🍸

it was 2 a.m.

you had to be up in four hours to get ready for work and you still hadn’t gone to sleep. the city street noise that normally didn’t bother you now kept you awake. the standby light of your tv was suddenly all too noticeable.

you grabbed your phone from the bedside table and started to doomscroll, knowing that you weren’t going to sleep anytime soon. But it didn’t last long as you remembered mouser telling you to try out this ‘dope’ site he had found and sent you the link for a few days ago. so, you looked for it in your recent conversations and clicked on the link, oblivious to what it was even about.

your breath caught when the page finished loading and written in red and fancy cursive you read:

Sign in. Sigh out…

and right below it: create your anonymous account now and meet strangers online!

it was a sexting platform. “jesus christ mouser” you said to no one but yourself.

you closed the tab, looked at the time, 2:16 a.m., and decided to open it again. it wouldn’t hurt you to see what it was about.

your finger hovered over the sign in button for a few seconds before pressing it with a huff, followed by another one that let the page put together your account without you having to do anything. after all, you didn’t really think you were going to use it after tonight.

a chuckle escaped your mouth when you read the ridiculous username they had given you: kissandDONTtell.

when you scrolled through the active anonymous profiles and didn’t feel like texting any of them, you almost closed the tab again. until your phone pinged with a new message.

smashingkeys69: hey ;)

you weren’t the only one with a ridiculous username. another day you might have left it on read and continue trying to fall asleep, but you were bored and the idea of sexting with a random guy seemed, to be honest, a lot of fun at the moment.

so, you typed.

you: hi

the answer appeared almost instantly.

smashingkeys69: what r u doing

you: honestly, ive no idea

you: i cant sleep, u?

smashingkeys69: just got done w work

you: at 2 am

smashingkeys69: u need a distraction

you: is that a statement or a question

smashingkeys69: a statement

the question of whether or not you actually wanted to get some guy off with messages crossed your mind. however, you wouldn’t lie and say you didn’t want his help too. It’s not like you had never sexted with someone before, ‘cause you had once or twice, but not knowing who was behind the screen thrilled you in a way you weren’t expecting.

you: yeah i probably do

smashingkeys69: i can help u w that

you: can you…

smashingkeys69: r u in bed

you inhaled before finally letting go of whatever was holding you back and decided you’d accept his help.

you: yes

you: and not wearing anything

it was a lie. you had your pjs on, but he didn’t need to know that.

smashingkeys69: thats a bit cold

you: thought u might help me get warm

smashingkeys69: tell me what u like

you could feel your heart rate increase and a fluttering sensation between your legs. you pressed them together to try to stop it and get some release. the reminders of the boring guys you had been with before, how you rarely got what you wanted and were never satisfied, pushed you to answer him truthfully as you sensed your own inhibitions flying away.

you: i like to be told what to do

you: but i also like being in control sometimes

smashingkeys69: would u suck me off

the abrupt question made you chuckle as, not used to reading those kinds of messages directed to you.

you: only if u promise to give back the favor

smashingkeys69: ofc what kind of man would i be

you: idk a normal one

smashingkeys69: i would do u so good

smashingkeys69: touch urself and tell me how wet u r now

your walls clenched around nothing, begging you to start touching yourself like he was asking you to do. your left hand traveled from where it was resting against your stomach, sneaking under your pijama pants and underwear to find you, surprisingly, already wet. you stopped your fingers, afraid of how fast you might come if you kept moving them, feeling the cold in them slip away as the hotness of your skin warmed them up.

you: im so wet rn

you: youd slide right in

smashingkeys69: mm but id like to taste u first

smashingkeys69: get u ready f me

you rolled your eyes at his comment. get you ready for me you whispered. who the fuck does this guy think he is?

you: u think i couldnt take it

smashingkeys69: i know you couldnt

you: how big r u

smashingkeys69: i can show u if u send me sth back

you thought about saying no and just imagining it. but the curiosity got the best of you and made you cave in.

you: ok what do u wanna see

smashingkeys69: ur boobs

you: we’ll see

you: after

on the other end, not too many blocks away from your own apartment, keys opened his camera app.

first he tried to take the picture from his chest, but realized his reflection could be seen on the glass from his coffee table.

he grabbed his length with his right hand and stroke himself a few times to get it harder, smearing the precum on his tip over it with his thumb while with the right one he took his phone and lowered it on his side. the angle was just right, making visible only his lower abdomen and upper thighs. keys snapped the photo and sent it immediately.

smashingkeys69: [photo attached]

smashingkeys69: still think u wouldnt need a bit of help first?

if the picture was real, he wasn’t lying.

from the background it was obvious he was laying down on a couch, propped against some pillows. it was taken from the side, his hand gripping his own hard dick at the base as it almost touched his stomach. on the shadow of it there was a happy trail that started near his bellybutton and made its way down.

you stared at it for a few seconds.

you: shit

smashingkeys69: yeah

smashingkeys69: id tease u w my fingers first

smashingkeys69: feel u so wet for me

after getting your pants and panties off, you started teasing your entrance with your index finger as he had said. the heel of your palm rubbed against your clit in sync as the double stimulation got your first moan of the night to slip from your lips.

you: would u let me touch u too

keys threw his head back, hitting it against his couch. the thought of someone touching themselves while they touched him at the same time sent shivers throughout his body that ended right on his dick.

smashingkeys69: fuck thatd be hot

you: so hard and big already

smashingkeys69: r u touching urself rn

you dragged your fingers over your slit once again, having been too focused on looking at his picture. not only taking in how big he was but also how long his fingers seemed to be.

you: yeah i am

you: it feels so good my fingers are cold

smashingkeys69: get two of them inside of your pussy

smashingkeys69: imagine thats me working you up so good

you obliged, pushing your middle and index finger inside your pussy.

you: can i move them

smashingkeys69: slowly

smashingkeys69: watch how you take them so well

smashingkeys69: just like youll take my dick later

smashingkeys69: you want that

both of you followed a slow rhythm, imagining it was someone else’s hands trying to make you cum.

you lifted your head, chin hitting your chest as you watched your fingers pulling out and disappearing inside of you over and over again.

you: i need that

you: need your big dick inside me

keys loved being praised for everything, and getting told how big and good his dick is was one of his favourites forms of praise. your words made him increase the pace he was jerking off at, the only sound in his quiet apartment being his occasional whimper.

smashingkeys69: told ya i gotta taste u first

smashingkeys69: id get my fingers out and part your lips so i could run my tongue on it

you imitated the motion with your thumb and felt your legs turn slightly to the side and close around your hand.

you: mm itd be so good id have to grab your hair

smashingkeys69: i can imagine all the sweet noises youd make while i suck your clit

smashingkeys69: and get my fingers on you again

keys closed his eyes while he waited for your answer, pretending the sounds he was making were actually yours. the idea made his dick throb against his hand and he had to stop the back and forth movements or he’ll cum, edging himself.

you: id moan so loud just for u

you: dont care who hears cause it feels so good

smashingkeys69: and id want u to tell me how good it feels

you: id be trying to close my legs and youd have to keep them apart

smashingkeys69: id put them over my shoulders and let u squeeze my head all u want

it was getting hard to keep your eyes open and read and type. you didn’t register the moment you let your phone fall on your stomach to use your hand to keep your legs apart yourself.

you lifted your head once more and through the blur in your eyes you tried to make out what his texts said.

smashingkeys69: rub your clit rn

smashingkeys69: imagine its my thumb while i get my dick on ur hole

smashingkeys69: slap it on ur cunt and watch u touch urself

smashingkeys69: tell u what a slut u r

you grabbed your phone again and sped up, barely getting your fingers out of your pussy before slamming them right back in. his words and the pleasure turning the motions sloppy and making your knees start to shake.

you: god m already close

smashingkeys69: dont cum yet wait for me

you: hurry up

keys started jerking off again, not wanting to leave you behind.

smashingkeys69: u like me calling u a slut

you: yeah ur slut

smashingkeys69: god

smashingkeys69: id push my dick into u all at once and watch ur face

even in the buzzy state, you made a mental note to get a dildo soon in case there was a second time, not even realizing you were considering doing this again.

you: i bet itd hurt so good

you: feelin u stretching me

keys added some pressure on his grip, squeezing a bit and letting it go as he tried to feel the same tightness he would’ve felt from you.

smashingkeys69: ur tight pussy all around me when i pound into u

smashingkeys69: and tellin u what a good girl u r for takin me so well

you: fucking me raw and fast

smashingkeys69: ofc thats what youd get

smashingkeys69: put my thumb on ur mouth and make u suck it

smashingkeys69: taste urself off of me so sweet and warm from ur own pussy

you: id grab ur neck and bring u down

you: make u kiss me so youll taste me again

keys’ chest went up and down fast as his breathing heaved and he struggled to write his next messages. he bit down hard on his bottom lip to stop himself from moaning too loud and instead getting out a restrained sound close to a high whimper.

smashingkeys69: fuck

smashingkeys69: now im close too

you: imagine my tight pussy clenching ur dick

you: screaming for u to go faster

smashingkeys69: shit

smashingkeys69: m gonna cum

you moaned nonsense as your back arched off the bed and your high hit you in a big wave. you stilled your fingers before pulling them out of you and brushing them against the sheets, ready to type again and finish him off.

you: id make u pull out and cum on my tits

smashingkeys69: cummin on ur tits

smashingkeys69: all over them

smashingkeys69: get some of it on your neck and chin tooyou: good cause i wanna taste u too

you: get it with my fingers and suck it clean like u did w me

finally, with a sweep of his thumb over the head of his dick and a deep grunt, keys came. his cum glistened on his stomach and his hand while he kept stroking himself slower, getting down from his own orgasm.

he took a minute before replying, waiting for his heart rate to go down and his vision to stop being blurry.

smashingkeys69: thats so hot

you: id want u to lick my tits

you: get all of u off

smashingkeys69: mm dont have to ask twice

smashingkeys69: id kiss u after so youd keep tasting me

smashingkeys69: did u cum

you kept typing onehandedly and got up from your bed, walking over to your bathroom so you could clean yourself off. 

you: yeah i did

you: did u

smashingkeys69: so hard

you: good :) well now im a bit more tired

you: thanks

keys sat upright at your message ‘cause he remembered you had promised him a picture of your boobs.

smashingkeys69: wait what about your photo

you: ????

smashingkeys69: u said u would send me a picture of ur boobs

you: oh

you: maybe next time!

you surprised yourself at the promise of another round sometime. but it had felt so amazing that you were actually looking forward to it.

and even if keys was frustrated at having been played, the thought of texting you again soon made him hard again, forcing him to scroll to the beginning or your conversation so he could reread it, “stupid mouser”

It's a Tuesday. Nothing special about it. The kind of Tuesday that bleeds into every other Tuesday, gray and unremarkable.

Steve is behind the counter at Family Video, spinning a pen between his fingers, half-listening to Robin chatter about something that happened at the coffee shop.

"—and she was just sitting there, Steve, drinking her coffee like a normal person, and I thought, I have to talk to her. I have to. So I did."

"You talked to a stranger. Shocking. Do you want a gold medal?"

"Shut up. She's amazing. Like, actual sunshine. You're gonna love her."

"You say that about everyone."

"No, I mean it this time. She's new in town and she doesn't know anyone and I invited her to hang out with us tonight." Robin checks her watch. "Actually, she should be here any minute."

Steve sighs. "Robin."

"What? She's nice! You'll like her. Just... be normal. For once."

"I'm always normal."

"You're really not."

The bell over the door chimes. Steve looks up.

And the world tilts sideways.

You're standing in the doorway, backlit by the afternoon sun, and for a second, you're just a silhouette, both familiar and not, a shape his brain can't quite place. Then you step forward, and...

It's you.

Same eyes. Same smile. Same way of tilting your head when you're nervous, a habit you've had since you were six years old. You're older now, taller, your face different in a hundred small ways — but he'd know you anywhere.

You haven't seen him yet. You're looking at Robin, waving, crossing the store with that easy walk you always had.

"Robin! Hi! Sorry I'm late, I got turned around. This town is so different than I remember."

Robin laughs, pulling you into a hug. "You remember Hawkins? I thought you just moved here."

"I did. I mean, I re-moved here. I grew up here." You pull back, grinning. "A long time ago. Like, elementary school ages."

"No way." Robin's eyes go wide. "That's crazy."

"I know, right? I haven't been back since my parents moved us away. It's so weird being here." You glance around the store, taking it in. "This place used to be a bakery, I think. Or maybe I'm making that up."

Steve can't move. Can't breathe. Can't do anything except stand there, gripping the counter, staring at you like you're a ghost.

Robin notices. "Oh! I'm being so impolite. This is Steve. He's my work bestie. Be nice to him, he's sensitive."

You turn, and your eyes finally, finally, meet his.

You tilt your head. Study his face. Your brow furrows slightly, like you're trying to place him, then your eyes go wide. "No." The word comes out barely a whisper. "No way."

Steve swallows. "Hi."

You take a step closer. Then another. Your hand comes up, hovering, like you want to touch his face but you're not sure if he's real.

"Steve?" Your voice cracks. "Steve Harrington?"

He nods. Can't speak. Can't do anything except look at you, drink you in, try to reconcile the woman in front of him with the little girl who used to steal his crayons and share her snacks.

You slap a hand over your mouth. Then you're laughing, God how he missed that laugh, and throwing your arms around him.

Steve catches you on instinct, pulls you close, holds on like you might disappear. You fit. After all these years, you still fit perfectly against him.

"Oh my god," you mumble into his shoulder. "Oh my god. Stevie."

The nickname that no one has ever used since you breaks something open in his chest.

"You're here." His voice is rough. "You're actually here."

"I'm here." You pull back just enough to look at him, hands still on his arms like you're afraid he'll vanish. "I can't believe — you're so tall. You were such a shrimp last time I saw you."

He laughs despite himself. "I was not a shrimp."

"You were absolutely a shrimp." You punch his arm, light, familiar. "I used to beat you in races every single time."

"You tripped me!"

"You tripped yourself," you retort, grinning so wide your cheeks hurt.

Robin is standing behind the counter with her mouth hanging open. "Okay." She holds up her hands. "Okay. I need someone to explain what's happening right now, because I am very confused."

You turn to her, still smiling, and Steve realises he hasn't stopped staring at you. Can't stop. Doesn't want to stop.

"We know each other," you say. "Childhood best friends."

"Like, best best friends," Steve adds, because apparently he's incapable of letting you tell this story alone. "We were inseparable."

"Until my parents moved us away." You shrug. "Fourth grade. We lost touch."

Robin's eyes bounce between you like she's watching a tennis match. "You're telling me that my new friend—the one I literally just met at a coffee shop—is your childhood best friend? Who you've never mentioned, somehow?"

"I mentioned her."

"Once. Vaguely. With a lot of staring into the distance."

Steve's ears go pink. "I didn't stare into the distance."

"You absolutely stared into the distance. It was all very dramatic."

You laugh, and the sound does something complicated to Steve's insides. He watches the way your nose crinkles, the way your whole face lights up, and his heart goes to mush.

"So," you say, turning back to him, "what have you been up to for the last fifteen years? Besides growing a foot or two?"

He shakes his head, still smiling like an idiot. "I don't even know where to start."

"Start with the highlights." You lean against the counter, making yourself comfortable. "I've got time."

You end up talking for an hour.

Robin chips in occasionally, but mostly she just watches, fascinated, as the two of you fall back into a rhythm that shouldn't still exist after all these years. But it does. It's like no time has passed at all.

Steve tells you about high school—the edited version, the one that doesn't make him sound like too much of a jerk. You tell him about your high school, about the cities you've lived in, about the jobs you've had. He asks questions, genuine questions, because he actually wants to know. He wants to know everything.

"You look good," he says at one point, and then immediately wants to take it back because that was too much, too forward, too—

You smile. "You too, Stevie. You look really good."

His heart does a backflip.

The afternoon stretches on. Customers come and go. Robin handles most of them, throwing knowing looks at Steve every time she catches him staring at you again.

Which is often.

He can't help it. You're right there. After all these years, you're just right there, leaning against his counter like you never left, and he can't stop looking at you. The way your hair falls over your shoulder. The way you bite your lip when you're thinking. The way your eyes light up when you talk about something you love.

He's got it bad. He knows he's got it bad. He doesn't care.

"So," you say eventually, glancing at the clock, "I should probably head out. Let you two actually work."

"You don't have to." The words come out too fast, too eager. Steve tries to play it cool. "I mean, if you want to stay. But also if you need to go, that's cool too. Obviously."

You tilt your head, that familiar gesture, and smile. "I could stay a little longer."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

Another hour passes. Then another. By the time the sun starts to set, you've covered everything — jobs, relationships (or lack thereof), favourite movies, least favourite foods, the time you both got in trouble for trying to build a raft out of scavenged wood and nearly sank in the creek.

"You remember that?" Steve asks, delighted.

"You nearly drowned! Of course I remember!"

"I did not nearly drown. I was swimming."

"You were flailing and screaming for help. I had to pull you out."

"I was playing."

"You were drowning, Steven."

Robin laughs, leaning against the counter. "Your legal name is Steven? Dingus, how did this never come up?"

"He's only called that when he's in trouble," you grin at Steve. "Which was often."

He should be embarrassed. He's not. He's too busy watching you, memorising the way you look in the fading light, the way your presence fills up the whole store.

"Hey." The words come out before he can stop them. "We're having a movie night tonight. At my place. Nothing fancy, just some friends hanging out. You should come."

You blink. "Really?"

"Yeah. I mean—" He runs a hand through his hair, suddenly nervous. "Only if you want to. No pressure. It's just... it'd be nice, to have you there."

When you smile and say, "I'd love that, Stevie," and Robin mimics gagging, Steve doesn't even care that he probably looks like a lovesick puppy. He's too busy floating six feet off the ground.

You show up at his house that night with a bag of Starbursts.

"I wasn't sure what to bring," you say, holding them out. "But I remembered you liked these. The blue ones especially. You'd always trade me for my blues."

Steve's eyes flicker from the candy in your hand to your eyes. "You remembered that?"

"Of course I remembered." You shrug, a little shy. "I told you. I remember everything."

He takes the bag, fingers brushing yours. "I still like the blue ones best."

"Good. I... um, I picked out all the others. So there's only blue ones in the packet."

He blinks. "You—" His voice comes out weird. He clears his throat. "You picked out all the non-blue ones? For me?"

You shrug again, but your cheeks are growing warm. "Yeah. I wanted you to have them. The good ones. Without having to pick through the packet."

He doesn't know what to say. You remembered. You remembered his favourite candy, and you took the time to pick out all the other flavours just so he could have exactly what he liked.

No one does that. No one has ever done that.

Except you.

He says your name softly. "That's—" He stops, because he doesn't have words big enough.

You shift on your feet, suddenly looking unsure. "Is it weird? I thought it might be weird. I just—when I saw them at the store, I thought of you, and—"

"It's not weird." He steps closer, still holding the bag like it's something precious. "It's the nicest thing anyone's done for me in a long time."

Your face softens. "Really?"

"Really."

You're standing in his doorway, backlit by the porch light, and Steve thinks you might be the most beautiful thing he's ever seen. The evening air is cool, carrying the scent of fallen leaves and the distant hum of cicadas.

You're wearing a soft sweater that's slightly too big, jeans that fit just right, and you're looking at him like he's someone worth looking at.

He wants to remember this moment forever.

"Come in," he says finally, stepping aside. "Everyone should be here soon."

You duck past him into the house, and he catches a hint of your perfume, something he already knows is going to haunt him for weeks. "Am I too early?" you ask, glancing around his living room. It's empty for now, just the two of you and the soft glow of the lamps Steve always keeps on.

"No." The word comes out too fast. He tries again, softer. "No, you're perfect. I mean.... perfect timing. You have perfect timing."

You raise an eyebrow, amused. "Smooth, Harrington."

"Shut up." He's grinning though, can't help it. "Make yourself comfortable. You want something to drink? I've got soda, water, probably some beer somewhere. Do you drink?"

"Yeah, sometimes." You settle onto the couch, curling into the corner. "I'm not a huge fan of beer, though. It's just kind of... bitter? I don't know. Not my thing."

Steve's eyebrows shoot up. "Really? I feel like everyone our age is supposed to like beer or pretend beer is amazing."

You laugh. "Right? I've never understood it."

You end up talking again. For twenty minutes, without stopping. It's not even awkward, at all. It's easy. You're easy to talk to.

The door bursts open soon enough.

"Steve! We're here! And we brought snacks, so you better be grateful—"

Dustin stops dead in the doorway, eyes landing on you. Mike, Lucas and Will pile in behind him, nearly crashing into his back.

"Oh," Dustin says. "Who's this?"

Steve stands, suddenly protective in a way he can't explain. "This is—"

"Robin's new friend," you supply, standing with a smile. "And Steve's old one, as we've realised."

Dustin's eyebrows shoot up. "Old friend?"

"Childhood best friends," Steve clarifies. "We knew each other when we were kids."

"Childhood best friends," Mike repeats slowly, a grin spreading across his face. "Huh."

"Don't start, Wheeler."

"She's pretty," Lucas observes. "Really pretty."

"Sinclair!"

"What? I'm just stating facts."

You laugh, bright and easy, and Lucas grins like he's just won a prize. "Careful," you say, tilting your head at him. "I might start thinking you're trying to flatter me into sharing my snacks."

Lucas's eyes light up. "Is that a possibility?"

"Depends on how good your flattery is."

"I'm very good at flattery."

"He's really not," Mike mutters.

"Shut up, Mike."

Dustin is watching you with narrowed eyes, like he's trying to figure you out. You meet his gaze and smile.

"You're Dustin, right? Steve mentioned you."

"Did he." Dustin's voice is flat, but there's curiosity underneath. "What did he say?"

"That you're the brains of the operation. And that you once convinced him aliens were real for three months."

Dustin's face breaks into a massive grin. "He told you about that?"

"He left out the best parts, I'm guessing."

"Oh, the best parts are legendary. There was this one time—"

"Dustin's insufferable enough already," Mike interrupts. "Please don't encourage him."

"I'm not encouraging. I'm gathering intel." You wink at Dustin. "For blackmail purposes."

Dustin stares at you for a beat. Then he turns to Steve with something like reverence. "I like her. She stays."

"Glad you approve, Henderson."

Steve tunes out the rest of the conversation. He's much too focused on you. You're laughing at something Dustin said, your whole face lit up, and Steve realises he's been staring again.

He can't help it. You're just—you're here. After all these years, you're sitting on his couch, talking to his weird adopted family, fitting in like you've always been part of it.

The door opens again, and Max walks in with El.

Max takes one look at you, eyebrows raised. "Who's the newbie?"

"My childhood best friend," Steve explains for what feels like the hundredth time. "Just moved back. We haven't seen each other in like ten years."

"Huh." Max gives you a long, assessing look. "I'm Max. This is El."

"Hi, Max. Hi, El. Nice to meet you."

El peers at you with big, curious eyes. You smile at her, warm and genuine, and Steve feels his chest tighten.

"I like your necklace," you murmur.

El glances down at the pearl necklace Mike bought her last year, then back at you. A small smile touches her lips. "Thank you."

You're sandwiched between them now, Max on one side and El on the other, and Steve watches from across the room as you somehow fit right in. He can't look away.

"What's your favourite movie?" El asks.

"That's a hard one. Depends on my mood, I think."

"Scary movies?"

"Sometimes. I like the special effects. They're pretty cool, right?"

El's eyes light up. "Mike likes those too. The... special effects."

"Mike has good taste, then."

"Debatable," Max mutters.

"She's good with them," Robin says, appearing at Steve's side. "Really good."

"Yeah." His voice is soft. "She is."

"You look kinda sad about it."

"I'm not sad." He pauses, watches you ruffle El's hair gently. "I just—I wanted to talk to her more. And now she's been stolen by the gremlins."

"Don't tell me you're jealous of a couple of teenagers."

Steve shrugs, a smile tugging at his lips as he watches you pass out the other coloured Starbursts to the kids. At one point, Dustin asks where the blue ones are, and you just smile.

"Sorry, Dustin. The blue ones are spoken for."

Dustin's eyes narrow. "Spoken for? By who?"

You glance at Steve, just for a second, and something warm passes between you. "They're someone's favourite."

Dustin follows your gaze, lands on Steve and grins. "Oh. Oh. I see how it is."

"You don't see anything," Steve says quickly.

"I see everything." Dustin leans back, arms crossed, looking insufferably pleased with himself. "The blue ones are for Steve. Steve gets special treatment. This is huge."

"They're just candy," you protest, but your cheeks are pink.

"They're not just candy." Dustin turns to the others. "Do you understand what this means?"

"That Steve has a favourite colour?" Will offers.

"No, dumbass," Dustin sighs.

You're laughing now, and Steve wants to die but also never wants this moment to end. You catch his eye across the room and smile.

He's in so much trouble.

After the movie, Max and El leave first. They offered you to join their sleepover at the Byers' house, which you'd declined, much to their disappointment, but you'd promised to hang out with them later this week.

Dustin's next, clapping Steve on the shoulder. "Good job, Steve. She's a keeper."

"She's not—we're not—"

"Sure." Dustin grins, that knowing look firmly in place. "Whatever you say, Steve."

Mike and Lucas follow, throwing casual goodbyes over their shoulders.

Robin hugs you goodbye, whispers something in your ear that makes you blush and swat at her arm. She cackles, throws Steve a wink, and disappears into the night.

And then it's just you and Steve.

You're still on the couch, curled into the corner, looking around at the scattered popcorn bowls and empty soda cans. "This was really fun."

"Yeah?" Steve's leaning against the back of the couch, watching you. "You're not just saying that?"

"I never just say things." You stretch, catlike, and Steve absolutely does not stare at the sliver of skin that appears between your sweater and your jeans. "Your friends are great. Weird, but great."

"That's the best way to describe them." He pushes off the couch, starts gathering empty cans. "You don't have to help, by the way. You're a guest."

You're already standing, collecting popcorn bowls. "I know. I want to."

"You want to clean up after a bunch of teenagers?"

"I want to help you." You say it simply, like it's obvious, and Steve doesn't know what to do with that. So he just nods, and the two of you move around his living room in easy silence, tidying up.

It's domestic in a way that makes his chest tight. You fitting into his space, picking up cushions, straightening blankets, tossing trash.

You belong here. That's the thought that keeps circling in his head. You belong here, in his house, with his people, in his life.

"You know," you say, dropping a handful of napkins in the trash, "I was really nervous about tonight."

Steve pauses, an empty soda can in each hand. "You were? You seemed totally comfortable."

"I'm good at faking it." You shrug. "But yeah. New town, new people, new... everything. Even though I did live here, I don't know. I wasn't sure how I'd fit in."

"And now?"

You smile. "Now I'm really glad I came."

Steve sets down the cans, crosses to where you're standing by the kitchen island. "Me too." You're looking at him with those big, warm eyes, and Steve thinks he could get lost in them.

"Hey," he says, before he can lose his nerve. "Are you doing anything tomorrow?"

You tilt your head. "Depends. Why?"

"A few of us are gonna hang out. Robin, obviously. Nancy and Jonathan." He rubs the back of his neck, suddenly nervous. "Just a smaller group. More low-key. I thought maybe you'd want to come?"

"You want me to come?"

"I mean—only if you want to. No pressure. But yeah, I'd like it if you were there." He pauses, steels himself. "I'd like to spend more time with you. If that's okay."

You're quiet for a moment, and Steve's heart hammers in his chest. Then you smile — that same smile from when you were nine.

"I'd love that, Stevie."

"Okay," he murmurs. Watches the strand of hair that's fallen in front of your face and reaches up before you can, tucking it behind your ear, fingers lingering longer than necessary.

You leave, promising to meet him and the others tomorrow at the diner for lunch.

Steve closes the door behind you and leans against it, eyes shut, hand pressed to his chest like he can physically slow down his racing heart. He pushes off the door eventually, walking over slowly to the couch, sinking into the spot you just left. It's still warm. He tells himself that's not weird, that anyone would notice that, that it doesn't mean anything.

He's lying.

His fingers brush the cushion where you were sitting, and he thinks about the way you looked tonight. He thinks about the Starbursts. The blue ones, all picked out just for him. The way you'd shrugged like it was nothing, like it wasn't the most thoughtful thing anyone had ever done.

Steve scrubs a hand over his face, exhausted and wired at the same time. He should go to bed. He has work tomorrow, and then lunch with you. But his mind won't stop spinning, caught in a loop of your smile, your laugh, the way your eyes crinkle at the corners when you're happy.

He remembers that from when you were kids. The way your whole face would light up when you were happy, like the sun coming out from behind clouds. It's the same now. Brighter, even.

You haven't changed much, he thinks. He can see the little kid in you still.

He thinks about the years you were gone. All the moments you missed, all the things he wishes you'd been there for. He thinks about the person he used to be — King Steve, asshole extraordinaire — and wonders what you would have thought of him if you'd seen him then. Would you have recognised him? Would you have wanted to?

He thinks about the person he is now. The person you seem to see when you look at him. He hopes you think he's good. That maybe, just maybe, someday he might be worthy of you.

He falls asleep on the couch. He dreams of forts in the woods and secret handshakes and a little girl with mud on her face, holding up a frog and grinning like she'd just found treasure.

Steve's the first one at the diner the next day. He grabs a booth near the window, where he can see the parking lot. He orders a coffee he doesn't really want, just to have something to do with his hands.

Robin's the first to arrive, sliding into the booth across from him with a knowing grin. "You're here early."

"Traffic was light," Steve mutters, taking a sip of his coffee even though it's still too hot.

Robin snorts. "It's a five-minute drive from your house." She steals his coffee, takes a sip, then slides the cup back to him. "She's coming, by the way. I ran into her at the grocery store this morning. She said she'd be here."

Steve's heart does that stupid flip thing again. "I didn't ask."

"You didn't have to. Your face did." Robin grins. "Relax. She likes you."

"She doesn't—we're just—"

"Steve." Robin's voice is flat. "She picked the blue ones out of a whole bag of Starbursts. For you. That's not 'just' anything."

He doesn't have an answer for that.

The diner is quiet this time of day — the lunch rush hasn't started yet, and the breakfast crowd is long gone. Robin orders her own coffee, stirs sugar into it when it arrives.

"You know, you could just tell her."

"Tell her what?"

"How you feel." She shrugs. "It's not complicated. 'Hey, I've known you since we were kids and I think you're amazing and also really pretty and I'd like to kiss you.' Simple."

Steve chokes on his coffee. "I am not saying that."

"Why not? It's true."

"It's—" He runs a hand through his hair. "We just reconnected. I don't want to rush anything. What if she doesn't feel the same way? What if I scare her off?"

Robin considers this. "Okay, fair. But also, have you seen the way she looks at you?"

"What way?"

"You're clueless."

Before Steve can respond, Nancy walks in, Jonathan right behind her, both of them looking slightly windswept from the walk.

"Sorry we're late," Nancy says, sliding into the booth next to Robin. "Jonathan lost track of time developing photos."

"I didn't lose track of time," Jonathan protests, sitting beside her. "I was in the zone. There's a difference."

Steve's eyes drift to the parking lot again. Still no sign of your car.

"So," Nancy says. "This new friend of Robin's. Also apparently your childhood best friend. The one you've been staring at all week."

"I haven't been staring."

"You've been staring. Jonathan noticed too."

Jonathan nods without looking away from the window. "It's impressive, actually. The level of focus."

"I hate all of you," Steve mutters.

"You love us. And you're nervous because she's late and you're worried she changed her mind."

"I'm not—" He stops. Sighs. "Okay, maybe a little."

"Steve. She showed up at your house with a bag of candy she specially prepared for you. She's not going to change her mind."

"How do you know?"

"Because I have eyes." Nancy's voice is dry. "And because Robin told me about the Starbursts. That's not nothing."

"She's right," Jonathan adds, finally turning from the window. "People don't do that for people they don't care about."

Steve wants to believe them. He does. But his eyes keep drifting back to the parking lot, watching for your car, waiting for you to appear.

Ten more minutes pass, during which Robin and Nancy get into a heated debate about something Steve's not listening to and Jonathan takes a picture of the salt shaker.

And then, finally, your car pulls into the lot.

Steve sits up straighter, watching you park, watching you step out, watching you pause to look around with that familiar tilt to your head.

"See?" Robin nudges him. "She's here. Told you."

You push through the diner door, and the little bell above it chimes. Your eyes scan the room, land on their booth, and you smile — but it's different this time. Apologetic. Embarrassed.

"Sorry I'm late!" You slide into the booth next to Steve, close enough that your arm brushes his. "I got lost again. I swear, this town is trying to confuse me on purpose."

"You got lost coming to the diner?" Nancy asks, amused. "It's literally a straight shot from your apartment."

"A straight shot with, like, four turns and no street signs and a really confusing intersection." You blow out a breath, pushing your hair out of your face. "I ended up near the old mill somehow."

"The old mill?" Robin's eyebrows shoot up. "That's, like, twenty minutes in the wrong direction."

"I know!" You laugh, embarrassed. "I'm hopeless. I should just start leaving breadcrumbs."

Steve's heart, which had been racing with worry, finally settles. You're here. You're okay. You just got lost.

"I was starting to think you'd changed your mind," he says quietly, before he can stop himself.

You turn to him, your expression softening. "No, Stevie. I wouldn't do that." You bump your shoulder against his. "It takes more than a confusing intersection to get rid of me."

"Okay, okay, enough with the eye contact," Robin interrupts. "Some of us are trying to eat."

Nancy laughs. "Robin, let them have their moment. It's cute."

Lunch is fun, easier than you thought it'd be. Afterwards, you all linger outside the diner, reluctant to let the afternoon end.

Robin stretches her arms above her head. "I gotta get to work. Some of us have actual jobs."

"You work at the same place as Steve," Nancy points out.

"Exactly. Which means I have to deal with him and customers. It's exhausting."

Steve flips her off, but he's smiling.

Nancy and Jonathan head off toward his car. He's got an arm around her and she's smiling into his shoulder, looking disgustingly cute.

Robin hugs you goodbye and shoves Steve's shoulder a little before disappearing down the street, too.

You're standing close, close enough that he can see the way the sunlight catches your hair. You're fidgeting with the strap of your bag, looking anywhere but at him.

"So," you say. "That was fun."

"Yeah." He shoves his hands in his pockets, suddenly awkward. "Really fun."

A pause. You bite your lip.

"Steve?"

"Yeah?"

"I was wondering..." You trail off, cheeks warming. "I mean, if you're not busy or whatever... do you maybe want to hang out again? Soon? Just us?"

His heart stops.

"I know we just hung out," you continue quickly, words tumbling out. "And you probably have stuff to do, and I don't want to be annoying or anything, it's just—I really like talking to you, and I feel like we have so much to catch up on, and—"

Steve says your name to stop you. You stop, looking at him with those big, warm eyes.

"I'd love to hang out again." He's grinning, can't help it. "Any time. Just say when."

Your face lights up. "Really?"

"Really."

"Okay." You're smiling now, that bright, sunshine smile. "How about tomorrow? We could go for a walk or something? If the weather's nice?"

"It's supposed to be nice." He's definitely grinning like an idiot. "I could pick you up around one? So you don't get lost."

You laugh, that bright sound he's already addicted to. "Wow. Rude. But also... fair. One o'clock sounds perfect."

"Perfect," he echoes.

You're both just standing there now, neither quite ready to leave. The afternoon sun is warm on Steve's shoulders, and you're looking at him with that soft expression, the one that makes his chest feel tight in the best way.

"I should probably go," you say eventually, but you don't move.

"Yeah. Me too. Probably." He doesn't move either.

"Thanks for today. And last night. And... everything." You shrug, a little shy. "I know I just showed up out of nowhere and turned your life upside down, but you've been really great about it."

You hug him again — longer this time, your arms around his waist, your cheek pressed to his chest.

When you pull back, your cheeks are flushed. "Okay. Bye, Stevie."

"Bye."

You walk to your car, and Steve watches the whole way, committing it to memory. You glance back before you slip into the drivers' seat, smiling before you disappear inside.

He stands there for a long time after you're gone, feeling like the luckiest guy in the world. He thinks this might be the beginning of something.

Something good.

Something real.

The scent of peonies follows you into the open kitchen where you're used to settling onto the stool. A still-steaming hot chocolate, topped with a generous helping of whipped cream, is waiting for you there.

It's a sort of ritual now. Before heading anywhere or starting the evening, Steve always makes you a chocolate drink. Neither of you has ever pointed it out; it was unconscious. As if it were normal.

“I found a spot right in front of your building, it's a lucky day!” you say after a first sip. “Well, a lucky evening.”

It's dark outside and, with a swipe of your tongue, you wipe away the whipped cream left above your lip. Steve watches you, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed.

“What is it?”

He opens his mouth, ready to ask you that damn question. Then you smile at him, half worried, half amused, and for a second he wonders why he's so nervous.

In the end, he simply smiles back, his unruly lock falling over his brown eyes.

You catch yourself thinking that maybe that's why you love hot chocolate so much. It reminds you of the color of his eyes, comfort, and other things you refuse to name.

“Nothing,” he finally says as he steps closer.

“Okay... I think we should take a cab to the movies, just to make sure I don't lose the spot... I'm still sleeping here tonight, right?”

Your eyes study him, waiting for the answer as if he'd changed his mind since this morning when you'd stormed out because you were running late.

As if you needed reassurance.

“Of course you're sleeping here.”

He kisses you softly and takes a seat beside you, turning the stool so he can face you.

“My bed is your bed.”

You smile as you quickly finish your drink, burning your tongue in the process, then stand up.

“Great! Let's hurry or we're going to be late...”

Steve gently catches your hand.

“Wait. Can we talk first?”

You look at him, frowning.

“Yeah, of course... I know you don't like trailers, we've got time.” You smile as you sit back down. “What is it?”

“Maybe sit down.”

You tilt your head. “I already am, Steve.”

“Oh.”

Maybe he's more stressed than he thought.

“Well, stay seated... I guess.”

Steve had never been nervous around you. He had no reason to be, because there were no expectations, neither from you nor from him. You'd said as much the moment you realized you'd end up sleeping together again.

“So, I've been thinking about... about this.”

With a wave of his hand, he gestures to the space between the two of you.

“A lot.”

Oh shit.

“I mean... about us.”

Your hand, which had remained in his, loosens until it lets go completely and retreats beneath your thigh.

Us.

He knows you well enough to tell you're already abandoning ship, that the sea is becoming too rough for you. But he's still the captain.

“Look at me.”

Your eyes find his again despite yourself. There's something in his voice that has always made you incapable of resisting him for very long.

“I want us to make this official... us. I want us to be a couple.”

No.

No, no, no...

“Steve...”

“I'm ready to take the next step.”

Why was he ruining everything?

“Why?” Your voice hardens and he realizes the fight is going to be rough. “We're not a couple. We fuck each other, that's it.”

His jaw tightens. He'd suspected you'd come up with a sentence like that to minimize what the two of you shared and, even though he'd prepared himself for it, it still hurt.

“Really? Just fucking?”

He presses, and you look away as you close your eyes.

Six months ago, while he still hadn't gotten over what happened with Nancy, Steve had walked into that crappy bar to drown his sorrow once again. He'd seen you serving drinks to all those idiots and bought you one.

And you'd fucked in the alley right behind the place when you went out on your break.

“Steve... no.”

“Why not?”

His voice has turned hard again, the one he uses when your bodies are tangled together, the one that makes you shiver a little more when he tells you to open your mouth wide and take him.

“You are an incredible man. You have a big heart. You're gorgeous. You're funny. Impulsive too and...”

“No. That's the polite version. Now tell me the real reason.”

He cuts you off, his chocolate eyes darkening.

“Explain to me how what we have is any different from a relationship.”

You slept at one another's place depending on who finished work the latest, shared movie nights without needing to sleep together, had thoughtful little gestures for each other by buying something small that would make the other happy. You'd met some of his friends and he'd gotten along well with Eddie despite their differences of opinion regarding music.

Your heart races, rejecting the idea.

“What you're feeling right now... it's new.”

“I've already been in love.”

You don't listen.

“And it's exciting.”

“I've always liked sex.”

“Jesus Christ, Steve!”

This time anger takes over because you're scared and he's not listening.

He watches you stand without moving. Your black hair shines beneath the kitchen light as you run a hand through it to calm yourself.

He's always loved your hair, whether it was pulling it or playing with a few strands.

“I let you do whatever you wanted with my body because I like that. I like... being controlled, and you like being in control. Nancy never gave you that opportunity.”

A stunned gasp escapes him when you bring up Nancy, his ex, who has absolutely no place in this conversation.

“That has nothing to do with it.”

“It has everything to do with it, Steve. You think you love me because you can be free to be who you are with me, but that doesn't mean you're in love.”

He lets out a humorless laugh.

“That's crazy, though.”

“What?”

“You're explaining to me why I want to be with you.”

“Steve...”

“No, seriously.” He shakes his head. “I just told you I want to be with you. Why is that so hard to believe?”

What a bitch. What a beautiful bitch. Despite all the nonsense coming out of your mouth, he can't help finding you beautiful.

He could use your lips any way he wanted. All he'd have to do is ask and you'd be on your knees, letting him clean your mouth of all the bullshit you keep letting spill out of it.

Because that's how it all started. When he realized you needed to be controlled during sex and he was finally looking to indulge all of his fantasies.

He just hadn't expected it to become more than that. And for you to pretend it wasn't the same for you too.

“It makes you feel like this is going to last forever.”

And on top of that, you keep going.

“What are you trying to say?”

I'm saying that, no matter how much I wanted to be, I'm not your last love.

“That you're exploring, and that's fine, but you need to have other experiences.”

“And you can't be the one I explore with?”

He says it with irony, almost mockingly. As if your relationship came down to that one word: explore.

He was going to argue again. Explain that you were wrong. Remind you of the nights you'd spent together, the mornings, the habits.

Then he suddenly realizes that none of it would change anything, because it's not him you're trying to convince, but yourself.

He didn't know you'd give up before even trying.

“Well, you finally managed to say stop.”

You flinch at the word that represents your safeword. And that he's using now.

Tell me stop and I'll stop, okay?

He's bitter. He can't help letting out a cold laugh as he looks out the window.

You'd like to tell him yes, truly. But you don't know how to handle emotions. You don't even know how. You only know that your heart still beats just as hard whenever you see him. That you love spending a simple evening with him without having to be on all fours—even if you love that too.

You know that you love Steve. A lot. Too much.

But you also know that you wouldn't be able to control anything with him, overwhelmed by all the things people feel when they're with someone.

Being controlled for sex was one thing.

But you needed to control everything else.

You were simply too scared to let him do it. To let Steve make you feel all of that.

“I should go.”

“So that's it?”

He asks the question, but he already knows the answer.

“Yeah... I guess so.”

Admitting it out loud hurts.

“Believe me, I didn't see it coming either,” you whisper, stunned. “I should've known that parking spot was too good to be true.”

Steve doesn't answer. He simply watches you the way he does every time he knows you're lying.

In less than an hour, you should be sitting side by side in a dark theater, arguing over which snacks to get.

Behind you, on the counter, the hot chocolate Steve made for you grows cold without anyone touching it.

I posted this yesterday, but I hit the wrong button and it deleted itself.

911 8x06 Buck and Tommy

Steve Harrington masterlist JJ Maybank masterlist Rafe Cameron masterlist

The upside down is nothing like you’d expected. It’s simultaneously worse and better than you’d expected.

It smells damp, the air is thick like smog, and you can’t bring yourself to look down to where you’re walking, the sound of your converse dragging through the sludge is enough to have you feeling nauseous.

Everyone else seems to be handling it much better than you—probably because they’ve done this before. It’s hard not to feel somewhat resentful that Steve had only brought all of this up to you by pure chance.

You knew he’d been hiding something. He was secretive, holding that goddamn walkie-talkie with him like it was the second coming of Christ and most obviously, never let you meet his friends.

Besides Robin, you liked Robin. Though it had been practically unbearable to sit politely and smile as they both regaled you of stories of Dustin, or any of the rest of The Party. It all festered underneath your skin, why did he never bring you around them?

Until the night you’d just happened to be over at his house when Dustin had attempted to recruit Steve to help find Eddie Munson. Eddie, drug dealer Eddie, who was now accused of murder.

“Steve he didn’t do it, it’s the upside down—” Dustin babbles incoherently, you can barely keep up. None of the words coming out of his mouth make sense to you.

The upside down?

“Steve?” you whisper to your boyfriend, who’s staring at the highschooler before you in dawning horror and grim acceptance.

“I’ll drive. Get in the car—I have to—” Steve waves over to you in a vague gesture and Dustin’s eyes grow wide as his jaw slackens.

“You haven’t told her?” He sounds horrified by the idea of it. Told you what.

“Car Henderson. Now.” Steve states firmly, throwing the curly haired teen his keys as he turns to you with a solemn expression.

˚₊‧꒰ა ✦ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚

You’d like to think you’d taken the news of a sadistic other-worldly demonic creature hellbent on killing pretty well, considering the fact that you were currently in his…world? Plain? Planet?

You had been rightfully angry with Steve for not telling you but given that there were bigger stakes than your feelings involved, you’d decided to lay your argument to rest.

Only for you to subsequently discover that Nancy Wheeler knew. Nancy Wheeler that Steve had fallen in love with. The same Nancy you watched Steve grow glassy eyed when talking about.

The same Nancy you tried to measure yourself up against and fell short on all aspects no matter how hard you seemed to try. You watched him with her, as much as it pained you.

He looked so happy, like the fate of the world wasn’t resting on his shoulders. Granted, Nancy was in a relationship, that was a point of contention amongst the two. You assumed some sort of shared history.

Nancy was sweet to you, checking in on you, asking if you needed anything. You couldn’t fault her for your own feelings. Hell, if you were in Steve shoes, you’d probably also have fallen in love with her.

You heard them talking in the van on the drive back from the hardware store, huddled in the back with Eddie and Dustin. It doesn’t feel like a conversation you should be listening in on, but you can’t help it.

“It’s—it’s silly but I—I’ve actually um—I always had this dream that I’d always have this really big family. I’m talkin like full brood of Harringtons, like 5, 6 kids” Steve confesses, laughing alongside her.

Your heart thumps louder in your chest. He’s never told you that. Why wouldn’t he tell you that? It’s not like you’ve been dating long enough for that to have been a conversation but—just why wouldn’t he have said something to you?

Why would you have to listen to this from the backseat of a stolen van as he confesses his hopes and dreams to a girl who he claims he “used” to love?

“Six?” Nancy asks incredulously. You crack a smile; you can’t help it. She’s funny, you think to yourself. Funnier than you’ve ever been.

“Yeah, six little nuggets. Three girls—” you drown out Steve’s voice as you watch their silhouettes.

They would make pretty babies, you think. Beautiful babies, full of Nancy’s intelligence and Steve’s smile. They’d play basketball or do ballet. Steve would be their coach—and Nancy would be working at some big corporate office and they’d be—they’d be so happy.

Bile rises in your throat. You can’t even compete with her. She’s perfect, pretty, smart, witty—what do you have? You have the boy, plus one for that—but what good does that do when he looks at a her like she’s hung the moon and the stars.

You wonder if he’s ever looked at you like that.

You think you might be better off not knowing.

˚₊‧꒰ა ✦ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚

You’re embarrassed to admit that overhearing their conversation makes you distance yourself from the both of them.

You find yourself flocking to Eddie’s side,  joking and laughing with each other.

“You’re a good guy Munson.” You murmur softly as you both watch as Dustin and Mike duel with fake swords and shields, yelping each time they catch each other.

“You’d be the first to think so.” Eddie replies to your left, humour masking the insecurity in his tone.

“I highly doubt that.” You contest, smiling up at the older boy. “Dustin certainly thinks so.”

“Yeah well the munchkin’s biased,” He scoffs with a smirk, leaning back against the stump of wood behind the both of you.

You snort, “He thinks you’re the greatest. He talks about you all the time.” You insist.

Eddie’s expression melts softly, something adoring taking place of what was once anxiety and manufactured aloofness. “He’s a good kid. Don’t know why he likes me so much, but I’m lucky to have him.” He admits.

“You treat him like he’s a person. He’s always going on about how you ask him about his opinion, how you actually listen.”

Eddie blows out a breath, nodding slowly as he digests your words. He turns to you slightly, “You’re a sweet girl,” he tells you seriously and you look up at him in slight shock.

“Don’t lose that, would be a damn shame if we didn’t have you around.” He smiles, slinging an arm over your shoulder as he calls out for Dustin to fix his posture.

You snort with a smile, leaning into him.

˚₊‧꒰ა ✦ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚

Steve watches the two of you from higher on the hill with a scowl on his face.

“Scared Munson’s gonna steal your girl?” Robin teases, huffing as she tugs a rope from the backdoor of the van.

Steve scoffs, irritation bleeding into his tone. “No,” he replies shortly “Munson wouldn’t stand a chance.”

Robin hums suspiciously high, “Seems to me like he’s doing pretty well for himself.” She mentions, gesturing back over to the two of you.

Steve’s glare grows as he catches sight of Eddie’s arm slung over your shoulder. His irritation rising as he spins to glower at Robin, “Who’s side are you on?” he growls.

Robin holds her hand up in surrender, “Just saying. You two haven’t spoken since you arrived—you’ve spent more time with me and Nancy than you have with her.” She says conversationally.

Steve frowns. Has he actually? Sure, he’s been pretty focused on getting things ready to go into the upside down, so he didn’t really have the time to be checking in on you.

It was purely coincidence that he, Robin and Nancy ended up working together considering they were carrying the bulk of the ammunition and knew how to work them.

“She’s fine.” Steve mutters uncertainly. “We’ll talk after.” He insists.

Robin frowns, saying nothing but glances between the two of you in concern.

˚₊‧꒰ა ✦ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚

The tension between you and Steve as you enter the upside down is undeniable. The growing distance seemingly seems to stretch between the two of you the longer that you walk.

You’re side by side, walking in silence as Nancy, Jonathan and Robin walk slightly ahead of everyone whilst Eddie and Dustin remain slightly behind.

“Okay,” Nancy starts firmly, stopping in front of the group in a small expanse of land. The small group forms a circle in front of her, all watching her in rapt attention.

“You all know the plan yes? No deviations, we can’t take any risk that this doesn’t work.” 

You’re all nodding, you listen as she goes over the plan for Max to bait Vecna, the Creel House and the demobats. It’s perfectly planned out, Nancy Wheeler style.

When you all break off, you grab hold of Steve’s arm, who turns to look at you in confusion, “I uh—I’m going to go with Dustin and Eddie alright?” you say softly, avoiding eye contact with him.

Steve frowns, watching your face closely before scoffing, making you look towards him in perplexion, “Yeah, sure. Fine.” He says sarcastically, shrugging your arm off of him.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Steve’s voice is hard and angry, “It means that if you wanna go run off with Munson while the rest of us are trying to save the world—be my guest.”

You blink, staring at Steve with your mouth agape, “You think—Eddie?”

Steve snorts, rolling his eyes, “Yes, Eddie. I see the way the two of you have been…canoodling,” he offers weakly.

You scoff, “Real mature Steve.”

Nancy and Robin stop in front of the two of you when the notice you’ve both stopped following them. They’re far away enough to not being able to hear but close enough to notice the start of an argument between you both.

“What? You have a problem?”

Your expression morphs into hurt, “Six little nuggets?” you ask him accusingly as he stares at you, unflinching.

“You weren’t supposed to hear that.”

It’s the weakest argument you’ve heard from him yet, “Why?” you push. “Because it involved Nancy, that it? I didn’t fit into your white picket fence suburban dream?”

Steve flinches, his expression turning uncertain and dread fills your very being.

He doesn’t see you there.

“Can we—can we not do this now?” he asks, pleadingly.

You shake your head, “No, Steve. I want to know.”

“Know what?” He argues, throwing his arms up in the air.

“If you love me Steve!” you burst out, your voice echoing lightly through the vast expanse of the Upside Down.

“Guys—” Eddie calls hesitantly, but you both pay him no mind.

You shove your finger into Steve’s chest hard enough to make him flinch, “I want to know if you see a future with me! Do you? Do you see me in that big old family picture? Because—” your voice breaks, tugging at Steve’s heart strings.

“Because I love you, and if you don’t—if you don’t see that future with me, then maybe we’re not meant to be together,” you whimper, lifting your hand to your mouth to try and muffle your cries.

Steve slumps in shock, looking as if you’ve just torn his heart out from his chest.

“You’re breaking up with me?” he whispers desperately, scanning your face like he’s searching for something, anything.

You shake your head, your teary gaze meeting his shocked one. “I’m asking you if you’d choose me Steve, if given the chance.” You whisper.

“Baby, of course I—"

“You can’t even say you love me Steve.” You scoff with a laugh, self-deprecation coating your tone.

He stands in shock, like he’s not sure what to do.

“Steve!” Nancy calls from the back, frustration in her voice from being held up.

Steve watches you pleadingly as you school your expression, taking a step back when he turns to look back at her.

Always her, you think bitterly.

“I—” Steve pleads, panic in his tone.

“Just go Steve.” You reply tonelessly, turning to walk towards Eddie and Dustin who have been watching the both of you in concern.

“Baby—” You hear him call after you, desperation in his voice as you walk away. You shake your head, sniffling before looking towards the two boys in front of you.

“Are you okay?—” Dustin asks hesitantly.

You force a smile, “Fine.”

˚₊‧꒰ა ✦ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚

If you thought you knew pain before, the sting of walking away from Steve was worse. Every bone if your body wants to turn around and run back into his arms, but you refuse to subject yourself to any more humiliation.

You walk with Eddie and Dustin in silence, setting up the amp and Eddie’s guitar with little fanfare.

When the time comes, Eddie plays like a man possessed. You think he was made for this, a true metal rockstar. He looks almost godlike in view.

The bats swarm the trailer with almost no time to spare. Eddie, Dustin and you rush into the trailer as it rocks with the force and sound of flapping wings.

You almost think you’ve done it before they start flooding in. One after another they come through the vents, met with your handcrafted weaponry.

Dustin grabs the rope leading back into the real world, but when you catch Eddie’s gaze watching him, you already know what’s going to happen. What’s more rockstar than saving the world.

He looks at you and then back to the bedsheets, offering you a way out. You see the determined look on his face, and with a shared nod, he cuts the rope.

“What are you doing?!” Dustin screams to the both of you, watching as you both grab your weapons and Eddie’s shield.

“Buying more time.” The two of you chorus, launching yourselves out of the trailer in tandem as Eddie rides the bike with you running behind him.

The bats follow you like a moth to a flame, swarming around the two of you within minutes. You feel it before you see it, the sound of your flesh tearing and ripping open as the bats latch onto your skin.

You feel the warmth of your blood pool around you as you swing and crush the bats that fly towards you. You find Eddie doing the same in your peripheral vision. You watch as the bats sink their teeth into him, drawing a guttural scream from his chest.

Your wounds start to get the better of you as you stagger on your feet, slumping over onto the ground as you crash to your knees. You can hear Eddie calling your name and you turn to see him slumped a few meters behind you.

You crawl over to him, mindless of the bats still latched to the two of you. Your eyes meet and you share a bloody smile.

It’s then that you notice the silence, the bats that fall around the two of you. “They did it,” you croak, blood bubbling through your throat.

Eddie groans, “We did good,” he affirms, turning his head to look at you.

You hear footsteps rushing your way, and a small part of you hopes that its Steve. The curly hair however in unmistakable.

“Henderson,” Eddie coos, coughing slightly as blood stains his lips.

“Eddie—Y/N, no no no.” he chants, falling to his knees.

“Hey,” you whisper dazedly. “We’re okay,” you reassure him.

“You’re bleeding—” he chokes out.

“Can either of you stand?” he asks Eddie abruptly, turning to look at him. Eddie frowns, looking down on his leg before looking at you, “Dustin, buddy you can’t take both of us—"

“I don’t care,” he bursts out. “I need to know if you can stand, if I can get you back to the trailer, we can alert the rest of them that Y/N is down and—” he babbles.

“I—” Eddie blows out a breath, looking hesitant. You both knew when you’d left that trailer than you’d had no intention of coming back, it was a suicide mission.

“Please,” Dustin begs. Eddie hesitates before nodding abruptly, “Okay,” he concedes. “Okay—we’re coming back.” He tells you seriously.

You smile, nodding softly. Your clothes are starting to stick to your skin with the amount of blood pooling from your wounds.

It’s too dark for them to see, they can’t possibly know how bad your injuries are. Eddie looks by far worse than you, his wounds uncovered by his clothes.

“Okay,” you say.

They leave, Eddie hobbling beside Dustin as they walk towards the trailer. You’re not sure how long you spend staring at the sky before rushing footsteps are coming back to you.

You think you might already be dead when you see Steve rushing to your side instead of Dustin. “St’ve?” you slur, your eyelids drooping from exhaustion.

“Oh baby,” he moans desperately as he drops down next to you, his hands hovering uncertainly as if he’s too scared to touch you.

I’m sorry. I don’t mean to scare you.

“You’re gonna be okay, you’re gonna be okay,” he chants to himself as he lifts you into his arms despite your loud groaning in complaint of being jostled.

“You gotta keep your eyes open for me honey, c’mon look at me—look at me baby.” He pleads with you, rushing towards the trailer as yo9ur blood starts to soak his own clothes.

“I’m getting’ y’u d’rty.” You complain breathlessly as your head lolls to the side. Steve whimpers, reply wetly, “That’s okay baby—I—I don’t mind, I’ll put it in the wash when we get home okay?” he says consolingly, sounding panicked.

“’kay,” you agree mindlessly, your eyes drooping.

“Think ‘m gonna sleep now—”

Steve shakes you awake, making you cough as the feeling of the liquid filling your throat.

“Sorry—sorry honey, you can’t—fuck, baby you can’t sleep. Haven’t even got to tell you how much I love you yet sweetheart, you don’t even know,” He says, simultaneously awestruck and horrified.

“You don’t even know how much I love you baby, God, I—I was so dumb earlier, I shoulda run after you, I’m sorry, I’m sorry—never gonna make that mistake again. But you’ve gotta stay awake for me okay? Because I’ve got a lot of making up to do huh?” He chokes up, muffling his sobs.

“Cause you can’t die—I, we have so many things left to do—can’t leave me alone—I can’t do this alone, you—you have to stay,” he sobs.

He almost chokes on the relief he feels when he sees the trailer, stumbling as he runs as fast as his feet can carry him towards the silver home.

Your breathing is shallow in his arms, and he would think you were already dead if not for the slow rise of your chest.

“Please,” he chokes out the paramedic he sees when he gets back to the real world. He holds you out, begging for them to take you. “You—you have to help her. She—she’s lost so much blood—oh god, please help her.” He begs desperately, succumbing to his own tears.

They take you immediately, transferring you to a stretcher as they rush you to an ambulance whilst Steve follows behind them, refusing to let you out of his sight for another second.

Whilst they load you, Steve pleads with them, “Please let me go with her—I’m the only one she knows, she’ll be so scared I need to be there—”

“You can ride with her, but we need to go now.” The paramedic rushes him in, letting him take the seat next to you as the strap you to a heart rate monitor and place a breathing mask over you.

He clenches his hands around your own as you blink slowly at him, “Hey,” he whispers into the silence of the ambulance, the paramedic watching the two of you in concern.

“I love you,” he blurts out again, frantically hoping you hear him. Your small smile calms a small portion of his fear, and he feels you shakily trace a pattern on his palm.

By the time you make it back to your apartment and kicked off your shoes, your phone was vibrating so aggressively it was practically walking across the kitchen island. The headlines were a synchronized chorus of speculation: “Y/N Debuts a Shocking New Look in NYC,” and “Is the Keery Rumor Finally Confirmed?” Fans and tabloids alike immediately connected the dots back to last winter, when a few blurry photos of you and Joe Keery sharing a laugh outside a London jazz club had set the rumor mill on fire. Neither of you had ever commented on those dating rumors, preferring to let the public guess while you navigated whatever it was you two were building in private. Now, that silence was being interpreted as a grand, calculated cover-up.

You scrolled through social media with a mixture of amusement and mild dread, watching the digital firestorm unfold in real-time. Sleuths on X were already creating side-by-side photo comparisons, analyzing the angle of your stance and the way your hand had instinctively drifted toward my midsection as you opened the cab door. Skeptics argued it was just a heavy lunch or an unflattering camera angle, but the overwhelming consensus was a wave of pure, chaotic celebration. "If that baby inherits Joe's hair and her smile, the world isn't ready," one viral tweet read, racking up tens of thousands of likes in a matter of minutes.

You were pulled out of the rabbit hole by the chime of a FaceTime request. Answering it, you see Joe’s face filling the screen, his signature messy hair pushed back by a baseball cap as he sat in what looked like a sterile trailer on a film set. He didn't say hello; instead, he held up his own phone to the camera, displaying the exact paparazzi photo of you from an hour ago. "Well," he said, his voice a mix of a tired chuckle and genuine warmth, "according to the entire internet, we have some shopping to do for a nursery."

You leaned back against your couch, letting out a breath you didn't realize you were holding, and gave him a soft smile. "I was just going to get a coffee, Joe. I didn't think wearing a knit dress would cause a media shutdown." You both knew the truth, of course—that the rumors of your romance weren't just rumors anymore, and that the curve shown in the photos was very real. But having it analyzed by millions of strangers before the two of you had even decided how to share it with your own families felt surreal, like living inside a fishbowl with the cameras zoomed all the way in.

"Hey, New York looks good on you, bump and all," Joe said softly, his expression turning fond as he looked at you through the screen. "We knew this day was coming eventually. Do you want me to have my publicist put out some vague, polite statement to get them off your doorstep, or do we just let them keep playing detective?" You looked out your window at the sprawling, chaotic skyline of Manhattan, a city where you can be surrounded by millions of people and still feel entirely alone if you play your cards right.

"Let them speculate," You decided, a small, defiant smile playing on your lips. "It keeps them busy, and honestly, they're having a lot of fun with the hair jokes." Joe laughed, a rich, familiar sound that instantly grounded you against the swirl of public madness outside. For now, you would let the world guess at the timeline and the details, keeping the most precious part of your story just for yourselves in the quiet corners of the city.

to everyone else, you were just friends. best friends.

steve harrington and you were a package deal.

the problem was that Steve never seemed to look at you the way you looked at him. at least, that’s what you told yourself because what else were you supposed to think?

years passed. steve dated. you dated. life moved forward, and somehow, neither of you ever said the one thing that mattered.

you became very good at pretending: at smiling when steve talked about dates, at helping robin make fun of him afterward, and at ignoring the way jealousy crawled under your skin every time another girl touched his arm.

because steve never said anything. he never gave you a reason to hope.

so eventually, you stopped waiting. or at least, you tried to.

that was how you ended up dating aaron.

at first, everyone liked him, especially steve.

“see?” steve said after aaron left your apartment one night. “normal guy. nice guy. finally.”

you laughed. “finally?”

“Ii’m just saying your last date thought star wars was a documentary.”

“that’s not what happened.”

“he thought sharks were mammals.”

“okay, fair.”

steve grinned, and your chest ached. a small, ugly part of you wanted him to hate aaron. you wanted him to look jealous. you wanted proof that losing you would matter.

instead, he looked relieved, happy, even, like he had personally approved the relationship.

what you didn’t know was that robin cornered him the next day.

“you okay?”

Ssteve looked up from stacking tapes. “huh?”

“you look like somebody ran over your dog.”

“i’m fine.”

robin snorted. “right.”

steve shoved another tape onto the shelf, and robin waited. eventually, he sighed. “he’s nice.”

“and?”

“and she’s happy.”

robin's expression softened all while steve stared at the floor.

“if she’s happy, that’s what matters.”

the words sounded convincing enough. almost.

months passed.

three, four, five. and then the cracks started showing.

the comments came first, small enough to dismiss.

the first time it happened was because you wore one of your favorite sweaters on a date.

aaron laughed and said, “you dress like somebody’s grandma.”

you laughed too, well because he laughed, but afterward, you found yourself staring at the sweater differently.

eventually, you stopped wearing it around him.

then came the jokes, the little comments, the constant corrections:

“you’re such a nerd.”

“you’re kind of a lot.”

“do you ever stop talking?”

always smiling.

always joking.

always making you feel ridiculous for being hurt.

slowly, you became quieter. you apologized more. you shrank yourself down without realizing it.

the first person who noticed wasn’t you, it was robin.

the second was steve.

one night, you were all sitting around family video after closing, and you got excited talking about a book you’d read. halfway through your sentence, you stopped.

“sorry. i’m talking too much.”

the silence that followed felt strange. robin frowned, and steve looked up so quickly he nearly knocked over his chair.

you laughed awkwardly.

“what?”

robin exchanged a glance with steve, and neither of them answered. they had never heard you apologize for being yourself before.

after that, steve started noticing everything.

the way you hesitated before speaking. the way you checked aaron’s reaction after every joke. the way your shoulders curled inward now.

and every time he noticed, something angry settled deeper in his chest.

the breakup happened two months later. you ended things with aaron, who called you dramatic, too emotional, and too sensitive.

those words followed you anyway.

a week later, you found yourself sitting on the hood of steve's bmw in the empty parking lot behind family video.

the summer air was warm, but the silence wasn’t.

steve sat beside you, waiting.

you appreciated that.

“i kept thinking that something felt wrong,” you said.

steve listened.

“i just couldn't figure out what.”

your throat tightened.

then, quietly, you added,

“he made me feel difficult to love.”

steve's head snapped toward you immediately, like you’d slapped him.

“hey,” he said, the softness in his voice nearly breaking you.

“don't.”

your eyes burned.

“he did.”

“no.”

“he—”

“no.”

the certainty in his voice startled you.

it was as if this wasn’t even up for discussion.

“he made me feel like everything about me needed fixing.”

steve looked away, his jaw clenched.

“like i talked too much,” you whispered.

“like i cared too much. like i was too emotional.”

something flickered across his face.

pain. real pain.

you laughed softly through your tears. a sad sound.

“i kept trying to figure out which version of me would finally be enough.”

steve closed his eyes for a second.

when he opened them again, there was something fierce in his expression.

protective. angry. heartbroken.

“that’s bullshit.”

you blinked, surprised.

steve shook his head.

“you know how many people spend their whole lives looking for someone who cares the way you do?”

your breath caught.

“steve—”

“no, seriously.”

he looked frustrated, as if he couldn’t believe this conversation was happening.

“you remember everything. you show up for everyone. you make people feel important.”

your eyes stung.

steve let out a soft laugh, shaking his head.

“you cry at commercials.”

a watery laugh escaped you.

but he didn’t smile.

“aaron looked at all that and thought it was something to fix.”

silence fell between you.

steve looked away.

then said quietly,

“i would’ve killed to have someone like you.”

the words landed heavily between you.

steve froze.

you froze too.

because neither of you missed it.

someone like you.

not someone like that.

you.

his hand dragged across his face.

“damn it.”

your heart started pounding.

“steve.”

he laughed softly. a nervous sound. the kind he made when he was cornered by the truth.

“you know what the worst part was?”

you couldn’t speak.

steve stared at the pavement.

“watching you date him.”

everything stopped. “what?”

he smiled sadly. “i hated him.”

you stared in disbelief.

“you said you liked him.”

“i lied.”

your mouth fell open. steve laughed.

“what do you mean you lied?”

“he was nice enough,” he shrugged. “but i wanted to punch him every time he touched you.”

the world tilted.

“steve...”

“i thought you were happy,” his voice cracked slightly, the honesty in it making your chest ache. “and if you were happy, then that was supposed to be enough.” he looked up, meeting your eyes.

“i kept telling myself i’d get over it.”

the air disappeared from your lungs.

steve smiled sadly. “turns out, i couldn’t.”

silence hung heavy between you.

then he said, “i’ve been in love with you for years.”

your heart stopped. actually stopped. steve swallowed.

“you don’t have to say it back.”

you laughed through your tears because, somehow, he still didn’t know.

after all this time.

after all these years.

“you idiot.”

steve blinked.

“what?”

you moved closer. then closer still. until there was almost no space left between you.

“i’ve been in love with you forever.”

for one second, steve just stared. as if his brain had completely shut down.

then he laughed. bright and disbelieving. overwhelmed even.

“forever?”

you groaned.

“don’t make me regret this.”

“forever?” his disbelief was evident.

“oh my.” you gently shoved his shoulder.

steve caught your wrist before you could pull away. his grin was impossibly soft. as if he’d just been handed everything he’d ever wanted.

his thumb brushed gently across your skin. “you know,” he said quietly, “for somebody who’s supposedly difficult to love...”

you rolled your eyes.

“steve.”

“you’ve had me wrapped around your finger for years.”

your chest squeezed painfully.

but happily.

the smile that followed was small and entirely yours.

and when steve kissed you, it felt a little bit like coming home after being lost for a very long time. like finally being loved in a way that never asked you to become smaller first.

“Earth to Steve Harrington,” Robin waved a hand in front of his face, bringing him out of his daze. “You’ve probably been in Heaven for a while now, buddy.”

Steve gave Robin a confused, annoyed look, one brow lifting. Robin said nothing, only turning her attention to you. You were perched on the couch with a magazine in hand, brows adorably scrunched in deep focus, a detail Steve always noticed no matter how hard he tried not to.

You bit your bottom lip between your teeth, a quiet, unconscious habit that made his thoughts stumble. He hadn’t kissed you, not yet, but he imagined it anyway; imagined how sweet your lips would taste if he ever got the chance. The thought lingered, soft and maddening. Even with everything falling apart around you, you looked calm, serene, painfully pretty. It was unfair. You drove him absolutely insane.

Ah. This was the “Heaven” Robin was talking about.

He peeled his eyes away from you, although albeit reluctantly and turned instead to a far less pleasant sight: Robin grinning at him, eyes bright with unmistakable mischief.

So this is probably the Hell side now.

“You really can’t go a minute—scratch that, a second—without getting all gooey-eyed over her. It’s pathetic,” Robin said with a dramatic sigh, before her mouth curved into a smirk. “And kinda cute.”

Steve gave her a deadpan look. “I don’t go all gooey-eyed.”

He was, of course, lying. Ever since he’d picked you up earlier and you’d stepped out of your house in that goddamn white skirt he loves, Steve had been fighting for his life the entire day. The sight of you had nearly short-circuited his brain, heat rushing straight to his face, his thoughts scattering in every direction at once.

God, you were so so beautiful.

The only thing that kept him from completely losing it was your bright, sweet smile and the way you’d greeted him with that soft, “Hey, Stevie,” like it was nothing. Like you hadn’t just undone him with a single look. The moment had lodged itself deep in his mind, replaying over and over, refusing to let him forget just how badly he had it.

Okay, maybe he was actually pathetic. Pining over a girl for years who only sees him as her best friend. But nobody could blame him. Every time he looked at you, it felt like the rest of the world softened and blurred at the edges. You were the one steady thing he clung to whenever thoughts of the crawl crept into his mind or worry for Dustin tightened his chest. Just knowing you were there was enough to ground him, a quiet reminder that he didn’t have to carry all of it alone.

You were solace wrapped in beautiful skin and an angelic face, and Steve still couldn’t believe he’d been lucky enough to earn even an ounce of your affection; even if it was only as a friend. He wouldn’t risk it. He couldn’t. Somewhere along the way, he’d accepted the quiet ache of it, choosing your laughter, your trust, your presence over the chance of losing you entirely.

Wanting you as something more hurt, but losing you would hurt worse, and so he held his feelings close, content to love you quietly even if all he wanted to was to scream how much he loves you.

Robin groaned. “You’re doing it again. It’s getting creepy now.”

“Doing what?” Steve asked, completely unaware that, in the middle of his wandering thoughts, his gaze had drifted back to you, settling there like it always did, natural and unthinking, as if his eyes knew exactly where they belonged.

“Going gooey-eyed over her,” she replied with a snort. “Can practically see hearts forming in your eyes.”

“You’re so annoying,” he muttered, but he caught the way Robin wiggled her brows when he very much didn't deny it. He flipped her off. “You’re way worse with Vickie.”

“Touché,” Robin shrugged, looking far too pleased with herself. “But, hey, at least I can do that to my girlfriend. You? You’re over here staring at Y/N like a sad puppy and doing absolutely nothing about it.”

“Touché,” Steve shot back with a glare, then let out a long, exhausted sigh, like this was a conversation he’d been hoping to avoid all day—which, honestly, it was. “It’s complicated,” he said flatly. “You know that.”

“You’re a coward, Steve,” Robin beamed.

“I know that,”

“An absolute down bad loser,” she added.

Steve rolled his eyes and crossed his arms. “Mhm.”

“A lovesick puppy,”

“This is the second time you referred to me as a puppy—“

Robin shushed him, holding up a finger. “Wait, I’ve got another one…” She clicked her tongue, eyes lighting up like a lightbulb going off. “A miserable, pathetic, yearner.”

He scowled at her. “Are you done?”

“Do you want me to list more of your characteristics?” Robin asked, genuinely curious.

Steve pointed an accusing finger at her. “You need to shut your mouth.”

“Who needs to shut their mouth?”

It felt like Steve had just gotten whiplash. His head snapped toward where you now stood beside him and Robin at the radio station table. Amusement sparkled in your pretty eyes, your glossy lips curving slightly, almost into a smile. He didn’t even realize how his whole body relaxed, how a breath slipped free from his chest, before he flashed you that easy, charming grin without a second thought.

“Hey sweetheart,” he greeted.

You giggled. “Hey Stevie,”

“It was—um, Robin was just—“ he rambled, hands going through his hair, a trait he does when he’s nervous and endearingly, whenever he talks to you.

“You’re such a lost cause,” Robin whispered to him and Steve prayed, actually prayed that you didn’t hear what she said.

Steve shook his head. “Robin’s just being annoying as usual.”

Robin rolled her eyes and stepped away from the both of you to check on the radios instead.

“Shit it’s 2pm already,” Steve cursed as he looked at his watch then back to you. “Let’s get you home, angel.”

You chuckled, a sound that shot straight through him like electricity, something he always wished he could bottle up and keep to himself. “Since when did you start listening to my dad?”

“Uhh…” He hesitated, then gave you a sheepish grin. “Since now?”

Your smile widened, pretty and effortless, and Steve felt himself drawn in like a moth to a flame. Were you a witch or something? That smile could bring any man to his knees, and Steve wasn’t exaggerating. He knew all too well about the assholes you’d dated before, the ones who’d melted at your charm. He clenched his jaw, recalling them with a mix of irritation and longing, and as Robin would constantly remind him, he was a jealous asshead—especially whenever he remembered the chances you’d given those guys that he would have killed to have himself.

You really had no idea what you’re doing to him.

“You’re such a gentleman,” you teased him.

He does not feel like a gentleman right now.

Seeing you with your hair loose, cascading in a dazzling wave over your shoulders, wearing shorts that only reached your thighs and a lacy top that hugged your figure perfectly, Steve couldn’t help but stare. You looked completely at ease in your own room, effortlessly beautiful, and every detail of you seemed to pull him in, making it impossible to look away.

Jesus Christ.

Steve swallowed audibly, his cheeks burning as his fingers itched to bridge the space between you. A fierce, almost desperate need surged through him to touch the soft, inviting skin that had been calling his name for as long as he could remember. He felt feverish, consumed by want and desire. Watching you sit cross-legged on your bed, looking up at him with those dangerously captivating eyes and soft, plump lips he ached to taste, he wanted nothing more than to burn this moment into his memory forever, unable to look away.

“—and he was being a complete, total jerk,” you rambled, frustration flickering across your face as you glanced at Steve, who was still staring at you like he hadn’t heard a single word. You cleared your throat, a little sharper this time. “Stevie?”

“Yes, sweetheart?” he replied automatically, shaking his head as if to clear the fog of his wandering thoughts.

“Were you even listening?”

“Yeah, yeah, I was—” He started, but trailed off the moment he caught your incredulous, are-you-kidding-me look. With a defeated shrug, he admitted, “No, not really, angel. Sorry.”

Worry creased your eyebrows. “Are you alright? You’ve been… weird today. Is it because of the crawl? Or Dustin?”

“No, no,” Steve spluttered, running a hand through his already disheveled hair. “I mean, yeah, this crawl shit is freaking me out and I’m worried as hell about Dustin, but I just… I think he’s a complete asshole.”

You gaped at him. “Dustin?”

Steve swore under his breath. “Not Henderson, sweetheart. The guy you were just talking about. Jake? John? Ja—”

“It’s Jared,” you supplied.

“Yeah, whatever. Him,” Steve said, waving a dismissive hand. “He’s an asshole. And he doesn’t deserve you. At all.”

You let out a halfhearted laugh, shaking your head. “You say that about every guy I’ve ever dated, Steve.”

Steve stared at you like you’d just said something outrageous. “Yeah, because it’s always true,” he shot back, completely serious. “They don’t listen to you, they don’t look at you the way they should, and they sure as hell don’t appreciate you.” He stopped himself, jaw tightening, then softened slightly as he met your eyes. “I just… I don’t like seeing you waste your time.”

You blinked at him, clearly caught off guard by the intensity in his voice. “Steve…” you said softly.

Steve didn’t know where the sudden surge of confidence came from, only that seeing you like this did something to him. Your pretty eyes were fixed on him, all attention and concern, your bottom lip caught between your teeth as you worried at it absentmindedly. You looked so effortlessly beautiful it almost hurt to take in.

He moved closer, slowly, until he was crouched in front of where you sat on the bed. Even like that, he still loomed over you, and he didn’t miss the way bashfulness flickered across your face when you noticed just how little space remained between you.

You looked up at him through your lashes, breath a little unsteady, and for a moment the room felt too quiet, too small for everything sitting between you.

His voice came out softer than he expected when he spoke, careful, like he was afraid to startle you. “He’s a dickhead.”

You couldn’t help letting out a small laugh, the sound easing the tension between you, the kind that had begun to feel almost dangerous. Steve had always been good at that, at making you feel comfortable without even trying, and the realization left a faint bitterness in your chest.

No matter who you dated, you always ended up comparing them to him. Steve was your best friend, someone off limits, someone safely labeled as just a friend. And yet, the way he was looking at you now, with quiet reverence, like you held all the comfort he had been searching for, made that label feel suddenly fragile.

You swallowed, breaking eye contact first, your fingers twisting in the fabric of your shirt. “You don’t have to hate every guy on my behalf, you know,” you said gently, trying to sound light, normal.

Steve huffed out a breath, something almost like a laugh, but his eyes never left your face. “I know,” he replied. “I just… want better for you.”

The words settled heavy between you, unspoken meanings threading through the silence. You looked back at him then, really looked at him, and for the first time the thought crept in uninvited and terrifying.

What if better had been sitting in front of you all along?

“Like who, Stevie?”

The words landed softly, but they unraveled him all the same. Steve went still, breath catching in his chest as he looked at you, sitting there with that open expression that had always undone him. For once, he didn’t look away.

“Me,” he said quietly.

Your eyes widened, and Steve rushed on before fear could stop him, voice trembling but sure. “I mean… I know I’m your best friend, and I know I’m not supposed to feel this way, but I do. I have for a long time. Since Tina’s party. Since before I even knew what to do with it.” He swallowed hard, hands curling into fists at his sides. “I try to be okay with just being your friend because having you like that is better than not having you at all. But it’s killing me, Y/N, actually killing me.”

You didn’t speak right away. The silence stretched, heavy and fragile, and Steve braced himself for the worst, forcing his hands to stay still even though every instinct told him to pull back. His chest felt too tight, his heartbeat loud in his ears.

To his surprise, you reached out hesitantly as if you were second guessing if you should touch him, then cupped his jaw.

“I didn’t know,” you whispered, your thumb brushing lightly against his skin.

Steve leaned into your touch without thinking, his eyes fluttering shut for half a second as if he’d been waiting for this his entire life. “Robin and Dustin said I was too obvious.”

You laughed, bringing his face closer to you. “I’m sorry, I’m stupid.”

Steve let out a quiet, breathy laugh, eyes opening as he looked at you like you’d just said something impossible. “Hey,” he murmured, lifting a hand to rest over yours, grounding but gentle. “You’re not stupid. Just… a little oblivious.”

“A little?” you sheepishly smiled.

“I take that back,” Steve retorted fondly. “You were so oblivious. My oblivious girl.”

The words hung between you, warm and intimate, and something inside him shifted. You leaned in, fearless this time, and pressed your lips to his. The kiss was soft at first, exploratory, and Steve froze for a heartbeat, eyes wide, before closing them and melting into it.

He groaned softly into your lips, the sound low and unguarded, and immediately knew he was addicted. You tasted impossibly sweet, like everything he had wanted for years distilled into a single moment, and it sent a jolt straight through him.

His hands tightened gently on your waist, pulling you closer, desperate to feel every inch of you.

“This is driving me insane, baby,” he murmured between heated kisses, his other hand brushing up to tug lightly at the strap of your lacy top. “You drive me fucking insane, god.”

You squealed as Steve suddenly lifted you by the back of your thighs, carrying you effortlessly from the bed. Without breaking the kiss, he sat down and brought you with him, your legs wrapping around his waist as you straddled his lap.

A quiet moan escaped you, and Steve swallowed it like a man starved, his own breath hitching in response. Your lips were soft and warm against his, sending shivers down his spine, and every brush of your mouth against his felt like fire sparking through him. His hands moved instinctively, resting on your hips and pulling you closer, as if he could finally make up for all the years he’d held back.

He broke away from the kiss, eyes trailing hungrily to your dazed eyes, flushed face and swollen lips. “You’re mine now, sweetheart.”

You blink at her – not unlike a frog, if she’s being completely honest, one eye closing before the other – with furrowed brows before your eyes flit towards the stark whiteness of your surroundings.

“Hospital.” She explains at your confused expression. “You fell. Big time. We thought you were dead at first. Steve was hysterical and wouldn’t let anyone touch you until Nancy called an ambulance. He’s going to be so pissed that you woke up while he was gone.” Robin recounts with a nervous chuckle. You really did scare the shit out of her; out of all of them.

“Steve?” 

Robin misinterprets the confusion in your tone as she shifts her chair closer to you. “Yeah, he’s been here the whole time; the nurses were not impressed, but he wouldn’t leave. Dustin finally managed to convince him to leave long enough to shower and change at least. We had to tell him he was starting to smell bad. He didn’t, mind you, but don’t tell him that.”

You blink at her again, this one less amphibian in nature. “Steve?”

“Yes…Steve,” she parrots, wondering how long the two of you might sit here volleying the man's name back and forth. 

“As in Harrington?” 

“No, as in Steve Guttenburg from Police Academy,” she deadpans. “Yes, Steve Harrington.”

“Why on Earth would Steve Harrington care if I was in the hospital?” And Robin can’t even take the time to be proud of you for getting all of those words out together in a row when reality crashes down on her. 

Now, Robin will admit that it’s a little shameful how long it takes her to realize something isn’t quite right. She probably could have – should have – assumed, seeing as you are currently laying in a hospital bed; nothing is quite right about a person hooked up to a heart monitor.

Of course, of course Steve leaves you under Robin’s supervision for maybe twenty-seven-and-a-half minutes only for you to wake up in your severely concussed state unable to recall that you’re dating the biggest dingus from high school, and have been for a while.

Why did Robin insist Steve leave? Why would she tell him she could handle this? Why does anyone ever trust her with anything ever?

Fortunately, she’s saved from needing to find answers to those burning questions at Dustin and Steve’s return. Unfortunately, she has no time to answer your burning question (or warn a certain Steve of the current predicament) either. 

“The coconut ruins it,” Robin hears Steve argue with his mouth full as the two boys materialize in the doorway, both too wrapped up in whatever argument they’re having to see the two occupants staring at them in bemusement and horror. 

“The coconut rui- the coconut ruins it!? Steve, the bar is coconut. Coconut is the fundamental component of it,” Dustin sputters. 

“I just think it’d be better if it was, like, peanut butter or something.” 

Dustin scoffs incredulously. “Then you buy Reese’s or a Bopper! Why would you buy an Almond Joy if you don’t like coconut?”

“I didn’t say I don’t like coconut,” Steve argues, looking at the teen as though he was an idiot. “I just meant it would be better if it wasn’t coconut.”

“You’re insane.” 

Robin’s inclined to agree.

She clears her throat. “Hey, so-”

“Whoa! Look who’s up!” Dustin interrupts with a smile, Steve’s head whipping to the side to see you staring at them with wide eyes.

“Whoa, hey! Hey, hey hey hey, wow. Holy shit, hi baby. How long have you been up?”

“Uh, not long,” Robin interjects, voice steadily rising in both volume and pitch. “Listen, we-”

“How are you feeling?” Steve continues as he abandons his coconut monstrosity on a rolling table and makes for your bedside, ignoring Robin and the pointed looks she’s shooting at him. “Are you hurting? Are you thirsty?”

You go to respond but Robin beats you to it. “Steve, I-”

“Have you had any water yet? Robin, where’s her water?” Steve continues, fussing with the blankets that have been untucked from your legs as his eyes flit around the room for the bottle of water he’d set aside for when you needed it. “Why haven’t you given her water yet?”

“We haven’t exactly had time, Steve. Listen-” 

“Have you called the nurse?” Steve asks, shaking his head before even waiting for a response. “Dustin, go get a nurse.”

Dustin doesn’t hesitate before he’s jogging out of the room in search of a nurse. 

“What’s Robin doin’ to ya, huh?” Steve coos at you as he perches on the edge of your bed and presses a careful kiss to your temple, flagrantly ignoring the way Robin is frantically waving at him and mentally screaming Earth to dingus!! “She’s got terrible bedside manners, can’t even take care of my girl properly.” 

You turn your horrified gaze to Robin as though you dating Steve the Hair Harrington is somehow her fault (it is a little bit; she’s the one who re-introduced you two, insisting he was a changed man since high school). 

“Steve!” Robin finally shrieks, missing the way you wince at the volume as Steve turns to look at her like she’s grown three heads. 

“Well, it’s true! You didn’t even get her water, never flagged a nurse-”

“We didn’t exactly have a lot of time before you two showed up,” Robin counters as Dustin returns. 

“The nurses are just doing a shift change, said someone will be with her shortly.” Dustin reports as he hands Steve a new, cold bottle of water for you. 

“Okay, alright. That’s alright, yeah?” Steve confirms with you as he cracks it open. “Are you in pain? If you’re in pain, I can go tell them you need help now.”

Robin watches as you take stock of yourself before side-eyeing her. “I…don’t think so.”

“You don’t think you’re in any pain?” Steve asks gently, bending over slightly in an attempt to regain your attention. Robin finds her heart squeezing at how soft he’s being with you.

Your heart seems to do the same, eyes flooding with tears as all three occupants in the room tense at the sight.

“Hey, hey hey hey, what’s the matter, huh? What’s with the tears?” 

Robin stands. “Steve, I really-”

“Are you in pain? What hurts?”

“Steve-”

“What, Robin?” Steve finally snaps, turning towards her like she’s a fly that finally landed on a lampshade after spending the entire afternoon bothering the shit out of him. 

“She woke up a little…” Robin pauses, looking towards your teary form as she considers how to explain this gently, “confused.”

“Confused?” Steve parrots before turning back to you. “Confused how?”

“Confused as in she didn’t understand why Steve Harrington has been haunting her hospital room.”

Steve’s brows furrow as he considers you before realization dawns on his face. 

“Awe, sweetheart,” he sighs. “Okay, I’m sorry you’re confused, baby. You’ll feel better soon, alright?”

The sound that escapes you in response borders a sob. Robin feels a little bit like doing the same. 

“Don’t cry, honey,” Steve all but begs as he scooches closer towards you on the bed, one hand grasping yours and leaning his weight on the other as he rests it against the bed by your opposite hip. “Hey, did Robin tell you about the wicked burn Max delivered to Mike earlier?”

Dustin perks up. “Oh man, he got so red; worse when El started repeating it afterwards.”

“Mike accused Max of purposefully turning El against him.” Steve agrees. 

“Again. Hey, when they get here, make sure to call Mike a-”

“I don’t want anyone else in here,” you interrupt Dustin quickly, wiping roughly at your face with the hand not currently occupied by Steve’s. “I don’t- it’s…they’re too loud.”

Robin laughs. “Yeah, they are too loud. You comin’ around?”

You suck in a deep, shuddering breath and let out a noncommittal hum in response. 

“Okay, no one else will come in here,” Steve agrees, gaze locked onto your face as he rubs his thumb along the back of your knuckles, cautious of the IV taped to the back of your hand. “Do you want any of us to leave?”

The question is innocent enough, though Robin knows he’s mostly asking you if you’d like him to leave.

You shake your head no, though, and give his hand a gentle squeeze. 

“Okay,” he whispers, leaning forward to press another kiss to your head and humming at you in question when you lift your chin, obviously asking for a real one.

Steve hesitates, clearly concerned he’s not reading your queues right and wondering if you’re feeling at all more cognizant. Apparently, though, rushing your unconscious girlfriend to the hospital and being without kisses for nearly sixteen hours makes a man a little desperate, finding him ultimately pressing a cautious kiss to your lips anyways.

“You’re okay, hm?” Steve murmurs into the corner of your mouth, dotting a few more kisses to your face before sitting up. “Scared the shit out of me.” 

“M’sorry,” your whisper back. 

“Yeah, you should be. He’s been insufferable,” Dustin comments, earning him a glare from Steve and a half-smile from you. 

“Yeah, yeah. Okay, that’s enough out of you, wise guy. What the hell are you two still doing here, anyway? Shouldn’t you guys go alert the others that she’s awake?” 

“Alright, dingus. Say less,” Robin sighs as she stands, Dustin playfully muttering about how he knows when he’s not wanted. 

You pay them no mind, looking up at Steve shyly; it reminds Robin of when the two of you first started hanging out. Awkward, tentative, careful. Steve looks like he’s shielding you from the entire world with the way he’s leaning over your form, you’re looking at him like he might disappear if you blink for too long.

The two of you are disgusting; she loves you both so much. 

Robin pauses at the door to take one last look at two of her favourite people, you bite your lip as you ask Steve a question that Robin can’t hear, he chuckles before replying, a little louder, “’course, sweetheart. You can have as many kisses as you want.”

Steve clamps his jaw shut, looking over at you from the corner of his eyes.

“I agree.” Nancy nods. “I’ll go check with Mrs. Byers.”

“I’ll go,” Jonathan says. “I know where they are—she’s busy with Will.” He pauses, then sighs out the word, “Probably.”

He turns on his heel and leaves the four of you standing in a square, Robin’s shoulder pressed against Steve’s, while you look from them to Nancy, concern etched over your face. 

“This just feels,” you say, “I dunno. Bad.”

“Yeah, because it is,” Robin says. “This is like, the worst bad it could possibly be. Like, Defcon level 5 bad.”

“That’s the least bad one,” Steve says.

“What?” Robin asks, absently, almost like she forgot what she’d just said.

“Defcon 5,” Steve repeats. “That’s the lowest one. Defcon 1 is the really bad one.”

“Ok, then it’s Defcon 1,” Robin echoes him. “Whatever. Any Defcon sucks!”

The group lulls into an introspective silence until the front door to Jonathan’s house opens and he returns, clutching a handful of straws. He returns to the circle, fidgeting with the straws until he’s back between Nancy and Robin, and then just holds out his fist so you can all pull a straw from his hand.

“Three long,” he specifies, “two short.”

He offers them to Nancy first, who takes a breath, chooses a straw, and—admittedly—looks a little bit miffed that it’s not a short one.

Robin reaches out next, plucking a straw from Jonathan’s hand before you can. She tugs it free. 

Long.

Jonathan moves his hand over to you and Steve, and Steve gestures to you to pick first—there’s only one safe straw left, and he’ll suffer Jonathan if he has to, to make sure that none of the women in the little quintet you’ve cobbled together are in danger.

Taking a breath, you pinch the straw on your right between your thumb and index finger, before changing to the one on your left. You ease it out of Jonathan’s hand, and just swallow thickly when you see you’ve pulled a short straw. 

A slight tension settles over the group as you huff a short laugh through your nose, because of course that’s your luck. 

“Great,” you say, wanting to flick the plastic away but instead you hang onto it, watching as Steve and Jonathan stare each other down.

“You’ll be fine,” Nancy says. “Steve or Jonathan will be with you.” She steps closer. “Do you want to trade?” she adds surreptitiously. She’s more capable than you, she’d be the obvious choice—but you were screwed over by your own idea, so your integrity feels like it’s forcing your hand.

“No, it’s—you need to stay here with Mike. And…Will. If Jonathan ends up going with me. I’ll be ok,” you reply, glancing over at her. “Thanks, though.”

“Just pick one,” Jonathan is saying to Steve, and you watch as Steve reaches for the straw you almost chose first, taking it with no hesitation from Jonathan’s closed fist.

It almost pains you to see that it’s also short, so you’d have been going no matter which you chose. Typical.

Jonathan opens his hand to show his straw is long, just for the fairness of the game, and you turn to Steve, ignoring the way Robin is bouncing a little in place, hands curled into the hem of her sweater before she releases it and just crosses to you, putting her hands on your shoulders.

“You’ll be so fine,” she says. “Steve won a fight against a, like, Russian soldier.”

“He what?” you ask, but before you can get an answer, Steve just steps between you and Robin and meets your eyes.

“Let’s go,” he says. “We’re gonna need to gear up before we head down there again.”

&&

You end up with an old canvas jacket over a tank top, one that Mrs. Byers found for you in the back of the hall closet, the sleeves a little too long. Nancy approached you, shoving her own boots into your hands, and said you’d be better in those, as opposed to the tennis shoes you had on. Steve is still in his jeans too, now wearing an old t-shirt that Jonathan provided. It looks a little too small for Steve, his shoulders a little broader, but it’s hidden beneath his bomber jacket. He only shrugs his shoulders, stretching the fabric out over them before he leads you outside, Jonathan trailing behind, the designated driver to get you to the crossover point.

“You’ll be fine,” he says, mostly to you, because Steve looks a hell of a lot more composed than you do, your breath a little thin, your eyes unblinking as you fixate on nighttime scenery as it passes by. “It一shouldn’t be like, you know, before.”

“No bats?” you ask, almost laughing, because even though you saw the evidence of their story firsthand, even though you’ve been around long enough to know every detail they provided is true, it still sounds crazy to speak it aloud.

“No bats,” Jonathan promises, even though there’s no way he could realistically know.

“Ok,” you say, looking at Steve in the backseat. His jaw is set, and when he feels your eyes on him, he looks over at you.

“You can still sit this one out,” Steve says, and to his credit, Jonathan doesn’t speak for you.

“What do you mean?” you ask, frowning. “I一got a short straw.”

“Yeah, I know,” Steve says, “but you shouldn’t一have to. You’ve never gone down there, and you should keep it that way.”

Out of the corner of your eye, you see Jonathan glance up to look at Steve in the rearview, undoubtedly wondering if the fucking Hair is gonna try to pull him along and leave you with the car.

“It was my idea,” you say. “I pulled a short straw fair and square.”

“Having to go down there isn’t fair,” Steve says.

“Well, you went last time, so having to go again is what’s not fair, isn’t it?” you counter.

“That’s not what I said一” Steve tries to protest, but again, you speak over him.

“I’m going,” you say. “End of story. The quicker you accept that, the easier this will be. Stop一thinking about me and focus.”

Steve huffs a little noise of disbelief, but quietens down and the rest of the drive passes with just the sound of the engine and the tires speeding over the asphalt, potholes and cracks in the road making him slow the car to a stop.

“This is as far as we can drive,” Jonathan says, holding his foot on the brakes as you and Steve both hesitate, looking at the red glow of the rift a bit further up the street, the entire area abandoned and desolate, destroyed by the X-shaped fissure quadrisecting Hawkins’ downtown.

What look like ashes or fiery motes dance above the broken earth, and you force yourself to move so Steve has no choice but to follow.

You feel for the door handle, not taking your eyes off of the red glow ahead of you, and push open the squeaky door, stepping out of the car. The gravel crunches underfoot as you stand and move back a step, slamming the door. Behind you, you hear the rear driver side door creak and slam too, and you look back to meet Steve’s eyes over the roof of the car. Neither of you speaks, but neither of you has to.

“I’ll be here waiting,” Jonathan says, to Steve一he’s rolled down the window on his side. “As long as it takes. But don’t take too long.”

“No sweat,” Steve says, clapping his hand onto the roof, displacing some of the dust that’s already settled onto the car, just by virtue of idling in one place. “We got this.”

You wait for Steve to start walking forward, joining him as you traverse the rocky, destroyed street, the headlights from the Byers’ car illuminating you from behind as you go.

“What’s it like down there?” you ask, carefully stepping over a large chunk of blacktop.

“It’s…” Steve says, his voice trailing off. “Not great.”

“That helps,” you snip, because you’d like maybe a little preparation before you dive in.

“I’ll go first,” Steve says. “it’s一a little trippy. Just… give me a sec after I go through, and then I’ll catch you.”

“Catch me?” you ask, but Steve’s already adjusting his jacket, fiddling with the flashlight he’s holding, running a hand back through his hair, dusted with whatever the fine granules are that have been falling over Hawkins constantly for the last day.

“It’s一I mean, it’s called the Upside Down for a reas一you’ll see. Just. The dizziness will pass quick, promise.”

You open your mouth to say something else, but even as you do, you realize you have no idea what to say or to ask. So instead, you just watch as he crouches down beside the rift, fingers curling over the edge, and as he leans forward, you look back to Jonathan, who’s standing outside the car now, leaning against the hood, watching you both.

When you turn back to look at Steve, he’s gone.

You startle, because yes, you expected it, and yes, you knew this was all real, but for some reason his there-one-second-gone-the-next disappearing act throws you.

“You can go,” Jonathan says, encouraging. “He’ll一be ready by now.”

“Have you gone down there?” you ask.

He pauses, then shakes his head. “Not yet.”

You swallow the lump in your throat, then snicker. “I’ll send you a postcard.”

He hesitates, then smirks. “Bon voyage.”

You hold his gaze for another moment, like he’ll stop you一of course he won’t, you wouldn’t if you were him一and then replicate Steve’s movements as closely as you can remember. Crouching down. Gripping the edge. That was all you’d seen, but you close your eyes and tip yourself forward, expecting一actually, you have no fucking idea what to expect, and as your own body weight propels you forward through the rift, you feel strong hands grip your upper arms, pulling you through the rest of the way until you’re in an environment that feels colder, inherently. Like there’s no warmth here, no sun, nothing living, only death and decay and rot.

You stumble, because like Steve told you, there is a moment when your equilibrium is so completely off it’s almost like you have vertigo. He does catch you, as promised and your hands grip his arms back for a moment until your body reorients itself and you can stand without holding onto him.

“Thanks,” you say, looking around. It’s uncanny一you’re in Hawkins, downtown. It looks the same but still so drastically different that you feel as though you’ve just stepped into a nightmare.

“Come on,” Steve says, gently, and you can tell he doesn’t want to linger in one place too long. His hand is still on your arm, even though you’ve turned enough that you can walk beside him.

All of the air is stale down here, and as you walk through the inverse version of your hometown, you start to become attuned to the strange sounds of this place, the一odd clicks off to the side, a rushing roar occasionally from behind or above you, but you never see anything, never feel anything other than Steve’s fingers pressing into your arm through the jacket.

You don’t know how long you walk for, and you lose your bearings in the dimness of the Upside Down, but Steve is confidently striding forward like he knows exactly where you are and where you’re going. Between you, it’s silent, which you don’t mind一just the sound of your breathing and a few short exclamations when your foot twists on a rock, or Steve drops the flashlight, his quiet little “Oops” actually making you smile a little as he ducks down to pick it up, wiping the dirt from the lens.

You walk further, Nancy’s boots clomping alongside Steve’s quieter hiking shoes, and when you reach the base of a hill, you both stop.

“Up?” you ask, and Steve finally releases your arm. You feel the absence like a presence, because you hadn’t realized how much it was comforting you until it was gone, but he glances over at you, nods, and then gestures for you to head up first.

“I’ll follow you,” he says, “make sure you don’t slip.”

Making sure you don’t fall一It’s thoughtful in the way you expect from Steve, even though you don’t know him that well. You’re only wrapped up in this insanity because you know一no. Knew…Eddie. You knew Eddie. He was your neighbor, a couple doors over, and you were friends in that way where you waved to each other when you were grabbing the mail, or said hi if you happened to pass at the store, or noticed when a girl died in his trailer while he was screaming bloody murder and had to go on the lam. It was hard not to get involved when you’d rushed outside to see what the fuck was going on with all the noise only to watch him split seconds later, peeling out of the lot. 

Your first mistake had been even stepping out your front door that evening. Your second mistake had been peeking inside his trailer, your third had been finding that Henderson kid he had mentioned to you a few times in passing…and probably your fiftieth fucking mistake had been suggesting drawing fucking straws to see who got to pay a fucking visit to this scenic fucking shithole.

“Over there,” Steve says, as you crest the hill, pointing vaguely in the direction of a thick copse of trees. “Pretty, uh, dusty.”

He’s right: The trees are surrounded by what looks like a hazy cloud of dust, dense enough to look like fog from afar. It’s practically shimmering even in the darkness, and as Steve shines the flashlight toward it, even though you’re a good distance away, it looks like you’ve agitated it, almost like being illuminated caused the fine particles to move faster. Like observing them made them, somehow, aware of your presence.

You dig the toe of your boot into the ground below you. “So that’s where it’s coming from then,” you say, eager to leave. “Let’s go tell Hopper and Dustin and everyone.”

You start to turn, ready to head back the way you came, but Steve’s arm hooks around your elbow again. You try to suppress how having him back in contact with you does make you feel a little bit better once again.

“No, come on. We need to see if something’s…doing that.”

“It’s just us, Steve,” you argue. “We don’t know enough about anything down here to just go walking into…whatever that is. It looks like…someone cast cloudkill or something.”

Steve quirks an eyebrow at you. “Please tell me you didn’t just bring D&D into this.”

“That’s what it looks like!”

“Dustin would be so proud.” He smirks a little to himself. “Ok,” he says. “I’m gonna go take a closer look. They’ll want to know more and I’d like to be able to answer whatever questions we can when we’re back topside. Just wait here.” He takes off down the hill, minding his steps as he goes. 

“Wait,” you try to call after him, not wanting to be too loud. You watch as his flashlight beam moves over the dust again, the swirling almost appearing to move faster as he approaches it, like it wants him to reach it. “Steve!”

You hiss the word as loud as you dare, and he pauses, stopping at the bottom of the slanted ground. 

“It’s ok,” he calls back up to you. “I’ll be right back.”

“Let’s just go back!” you say, glancing around behind you as something一somewhere back the way you came from一makes a noise that disrupts the otherwise quiet landscape. That clicking sound again.

“I promise it’s fine,” he says. “I won’t be long.”

“No, Steve—” you say, and he pauses, watching with pursed lips as you start forward.

“Come on, then,” he says, resigned, waiting for you as you also make your way down, the ground uneven and the dirt sliding beneath your feet as you descend.

He’s still in the same spot when you reach him, and he holds out a hand for you to take if you need it. Your gut wants you to reach for it, for him, but you ignore the impulse; you’re back on (mostly) flat ground now, you can walk without assistance. Besides… you both might need both hands readily available if shit goes sideways. Or, uh. Upside down.

You flinch at yourself for even thinking it, because that was stupid. So stupid.

“Hold on,” Steve says, holding his arm out horizontally so you stop walking, because while you were in your own little world lamenting your dumb joke, you’d gotten even closer to the treeline and the dust is very, very much thicker here.

“Oh,” you say, because the way it’s clouded there, it reminds you of when freshwater and saltwater meet but can’t mix, different viscosities preventing them from commingling. “That’s…”

“Weird,” Steve says, and before you can suggest that this is definitely enough information to bring back to the group, he steps forward, approaching the trees.

“Steve!” you hiss. “What the hell, why are you like this?”

He looks back at you, a faint smile quirking up one side of his mouth. “I wish I knew.”

You stand outside of the range of the… dust, or whatever the hell it is, until he reaches the trees. Even from where you’re standing, you can see when he shines the flashlight over them, they look diseased, dead, the bark crumbling, the trunks covered in thick vines. They shine a little in the light, covered in sap or… something far more vile.

“Come back,” you implore him, but he doesn’t listen, and you’re not sure if he can’t hear you or if he just ignored your request. “Steve!”

“It’s fine,” he says. “Come here, it looks like… just come here.”

You don’t want to, but you do, because the entire reason you’re even here is so Steve didn’t come down into this place alone. The air doesn’t smell or taste different when you take a step forward, but it feels softer almost, brushing against your skin like baby powder, and by the time you reach Steve, you feel like you’ve been wrapped in silk, or velvet maybe, like the very air itself is cradling you.

“Look at this,” he says, moving the flashlight closer to the vines. “Do you see that?”

You look closer, not sure what he means at first, until you do see it. It looks like a stem broken off of the vine, like a flower had been there and was now gone. You can see a scattering of them all up and down the vine, and the vines beside it; the entire tree is covered in the same stems. Like it had sprouted blooms once, but they’d shriveled, losing their petals but the central disc where the pollen collected remained.

“Flowers?” you asked.

“I don’t know…” Steve said, reaching out toward one of the stems.

“Hey!” you said, grabbing his wrist with both hands, stopping him before he can touch it. “We’re not touching them. No way.”

“It’s fine,” Steve said. “Just… back up a little.”

“Please don’t,” you say, not moving. Steve extends his arm again, using it to guide you back, and then presses one of the un-petaled flower stems down. You hold your breath, but nothing happens, and when Steve moves his hand back, the stem just rises back to its previous position, unremarkably.

“See?” Steve says, looking back at you. “It’s fine.”

You exhale heavily, nervous still, even though you now have the empirical evidence that yes一it was fine.

“I guess,” you admit, and before you can react, Steve is walking past the treeline, between the old, creaking trunks, twigs snapping beneath his feet. “I swear to god, Harrington…” You mumble it mostly to yourself, and then follow him, because you don’t want to have to explain to anyone that you lost Steve because you were too scared to follow him into some trees.

Even though you’re fairly certain, like, anyone would understand.

He’s stopping at random trees, shining the flashlight on them, but every flowered vine you find looks the same as the first one一flowers, no petals, the center bare of any pollen or residue.

“Maybe we can just一take one of the stems and bring it back. And leave. Now.”

“We don’t know that’s what’s causing the dust,” Steve says, and you actually grab him, spin him around, and stare him down with your hands on your hips.

“I think,” you say, lifting your hands exasperatedly into the air, “we can extrapolate that they are what’s causing it.”

But he’s not listening. You can tell because he’s looking behind you, the flashlight just a little bit off to your left. You turn to see what’s caught his interest, and find it immediately. It’s one of the flowers, but not barren. The petals are a sickly green-blue, the same as the rest of the vines, and the disc is very clearly covered in a thin layer of pollen. Steve shuts the flashlight off and you see how he noticed it一it’s bioluminescent.

“Oh,” you say again, looking back at him. “That’s…even weirder.”

“We should bring that one back,” he says.

“I still don’t think we should touch it,” you say.

“Yeah,” he agrees, surprising you. “Probably not, but一I mean…if we can learn anything about anything it’ll be from that one, right?”

“I…” you start to say, then sigh. “I guess.”

“All right, just,” he says, handing you the flashlight. “Hold this.”

“Do you need the light?” you ask, running your thumb over the button to turn it back on.

“No,” he says, stepping past you and reaching up toward the flower. “I got it一”

As soon as his fingers touch the stem, the flower reacts一actually reacts. It appears to contract, the way you’d expect a Venus fly trap to close when its prey triggers it, and then the petals fall away, down over Steve’s hands, his face, and the pollen follows, the glimmering particles landing on him, on you, wisping away through the trees to settle, no longer glowing, wherever they fell through the stagnant air.

“Steve!” you scold him, but even as you do, you start to feel… off.

“You ok?” Steve asks, turning to you. His eyes meet yours and you feel a pull, you feel the same vertigo you felt when you first arrived here.

“Yeah,” you say, before the world slides sideways. “Wait. No.” You move to brace yourself against the tree, pressing the side of your forearm against it, letting your forehead rest there for a moment as you try to compose yourself.

“No,” Steve echoes you. “Yeah, me… me neither.”

“What the hell was that?” you ask, turning the flashlight on. With the beam lit up again, you can see how shaky your hands are, because you angle it up and despite your best effort, you simply cannot keep the stem of the flower that exploded centered in the light. “Jesus Christ,” you mumble to yourself, dropping the lit flashlight because seeing yourself so obviously affected by whatever you just inhaled is making you feel even more scared than you already are.

You register Steve moving away from you, walking around in the tight space, shaking his hands out like he’s trying to rid them of something.

You suck in a breath.

“Are you like. Hot?” you ask, pulling off the heavy jacket and draping it over your shoulder, just to have something to do with your shaking hands.

“What?” Steve asks in return, but you can hear the tightness in his voice.

You swallow, stepping away from the tree, and because whatever the fuck is happening to the two of you is happening, you bump into him just as he nears you with his pacing, neither paying any mind to the other. Where his hand brushes your arm, your skin tingles, tightens—feels like it’s going to blister. And then it happens to the rest of your body.

But just as quickly as it does, it dissolves away, leaving you feeling cold, wanting.

“Are you ok?” Steve asks again, in a way that you can tell he felt whatever that was too. But also in the way that you can tell he’s, maybe, handling it a little better.

“Still no,” you say. 

“Right,” Steve says. “Yeah. ‘Cause you just…” he trails off, and as soon as he mentions it you realize, belatedly, that the searing feeling of his bare skin against yours—your arms mind you—made you loose a moan from deep in your chest, low and unbidden, soft but heavy.

The moment hangs between you for a second, your heart hammering in your chest, an uncomfortable pressure starting to build between your legs.

“Hey,” Steve says, and you look up at him, and when you do you realize he’s much closer than he was moments ago, and he was already right beside you. “Hey, do you, um…” he trails off, and in the ambient light emanating from the flashlight on the ground beside you, you can see his gaze drop down to your lips.

Instinctually一because all of a sudden you feel like every single impulse and sense you have has been reduced to its basest level一you let your eyes lower to his mouth too, and when you see them, when you watch as his teeth worry his lower lip between them, when you see his cheeks hollow for a moment, when you catch a brief glimpse of his tongue, the same question that you’re certain he was about to ask you pops into your mind, and you answer what he didn’t even ask.

“Yes,” you say, and without further hesitation, without any thought at all, you take his face in your hands and press your lips to his.

Simultaneously you feel both immense relief and immeasurable desire, your stomach churning, your lips parting as Steve groans into your mouth. You can’t help but press your hips to his, parting your lips to let his tongue lick against yours, and your hands curl into his hair as you kiss him wildly, tongues and teeth and absolutely no reticence, the desperation clear on your part and his.

“Fuck,” you mutter as his hands tug your tank top up, pushing it over your tits, not bothering to unclasp your bra but just shoving that up and over your chest too, and you don’t even care that he’s undressing you in the middle of the weird ass woods in some alternate dimension. You don’t care that you’ve been stricken with the urge to fuck some guy you barely know, and only know because of some of the direst circumstances in history. You don’t care that he’s caging you in against the tree, the vines and bark scraping against your back as he leans down to bypass your neck completely and latch onto one of your tits, his mouth working at you in a way that you could tell on an ordinary night in an ordinary bed in ordinary Hawkins would feel wonderful, but now is only making the ache between your legs worsen, because you need part of him in contact with part of you and it’s not his mouth on your nipple.

“Steve,” you gasp, tone high, thready. “I need一oh my god, I can’t一” you stop yourself, because you know what it is that you want but you can’t very well tell him that you need his cock. You do not know each other like that, but as soon as the thought crosses your mind, he pulls back from you, shrugging off his jacket as well, letting it fall to the ground behind him as he undoes his jeans and shoves them down.

You’re on him before he even pulls his hands away from the waistband一both hands wrapping around his shaft, coaxing him to hardness even though he’s already most of the way there. Your entire being shudders with relief as soon as you feel his hot, girthy cock in your hands, and he rushes you back against the tree, mouth taking yours again as you stroke him with both hands, smearing the copious amount of precome he’s leaking all down his length. He’s so wet it coats your hands, your wrists even, as you accidentally let them brush against him as you jerk him off.

“This is”一you gasp out as he breaks away to move his lips down to your neck一“weird, right?”

“Yes,” Steve answers, but even as he says it, he’s moving his hands from your waist to your front, fingers curling into the waistband of your jeans and slipping the button. He undoes the zipper and doesn’t even bother trying to lower your pants down to your thighs like his are一he just shoves his hand into your underwear, palm skimming below your belly button until he reaches your mound, his middle finger sliding between your lips to touch your clit, the pad of his finger rubbing over it, not gently, but hard, harsh, immediate pressure that should feel good, but does absolutely nothing for you.

Strangely, you realize一you’re getting more enjoyment out of touching him, than you are from him touching you.

“God, that’s good,” Steve breathes against your mouth, and you realize he must be feeling the same一only getting any relief when he got his hands on you.

“What’s happening?” you ask, lips on the corner of his, breath warm on his cheek.

“I don’t know, I一” Steve says, licking into your mouth before pressing his forehead against yours, looking into your eyes as he thrusts his hand down further into your jeans, the force of it moving them down your hips without any help, and then his fingers are sliding through your folds. “You’re一so wet一I, I never felt anyone like, like this一”

“This is fucking,” you stammer, but the thought of exactly what it is leaves you as he curls two fingers inside of you, and he shudders in relief. You pull him closer by his cock, letting one hand move over it as you reach lower, cupping his heavy balls in your hand, massaging them and tipping your head back, eyes fluttering closed as you do.

“We should一stop,” Steve says, but you shake your head, then nod, then shake your head again.

“No, we can’t… Don’t want to,” you admit.

Steve’s voice is thick like honey, dripping with arousal as he speaks to you, tucking his cheek against yours so he can whisper directly into your ear. “Take一take everything off. Turn around.” It’s dark and deep and you reluctantly release his cock, let him slide his fingers out of you, and then the two of you strip the rest of your clothes off, denim landing on the dirt and leaves, his shirt landing in a heap as he helps you with your bra, and then you’re both naked in the cursed forest, and he’s pressing himself against your back, hands roaming your front. It feels nice but does nothing to assuage the arousal still coiling in your belly, and you push yourself into him, the heated skin of his cock smearing precome over your ass as his hips slide against you. 

“Steve,” you whine, and your tone spurs him into action, his hands landing on your hips, pushing you down, down to your knees and then all fours, and then one of his hands is sliding down your spine to stop between your shoulder blades, and then the next thing you know, your shoulders and tits are being pressed into the dirt, your ass up in the air, presenting yourself to him. You turn your head as much as you can to look back at him, straining as he holds you down.

He’s kneeling behind you, and you watch as his eyes meet yours, hazy with lust, with desperation, and he only nods once at you before you see him reach for his cock with his free hand and press the head against your weeping slit.

Your whole body quivers, and you would have pushed back if he wasn’t keeping you firmly in place, your arms trapped beneath you, hands scrabbling for purchase on your own thighs, holding onto yourself as you feel the pressure on your pussy increase when Steve leans into you with purpose.

He enters you in one deep, thick stroke, and as soon as you engulf him, as soon as you feel him splitting your walls open on his cock, you shudder and come instantly with a loud cry, sobbing from momentary relief, pleasure raining down over you as the sheen of sweat on your skin worsens. Your entire body is aflame like you’ve got a fever, and you clench around Steve's cock when you feel his hips grinding against your ass as you realize that he came too, suddenly, with a harsh gasp. 

But then he’s moving again, back out of you and then pushing in, pushing desperately, chasing the feeling again. Because your first orgasm wasn’t satisfying, barely any of the edge siphoning off despite how much it affected you, and the way he’s digging his fingertips into your hips as he pounds at you tells you his wasn’t either. He’s fucking his come back into your pussy, easing the slide, your thighs dripping with it already as flecks of his release land on your skin. 

“Steve,” you say, voice watery, because you haven’t even come down from your first orgasm and you can already feel another one cresting on the horizon.

“Do you一does this一feel good for you, t-too?” he asks, and you know he’s asking because he must feel the same as you一unsatisfied, wanting more, chasing another and another and another.

“Yeah, it一” you say, gasping as he leans over you, drilling his cock into you even deeper, reaching places inside of you you’ve never felt on your own. “You feel so一so good, Steve, please just一” You falter again, but unless you say it how will he know? How will he know how badly you want this, want him, unless you tell him? “Just keep一going, keep, keep coming in一in me, oh, god, I…” 

You’d feel embarrassed to sound so wanton and lewd if not for the way he answers you, pressing his hand more firmly against your back, sliding it up to your neck, and then finally, relenting for a brief moment so he can tangle his fist into your hair and use it to press your face down into the dirt.

“You have no一idea,” he replies, his hips snapping against your ass, his cock coated with his own spunk, your fluids, dripping down onto his balls, onto the forest floor. “How good you一you feel, around一fuck, you’re so一so一” He fucks into you again, and you feel his cock twitch deep within you, coming again, his release flooding you, his rigid cock not softening and not leaving your cunt, not fully anyway.

His voice sounds slightly more even when he speaks, but still frenzied.

“You feel that?” he asks, and you nod, sliding one of your hands up your stained thigh, sticky with your arousal. “Feel me inside you, right? Feel how一what you’re doing to me?”

“Steve,” you whimper, as he starts moving again, the wet sounds coming from between your bodies obscene, the sound of him fucking his own come loud, filthy, and it ensnares you, your lips parting of their own accord as you feel the saliva dribbling out of your mouth, but you can’t do much to stop it, not with him holding you down, with your arms tucked beneath you, with the way you’re now rubbing at your own clit because you feel so full with two loads in you that you need to come, need to feel it leak out of your hole around his cock, need the force of your orgasm to empty you so he can do it all over again on a clean slate.

“I can feel you,” Steve says, voice choked as he slams into you and stops, straightening up, releasing your head and your hair and clamping his hands down on your hips, rolling his front shallowly against yours, letting his cock just barely move out before it dips right back in, and the stretch of your slit around him, the feeling of your own hand working at your clit, finally sends you over the edge and you turn your face into the ground, hiding your shame as you realize he just came a third time, your pussy milking the orgasm from him as it spasmed and clenched down, begging it from him. The dirt sticks to your face, your lips and chin and you squeeze your eyes closed as you feel him pull out一again, not fully, only partly because you chase him, leaning back into him, wanting him to stay rooted deep within you一but even as you do, you still feel the thick drops of his come ooze out of you around him, rolling down your thighs, collecting in the crease of your knees.

“Do you feel any一better?” Steve asks, and in spite of the question, he pushes back into you, displacing more of his semen, forcing more of it out around him, staining your front along with his this time.

“Yes,” you answer, “no一can you fuck me a-again?”

Steve’s hands smooth over your back一you feel a little less heady, a little less one-track minded, but the burn is still there, the one that needs him moving into you again, pounding his front against your back, giving it to you over and over.

“I still need it too,” he says, and that makes you feel marginally better until he leans over you, letting his back rest against your front, letting your legs support his weight on top of you as he circles both arms beneath you, one hand pressing against up against your stomach, the other moving between your come-covered thighs to nudge your hand away and let his fingers work at your clit this time.

“Fuck一Steve,” you sob, because he’s not moving this time, just letting his cock sit inside you, heavy, slick with his own spunk, and his breath is heavy in your ear as he just rubs your clit, letting you squeeze down on him, unmoving inside you. Your walls flutter around him, gripping him tight, and Steve’s hand on your clit feels worlds different than your own did一your orgasm takes you over by surprise, hitting you out of nowhere so strongly that you buck back against him, wanting to feel him deeper even though he’s fully seated in you, riding out your orgasm with you until you sigh, eyes closed, cheek pressing to the dirty ground, smearing your own drool against the detritus below you.

His fingers slip away from your clit and he starts moving again, and even though you want it, you whine, the noise in your throat crackly and petulant, and without pulling out of you, needing to stay joined the exact same way you do, he holds you tight against him and rolls the both of you onto your side. He’s still inside you, and with the same arm that he’d just had looped around your stomach, he hooks your leg on his wrist, pulling your leg up to the side and holds it there, out of his way, exposing your cunt as he fucks you from behind this time, the new position just as intense but so, so much better, your back resting against his front, his skin slick with sweat as he clings to you, almost as desperate as you feel. 

“Almost一almost there,” he says, and you’re not sure what he means, because you’re still bleary with arousal, still want to come on his cock countless more times, still want to feel him lingering inside you for days.

“Please touch me,” you beg, “need you一need it to be you, it doesn’t一work when it’s me, Steve, please一”

“Sh,” he hushes you, his voice soft as he leans a little further into you, rising to prop himself up on his elbow. He doesn’t release your leg一to the contrary, he leans forward, pushing your leg further up to the crook of his elbow, holding your legs open at an even wider angle, and lets his now free hand slip between your folds to find your clit.

You sob when he does, because you come again the moment he touches it, the swollen bead throbbing beneath the pads of his fingers, kicking under his ministrations as he doesn’t stop, doesn’t slow, and you rise to your peak again, barely even coming down from the first一or maybe you just didn’t stop coming. You don’t know, you don’t care, because after this many, you’re starting to feel like yourself again, but the feeling is still there, you still need more.

“It’s一so much,” you mumble, and Steve presses a short kiss to the sensitive spot behind your ear.

“You feel so good, though,” he says, his hips still curling into yours, his cock not as deep now, both of you contorted around each other, back to front, limbs entangled, his fingers on your clit, the head of his cock in the perfect position to rub repeatedly against your g-spot, and you shudder a sigh as you feel yourself come again, weaker this time, your cunt sopping and sore.

“Come in me again,” you ask weakly, because each time he did, each time he filled you to the brim and it spilled out of you, a little bit of the haze lifted, the feverish impulse lessening.

“Almost,” he replies, thrusting into you, the head of his cock nudging your g-spot and you feel another orgasm beginning to rise, but not strong enough to overtake you yet.

“Please,” you beg, desperate now that you can feel the end might be in sight. You taste dirt in your mouth and feel itchy, skin irritated from twigs and leaves on the ground below you, but they’re the first sensations you’ve felt other than all-consuming arousal since the flower disintegrated onto you both, and you welcome them.

“Just一hold on another一another一” Steve says, and you feel him circle your clit quicker as he fucks into you, his cock dragging against your walls as you tighten up around him, and when he snaps them forward, up into you, shot after shot of his come spurting from the tip of his dick, your whole body tightens, loosens, releases after another orgasm一weak, feeble, and final, you hope一and then you still. Both of you, still, filthy, sweaty messes on the ground, dirty and sticky, skin slick between your thighs, his chest sticking to your back as you pull away from him. You stay on your side, wiping your face with the cleaner of your two hands, scraping away the dirt and spit stuck to your chin. You hear Steve behind you shuffle to his feet, and then his bomber jacket is draped over your shoulders, just to give you some modicum of modesty until you can stand and dress yourself.

“What the fuck happened?” you ask, wiping at the rest of your face now, adjusting the jacket to cover yourself as you feel his spend slowly trickle out of you. You twist, looking up at Steve where he’s standing, pulling his jeans back on. He uses his shirt to wipe his dick clean, his thighs, and then looks over to you.

“Shit, I’m sorry,” he says, and zips his fly before kneeling beside you, making to lift the jacket to wipe you clean with his shirt too, but you bat his hand away. You wanted him so desperately, had him, even, the two of you unable to control yourselves, and now you don’t even want him to look at you.

“Can you get me my一shirt,” you ask, pointing to where your tank top landed.

Wordlessly, Steve gets you your clothes, handing them to you and looking away as you shift yourself to your knees. You suppress the whimper as you feel yourself gaping, the sticky mess of his come falling from your pussy lips, and you try to clean yourself up as best you can, dressing yourself in your jeans and snapping the jacket closed to hide the fact that you’re now shirtless. You both leave the other soiled garments in the woods.

The first half of the walk back is silent, your stoic expression unchanging even as Steve continues acting exactly as he had before: Letting you walk ahead of him, keeping an eye on you to make sure you don’t trip, illuminating your path with the flashlight rather than his own.

“Um,” he says, once you start to see the reddish glow indicating that you’re nearing the rift. “Can we talk?”

You sigh. Heavily. “About what.”

“About一what just happened.”

“What happened?” you ask.

His eyes widen, like he’s not sure whether you’re really asking. “We…had一”

“I know what happened, Steve,” you snap. “I mean, why? What was that stuff?”

He closes his mouth, then his eyes, lifting his hand to cover his face for a moment before letting it fall to his side again.

“I don’t know. But I just一I wanted to check whether you’re ok now.”

“I’m fine,” you say, a little sarcastic, but biting it back because he got the same faceful of fuck pollen as you did. “Don’t worry, you won’t catch me begging for your dick again any time soon.”

He blanches, then takes a step toward you. “Hey, that’s not what I meant.”

“Can we not一talk about it?” you ask.

Steve hesitates, frowns. Then nods. “Yeah. Whatever you want.”

&&

The drive back to the Byers house is awkward. You let Steve sit in front next to Jonathan, let Steve answer the questions, let Steve tell Jonathan no一don’t drop you at home. You end up in the driveway of Jonathan’s house, waiting inside Steve’s BMW as he goes in and gives all the details to Nancy this time. He returns the jacket to Mrs. Byers.

He’d been careful with what he said to Jonathan. Some trees, weird flowers, some kind of pollen. It knocked you out for a little while, he explains, some kind of fever or something, that’s why you’re both filthy and sweaty. But you both feel fine now.

Sure.

Steve emerges from the house in another shirt, a polo he’d changed out of before this whole mess, and rounds the hood of the Bimmer. You watch him, wondering why you didn’t interrupt when Jonathan offered to drop you at your place. It would have been easier. You could have shut yourself up inside and never looked twice at Steve again. You only just got involved in this bullshit. You could extricate yourself just as easily.

But you didn’t.

You’d stayed with Steve even when you had the chance for an out.

You’d allowed him to insist that he drive you home, because he wanted more time to talk to you. Which you didn’t want to do but, admittedly, was probably a good idea.

The driver’s side door slams shut as Steve climbs in. You don’t move, legs pressed together, arms crossed over your chest, and Steve fiddles with the keys, not putting them in the ignition.

“So一” he starts, but you cut him off.

“I don’t want to talk outside Jonathan’s house,” you say.

“Right,” he says, starting the car and shifting into gear, heading out back onto the road. He clears his throat. “So.”

“Yeah?” you ask, and he just clears his throat again.

“Are you ok?”

It’s the question you expected but weren’t sure if he would actually ask. Because you’re not, and he’s probably not either.

“I mean, physically,” you say. “Sure.”

“I’m sorry. Obviously I didn’t一know,” he says, drumming his thumb on the steering wheel.

“I’m not blaming you, Steve.”

“It’s my fault.”

“Oh, I’m aware,” you say. “But I said I’m not blaming you. How could you have known, really.”

He glances over at you to find you already looking at him. You shrug as if to impart the age-old adage, c’est la vie. Even though it’s really, really not.

There’s another few minutes of silence, the car humming quietly in the night, and it’s almost peaceful except for the mess still between your legs, your body reminding you of it every time he hits a bump in the road and you feel sore all over again.

“That place… I shouldn’t have let you go down there. It changes you.”

“I’ll say,” you snarked, and Steve looked over at you, a little shocked at how blasé you were in that moment, then huffed an unamused laugh.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“Yeah, I know. It’s一”

“No, for一bringing you. Jonathan should have一”

“I’d love to hear what would have happened if it had been you and Jonathan down there,” you say, keeping your face turned toward the window.

“Ok, well一that’s一” Steve stammers, and you can’t help but laugh a little.

It feels nice, actually, laughing after needing to use Steve’s body in the most perverse, insane way ever, and letting him do the same to yours.

“You didn’t have to drive me,” you say, as Steve turns into the lot where you still live, both of you averting your eyes from Eddie’s residence. Or… what used to be.

“I wanted to,” he says, simply, and when he pulls up outside of your door, he puts the car into park and turns it off, pulling the key from the ignition.

“What are you doing?” you ask, eyeing him as he reaches for the door handle and pockets his keys.

“Walking you to your door,” he says, like it’s obvious.

You want to question him, but you don’t. You just get out of the car, slam the door behind you, and wait for him to move next to you. You lead him, and when he follows you up the steps, holds the door for you when you open it, and enters behind you, you don’t question that either.

Nor does he wait for you to. “I don’t… sleep that great anymore, after… you know, going down there. Figured you might want. I dunno. A friendly face nearby. Just in case.”

You undo the jacket’s fastenings, but hold it closed, your bra shoved into the pocket, your upper half bare beneath the canvas.

“Ok,” you say, not fighting him on it, and just point at the couch behind him. “You can stay there. My mom works an overnight shift so if you can be out by 7:00, I’d appreciate it.”

Steve looks behind himself, then nods. “Sounds good.”

You wait for him to turn and settle down onto it before padding down the hall to the bathroom. The door sticks when you close it, so you never do, just leaving it barely ajar as you strip off the jacket and your jeans, the crotch still wet with Steve’s come. You leave the clothes in a pile on the floor and start the shower, waiting for the water to warm before stepping in; in the meantime, you examine yourself in the mirror. There’s still some dirt scuffed on your cheek; you try to wipe it away with the heel of your hand but it isn’t budging, so you just check yourself out otherwise instead. Your lips are still swollen from where you’d bitten them. You’ve got some bruises and scrapes on your shoulders and chest, your arms and elbows, but there’s no pallor to your skin so you figure you’re fucking fine. Just peachy.

You pull the shower curtain and step in, scrubbing your body hard, your arms and legs, focusing on the marred areas of skin, the places you know need some extra care. You wash thoroughly, your face, your thighs, everything in between them, and when you emerge wrapped in a towel, you see Steve dozing off on your couch. 

You pull the towel tighter around you, watch him for a moment longer, then call out to him.

“Hey.”

His eyes flutter open, taking in the sight of you in the hall, squinting a little like he might have missed something in the interim of sitting down and waking up.

“You ok?” he asks.

You don’t answer一at least, not what he asked you. “My bed’s more comfortable than the couch.”

He studies you一you can feel the force of his look even with how far away he is. He hesitates.

“I’m only offering once,” you say, and that, at least, gets him to move, shifting his weight to the edge of the sofa cushion.

“You sure?”

“I’m sure,” you say, unwavering, and he makes his way from the couch to the hall, looking down at you as he steps past you into your room. You follow him inside and close the door behind you with a low click.

You’re a giggly smoker is what Steve finds out when you’re both high together.

You can’t keep yourself from letting small bursts of laughter fall from your lips the longer you smoke.

Steve’s fondly amused, he’s more of a horny mellowed out guy.

His limbs feel delightfully heavy and the air feels warm and thick around him like a comforting blanket.

You’re babbling about what’s on the TV, some chick flick Steve has a mild interest in but prefers the sight of your adorably sweet smile more.

Your hand shifts to grab the remote laying somewhere between the two of you, most likely buried beneath the seat cushions.

Instead, the warm heat of your palm greets his upper thighs and with a sharp inhale from him, you turn to him.

Your smile is soft and warm as you look at him, befuddled by his response.

Steve’s cock twitches at the small glimpse of your teeth, leaking a small bead of pre into his boxers.

He grits his teeth, trying not to give himself away.

Unfortunately for you, you’re more than aware of his dilemma at hand.

Your hand flexes when you feel his cock jerk by sheer proximity of your hands and your grip tightens.

A hoarse groan bubbles from Steve’s throat at the feeling of your grip, every ounce of sensation amped up as the weed settles into his system.

Your pupils dilate at the sound, your mouth watering as your eyes drop down to Steve’s clothed erection.

Your movements are slow but deliberate, tracing softly from his thigh with your fingertips, inducing shivers down Steve’s spine in pleasure before reaching his cock.

His mouth goes dry.

Your hand splays across his erection, soft and hesitant as your peer at Steve through your lashes as if asking for permission.

“Can I?” You mumble shyly, as if you’re afraid he’d ever say no.

Steve tilts his head back with a groan, you’re the most precious thing he’s seen in a while.

“Whatcha’ wanna do?” He groans hoarsely.

You bite your lip, eyes growing wide in hesitancy. Your tongue peeks out to wet your lips and Steve fights the urge to lurch forward and tug your bottom lip with his teeth.

“Wanna jerk you off,” You’re abashed, murmuring shyly and avoiding eye contact with Steve whilst you’re nibbling at your bottom lip in arousal as he stare at his dick.

His dick that’s been leaving what Steve can only assume is a wet patch on his boxers as he feels himself leak steadily against your hand.

He holds himself back from thrusting into your loose grasp like an unrestrained animal.

“Yeah baby, you can jerk me off.” he breathes, unbuttoning his jeans and lifting his hips in quick precision to shuffle them and his boxers down to his ankles, leaving his cock hard against his abdomen.

Your jaw slackens softly at the sight of him, drool pooling in your mouth at the sight of the reddish tip of his cock, leaking pearlescent liquid as it twitches on his abs.

“Looks painful,” you say softly, your hands hesitantly reaching out but stopping before making contact with his heated flesh.

Your doe eyes blink owlishly at him, waiting patiently.

“It’s okay baby,” he coaxes. “You can touch.”

You hum, pleased.

Your hands and soft, probably all those little hand lotions you carry in every bag you own, smelling like all kinds of things that you force Steve to use due to the callouses he’s built up over the years.

Your grip is loose at first, as if you’re just planning on holding him and Steve takes a breath shakily when it tightens.

If Steve closes his eyes, your hands could start to feel like your pussy, soft and inviting and his favourite place to be.

“‘S good?” You mumble softly, hesitant as you stroke him slowly.

A fire starts to burn in Steve’s gut.

“God you’re sweet baby, doin’ real good.” Steve’s answer is filtered through a groan as his eyes roll back through his head.

He hears that same floaty giggle from before as his tummy flexes, he wants to thrust into your hold.

“Can you spit on it baby? just to make it a little wet angel—s’gonna make it feel better.”

You listen like the angel you are, all doe eyed and eager to please and Steve is all too happy to direct you.

“Hold it tighter angel—like y’r makin’ a fist sweetheart, yeah, ohhh fuckk, yeah like that baby. Good girl.”

Steve is lost to the pleasure filled haze of the warm heaven of your hands, slick from your own spit.

It’s dirty and gross but you don’t care, you’re enraptured by the sight of Steve.

His chest heaving, growing shiny as he perspires, he flexes into your palm and his breathing grows stuttered.

Your brain goes offline, all energy focused on making Steve feel good.

You want him to praise you again, you want to hear those words drip like honey from his lips.

So you do the one thing you know is bound to get a reaction out of Steve.

You shuffle backwards, bending your front half towards his crotch as you swallow the tip of Steve’s cock into your mouth whilst jerking off the base of him.

Steve’s groan is a mix of a yelp as his entire lower half bends upwards from the couch in pleasure.

“S-shit!”

His eyes are blown wide open in shock before his expression crumples in pleasure and a punched out sound is released from his chest.

“Baby baby baby—hng yeah fuckk, oh angel yeah you suck me so well, uh huh.” He babbles deliriously.

Your own cunt twitches in time with Steve’s members and you hump the air to feel your clit grind pleasurably against your panties.

Steve’s hand makes its way into your hair, “my good girl huh? Takin such good care’f me.”

Your eyes roll back in your head as you feel Steve place slight pressure on the back of your head, silently asking you to swallow more of him.

You do so with pleasure, letting your buildup of drool pool around Steve’s cock in a messy pool of fluid.

The soft shlick shlick shlick of your fluids as your slurp around Steve’s cock like a crazed woman is vulgar.

If you weren’t lost in such a pleasurable haze, you’d probably be less inclined to be so messy.

But as of right now, there’s nothing more that entices you than the idea of you getting Steve wet and messy.

Some primitive parts of your brain likens it to you staking your claim.

“Fuhh—“ Steve huffs as he feels your spit travel down his balls.

“Y’r doin’ so good for me baby, lettin’ me use that throat of yours, does that feel good? Is your little cunt getting wet from sucking Daddy’s cock?” Steve growls, his pupils enlarged and teeth bared as he thrusts shallowly into the warm, wet heat of your mouth.

Your panties are practically glued to your cunt with how wet you’ve grown, undeniably turned on from giving Steve head.

The whine that you let out is garbled from Steve’s cock in your throat.

Steve lets out a hoarse shout at the vibration of your whine, pushing you down further for you to deepthroat his length and nestle into the small patch of hair at this base.

You swallow harshly around him, trying not to choke at the feeling as you moan and slurp around him.

“Fuck—fuck! Your throat is heaven, m’gonna cum, fuck baby you were meant to suck cock, fuckin’ droolin and letting me ruin your fuckin throat—”Steve’s voice is hoarse and ruined as he lets you back up, letting you work his length the way you know he likes.

You tongue at his slit, letting the warm salty taste of his precum slide across your tongue as you take in the groans that have turned into low whines of pleasure.

You find the nerve right under Steve’s head you trace softly with a pleased hum as Steve mutters promises under his breath of breeding you up as a thank you for the head you’re giving him.

“I’m gonna cum baby—y’gotta get off if you don’t want it inside, close close close— ah! Shit—fuck!” Steve cries when you swallow him back down, letting him pump your throat full with his hot, sticky stripes of cum.

“Oh fuck,” Steve breathes as his orgasm curbs and you softly suckle on his sensitive tip.

“C’mon baby—up, up. I got nothin’ left for you sweetheart.” Steve lifts you up by your arms despite your disgruntled whine.

Your expression is satiated if not a little grumpy and Steve messily pushes the sweat stick hair out of your face with a post-orgasmic hazy smile.

“Did so good for me baby,” Steve murmurs and you seemingly glow at the praise, you tuck yourself closer to him and close your eyes in comfort.

despite all of that, gator spent the majority of his time there. when he wasn’t working or busy kissing his daddy’s ass at home, he was at your place.

tonight, you had the house to yourself.

gator was working, so you had a night in. dinner on the couch, binge watching reruns of some trash reality show until your eyes burned.

around 11:30, you decided to turn in for the night. your bones pop and crack as you stand up and stretch before you drag your feet down the dark hall to your bathroom.

you’re going through the motions of your night routine, washing your face and brushing your teeth, when you hear a thud come from outside.

you freeze, heart jumping in your chest at the sudden noise amongst the silent house. you listen, ears almost straining to pick up any other sounds.

you’re just about to reach for the faucet handle to turn the water back on when you hear it again, this time louder.

you toss your toothbrush back into its holder, next to gator’s you kept there for him, and wiped your mouth. you shut off the light and grab your phone, creeping out into the hallway.

you peak out in the living room and from there you can see a dark figure through the frosted glass on your front door’s window. an awful, hollow pit formed in your stomach.

maybe it was gator, you tell yourself. maybe he is stopping by while on patrol or got off early. but you knew that wasn’t true.

you curse under your breath and make your way to your bedroom, phone already dialing gator’s number.

you will him to pick up as you shut the door and lock it behind you. it rings a few times and you’re scared that he’s busy or in the middle of a traffic stop or call.

finally, the line on the other side clicks and gator’s voice hits your ear.

“hey, baby girl.” you could practically hear his shit-eating smirk on the other side of the line, no doubt thinking you’re calling because you miss him and want attention.

you wish that were the situation.

“are you at my door?” you rush out as you make your way to your bedside, grabbing the metal baseball bat you kept tucked between your bed and your nightstand.

gator’s tone turned serious in an instant. “no, i’m patrollin’ on the highway. someone at your door?”

you can already hear the charger’s engine turn over and the tires screeching as gator began flooring it down the road.

“i was about to go to bed and i heard a noise outside. i thought it was a animal or something then i heard it again, louder. then i saw someone at the door through the window.”

“get your ass into your room now. lock the door.”

“i am.” you say as you open your closet and climb inside. your heart pounded in your chest, making it almost impossible to hear gator.

“i’m on my way. don’t hang up the phone, ya hear me? i’m almost there.”

“i’m fucking scared gator.” you whisper shakily.

“i know, baby girl. i’m comin’. ain’t gonna let nothing hurt ya.”

you could hear your front door being hit and broken down. you curse, curling yourself into a tight ball. you knuckles had gone white on your phone and the bat.

the intruder had made their way inside, heavy footsteps thumping through your house.

“gate, please hurry.” you whisper, squeezing your eyes shut. “they’re inside.”

gator mutters a small fuck under his breath and his engine roars louder. “hang on baby, turin’ down your road now.”

the sound of drawers being rummaged through roughly, things being picked up then tossed down echo loudly, but the sound of police sirens coming closer were louder.

you don’t even think the person inside your house had much time to react before gator came barreling through your front door.

“county police! put yer fuckin’ hands up!” gator’s voice angrily reverberates through the house. everything else is a blur.

the sound of gator knocking the person down. the sound of his fist repeatedly connecting to flesh. he could’ve shot them, sure, but he was pissed. he needed to let it out. a shot wouldn’t have been as satisfying for him.

when he was satisfied, having beat the guy to a pulp and handcuffed him then calling for backup. gator rushed down the hall.

his heavy boots thundered towards your room, banging on the door. “babe?”

you could barely pull yourself up and out of the closet, let alone walk to the door. but you managed to put your shaky legs to use.

when you opened the bedroom door, your phone was still clutched in your hand, still connected the call with gator even though he’d left his phone forgotten in his car, and the bat was in your other.

when your eyes landed on gator, you let out a sob and fell into his chest. his arms held you tightly to him, lips pressing to the top of your head. the bat fell from your grasp, clanging loudly as it hit the floor.

you cried, understandably shaken up. and gator let you, running his fingers through your hair.

“i gotcha. don’t worry, baby girl. i gotcha.”

after a few minutes, you pulled back and looked up at him.

“’s all taken care of, darlin’. ‘s okay.” he say, holding your face in his hands. you manage a nod and gator presses a kiss to your forehead.

“got some back up comin’ to take the son of a bitch in. i need ya to pack a bag. whatever ya need for a couple of nights.”

“why?”

“you’re stayin’ with me. no ifs ands or buts. ain’t letting ya out my sight.”

“gator-“

“you ain’t comin’ back to this house. i’m a find a better place for us. where this shit won’t happen.”

this makes you pause, your lips managing to curl up slightly. “a place for us?”

gator frowns down at you, narrowing his eyes. “you think i’m gonna let ya live alone after this shit? like hell.”

“if you wanted to move in with me, honey, you could’ve just said so.” you smirk.

gator scoffs, rolling his eyes. “the fucks the matter with you, woman? jokin’ after this shit. i need to be able to protect ya. ‘s all.”

your smile softens, your fingers curling into his vest. you knew that was only half of the truth. that really, he wanted to live with you because he wanted to. he wanted to be around you all the time at home. but he would never admit that.

“gator?”

“don’t.”

you shake your head, smiling. “thank you.”

gator’s face softens slightly, and he nods.

“it’s my job to protect ya. don’t thank me.” he mumbles. still, you lean you and peck his lips before turning to pack a bag for your stay at the ranch with him.

until you found your new home. together.

“we’re gettin’ ya a gun, too.”