it’s waterproof.”

Joel laughed softly, the sound low in your ear. “You already sold me on that part, darlin’.”

You swallowed. “Did I?”

“Yeah.”

He straightened just enough to look at you again in the mirror, one hand still resting beside you on the vanity. “Only thing I’m still unclear on—”

You turned your head slightly. “What’s that?”

His eyes dropped to your mouth, then lifted again, maddeningly calm. “Whether all that advertising’s true.”

The words landed between you dangerously.

You stared at him.

Then his hand slipped from your jaw, slow enough to feel deliberate, and he stepped back just one pace, enough to give you air without really undoing what he’d started.

His voice, when it came, was gentler. “Though I should probably mention”—his eyes moved over your face once more—“you didn’t need it.”

Your expression softened despite yourself. “Need what?”

“Any of it.” He nodded toward the products scattered over the vanity. “The primer, the blush, the dramatic flirtin’ mascara with the terrible name.” One corner of his mouth lifted. “You’re beautiful without all that.”

You looked down for a second, smiling helplessly. “You always say that.”

“Because it’s true.”

“I know.” You glanced back up at him. “But that’s not the point.”

Joel nodded slowly. “No. I know it ain’t.”

There it was again. The understanding, the quiet way he met you where you actually were instead of simplifying you.

His gaze moved to the mascara one last time, then back to your eyes, still darkened and dangerous in the vanity light. “Still,” he murmured, voice gone rough at the edges again, “I gotta admit.”

You waited.

Joel’s eyes held yours.

“It does look real good on you.”

You looked at him through the mirror.

He looked back.

And then his gaze drifted over the products scattered across the vanity and he said, low and thoughtful, “Seems a shame, though.”

Your brows lifted. “What does?”

“All that effort.” His eyes came back to your face, to the lashes you’d darkened on purpose, to the mouth that had been trying not to smile for the last thirty seconds. “All that makeup.”

You turned a little more in the chair. “What about it?”

Joel’s mouth twitched faintly. “Gonna go to waste.”

You stared at him for half a beat, then let out a tiny laugh. “Waste?”

He gave one slow nod, like this was the most reasonable point in the world.

“How exactly is it going to waste?”

Joel shifted his weight, one hand catching the knot of the towel at his hip for the briefest second before falling away again. The motion was absentminded, but your eyes dropped there anyway, and when they lifted back to his face he had already noticed.

That did not help.

His voice dipped lower. “Well, darlin’… unless I’ve badly misunderstood the shape of this evening, I figured we’d be goin’ to bed before too long.”

The words themselves were almost innocent.

Almost.

You felt the silence that followed settle over the room, and for one suspended second you didn’t answer.

Joel noticed that too.

His eyes narrowed just slightly as he watched your face, watched the way your fingers tightened in your lap, watched the little shift in your breathing. He knew that look by now. Knew the exact moment a thought took hold in you and turned from playful to dangerous. It was always there first, in your eyes. That glint. That pause. That split second where he could practically see the idea forming before you ever said a word.

And judging by the way his chest rose on a slow inhale, he knew this one was going to be trouble. The kind of trouble he never once tried very hard to avoid.

“You’re awfully quiet,” he murmured.

You stood from the vanity slowly, turning fully to face him now. The height difference between you always felt more pronounced when he was like this, with his eyes fixed on you with that patient, dangerous attention that never rushed and never missed a thing.

You stepped closer.

Joel’s gaze dropped briefly to your mouth, then lifted again.

“How do you mean, waste?” you asked softly.

His expression shifted, something amused and warmer than amused flickering through it. “Darlin'.”

“No, tell me.” You tilted your head just slightly. “Because from where I’m standing, nothing’s being wasted.”

Joel let out a quiet breath through his nose, almost a laugh, except there was too much heat in it now to really be one. “That so?”

“That so.”

You could see him trying to read you, trying to decide whether this was still teasing or whether the ground had shifted under his feet without him noticing.

Then his eyes moved over your face again, slower this time, taking in the lashes, the mouth, the expression you were making no attempt to soften.

When he spoke, his voice had gone gravel deep. “Baby.”

That one word should not have felt like a hand sliding over bare skin. And yet you took the last half step in, close enough now to feel the heat coming off him, close enough that if you lifted your hand it would land on the center of his chest. The towel sat careless and unfair around his waist, his hair still damp, his whole body loose with the kind of comfort that only existed in private, in the quiet safety of home, in the hour when the rest of the world stopped mattering and there was only this room and this man and the way he was looking at you now.

You smiled teasingly.

“It’s not going to waste,” you said.

Joel held very still.

“No?”

You shook your head once, eyes never leaving his. “No.”

He swallowed.

That was it. Just a tiny movement in his throat, but you caught it, and the satisfaction of being able to do that to him with so little nearly made you bolder than you already were.

Joel’s hands remained at his sides, though you could tell by the tension in them that it cost him something now. “Alright,” he said carefully. “Then I’m listenin’.”

You let your gaze flick down his chest and back up, deliberately mirroring the way he’d looked at you before. “I’ve been thinking about this mascara all day.”

That got his attention in full.

“All day,” he repeated.

You nodded.

Joel’s mouth curved, but it was thin now, held back by effort. “Should I be worried?”

“Probably.”

He laughed once under his breath, but the sound came out uneven. “You say that awful casually.”

You took another inch of space, enough that the edge of your nightgown nearly brushed the towel at his hip. Joel didn’t move away. If anything, he seemed to brace without meaning to, like his whole body had recognized the shift before his mind could catch up.

And still you made him wait.

“I’ve been waiting,” you said, voice softening, “to see if it’s actually as good as it claims.”

Joel stared at you.

His eyes searched yours, and when he spoke, his voice was so low it barely seemed to cross the space between you. “Baby…”

You smiled wider.

“So no,” you said gently. “Nothing’s going to waste.”

He exhaled slowly, chest rising under the warm lamplight, and there it was again, that look. That exact look. The one you knew got under his skin every single time. Part disbelief, part desire, part the dawning realization that he was no longer in control of the direction this night was taking and that, worse, he did not want to be.

Your fingers lifted at last, just enough to rest lightly against his chest.

Joel’s eyes dropped to the touch.

Then back to your face.

And you gave him the line like a gift.

“I’ve been waiting all day,” you said softly, “to test with my husband whether this mascara really holds up to everything it promises.”

Joel went completely still.

His jaw tightened just slightly. His hand flexed once at his side. His eyes dragged over your face as though he were seeing you and the trouble in you with punishing new clarity.

Then he laughed, just once.

And when he looked at you again, whatever amusement had been there before had burned down into something darker.

“Jesus,” he muttered, almost to himself.

Joel’s hand came up then, rough fingers finding your waist with slow intention, like he was giving himself one last chance to be careful and already knew it was too late. 

“Baby,” he said, and this time it sounded like a warning aimed at both of you.

His hand tightened slightly at your waist, thumb pressing in just enough to ground himself, or maybe to make sure you were real and not something his tired brain had invented after a long week and a hot shower and too much time thinking about you.

You tilted your head, lashes dark and deliberate, exactly like you’d intended. “What?”

Joel let out a breath that almost sounded like a laugh, except there was no real humor left in it now. Just pure heat turned into desperate need. “You’re gonna be the death of me, you know that?”

You smiled. “That’s not very reassuring, you know.”

“Ain’t meant to be.”

His eyes dropped to your mouth, lingered there just a second too long, then dragged back up like it cost him something. 

He shifted his weight slightly, like he was bracing for something he’d already decided not to stop.

“Say that again,” he murmured.

Your breath caught. “What part?”

“All of it.”

You held his gaze, fully aware now of how close you were, how little space there was left to hide behind anything safe. “I said,” you began softly, fingers still resting against his chest, “that I don’t think anything’s going to waste.”

Joel’s jaw tightened.

“And,” you continued, quieter now, stepping just a fraction closer, “that I’ve been waiting all day…”

His hand slid from your waist to your hip, like he was mapping out the line of you again just to be sure.

“…to test it with my husband,” you finished.

The silence that followed was thick.

His control was still there, you could see it in the tension of his shoulders, in the way his grip hadn’t tightened too much, in the way he was still choosing every movement instead of letting instinct take over completely.

But it was slipping.

And you could feel that too.

Your hand moved slightly against his chest again—just enough to tempting him—and that was all it took.

Joel closed his eyes for half a second, like he was giving himself one last moment of control.

Then he opened them again.

And whatever had been holding him back was gone.

“Alright,” he said, voice low and dangerous in that quiet way that meant he was done pretending this wasn’t happening. “You wanna test it?”

Your pulse jumped.

He leaned in just enough that his breath brushed warm against your cheek, close enough to make your thoughts scatter without even touching you yet.

“Let’s see how well it holds up,” he murmured.

That was the moment everything tipped.

His thumb dragged slowly along the curve of your hip. “All day, huh? Thinkin’ about me ruinin’ it?”

“Every hour.”

A low, dangerous sound rumbled out of his chest. He spun you around so fast your breath caught, pressing your front against the vanity edge until the cool wood bit into your hips. The mirror reflected everything: your flushed face, the new mascara, Joel towering behind you like a man who’d just been handed permission to lose control.

“Look at yourself,” he ordered, voice right against your ear. One big hand slid up your sternum, fingers spreading wide over your throat, not squeezing, not yet, just resting there like a heavy reminder. “You’re gonna watch every second while I fuck that pretty makeup right off you.”

Your eyes met his in the glass. His were dark, pupils blown, jaw tight with restraint he was already losing.

“Yes, Joel.”

He hummed approval, free hand shoving the towel away. It dropped to the floor with a soft thud. His cock was already hard, thick, flushed dark at the tip and curving up against your clothed ass. He dragged it slowly between your cheeks, teasing, letting you feel exactly how much he meant every word.

“Gonna start slow,” he murmured, mouth brushing the shell of your ear. “Deep. So you feel every inch stretchin’ that tight little pussy while you keep those eyes on the mirror. Then I’m gonna fuck you stupid. And every single time you’re about to come…” His fingers flexed around your throat. “I stop. You’re not comin’ till that mascara’s runnin’ down your cheeks like you’ve been cryin’ for me. Understand?”

You whimpered, nodding frantically. “Yes—please—”

He kicked your feet apart wider, one hand still collared around your throat, the other sliding down to pull your panties aside. No patience left for taking them off. The blunt head of his cock nudged at your entrance, already slick from how long you’d been teasing each other.

“Eyes on the mirror, darlin’,” he growled. “Don’t you fuckin’ look away.”

Then he pushed in. One long, slow, relentless inch at a time until he was buried to the hilt and your mouth fell open on a broken moan. The stretch burned so good your lashes fluttered, but you kept your eyes open, locked on the reflection like he’d commanded.

“Fuck,” Joel breathed, forehead dropping to your shoulder for a second. “So goddamn tight. Always so perfect for me.” He rolled his hips once, grinding deep, letting you feel him throb inside you. “Look how pretty you look takin’ me. Those lashes still all nice and dark… for now.”

He started moving then. Slow, deep drags that pulled almost all the way out before sliding back into your dripping cunt. Every thrust dragged against that spot inside you that made your toes curl. His hand stayed firm around your throat, thumb stroking the side like he was petting you while he ruined you.

“That’s it, baby. Watch yourself get fucked.” His voice was pure filth now. “See how your tits bounce every time I bottom out? See how your mouth opens like you can’t even breathe right? That’s my cock doin’ that to you.”

You moaned, the sound loud in the quiet bedroom. Your hands gripped the edge of the vanity so hard your knuckles went white. The mirror showed everything: the way your eyes were already glassy, the faint sheen of sweat starting on your collarbones, Joel’s broad body behind you, muscles flexing with every controlled thrust.

“Gonna take my time,” he rasped. “Gonna fuck you so deep you forget your own name before I even let you come.” He snapped his hips a little harder on the next thrust, making your breath hitch. “But not yet. Not till I say.”

He kept the pace torturously slow for what felt like forever. Long, rolling strokes that had you whimpering and pushing back against him, chasing more. Every time your moans pitched higher, every time your walls started fluttering around him, Joel would still completely, buried deep, and just hold you there.

“Not yet, baby, not a chance,” he murmured against your neck, biting down lightly. “Feel that? Feel how full you are? That’s where you belong, baby. Stuffed full of my cock while you watch yourself fall apart.”

“Joel—please—”

“Please what?” He flexed inside you, grinding slow circles. “Use your words. Tell me what you want while you’re lookin’ me in the eyes.”

“I need to come,” you gasped, voice shaking. “Please let me come—”

His hand tightened just enough around your throat to make your pulse jump. “No, sweetheart,” He pulled out almost completely, then sank back in so deep your knees buckled. “Not till those lashes are ruined. I want black streaks down your pretty cheeks. I want you lookin’ like you’ve been cryin’ and chockin’ on my dick.”

He started fucking you harder then, still controlled, but deeper, faster, the wet slap of skin on skin filling the room. Your mascara was already starting to smudge at the corners from the tears of frustration gathering in your eyes.

“Look at that,” he groaned, eyes locked on the mirror. “Already runnin’. My pretty little wife’s mascara can’t even handle a little foreplay. What’s it gonna do when I really start wreckin’ you, huh?”

He picked up the pace, hips snapping forward harder, the hand on your throat keeping you upright and forced to watch. Every thrust jolted you forward against the vanity. Your lashes were definitely smearing now, faint black tracks forming under your eyes.

“Fuck, baby, you’re squeezin’ me so tight,” he growled. “Pussy’s greedy tonight. You love to watch while I ruin you, don’t you?”

“Yes—yes, Joel—”

He reached around with his free hand and found your clit, giving it a light, stinging little tap with two fingers. You cried out, hips jerking.

“Uh-uh,” he scolded, tapping again, harder this time. “No comin’. Not yet.” Another sharp little slap right over your swollen clit. “This pretty pussy’s gonna wait till I’ve got black tears runnin’ down your face.”

Joel kept fucking you hard and deep, hips snapping forward with that relentless rhythm that had the vanity creaking under your hands. He leaned in close again to whisper in your ear.

“Who’s the most beautiful woman in the world, baby?”

You laughed. A broken, desperate sound that turned into a moan halfway through because he chose that exact second to grind against your spongy spot. Joel’s hand cracked down on your ass in a sharp, stinging spank that made you jolt forward. He didn’t miss a beat, cock still buried to the hilt.

“I asked you a question,” he growled. Another hard thrust. Another spank, this one right on the same ass cheek, making your skin bloom hot. “Who’s the most beautiful woman in the world?”

Your voice came out wrecked and breathless.

“Me—fuck, Joel— it’s me.”

He was grinning in the mirror. He rewarded you with a deep, punishing stroke that made your eyes roll back.

“That’s right,” he rasped, spanking you again. “My beautiful girl. Say it again while I fuck you.”

“It’s me,” you sobbed, voice cracking as an orgasm threatened to rip through you. “I’m the most beautiful woman in the world.”

Joel groaned low in his chest, hips snapping harder.

“Damn right you are,” he muttered almost tenderly while he kept pounding into you. “And don’t you ever fuckin’ forget it.”

He fucked you like that for what felt like hours with hard, deep thrusts interspersed with those cruel little clit slaps every time you got too close. Your mascara was a mess now, dark smudges under your eyes, streaks starting to run down your cheeks every time a tear slipped free.

“Goddamn,” Joel muttered, voice wrecked. “Look at you. So fuckin’ pretty when you cry for me.” He slammed in harder, grinding against your spongy spot again. “Almost there, baby. Almost got you lookin’ exactly how I want.”

Your legs were shaking. You were babbling —please, Joel, please, I can’t, I need— but he just kept going, relentless, edging you right to the brink and then stopping or slapping your clit until the orgasm retreated.

One final hard thrust and he stilled again, buried to the hilt, hand flexing around your throat.

“Look at yourself,” he ordered, voice rough. “Look how ruined you are.”

In the mirror your reflection was wrecked: You were shaking, tears spilling faster, mascara dripping off your chin onto the vanity. Joel looked feral behind you with his hair damp with sweat.

“That’s it,” he growled. “That’s the face I wanted. Now you can come, baby. Come all over my cock while I watch those tears run.”

He didn’t give you time to answer. He fucked you with brutal, perfect strokes that hit exactly where you needed every single time. His hand left your throat only to slide down and rub tight, fast circles over your clit, no more teasing, no more denial.

“Come on, baby. Let go. Soak my dick while I ruin the rest of that mascara.”

The orgasm crashed into you like a freight train. You screamed his name, walls clamping down around him, body shaking so hard he had to hold you up. Black tears spilled freely down your cheeks now, mascara running in messy streaks all the way to your jaw.

“Fuck—yes—that’s my girl,” Joel groaned, voice breaking. “Look at you. So fuckin’ beautiful when you fall apart for me.”

He fucked you through it, hips stuttering, chasing his own release. “Gonna fill you up, baby.”

One more thrust and he buried himself to the hilt, coming with a low, guttural moan, cock pulsing hot inside you. He kept grinding through it, milking every last drop while you trembled and cried in his arms.

For a long moment the only sound was both of you panting, the mirror fogged slightly at the edges from heat and breath.

Joel stayed inside you, arms wrapped around your middle now, gentler. He pressed a slow, open mouthed kiss to the side of your neck, then another to your tear streaked cheek.

“Jesus Christ, baby,” he murmured, voice soft and wrecked. “You look like a goddamn dream.”

He reached over to the vanity without pulling out, grabbed the pack of makeup remover wipes you always kept there, and tugged one free with his teeth. Then, still buried deep inside you, he turned you in his arms, lifted you clean off the floor, and carried you the few steps to the bed.

He sat down on the edge, keeping you straddling his lap, cock still snug and warm inside you. Your legs wrapped around his waist automatically. He cradled the back of your head with one hand and brought the wipe to your face with the other.

“Hold still, darlin’,” he said gently, voice full of that quiet affection that always undid you. “Let me clean my pretty girl up.”

He wiped your cheeks with slow, careful movements, thumb brushing tenderly under your eyes as the black streaks disappeared. Every few seconds he’d lean in and kiss you with soft, lingering kisses on your lips, your forehead, the tip of your nose.

“That mascara didn’t stand a chance, did it?” he teased between kisses, a crooked smile on his face. “Promised it was better than sex… and here you are with black rivers down your face after one round with your husband.”

You laughed, watery and breathless, and he kissed the sound right off your lips.

“Shh, I got you,” he whispered, wiping the last smudge away. “All clean now. My beautiful girl.”

He tossed the wipe aside and wrapped both arms around you, pulling you flush against his chest. His cock twitched inside you, still half hard, like he wasn’t quite ready to leave yet.

“Love you,” he murmured against your hair, voice low and reverent. “Love you so fuckin’ much it hurts sometimes.”

You buried your face in his neck and smiled against his skin.

“Love you more.”

Joel huffed a soft laugh, hand stroking slow circles up and down your back.

“Nah, baby. Not possible.”

He stayed like that for a long time, still inside you, holding you close, kissing your temple every few seconds while the bedroom lamp cast a warm glow over both of you. The vanity mirror behind you reflected the two of you tangled together.

“Next time you buy somethin’ similar to ‘Better Than Sex,’” he murmured, lips brushing your ear, “I’m makin’ you wear it so I can prove it wrong all over again.”

You laughed into his neck, and he tightened his arms around you, heart beating steady against yours.

“Deal?” he asked, smiling.

“Deal,” you whispered.

Montrose Magpies’ newest Seeker!

(Y/N) (L/N) joins the Montrose Magpies, squashing any rumors of joining the Holyhead Harpies. Although this sparks speculation among those claiming she wouldn’t join due to a long-standing feud with existing players. Anyone see a catfight in the future? Will they be able to keep it reigned on the field?

The Evening Prophet never did subtle.

The paper landed on your kitchen table with a soft thump, its edges still warm from the owl’s flight. The headline bled ink and implication, and the photograph beneath it was—without exaggeration—the most horrendous one they could have chosen.

A picture from the very beginning of your career, baby-faced. You looked like a girl, not the woman you had grown into—the implication was obvious. Too frail, too gentle, too “female” to be part of the Magpies. They were saying you didn’t belong, subtly suggesting that the professional leagues were too rough for someone like you.

You didn’t react. Not outwardly, at least. You had expected this the moment you’d signed the contract, when you’d shaken hands with Montrose and smiled for the official photos. The Harpies had been the expected choice—the safe choice for any female player. Known for protecting their own, for ruthlessly managing media narratives, for keeping their players in line. And their players? The best women in the industry. But that was precisely the problem. Best women didn’t mean best players.

You folded the paper once. Then again. Set it aside. There would be a new headline tomorrow, another distraction.

"You can continue now." You murmured, looking at the makeup artist, who simply nodded and continued her work.

“Low-key.” Your manager had said with a straight face.

Low-key, apparently, meant a private room at a well-known wizarding venue, floating candles bearing the Magpies’ colors, and just enough press allowed in to make the event look organic.

After all, a party that looked cheap would signal lack of faith in their newest Seeker. A gaudy one? That would make you appear wasteful, frivolous—a woman squandering attention. You had dressed carefully, a tailored suit: masculine, yet subtle enough that you looked like a woman in a suit, not a woman wearing a man’s suit.

When you arrived, the cameras were already waiting.

Flashes erupted the moment you stepped inside, and you smiled easily, instinctively. You posed where they wanted you to pose, angled yourself to catch the light, offered them exactly what they needed and nothing more.

Your teammates greeted you warmly—handshakes, pats on the back, murmured congratulations. Careful warmth. Aware. Everyone knew tonight was as much about optics as it was about celebration.

Guests began filtering in. Players from other teams. Some friends, some acquaintances. Then, finally, the people you’d been waiting for: the Holyhead Harpies. Ginny Weasley, unmistakable with her sharp eyes and fiery hair, swept in with her teammates. A few extras in tow, including Dean Thomas, and—of course—Harry Potter, officially invited as a member of Puddlemere United, but arriving clearly as Ginny’s guest.

The room shifted when he entered. Always did. He carried that aura—legendary, watchful, infuriating. You didn’t hesitate.

“Ginny.” You said brightly, arms opening.

Her smile flickered for a fraction of a second before settling into something genuine, “Congrats, (L/N).”

You hugged her—firm, visible, lingering just long enough to be photographed. Your smile never faltered. The cameras loved it.

Two women. Two teams. No claws, no feud. Just sportsmanship.

Exactly the image you wanted.

Ginny leaned closer, voice low, “It’s not too late, (L/N). The Harpies would be happy to have you any day of the week.”

You giggled, chin up, keeping the moment public and polished, “I appreciate that, Gin. But the Magpies are my team.”

You kept the conversation flowing, angling your body just enough so the photographers could capture you with the Harpies, smiles broad and seemingly effortless. Every click of the camera was accounted for. Every shot controlled. While Ginny played along, there was one person whose gaze never wavered.

Harry.

He watched you. Jaw tight. Eyes narrowing as you moved through the room—never rushed, never uncertain. Always aware of where the light fell, where the cameras were angled, how the audience would see you. The way you seemed to anticipate every lens, every whisper, rather than flinching from them.

It made his skin crawl.

You caught his gaze briefly, offering him the same polite smile you gave everyone else. Neutral. Controlled. Public.

Harry looked away first.

And for the rest of the evening, he watched with growing unease. You weren't just putting on an amiable image. You were performing. Playing the game on a level he had never learned to respect—and that he couldn’t quite forgive.

Somewhere in the orchestrated smiles and flashing lights, a silent rivalry began to stir. Not just on the pitch. Not just with your teammates. But between you and him.

The sky over the Quidditch pitch was perfect, sharp blue—crisp enough that sunlight glittered on the polished metal of the hoops and the crowd’s banners. Half the stadium was devoted to Montrose Magpies fans, their colors fluttering along every railing, chants of early-season optimism bouncing off the stands. On the other side, the Chudley Cannons supporters waved their banners with equal fervor.

The Cannons were a decent team, but they were known for being… well, bad.

Which, in theory, should have made you relieved. After all, for your first official match as part of the Magpies, you were going up against a team with a long streak of losing to Montrose. Yet, instead of comfort, a coil of nerves wound in your stomach. If the streak ended, you would be the one blamed. The newcomer. The reason the long-standing record finally broke.

“Stay sharp,” Your coach murmured, hand brushing your shoulder as you lined up, “Eyes on the Snitch. Don’t let anything distract you.”

You gripped your broom tightly, chin up, shoulders squared. The whistle blew, and you shot into the air.

From above, the world simplified: hoops, players, and the golden Snitch darting like a gleaming star. The roar of the crowd faded into a dull hum. You could do this. You had always done this.

A Cannons Seeker swept low, aiming to cut you off, but your reflexes were sharp. You twisted, dipped, and soared past him, eyes locked on the glinting golden blur of the Snitch.

Halfway through the first quarter, you’d already intercepted two goal opportunities from the Cannons’ beaters. Every move was precise, deliberate—a dance of skill honed over years. Yet the mental weight of scrutiny settled on your shoulders like a heavy cloak.

From the opposite stands, your eye caught movement. Harry Potter. Standing with a few members of Puddlemere United. You shouldn’t have been surprised—plenty of other teams were attending, scouting the match. After all, it was the beginning of qualifiers for the Quidditch National Championship, which would determine bracket placement. Yet, for some reason, his presence threw you off.

The game was tight. Cannons played aggressively, but you were sharper. With a sudden twist, you swooped low, snatching the Snitch just above the stadium’s center field. The familiar, fierce thrill of victory hit as the crowd erupted around you.

And then you saw it: the flash of cameras, the collective gasp, reporters scribbling furiously. Perfect. Another headline would spin by tomorrow: “Montrose’s Seeker Steals Show—and Snitch—from Cannons.”

The crowd was still roaring as you dismounted from your broom, wind whipping through your hair. You could hear the Cannons’ fans grumbling, the Magpies’ section cheering louder, but all of it blurred together into the background noise of success. You’d caught the Snitch, and yet the real battle was only beginning.

Cameras swiveled toward you immediately, flashes popping like fireworks. You adjusted your helmet, brushing a loose strand of hair back, and gave them the exact smile they wanted: confident, poised, untouchable. Every movement was deliberate. Every gesture calculated to convey competence without arrogance. You had learned long ago that appearances mattered as much as skill.

Reporters swarmed as you made your way down the steps, pens scribbling, quills racing, magical cameras clicking from every angle.

“(Y/N)! How does it feel to take the season opener in such a dramatic fashion?” One shouted.

You tilted your head, the practiced ease in your posture easing the tension in your shoulders, “It feels amazing to contribute to the team’s win. Everyone worked incredibly hard out there, and I couldn’t have done it without my teammates.”

Another reporter pressed, a mischievous edge in his tone, "Did you notice that Harry Potter was attending the match? He did attend your congratulatory party, did he not?"

Your manager gave you a subtle nudge, “Keep it clean. They’re circling.”

Your lips curved into a polite, neutral smile, “I appreciate the support of fans and colleagues alike. It’s always great to know people are watching closely—it pushes me to perform better.”

From across the pitch, you caught him again. Harry. Arms crossed, jaw tight. He didn’t like that answer, didn’t like that smile, didn’t like that you were controlling the optics while he could only watch. He let out a quiet huff, shaking his head.

The press room smelled of stale parchment and ink, mixed with the faint tang of sweat and excitement from the day’s matches. You stepped in first, posture impeccable, smile poised, eyes bright but controlled. Cameras pivoted immediately, reporters scribbling as you approached the table.

It was almost pathetic that, since starting professionally with the team, the most challenging thing you had to deal with wasn’t the pace of the game, or rival players trying to cut you off—it was the bright flashes of the cameras and the struggle not to squint.

Your teammates were the first to face the questions: strategy, teamwork, opinions on the opponents, rest, recovery, training. You watched, calm, waiting. And then the reporters finally turned to you.

“(Y/N), congratulations on your season opener! Do you worry that, as the only woman on the team, you might… distract your teammates?”

For a moment, you could hardly believe what you were hearing. Sexist questions weren’t new—you’d been trained for them, coached on responses, given bullet points and possible scenarios. You had practiced keeping your smile even under provocation. But this was so blatantly ignorant it made you blink in surprise.

Then, with controlled composure, you forced out a laugh, “Haha, honestly, we see each other as siblings more than anything else. I’d rather chew a jean jacket than date any of them.”

A ripple of laughter went through the audience, easing the tension. You continued, voice calm, polished, “When we’re training together, we work as parts of a whole—organs of a single body. A family. I hope that answers your question.”

The reporter nodded, thanked you briefly, and moved on to your teammate.

You weren't asked to speak again for the rest of the night.

The press room felt different when Harry entered. He didn’t bother with practiced smiles or careful posture. Cameras swung toward him, flashes strobing, but he ignored them, shoulders slouched, expression flat and slightly irritated.

Questions came quickly, reporters eager to provoke a statement from the Quidditch hero.

“Harry, your thoughts on today’s match? Was it harder than you expected?”

He exhaled, “Fortunately, our training came in handy. The Wasps were formidable opponents.”

Another reporter leaned forward, “And what about the Magpies’ new female Seeker? She’s drawing a lot of attention—as a Seeker yourself, do you think she’ll be a serious competitor this season?”

“I consider all members of all teams serious competitors,” Harry said, jaw tight, “It would be extremely arrogant to assume otherwise just because she’s a woman. And honestly, that question was pathetic—you should be better at your job, considering you’re a man.”

A pause. Then a bold reporter pushed further, “It’s interesting you only speak up when we speak about her. We saw you at the Magpies’ welcome party. And today, you were watching them play. Are you… paying special attention to (Y/N)?”

Harry’s eyes narrowed. He leaned back in his chair, exhaling like the question tasted sour, “I went because I was invited. That’s it. I watch the game. Not her. She’s my opponent. I couldn’t care less about the rest.”

“But you were there… twice, and you seem awfully troubled about talking about her,” The reporter pressed, “Seems like a lot of attention for someone who ‘couldn’t care less.’”

“Right,” Harry said, voice dripping with sarcasm, “I just love coming in for my job and having to talk about someone I’ve never even met while you leeches try to squeeze a gossip story out of it.” He threw his hands up, exasperated, muttering under his breath, “Bloody ridiculous.”

Reporters scribbled furiously. Every word, every tone would be dissected and spun into a headline tomorrow. And yet, Harry didn’t care. Or at least, he didn’t pretend to.

He looked back toward you once, lips tightening. Not with admiration. Not with anything that could be publicly named. But with irritation, disbelief that you could navigate the media so effortlessly, that you could perform control and poise while he struggled to breathe through his own disdain.

A final question landed: “Do you respect her as a player?”

Harry scowled, voice low and sharp, “I’m not answering any more questions relating to this circus. If you have questions about my job, go ahead. If not… might I suggest a career with Witch Weekly or Entertainment Tonight, not Quidditch Times?”

The sun was still warm, softened by the slow tilt of afternoon, when you arrived at the hospital wing’s special courtyard. Banners in assorted Quidditch colors fluttered overhead, charmed to sway even without wind, while the low hum of excited chatter filled the air. Children and parents gathered in small clusters, laughter ringing out in bursts, anticipation crackling beneath it all.

You hadn’t been thrilled about taking a day off from your rigorously structured training schedule. Your body ran on routine, on repetition and discipline. Still, a small, quieter part of you had looked forward to this.

You loved kids.

What soured it—just a little—was the knowledge sitting heavy in the back of your mind: you weren’t here because you were the most available Magpie, or the most senior, or even the most decorated.

You were here because you were a woman.

As if two of your teammates weren’t fathers. As if compassion was something assigned by gender.

You smoothed your jacket, rolled your shoulders back, and stepped into the courtyard.

You weren’t surprised to find Harry Potter already there, crouched slightly to be on eye level with a small group of kids, laughing easily as one of them animatedly described a goal that was clearly exaggerated by at least thirty feet. It was common knowledge—almost a brand at this point—that he was good with children. Always gifting his Snitch from a winning match to some wide-eyed kid in the stands.

“(Y/N),” He said when he noticed you, straightening. His voice was low, polite. Neutral, “You’re here too.”

“I am,” You replied smoothly, forcing your tone into something equally civil, “It’s nice to officially meet you, Potter.”

You extended your hand, fingers relaxed, posture impeccable. You knew the cameras were on you—you could feel them the way you felt weather changes in your joints. This was choreography. This was professionalism.

Harry looked down at your hand.

Then back up at your face.

One eyebrow lifted, slow and unimpressed.

The moment stretched—thin, awkward, almost sharp.

And then—

“IT’S (Y/N) (L/N)!”

The shout was so sudden and so joyful that it cut clean through the tension.

You turned, instinctively, and whatever irritation you’d been carrying dissolved on impact.

A little girl sat in a wheelchair a few feet away, her face lit up like she’d just spotted the Snitch itself. She wore a black-and-green jersey, clearly homemade, your name stitched boldly across the back. Not your number.

Your birthday.

Your breath caught.

“Oh,” You said softly, already moving toward her, “Hi.”

Her parents hovered just behind her, smiling with the kind of fond exhaustion that came from loving fiercely and constantly. The girl bounced in her seat, hands gripping the wheels.

“I’m your biggest fan,” She announced, as if this were an established fact, “I watch all your matches. Even the replays.”

You crouched in front of her without thinking, the world narrowing down to the space between you, “Is that so? I love your outfit today.”

She lit up like a summers day.

“We had to get it custom made,” Her mum added, laughing a little, “They didn’t have any official ones yet.”

Your heart twisted.

“Well,” You said, eyes bright, voice warm, “that simply won’t do now, will it? I’ll send you a proper Magpies jersey. Official. With the right number.”

Her mouth dropped open, “Really?”

“Really,” You promised, “And maybe a spare. Just in case."

She laughed, high and delighted, and launched into an enthusiastic breakdown of your last match—where you’d cut left instead of right, how fast you’d dropped, how she knew you’d seen the Snitch before anyone else.

You listened. Truly listened.

“I want to be a Quidditch player too one day!” She exclaimed, beaming—then her smile faltered, just a little. Her fingers tightened on the arm of her wheelchair, “But… I don’t think I can.”

Her parents started to speak at the same time, instinctive reassurance ready on their tongues, but you were already speaking up before they had the chance.

“I think you can, love.”

She blinked up at you, surprised, “Really?”

“Of course,” You said without hesitation, “We’re all magic, aren’t we? Maybe they’ll invent a broom one day that makes it possible for you. Or a position. Or a whole new way to play.” You smiled at her, warm and certain, “And with someone like you—who loves the game this much—it’s hard not to believe you’ll have a stellar career in it.”

You glanced over your shoulder, searching.

“Isn’t that right, Potter?”

Harry hadn’t realized how intently he’d been watching you.

He stood a few paces away, arms crossed over his chest, expression unguarded in a way it almost never was. Thoughtful. Softened. Like he’d momentarily forgotten where he was—forgotten cameras, expectations, even himself.

At the sound of his name, he straightened abruptly, caught out.

“Yeah,” He said after a beat, clearing his throat. He stepped closer, crouching slightly so he was eye level with the girl, “She’s right. Quidditch changes all the time. It didn’t look like this when I was a kid. No reason it won’t change again.”

The girl’s eyes flicked between the two of you, shining, “So… I could really do it?”

Harry smiled, the first sincere smile you had ever seen on him, the sight of it sending a little jolt through your stomach, “I think the world would be stupid to count you out.”

Her grin returned full force, brighter than before, and she laughed, the sound carrying through the courtyard.

You met Harry’s gaze briefly.

He gave you the smallest smile he could muster and you chuckled, turning back to the rest of the kids.

As the afternoon wound down, the courtyard slowly began to empty. Children were guided back inside, parents offered heartfelt thanks, and the banners overhead dimmed as their enchantments softened with the fading light. The buzz of excitement settled into that gentle, satisfied tiredness that followed a good day.

You stood near the edge of the courtyard, speaking quietly with your assistant as she scribbled notes onto a charmed clipboard.

“Please make sure a few official jerseys get sent over,” You said, your tone firm but warm, “Different sizes. And some merch too—scarves, pins, whatever we can spare. For the hospital wing. Especially for that girl.”

Your assistant nodded immediately, “I’ll take care of it.”

“Thank you,” You added softly, “I don’t want it announced. Just… send it.”

“Got it.”

She hesitated, then glanced past you, her expression shifting to mild surprise. She tipped her chin subtly in that direction.

You turned with a polite smile already in place, expecting to see the girl’s mother again—who had been thanking you profusely all evening.

Instead, you found Harry Potter standing a few steps behind you.

“Potter.” You greeted, neutral and composed.

“Harry.” He corrected automatically. Then he paused, as if reconsidering, before holding out his hand.

This time there was no performance to it. No awareness of angles or cameras. Just a simple, offered gesture.

You looked at his hand for a moment before taking it.

“Listen,” He said, his grip firm but brief, “I wanted to apologize if I was acting like a dick earlier.”

Your brows lifted slightly, surprise flickering across your face—followed by something closer to amusement.

“Honestly?” You said, “I was actually going to thank you.”

His expression shifted, “For what?”

“For sticking up for me in the press room,” You replied evenly, “You didn’t have to do that. Setting the record straight.”

Harry shrugged, visibly uncomfortable with the praise, “I don’t really care for the whole… song and dance. Interviews, speculation. All of it. I’m more focused on the game.”

A corner of your mouth curved upward, “I agree. I think it should be about the game.”

For a moment, you stood there in shared silence—not awkward, not tense. Just two players, worn down in the same way, quietly aligned on something that actually mattered.

“Well,” Harry said eventually, shifting his weight, “Good luck this season.”

“Same to you,” You replied, “But don’t expect me to take it easy on you just because I’m indebted to you, Pot—Harry.”

He huffed out a laugh, “I wouldn’t expect you to.”

He turned to leave, then paused, glancing back once. Not lingering. Not searching.

Just acknowledging you.

And that, somehow, felt like the real beginning of something.

You should’ve known the bigger teams weren’t going to take the qualifiers too seriously. Point accumulation mattered—of course it did—but everyone knew notoriety carried weight. Legacy teams always landed softer brackets. Always got the benefit of the doubt.

That didn’t make the pitch any quieter.

The stands roared long before the whistle blew, restless and hungry as Montrose and Puddlemere United lined up opposite one another. Two historic teams. Two fanbases that adored their own and despised everyone else.

And standing across from you, adjusting his gloves with deliberate calm, was Harry Potter.

“Shake hands!”

You stepped forward without hesitation, clasping his open palm in a firm, efficient shake before pulling away just as quickly.

“Good luck.” He said.

The words barely registered.

Once you were in the zone, language stopped meaning anything. Your ears tuned only to wind and motion, to the faint metallic zip of something fast and golden somewhere above. You gave him a brief nod and swung onto your broom.

The whistle shrieked.

You launched.

The sky shattered into movement—players streaking past, Bludgers roaring like cannon fire, the Quaffle flashing between hands. Somewhere above it all, the Snitch glimmered, teasing and elusive.

Puddlemere played aggressively.

Too aggressively.

A Bludger clipped past your shoulder—too close—forcing you to veer sharply. Another followed almost immediately, angled to catch your side if you hadn’t twisted away in time. You clenched your jaw and adjusted your flight, refusing to look rattled.

They want a reaction, you told yourself. Don’t give them one.

But it didn’t stop.

Every time you gained altitude, a Bludger chased you off. Every time you dipped toward a flash of gold, one screamed past your ribs.

From the corner of your vision, you saw Harry notice.

His head snapped toward his Beaters, jaw tightening.

The third Bludger passed close enough to rattle your teeth.

Something in him broke.

“Oi!” Harry shouted mid-air, breaking formation, “What the hell are you doing?”

The match stuttered—just a fraction—but it was enough.

One of the Beaters scoffed, affronted, “I was preventing her from getting the Snitch—”

“—and screwing up my chances as well,” Harry snapped, “Knock it off.”

The referee’s whistle sliced through the air, sharp and furious. One of the coaches called a timeout.

The crowd erupted.

You landed hard, boots skidding slightly as you marched straight toward Harry.

“What the hell was that?” You demanded, “Do you have any idea what you just did?”

He frowned, “They were doing that on purpose.”

“Oh, and because I’m a woman, I need Saint Potter to speak up for me?” You shot back.

“They were hazing you,” He said, frustration bleeding through his voice, “Taking the mickey when they should’ve been focused on the Chasers. I wasn’t just going to—”

“I don’t need you to speak up for me, Potter,” You snapped, fury sharp and unfiltered, “I have my own team for that.”

You jabbed a finger into his chest, “Don’t interfere again.”

He stared at you, stunned—truly stunned.

You turned sharply, stalking past him, glare cutting straight through your own beaters, “Do your job.”

The whistle blew again.

You kicked off and flew—heart hammering, anger burning clean and bright—leaving Harry behind.

The women’s locker room was nearly empty by the time you finished changing.

Most of the team had already left—some to celebrate, some to cool off, some simply exhausted. The air was thick with the lingering scent of sweat and cleaning charms, the echoes of laughter long faded. Your kit sat folded in your bag as you toed off your boots, movements slow and deliberate.

Only when the door shut behind you did the adrenaline finally drain.

You stepped into the corridor, shoulders aching, mind still buzzing with the match—and nearly collided with a solid wall of a person.

Harry.

He stood just outside the locker room, arms crossed, weight shifted back on his heels like he’d been pacing. His head snapped up when he saw you.

“Oh,” You said flatly, “Here to walk the poor damsel in distress back to her hotel room, are you, Saint Potter?”

“Why are you being such a prat?” He shot back.

You laughed—sharp, humorless, “I’m being the prat? You’re the one who screwed everything up.”

“I was only trying to help,” He said, frustration rising, “They were targeting you. You could’ve been hurt.”

“Help who?” You asked.

He hesitated, “What?”

“You said you were trying to help,” You repeated, your voice dangerously calm, “So tell me—help who? Because it certainly wasn’t me.”

You stopped walking, “You know what you did out there? You made it look like I couldn’t handle my own match. We beat you today, but tomorrow the tabloids will say Puddlemere took it easy on us because Montrose has a girl instead of actually acknowledging how we played.”

“That’s not what I meant—”

“It doesn’t matter what you meant,” You cut in, “What matters is how it looks.”

“I thought I was doing the right thing.” He said, quieter now.

“I know,” You replied, “And that’s what makes it worse.”

You stepped back, the exhaustion finally settling into your bones.

“I don’t need you to protect me,” You said, “I need you to respect me.”

For a moment, it looked like he might argue—justify, push back, say something that would only dig the hole deeper.

Instead, he exhaled.

“…Right.”

You nodded once, “Good.”

And then you walked past him, leaving Harry Potter alone in the corridor.

The flowers arrived the next morning.

You almost missed them—set neatly on the rolling cart you’d ordered room service on. For a moment, you assumed they were part of the hotel décor until your eyes caught the small card propped carefully between the stems. Your name was written clearly across it.

A simple bouquet. Wildflowers, wrapped in plain brown parchment, tied with twine. Nothing flashy. Nothing designed for cameras.

You picked up the card, sliding it from its perch between the flowers. The handwriting was unmistakable.

I’m sorry for overstepping yesterday. Congratulations on the win. You deserve it. — Harry

You bit your lip, tracing the letters of his name with the tip of your finger. It was brief, quiet, unassuming—and entirely Harry. No flourish, no dramatics, no unnecessary charmwork. Just accountability. A small, private smile tugged at your lips as you glanced back at the flowers.

Carefully, you placed the card on the coffee table along with your breakfast, pushing aside today’s edition of the Daily Prophet.

“Did Puddlemere Take It Easy on (L/N)? Montrose Seeker’s Victory Under Scrutiny.”

You returned to the hospital a few days later without cameras. You’d been thinking about that sweet little girl ever since—wondering if she liked the presents, if the jerseys fit, if she’d watched the match highlights like she’d promised. Maybe you’d even invite her and her parents to a game, once things settled.

You weren’t entirely sure why she’d stayed on your mind so stubbornly.

Maybe it was because she wanted to be like you before you’d even properly made a name for yourself. Maybe because she looked at you like you were something extraordinary, and you felt an unexpected, aching need to live up to that version of yourself.

So you came back.

Just you, a paper bag of Honeydukes sweets tucked under your arm, and a quiet hope that you wouldn’t be intruding.

The courtyard was brighter than you remembered—sunlight spilling over warm stone, laughter echoing softly. You spotted her immediately.

She sat in her wheelchair, completely absorbed in a game with another child. A boy—about her age, maybe a little younger—hovered a few inches off the ground on a toy broom, kicking his feet lazily as he floated. His hair was a brilliant, unmistakable shade of blue.

You smiled before you even realized you were doing it.

“Hey,” You said gently as you approached, “Looks like I’m interrupting something very important.”

She looked up, eyes widening, “(Y/N)!”

You hurried to her side before she could try to move, crouching down to pull her into a careful hug. “It’s so nice to see you again, love,” You said softly, “Who’s your friend?”

“This is Teddy.”

The boy turned toward you, chin lifting immediately, eyes sharp with the absolute confidence only children possessed.

“It’s nice to meet you, Teddy.”

“(Y/N) is the Seeker for the Montrose Magpies.” She announced proudly.

“I’m better.” He added instantly.

“Are you?” You asked, playing along.

It was hard not to laugh at the sight of his puffed chest and ruddy cheeks, but you bit your lip instead and offered him a Chocolate Frog. His face lit up immediately as he tore it open, holding up the card—Viktor Krum.

“Yeah. My uncle says so,” He said, “I’m going to win the Quidditch World Cup. I already know how to do dives.”

“Do you now?” You asked. “What kind?”

“All of them.” He said confidently—when he had realized too late he couldn’t name a single one. Chocolate smeared across his mouth, he shrugged.

You spared a glance at the girl beside you and felt your chest tighten. She hadn’t noticed his hesitation at all—she was staring at him with complete awe.

You bit your lip.

You loved children.

The three of you talked for a while—about Quidditch teams, favorite plays, how fast a broom really had to go to count as impressive. Teddy was charming in that slightly arrogant, wildly earnest way, interrupting constantly, correcting you once (incorrectly), and declaring—more than once—that he would absolutely beat you one day.

“Of course you would,” You told him solemnly, “After all, your uncle said so.”

He beamed.

You were mid-story—something exaggerated about nearly crashing into a commentator’s box—when a familiar voice drifted across the courtyard.

“Teddy.”

You looked up.

Harry stood a few steps away, hands in his pockets. When his gaze landed on you, he froze—genuinely startled.

Teddy brightened immediately, “Uncle Harry! (Y/N), look—this is my uncle! He’s the second best Quidditch player!”

You couldn’t stop yourself from laughing this time. Harry looked absolutely mortified.

He crossed the grass toward you, gaze flicking briefly over the kids before settling back on you, “I didn’t know you were coming today.”

“I didn’t tell anyone,” You replied honestly, “This one’s unofficial.” Then, glancing at Teddy, you added lightly, “Your nephew’s very confident.”

Harry snorted, “Godson. And yes—that’s one word for it.”

You laughed—soft, genuine—and something in Harry’s expression shifted. Not tension. Not irritation.

Something warmer.

The kids quickly fell back into their own conversation, far more interested in arguing about broom speeds than involving either of you. You didn’t feel awkward this time. You didn’t feel watched.

You looked at Harry through your lashes. “I got the flowers,” You said quietly, “Thank you.”

A faint red crept up his cheeks—whether from the cold or not, you couldn’t say, “You deserved them.”

A little while later, Teddy was swept away by his other uncle—grumbling loudly about how unfair it was that he had to leave when you were clearly in the middle of an important Quidditch discussion. You laughed, waved him off, promised him a rematch someday.

Only then did you gather your things, slinging your bag over your shoulder as you headed toward the main exit.

And froze.

Through the tall glass doors, you could see them.

Cameras. Long lenses. A cluster of figures lingering far too deliberately near the hospital gates, pretending—badly—to be minding their own business.

Your stomach dropped.

What the hell?

Your first thought was fury. Your second was panic. Who had tipped them off? A healer? A parent? Someone who’d recognized you? It didn’t matter. If they caught you walking out—if they caught you walking out with Harry Potter—

No. Absolutely not.

You stepped back instinctively, heart hammering, your mind already scrambling for an exit strategy.

“Everything okay?”

You startled.

Harry stood just behind you, brow furrowed. You opened your mouth, closed it, then exhaled sharply.

“There are paparazzi outside,” You said under your breath, “If they see us leave, it’ll be a mess.”

His jaw tightened as he glanced toward the doors, instantly understanding.

You rubbed a hand over your face, frustration bleeding into your voice, “How likely do you think they’ll spin this into some sort of story? It’d be stupid of them to try and wrench a scandal out of this—we were visiting sick children.”

He studied you for a beat while you kept talking, words tumbling over each other. Then his expression shifted—decisive.

Before you could ask what he meant, he reached into his jacket and pulled out a familiar, silvery fabric.

Your breath caught.

Before you even realized what you were doing, you reached out, fingers brushing the cloth. It was softer than you expected, almost like velvet. “Wow,” You murmured, “I’ve never seen one in person.”

When you looked up, Harry was a hair’s breadth away.

You startled, nearly stepping back—until his hand closed gently around your wrist, stopping you. Not tight. Just enough to keep you close.

“We’ll go together,” He said quietly, “They won’t see us.”

“That’s—are you sure?”

“Yes.”

There was no hesitation in his voice.

He lifted the cloak and gestured you forward, “Come here.”

You stepped into his space, the distance between you disappearing far too quickly. The cloak settled over both of you, the world vanishing in a blink—your body swallowed by invisibility, the air suddenly warmer.

A suffocating heat crept up Harry’s neck. The last time he’d had someone under the cloak, he’d been twelve. Even then, he and Ron had constantly bumped into each other. It was foolish to assume two fully grown adults wouldn’t end up pressed together.

Your shoulder brushed his chest. His hand hovered at your back for a second—uncertain—before resting there. Light. Respectful. But you felt like his fingerprints were being seared into your skin.

“Okay?” He whispered.

You nodded, then remembered he couldn’t see it, “Okay.”

You moved together carefully, steps slow and synchronized. You could feel his breathing—steady, controlled—while yours felt far too loud. Every small movement was magnified: the brush of fabric, the faint heat of his body, the way his fingers flexed slightly against your spine when you stumbled over a loose stone.

“Stay close.” He murmured.

“Frankly,” You whispered back, “I don’t think I could get any closer.”

His quiet huff of laughter brushed your ear—and then he froze, realizing just how near your mouth was to his.

The air shifted.

You both went still, bodies aligned almost instinctively, every movement careful. The sounds around you faded, replaced by the soft rustle of the cloak and the thud of your own heartbeat.

You stepped when he did. Slow. Silent.

As you passed through the doors, voices drifted through the air.

“…swear I saw someone go in earlier—” “Potter’s been spotted around here lately—”

You sucked in a sharp breath you didn’t release until you were a full block away.

Only then did Harry stop.

“I think we’re clear.” He whispered.

For a moment, neither of you moved.

You were still under the cloak. Still close. Still wrapped in secrecy and shared adrenaline.

You looked up at him, barely visible in the dim light, and realized your hand was still gripping his sleeve. Hidden beneath the cloak, you couldn’t quite make out his expression—but you caught the way his gaze dropped, just briefly, to your mouth.

You knew yours did the same.

His hand was still at your back.

And neither of you pulled away.

The silence stretched—heavy, expectant—until it felt like it might snap. You became acutely aware of everything at once: the warmth of him, the way the cloak muffled the world, the fact that your faces were already so close that pulling away would take more effort than staying.

Harry swallowed.

“This is probably—” He began, voice low.

You didn’t let him finish.

You weren’t even sure who moved first. Maybe it was mutual. Maybe it was inevitable. All you knew was that the space between you disappeared in a quiet, decisive moment.

His lips met yours.

Your hand loosened on his sleeve, fingers sliding up instead, resting lightly against his chest. He inhaled sharply, and the sound alone sent a shiver through you. His hand at your back pressed in just a fraction more, grounding, steady.

There was something about knowing you were hidden from the rest of the world that made everything else fall away. The city noise dulled. Time blurred. You leaned into him, deepening the kiss, and the world felt impossibly far.

No fans. No cameras. No expectations.

Just the two of you.

Your arms slipped around his neck, and he responded instantly, hands settling at your waist, pulling you closer like it was instinct. You gasped softly when he pressed you back against the brick wall, not trapping—just there. Present. His other hand came up, cradling your jaw, thumb brushing your cheek like he couldn’t believe he was allowed to touch you.

“Harry.” You breathed against his mouth.

The sound he made was quiet and wrecked—half frustration, half relief—and the kiss turned deeper, more urgent. Your fingers slid into his hair without thinking, tangling, tugging just enough to make him hiss softly into your mouth.

And then—just as suddenly as it began—he stopped.

Not pulling away completely. Just enough to rest his forehead against yours, both of you breathing hard as reality crept back in around the edges.

“We—” He exhaled, clearly struggling, lips brushing your skin as he spoke, “Do you want to go back to my place? I think at this rate we’re going to suffocate under here.”

You laughed softly, breathless, heart still racing, “Yeah.”

Still, neither of you moved.

After a beat, he pressed one last kiss to your lips—slower now, softer, reverent—like a promise rather than a question.

“Then,” He murmured, hand squeezing yours beneath the cloak, “Let’s go.”

You woke slowly, drifting up from sleep on a lazy breath, only to realize what had pulled you from it.

Harry’s fingers.

They traced idle patterns up and down your bare waist, slow and absentminded, like he was half-awake himself—muscle memory more than intention. Wherever he touched, goosebumps followed, your skin prickling in protest against the cool morning air.

You sighed, a quiet, content sound, and shifted closer, attempting to burrow back into the mattress. If you could just disappear under the duvet—become part of the sheets—surely no one could make you leave.

“Love,” Harry murmured, voice rough with sleep but fond all the same, “Wake up. You’ve got practice this morning.”

You responded with a whine, the sound muffled as you pressed yourself against him, tucking your face into the warm curve of his neck. His skin was warm, familiar, smelling faintly of sleep and him, and it made the idea of leaving bed feel almost cruel.

“I don’t want to go,” You complained softly, “It’s freezing outside. It’s warm under the covers.”

He chuckled, the sound vibrating lightly against your cheek, and an arm came up to cradle your head, fingers threading through your hair.

“Well,” He said mildly, “It wouldn’t be so cold if you’d worn clothes last night like I suggested.”

You huffed, pushing yourself upright just enough to glare down at him—though with sleep still clinging to you, it came out more like a squint. You gathered the duvet tightly around your shoulders, affronted.

“Fine,” You declared, voice hoarse, “I’m wearing clothes around you from now on. Never again will you catch me without.”

His lips twitched. Then curved fully into a grin.

Harry raised an eyebrow, entirely unimpressed by the threat. “Now, now,” He said, amusement dancing in his voice as he tugged you back down into his arms, “Let’s not make decisions we’ll both regret.”

You sighed as you settled against his chest again, the steady rhythm of his heartbeat dangerously lulling. He pressed a kiss to the top of your head, unhurried, affectionate in that easy way that had become second nature over the past month.

For a moment, neither of you moved.

This—slow mornings, shared warmth, teasing complaints—had slipped so seamlessly into your lives that it felt strange to remember there had been a time before it.

You almost drifted off again.

Almost.

Your eyes fluttered shut. Your breathing evened out. Harry felt it immediately.

“Oh no you don’t,” He murmured, amused, giving you a gentle squeeze, “You fall back asleep and I’m getting blamed for it like last time.”

You groaned, dragging yourself upright again with visible effort, "Well I wouldn't be so tired if you hadn't worn me out so badly last night."

He laughed softly as you swung your legs over the side of the bed, shivering when the cool air hit your skin, "I didn't exactly hear you complaining."

You rolled your eyes, grabbing your jumper from the chair and tugging it on.

He watched you for a moment—hair messy, movements uncoordinated, very clearly not a morning person—and his expression softened in that way it always did when he thought you weren’t looking.

You glanced back at him—hair a mess, glasses crooked on the bedside table, looking far too comfortable in your shared space—and felt that familiar warmth bloom in your chest.

"I'll see you later." You said softly, reaching back to steal a quick kiss before standing.

And even as you shivered at the cold air and went in search of clothes, you knew you’d be counting the hours until you were back under the covers with him again.

A couple more weeks passed during the gap between the qualifiers and the tournament, and somewhere in between packed schedules and stolen moments, the two of you settled into something easy.

Mornings together when schedules allowed—sleepy murmurs, tangled limbs, Harry always insisting on making tea even when he was running late. Evenings spent sprawled on opposite ends of the sofa, feet inevitably finding each other, half-watching whatever was on while you talked about everything and nothing. Matches, practice drills, gossip from the league, the weird dream he’d had the night before. Comfortable silences that didn’t need filling.

Harry had taken to keeping one of your hair ties tucked beneath the cuff of his glove.

A good luck charm, he’d proclaimed solemnly, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

You’d teased him mercilessly for it—told him he was so deep in the honeymoon phase that he wanted something belonging to his biggest opponent physically on his person. He’d only shrugged, grinning, utterly unbothered.

“Seems to be working, doesn’t it?”

And slowly, almost without you noticing, whatever had once crackled between you—sharp, electric, all tension and stolen glances—began to soften. It didn’t fade. It deepened. Settled into something steady. Safe.

It felt… solid. Comfortable. Real.

So when you unlocked your flat one evening after a brutal day—training unforgiving, muscles aching, head pounding—the faint light spilling from the living room was what first caught your attention.

Had you left a lamp on?

You took another step inside.

No. This wasn’t overhead light.

This was softer. Warmer. Flickering.

You froze just inside the doorway.

The living room glowed with candlelight—dozens of them, scattered carefully across shelves, the table, even the windowsill. Curtains drawn. Fairy lights twined lazily along the edges like someone had taken their time with it all. The table was set. Properly set. Plates, cutlery, napkins folded with suspicious effort.

And there—standing awkwardly beside it all, hands hovering like he didn’t quite know where to put them—

Harry.

He looked up the moment you stepped in, bracing himself.

“Hi.” He said, sheepish and hopeful all at once.

You just stared, a giant smile spreading across your face as the exhaustion of the day evaporated instantly.