the rest is confetti

You shuffle against his hips. He hisses, and he laughs. “Honey, enough. Two minutes, let me make sure Dariyay’s gonna be alright with Robin.” 

“It– it is hot–”

“I know, I can feel it. Feel you,” he says quietly.

“Please, just– upstairs with me, now, and– Robin and Dariyay go.”

“I gotta tell Robin first, she’s gonna be pissed that I’m not giving her a ride–”

“Dariyay can drive her.”

Steve tilts his head to the side. “Shit, yeah. She can take her. You’re a smart girl, you know?”

Your hips rock more insistently at the praise, even if he’s teasing. “Now, fast, kiss me and kiss more.” 

Steve holds you tight by the hips to ease you back. “We’ll get caught,” he says with a big laugh. “This heat, I actually have some questions–”

“What question?” you ask, allowing the space he desires while the heat in your stomach melts like lava, slow and blistering. 

“Well, you’re fucking boiling in your skin, babe, so I guess I’m wondering if it’s hurting?”

You press your hand to your tummy. “Small hurt. Lots want, lots sensitive?”

“Huh.” He’s so pink you’d think he was the one cooking in his skin.

You take his hand on your hip and begin dragging it over your tummy, but you don’t get far, interrupted by a quiet creak of the door.

“Sister?” Dariyay asks.

You both flinch. Dariyay is standing in the kitchen doorway with her empty plate, and she’s frowning, but it’s friendly for her. If she were mad, she’d be scowling. 

“Oh,” she says, hesitating when she notices your position atop him, “sorry.” Then, in Mer, “I thought I heard my name. Are you okay?” 

“I think it’s the heat,” you say. “It feels awful.”

She bites her lip. “Oh, okay. Do you– will you be okay, with him? You don’t have to choose a courting partner now if you’re not sure.”

Steve has a great talent for turning hot and heavy into gentle, steady. He shifts you downward and holds you close like you’re sick, not horny. It’s funny as it is assuring. 

“I love him. He’s not the awful part,” you say. 

Dariyay shoves her plates onto the nearest countertop. “Then it’ll be fun. Just be careful, okay?” 

“He wouldn’t hurt me,” you say. 

She offers a real smile. “That’s so gross. I will go, then, and play at being a human at the ray-dee-oh. Maybe I can get Eddie to come and be my entertainment.” 

“He can be your courting partner.”

“I think he is destined to be my best friend,” she says, which is not a rejection. She says it like it could be a joke, or equally like Eddie might end up her husband. You’re wondering how okay with that Eddie’d be as the rattle of a bike being shoved against the front of the house echoes from the foyer. 

“That’s Robin,” Steve says. 

You let your embarrassment overtake the heat for a little while, forehead to Steve’s chest, listening to Dariyay scamper down the hall. She and Robin have a stilted conversation that ends with both girls laughing, and Robin shouting, “Happy for you, dingus!” down the hall.

“What say?” you ask his chest. 

Steve tips your head back by the nape.

Your eyes go owlish. You’re unbelievably warm—Steve feels cold in contrast when he slips his arms under your thighs to lift you, but it’s not want or need you feel as he carries you upstairs, it’s adoring. He carries you without complaint, doesn’t huff about how heavy you are, nor the mess you leave in the kitchen. He may love to bitch but Steve’s never complained about looking after you, and doesn’t sound anything but eager as he elbows open the bedroom door, laying you out on the bottom of the bed. He’s laughing to himself. You’re inclined to feel it. 

“Kiss?” you ask. “Please. Please? Please.”

Steve takes too long to lean down, but when he does the kiss is slow, his tongue working into your mouth while his hand curls behind your neck, leaning his weight into you carefully. 

“Kiss,” you insist. 

“This is kissing.”

You don’t know the human word for what you want, but there’s a thrumming in your chest and you know where you need his hands, his entire body. You wriggle up the bed with his shirt screwed in your gasp, forcing him to climb and follow. The kiss you take then is searching, your nose pushing against his nose until he returns the kiss. 

He’s too gentle. 

“Kiss,” you murmur into his mouth. 

“Baby.”

“Please, kiss me.” 

Steve frames your face in his paw of a hand, his eyes dark, his lashes kissing in their corners as he squints. “You remember what ow means?” he asks, which is patronising. You pinch him. He laughs. “Yeah, ow. I hurt you, you tell me no. Is that okay? Can you do that for me?”

“Yes,” you say under your breath, so hot now that it’s uncomfortable. The only place even mildly cool is the apex of your thighs, your panties moving slick against the crease of your cunt as you search for traction. “Please. Kiss me.”

You take his hand where it’s resting at your hip and pull it to your tummy, wanting to force him lower and scared to at the same time. 

Steve looks between your bodies. His thumb draws a circle into your navel, flicking your shirt over your belly button to expose the heaving plane of skin there. It’s not low enough.

“Touch you?” he says, so quietly it’s almost a whisper. 

“Please.”

“Yeah?” He rests his hand over the bump of your cunt. “Here?”

You squirm. 

Steve laughs nicely, shaking his head, and fits another kiss against your mouth, his hand drifting up to tease the hot skin of your stomach, a frustrating diversion. 

You’re mildly annoyed and overly excited, your eyes squeezing closed as Steve kisses you so fiercely you can’t breathe. It takes long seconds, maybe a whole minute of kissing before you’re wondering how much air a human boy can go without, another minute to get him panting over your mouth. You make a noise into his kissing, a pleading, beggy sigh, your hips rolling up to find him hard above you. 

There’ve been many mornings where you’ve woken to find him already hard behind you without so much as a kiss, but more recently you’ve started teasing it out of him, just to hear the hitch in his breath when you touch him, all pained longing. 

You feel cruel, now. This is the pained longing. 

You scrabble for his hand and guide it down again. “Please,” you whisper, practically choked with wanting, “need you, I need touch.”

“Sorry,” he whispers back, resting the tip of his nose on your cheek, like he’s collecting himself, “‘m I making it worse? Is it still hurting?” 

“No, feels like… like it can hurt later, not now.”

“Like it could hurt, if you don’t– if we don’t fix it?” he asks. 

“Mm,” you hum. 

“Well, we can’t have that,” he says, the hint of his smile on your cheek as he pulls up. 

His eyes are blown, cheeks full of red and the beginnings of dampness in the hair by his ears. It’s getting warmer in here, but you don’t want to ask him to open the window or turn on the fan. You can't picture the absence of him. 

“You know what this is?” he asks.

“Mm?”

“This, baby,” he says, his hand turning, fingers laying over the softness of your cunt. “You know what this is, yeah?”

You know what you have, if that’s what he’s worried about, but you’re thinking he’s asking about sex, instead. “Dariyay tell me,” you say, “told me. The heat, and the– the fit?” 

“Yeah. How we go together? She explained it to you?”

“Yes. Know it.” You knew of sex before, but Dariyay had given you specifics, because she’d seen the way you looked at Steve. Coupling is not much more complicated than you’d imagined.

“And that’s what you want?” he asks, tilting your head to the side with the flat of his palm, before dragging his pinky finger along your cheek. 

“Yeah, that’s what I want,” you say, softly and quietly, happy to be touched however he wants to do it. 

“Yeah? We can go slow.” That pinky finger drags down your neck, where he lays his hand at the base of your throat so gently it’s a wonder you can feel his touch at all. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Do you hurt me?” you ask him. 

“No, never.” 

You want him to realise that this is you knowing everything you want, despite the heat, the tug inside you begging to be taken. You wanted all of him before your insides began to melt. “You don’t hurt me,” you say. 

He turns his head to the side, gathering your cheek again in his big hand to hold you. “You remember what love is?” he asks. 

“Inside of love. Me and you.”

“Yeah, me and you. So this is something I need your help with.”

You settle back into soft sheets. He’s so pretty. You aren’t sure what to do now beyond let him have you. “Not know how to help.”

“Just talk to me, baby. That’s all I need. Can you do that?” 

“Yeah, I can talk you.” 

He smiles at you strangely. Strange for Steve, so somber and measured. “I love your voice. Love your voice.” He kisses your cheek, your jaw, and your throat. “Here, your voice. It makes everything you say… It’s beautiful.” 

You like this game. Exactly how it went when he kissed you that first time, the trail of kisses and praises down your wrist to your shoulder. He kisses you now, at the base of your throat and your chest despite the clothes, over your heart, his hair already a brown mess from your eagerness. You stroke it out of his eyes. 

“Talk to me,” he says gently. 

“Love your voice.”

“Yeah?”

“Warm, and… smooth.” You rub his back, demonstrating in the same way he had when he introduced the word. “In mornings, voice is– is not smooth. Like most.” 

Steve’s hands are shaking. 

You catch them, one on your tummy, one by your heart, and you hold them tightly. Can practically feel both your pulses beating in the press of your palms. “You are okay?” you ask him. 

Steve breathes out suddenly. “No. I mean, yes. I mean–” He laughs. “I just want you and I’m scared I’m gonna– I’m scared you won’t know what you need, that I’m gonna hurt you, and I want you. Fuck, I want you.” 

You laugh. “I am not scared,” you say. 

“No?” he asks. 

“No. So you– you kiss me, now? Please. And me and you, not scared. Not scary.” You squeeze his hands. “Sorry I not know how say.” 

“You’re sorry? Don’t be sorry, are you kidding? You’re amazing. You’re so much– you’re more than I–” Steve giggles and tips down to rest his head on your chest. He squeezes your hands back, “I’m sorry I’m such a loser, I used to be so fucking cool and I knew how to do this, but you are really important to me, and I’m fucking so nervous.”

“Nervous word?”

“Like little scared.” 

“Me?” you ask, lifting your chin, shoving at him until he’ll look at you. “Scared me?”

“Scared of me,” he says. 

You laugh. “You are not scary, I say that. Listen me. You tell me talk, I talk, you do not listen.”

“Alright!” he says, laughing again, bringing your hand to his mouth to kiss. “I’m listening now. Nobody’s scared.”

“Little scared,” you say softly. 

“Yeah?” 

“Little.”

“Do you want me to talk you through it?” 

Your lips part of their own accord. “Talk through?” 

“Do you want me to tell you how we do it, before it happens? I don’t mind, baby.”

“Tell me,” you say. 

Steve rubs your stomach slowly. “Sex is easy. It should be easy.” His hand sinks lower. “It’s mostly touch, yeah? And your–” He swallows around nothing, squares his expression, and lets his voice drop and droop into honey. “I can make you feel good with my hands, or my mouth, or I can fuck you. It doesn’t have to be fast, or rough, we’ll start slow. It’s just me and you in here.”

That’s the togetherness. You nod surely. “I know.”

“You do?” He licks his lips. “I figure first I’d warm you up, you can figure out what feels good and I can learn how to do it to you.” Steve laughs like it bubbles up. “Shit, I’m so fucking hard, I think you’re killing me.”

“Hard?”

Steve takes your hand and presses it to his stomach. 

You laugh, but it’s all air, all breath as you feel down the solidness of his front. You’re not brave enough to touch him.

He shakes himself in front of you like he’s trying to dry off. “Alright, I’m gonna make a mess in my pants if I don’t take them off, so– so– I’m gonna take my shirt off.”

He begins pulling off his shirt and the damn breaks—you get your elbow in your shirt to yank it off, lift your hips and kick out of your skirt, searching behind yourself for the catch on your stupid bra until Steve’s taking you by the wrists. “I can do it.”

“Off?”

“Right now, let me get it.”

He lifts you up toward him, his forearms either side of you as his fingers slip under the line of your bra. It brings his face into reach again, any hesitation forgotten while you kiss his jaw, your lips parting, bottom teeth scratching upward as you bite him gently. 

“Fucking thing,” he mumbles, letting the catch of your bra fall open. 

“Fucking thing?”

“You. You’re such a fucking thing, you’re a nuisance, you…” Steve takes a very deep breath as he sits up and looks down at your naked chest, your bra having fallen into your lap. “You’re everything.”

Steve ducks down to kiss your chest, and you startle so hard you burst out laughing. The laughter doesn’t last, wobbling into weariness as he places half-moon kisses over your sternum, his hand just above it forcing you into the sheets. It wanders after that. 

You flinch from his touch, right over your heart, then lower, and lower. 

Steve doesn’t worry, but he does rest his face on your tummy and look up at you to ask, “Okay?” 

“Sensitive.”

“Yeah, really sensitive. Feel good?” 

“Do again?” 

Steve runs his fingertips over your nipple, brushes his thumb into it roughly, smiling as you shudder. He kisses under your breast again then downward, hands swiftly following. He kisses your belly and your hip, kisses the band on your panties and rubs his nose into the fabric. You seize up, worried he’ll feel the wetness there and laugh, wanting him to be faster, wanting him to strip it away from you. 

“Touch?” you ask. 

He kisses your stomach with the same tenacity he’d have kissed your mouth, hand skirting around all fluttery and warm. You want him to go lower, but he doesn’t. He kisses and kisses and scratches at you with his teeth. He even eases the panties down to kiss along the line, anywhere but where you need him. You’re aching. Your heart is starting to go again, that neediness you felt at the kitchen table returned triple fold right there at the apex of your thighs. 

“Gonna take these off, yeah? Give your cunt some attention,” he says quietly. 

Cunt. That’s the word Dariyay had said, seceretive-like under her breath. Steve says it without shame, like it’s nothing to be ashamed of, so you don’t think as you ask, “Please, kiss?” 

“Kiss you here?” he asks, hand on your thigh now, fingers slipping into the leg of your panties and hand coming up, forcing the fabric down. 

You can’t help giving another giddy laugh. “Kiss me all place.” 

Steve brings your underwear down to your knees and goes silent above you. 

You press your legs together automatically, unsure, but Steve braces his hand on the softness of your inner thigh and eases the mere millimetres apart. Your heart lurches, but you aren’t as shy as you’d imagined. Maybe it’s Steve’s clear, rabid adoration, maybe it’s because he’s seen it before in simpler moments, maybe it’s the rampant tugging in your tummy and your cunt. It feels like you’ve needed this for hours. 

“Jesus,” he murmurs, hitting at your thigh with the back of his hand, like a pat, worse when you shift your leg to the side to oblige him and feel the slickness that’s wetting you spreading over your thighs, “aw, Jesus, fuck. Fuck.”

“Fuck ow?” you murmur back. Or fuck now? 

“Fuck like beautiful,” he says, his thumb ghosting up the softness of your cunt. You jump, tickled, and his eyes flash to your face. When he sees your bitten lip, he brings his thumb flat to your cunt and feels at you all over again. “You’re so wet.” 

“Wet, I know,” you worry. 

“No, it’s good. It’s pretty.” 

“Kiss?” 

“Can I?” 

“Ask and ask and ask.”

Steve rolls your panties the rest of the way down your legs with some manoeuvring, kisses the inside of your knee, and suddenly pulls one leg over his shoulder, his face seeking into your cunt unabashedly. 

“Ah!” you say, startled by the hot, wide press of his tongue, not sure what you were expecting as you’d begged to be kissed, but surely not this. “Steve.” 

A nose pressed hard into the petal folds of you, his tongue against wetness, plushness, kisses up to the apex and then– 

“Fuck!” you say, your heel digging into his naked shoulder. “Oh, no!” 

“Oh no?” he asks, pulling away fast, wetness shining on his chin and cheek. “Hurt you?” 

“No stop,” you say, taking his face into your hand and yanking. Don’t stop, you mean, but the words aren’t clear right now. 

“Felt good?”

“Yes!”

“Don’t say oh no, you scared me.”

“What– hah–” You shiver, a burst of pleasure as he kitten licks your cunt, right against the sweet spot at the very top. “What say, honey boy?”

“You can say Steve?” He laughs, and you sigh, wondering if the pulse of wetness from you is visible to him where he’s ducked eye-level to your cunt. “Say anything. Say you like it.”

“I like it.”

“You like it?” he asks, brushing over your clit with his thumb. 

You dissolve into some squirmy version of yes and discover it can feel even better than it does. Steve lays down, the entire lower half of his face to your cunt and kissing, working up to your clit to suckle until you squeal. Then he pulls away and licks at the wetness he’s spread around with his face, around your thighs and everywhere except where you need him. It’s ten times more sense than whenever you’ve touched yourself. (Not often, and never as expertly as Steve touches now, never constant, occasionally curious after he’s kissed you and disappeared to the bathroom.) 

There is an exceptional Mer word for this sort of pleasure, and it slips from you in a whiny moan. He laughs into your cunt, kisses you again, the tip of his thumb at your opening now and feeling through wetness like he’s playing. It’s– it’s hotter than you’d thought. Fuck, your knee kicks in toward your chest as the pleasure gets burning and– and cresting, like it’ll hurt. You seize up and Steve pushes your leg into your tummy, murmurs, “Relax,” as the very tip of his thumb presses into you and his lips close around your clit and he sucks. He’s barely pushed into you when you’re crying out, startled, reaching for his hair to hold as the climax he’d been working you toward tenses your tummy and has your cunt pulsing over and over, weirdly tight. 

It goes on for ages, has you half-crying beneath him, “Steve, oh no, oh–”

“Baby–”

“–Steve, Steve.” You cover your eyes, then immediately peek at him through your fingers, panting for air as the pleasure eases but doesn’t wane, not too fast. 

He pulls away from you, his lips and chin and nose a shocking red, his thumb pulling out of your cunt with aching care. “Sorry,” he says, his eyebrows yanked together in fear, “did it hurt? I was just trying to–”

“In again,” you say, scratching at his scalp. You’re so in love with this stupid human you could shake him. “Is perfect. You are perfect.” 

His lips flatten into a smug smile. “You’re perfect. Prettiest cunt I’ve ever seen. I knew… I mean, I know what you look like, but this is different.” He kisses your thigh, your tummy, then sits up and over you to bend down and kiss you on the mouth gently. “How was that? Are you feeling better? Less hot?” 

“No.”

He kisses you again. “That was fast, so I guess it is about, you know, being ready for, you know...”

“I know?”

“Mating?” he asks reluctantly. 

“Oh. Yes. Ready now, can you kiss me?” 

“Can I kiss you? Or do you need another word? I’m starting to think you don’t mean kiss.”

You think about it for a second, chest still heaving under his hand. “Kiss me, angel,” you say. 

Steve leans in and kisses you, tasting of you, smiling. 

—

Steve is gonna cum in his pants like a fucking loser if he doesn’t get a hand on himself. 

He unbuttons his jeans as he kisses you and shoves his hand into his boxers, squeezing around the base of his cock in a desperate bid to stop the worst thing that could ever happen from happening.

There is no word in the English language to describe how it felt to have your cunt pulsing down on his thumb. It’s not as though he could’ve entered you too deep like that, felt like a safe bet, and it sank into your heat without a problem. It felt like heaven. Steve’s pretty sure he’ll cum the second his cock even touches your cunt, but that’s a problem for Steve in five minutes or so. 

That is, if you still want him to fuck you. He’s kinda shit scared he’s gonna hurt you. He hasn’t had sex with someone inexperienced in years and never with somebody so… oceanic. 

You wrap your arms around his back and sigh, your face slinking down into his neck, kiss broken. Steve’s wondering if the foreplay was enough for you, if this painful heat is over, but you giggle and mumble into his chest, his ears piqued like a bloodhound at the sound. 

“Together,” you say. “What word say before? Fuck like not ow… fuck me.” You’re voice is quiet and raw enough to force a bead of precum over his fingers. 

“Jesus Christ,” he says. 

“Please, Stevie?”

Oh my god. Steve whites out. You whine something in Mer and Steve grabs you under the arms to get your head on a pillow, you poor girl laid out in the middle of the bed this entire time. He not so expertly kicks off his jeans, and his boxers slip down his hips, his cock hard and aching as it bends up toward his stomach. Steve doesn’t wanna, like, shove it into your hand, but it might be nice for you to see it. He widens the gap between your bodies just enough to show you. 

“This is how I’m gonna fuck you, honey,” he says, “I’m gonna work you open with my hand, and then I’m gonna ease into you, okay? ‘Cos you’ve never done it before, it’ll be so slow, yeah? So careful. There’s nothing to worry about.”

“Take it now.”

“No, you can’t. You can’t, listen to me.”

You pout, but Steve laughs, kissing your sweaty forehead with a smack. 

“Fuck me now and now, and slow, ready now,” you promise. 

Steve grins at you with all the adoring he possesses, cannot express to you how much he wishes he could spread you open now and have you, but Steve’s not about to hurt you for the sake of five minutes. Maybe ten. Maybe fifteen. He entices you in for a pulling kiss, the distracting kind, head turning this way and that as he licks into your mouth and runs his hand over your hip, to your cunt, to all the slickness there. 

The first finger pushes in easy. He does it slow, waits for pain. You huff a little but kiss him the same, so Steve gives a careful pump and drives in with a second finger. 

That’s when you shudder. 

“How’s that?” he asks, pausing. 

“Fine.”

“Fine?” Steve slows the rock of his hand. “Hurting?”

“Good, just–”

“Just different, huh?” He twists his hand a little to press his thumb to your clit. “You tell me if it hurts you, honey girl,” —you melt like sugar at the name, as saccharine as it is— “I don’t wanna hurt you. You gotta talk to me, you know?”

“Not– not much talk, much, hah–” 

That little hah sound has gotta be his favourite noise you’ve ever made. Like a shiver through a smile, not half as sweet as your urgent moaning with a thigh clamped around his head, it reminds him of your stupid laugh whenever you’re pleased. Totally self-indulgent. 

He doesn’t try another finger for a while, isn’t sure how long, just kisses you and works into you until his wrist is aching from the upward thrust. Right toward the front, where he knows you’ll– 

“Oh.” You turn into Steve, weight on your hip and torso moving into his touch to take it quicker. “Ah, Steve, touch please, touch there.”

He circles his thumb against your clit.

You flinch. Cry out a little at the pleasure and press your face into his shoulder as Steve eases that third finger into your cunt. He’s in ecstasy, his cock throbbing erratically against his stomach, head weeping and red as you whimper into his skin, his name on your tongue, your cunt dripping slick between the cleft of your ass.

“Wanna cum again?” he asks. “Say? Can you take it again?” 

His thumb is dedicated now to your clit, rubbing in tight, wet circles as your thighs twitch, and twitch. You cum before Steve can hear your answer. It’s honestly faster than he meant. This heat in you is like a dial set to eleven. 

This time, you’re annoyed. Laughing and angry, you shove at his chest and Steve wishes he had a camera to get your smile for keeps. “Said was ready! Tummy jump, now, you did.”

Steve kisses your nose. “Will you shut up? You liked it, didn’t you? You’re such a complainer.”

“Not complain! Ecstatic! Want Steve ecstatic, together, fix my ow.”

“You said it doesn’t hurt.”

“Need you, Steve. Please.”

How many times can a girl say please before Steve cums in his hand? Apparently, he’s got one more please left before he shoots. He has to squeeze himself especially hard to make that happen. Doesn’t have a chance in fucking hell to last, but (and he feels like a bitch even thinking it), it’s not like you’ll know he’s cumming fast. You haven’t exactly held out, here. 

“Can you stay still?” he asks. 

“No.” 

“Okay, awesome,” he says, pinching your chin in his hand, forcing your eyes to his. “You don’t let me hurt you.”

“I love you,” you say. 

Steve feels his eyes get hot and his nose burn right at the back. “Yeah?” 

“Most,” you confide, wrapping yourself around him. 

Steve gets his arm behind your neck, pulling you in for a kiss. It’s unbelievable, he thinks, that the crook of his elbow fits your head perfectly. That the girl he’s been searching for was waiting at the bottom of the ocean. With his free hand, he reaches down to squeeze his aching cock again, and you must know enough to lift your leg over his hip and close the gap. 

“Ready?” he asks softly. 

“Yeah, ready.”

Steve strokes your cheek. “I love you,” he says, “a lot.”

Your smile is especially bemused. “I know, tell me much and lots, tell me all time, do lots tell, always inside of love with me.” 

“It’s true all the time,” he says with a pout. 

“Steve!” 

“I know, I know, I’m just making sure I tell you back.”

You nuzzle your nose into the side of his. “Tell again,” you say quietly. 

“I love you,” he says, taking a wonky kiss from the corner of your lips. 

Steve lines up and presses in. 

You’re wet enough and relaxed enough that he could sink to the hilt, but he knows he can’t, and he won’t. He lets your chests touch but keeps your hips apart and rocks into you slowly, lets the pleasure in his stomach lick up his spine and take over every bit of sense he has left. He’s surprised it took this long to tell you he loved you plainly. It comes to the surface and lingers now, love you love you love you as you choke on a moan and hide under his jaw. Steve can’t let you stay there too long, drawing you up with murmured pleading, come back, let me see you, miss your face too much when you’re hiding, like an angel, real pretty sweetheart, tries to gauge your feelings as you take it. As he gives it, really. He feels like you’re not taking anything so much as you’re just there with him, his girl. It’s sex, messy and simple, but it’s your first time, and this is more new to you than it would be to most. All Steve wants is to make it gentle. You take it sweetly, breathing out right in his ear, your voice colouring each breath with an addictive pull. It makes it hard to last. Makes going slow the only way he’s gonna get through this. 

“Okay?” he asks, when you’ve been quiet far too long, and he’s slowed to a pause inside you. 

“Love,” you say, aiming for a big kiss. 

Steve matches the kiss for every thrust and feels his thigh muscles go tight as violin strings as he sinks straight past any resistance to the hilt. He should not have done that, did not mean to, you’d rocked your hips down and he’s already pulling out, murmuring, “Sorry, angel, I’m sorry–” as you whisper a fervent, “Again, please.” 

He checks your face. 

“Again,” you say, eyebrows drawing together in pleasure. 

So Steve sinks in and he fucks you slow, like a drag, a rut into heat and wet and plushness that makes him groan. Hits into resistance and feels how much you like it. Steve groans. 

“Sound good,” you whisper. 

“Can’t help it.”

“Beautiful.” You draw a hand over his abdomen. “What word?”

“Handsome?” he teases. 

You reach down to his quads and pull at him, prompting another heavy thrust. Another. Steve takes a couple of kisses while he’s still breathing, but then he’s so close to heaven he has to stop. 

“Okay?” 

“Gonna cum,” he squeezes out. 

“Cum,” you say, like you know what it means, and it doesn’t matter. Steve was too chicken shit to explain it, but he did ask you first, didn’t he? You pick up everything quickly. 

“Can’t yet. Can’t. Didn’t fuck you like you wanted.”

“This what I wanted,” you say, abandoning his hip to take his face into your hand. You’re clammy and cool, now, not burning like you were. Your thumb rubs into his cheek slowly, like he’s made of glass. Like one of those Venus flower sponges from the ocean, thin and delicate as drops of ice. “Me and you. This is all what I wanted, okay? You fixed me.”

You smile at him with stars in your eyes as your hips shift and Steve has to pull out, cumming in his hand a second later, panting like his life depends on it as strings of cum line his fingers. 

You stare in surprise. “Oh. Not happen to me.” 

“It’s a boy thing,” he rasps out, dropping his forehead against your shoulder. 

You reach between your legs to touch yourself, laughing as you do, like you’re drunk or high or something, giggly-soft as Steve tries to catch his breath. 

You give up on whatever light exploring you’d desired and offer your arms for a real cuddle, hips flat together and sticky. “Hold me?” you ask. 

Steve wipes his hand in the sheets with a sigh and gathers you into his arms. “Yeah.”

—

Did you know when a boy who loves you fucks you, it kind of feels like you’re the most beautiful girl who ever existed? 

Steve fucked you and held you and kissed your cheeks and cuddled you to him and he never stopped asking how it felt, and if you were okay, and his hand had drifted down to your chest to touch you, to make you feel good, and all of it felt like a honeypot coil in your tummy getting tighter. ‘Mating’ or getting ‘fucked’ by someone who’s in love with you is better than all your best firsts. It’s like finding a new way to swim, like feeling the sun on your skin through the depths with a hand in your hair, raking it back. It’s like being kissed all over, all the time. 

If merpeople developed the ability to change just to do this with one another, you totally get it. 

Steve hugs you for a good ten minutes while you doze, tired, sated after a big meal, and then he gets up on his knees and puts his nose to your forehead without kissing you. “I’m gonna get you some water, and check that I set the alarm on the door. Do you want something to eat?”

“Do not go.”

“I’ll be fast.”

“Stay. Hold me more.”

So Steve lays down and holds you until you fall asleep. 

You wake up again an indeterminable amount of time later to many different things. There’s a glass of water on the nightstand opposite you, a bowl of rice with cut slices of bright, fresh fish beside it. Steve is rolling deodorant onto his armpits in a pair of boxers sitting by your legs. You need to pee, a pain like a knife between your legs. 

“Hurt,” you say softly. 

Steve turns to you, his mouth puckered in worry. “Yeah, what hurts?”

“Pee.”

“Oh. That’s normal. Want me to carry you?”

“No,” you say with a laugh. “Not broken.” 

“I can see that.”

You realise that he’s wiped you clean as you stand, which is oh so nice, and not at all a surprise from your kind boy, earning him a kiss behind his ear as you rush to the en-suite bathroom. You close the door but don’t lock it and do your business quick. 

You’re delighted to find the extremely sensitive feeling and all your slickness is over. You wash your hands and face before opening the door some to peer at Steve through the gap. “Stevie?” you ask softly. 

“What’s up, beautiful?”

You aren’t sure. 

He scratches a hand through damp hair. “Come here,” he prompts when you fail to return, “come on, you can sit in my lap and eat something. You didn’t eat anything at breakfast.”

“You not eat anything. I had pancake.”

“You had a bite of pancake, that’s not enough.”

You head back to him and sit in his lap as he’s asked you, not worried about falling considering the speed with which he pulls you close. “Best bite of pancake ever. Ever. You feed me, best pancake.”

“Theyre not as good as the pancakes you made,” he says. 

You shake your head, tracing along his beauty marks with a pearlescent fingernail. Thinking very hard about each word before it comes out, taking time to sew the sentence tightly, you say, “When you feed me pancakes from plate, your plate, it is important. Understand? Word, I think, like love. Mermaid feed you, mean…” 

“Like a kiss?” he asks. “You kiss sometimes to share food, right?”

“Sort of like kiss, like, swear you care for me.” 

“Hey, speaking of kisses, I got to thinking while you were sleeping. How come your spit doesn’t magically glue my mouth closed whenever we kiss? Isn’t it like, super strong?” 

“What?” you ask. 

“Your spit! You fixed your tummy with it, and my foot, but when we kiss we don’t get stuck together.”

“Only fix when hurt, duh.” You roll your eyes. “Whatever. Silly boy, not want talk to you.”

“Rude.”

You can’t fake a huff. You’re currently too heavily imbued with happy hormones to do anything besides sit here and wish he’d tell you he loved you again. 

He taps at your nose with the tip of his until you lift your lips, kissing you briefly, then slotting his head over your shoulder, his hand spread and waving against your back. “So this sharing from the same plate thing, that’s important to you?” 

You smile. Glad he can’t see it. He’d know you’re totally gone for him if he could. “Important for mermaid, inside of love, yeah? Many important.”

“Is that what made you… you know, excited?”

“Heat not s’posed happen but is wait happen, also? Make me, when share.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Not be sorry. Not ever, please.”

“I’m not sorry about this,” he says, patting your shoulder, “just sorry I made you uncomfortable doing something I should’ve done before. We never shared before?”

“Has to be with want. Not like, uh, share foals and flounder.”

“You’re confusing me.”

“Has to be… go of love?” 

“I have to do it because I love you?”

“Yes. Have to do because you love me, care me, give me.”

“Well, I’ve cared about you for a really long time, and I’ve been feeding you since we met, baby.”

You shake your head, picking gently at a mole behind his shoulder blade. Not to hurt him, only to feel it. “Plate. Feed me your plate.”

Steve leans into you with a loving sigh, smelling your neck. “I think I understand. It’s symbolic, like a tradition.” 

“Tradition?” 

“A tradition is something you do that has rules. You do it because it’s important, and because people have done it before you? Or, like, humans get married. You remember that from Watership Down? They say promises and exchange rings because it’s important to them. I understand it now.” His voice warms your skin. “You could’ve told me. I would’ve shared with you off of the same fork months ago.” 

“Months!” You’re scandalised. You and Steve have not known each other for more than four months, you’d say. 

Four months, and he is already so special to you. Just four months. 

You figure you’ll explain the intention of the courting process some other time and encourage his head back instead, meeting his brown eyes, their almond shape gone soft from his long eyelashes. There are too many places on his face you’ve failed to kiss. You know you’ve never kissed above his eyebrows before, leaning up to rectify the issue quickly. “All Steve need kiss,” you say decidedly. 

He offers his hand. 

You kiss every finger, knuckle to tip, then his palm. 

He holds your face in it when you’re done, giving your chin a little wobble. 

“How are you feeling?” he asks. 

“Okay.”

“And you slept okay? Not tired?”

“Slept nice. Want you sleep and me next time.”

“Sleep with you, next time.”

“I know,” you say quietly. “Can tell something?”

“You can tell me anything. Not kidding.” 

You hold your hands together against his tummy. “Feel… sad, now and before and before, when I can not… give word, right word. Feel like me and Steve, very important, and can not give words important.” 

Steve draws along your face with a single fingertip. “Not give words important,” he repeats. 

“All wrong word. I am sorry.”

“You don’t ever have to be sorry. Not for anything, and not for how you tell me what you need.” 

“You have…” Steve deserves to hear how loved he is in perfect sentences, but you’re just not there. You understand almost every single word he offers up now, but it is so hard to recollect what joiner word to say and what order to say them in when you aren’t hearing them. “I learn more word, swear.”

“Are you kidding?” he says, shifting your legs over his lap to hold the small of your back. “I don’t know a single word in Mer that isn’t your name and you’re apologising to me? Do you hear that? You learned how to speak a new language so you could talk to me. You stay with me, you want to be here, and you think you need to be sorry about how you talk?” He tilts his head to better meet your gaze, ducking a touch, forcing your full attention. “You told me you loved me, earlier. You think that’s not good enough? That’s fucking everything. I don’t need you to say the right words, I only want you to tell me how you feel. As long as I know what you need, and you can complain, we’re fine. We don’t need anything else.”

Really? you want to say. Irony is you can’t think of the word. “You are okay?”

“Yes, beautiful, I promise you. I promise. Yes and yes and yes, you’re perfect.”

“Perfect most beautiful.”

“Most,” he says, raising his eyebrows at you. 

It gets tiring, always learning. Some days Dariyay or Dustin try to teach you knew words and you cannot be bothered to ingest them, but it was worth it, in the end, to let Steve teach you. There are times like now where you’re trying hard to make sense and forgetting words you knew, and messing up the simple stuff in an attempt to use the more complicated. 

You wonder why it bothers you. Steve knows every part of you, now. This is it. He has everything, and he wants you just the same. 

“Need you,” you mumble, pressing your lips to his muscled shoulder. He is made up of such amazing shapes.

“Have me,” he says, rubbing a path down your spine, up again, slow as honey. “I promise, you’re everything I need like this.”

You glance at him sideways. He’s nosing down your arm, his eyes fluttered closed as though he’s forgotten where he is. 

“You want share rice me?” you ask.

He smiles into your arm. “Yes. It’s important, right? From now on, me and you, we eat from the same plate. Good?”

He could lay you out right now and have you, that’s how good it is. 

You wonder if he’d like that. 

—

It’s a few hours later when Steve gets you into the bath. 

All fucking remained gentle, yet you look like you’ve been through the ringer by the time you’re done. Steve wanted to see if he could get you to cum six times, and he achieved his arbitrary goal all too quickly. 

You, while pleased, have the air of a woman who needs electrolytes. Steve gives you a glass of apple juice and you sip it in the tub, submerged to the waist in bubbles and blinking beautifully slow blinks.

Whatever it was that was making you want to be fucked so badly has certainly dissipated. You’d gone sore and achy in the middle of a second tryst so Steve had pulled out, kissing at the hurt he caused until you cried, real, big-drop tears that fourth time, and then the fifth. Steve sniffled his way through that fifth one with you, murmuring love into your skin, enchanted by the sight of you with your hands running over yourself. 

The sixth was mostly accidental. Lazy, lazy kisses turned to a hickey which you’ve apparently never had, turned to you hot against his leg, your hips rolling. He didn’t have to touch you much to draw out a last climax, but the sound you made was borderline pained, so he didn’t try again. 

“Are you okay?” he asks, kneeling beside the bath with his hand braces at your hairline, stroking. 

“Yes.”

“Can you use a couple more words?”

“Feel full.”

Steve laughs, stroking down your cheek with the back of his hand. “Sated?” 

“What mean?”

“Means you feel satisfied, like, everything is fixed. Like full, but without the feeling of, like…” Steve pets your cheek, then lets his hand fall further down. “Pressure.” 

“Pressure?” 

Steve squeezes your shoulder. “Like this?”

“Squeeze me.”

“Yeah, I’m applying pressure.”

“Oh.”

You take another mouthful of apple juice, but your question is loaded up before you’re done, and he can hear you swallowing as you ask, “Are you okay, angel? Did I hurt you?”

“Did you hurt me? Never, why would you think that?”

“You ask me lots times. Think if sex maybe hurt,” you say. 

“It doesn’t usually hurt. Only sometimes, and most of the time by accident.”

“Oh.”

“Want me to wash your hair now?” he asks. 

“Yes, please. Thank you. Best boyfriend.”

You’re not kidding, is the worst part. You close your eyes and offer your glass to him blindly with a content smile on your face, waiting for him to pour water over you and wet your hair. 

He’s pretty sure you’re the first girlfriend he’s ever had to think this highly of him. He wants to earn it.

Steve taps your chin and kisses the slight bruise of a hickey, gentle, lest he hurt you twice. “You are really perfect,” he says. 

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” 

He washes your hair carefully but quickly, wanting to get you out of the bath fast. He showered after your first fuck but needs to wash off again now, so he wraps you in a towel once you’re done and tells you to climb into bed, that he’ll sort everything out for you when he’s done. 

He showers and dries off, returning to the bedroom with a towel around his waist and a smile. You’re cross-legged on the bed with one of your encyclopedias in the dip of your legs, the towel falling down your chest some, your written list of phonetics poking out behind the cover, but you aren’t studying. You’re tracing pictures with your finger, eyebrows lightly pinched. 

“Wet hair,” you say. 

“Yeah,” he says.

“Fix.”

“‘Bout to.”

“About,” you correct. 

Steve chuckles to himself. “Yeah.” 

“About means… same, means close, means like new word.”

“Kind of. It’s a hard word to explain.” 

“About to go to bed,” you say. “Have in Mer, kind of.”

“You do?”

“Not so different.”

Steve dries your hair and does his best to fix it. Dariyay fixed it for you this morning and he wouldn’t have gotten it wet, only the sex seemed to have knocked it out of place and frizzed it to high heaven. He gives it his best shot and you trace shapes into his stomach where it stays near your hand. Steve won’t ask to fuck again, but your touch and the fresh memory of what it felt like to do that to you has his cock stirring. He wills it down. Wonders if he’s a sex pest now, or if you’re just that beautiful. 

It’s funny. You’ve been pretty this whole time, but Steve can’t believe how much worse it’s gotten over time. He didn’t think you could get any prettier. 

“Ecstatic,” you murmur. 

He tips your head back. “You are in love with me.”

“Yes?”

“No, like. You’re a loser. You’re gone for me.”

“What is loser, gone, shush. Say mean thing, think I not know, I know.” You scowl at him. “You are loser.”

He wrinkle his nose. “Am not.”

“Yes. Much loser.”

“Wanna get dressed? I have the softest pajamas ever with your name written all over them.”

“Name all over?”

“It’s a saying. Like… if I say I’m jumping for joy, I’m not really jumping, but I could be.”

“Joy happy?”

“Yeah.”

“We jump for joy, mermaid. Swim up to surface, jump, swim down. Fun.”

“It sounds awesome.”

“My name written all over, not real, but mine, mine a lot, so. Saying.”

“Yeah, exactly.”

“More saying human? Mer not have much saying. Mer more–” You pause. “Yes and yes.”

Steve takes the time to sort it through. “You guys say what you mean. Humans are funny. We have lots of sayings. We have one that goes, ‘he drinks like a fish’, which means he likes a lot of beer.”

“Fish not drink beer?” you say, laughing. 

“No, they don’t. It’s stupid, it’s because people think fish drink a ton of water. Hey, should we go swimming later?” he asks, digging through the top dresser drawer until he finds the sweet blue pajamas he has hiding away. They’re for your hard days, of which you don’t have many, but the softness never fails to draw your awe. He thinks they’ll be nice for the occasion, extra comfort after a big first experience. “It’s been a while.”

“Not swim. Dariyay tell, after heat, water and me make tail.”

Steve snorts at the joke, even as he falters. “You’ll get your tail back, huh?”

“Have… what call? Foal.”

“Baby. You’d have a baby.”

“Right. Oh, forgot. Two means.”

His stomach jolts uncomfortably at the idea of you changing back. “Yeah, it’s one of those words… Shit, you’ll really get your tail again? I don’t want you to leave, yet. Dariyay said you have to go home soon, didn’t she? But there’s so much you haven’t done, I wanted to take you on a real date, and on a rollercoaster, and to the movies, take you rollerblading. There’s so much stuff. I don’t want you trapped in my pool again, but maybe I can go with you?” He can’t think of a way to stay with you. “Don’t go yet. Please.” 

You give him your own rare brand of puppy dog eyes. “Not want go, Steve. Tell you. You and me tomorrow and tomorrow, and love you, and– not want. Miss tail, but miss you more,” you say, shrugging. “Get dressed now? I am cold.”

Steve gives you your pajamas and diverts the conversation from changing. He has the feeling that he is being very, very selfish, but he cannot bring himself to let you go. 

The second he sits down, you get on your knees and shuffle around, pausing, shy for potentially the first time in your whole life. “Can I hold you?” you ask.

Steve lays down and you follow, interlocking on your sides like commas. You wrap your arms around him very specifically; the bottommost one looped around his matching arm, and the upper over his neck, your hand on his cheek, holding him like you’d asked. 

“Best thing,” you say, turning your hand to stroke his cheek. It is such a light touch that, for a second, he wants to squirm away. He relaxes the longer you do it, coaxed into total stillness, his eyes growing heavier and heavier. “My boy.” 

Your fingers tumble down to the thin line of a scar that spans across his neck. 

“Hurting?” you murmur. 

He closes his eyes. Lets himself melt into your chest. “Nah. Not for a long time.” 

⋆𓇼⋆.ೃ࿔:⋆

☆Freaky Saturday | Steve Harrington <3 by @hexyissy [x henderson!reader] [basketball! captain Steve x cheerleading captain!reader]

☆Box of Memories by @embeanwrites [x henderson!reader]

☆sworn by @dearest-nell [knight!steve x princess!reader]

☆She said what? by @bemygelatinmode [dad!steve x mom!reader]

☆Who's he? by ^^^ [dad!steve x mom!reader]

☆Happy Birthday? by ^^^

☆detour by @voidreynolds [x byers! reader]

☆Father's Day by @kandyscorner

☆FAMILY LINE by @moonstoneandmoonlight [x byers!reader]

☆walking on sunshine by @levanswrites [x mom!reader]

☆a sign to let go by @firelilyfox [x henderson!reader]

☆it's no use, wheeler by @hearts4steve [x wheeler!reader]

☆steve when you get your wisdom teeth out by @milliesfishes

☆hold me until i find the nerve by @luv-alwyz [childhood friends au]

☆Leave on the light for me by @erule [x henderson!reader]

☆Former Ladies' Man by @prettybutaching [x bauman!reader]

☆MY PERSON by @beeewee

☆comfort after a long day by @yeah-iveheardofbears

“Did you ever think you would wind up in a place like this?”

It was an innocent enough question, one that roused Steve from his drifting to sharpen once again. He shouldn’t have drifted at all, mind you. His job was to remain watchful, to never lose focus, even if the waters of the river glimmered like little tumbling jewels, the heat blanketing his cheeks in a gentle kiss from a kind sun, half sheathed by pillowed clouds. Late spring, a sea of flowers in a clearing of brush, the quiet of a morning outside the castle walls. A daydream made true.

He clutched his sword in its sheath, straightening, his eyes settling on you. This was not his time to waste. It did not matter how many other guards were a few shouts away. He should have been paying attention. “How do you mean, my lady?” 

Even in his haze, he’d never lost sight of you. Perched on the river bank, skirts slipped scandalously high to bunch across silken thighs, your legs drifting carelessly through the water of this forgotten corner of the world. Your brother, the King, would only agree to send you out with his noble band of knights, who lingered not so far away, patrolling borders of the grove with expert care. A princess out of the castle was of high importance. His beloved sister, the Kingdoms sweet Lady. But Steve was your sworn knight. He was the shield at your back, and the only one who may linger wherever you might tread. 

Your head tipped back slowly, lashes blinking up in a sleepy sort of manner towards him, a smile playing on your lips. A smile reserved just for him, he wondered, as it was too familiar, too tender for anyone else so strange. You had an air of laxness around Steve. A trust, he felt, to be vulnerable. Something so sacred to him. Something he never took for granted.

Softened curls slipped from your shoulder, his eyes helplessly trailing the curve before righting themselves back again at your face. 

“When you fought the battle at Khyborne.” You clarify, lying back against the grass, strands of hair and grass weaving between one another in the breeze. Steve took a step closer, even patient. “When you won your Knighthood. What had you been thinking?” 

You would be the only one to ever ask him something like that — what he thought, how he felt — no one else could have ever given a damn. What were the thoughts of a farmer’s son to anyone? What was his worth? A boy who could not read until you had begun to teach him not so long ago. A man who could not point to your neighbouring kingdoms on a map. And yet every day, you asked. Question after question, little things here and there, a million musings over and over until he swore you might know his mind better than he himself did. 

There was no satisfaction for you no matter how many answers he gave. You always wanted to know more. His life had been so unremarkable, he’d thought. But not to you. Never to you.

He smiled. “My lady, I’m not sure I was thinking anything, otherwise I’d’ve had the good sense to run the other way.” 

You scoffed, stretching, feline, a cat in the sun – all lithe limbs and draped in finery, ethereal, if he’d known the word. Sensual, a word he tried very hard not to acknowledge. He swallowed thickly.

“You’re brave.” You stated. “You were a knight even when you weren’t one, otherwise you would have run.” 

Steve smiled, amused. “If you say so.” 

You grinned back, toothy and joyous. “Mhm. And I’m always right, aren’t I.” 

You weren’t. You very much weren’t. But Steve liked how much you believed so. He could not count the times you had forced yourself into great deals of trouble by some silly plan or poor words or strange adventure, nor the times he’d managed to only just coax you out of them, often at the risk of his own hide.

If he were honest, he’d admit how fond he was of such a task. 

He chuckled, taking another step closer. “If you say so.” 

You seemed to ignore his teasing completely. “But did you not think much of it? Really? It was lost if not for you.” 

He watched you sit, resting upon the heels of your palms, turning ever so slightly to speak in that earnest way of yours, recounting his own story as if it were magic. Like he were some fable, some hero or warlock or king who the poets would write about when he was nothing but ash and bone, returned to the soil and the spirits.

“Khyborne would have fallen. All those people… I think you forget sometimes. You forget how many you saved.” The way you looked at him, he felt like something grand. Like someone worth telling stories about. Like someone worth looking at. He could believe it all if the stories came from you. But when he remembered that day, when he woke from trembling nightmares choking on smoke and blood and the sounds of screams, he felt anything but. He remembered the coldness of his fear, the sickness that came with knowing something horrible was about to happen.

He settled to kneel before you, dipping to catch your gaze. It was hard to long so much for your attention, and yet to suffocate under it all the same. He felt pinned, raw and exposed in your admiration. Desperate for your praise and vulnerable to your mercy. “Princess… what is it you wish to know?” 

You blinked, a sudden bashfulness clouding your expression, as if you had been carried away by your thoughts. “Did you ever think it would bring you to the palace guard?” 

Everything within him softened at your tone, an involuntary response, smoothed like a stone under water. You shaped him so easily. “Not in my wildest dreams.”

Your legs lifted from the water, curling up upon the grassy bank beside you, and Steve was steadfast in keeping his expression fixated on your own, no matter how the delicate bend of you enticed even the most innocent, wanting of glances. What he wouldn’t give for a moment, a breath, a chance. A single second for you to be his. To let his heart bleed dry in your palms, to feel your secrets murmured against his skin.

Your body shuffled closer, voice dropping to a near conspiratorial whisper. A tone meant for friends, companions, for lovers. The world closed in, just the two of you.

“Are you glad?”

His brow arched, a silent question, the delicate urging of your confession — what you really wished to ask — from your lips. “I mean to say,” you tried again, embarrassment creeping across your throat, “it is not so adventurous to be my sworn knight. All that standing and waiting and following and such…” 

Your gaze slipped towards the stems beneath your fingertips, blades twirling around delicate, restless hands. His eyes followed, wrist twitching with an ache to reach, to settle you.

“When you were knighted, you could have chosen differently. I sometimes wonder if you regret it. Or why you chose it, maybe.” 

Steve was not an educated man. No one would ever credit him as learned or wise in the annals of time. He came from nothing, knew nothing but what the world taught him. The sky and the sea and the land and its people, his animals on the farm and the travellers that passed through. He knew what a pickpocket looked like before they struck, and which mushrooms in the forest would kill you outright, but nothing of science and languages and fancy books bound by monks and warlocks and keepers of time. He found, though, that observation was a skill he’d been blessed with. He could note the shyness in your tone, the wine flush staining across your cheeks, the way you avoided his stare as if it might burn you. Your insecurity, near timidness, as you asked him what must have felt like something vulnerable to you. 

His impulse to comfort you never shook, not once, in moments like these. It was in his blood, in the very marrow of him. From the moment he first laid eyes upon you, that very first inhale, his aimless life from a nowhere countryside to a sideways city as a would be apprentice, had found purpose. A heartbeat to sync to. Footsteps to follow. Someone to protect, to guide, to shield, to live and die for. 

He recalled it even now. Freshly knighted, brought before the king and court, on a busted knee with a smoke rasp in his lungs, burns still wrapped in ointments and linens from a healer — the royal healer! If only his mother could have seen him — he’d been asked that fatal, undoing question. What reward a man could crave for such a good deed as his own. To save a city and thousands inside. To end a siege.

He’d only asked for one thing. 

To swear himself to the Princess. To protect her with his life. 

Steve removed a singular glove, an undeserving hand, marred yet steady, and pressed two fingertips below your chin, guiding you back to him. His words unwavering.

“I am exactly where I wish to be, My Princess. Take me back, and I would swear my oath to you over and over again. I am yours.” 

In any way you would have me. Until the end of my days.

He watched the way your lip trembled, mesmerised, the unconscious turn of your body that leaned closer and closer into his orbit. He knew he could not move to meet you, was forbidden to in all ways conceivable, but may the gods help him if he was meant to pull away.

Your eyes closed, face settling against his touch, a soft nuzzle into the coarse skin of his hand, a flower in the dirt. Your sigh made him ache. "I am afraid to go back."

A stark reminder. He knew what awaited you at the castle. All too well, knew the life you were being herded into. Like cattle. Helpless. His jaw clenched.

"I won't let anything happen to you." It was a promise. A vow. How he would achieve it, he could not say, but the words were an oath to you. A bond unbreakable, sworn to the only abiding force he would ever follow. His lady.

Fluttering, the wings of a bird, your lashes parted to look at him. "If they weren't here, you'd smuggle me away, wouldn't you?"

A halfhearted laugh slipped through you, though Steve knew the sound of defeat. Your ring of protectors, far out of sight, a tight band of reinforcement. Not just to protect, but to keep. No one to get in, no way to get out.

Steve nodded, solemn. "Weeks ago. You know I would have."

A pause. A sigh. A rustle of wind through the trees. The two of you breathed in what felt like the very last moment of freedom, his hand on your cheek, your legs drying in the sun, the sounds of the birds and the river and the wildness of a world neither of you would ever know all a mournful melody.

Steve allowed his hand to drop, a silent offer to tie your shoes, an unspoken language shared between the two of you. It needed not be said. He was your willing servant, always, and you, his trusting master. But somehow more, and somehow less, when you brushed stray curls of golden brown from his eyes, and his thumb circled a tender press into the bone of your ankle at the last tie of your ribbons. More than friends, less than lovers.

Composed, re-gloved, Steve guided you back to your feet, and felt your steadying breath ricochet through him.

"Well. I suppose I cannot delay it any longer. Shall we go meet my future husband?"

He would rather fall upon his own sword.

“Where you lead, I follow, My Lady.”

The thump thump thump of a fist against the door is enough for you to blink startled eyes up at Steve, but he's merciless in the way he continues to drag his fingers from deep within you -- in and out, slow and steady, his pace languid enough for you to whimper at his composure. "Occupied, man!" He shouts over your shoulder, the words edged with an assertive sort of sharpness that's met with what you hope is receding footsteps from the door. You're not sure whose room you're in. Hell, you barely remember what party you're at. All you can focus on is that torturous slip of calloused fingers between your thighs, Steve's knee pressed between your legs, your hands clinging to his shoulders like a lifeline.

The door isn't locked, so you've had to make do. Steve's using your bodies to wedge you both as a door stopper, his own free hand white knuckle fisted against the grains by your head. He can't decide where to look. If he gives in completely, lets that fist slip between the buttons of your dress, to palm and squeeze and caress at your body the way he's burning to, he'll forget about the door. He'll get too lost in you. And you're counting on him, he thinks. Relying on him to not let some creep from a house party see all that sweetness between your legs, the pretty look in your eyes when you're being played with.

He won't let you down. But fuck, he needs you to cum.

"My girl," he rasps against your ear, his hips stuttering against your body, thick length rocking into whatever curve of you he can manage. He just can't help himself. You're a drug he'll let swallow him whole. "Baby, you're just too pretty, aren't y'. Got me playin' dangerous for you." He moans shamelessly, pressing his hips harder against you, though his pace never quickens. It's agony, the slowness of his hand, two fingers pressing in and out like long, gentle breaths, his thumb circling your clit every so often in the way that's making you clench. It doesn't help how drunk on it he looks. Drunk on you. His voice is desperate, hungry swallows catching in his throat when the sound of your slick begins to reach his ears. You can't help but whine. "Ohh, there she is." He teases, moving a little faster, a little deeper, just to relish in the sounds of your wetness, his eyes flicking up to catch the gape of your mouth, a moan on your lips. "Needy girl. Wants me to fuck her where everyone can hear. I'm tryin' 't go slow, but you want it too bad, don't you?" Your eyes flutter with a ripple of pleasure, the tips of his fingers curling deep within your warmth, thighs in a motion of trembles. "I--" You were at a loss for words, but he knew. He always knew. Knew exactly how to unravel you. Knew exactly what turned you undone. He was walking this tightrope now; building you up and bringing you back down. Speeding and slowing, focusing only to relax back right when you were on the precipice. It was maddening. You felt like a live wire.

His pace settled once more, leaving you to offer a mournful gaze in turn, eyes round and tear stained, mouth pouting with unsaid words. Steve's laugh was teasing, but even he sounded wrecked. "C'mon, baby. Say it to me. Say you wanna cum right here in this big house, right where anyone could hear you. Say you wanna make a pretty mess for me."

His lips parted your own, tongue brushing your canine, and you buckled, a pitiful sound escaping you. "Please, Steve! Please, baby, can I cum? I-- I wanna--"

The words were swallowed in a choke, another finger edging its way into your warmth beside the others, filling you just as you liked. He made a sound of relief, as if it were him now being offered reprieve from this long winded torture, his teeth sinking most lovingly into your bottom lip.

"Yeah-- that's it. Good girl. You just gotta take it. Take what I'm givin', baby."

He was unflinching in his movements, rapid to pick up his pace. He wanted this, wanted to see you come apart. He'd wanted it since the minute you'd gotten to this damn party. Couldn't think straight unless he had you squeezing around his fingers, the sounds of your soft sighs to soothe his heated skin.

This sickness, this unrelenting need -- you were his only cure.

"Ah! Fuck, Steve--" It was an angels cry, he swore, the way you praised him. hands reaching higher to ground yourself to him. He couldn't look away from you, wide eyed to stare at your glistening face, your bleary eyes and kiss bitten lips. His cock was throbbing painfully against his jeans, only reaching moments of relief when he managed to rock against your hip selfishly. He wasn't sure he'd even be sorry if he came like that, rutting like some sick, obsessed teen.

Your body was shaking now, half exhausted holding yourself up in this torture, half on the knife's edge of falling into your pleasure. Steve's thrusts into you became harsher, the rough pleasure of it leaving your head to fall lax against the door with a thunk.

Steve relinquished his battle against the door, his other hand slipping behind your head like a cushion, a quiet sorry, a note of concern as he brushed the tender spot, his lips caressing your own once more. The comfort made you whimper, and he pulled back so the world might hear it.

"I need to hear you cum. Don't hide. I need it. Need my pretty girl to cum all on my fingers."

Delirious, you nodded, because this was a task. The most important task. Steve -- your Steve -- needed you to cum for him, and so you would. You fell into him, and with practised hands and a caress of his lips, you fell.

Gasping, your body softly trembled, the prettiest sounds Steve had ever heard tumbling from your throat as you curled away into the security of his shoulder. He did not relent, not until he worked you through every wave of your pleasure, still moving a languid pace between your thighs until he felt you writhe with over stimulation.

"Fuck, that's it. That's my girl. So pretty when she cums for me."

You were pulled into the orbit of his chest, one hand still cradling your scalp as if it could frighten away any further offence. The other, Steve brought reverently to his lips, licking each finger clean in delighted, long strokes of his tongue.

"I'd've had you on my mouth if I'd thought I could keep that door shut." He chuckled, nuzzling his nose into your hair, his lungs filling greedily.

Your hum in response was amused, laced with exhaustion. "I thought you wanted everyone to hear?"

He scoffed, lowering his other arm to secure around your waist, a beast staking his claim on his treasure. "Hear. I'm throwin' punches if anyone even looks at you like they wanna take you."

You rolled your eyes, kissing the heated skin of his throat in little pecks "Brute."

Wide palm against your lower back, he thumbed circles into the notches of your spine. Steve smiled to himself, chuckling at the thought of it. His love for you. The very obsession of it. He's still throbbing in his jeans, and somehow he doesn't even mind. "For you? Totally caveman."

You nip at his jaw, pulling back just enough to smile dizzily up at him. "All this because I got ready without you?"

A melancholy groan, Steve made an effort to sound bereft. "Don't remind me. If you're gonna wear a dress like this, baby, I've gotta know in advance. Otherwise we're just gonna wind up here again."

You don't manage to stifle your giggle, and instead choose to ease his troubles with a reverent kiss. "No more night shifts for you then, for everyone's sake's."

Steve hums, pondering a moment, before lowering two hands, ensuring the gentlemanly act of slipping your underwear back into place before throwing you over his shoulder like a caveman.

"Now for my sake, we're finding a room that locks."

[✦] [✿] you and i back at it again by @lighteyed | word count: 2.2k

　　summary: steve's left standing alone after starcourt, until you show up for him. 　　thoughts: my favourite genre of steve harrington fanfics as of lately has been very achy two people being there for each other when no one else has

[✿] i am? by @jxstsxgx | word count: 2.2k

　　summary: Steve drinks himself into a dramatic spiral over his unrequited love for his best friend, you. You’re absolutely no help. Mostly because you’re too busy laughing at his dramatic little love confession meltdown. 　　thoughts: this was fucking adorable and hilarious !! and truly the most light and funny steve fic almost ever ! alsoooo i just may or may not just really love funny drunk!confession fics ^0^

[✦] [✿] to be loved is to be seen by @lottevence | word count: N/A

　　summary: after accepting that he needed to focus on himself and stop with the constant dates, steve was forced to face some of the things he bruied inside with some drunken words by his favorite poet for the second time. 　　thoughts: erm reading this just amplified my want and need to be seen so much i actually started crying like full on sobbing. there's such a beauty about slow burn friends to lovers who just see each other—like truly see each other. this fic is just *chef's kiss*

[✦] [✿] shopping trip by @c4tluver02 | word count: 2.4k

　　summary: You asked your best friend Steve to help you pick out and outfit for your date. Being the amazing friend he is, he helps you in more ways than one! 　　thoughts: just a really fun short and sweet fic that i've read too many times for my own good me thinks

[✦] [✿] you deserve each other by @bimrwolf | word count: N/A | completed!series

　　summary: You and Steve have been together for five years. He's seemingly the perfect boyfriend, kisses on the cheek, knowing your orders at restaurant. A great lover. Too bad you've had enough can't stand him. 　　thoughts: OOOO this was sick af !! i really enjoyed that back and forth passive agressiveness and them over all just messing with each other ! like it's like if 'get him back' by olivia rodrigo went both ways. alsooo really love love love the title because it's true that they really deserve each other for the sake and safety of the general public :p

[★] [✦] [✿] don't call me baby by @katyswrites | word count: N/A | completed!series

　　summary: This wasn’t supposed to happen. That’s what you would both tell yourselves, later on. It had started with a bet. You were a cocktail waitress, studying abroad in Rome and working yourself to death to keep yourself afloat. Steve Harrington was a business executive for one of the biggest tech companies in the world, ten years your senior, and earnest enough that it intrigued you. But, there was only one problem - he doesn’t do relationships. Not now, perhaps not ever. So, a deal is struck - something mutually beneficial. No attachments, and you get to be his perpetual mistress, while he makes sure you want for nothing. But, what happens when the agreement becomes more than what either of you bargained for? 　　thoughts: is it bad that i binged the entirety of this instead of sleeping when i read it? :3 it's also not the kind of fanfic premise i click on usually... but lemme tell you i was really hooked on this. and really big bonus point it's set in italy and you have robin buckley as a roomie sooo what more could you possibly ask for?

[✿] romance is dead, isn't it? by @megxplryxb | word count: N/A

　　summary: N/A (but in a nutshell it's friends to lovers on valentines day + deceptive shenanigans) 　　thoughts: u don't know the amount of times i've read this !! it's just soooo ARUUFHAWDHH i want a steve harrington in my life i'm not even bluffing PLEAAASEE

[✿] sick fic !! by @lovebugism | word count: N/A

　　request summary: i don’t know if you do sickfics but! mayhaps steve and shy!reader where she doesn’t show up for school, steve goes to her house, and she’s utterly mortified because she feels like she’s nowhere near presentable 　　thoughts: this one was a really tiny pocket story that just makes me feel soft !!! probably stems for being depraved or something

[★] [✦] [✿] thank me later by @supernovafics | word count: 83.2k | completed!series

　　summary: in which a friendship is surprisingly born in an elevator, and a crush that feels hopeless is developed very soon after that. for what feels like forever, you debate whether or not you should be honest with eddie and see if he maybe feels the same way as you. but, you upsettingly miss your chance to say anything when he gets into a relationship with someone that’s not you. ultimately, you decide to push everything you feel to the side so that you don’t potentially ruin everything between you and him; because at the end of the day, he’s still your best friend. now, two years later, things have changed— there’s a break up, reignited feelings, and pining that feels worse and even more helpless this time around. a blind date leads to you fake dating some guy you barely even know with the hopes of finally getting eddie to see you as more than just a friend. at first, you’re hesitant and you honestly think that steve’s suggestion sounds a little insane. but, then you decide that perhaps it could actually, somehow, maybe work? you and steve haven’t even known each other for a full twenty-four hours before you two are shaking hands and agreeing to fake date for a month, and hoping that you both get what you want out of this abruptly thrown together arrangement. 　　thoughts: i don't even know where to start with this one... LIKE IT HAS EVERYTHING I LOVE !! my og fav trope has always been fake dating for some reason... also i just realised i confuse this fic with another one by the same author which is "i'll be there for you" which is by no exaggeration whatsoever is the best steve fic :3

　　　　𓂅 [★] [✦] [✿] this could last forever by @/supernovafics | word count: 15.9k　　　　　　　　𓂅 this could last forever pt. 2 | word count: 9.4k

　　　　　　　　summary: in which you hate him and he hates you— and that mutual disliking is perhaps the only thing you and him agree on. you make it your mission to avoid and ignore steve at all costs, and nothing more or less than withering stares and annoyed eye rolls are shared among you both whenever you have to see each other, which luckily isn’t that often. but when your son and his daughter end up in the same first-grade class and quickly become friends, it forces things to change between you two. it means that you and him also have to be friends, or, at the very least, tolerate each other’s presence. which is something that is much easier said than done 　　　　　　　　thoughts: i will read every kind dad!steve fic you give to me i will read and this is one of my most most favourite dad!steve fics ever so please read it you'll get major fomo if you don't :3

　　　　𓂅 [★] [✦] [✿] star of the show by @/supernovafics | word count: 41k | completed!series

　　　　　　　　summary: in which before you even meet him, you’ve already heard enough about him. steve harrington— a phenomenal award-winning actor who is known almost exclusively as an asshole. he’s also set to be the lead in the movie that you’re currently working on as a production coordinator. over the years, you’ve somehow found routine in the never-ending hecticness of your job; the abrupt issues you’d have to handle, or the problems that you were tasked to prevent from arising in the first place. all you cared about was doing your absolute best at your job and you always did. but barely a week before filming is scheduled to begin, things change for the worse when, due to extenuating circumstances, you have to also be steve’s assistant for the entire three months of filming. it’s an unexpected addition to your already full plate that completely changes the routine you’d become so accustomed to. and from your first interaction with him, it’s abundantly clear that everything that’s been said about him is true, so your mind is only stuck on one thought, how the hell would you survive three months of being his assistant?  　　　　　　　　thoughts: i read all of this in one go and that morning was spent well. I JUST LOVE THIS SOOO MUCH !! like i really enjoyed the stakes and stuff like how they were gonna balance their careers and each other, and also going from just assistant and assisted (wtf ik sorries i didn't know what to call it) to having a conncection as actual friends and then to eventually something else !! i just loved the gradual build up and not going from point a to lovers directly. alsooo i haven't read this one in a WHILEee SOOO what i'm saying might just be wrong memories HIH

　　　　𓂅 [★] [✦] [✿] star of the show by @/supernovafics | word count: 41k

　　　　　　　　summary: a year in the lives of you and your best friend steve harrington. you never thought that you would be living with this guy you’ve known since you were ten— although it was a hypothetical topic that was discussed at length during the many sleepovers you had over the years. but somehow on a hectic day in august, the stars managed to align, and the next thing you know a lease is being signed and the two of you are moving into a two-bedroom apartment. so far it’s been two months of countless late nights and too many really early mornings where you’re running late to class or steve’s rushing to get to his shift at family video. for the most part, though, it’s a perfect situation. until the lines that felt as if they were clearly drawn in the sand— and had been there from perhaps the moment you and him met— start getting blurrier and blurrier 　　　　　　　　thoughts: MWAHAHA after finishing this fic rec post i'm def rereading this for the millionth time. because i don't there's anything i can say to suffice to amount of love i have for this fic !! honestly with all the things that's happening in the world we just need that one mundane fanfic to run to ! because i cannot really explain the amount of warmth and comfort this fic gives me. and the plot itself is just every single trope i love and pine about over and over again. i kid you not this is the closest thing you can ever get to perfect if you're into just mundane fics. also again resenting the fact that this isn't my life :3

[✿] the only tally mark by @the-case-book-of-fanfiction | word count: 7.2k

　　summary: The 'You Suck' tallies are getting pretty high, but there's a girl in Scoops Ahoy who knows Robin in wrong. If she can just get the courage to open her mouth, Steve's luck is about to change. 　　thoughts: this one is so so awww but also at the same time the sick feeling of this fanfic being my reality is very very apparent with this one

[✦] [✿] tides at moonrise by @limeletters | word count: 6k

　　summary: After being attacked by demobats in the Upside Down, Steve experiences some supernatural changes. 　　thoughts: honestly wish vampire!steve was canon because i erm would've loved to see those bats affect him in someway other than mental scarring and emotional trauma :3 it'd just be a really fun plot

　　　　𓂅 [★] [✦] [✿] the shape of family by @/limeletters | word count: N/A | wip!series

　　　　　　　　summary: As a single dad, Steve’s world revolves around school drop-offs, bedtime rituals, and tee-ball practices—and he's struggling to keep up. But you're always there, happily lending a hand when he needs it most. 　　　　　　　　thoughts: this is such a holy grail. i've read this over and over while waiting for the next chapters like a crazy ex and i just can't. this is the most adorable, warm, sweet and, tooth rotting dad!steve fanfic ever. i kid you not this lived rent free within my head for days after reading it and that's so crazy since the only time that happens is when devasting character deaths happen. it's just that good :( BUTTT the slowburn is truly very REAL with this one i kid you not.

[✦] [✿] so much for summer love by @forevermoreharrington | word count: 10k

　　summary: Steve starts falling for a girl, who’s been trying to get over him, when he definitely shouldn’t be since he’s already in love with someone else but now he’s starting to question whether that’s true or not. 　　thoughts: this has the best kind of torturous things. desperate pining. specially that one that you know has a happy ending anyway but still feel like when you're in the trenches during the yearning bits :p

　　　　𓂅 [✦] [✿] This path is reckless by @/forevermoreharrington | word count: N/A 　　　　　　　　summary: This path is reckless, Steve and his favourite girl get close to crossing the lines of their friendship 　　　　　　　　thoughts: i have not read this in the longest of times but GOD. this just captures my favourite thing ever as i erm... always talk about it :3 like JUST LOVE. that specific point where the lines of friendship and something else blurs and it's all so blissfully sweet or sometimes torturous pining. *chef's kiss*

[✿] here comes your man by @dearest-nell | word count: 2.1k

　　summary: you go to pick up your very drunk boyfriend from the bar after a well deserved night out. 　　thoughts: Silly drunk!fics are my favourites ever !! this was adorable i've read that too many times

[✿] four steps between (best) friends and lovers by @stevebabey | word count: 12k

　　summary: Long-time best friends, it's not a surprise that it's you Steve comes to when he needs a fake girlfriend. One little white lie, one perilous family dinner, one evening of pretending to be a couple. How hard could it be? 　　thoughts: one of the first steve fics i've read on this website and it's so aww :3 it's just such a classic friends to lovers fake dating fic, and the addition of steve having a brother just kind fits so so well !! especially the whole family dynamic they have i think stays true and is faithful to steve in canon HIHI i dunno i just like it's cohesive 　　　　𓂅 [✦] [✿] nine facts, one lie by @/stevebabey | word count: 16.5k

　　　　　　summary: It didn’t matter that your best friend Robin claims he’s changed, you do not like Steve Harrington. He used to be egotistical, a player, an asshole — and you’re not in any hurry to believe he’s changed his ways. 　　　　　　thoughts: ACKKKKK i love myself a really good and well paced slow burn :3 BUT THIS ONE. THIS ONE WAS JUST—IT JUST GOT ME.

[✿] fall right into me by @headkiss | word count: 12k

　　summary: when something happens to your apartment and you need a place to stay, steve, your best friend, is quick to provide it for you. your prolonged proximity forces you both to realize some things. 　　thoughts: ROOMIES TO LOVERS I LOVE YOU. ik i say this a lot but this fanfic really struck my heart strings it's just everything i love in a thirteen thousand word fanfic and i would read this to my future kids for bed time

[✿] you said you were gonna grow up (then you were gonna come find me) by @andvys | word count: 10k

　　summary: You and Steve used to be inseparable, best friends since childhood, you shared something special, something rare. You promised each other forever but... promises are never to keep... right? 　　thoughts: hurt/comfort always feels like being punched a lot of times and then given a hello kitty bandaid and i love it.

[✦] [✿] i'll put us back together again at heart by @sanguineterrain | word count: 8.8k

　　summary: It's 1987. You haven't spoken to Steve Harrington in nearly five years. Then Dustin Henderson tells you about a sweet deal he has at Family Video, where he can rent any movie he wants. 　　thoughts: second chance friendships give me the reason to live and wake up everyday. i cried reading this but my tears were compensated with the ending :3 #I'mToSoftForThis

　　　　𓂅 [✦] [✿] a feeling that's fine by @/sanguineterrain | word count: 10.6k 　　　　　　summary: You accidentally climb the wrong fence on the hottest day of May. It turns out to be the best thing that's ever happened to you. 　　　　　　thoughts: ACKKKKK i haven't read this one quite a long while but GOLLYYYY i just love it so much !! i remember thinking like, what if she didn't go to the wrong house what then? then i spiraled about certain unexpected things that happened that branched out to be one of the greatest experiences you've ever had. and ACKKK i just love their dynamic even from the start and how steve immediately showed actual care and concern despite her being this stranger that just showed up at his house unexpectedly EEEEKK!!! the dialogue just feels so natural and the build up !! *chef's kiss* and i just feel very protective of the reader HIHI she just reminds me so much of erm me it's kind of really scary... also debbie u bitch.

　　　　𓂅 [✦] [✿] redemancy by @/sanguineterrain | word count: 5.2k 　　　　　　summary: the act of loving someone who loves you back; a love returned in full // or, four times you kissed Steve Harrington, and one time he finally kissed you back. 　　　　　　thoughts: oh the 5+1 format my beloved !! again this is really such a good fic !!! this made me giggle and kick my feet so hard i nearly fell of my bed actually :3 LIKE BRO A MARRIAGE PACT?? The way they said it with actual sureness and certainty?? like you don't know how much that affected me and that was only the first bit of the fic ! again it's so very heavy on that thing where they unknowingly stand in the line between frienship and something more. IT JUST GETS ME GOOD !! ALSOO like the uncertainty that came in later on. I'M IN BITS. i love how that shows so much vulnerability and how much that pact actually meant, and how it shows it's not just one of those on a whim things that were only meaningful during that time. AND THE GUM. HER REMEMBERED THE GUM.

　　　　𓂅 [✦] [✿] we are not alone by @/sanguineterrain | word count: 15.8k 　　　　　　summary: Your whole life, you felt like you crash-landed on Earth from another planet. It's just another summer where you know that should be somewhere else. Then you meet Steve Harrington. 　　　　　　thoughts: i nearly forogt to add this fic in here but I was checking my drafts in case i forgot to add something and I'm glad i found this !!! this honestly gave me so much comfort becaue the feeling of just not belonging is very present here and I'm glad that this character has a steve and marie everyone needs one of those

[✦] [✿] come home by @stevie-petey | word count: N/A | complete!series

　　summary: a stranger things rewrite. "come home to me, okay?" "always," steve promises. in between saving will, then hawkins, then somehow the world, you fall in love with steve harrington. 　　thoughts: THIS ONE IS JUST WOAH. just might give the duffers a run for their money. anddd ik ST5 hasn't come out yet but i'm really excited for the ST5 rewrite so so bad

[✿] chalkboard hearts by @stevesgother | word count: N/A | complete!series

　　summary: Single parenthood is no easy feat, but you and your daughter Abbey seem to be making it by just fine. That is, until the morning that you drop your daughter off for her very first day of elementary school and meet her teacher for the year: Mr. Harrington. 　　thoughts: kindergarten teacher steve harrington fully wholly has my heart. this fic and 'the shape of family' by @/limeletters just fully captivated me so much i couldn't stop thinking about these fics !! especially because of the circumstances i had growing up this fic feels extra special to me :3 and it really just makes my heart feel so warm and nice. but also the slowburn was *chef's kiss* i just love this fic with all my heart anddd thank you so much writing it :3 <3

Masterlist recs !!

　　・┈・┈・ sanguineterrains's masterlist by @/sanguineterrain

　　・┈・┈・ supernovafic's masterlist by @/supernovafics

　　・┈・┈・ limeletter's masterlist by @/limeletters

　　・┈・┈・ katyswrites’ masterlist by @/katyswrites

“Positive,” you replied, twisting a stray thread on your sleeve. “See you soon.”

The call wrapped up on a calmer note, and you took a moment to smooth your hair in the mirror, feeling optimistic that it was deciding to behave itself. The two of you had planned a nice evening—a proper sit-down meal somewhere slightly fancy—and although things weren’t going exactly to plan, you couldn’t deny how much you were looking forward to seeing him in his classroom again. 

Grabbing your bag and keys, you slipped out the door, a small spark of excitement humming beneath your ribs. The drive to Hawkins Elementary was peaceful, dusk painting the sky in shades of lilac and amber. Soft music played through your car speakers, but your mind drifted more than once to a certain teacher…

Something about him, surrounded by all that childlike wonder, made him feel impossibly soft. That, paired with his contrite tone, made you want to reassure him in person. 

When you arrive at the school, there’s a still energy settling over the place. Most of the staff and students have long since gone home. You park in a spot near the entrance, stepping out into the gentle air of early evening.

Inside, the lobby is quiet, illuminated by the mellow glow of overhead lights. The smell still strangely nostalgic, it tugs at memories of your own school days. Behind the front desk stands the elderly receptionist you’d met briefly before. He’s in the middle of packing up his things, a well-worn coat draped over one arm. He looks up, a welcoming smile lighting his features.

“Back so soon?” he teases gently. “Another delivery, perhaps?”

You return his smile, recalling your last visit.

“Not this time,” you say, shaking your head. “I’m meeting Mr. Harrington?”

“Ah, yes.” A knowing glint sparks in his eyes. “Still in his classroom. Been there quite a while.”

“Thanks,” you reply, taking a moment to note the kind crinkles around his eyes. Then you turn toward the hallway.

The corridors are hushed, classroom lights off, and the echoes of a busy school day fading into memory. You’re headed toward the same door you’ve visited prior: 2B, the sign now familiar.

Steve’s pencil stills when he hears the soft click of the classroom door. The moment he sees you, he falters, breath catching in his throat.

It’s obvious how much effort you had put into tonight—hair carefully styled, a soft glow to your skin that makes something tighten in his chest. Guilt flickers for keeping you waiting, but it’s drowned out by something stronger. 

The fact that you dressed up for him. 

He was torn, wanting to leap up and greet you properly, but he’s got a child at his side. So he settles for a warm, if slightly measured, Hey. His tone gentle enough not to startle the boy to his right. 

It was a stark contrast to the way he wanted to react. You deserved so much more than this.

“Hey,” you return, eyes drifting to the desk to see what they’re working on. He forces himself to swallow the pang of regret that he can’t whisk you off to dinner right this second. His mind spins with half-formed apologies—mentally promising he’ll make this up to you, somehow.

“Can I sit?” you ask, one hand resting on the back of the child-sized chair across from him.

“Sure,” Steve says quickly, gesturing with the pencil in his hand. He bites back a smile as you awkwardly manoeuvre into the small chair—it takes some getting used to. He would know.

Once you settle, he glances at the kid beside him. The boy’s chin is practically touching his chest, his expression clouded with an unmistakable sadness. 

“Hey, Samuel,” Steve begins softly, scooting a bit closer to the child. “You remember who this is?”

Samuel lifts his gaze from his drawing, eyeing you without the spark kids usually have. 

“She gave us the books,” he mumbles. There’s a small hitch in his voice that tugs on Steve’s heartstrings. The poor kid’s been waiting far too long for a ride that hasn’t arrived.

“That’s right,” you say softly, offering a gentle smile. 

Samuel just shrugs, returning his attention to the paper in front of him. Steve’s brow furrows; he hates seeing the normally bright-eyed little boy so down.

You desperately want to lighten the mood, so you lean forward, resting your forearms on the small table. Dinner can wait, the sad kid in front of you takes priority right now.

“So, what are you guys doing here?” you ask, voice patient.

Samuel pauses, glancing up at Steve as if seeking permission. He nods, a tiny, encouraging smile shaping his lips. Talking to you is nothing to worry about.

“We’re drawing,” Samuel offers at last.

“Oh yeah?” Your voice lightens, interest shining in your eyes. “Can I see?”

Cautiously, Samuel sets down his pen and turns the paper so you can look. 

“I’m drawing my dog,” he says, a hint of pride creeping into his voice.

“Whoa,” You tilt your head, offering an exaggerated tone, eager to make him smile. “It’s really good. What’s his name?”

Steve watches Samuel’s face soften just a bit, reminded of better things than this long wait. 

“Scooby,” the boy says, glancing between you and Steve.

“That’s a great name,” you tell him, leaning in as if sharing a secret. “Did you pick it yourself?”

Samuel nods and a smile blooms on your face, and Steve’s chest feels inexplicably full at how you’re managing to draw the sad boy out of his gloom. He thinks you’re trying, but honestly, he can’t be sure if this is just who you are. Watching you interact with his student fills him with pride.

Clearly, you have an effect on people.

“It’s awesome.” You nod as you push it back towards the boy. “Gonna be an artist someday. I can tell.”

Samuel’s lips curl into a small smile, and Steve catches the way your kindness ignites the faintest spark in the boy’s eyes. He glances at you, guilt flickering across his face as he mouths a silent sorry for making you wait. But you just shake your head in reassurance. Don’t even worry about it.

“And what about you, Mr. Harrington?” you tease as you lean forward, a playful lilt in your voice. “What’re you drawing?”

Steve chuckles, ducking his head with a hint of bashfulness, not quite expecting to be sharing. He lifts his paper, revealing a carefully drawn sketch of the school’s entrance. It’s surprisingly detailed—the double doors, a few kids scattered out front, even a bright yellow bus parked at the curb.

He grows self-conscious as you glance over his scribbles, but it’s impossible to miss the care in each pencil stroke—the familiarity with every line and angle. There’s an intimacy in the way he’s captured the building, drawn entirely from memory, as if it’s a place he knows by heart.

What you don’t see are the countless times he’s stood in that very spot, staring at the view, willing himself to step inside. Day after day, swallowing the anxiety just enough to make it through the front gates.

Yeah, he knew it by heart.

“It’s not as good as Samuel’s, but….” He adjusts the paper in front of him, his pencil once again gliding across the page as he trails off.

“Well,” you say, shifting closer to the kid, but locking eyes with Steve. “I’d say you’re both very talented.”

Your enthusiasm is infectious as it wraps around him. His cheeks heat up again—something that seems to be happening a lot whenever you're around.

You lean forward, fingers brushing over the paper until you find a clean sheet and a decent pencil. Looking to Samuel, you tilt your head gently. 

“Is it alright if I join in?” you ask, voice just above a whisper, not wanting to break the comfortable calm that’s settled around the three of you.

Samuel hesitates, then gives a small, welcoming nod, so you begin sketching a few light lines—a simple floral pattern that requires little thought. Maybe a vine of leaves, or a daisy shape that reminds you of summer. It’s calming, focusing on the soft arcs and petals.

After a moment, Samuel’s shoulders slump a fraction, and he turns his attention back to his teacher. 

“Has my mom called?” he asks, voice subdued.

Steve’s expression softens with sympathy. 

“Not yet, buddy,” he says gently, setting down his pencil. “But she should be here soon, alright?”

The boy nods, looking down. “Alright.”

“Hey,” Steve leans forward, propping his elbow on the table. “But we’re having fun right?”

Samuel lifts his gaze, sadness still evident. 

“Yeah...”

Steve fought the urge to frown, not wanting the kid’s sadness to drag him down too—but more than that, he was desperate to lift his mood.

When he glanced up and caught the way your expression had wilted, the sadness in your eyes mirroring his students, it was clear this was getting to you too. And if there was one thing Steve couldn’t stand, it was seeing the people he cared about weighed down.

He racked his brain, trying to think—think—up something, anything, that might make the boy smile. And if there was one thing he’d learned about kids, it was that the best way to break through was with a distraction. Something new, something shiny to pull their mind in another direction. 

That, at least, he had plenty of practice in.

“Guess what?” He asked casually. 

Samuel peers at him. 

“What?”

A playful spark lights up Steve’s warm brown eyes. 

"Someone told me once that the best moments happen when you don't expect them."

Samuel thought for a moment about his teacher's words, trying to make sense of the profound statement. 

“Like what?” The boy tilts his head, confused but intrigued. 

Steve taps his pencil against the table, thinking. Slowly, a grin tugs at his lips as he pulls a memory to the surface. Pushing his chair back slightly, he leans in toward the kid, ready to share it.

It’s clear he’s done this plenty of times before.

“Like… this one time, I got stuck waiting in a super long line at the arcade when I was your age. Thought I was gonna be bored out of my mind.” He rolls his eyes in an exaggerated way that makes Samuel perk up a bit, already captivated by his teacher’s words. “But then, this older kid showed me how to do a trick where you flip a coin over your fingers—kinda like this.”

He picks up a pencil, rolling it effortlessly over his knuckles. It’s not perfect—every so often, he has to catch it before it slips—but to Samuel, it might as well be a magic trick.

“By the time I got to play my game, I didn’t even care about the wait anymore,” Steve continues. “I’d learned something really cool.”

Samuel watches with wide-eyed fascination. “I wanna do that!”

Steve winks, gently placing the pencil on the desk so Samuel can grab it. 

"Sure you will," he says, laying on the dramatics. "Just takes a little practice."

There is a small surge of warmth that floods you as you watch the two of them together. You cast your gaze back to your floral sketch, but you can’t stop the slight smile from curving your lips. Steve catches your eye for a second, and in the silent exchange, you can feel how he’s trying so hard to make this okay—for Samuel, and in a way, for you too.

Just as he is about to launch into a more detailed demonstration of his coin-flipping trick, the classroom door flies open, revealing a woman slightly out of breath, cheeks flushed from rushing. Her wide eyes dart from Samuel to Steve to you, immediately brimming with apologies.

“I’m so sorry,” she manages between quick breaths, pressing a hand to her chest as though she’s trying to slow her racing heart. “I—I got held up and—”

“Mom!” Samuel bolts up from the table, all traces of his earlier sadness vanishing in a burst of excitement. She crouches down, arms opening to gather him into a hug. 

The kid leans back slightly, his face lighting up. “I drew Scooby!” he exclaims, pride evident in his voice.

“Oh, you did?” Her tone melts with relief. “That’s amazing, baby. Why don’t you show me?”

Beaming, Samuel spins around to grab his artwork and then holds it out proudly for her inspection. The moment she sees the goofy dog’s face, her own lights up with genuine delight. 

“Wow, that’s so so good, honey! When we get home, we’ll put it right on the fridge, yeah?”

“Yeah!” Samuel nods, bouncing on the balls of his feet. 

Steve rises from his chair, long legs unfolding as he stands and tucks his pencil away. The woman looks up at him with gratitude shining in her eyes. 

“Thank you so much,” she breathes, a slight tremor of emotion in her voice. “I really appreciate you staying with him.”

Steve waves off the thanks, a dismissive but gentle gesture that speaks to his genuine humility. 

“It’s not a problem,” he says, glancing fondly at Samuel. “We had a great time, didn’t we, buddy?”

“Yes!” Samuel nods so hard his hair flops over his forehead. “And I learned a new trick!”

“You did?” His mom arches a brow, looking between her son and Steve. “Well, you’ll have to show me when we get home. Ready to grab your things?”

Samuel dashes off to gather his backpack from the corner, and she turns back to Steve, her face still awash in relief. 

“Thank you. It won’t happen again, I promise—”

Steve’s smile is calm, understanding as he holds his palm up. 

“If it does, you’ll just get another drawing, right?” He shrugs with playful lightness, hoping to ease any lingering guilt she has.

“That’s…” she says, voice catching as Samuel skids back into the room. A laugh escapes her, soft but genuinely thankful.

She straightens, ruffling her son’s hair. “Alright, say goodbye to Mr. Harrington.”

Samuel turns, waving a little too enthusiastically. “Bye, Mr. Harrington!” 

“Take care.” He lifts a hand in farewell. 

The door swings shut, and the moment Steve catches sight of the clock on the wall, his lips press into a tight line. His eyes widen.

“Shit—” He practically scrambles across the room, “we gotta go—like, now.” Snatching his coat from the back of a chair. “The table was booked for… ten minutes ago,” voice tight as he reaches for his phone on the desk.

“Steve.”

He’s mid-dial when you place your hand gently over his. He barely glances up, still fumbling with the buttons. 

“I’m sure they can—”

“Steve,” you repeat, a touch more insistently. “It’s fine.”

His gaze snaps to yours, and there’s guilt evident in the crease of his brow, the way his shoulders pull forward defensively. 

“It’s not fine. I mean—look at you,” he insists, flicking his eyes over your outfit. “You—you got all dressed up, and—”

“Hey,” you squeeze his hand, and he finally stills, waiting until he meets your eyes. “I dressed up for you.”

Something in his chest thumps painfully at those words. He opens his mouth, probably to offer another round of apologies, but you speak first. You step a fraction closer, heart stuttering in your own chest as you do. 

“We can do it another time,” you tell him as he sighs.

“This was seriously not the plan,” Steve grumbles, free hand raking through his hair. His breath is still uneven, cheeks tinted pink.

“Maybe not,” you concede, “but I’m here now.”

He nods, swallowing hard. “Yeah,” he says quietly. “You are.”

Should be eating steak at Enzo’s right now. 

“And,” you add, voice brightening a little, “I haven’t finished my drawing.”

His eyebrows shoot up. 

“Are you serious?”

A giggle escapes you, the sound soft and reassuring. 

“It’s been a while since I’ve felt like a kid again,” you explain, gesturing at the brightly decorated classroom around you. “What better place to keep going?”

Steve shakes his head like he can’t quite believe what he’s hearing, but there’s a lopsided smile at the corner of his mouth. 

“Alright,” he murmurs. “If you wanna spend your evening drawing, I’m not gonna stop you.”

“Good,” you tease, turning back toward the table scattered with crayons and pencils. “But you have to join in, too.”

He exhales a short laugh, relenting as the tension uncoils from his frame. 

“Fine,” he says, rolling up his sleeves. “Fine.”

He drapes his jacket over the back of the chair before settling across from you at the tiny table, where crayons and half-finished sketches are scattered about. A small, playful grin tugs at the corner of his lips as he scoots his chair closer.

He can’t quite wrap his head around the fact that this is how you want to spend your Wednesday evening. It’s nothing special, at all.

You seem to make the little things feel like something more, and he doesn’t know what to do with that—except lean into it, let himself get caught up in your glow.

“So,” you say, tapping a pencil against the table, “what’re you gonna draw next?”

He lifts one shoulder in a shrug. 

“Not sure yet,” he admits, looking up at you with curious eyes. “What do you think?”

A mischievous spark lights in your expression. 

“Draw me.”

“Yeah, right.” He scoffs, a hint of pink crawling across his cheeks. 

“I’m serious,” you press, leaning forward so your arms rest on the edge of the desk. “Always wanted my portrait done.”

Wow, demanding.

Now he had no choice but to put his subpar art skills to the test. But the more he thought about it, the more he didn't mind. The idea of drawing you was actually kind of nice—it meant he had a reason to stare at you, he wouldn’t have to come up with an excuse either. Really, it was a win-win.

“If it looks terrible, you can’t be offended,” he warns, gesturing with the pencil in his hand.

“Deal.”

You push aside the floral doodle you’d been working on earlier, grabbing a fresh sheet of paper. 

“What’re you doing?” Steve quirks an eyebrow. 

“Drawing you,” you say, as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “Only fair, right?”

He huffs out a chuckle, though he can’t quite hide how flattered he is by the thought. You’re damn sweet. Honestly, you’d probably be a better fit in this classroom than he is, the way you can turn this disaster of an evening into something positive.

“I guess so.”

Leaning over, he grabs a nearby hardcover book—something about geography, judging by the cover—and props it upright on the table like a little barrier. 

“What?” you laugh, tipping your head to see his hands around it.

“I want to be surprised when I see it.” His grin widens, his brown eyes dancing. 

“Trust me, you’re gonna be very surprised,” you tease, tightening your grip on the pencil.

He laughs, the sound low and affectionate. Then he sets his own blank sheet in front of him and glances over the makeshift partition at you. 

“Okay,” he mumbles, lips quirking into a half-smile. “No peeking, alright?”

“Never,” you say, though your voice carries a playful challenge.

Pencils scratching softly against paper form a gentle soundtrack as the two of you work, eyebrows furrowed in concentration, yet sharing the occasional glance that makes your heart flutter. 

“So,” you say, keeping your gaze on the half-finished sketch in front of you, “does this happen a lot?”

Steve finishes shading a small curve on his paper before responding. 

“Missing dinner with a pretty girl?” He glances up, meeting your eyes. “No, I usually try not to make a habit of that.”

“I meant parents being late,” you clarify, with a small chuckle. 

So, Mr. Harrington can flirt. Good to know. 

He sets the pencil down, tapping it absently against the desk. 

“Sometimes,” he ponders. “They have long hours, multiple jobs. I usually stick around anyway, lesson prep, grading quizzes, stuff like that.”

Anything to avoid being home alone. 

“Can’t be easy for the kids, though,” you say, a little crease appearing between your brows.

A soft sigh escapes him. “Sure, it’s not ideal,” he admits. “But in Samuel’s case, his mom’s doin’ her best, you know?” 

He doesn’t elaborate further, but his expression speaks volumes—he sees more than anyone realises, and he tries his hardest to fill the gaps.

“They’re lucky to have a teacher like you,” you say gently.

A faint flush creeps over his cheeks, and he ducks his head. 

“Like I said,” he murmurs, voice low enough that it makes your chest tighten. “Kids love silly.”

Both of you return to your sketches for a moment. You’re perfecting the curve of his jaw, the slight wave of his hair, when your curiosity peeks again.

“So, what do your parents think about you being a teacher? They’ve gotta be proud, right?”

The question sets a flicker of nerves across his face. He fiddles with the pencil a bit before answering. 

“Uh… sort of,” he begins, brow furrowing. “They’re happy I’m, you know, employed. But they weren’t exactly my biggest fans after high school.”

“Why not?” You tilt your head, wanting to understand. 

He draws a breath, eyes darting to his paper as if searching for courage. 

“I was kinda… lost when I left school. Had no clue what I was doing. My dad wanted me to work for him, but that just… wasn’t an option.” Something raw appears in his gaze. 

There was no way he could work for his father—not when he was already at his lowest. 

The man who pressured him the most, expecting him to survive in a high-stress office? He could already picture it: barely holding himself together while his dad, with his uncanny ability to pick apart his deepest insecurities, chipped away at what little confidence he had left.

Put all that together, and he knew he wouldn’t have made it to the end of the year.

The thought alone scared him.

“Screw what your dad says.”

“Wow,” his mouth curves into a tiny, startled smile. “Never heard you be mean before.”

“I’m not being mean,” you give a playful shrug. “Just being honest.”

“Yeah, sure,” he drops his eyes to the table and nods, the corners of his lips quirking upward. “Remind me never to get on your bad side.”

Like you even have one.

There’s a short lull in conversation as you both sink back into the comforting rhythm of drawing. This time, it’s his turn to speak up. 

“So,” he ventures, sketching a light outline of your hair, “you think you’re gonna keep the bookshop for a while? Y’know, with the finances and stuff?”

"I hope so," you reply, your voice bright with the same enthusiasm you feel in your chest—despite the stress. "I’m still finding my way, and like, I knew it wasn’t going to be easy.” You breathe in a sigh that makes his pencil still. ”It’s just… doing it alone. That part still scares me sometimes."

Steve nods, understanding flickering in his eyes. He hates seeing you struggle, especially when there’s nothing he can do to fix it. It feels like Samuel all over again, and he’s already wracking his brain, searching for some way, any way, to be of service.

"Is there anything I can do?" he murmurs, always needing to be useful. "To help, I mean."

You shake your head. 

"This is plenty," you say, your voice a little softer now. "I like this,” you gesture between you both. "Spending time away… with you."

With him. 

And god, it’s like fireworks in his chest. The fact that he is the reason you're feeling even a little better—it echoes exactly how he feels about you.

He doesn’t have much to offer, but he’d give you this and more. He’d whisk you away whenever you needed it. That, at least, he can do.

"Well," he says quietly, not trusting his voice fully, "I’m always a phone call away. I can be there."

You nod, offering him a quiet thank you before turning your attention back to your drawing.

Steve Harrington sure was something.

It baffled you how he was still single—especially when he gave so much of himself so freely. Offering what he could without expecting anything in return.

Moving here felt like the right choice.

Meeting him felt like the right thing.

He sets his pencil aside, blowing out a theatrical breath as though he’s completed the masterpiece of a lifetime. He did have a great reference, after all. 

“Alright,” he declares, tapping his fingers against the paper. “I think I’m done.”

“Hmmm, yeah,” you glance down at the final touches you’ve added to your own drawing, then give a small shrug. “Me too.”

He leans forward, sliding the book aside but quickly clutching his drawing to his chest so you can’t see it. You mirror his motion, both of you practically giggling at this playful standoff.

“You go first,” he says, eyes bright with anticipation.

“Why?” you challenge, raising a brow.

A crooked grin tugs at his mouth. “Isn’t that what ladies do?”

You roll your eyes for dramatic effect, but the smile that follows is genuine. 

“Fine.” Leaning forward, you carefully place your sketch in front of him.

It’s not perfect—you know that. But as his gaze sweeps over your work, a low laugh escapes his throat, warm and surprised.

He’s delighted.

One could call it abstract—modern, even. It's a far cry from any respectable piece of art, but you have captured him not just in likeness, but with something real.

To him? It's priceless. You even included the faint dimple that appears when he grins. He had forgotten what that even looked like.

“You really got me.” He murmurs, studying the details.

“About time I made my old art teacher proud,” you joke, trying to mask how pleased you are that he likes it.

“You sure have.” Steve’s eyes lift, warm and appreciative. Not a hint of sarcasm in his statement.

Fuck, you’re precious.

His soft expression steals the slight sting from your cheeks, though you still feel the warmth of his compliments. Clearing your throat, you eye the paper clutched against his chest. 

“So… are you gonna show me yours, or what?”

A flicker of apprehension crosses his features before he offers you a small grin. 

“Sure.” Slowly, he passes the sheet over.

The moment your eyes settle on his sketch, your breath catches in your throat. 

It’s incredible.

There’s a tenderness in every line, an intimacy woven into the drawing. He’s captured the shape of your eyes, the curve of your smile—even that subtle confidence you sometimes forget you have.

Your fingers hover over the page before lightly tracing the details, almost as if touching it too firmly might smudge the feeling behind it.

“This is… really good, Steve,” you say, half under your breath.

His cheeks redden, and he scratches behind his ear. 

“You think?”

You nod. “Can I keep it?”

“Course you can,” he says, hurriedly straightening in his chair. “Drew it for you in the first place.”

A spark of bubbly excitement flutters in his chest as he watches you carefully set the drawing aside—not folding it, not tucking it away like an afterthought. You’re going to carry it home just like that, like it actually means something to you.

That alone makes him ridiculously happy for humouring your request of the evening. 

The clock on the wall blinks at you both, reminding you that the night has slipped far later than intended. With a small sigh, he flicks his gaze between you and the scattered art supplies. 

“Since we missed dinner,” he ventures, voice warm, “I know a diner that’s open late, if you’re hungry.”

A grin spreads across your face, soft and genuine. “That sounds way better than some fancy restaurant.”

Relief mingles in his tender expression—his eyes crinkling just enough at the corners. He sets the pencils aside. 

“Alright, but first…” He picks up your drawing—your portrait of him—and walks over to the nearest wall of taped-up masterpieces. With a careful hand, he pins it among the rainbow of kid-drawn dinosaurs, flowers, and stick figures.

You step up beside him, your shoulder brushing his lightly. Your eyes sweep over the vibrant array of drawings. Some of them were clearly made with Steve in mind—crude sketches of his unmistakable hair, big hearts labeled Mr. Harrington, and even the occasional speech bubble with some goofy letters scrawled inside.

“You really make an impact here,” you say, voice hushed with genuine admiration.

Steve glances sideways at you, then back at the wall. 

“I’m… not so sure about that.” There’s a bashful edge to his tone, like he can’t quite see the effect he has on others.

You turn, glancing at a couple of the drawings—an especially adorable one with MR. H scrawled in bold marker. You’re close enough that he can feel a hint of your warmth, your presence tethering him right here, right now. 

“If you can’t see it,” you tell him gently, “you must be blind.” Your voice softens, and you tilt your head. “I mean—look.”

He follows your gesture, eyes drifting over bright crayons and enthusiastic scribbles. There’s a tangible love in those images—love for the teacher who stuck around after hours, who shared life with them, who cheered for them every step of the way.

Even when he struggling himself.

“You’re special, Steve.”

His heart thumps hard. The weight of your words collides with the sudden awareness that you’re right there—looking at him in a way that makes the room tilt. He barely manages a breath before your gaze meets his, and for a heartbeat, neither of you moves.

Everything about you—the kindness in your eyes, the gentleness of your smile, the fact that you spent the entire evening drawing dumb pictures with him without a single complaint—hits him all at once. 

He’s overwhelmed by how right this feels. 

Without really thinking, he bends closer, gaze dropping to your lips as he crosses that small distance.

When his mouth meets yours, it’s soft. Tentative. Like he’s afraid the moment might vanish if he pushes too hard. But when he feels you press back—just as gentle, just as eager—something sparks inside him. 

It’s like a release of breath he didn’t know he was holding, the sweetest, most perfect rush, better than anything he’s felt in years.

He cups your jaw tenderly, the warmth of your skin sending shivers along his arm. He’s half-aware of how fast his heart is pounding, how desperately he wants to deepen the kiss—yet a flicker of nerves has him pulling back just enough to look at you. Your eyes are shining, and the look in them nearly undoes him.

“Sorry,” he breathes, voice a little shaky from adrenaline and pure exhilaration. “I just—”

You cut off his apology with a quick, playful peck that makes his cheeks burn. 

He wants you to do that again.

“So,” you say, lips curling into a grin that all but steals his sanity, “dinner?”

A small, breathy laugh escapes him, his fingers still lightly touching your cheek as if he can’t quite let go. 

“Yeah,” he manages, voice thick. “Yeah—dinner.”

With his pulse still thundering, he reluctantly lets his hand slip down. You gather up coats and keys and stray papers, placing them in his hands to put away correctly. You head for the door, and when you pause to wait for him, you extend your hand—palm up, an invitation.

It’s for him.

It’s a rush of gratitude, a soft feeling he doesn’t quite know what to do with. Without thinking, he slips his fingers through yours, giving a gentle squeeze.

It’s such a simple gesture, barely more than a touch, but somehow, it makes his chest feel full—like he might burst from it.