word count: 9.5k synopsis: you write for the advice column in the hawkins post, under the pen name gabby. you get a letter asking for advice about a first date and there’s no way it’s the same guy you’ve just landed a first date with, right? steve harrington doesn’t need help with his dates… right? [based on this post] [fem!reader + strangers to lovers but… steve’s a big sap for you already, ok?]

The first letter comes in on a Tuesday. 

It’s posted in an ordinary envelope, with only a messy scrawl on the front to dictate that it was for the advice column of Hawkins Post. Inside revealed the same loopy letters, on a single piece of paper, reading: 

Out of all the letters you’ve ever received at this job, most of which were lengthy admissions of troubles in suburbia, this one was by far the most interesting one you’d gotten all month. All year if you were being honest.

Writing advice under the pen name Gabby for your local paper likely wasn’t anyone’s first choice of job, not at least for those serious about writing as yourself was.

But between flipping burgers down at Benny’s and slinging shakes at Rita’s Diner, it seemed the lesser of all evils. And hey, it paid decently enough and you had a sweet little set-up in one of the drowsy corners of the office. 

It’s how you wind up here, scanning over the letter from one mysterious S.

You’re so right bestie

44. public kisses

Warnings: F!reader

The summer of 1986 was shaping up to be a good one. Hawkins was in the middle of a heatwave that had everyone flocking to the outdoors to enjoy the sunshine, and Steve was no exception. He had his favourite sunglasses perched in his hair, the cut-off denim shorts that you had helped him make when his favourite jeans got ripped on his legs, and the new Queen album playing quietly through the car stereo.

And a car full of sugar-rushed teenagers.

“-listen to something else now? This song sucks,” Mike was complaining.

Steve glared at him in the rear view mirror and opened his mouth to reply, but Max beat him to it.

“Shut the fuck up, Wheeler. You’ve got no taste.”

“Says the one who listens to Kate Bush on repeat.”

“Anyone slanders Kate Bush and they’re walking to the lake,” Steve warned without taking his eyes off of the road as he turned into your street.

A chorus of mocking “oooh”s came from the kids, and he barely resisted rolling his eyes. He still wasn’t quite sure how his life had turned out this way, spending his summer chauffeuring for a bunch of nerds, but the sight of you coming out of your front door was the perfect distraction.

tagging some moots under cut