a’s library

Steve doesn’t condescend enough to offer you a hand into the bathroom, though you’d have happily accepted it now, aching and roughed up from the world’s longest day. He checks the water, turning on the hot faucet again as he murmurs, “Let me warm that up for you. Hey, be careful of the faucet,” as you strip out of your clothes. 

He acknowledges your nakedness with little fanfare, though the kiss he gives your shoulder once you’re seated in the water is nearly as warm. He gets down on his knees as you reach for the loofah and a bar of honey soap. 

You find yourself looking at him as you scrub your arms and chest. They’re automatic movements. He’s a bit more interesting, not half as tired as you but decidedly rumpled, his brown sleep shirt nearly falling off the shoulder with wear, his under eyes just that tad dark. It’s cutesy. You beckon him forward with a little pout and rub at his cheek with the back of your finger, dampness spreading under his eye like a wiped tear. “How was your day?” you ask gently. 

“Fine. Dustin’s still being a shit and Jonathan’s fighting personal battles I can’t comment on,” —he grins at your little laugh— “but nobody got hurt, so. Good day in my book.”

“Yeah, baby. Sounds like it was.”

He likes the pet name and demands a kiss after it, though the peck is soft. He clasps your wet nape and nods at the water. “Lay back. Let’s fix you up.”

You get your hair wet and sit up again, water racing down your face and neck and shoulders as Steve unearths a bottle of Faberge Organics shampoo. It’s wheat germ oil and honey, smells like cream and sugar as he lathers a dollop of it between his palms and spreads it out over your hair, which has never been washed so gently. His lips part in concentration as he encourages your head forward to work around the back, blunt fingertips tracing overly careful circles into every centimetre of your scalp. You watch his face for a few seconds, but when time goes on and he’s still massaging around, you let your eyes flutter shut. The faucet churns hot water into the bath, forcing you to shift away from it and into Steve’s touch. 

You nearly end up over the lip of the bath. 

Steve runs his fingers over the top of your head and brings both hands to the back of your head, cupping it, directing your gaze into his where he’s waiting on his knees. 

“You look so pretty,” he says. 

You swipe soap suds off of his wrist. “Thank you. I don’t feel it, maybe, but this is nice.”

His hands shift until his thumbs are hooked under your ears, rubbing little opposite circles into your neck that sway your head from one side to another, like he’s analysing you for the pleasure of just looking. 

“You are,” he says, dropping his hands. “Rinse, beautiful girl.” You laugh. “The quicker we condition you the quicker you can pass out.” 

“Yay.”

“Yay,” he repeats, grabbing the heavy pot of conditioner off of the side of the bathtub. It’s not Faberge. This one he got specifically for your hair. 

After conditioner is applied lovingly and then once again rinsed, Steve climbs up to grab a towel. He holds it out, the corners in his hands, and when you climb out he wraps it around you and tucks it over one of your breasts securely, offering you a smile that’s nearly shy, like he’s worried you’ll find the action strange.

You wrap your arms around his waist, not tired as much as compelled into his touch. Your eyes shutter closed despite yourself.

Steve’s arms are like cords as he returns the hug around the tops of your arms, one of those big hands cupping the back of your head as he sniffs you. His shirt’ll be soaked. 

“That’s better, huh?” he murmurs. 

Which is why Nancy grinned and Eddie laughed into his beer when you found him at the party, a small get together with some old high school friends that had turned into someone bigger and messier as more people returned home to Hawkins for the holidays.

Steve had been watching you move around the room for a while, sandwiched between the sofa arm and Robin, gaze watching the way you hugged each old friend, your eyes bright with excitement, your touch warm and affectionate as you hugged everyone you’d missed.

Steve didn’t even really have time to feel jealous before you were leaning over the back of the couch, your chin on Steve’s shoulder, your perfume familiar and heart racing. You were grinning when you stole his beer bottle with light fingers, non pleased as you brought it to your lips to steal a swig, uncaring that it was borderline warm from the way Steve had nursed it all night.

You didn’t notice the way Jonathan snickered at Steve’s expression, the way Eddie smirked and Robin nudged Steve’s ribs with a bony elbow. You couldn’t see how the poor man had turned pink, face flushed and chest almost still as you leaned closer, your cheek almost touching his.

And then you turned into him, lips so close to his, your nose nudging his temple as the cheap wine you’d been drinking made you bolder, less caring of your audience.

“Hey, Steve?”

Steve didn’t dare turn his head with you this close. He didn’t need his friends to witness him short circuit. He knew you’d be close, closer than ever, close enough to count the fan of your lashes, the flecks of different colours in your eyes, the tiny silver scar on your chin that you got when you were six.

So he hummed instead, taking his beer back from your hand and downing a long drag. He could barely taste the bitterness of it over the leftover stain of your cherry lip balm. It’s like he’d forgotten how to breathe—

“I was wondering, if it’s not too much hassle,” your hand found his shoulder, warm and familiar and affection as it slipped over the front of his chest, playing with his collar. “If you’re still taking Robin home, could you drop me off on the way?”

Steve took too long to reply, the feeling of your small hand against his chest too much for him to comprehend and Eddie was sitting across from his, his grin absolutely wild and Robin’s heel was grinding down on top of his trainers, urging him to answer.

“I—”

“It’s just,” you went onto explain, taking his overwhelmed silence for apprehension, “I was supposed to crash at Jenny’s but she’s going home with Chris now and I don’t really wanna walk, y’know?”

Eddie butted in then, all cheek and charm and Steve wanted to throttle him. He was still grinning, too wide and knowing, and he knocked his boot against Steve’s shin. He tsked, frowning exaggeratedly. “Hey now,” he told you, “Harrington won’t have you walkin’ anywhere, isn’t that right Steve? He’d love to give you a ride.”

Robin almost spat her drink out, waving you away when you looked at her concerned, coughing furiously into her fist and Steve was done.

He gave in then and turned, silently thankful that you moved back just a little, your eyes warm as he met your gaze and you grinned at the sight of him, like you’d missed him as much as he had you.

Fuck, you were pretty. So, so pretty.

And Steve didn’t know what to do. So he did what he always done and played his part, that character that he had in his back pocket from high school, the one he’d learned to tone down just a little and use as a shield. So he rolled his eyes but it only made you grin wider because fucking hell, you could see right through him and Steve knew that.

It’s why you kept your hand on his chest, your arm draped over his shoulder, touching him like he belonged to you and god— he did, he did, he did.

“Yeah, uh, sure,” Steve pretended to consider it. “I can do that for you.”

You tilted your head at him, all quiet flirtation, coy and knowing and your fingertips ran up his chest and over the neckline of his shirt until you were touching bare skin- just for a second.

It was enough to make Steve’s brain buzz, full shutdown, engine screeching, loading screen frozen.

“For me?” You pouted.

You were still too close and your lips were glossy and Steve knew they tasted like cherry. All his friends were staring.

“Yeah,” he nodded, throat dry, eyes on your mouth and the way it curled into a smile. The act was over, his play pretend crumbling. He was too soft for you to try and keep it up for very long. “For you.”

There were small crowds of people all over the sandy patch, sitting on blankets and cheap camping chairs, familiar faces lit by the small fire, people you didn’t know as well lingering between, bare feet on the edge of the shoreline. 

You’d came with Eddie, riding in the front seat of his van with a rucksack full of corner store liquor on your lap, the smell of weed coming off strong from the pocket inside his leather jacket. 

“A night full of potential clients, sweetheart, please,” he’d pleaded with you, brown button eyes wide. “The Jacksons have their cousins over from the backass of Georgia, they’ll pay for the rest of our summer if I show them the good shit.”

So you’d agreed, albeit grudgingly, letting your best friend haul you off your sofa and to the get together that you didn’t really want to go to. But Robin was there, and Nancy too, a few people you hadn’t seen since senior year, back for the summer to visit their folks and well - it wasn't all bad. 

Then the evening faded into night and the lavender skies turned inky, the same shade as the lake water. And when people got a little looser, whisky and bud light warming their veins, they laughed as they stripped down to mismatched underwear and dove off the dock, splashing and shrieking in water you couldn’t see the bottom of and god—

You’d, grimaced, turning away from the shoreline and sticking close to Eddie, the boy’s arm always brushing your own even when he was busy dealing, twenties fisted in his hand as he passed over baggies to a twenty something girl you’d never seen before. 

But then that guy found you, relatively sober and sweet until he wasn’t, sloppy with his arm around your neck, breath smelling like smoke and beer and he was pulling you towards the people in the water, telling you it was all part of the fun. You’d protested immediately, intensely, eyes wide as the water came closer and your feet hit the wooden planks of the dock. 

Between the gaps, you could see black, dark water rippling, the moon overhead glinting white off the tips of the current. Eddie hadn’t noticed you were gone until the stranger had dragged you half way down the decking. Your wrist burned from how tight he held it, how hard you tried to twist it from his grasp. 

“Hey— hey!” Eddie had barked out, loud and brash and aggressive enough to make a lot of people around him startle. He broke free from the circle that had gathered around him, lips set in a snarl and determination in his eyes. You knew fine well that when Eddie got his hands on this guy, it wasn’t going to be pretty. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing? Let her fucking go—”

But Eddie couldn’t reach you in time, not when his boots dug too deep into the sand and there were too many people to push out of the way. The guy laughed at a joke you weren’t a part of and then he pushed. 

Your arms swung wildly, windmilling as gravity took over, your balance gone and you were too near the edge of the dock to do anything about it. Your hands grabbed at the air, fingertips just brushing your new acquaintances shirt and his grinning face and beer blurred eyes were the last thing you saw before you back hit the water. 

It was as dark underneath the surface of the lake as it was above it, an icy shock despite how warm the day had been, how the heat still lingered in the night. You gasped, immediately inhaling, murky water filling your mouth and throat and you kicked, hoping that the direction your hands were clawing in was up. 

But nothing happened and your body didn’t move. 

On the beach, people were murmuring, too drunk to consider the consequences, too stoned to fly into action. Besides, only seconds had passed. Bubbles were floating in the spot you’d gone under, ripples evidence of the fact that you’d once been there. Eddie was sweating, shoving at people as he ripped off his leather jacket and prepared to vault himself onto the water after you but someone at the bottom of the deck beat him to it. 

Steve Harrington had dropped his beer at the first sign of the commotion, his part in the conversation with Jonathan Byers and his friend from California dying off as he turned to watch a guy he didn’t know drag you down the dock. The stranger had been laughing but you hadn’t, and before he could say something, Steve only had a second to look at the absolute horror on your face before you were forced backwards and into the lake. 

He was on his feet immediately, facing back up the dock to where you’d disappeared from, watching wildly for signs of you returning to the surface. And then Eddie was yelling at him, pushing past some underage kids from out of town, half of his jacket hanging from his shoulders and he was yelling. 

“Steve! Steve, she can’t fuckin’ swim, man—”

If Eddie finished the sentence or said anything else, Steve didn’t hear it. He launched himself off of the side, hitting the cold water with a splash he didn’t hear. Water filled his ears and fuck, he could barely see. But somewhere a little below him there was a flash of white from your shirt that had tangled itself up around your neck, your arms flailing wildly as you tried your damn hardest to kick up the way. 

Steve had grabbed your arm, your panic making you slip before he curled his fingers around your wrist and then you were being hauled against him, your back to his chest as he moved with a confidence you could never imagine for yourself. You’d been under for a minute, maybe a little more, maybe a little less, but Steve had your head breaking the surface of the lake in seconds. You were gasping and coughing, your fingernails tattooing half moon lines in Steve’s forearm as you held onto him, fear gripping you as hard as you did him. 

You thought you’d heard his voice, a low murmur in your ear that was fuzzy from the water lodged there, from the buzz and clamour that had then awoken on the beach as the music stopped and people were gathered by the shoreline. 

Eddie had been knee deep in the water, readily meeting you and Steve as the boy swam closer with you, and once your feet hit the sandy bottom, you lurched forward, hands held out to grab Eddie’s waiting ones. 

Steve’s were on your back, keeping you upright and steady until he saw that Eddie had you. You and Steve were both dripping and Eddie was swearing, his cheeks red and his eyes wide, unsure whether to rush you to his van first or hunt down the creep that had put you in danger in the first place. 

But Nancy was rushing forward with a blanket, wrapping it around your shoulders and taking in your chattering teeth and panicked stare, the vice-like grip you had around Eddie’s fingers. “He’s gone,” she said to the boy. “He ran off when he saw Steve dive in. Just get her home, Eddie.”

Steve Harrington had ended up in the front bench with you in Eddie’s van, your shivering frame sandwiched between both boy’s and no one said anything until you all got back to Eddie’s trailer. 

You hadn’t said anything as you’d headed for a hot shower, your wet clothes slapping on the bathroom tiles as you had stripped, slimy weeds and grains of sand stuck to your cold skin and your hands were still shaking as you twisted the squeaky handle to turn the water up hotter still. 

And when Eddie was ripping his room apart for dry clothes for you and Steve to change into, his eyes watery with anger, his throat tight with rage, Steve had been leaning against his door frame with his arms crossed over his damp chest.  

“We’ll get him,” he’d said quietly, just in case you could hear above the spluttering of the old pipes. “We’ll find out who he was and— and we’ll deal with him and then I’m gonna teach her how to swim, alright?”

Eddie nodded, movements sharp and jerky and he handed Steve a pair of black sweatpants and an old Metallica shirt. 

“Alright?” Steve had repeated, chin ducked to make Eddie meet his gaze. He had been so serious. “I’m gonna give her lessons. This won’t happen again.”

The sky was still half pink as you biked down the empty sidewalk. 

A blue-lilac colour, softer than you’d usually witness due to the early morning hour. The sun was still low, the town still asleep, the watch on your wrist telling you the seven am was still to come. Your bike chain whirred softly, brakes squeaking as you slowed by the chain link fence. 

Hawkins community pool was sun bleached and well loved, the old bunting that draped over the water barely red and blue, the shutters for the food stand still rolled down and locked. The aquamarine slide was now more white and it looked like it would give you an infection if your skin was to snag on one of the exposed bolts. But the gate was open, only just, and you sucked in a deep breath as you let your bike lean against the wall. 

Chlorine filled your nose as you walked in, the generator humming and the pool filter trickling, the sun loungers empty and still stacked against the changing rooms. Despite your early wake up call, the air was already warm, a humid kind of heat that Indiana summers brought, sticky and sweet smelling, like someone had left a jug of peach tea on their porch all day. 

The tiles that surrounded the pool were wet, recently hosed down and cleaned, and your sneakers slapped noisily as you walked towards the waters edge. You didn’t go too close, not at all, grimacing at the bright blue rectangle like it would force you in itself. It seemed somehow more menacing when it was still, a glasslike surface reflecting the cotton candy sky above it, no splashing and screaming kids to fill its depths. 

Then a boy appeared - no, more man than boy - from the staff building. 

He had red shorts on, the fabric sitting above his knees and an old white shirt that you assumed must’ve once said “lifeguard.” He was barefoot and tanned, sunglasses sitting on the bridge of his nose and he didn’t even notice you at first, too busy hanging a net back onto the wall. 

Steve Harrington was pretty and tall and he had really good hair. He was quieter than when you’d know him in high school, softer looking than he’d once been. But you didn’t really know him and he didn’t really know you. But he was friends with Eddie and you were friends with Eddie, so somehow, someway, that meant you were kind of, almost friends with him too. 

Except you weren’t and you had no idea why you’d agreed to this. 

“You can change in there.”

You hadn’t expected his voice, so you startled, arms wrapping tighter around your body and crushing the small rucksack that housed your suit and towel. You frowned at the idea, because changing meant one step closer to going into the water and you weren’t quite sure you wanted to do that yet. 

So you said nothing.

Steve just watched you from across the pool, brows raised. And then he shrugged and muttered something that sounded like “suit yourself,” before he threw his sunglasses onto a plastic chair and tugged his shirt over his head. 

You’d barely gotten a chance to really look at the quick flash of tanned, bare skin he exposed before he dove into the water, barely causing a ripple. You were slack jawed as you watched him move seamlessly below the surface, his body a pretty shade of blue as his muscles flexed, strong back and broad shoulders stretching as he swam. 

When he reappeared, much closer to you, Steve braced his forearms on the edge of the pool and dragged a hand through his wet hair, strands of it plastered to his forehead, water clinging to his lashes. 

You didn’t know where to look. 

“You’re not going to learn much if you don’t take your clothes off.”

Despite the way his words warmed you, skin heating up the same way the morning was, you scowled. You didn’t want to be here. Not at the pool, not around water, not with Steve Harrington and certainly not at seven in the morning on a Saturday. 

And now you were standing under the morning sun and the same boy that saved you from the lake was squinting up at you from the pool below and you were only really here because Eddie had begged you. 

It had been a whole week and you could still taste lake water on the back of your tongue. 

“Changing rooms are over there,” Steve motioned to the building behind you with a tilt of his head.

You tried not to look at him, or the water, when you nodded tightly, dragging yourself off to the ladies section. And when you came back out, the sun had risen just a little more and Steve was still in the pool, floating easily on his back as he used his arms to move slowly around the water. The rays were glinting off of the water and him, toned shoulders and soft stomach glittering with water droplets and suddenly the pool seemed an even scarier place to be. 

The old swimsuit you’d managed to pull on was a little on the tight side, all black and supposed to be modest if the too small size hasn’t been cutting into the swells of your ass and chest. It had been a good few years since you’d had reason to put it on, and even then, you hadn’t gone near water. A beach day on the Fourth of July with enough space between you and the ocean that you hadn’t even minded the sand too much. 

So you stood with your arms crossed over your chest, trying to hide the expanse of skin there, your knees pressed together and you looked downright mournful about your current predicament. If Steve hadn’t remembered the fear in your eyes that night in the lake as you scrambled for him under the water, he would’ve cracked a joke or two. 

Instead, he swam over to you cautiously, fingers curling around the edge of the pool as he swiped his wet hair from his forehead. “Hey,” he began gently. The town still hadn’t woken up yet, not really. It was just Steve’s voice and the hum of the pool filter, some cicadas buzzing in a bush behind the far side of the fence. “Nothing bad is going to happen, alright? Not here.”

You looked at him like you didn’t believe him, eyes wide and lips drawn into a tight line. You didn’t move an inch. And it wasn’t because you didn’t trust him, not really. You were exactly friends but Steve was close with Eddie and if Eddie trusted him— well. He got an automatic pass from you too. 

Eddie didn’t trust a whole lot of people. 

But the problem wasn’t Steve. It was most definitely the rectangle full of blue water, shimmering and pretty as it was, it looked deep, the slope of it going downdowndown and Steve’s body was distorted under the ripples, his legs looking broken and mangled, the surface lapping way too high across his shoulders and neck. 

Your body felt like lead, a dead weight ready to sink to the pool floor, legs unable to push yourself back up. 

You took a step back. 

“Okay,” Steve sighed and he tried really hard to not sound impatient. The day had barely begun and he’d make a promise to Eddie, one he really didn’t want to break. “We’ll take it back a little, yeah? Come over here.” 

You watched as he pulled himself out of the pool with an impressively low amount of effort. The muscles in his shoulders and back bunched up and he swung a leg onto the tiles before standing, water dripping off of him, cool and splashing your toes. He made a point of not looking at your and all your bare skin as he walked around the edge of the pool, right towards the back of the lot where there was a set of stairs that led into the shallow end. 

He didn’t look over his shoulder to check if you were following and you only hesitated for a second or two before you did. And when he reached the top of the steps, he waited for you and held out his hand, brows raised expectantly. 

You stared back. 

The water didn’t look as scary here, but not by a whole bunch. It was lighter blue, the white tiles on the bottom of the pool about more visible and the numbers that were flaking and painted on the side of the wall said the depth was only two and a half feet. 

You could drown in less, the voice in your head told you. It sounded a lot like your mom. 

So you kept your arms crossed for a little while longer, teeth gnawing unkindly at your bottom lip. Steve just waited, hand extended palm up and after a minute had passed, he took one step into the pool, standing ankle deep in the water on the top stair. He caught your eye then, smiling in what he hope was a reassuring way. 

“D’you trust me?” He asked, eyes squinting in the bright sun. There was a mole on his cheek that disappeared into the lines of his skin when he smiled. “S’okay if you don’t yet, but, I’m a lifeguard here, so like, legally? I can’t let you die.”

You surprised both yourself and the boy when you snorted unexpectedly, a sharp sound of amusement that you used a hand to cover up. But it seemed to encourage Steve, ‘cause he positively beamed at you, his hand wiggling, vying for your own. 

“C’mon, I promise I won’t let you go,” he swore. He leaned further forward, his fingers close enough to brush the softness of your stomach, if he so pleased. He didn’t. “We’ll start nice and easy today, alright?”

It felt momentous, when you slid your hand into his. He was still warm despite his pool damp skin, like the sun lived inside his bones. He grinned, victorious, nodding encouragingly when you moved to the edge of the steps. 

“We’ll do them one at a time, alright?” Steve moved to stand in front of you, his other hand catching your free one until he was guiding you closer and closer to the water, walking himself backwards with every step you took forward. You flinched when your foot hit the first step, the water warmer than you’d anticipated, brushing up just past your ankle. 

You had two feet in the pool and two hands in Steve Harrington’s and it felt like the entire world was about to implode on you. 

“There you go,” Steve murmured, warmth and a little hum of pride in his voice. “See? S’not bad, right? I’ve still got you.” So you took another step and another and suddenly the water was lapping at your knees. You froze, grip tightening around Steve’s fingers and your wide eyes found his, all too aware of the way you were very much in the pool now. 

“Hey, hey,” Steve’s thumbs rubbed over the back of your knuckles, the skin there burning from holding him so tightly. “Listen. Do you trust me?”

There was no joke that followed the question this time. His eyes were earnest and warm, serious as they looked at you, searching your face for any signs that you were going to flee. It took you a few seconds, swallowing dryly and taking a deep, staggering breath before you nodded. You did, you did trust him, and that was as surprising as you being in the pool. 

“Yeah,” you told Steve, voice a little weak and hoarse. “Yeah, I trust you.”

He squeezed your fingers and his smile was gentle, an achingly kind thing that made your eyes water in the corners and Steve let you stand on that middle step for a little while longer. “Good,” he finally said and his voice was as soft as yours had been. You tried not to look at the way the chain around his throat caught the sunlight, the silver turning golden, just like his skin. “Good. ‘Cause I’m not going to let anything happen to you, okay?”

You nodded, feverish and your movements jagged and you tore your eyes from Steve to look at your bare feet on the steps, your toes waving under the ripples, longer and skinnier and then fatter and wider. The sight made you dizzy, stomach tumbling a little but even still, you wished you’d had the forethought to paint your toenails something pretty. 

“Two more steps, alright?” 

Steve’s encouragement broke your senseless wanderings and you nodded again, words caught in your throat and he was leading you forward, hands wrapped around your own and he grinned when you took another step down, the water hitting your upper thighs. It was cooler as you went deeper, a stark contrast to the warm, sticky air above it and your skin prickled, mouth falling in a quiet gasp. Another step, happening almost too fast for you to overthink it, the water at your hips and making you swear as you rose onto your toes almost instinctively. 

Steve laughed, not unkindly, as you moved closer to him, unthinking as your hands left his in favour of clinging to his upper arms. It felt safer like that, anchoring yourself to his solid frame, but there was so much bare skin involved and not a lot of space left between you both as you held on for dear life. His fingertips brushed the sides of your waist before he must’ve thought better of it, cheeks burning before his hands cupped your elbows and he took a little step back so your chest didn’t touch his. 

“You’re alright,” he murmured. “You did it, yeah? That’s it. You’re in.”

Steve was grinning and you tried to smile too, trying to feel proud of your little accomplishment but the rest of the pool was stretched out behind Steve’s shoulder and the water there was so much more blue, cerulean leading into indigo until you couldn’t see the bottom anymore. 

Steve must’ve noticed cause he shook his head, the hand cupping your elbow smoothing up your arm until he squeezed, water dripping from his palms and coasting down your skin. “Hey, hey, none of that. That’s for another day. We’re staying here, alright?”

You grimaced at the idea of ‘another day,’ but his words still didn’t ease you. You licked at your lips, dots of chlorine on them and despite how stupid you felt, you asked anyway. “What if— what if l, like, float over that way? Accidentally.”

Steve smiled like he couldn’t help himself, laughter in his eyes and a grin that he quickly tamed. “We’re not gonna catch any waves in here, this isn’t Maui,” he was still smiling, teasing, just a little. But sensing your growing worry, he continued. “And if that had to happen - which it won’t - I’ll come and get you.”

You stared at him, heartbeat in your throat and so many other questions on your tongue. They died there, fizzing into nothing as Steve held your gaze, a silent promise in his brown eyes. You’d never noticed how long and thick his lashes were, still wet and spiky from when he’d been swimming as you changed. 

“A society in need of better labour laws. I’m pretty sure this is child abuse.” She rolls her eyes. 

“Is it awful?” you ask. 

“It’s fine. Better when your stupid friends aren’t here making themselves sick on candy like they’re nine years old,” she says pointedly to Steve. “Are you going to throw up too? You look–” she grimaces in place of insult. 

“Who’s throwing up?” you ask. 

“Dustin. He’s outside.” 

Steve sighs and gives your shoulder a kind squeeze. “I’ll be right back,” he says, squaring his expression. “Goddamn kids.” 

He sounds like an old man, you think to yourself with a small smile. Disgruntled, he still goes to make sure everyone’s alright. He’s nice, even when that nice is begrudging and tiresome and plain gross sometimes. 

“Why are you smiling at him like that?” Max asks.

You school your impression. “Like what?” 

“Like you like him.” 

You shake your head. “Tell me about work, Max. What’s it like here? Are they giving you your breaks?” 

She drags you over to the counter to sit in the seat waiting behind. She glares at any kid who approaches, but besides that she seems in good spirits. The job isn’t hard, it’s just a job. She’d much rather be at home reading, but wouldn’t everyone? “And I get this sweet uniform,” she says, pointing at the embroidered icon on her shirt pocket. “What’s with you and Steve?” 

“Nothing,” you say, though it’s something. You’re mortified to have been caught having feelings. 

“Looks like something. Are you dating?” 

“I mean, this is a date,” you say, almost whispering as heat floods your face. “But we’re not together.” 

“He was touching you a lot.” 

“Max, he’s really nice. He’s a really nice guy,” you say gently, “and we’re not together, but if he does ask me out eventually, maybe I’ll say yes.” You realise what you’re saying and attempt to backtrack —you do like Steve, but Max doesn’t need to know that. “It’s not like he’s my boyfriend,” you say strangely. 

“Ew,” Max says with a laugh. 

“Not ew,” you correct. You hadn’t meant it in a bad way, it’s— 

“Not ew,” Steve says from behind you, his arm a heavy weight across your shoulder. 

You look wide-eyed up at his face, surprised by his huge beaming smile, an intense loveliness about him as he gives you a half hug. 

“What’s ew about that?” he asks you softly. 

Oh, boy, you think. 

As it turns out, being Steve’s girlfriend is kind of nice, but you aren’t ready.

From that afternoon at the Palace Arcade onward, he treats you like you’re made of gold. And it’s great, he’s so kind, he brings you flowers and takes you out for breakfast, where he pays the tab without any flourishes and talks to you as casually as always. You almost hope he hasn’t got it wrong at all, and that his soft tone a few days ago had been down to a brief overwhelming fondness. You’d get that. You have your moments with him, you’re falling for him, and it’s only a matter of time before you’re desperately in love, you’re sure, but then the waitress asks if you need anything else and he says, “Just a water for my girl,” and you realise you’re not getting off easy. 

Dating is sort of like being good friends; you’d planned to spend the day together anyways. You enjoy his company. It’s clear he’s eager, optioning off the day’s agenda as you return to the car, the bottom of your face hidden in your bouquet. 

“We could go to the movies,” he says, opening the passenger door, his smile seemingly permanent as you climb inside. “No science fiction, I promise.” 

“I kind of like sci-fi.” Petals press fragrant to your top lip.

“Well, we don’t have to go to the Hawk. We could go into the city. I bet they’re playing any movie you wanna see.” He checks that your leg is properly inside the car before he closes the door, jogging around to the driver’s side and practically throwing himself inside. He’s giggling like a kid. “Shit, I’ll see anything you want to.” 

“Steve.” 

“Or we can go do nothing? Until dinner.” 

“Steve,” you say again, thinking you’ll tell him. Nothing good ever comes from dishonesty. 

“What?” he asks. 

His eyes are so brown. Billions of people with brown eyes and you swear you’ve never seen anything like it before, their centres like hot honey, the sweetheart shape to them when he smiles 

You sigh. His smile is contagious, even while your stomach hurts. “Nothing. Let’s go see a movie.” 

“Are you okay?” 

“What?” 

“What do you mean, what? You sounded weird.” 

“I sounded weird?” 

“No!” He winces. “I mean, yeah, you sounded weird for you, like you… I don’t know. Sorry.” 

You feel bad, then. His apology is earnest, his hand resting open on the console for you to take if you could manage the flustering heat of it. 

“I wanna go to the movies,” you say, ‘cos you really do. 

“Alright, good. It’s just, I think my last relationship, I– I didn’t pay enough attention, and I want to do that better this time around. So yeah. Sorry.” 

Oh, Steve, you think. How are you supposed to tell him now? You’re gonna have to pretend to be ready for a relationship with him until you really are, it seems. He doesn’t deserve to have his heart played with twice. 

“Don’t be sorry,” you say gently. “Let’s go watch a movie, okay? I want to go, with you, we’ll watch a shitty daytime flick and then get dinner after. It’ll be fun.” 

You aren’t lying to him about what you want. It’s clear to everybody, Steve and his friends and especially you, that you like him, that you want to be around him and make him laugh. Maybe being his girlfriend won’t even be that different to being his something. 

After all, what’s romantic about seeing a movie? 

“You good?” he asks, half an hour later, your agony prolonged. 

You’re at the back of the movies where the seats have the most leg room, more popcorn and candy than you could ever eat at your feet and a litre cup stuffed into the armrest between you. Steve is tucking his shirt back into his jeans, his head parting the light of the projector and leaving a silhouette in the previews. 

“Steve,” you advise, gesturing for him to lean down out of the way. 

He leans down, further and further, face to face with you with his hands on his hips. A flirtatious teasing makes its way onto his lips. “What?” he asks, amused. 

“You were in the way of the light.” 

“That what it was?”

“Seriously!” you whisper-shout, laughing despite yourself. 

“You’re so cute,” he whispers back. “Want to take your jacket off?” 

Your lips part at his good suggestion. You hold your arm out and start to peel from your jacket, but he takes your sleeve and helps you out of it before folding it and sitting in the seat next to you, your jacket on his thigh. “How’s that, babe?” he asks. 

“It’s good.” 

“Okay, perfect.” He beams at you. He’s always smiling when he’s with you, like you’re the best thing since sliced bread. Like he loves you. “Tell me if you need something, yeah? I know you’re kinda shy.” 

He settles back in his seat with your jacket still in his lap and no indication that he might want to move it. Your knees touch as he relaxes, your knuckles as he puts his arm on the rest between you, a picture of contentedness as the movie begins and the opening credits play. “That’s us,” he says without looking at you. 

Two people walk down the street holding hands as the title of the movie blazes in yellow font with thick red outlines. A Day In Paradise! 

You bite down on a slither of the inside of your lip until it stings. You try to fight it off but the longer you sit there, the more your eyes burn, thinking about Steve and what he deserves and how unfortunate this whole thing is, and yeah, you’re overwhelmed, too. You aren’t ready for so much sweetness all at once. You don’t deserve it, he doesn’t deserve this. 

You force the tears away. The movie goes on and on, the lights low, the chatter of moviegoers and the occasional popcorn crush not nearly loud enough to cover the sound of Steve’s breathing. 

He pushes his hair out of his face. Somebody on screen makes a joke, his hand brushes against yours, and then takes it gently as he laughs. 

You pull your hand away and tip your head down, a frantic tear flicking from your lashes. 

“You okay?” he whispers. 

You try to answer. You whimper instead, a terrible, sorry sound stuck to your throat —you can’t hold it in anymore. It’s too much. 

“I’m sorry,” you mumble tearily, looking up, a tear rolling fast down the bump of your cheek. 

Steve sits still in moderate horror. “Why are you crying?” he whispers.

The thing about Steve that people tend to forget is that, while he takes care of people the best that he can, he’s really young. He doesn’t always know what to do. He stares at you now like you’re a foreign object, hand tucked back into his abdomen. 

A tear drips onto your lip. It tastes salty. “Sorry,” you say. 

“Why?” he asks, dumbfounded.

“I really like you, Steve.” 

He stares at you. “…But?”

“But I–” His frown hurts your heart. “I don’t know if I’m ready for all of this, I never– never had someone like me like this, I don’t know why I’m crying.” You say that last part to yourself rather than him, scrubbing your cheeks with your hands roughly before hiding your face completely. “It’s not you.” 

“I thought…” And of course he did. 

“I know,” you say. “I’m sorry, Steve. I thought it wouldn’t matter but everything’s going so fast.” 

He touches your arm gently. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I thought you wanted this. You– you said I was your boyfriend, to Max? I thought you liked me.” 

“I do like you,” you insist, meeting his eyes. 

“Can I wipe your tears away? They’re everywhere,” he says. You struggle to read his expression, but there’s no resentment or anger there for you. He looks quite serious. 

“Yeah.” 

Steve bends in his seat to wipe your tears off of your face gently. They really are everywhere, on your cheeks, your top lip, your chin, even down the arc of your neck. “I don’t understand,” he says, going back to your cheek for a missed streak, “but you don’t have to be upset. Please. I won’t do anything you don’t want me to do, I promise.” 

“Steve, when I was talking to Max, I said,” —you wince— “that it’s not like you’re my boyfriend. She was asking me about you, and I got all panicky because I like you, but I’m too weird about this stuff, I’m panicking now–”

“Don’t.” His hand lingers on your face, before a sorry flash of dejection passes over him, and he drops your face altogether. 

“I didn’t mean for this to happen. Please believe me.” 

“Of course I believe you.” He grimaces at you, and the heartbreak turns to something more manageable, like he’s brushing himself off. “I’m sorry. For getting the wrong idea.” 

“I like you,” you whisper. Your voice is nearly lost to the rustle of popcorn and drinks. 

“I like you too!” he says loudly. 

A few seats down, somebody turns, an angry whirl of hair and clicky nails. “Can you guys shut up?” 

You and Steve leave your mountain of snacks behind to stand in the theatre hallway, where the winter air is cool on your flushed skin, and the silence is stifling. You lean against a wood feature wall and try to calm down, because he’s the one who should be upset (or maybe he’s not that fussed about you). He stands a half foot away with his arms crossed, looking down at his shoes, though occasionally he glances at you for a split-second and looks away again. 

“You okay?” he asks tightly. 

“I’m sorry.”

He pokes his cheek with his tongue. “So you don’t want to be together?” 

You don’t know. He deserves the truth, even if you barely understand it yourself, and it stings to say. “I do, I like you, but I… I want to take things slowly.” 

He stands there without talking for a while. When he does talk again, he’s laughing, that achy awful sadness he’d worn a far off memory. “You’re this upset because you want us to take things slow?” 

“I didn’t want to hurt your feelings.” 

“You haven’t,” he promises. “That would never hurt my feelings. I knew when I heard it that it was too good to be true.” He scratches the back of his neck. “I guess I gotta earn the title like everybody else does. Is that… cool?” 

You nod vehemently. 

Steve blows a relieved breath of air up his face, his hair ruffling off of his forehead. “I thought I was gonna lose you completely,” he says, smiling. “This is fine. I can work with slow. Slow’s my middle name.”

—♡—

The sun is a blistering heat today. “Can’t believe it’s only spring,” you murmur, eyes covered by the back of your arm. 

A weight sits down on the blanket beside you, the sound of dry grass crushed underfoot. He brings the fresh scent of lemon slices with him, the zest sticking to his hands.

“I think I might melt.” 

“I’d never let that happen,” Steve says, laying down beside you. 

“You can be my parasol.” 

“Your what?” 

“It’s a sun umbrella.” 

“Like this?” he asks, gently laying himself across your front, his face on the slip of your stomach that’s bare, his arms sneaking behind your thighs to hug them as you bring them up. 

You reach down to stroke his hair, taking your fingers through the silky lengths of it, fingernails scratching ever so slightly at his scalp. “Thanks,” you say.

He kisses your naked leg. “You’re welcome, honey.” 

If he’d done that at the beginning of your relationship, you’d have frozen up; not because he would’ve done it differently, not because he wasn't always your handsome sweetheart, but because being comfortable with someone this intimately takes time, and that’s okay. 

“Your face is digging into my hip,” you murmur. 

He shifts back, his ear above your belly button. “Is that better?” 

“That’s perfect.” 

“Are you falling asleep?” he asks softly. 

“No… I’m thinking.” 

“Nothing good ever comes of that.” 

“I have something I want to talk to you about.”

“I love talking to you,” he says. He sounds as though he might fall asleep himself, his tongue heavy in his mouth. 

You stroke his hair away from his face by touch alone. Long, warm minutes pass without conversation. You aren’t scared to tell him how you’re feeling. He’s proved to you over time that he’s someone you’ll always be able to trust, and that whatever you have to say will hold weight. 

“It’s a question.” 

He turns in your hold to face you. You raise your arm, greeted by the image of him sun-kissed and lazing, laid out across you without a care in the world. 

“Don’t tell me then,” he says, rolling his eyes. “Jesus, you’re terrifying.” 

“Would you wanna be my boyfriend?”

He narrows his eyes at you. A myriad of emotions pass between you both, until he’s smiling, and you know he’s sitting up for a kiss seconds before he actually does. He presses his lips to yours carefully. “Baby,” he says as he pulls away, voice as mild as his soft kiss, “I think we’ve passed that point.” 

“I realised I’d never asked you, is all.” 

His hair falls down into his eyes. You tuck it behind his ear. It’s pretty clear now you’re together, even after such a bumpy start. 

“Can I get it in writing this time?” he asks, rubbing the tip of his nose against yours, your eyes fluttering closed in tandem. 

“Give you anything you want if you kiss me,” you murmur. 

His laugh fans over your lips. He cups your cheek, your heart a hummingbird drilling at your ribs as Steve moves in to kiss you properly. Your lips part under the pressure, your head tilting a touch to one side to accommodate him as he searches down for you, melty hot pleasure and nerves that never seem to fade arising as his thumb moves up your cheek, a semi-circle of touch. It promises undulating care whenever you want it. 

You tip your head aside to catch your breath.

“Better late than never,” you joke. 

Steve talks into the soft skin beside your mouth. “You weren’t late, babe. I was early, and I didn’t mind waiting.” 

˚ʚ♡ɞ˚

Steve holds your gaze and slowly, so slowly, brings a hand to the growing bulge in his jeans and readjusts his cock. You suck in a startled breath.

"C'mon," he says, eyes lowering with pleasure as he palms his length, "Can you blame me? Can you-" He shudders and tugs with a little more fervor. "Sweetheart, would you come over here?"

The shush of his palm over denim plays loud, your footsteps louder. Steve holds a hand up before you can reach him. His belt buckle clinks as he pulls it open.

"What? Am I just s'posed to stand here?" you ask shyly. Is that really enough? You in your cotton panties, a foot away?

"You could take off your shirt?" he suggests.

He's definitely messing with you. You follow his hand as it dissappears under the waistband of his boxers and decide to call his bluff, tucking your elbow into the lip of your shirt and pulling it up over your head. You make sure to arch your back as you do, tummy jutting forward and tits bouncing gently as you strip.

The little movement is enough to make Steve moan. A familiar ache grows between your thighs.

"Shit," he says, breaking easy, "shit, fine. Please, come and sit on my lap." You're unimpressed. "Come on, come and sit on my lap."

Unfortunately, you break easy too. He holds out his free hand and you take it, easing yourself over one of his thighs as he pulls you in, mindful of his second, stuttering hand tucked away in his boxers. "There you go," he murmurs as you settle.

Your cunt presses hot to denim. He must feel it.

You hold your hands to your neck, unsure for a moment on what to do next. Sex isn't always as cut and clean as you want it to be and you worry if you get greedy quick you won't be able to draw it out as long as you want to tonight. Steve seems to be on the same page, his fingers massaging slowly up the inside of your thigh.

"Can I touch you?" he asks.

"Yeah," you say. You swallow roughly. "Please."

He skips the bump of your cunt completely to toy with the ribbon on your panties, a dainty white bow. His knuckles brush the trembling skin under your belly button and you both react.

"Tickles?" he asks at your giggling.

"Uh-huh."

Steve slides the tip of his finger under the waistband and pulls. It snaps back against your skin and makes you jump. He does it again, running his finger back and forth until your squirming in his lap, anticipation a heavy heat in your core.

He lifts his gaze to yours, hand pulled from the confines of his boxers and reaching for your hip. Fat melds under his grip as he pulls you forward, cunt dragging up his thigh. You all but sink into him, nose bridge pressing to his as you dip your chin for a kiss.

You can't help yourself. He kisses you and all you can do is grind against him, arms wrapping tight around his neck as time stretches and want burns. He laughs into your kisses and slouches down, brings you with him, hands roving over your skin salacious and greedy.

Steve pulls away, leaving you damp and wanting as he says, "I can feel you."

"Can feel you too," you say quietly.

"Think you're making a mess on me, baby. Making a mess of your nice panties."

You huff an embarrassed laugh. "Shush," you plead.

"I won't shush." He grabs a handful of your ass and pulls, spreading your cunt enough to make you sigh aloud. "You think 'cos they're covering you up I don't know what's underneath? Think I don't know you back to front by now?"

"I know, just... they're nothing fancy-"

"Fuck, who needs fancy?"

"You really don't mind them?" you ask, heart beating fast as a mouse's.

"I'd definitely say I like them, baby. Want me to show you how much?"

You screw your fingers in the neckline of his t-shirt. "Please, Stevie. I... I want you. Need you to touch me."

"How am I supposed to say no to that?" Steve whispers. "Does she guilt trip you that way?" 

Wren doesn't giggle, but the breathy, happy sound she makes as he crunches forward to kiss her forehead is close enough to make Steve laugh himself. He moves her carefully into the curve of his arm and stands, wishing he could stretch, exhausted by another long week but undeniably happy. "Let's go see what they want," he murmurs to Wren. 

You and Bethie are in the kitchen by the stove. She's wearing oven mitts too big for her, and you're crouched behind her offering steady instructions. "Don't touch the sides, my love. Only the baking tray. If it feels warm and you're not happy, tell me, and I'll take it straight away." You wear your own oven gloves.

"I can do it," Beth insists, squaring her features. 

Beth takes the baking tray and its cookies into her hands, walking with short steps to the counter, where she slides the tray up high. You lean over her to make sure it's settled before closing the oven and dashing a kiss into her cheek. "Well done, gorgeous girl," you say, scratching lightly at her shoulder as she preens under the praise. "One day you'll be making cookies all by yourself."

"But not for a while?" she asks, startled. 

You kiss her again. "Not for a long, long time." 

"Did you need my help or my approval?" Steve asks, his hand making a small thump with each pat he taps into Wren's back. "A taste tester, right?" 

"I need you to find your other daughters. I have no idea where they are," you say with a rueful smile. 

"Okay." Steve has carried babies. He's carried them for years, tiny ones and ones too big to need it, carried nonetheless. But something about Wren in all her newness makes him nervous. He hates carrying her up and down the stairs, too aware of the times he's missed a step or tripped up. "Can you take her?" 

"Yes!" Bethie says, running to her unofficial chair at the dining table and holding out her mitted arms as she sits. 

You nod at him and take the seat next to her. Steve hands Wren over into her sister's waiting hold, more than confident you're still there to take over if things get overwhelming. Wren looks comically large in Bethie's lap. 

"I have her, dad." Beth leans down to touch her nose to Wren's. "Hi, Wren. Hello, hello," she says softly.

Steve gives your cheek a swift but loving stroke and leaves in search of the other kids. He can hear Dove in her room talking to herself in make believe, but Avery, the oldest, isn't with her, nor is she in her bedroom. Steve knocks on the bathroom door. 

"Are you in there, Ave?" 

No answer. Steve raises his voice. "I'm coming in." 

He peeks inside slowly but she's not there. Eyebrows raised, Steve asks, "Avery, where are you?" Nothing. "Avery Harrington, don't make me worry! Please." 

He lets his head drift to one side, listening for an answer. Avery rarely gets told off and she hates it; she'd jump to tell him where she was if she were up here. 

Or so he thinks. Just as he's taking the stairs again to look for her someplace he must have missed, he hears sniffling coming from the master bedroom. 

Idiot, he thinks, relief taking tight hold. He doesn't like not knowing where the girls are. He should've checked your room to begin with. 

"Ave?" he says, opening his bedroom door. "You in here?" 

"I'm here, dad," she says, peering up from the space between the top of the bed and his nightstand, kneeling on the carpeted floor. 

"What are you doing down there? We gotta get ready for Aunt Robin's party." 

Her cheeks shine in the slice of light from the open door. Steve closes it behind him and flicks on the big light, rounding the end of the bed to help her up. He hooks his hands under her arms and pulls her into his chest, bed springs creaking as their joined weight lands. 

"Why are you crying?" he asks, cuddling her to his front. "What's wrong? Why didn't you come and find me? You can't stay here crying all by yourself, that's not cool. How am I supposed to make it better if I don't know what's wrong?" 

"Dove bit me." 

Steve gasps. "Again?" 

"On my hand, dad." She holds up her wrist. "It hurts." 

He presses his cheek to the top of her head, taking her arm tenderly to analyse the bite. It's a nasty thing, not bleeding but cruel and stark. "I'm sorry," he says. 

"You said I can't be mean–" 

"No, you can't–" 

"But it was really mean." 

"I know," he murmurs, "but I just don't… we can't be mean to Dove when she bites because she doesn't know it's wrong, okay? She doesn't remember. She knows it's the wrong thing to do, but by the time I tell her she doesn't know what she did." What Steve means is that the first time Dove bit Avery, Avery reacted on impulse and slapped her sister in the stomach. There isn't a bridge yet to connect to Dove why she might have received such a thing (though Steve teaches all the girls that hitting is never okay no matter what), so Dove just thought she was being hit. It was a very tense half hour of tears. 

Steve rubs Avery's back as she starts to cry in earnest. "I will tell her not to bite you, honey. I swear, I won't let her be mean to you. I'll tell her until she understands." 

He's been trying to teach Dove not to bite, but saying 'no' doesn't seem to do anything. Positive incentives don't last, and taking her toys wouldn't make much sense, because again, she doesn't get it. 

"You know," Steve says, wiping her cheeks tenderly, "I'll tell her again and again and again until she stops, and it'll work, because it worked with you." 

"What?" 

"You used to bite me sometimes, but you used to bite mom all the time." 

Avery looks at him in horror. "I did?" 

He puts her down onto her feet and takes her hand. He'd like to tell her this story while sitting down, but Robin's house beckons and time is running short. "Mom would come home from work and you'd be very happy to see her, but she would ask you what you did today and where we went and you'd bite her." 

He peeks into Dove's room and finds her missing. Downstairs, you say, "No! No, no, babe!" and he assumes she's been found. 

"Why would I do that?" 

Steve holds her hand buoyed between them as he descends the stairs. "We decided it was because you missed her. When your Dove's age you don't know how to say that. You don't even know what that is. I'm a thousand years old and I don't even know what I'm feeling half the time. So mom stopped hugging you after work for a bit until you calmed down." 

"But I don't go to work, dad. Why did Dove bite me?" 

"What were you doing?" 

"We were playing with Mr Scruffles and the care bears and she just bit me for no reason!" 

Steve stops at the bottom of the stairs. "Were you being a bossy boots?" 

Avery glares at him. "I just told her to stop taking Funshine bear." 

"Well," Steve says, smiling at her in apology, "maybe, next time, you can come and tell me, and then I'll tell her to stop taking Funshine bear, and then when she wants to bite someone she bites me instead of you. That could work, yeah?" He would much prefer it. 

Steve takes Avery to the kitchen, where you've transferred Wren into her bassinet while Bethie eats a cookie, her cheeks messy with chocolate, and Dove languishes in your arms, small hands touching your hair curiously. 

"Dove, will you look at this?" he asks, showing her Avery's bite mark. "You see that, honey? That's what you did when you bit your sister. We don't bite."

You gasp. "No!" you say, stern but far from cruel. "We don't bite. We only bite when we want to eat something." 

Dove frowns. 

"When you bite," Steve says, trying to appeal to her smarts. It'll stick eventually. "You give Avery an owie. That's why we can't bite, okay?" 

Dove can tell she's being chided even if she doesn't totally get why. "No," she says unhappily. 

"Can you say sorry to Avery?" you ask, reassuring her with a gentle squeeze. "Say, I'm sorry, Avery." 

"Sorry, Ave'y," she mumbles. 

Avery can't glare for long. She doesn't hold a grudge, not like her dad. "It's okay. You didn't mean to." 

You beam at Avery like she's hung the moon. "You're so nice, my big girl. Can I have a look at your wrist? Did that hurt?" 

Her mother's concern draws fresh tears. You swap children, and Dove quickly forgets what happened as Avery cries in little sniffles on the countertop. Steve brims with a familiar brand of pride as you comfort her, kissing and offering treats to help her feel better. I picked the right one might be applicable, only Steve didn't choose you so much as he happened upon you one day like a miracle, and then begged to keep you. Luckily for him, you've always been very agreeable on that front. 

(As in, you love him more than can be said in any one language.) 

"What are you upto?" Steve asks Bethie.

She shows him her food-covered hands. He nods like this is awesome, but in reality chocolate stains her t-shirt and she's going to have to change before they leave. Dove rams herself against his leg and looks up with her eyes widened. 

"What?" he asks. 

"Um…" 

"What do you want?" he asks, softer. She starts to frown again. Steve bends. "Drink? Crackers?" No dice. "What about some pear slices?" 

Dove loves pears more than anything, the sticky, sugary sliced kind from the can. Her frown disappears and she walks off, thankful to be understood. Steve's just grateful he wasn't bitten.

"What else did you need?" Steve asks, winding around you where you're cleaning Avery's cheeks. A damp washcloth drips down your arm.

"More time. Have any?" 

"Wren's bag is done, bottles done, Bethie's dinner." He whispers the last part. Bethie is a picky eater and she grows pickier with time, and Robin knows this, but she's not a parent (as sweet and caring as she might be for the girls). Only something you or Steve have made is something Bethie will deign to eat, and she's insecure about it despite having no reason to be. "Beth needs a new top. Your blouse needs to go in the dryer, and I can't find my nice pants. Avery?" 

"I don't need anything." 

"You sure? You have Mr Scruffles?" 

She wraps her arms around your neck. "Just want a hug." 

"Then I guess I'm busy while daddy does all my chores," you tease Steve lightly, your touch similarly soft where it tracks up and down Avery's arm. "I'm sorry Dove bit you again. It's not fair. Not fair at all. Maybe we should only have you playing downstairs until me and dad figure it out, okay? I don't want her to keep taking bits of you." 

Steve clears the checklist. Not to brag or anything, but he's a pro. You both are. Life is hectic as always and you knew getting out the door would be a process, so you planned accordingly, and you arrive at Robin's with time to spare, though Dove smells strongly of sugary pears and Bethie's new shirt has fingerprints on the back. 

"Hi, crew!" Robin greets. "It's my favourite Harringtons!" 

"We're your only Harringtons." 

"That's not true, I went to college with a Harrington." Robin ushers the girls inside. They want one thing and one thing alone —hugs. Dove is the most insistent, dropping your hand to offer Robin her arms. She picks the small girl up and smiles at her with a monumental amount of love. Robin doesn't have favourites but Dove demands it, sometimes. Avery says, "Hello, Aunt Robin," and hugs her stomach, while Bethie puts her arm behind Avery and hugs them both. 

Steve's arm shakes. "Any chance I can get through? This is a really heavy baby." 

"Hi," Robin says, ignoring him without guilt. "You guys are the best part about having a best friend." 

Steve logs that one for later revenge and eases around the mass of bodies to take Wren into the living room. "Holy fuck," he says, "I thought you weren't coming?" 

Eddie rolls his eyes. "I wanted to see the girls. It has nothing to do with you." 

They hug and pat each other on the back, and then Eddie drops to his knees in front of Wren's car seat to smile at her. "I love her so much. Can I have this one? Y'already have so many." 

"No you absolutely cannot. Where's Dustin?" 

"They're all in the backyard. Mora's teaching them how to make grass flutes, or something." 

"How'd you get out of that?" 

Eddie shrugs. "She doesn't like me. Doesn't make any sense, goth and metal are like brothers." 

"Is she goth? I thought we settled on hippie who wears dark clothing." 

"You guys are such losers!" Robin says, like a tree adorned in girl-shaped ornaments. "Don't bitch about Mora." 

"Don't swear in front of my kids!" 

You, having taken off your shoes and coat, unlike Steve, shimmy around the table. "He said 'fucking bitch' in front of Bethie the other day," you gossip, sitting by your friend's side. Eddie gives you a quick hug. You're undoubtedly his favourite Harrington. 

"He's a disgusting man who shouldn't have kids." 

You gasp and elbow him. "How dare you." 

"Can we go play with Stinky?" Avery asks Robin. 

Robin puts Dove down, short hair flying every which way, "If you can find him. But be nice, okay? He's agitated today. Mora says it's something about the supermoon." 

Avery laughs and Dove races to follow her sister up the stairs. "Ave, remember what I said, okay?" Steve calls after her. "Come and tell me if she's being bad! And no going in the bathroom!" 

Bethie remains, oddly. Though it's obvious why she's stayed the longer she lingers, her gaze flickering between you and Eddie. 

He holds his arms out. "Hello, Beth. You want a bro hug?" 

Bethie laughs and meanders into his waiting arms, where he pat-pat-pats her back like he did to Steve, eliciting a wave of happy giggles. "You've gotten so big again!" Eddie says, moving her away kindly. "Woah!" 

"I'm glad people have stopped saying that to me," you joke. 

Steve's delighted, laughing loud and sudden, and you're always pleased to have made him laugh, practically collapsing in his direction. He pulls at you until you're arm's reach. 

"What does that mean, Eddie?" Bethie whispers. 

Eddie pulls her into his lap. "It means your mom is happy about baby Wren being born." 

"I'm really happy too." 

"I bet you are! Your dad told me you're like his little helper, is that true?" 

Steve turns into your cheek. A quick stolen moment before he kisses under your ear and pulls away. "Wow," he says, smiling at you, "could we, like, actually have a conversation right now? A full one?" 

You beam. "What do you wanna talk about?" 

Steve could happily talk about everything and nothing with you. Before bed you guys are usually tired but excited enough to be alone together that you'll talk about the colour of the new dish soap or Avery's broken pinky nail. "Seen any good movies lately?" 

You give him the look. He practically invented it, that sticky, gooey eyed love as you murmur, "Mm, no. Don't think so. How about you?" 

He leans in for a kiss. 

"Yikes," Eddie says, covering a giggling Bethie's eyes with his hands. "Robin, house rules, please!" 

You’ll wait until the morning to shower, decked out in your pyjamas, Avery’s hair swept into a protective style to prevent any tangles or knots. 

He can’t really put his finger on why he feels so happy. Perhaps it’s because, at the end of the day, this is everything he’s ever wanted. He doesn’t need the finer things or even the moderately good things, but he has them. He has a nice, clean home (though it’s fit to bursting now with the newest arrival). He has a wife who he loves, and who loves him. He has his four daughters, their pet fish, and a best friend four streets away who he can see whenever. It’s more than he ever thought he’d get, once. 

“Dad,” Bethie whispers. 

“Yeah?” he whispers back, voice filled with a mischievousness that makes Bethie smile. 

“Why are you smiling?” 

You turn to look at him. “You are smiling. What’s funny?” 

“Nothing,” he insists. 

Dove turns under his arm. Her toddler face is pretty much identical to her baby face, the only difference being her mouth full of baby teeth that she hasn’t quite mastered talking around yet. “You are smiling,” she says, like this is a problem to be solved. 

“What’s so bad about that?” he asks. “It’s a good thing, smiling. You guys should try it sometimes.”

Predictably, every girl looking at him is immediately glaring at him. Well, for a moment, but then Bethie cracks and smiles shyly. “I smile all the time,” she argues. 

“You do. Not my cranky pants,” he says, giving Dove a gentle shake. “We don’t like smiling, do we?” 

Dove, despite herself, grins at her dad’s affection. Maybe she’s forgotten you’re home, but she wraps her arm around Steve, careful of Wren’s face, and smiles into his shirt. “No,” she says. “We don’t.”

He kisses her head, sharing a private look with you from over it. 

Avery doesn’t glance away from her puzzle. “I love smiling.” 

“You’re so good at it, that’s why,” you say. Steve hums his agreement. 

“Yeah, you’re beautiful!” Bethie says. 

Avery pulls her head up, then. “Thank you,” she says, sounding surprised and delighted at once. “You’re beautiful too, Beth!” 

“I’m pretty like mom.” 

“And I’m like dad,” Avery says, nodding. She smiles exactly like Steve would as she says it, driving her point home efficiently. Her lips curve up and her almond eyes thin, sparkling with love as she looks between Bethie and Steve. 

“We’re handsome,” Steve says. 

“Handsomely beautiful,” you say. “Ave, did you know handsome used to be a word only said about girls?” 

Avery shakes her head as you delve into an explanation. Bethie crawls to the jigsaw circle to listen. 

“You’re handsome,” Steve says into Dove’s forehead. 

“I am beautiful.” 

“Yes, you are. You’re all so pretty, ‘cos you get your good looks from me.” He laughs. “And a little bit from your mommy, too. Mostly from me.” 

Dove hears the laughter and it catches like a yawn, her giggles peeling as she falls backwards away from him and into her nest of pillows and blankets. “You’re happy,” she says with a big smile. 

“I’m so happy I could cry,” he says. He grabs one of feet to squeeze her toes. “But I’m getting sick of the mermaids, honey. Can we watch something else after this? Maybe something with real people?” 

“Maybe.” With Dove, maybe tends to mean no. 

He shrugs, adjusting the arm that secures Wren to his stomach carefully. She’s peering up at him curiously. “I can’t win them all, can I?” he asks her softly. 

She smiles and gurgles something unintelligible.

With Bruce in the back, whining lowly out of impatience and probably needing to pee, the air in the car was beginning to get more and more tense. The golden retriever grumbled again and you cooed, reaching behind the seat to stroke a hand over his ear, coming your fingers through his tufts of fur.

“S’okay, baby, we’re not far now,” you whispered and it wasn’t a lie, not really. The highway signs told you that you were only about twenty miles out from Indianapolis and from there, Hawkins was only really another thirty minute drive.

That’s if the snow had blocked off the roads.

The cars in front slowed to a stop once more and the boy beside you swore, frowning in the low light. He was lit up in red, brake lights turning him scarlet and even though it was only five o’clock, the weather was making the day turn to night much quicker than normal. The sky was heavy and tinted a rosy pink, thick clouds blocking out the last of the setting sun as snow fell heavily to the ground.

You knew Joyce would be worried, hoping she’d seen enough of the news channels to realise that you were both caught up in what was turning out to be a pretty bad snowstorm. You just hoped she didn’t send Hopper out on it to look for you both.

“Hey,” you murmured softly, taking your hand from Bruce to Steve’s knee, squeezing gently before running your palm up his thigh. “You wanna swap seats?”

The constant stopping and starting was making Steve far too grumpy, and understandably so, you’d thought. You knew you wouldn’t get much further than he could but you offered anyway, smile sweet and kind as you gazed at him.

You watched him soften as he caught your eye, his hard stare leaving the road to look back at you. His frown smoothed out, his lips lifted and he sighed, tired. His hand found yours, fingers tangling and he shook his head as he brought your fingers to his lips, kissing each one.

It felt a little like an apology for his bad mood.

“Nah, I’m alright, babe,” Steve mumbled, “just gotta wait it out.”

You knew he didn’t want you driving in the snow, could see the worry etched in the crinkle of his eyes, could hear it in his voice when the snow started to blanket the roads in front of you when you passed the signs for Greenwood - the boy slowing down and making sure your seatbelt was on, checking his mirrors to tell Bruce to lie down and be a good dog.

“You look tired,” you said instead of arguing, lips pushed into a sympathetic pout, taking your hand from his only to card your fingers through his hair instead.

He needed a haircut, the ends curling at his ears and at the nape of his neck. You traced the shell of his ear, grinning when he moaned dramatically and let his lashes flutter shut.

“Eyes on the road, Harrington,” you chastised.

“We’re not moving,” he retorted but he opened them anyway, turned to kiss your palm and nipped at your fingers when you pressed one to his cheek. “This is awful.”

The sounds of horns started blaring from the cars up in front, the line too long and the brake lights too bright for either of you to see what was causing the holdup. An overturned truck? A stuck car?

Behind you both, Bruce huffed, his big head appearing between the two seats and he pushed his muzzle to Steve’s ear, grumbling softly.

“I know, buddy,” Steve soothed, smacking a kiss to the side of the dog's head. “We’ll pull over when we can, both of us can take a leak, yeah?”

“Cute,” you deadpanned before rolling your eyes.

“Don’t be jealous,” Steve retorted and he lit up momentarily as the cars moved a foot or two, wheels slipping on the snow before everyone hit their brakes and the traffic came to a stand still once again. “For fuck sake.”

“You’d think we’d never managed a two thousand mile round trip across the country,” you quipped, smiling fondly at his impatience.

“More like three thousand after you got us lost in Yosemite,” Steve grinned back, laughing when you pushed at his shoulder, mouth agape in faux offence.

“You were the one that wanted to go!”

“You were the one with the map!” He was still laughing and at the sound of it, Bruce wagged his tail, a comforting thumpthumpthump against the back seat. “Besides, that trip was different.”

“Well yeah,” you snorted, “this one is a lot shorter—”

“It’s supposed to be,” Steve huffed, “could’ve made it to Chicago by now.”

“—and the last one was definitely sunnier.”

“Lucky for me, I got to sit next to this super pretty girl both times,” Steve was all charm, head leaning back against his seat, eyes bright as he looked at you through messy hair.

You preened, more than happy to accept his flirting, his attention. “Oh, yeah?” You asked.

“Oh yeah,” Steve nodded, making a show of letting his gaze roam over your body, each feature of your face, lingering at your lips. “Total smoke show. Wore a lot less clothes last time, though.”

You laughed, “you’re a perv, Harrington.”

The boy gasped, feigning shock and offence. “Y’can’t say that, it’s Christmas.”

You were momentarily interrupted from retorting as the traffic moved again, an inch, another, maybe a whole twenty feet before the cars stopped again and everyone groaned, Bruce included.

“You know,” Steve started, looking up at the falling snow before gazing over at you, his eyes warm with an affection you’d grown so familiar with. “We should do that again.”

“Do what?” You were smiling, always smiling with Steve, knowing what he was going to say but wanting to hear it anyway.

“Get in the car and just go,” he was looking at you like you were his whole world and it made your chest hurt. “Pack some bags, take Bruce, go somewhere new. A vacation.”

“Yeah?” You asked and your voice sounded dreamy. “Where to this time?”

Steve shrugged, smiling all soft. “Wherever you went, pretty girl. Canada? Or we could go south this time, see New York, somewhere big.”

You were beaming.

“Or, I could take some extra shifts, save up a little and we could get on a plane, ask Dustin if he’d look after Bruce and fly to—”

“You know I’d be happy in a motel in Indianapolis as long as I’m with you, right?”

Steve shrugged and tried to hide smile, to stop himself going pink around his cheeks but it was no use, you’d already seen and you knew him too well. Two years together and it was still one of your favourite sights.

“Besides,” you continued, “I kinda like the idea of being stuck in this car with you again. And this time ‘round, I don’t have to pretend I don’t wanna kiss you for five states.”

Steve grinned, all too pleased with your admission despite the fact that he had to have known — especially after you were the one to throw yourself at him mid-thunderstorm in Colorado.

“A whole five states, huh?” The boy smirked, entirely smug. “Wow, babe, didn’t know you’d wanted me for that long.”

“Shut up,” you retorted, your words held no heat. “If your ego gets any bigger, Eddie’s gonna yell at me for not keeping it in check.”

“I’ll fight him for you,” Steve promised but he was quick to return to your original words. “Five states… that totally means you wanted me before we even left Indiana.”

“Steve, you were the one to kiss me at that party—”

“You were just dyin’ to jump my bones at that first diner, huh?” Steve was gloating, lips curled into a pretty smirk, eyes dancing with mischief and flirt in the red lights. “A coffee, some pancakes and a side of di—”

“The traffic is moving, Romeo,” you interrupted, doing your best to not let him make you laugh but your cheeks were sore from smiling and there was a bubble of happiness in your chest that felt warmer than anything else you’d ever felt.

Sure enough, the line was moving more consistently now and Steve let out a whoop as he stepped on the gas and made the car kick up snow. He grinned when he finally got to turn off of the interstate, gaze flickering to you only to wink, making you shake your head fondly and grin.

The roads to Hawkins were much quieter and much more peaceful, Steve taking it slow as the snow fell steadily, coating everything in white. Bruce had jumped out at a lay-by with Steve, both of your boys taking a bathroom break in the same bush as you shouted stupid shit at Steve from the window, doing your best to make him laugh as he yelled back at you about messing up his aim.

It didn’t feel like returning home as you passed the sign welcoming you back to the small town but it felt like family and it felt like friends, familiar and more comforting than it had ever been, especially when Steve took one hand off of the steering wheel to squeeze at your thigh.

The lights strung up around porches and roofs twinkled in the night, the sky fully black now as you arrived more than three hours late. But it didn’t really matter, ‘cause nothing was a rush, nothing could be a stress when the world was so pretty and quiet.

Everything glittered, the ground, the rooftops, the light line tree branches, the frozen over pond at the edges of the park. And Steve’s eyes did too when he turned the corner on Maple Street and asked you:

“Hey, d’you wanna tell me a secret?”

“Really now?” You murmured back, your smile warm and bright. His words made your chest ache for memories you kept for yourself — long drives, breaking into pools, kisses between canyons, sunflower fields and sun soaked boys who belonged to summer and you. “You not got enough of my secrets, Harrington?”

Steve grinned and shrugged, thumb drawing circles onto your knee. “One more for Christmas?”

So you hummed and pretended to think, cheek pushed to the headrest of the car seat as you kept your eyes on Steve, the profile of his pretty face.

“I’d go anywhere in the world with you,” you told him and your voice was quiet but sure.

“Yeah?” The boy asked and you could tell he couldn’t say much more, his voice a little thick with affection. The car rolled to pause at a stop sign and he took the chance to look at you properly, brown eyes filled with so much adoration it made your breath catch in your throat.

“Oh, yeah,” you assured him, nodding and whispering like you were telling him something scandalous, “don’t you know? I’d jump in a car and let you steal me away.”

“Sounds dangerous,” Steve gasped.

“Stupidly so,” you agreed but the air between you both was sticky with fondness. “Where’s my Christmas secret?”

Steve smiled and pulled into the Byer’s driveway, parking behind Nancy’s car, Eddie’s van and Hoppers cruiser, wondering how long he had left with you alone before one of the kids spotted you both through the window.

Bruce was awake and whining, recognising the house and hearing the noise from inside, the low music from the stereo, the yells of conversation between too many people at once.

“I love you,” Steve said simply, “like, way more than anyone else in the entire world.”

“The entire world, huh?” you said instead of crying, melting into the seat as Steve leaned over the console to you, lips meeting yours for a kiss that made your heart rate pick up. “That’s a lot of people to rule out.”

“Yeah, well,” Steve hummed against your lips, pressing tiny kisses anywhere he could. “We tried the world… or at least seven states in it —”

You snorted out a huff of laughter as Steve grinned, hiding your face in his shoulder as he kept up his kisses between words.

“— and I’m pretty fuckin’ sure you’re my favourite.”

You pressed a kiss to the boy's neck and sighed, too happy to wanna move. “Yeah?” Your voice was quiet and soft, and you didn’t need the reassurance, but it was lovely to have it anyway.

"Dove, give blankie back to your sister," you say gently. 

Dove scowls. "No." 

"C'mon, be a good girl. Beth shares all her things with you, and she's only asking for her blankie. You have Teddy right there."

"No," she says, pulling the blanket and Teddy upward into her chest. 

Steve sits up and rubs your thigh as he does. "Do you want me to go get your blankie from the car?" 

"No." 

"So many no's," Avery says.

Steve has to raise his voice to be heard over your laughing. "Dove, you're not being nice to Beth, you know? That's not your blankie, sweetheart." 

Dove's face starts to change. Slowly, so slowly, her tiny features crumple, and her eyebrows pull together in indignation. She drops both Teddy and Beth's blankie and starts sobbing, the tantrum kind, little foot ready to stomp the floor. 

You and Steve are slow responders when it comes to stuff like this. You want to give her the room to come to grips with her big feelings before you try to fix it.

Beth takes her blankie cautiously, and Steve holds his arms out again to try and garner Dove's attention, maybe cuddle her through the meltdown. 

Beth beats him to it. 

"Dove," she says, putting blankie down on the floor. She tries to wrap her arms around Dove and gets pushed away. 

"Dove, don't cry, we will share," she says, trying for another hug. 

"No!" Dove says, her cries amping up into roughness. 

Beth takes a confused step backwards. 

You sit up beside Steve, his hand quick to press to the small of your back. 

Dove's crying pauses suddenly, quietening to a sniffle, and she turns to Beth. She opens her arms, and Beth immediately hugs her sister back, head slotting over her shoulder. 

"Don't cry," Beth says, sounding exactly like Steve does, "it's okay, Dove. You can have blankie if you want." 

Dove cries into Beth's shoulder. 

You and Steve are in similar states of awe, turning to share a slack-jawed look. 

Avery stands up from her bean bag and treks to Steve's side, patting his thigh until he pulls her up into her lap. 

"Did Dove get body-snatched?" she whispers in his ear. 

"No, and you don't know what that word means, because we told your uncle Eddie you aren't allowed to watch it," he says quietly, scared to disrupt Beth and Dove's cuddle. 

Avery beams at him. "We didn't watch it, dad, he just told me what happens." 

"Yeah? Great." He leans toward you. "Remind me that I'm mad at him the next time we see him." 

"Sure thing, baby." 

Your voice sounds far away, and when he looks at you properly you've a tear dripping down your cheek. 

He wraps his arm around you and tugs you toward his side, frowning. Pregnancy-brain makes you cry a lot, all the time, and as soon as he's touched you, you start to sob. Quietly, barely a sigh, but shoulder shaking sobs all the same. 

He can understand why you're crying — your girls love each other. It's amazing. But he wishes you wouldn't. 

"Holy heck," Avery says. "Everybody's crying." 

"Don't worry, Avey-baby," he says, infusing his tone with a bubbliness he doesn't feel, "mom's full of baby hormones and Dove's just tired. We'll all be much happier tomorrow." 

Beth's saying the same thing. "We can sit on the couch and watch the frame rabbit." 

"'Who Framed Roger Rabbit?'" Avery corrects. 

"Yeah, and dad will make the popcorn on top of the oven," Beth continues. 

She sounds exactly like Steve. That's his favourite trick, making stovetop popcorn to distract whoever it is that's upset. There's something magic to them about the popping. 

"Aw, Beth," he says, in time with your sobbing getting more intense. 

"Why did you do this to them?" you ask pleadingly, enough wits about you to sound at least somewhat joking. "They're so lovely." 

You sound like you're in physical pain. 

"Calm down," he says to you softly, hand rubbing your shoulder in a soothing back and forth. "Take a deep breath, honey." 

You take a deep breath, another. 

"Mom, do you want a hug too?" Avery asks. 

You nod and Avery climbs over Steve's legs into your lap. She curls her arms behind your head protectively. 

Steve watches as Beth peels away from Dove, four tiny hands interlocked. 

"So… who's gonna hug me?" he asks. 

"You have to make the popcorn, dad." 

He has the unique ability to make you laugh at just about anything. He can get you giggling in the delivery room if he tries hard enough. 

You shift your arm where it's sandwiched so close to his and go searching for his outermost wrist, pulling it to your face for lazy kisses. His palm resting at your lips, you close your eyes and picture the face he's making. He's definitely turned his head to yours, giving you that "you're so crazy" expression he does, like he's startled you'd dote on him. 

"Wanna make out?" he asks. 

You're about to say yes when footsteps sound.

Steve eases up onto his elbow to kiss you sweetly, too quickly, before he takes the end of the blankets into his hand and pulls them over your heads. 

You know exactly who it is from the footsteps alone. Avery pushes open the door, and she sounds almost shy as she whispers, "Are you still awake?" 

"We're sleeping," Steve says back. You laugh as quietly as you're able to, tummy trembling under his hand with the motion. 

"I want to talk to you." 

That's not so funny. Steve moves the blankets back down. "About what, Avey-bear?" 

She's hard to make out in the dark, not with the light from the hallway at her back. You can see her hair, it's bed head frizz, and the ruffles of her nightie at her knees. 

"About anything." 

You snort. All your worry turns to amusement, and affection, and you make space between you and Steve immediately. You move too fast. 

"Be careful," Steve says to you softly, prompted by your little breathless sigh. Lately, your back has felt super sore, like somebody's taken to it with a meat tenderiser. 

"Come and sit with us," you tell Avery. 

She races around to your side and waits for you to pick her up. You would, of course, and you'd hug her to death as soon as she was in your arms, but you'd really hurt yourself somehow and you don't want to make it worse. 

"Come round to my side," Steve says. 

You smile at her unimpressed expression, "I can't move too much. Baby's kicking my spine." 

She gawps at you, tiny white teeth shining like pearls. "She's what?" 

It's important to note that you don't know the baby's gender. Avery says 'she' because her dad does. That, and it must make sense to her — Avery has felt the little kicking feet of two sisters before. It's sad, and silly, but for a split second you feel sorry that the only people who'd ever felt her kick were you and Steve. It had been one of the best (and then quickly one of the most agitating) feelings in the world. 

Avery, big sister extraordinaire, and biggest, bestest eldest daughter they ever made, climbs up onto the bed by herself and positions her face carefully over the hill of your baby bump. "You have to be nice," she whisper passionately, "you're hurting mom." 

You stroke her forehead. "Baby can't help it. She's growing." 

"You said 'she,'" Steve coos. 

"It's easier." You're not sure at all what the baby is. You have no premonitions. No inkling of one guess or another. 

"She," Steve says, "really can't help it Avery, but you're a good girl for trying to protect mom." 

"Thank you," you say, cupping her cheek. 

"You're welcome," she says. 

You're the kind of mom that some little kids can't abide — all you want, all the time, are hugs. You steal them at breakfast and lunch and dinner, in the car, in the garden, in the supermarket. You love to move in behind them and cuddle their unsuspecting shoulders. Lucky for you, they've all grown to return the same affection. Avery, amazingly careful of your stomach, crawls the rest of the way up the bed to the pillows and lays down curled toward you, pulling your arm to her chest for a hug. 

Steve moves onto his side and sidles up behind her. He moves his arm over your two bodies, his hand over your shoulder, his eyes glued to your face. 

"We've done this before," he murmurs. 

You and Steve and Avery and an unnamed baby. 

"Do you think your sisters are sleeping?" you ask. 

"Mm, Beth is snoring again," she complains. 

"Dove isn't this quiet when she's awake," Steve says. 

"Guess it's just you with us tonight, beautiful," you say, pulling the covers over Avery's shoulder. Swimming in bed sheets, she beams at you, really smiles, and her face seems like it's nearly too small to hold a happy that big. 

"What did you want to talk about?" you ask. 

"Everything." 

"Yeah," she agrees, rubbing her face against his collar.

Steve shifts her in his arms to prop her up with one and hug her with the other.

They head upstairs and cross the landing to his and your bedroom, where you, Ave, and Dove are all sequestered in bed with a sick bowl.

Dove sleeps like a log on your chest where he's propped you up with pillows. Ave lies in Steve's spot, arm across the mattress to hold hands with you.

"Hello," he says, hesitant at the threshold. You're gonna be in a tough spot if Steve gets sick too. "How are you feeling?"

He directs his question at both you and Ave, but Ave answers first.

"I feel sick," she says morosely.

"That doesn't surprise me, baby, you are sick. How about you, mom?"

"I'm fine," you say. Your other hand rubs up and down the length of Dove's back and shoulders steadily, an absent-minded gesture no doubt. "What about you, my lovely girl? You and daddy had to clean up my mess, huh? I'm sorry."

The apology is entirely for him. He doesn't need it or even want it.

"It's okay," Beth says.

"You took the words straight outta my mouth," he praises her.

Beth all but dissolves into his chest. You read her mood, and his oncoming question quickly.

“You gonna go nap?” you ask.

“Would that be okay? You’ll be okay? I can put her down and come right back.”

You give him your most loving, darling smile, the kind of smile he fell in love with; the kind of smile that had him looking at you, twenty years old and lonely, and knowing he wasn’t going to be lonely much longer.

“We’ll be okay,” you say. “Love you, miss you.”

“I love you.” He waves at Avery. “Love you, baby. Try and get some sleep.”

—

He wakes up to his name being called severely. It’s a pretty terrifying sound to wake up to when you have a family, your wife calling to you with little room for affection.

“Steve? Steve, I need you right now.”

He startles hard and wakes Beth where she’s lying on his chest.

“Daddy?” she mumbles.

He slides her off of him as carefully as he’s able, which in his panic is nowhere as carefully as he wants to. “It’s okay, babe. Go back to sleep.”

“Steve.”

He hears the unfortunate sound of retching. You’re sitting in the middle of the bed with a hand on Avery's back as she chucks up into the bowl, and Avery isn’t the problem, it’s Dove, who’s throwing up all over your shoulder and screaming between heaves.

“Sorry, I’m sorry, but they won’t stop. I think they’re setting each other off and-“ You inhale sharply. “I don’t want to-“

“Hey, okay,” he says easily, much less panicked than you. He understands exactly why you’re so scared — to have them both so forcefully ill is terrifying, and worse, you’re by yourself and sick too.

“Avery, are you alright, sweetheart?” he asks.

Avery is understandably in tears. She heaves and nothing comes out but spit, so he sits down heavily next to her and wraps an arm over her trembling shoulders. “Deep breath,” he says, “super deep breath. You’re okay.”

He works Avery through the last of her throw up. He can hear you placating the baby, your voice shaky.

“Let’s go get in the bath,” he says quietly, “should we?”

It’s dangerous to leave Avery in the bath alone, so he puts a towel on top of the toilet lid and sits her down.

“I’m gonna get Dove and you’ll both have a bath.” He rubs her back, heart broken by her little downcast face, her cheeks shiny with tears. “I’m gonna make it all better, baby, I promise,” he says slowly, offering his pinky to her.

She holds up her own, so much smaller, and they shake on it.

He doubles back for Dove and, unfortunately, the worst has happened. You’ve chucked up, mostly in the bowl, but enough on the sheets to need changing, and there are tears bumping down your cheeks. Dove is screaming like she’s in agony. It’s awful.

“Pass her over to me,” he says.

Your lips part.

“It’s okay, babe, just pass her to me,” he murmurs, hands replacing yours under her armpits. “You want to strip off and come in the bathroom too? The smell…”

“I’m sorry for shouting, I probably gave you a heart attack- I don’t know, I was being silly,” you say.

“You were not.” He pats Doves lower back until she’s calmed down enough to hear himself think. He can’t stay in here with you as much as he wants to, worried about Avery, and a little about Beth. “Come on, you can have a bath next.”

Steve gets Avery and Dove in a warm bath and it calms everybody down. You sit on the toilet seat in your underwear looking miserable and embarrassed and tired and he takes what time he can to squeeze your naked calf.

“You’re wet,” you faux-complain, mouth full of toothpaste and your toothbrush.

“I’m damp at best. So dramatic.”

He washes the sick out of Avery’s hair and Dove entertains herself with a rubber duck. Avery enjoys having her hair washed, eyes slipping closed as Steve massages her little head.

“How are you feeling, Dovey?” you ask, reaching across the lip of the tub to smooth back her wet hair.

“Duckie,” she cheers, brandishing her yellow friend at you.

Your smile is soft. “Duckie,” you repeat. “Does he have any water in his tummy?”

She squirts it at you. Point proven.

He gets Avery out and wraps her up in a towel that’s yards too big for her. Beth ventures into the room with tired eyes, and she looks unhappy to be missing out on bath time. She loves playing with her mermaid dolls.

“You want one with mommy?” you ask.

Beth smiles so wide that Steve wants to take a picture.

When he’s wrangled both sicky girls into new pyjamas, he asks Avery if she’ll entertain Dove for a little bit. It’s more of a hope than a true request. Avery nods seriously and grabs one of her picture books, sitting by her baby sister on the pillows decorating her bedroom floor.

He changes the ruined sheets in your bedroom, throws them in the laundry, pushes open the bedroom window to circulate some clean air and then makes his way to the bathroom with the sick bowl to pour the contents down the toilet. You and Beth sit across from each other in the bath. Even though you’re sick, Steve thinks this might be one of the most important moments of Beth’s life. Carving alone time with you, your hands rubbing soap over her little shoulders while you murmur praises at her, it’s incredibly sweet. He’s sorry to ruin it.

“You’re squeaky clean, baby, I barely gotta scrub you, such a clean girl. My Beth’s always been neat, huh?”

Steve washes his hands. Beth, bubbles up to her neck, says, “Hi, daddy. You’re coming in?”

“Not me. I don’t think you can fit me. And mom does the best job, anyways, she gets rid of all the stink.”

“Stink!” you deny. You have to clear your throat after. Your smile doesn’t wane. “She does not ever stink because she’s a princess, thank you very much, daddy.”

Back to Avery's room. So much of being a parent is retracing your steps, walking the same distance over and over and over. He encourages the girls into the bathroom and helps them brush their teeth, which Avery thinks is, “Weird as heck. You’re s’posed to brush your teeth after dinner.”

“But you’ve been sick,” he reminds her, kneeling with one knee in a puddle, Dove’s chin pinched between his finger and thumb as he brushes her tiny pearls gently.

“But we’ll have to brush them again,” she whines.

“I brushed my teeth too,” you say now wrapped in a towel, rubbing Beth’s hair with the hood of her bath-poncho.

“You’re a grown up.”

“So?” Steve asks, genuinely laughing. “What’s that got to do with anything?”

“Mom does stuff she hates all of the time!”

“Like what?”

“Like kissing you,” Avery declares.

You burst into laughter, which does not help his case. Avery laughs because you’ve laughed. Beth and Dove are easily infected, leaving Steve one against four and feeling bullied. You apologise profusely when you see his theatrical heartbreak and offer him a kiss to prove you don’t mind it. You won’t actually give him one when he puckers up.

“If you get sick too, we’re screwed.”

He leads his girls down the stairs in a freshly made procession and insists they all sit at the dinner table, you included. From there, he doles out Pepto Kids, crackers, watered down apple juice and forehead kisses. Beth doesn’t need any Pepto, and she gets some secret peanut butter on her crackers. He worries anything too rich will prompt a third upheaval for the rest.

You get regular old Pepto, and you hate it. “I’m having flashbacks,” you mumble. Pepto is a great anti-nausea medication, and you’d reaped its benefits heavily during pregnancy three.

Maybe he’s biassed on who needs more kisses. He lays them thick from one end of your forehead to the other and then, finally, sits down in the chair next to Dove with a tired groan.

Her hand reaches across the gap for his. She holds his finger with one hand, offers a cracker with another. “Dad,” she says warmly.

He takes it. If he gets sick, he gets sick. There isn’t a world that exists where he has the power to say no to her.

-

"Hi, babies," you greet, arms already out to take Dove.

If you could, you'd take Beth instead, because getting her dressed is a much more difficult job than calming Dove down, but Dove craves your attention every second of the day, as babies tend to do. If you don't pick her up she'll start screaming. You've learned from experience.

Steve offers her up with an extreme amount of care considering she's not a baby baby, she's eighteen months. You heave a satisfied sigh. There's something about how warm kids can be, your own kids, that puts you at ease from the moment you hold them. 

You and Steve used to kiss like idiots when you got home from work. You remember when Avery was a baby, and you'd get home and she's be laying on her play matt, you and Steve could watch her from the sofa cuddled up together, putting off laundry and dishes and bath time because it wasn't the end of the world if you didn't get to them. These days, you have to stick to deadlines and chores. If you don't, the house turns to a mess, and it makes everything that much harder on you both. It's best to stay on top of it. 

So while you'd love to sit yourself down in Steve's lap and have him rub your back, you don't. You barely say hi to one another. He finishes getting Beth dressed and you break out the mom-ese, bubbly talking at Dove in the hopes she'll talk back. Dove follows after Beth — they're both so quiet. Avery's the chatterbox. 

"Hi, baby, I missed you," you croon, face plastered over with a smile. "Have you been good for your daddy today?" 

She sniffles at you. True to Avery's report, there's an unfortunate mark spreading across her brow denoting where she'd hurt herself. You kiss it gently. 

"Poor baby, you got an owie. Aw, sweetheart, mommy's gonna have to wrap you up in bubble wrap, aren't I?" 

"We could put her in a hamster ball." Steve suggest, pulling Beth's shirt down over her tummy.

"We could," you agree. 

Dove doesn't understand and it doesn't matter, anything at all cheers her up if you say it sweetly. Pleased at being the centre of attention no doubt, she drops her face into the crook of your neck. She's likely tired from crying, and it's not too far from her bed time. 

Dove settled, you navigate Beth's tea set spread out across the floor and sit on the end of the bed, not far from Steve's position. You reach out, stroking the wild mess of hair at the back of his head. He hadn't showered, which means today has been a hard day. 

"How are you, handsome?" you murmur, sliding your fingers deeper into his hair to scratch lightly at his scalp. 

He stops where he'd been helping Beth into a sweater and drops his head toward his shoulder, turning at the waist so he can see you. "Tired." 

"Yeah?" 

His eyes slip closed, a momentary bliss. "Your kids are evil," he continues. 

You look past him to Bethie, who's quiet. She's always quiet, but this is near silent. She shifts from one foot onto the other. It's like looking into a shy little mirror. Beth has always looked more like you than Steve. 

"Bethie," you hum, "are you okay?" 

She pulls her sleeves over her little hands and frowns. Steve sighs and straightens up, forcing you to take back your hand from his hair. 

"I'm not mad at you, Beth," he says. 

Her face crumples up. You have the energy to find it adorable, but Steve's so tired he can't summon much more than a hug for her. She twists up into his arms. 

"I'm sorry," she whines. 

"It's okay," he promises, patting her back in a slow rhythm. "Now you know why me and mom tell you not to chew on them, yeah? They aren't food, my love." 

My love. It would sound odd coming from Steve if he didn't say it as gently as he does. 

Speaking of food, Avery has not appeared. You tilt your head to one side, and you question yourself on if you're hearing what you think you are. The fridge beeps when it's left open too long, and you're ninety eight percent sure there's a beeping sound coming from downstairs.

"Are you okay?" Steve asks. 

Beth steps back and wipes her cheeks with both hands, nodding. 

Steve replaces her hands with his own and wipes her sticky skin tenderly. When her cheeks are dry, he frames her face with both hands and smiles at her until she smiles back. 

You're not surprised when she goes in for another hug. 

"It's okay, Beth," he says again, "you're not in trouble." 

Beth has a huge guilty conscience. You wonder sometimes how she's turned out so different to Ave considering they've been raised with the same amount of devotion, and you worry that maybe she's been given a little too much sheltering. That being said, Avery had, to your regret, suffered from time to time in place of your and Steve's ineptitude. Nothing that has ever left a mark, but small things you'd wished you'd known. How the majority of her crying had been because she needed burping (so much burping), or how owning a pair of hairdressing scissors does not make you a hairdresser. Sheltering seems fair. 

You love your girls. You want them to be happy more than anything and you don't mind sheltering them, even if they all end up shy and clingy. 

You love clingy. 

"Stevie, I'm gonna make dinner tonight, okay?" 

"Thank you," he mumbles into Beth's hair. 

You frown deeply. He really needs a break, and it's only Thursday. That's one more day until the weekend. 

You lean down, Dove pressed to your chest with both arms, and kiss the top of his head. "I need to call Jessica, and then we'll have dinner. Do you want to go lie down? Take Bethie with you and cuddle?" 

"What do you think, pretty girl?" he asks her, pulling his face from her hair. He strokes down the side of her face with the first knuckle of his index finger. You can practically feel the sensation from watching, the light, fluttering tickling feeling. 

You and Dove ditch their lovefest and bump down the stairs together, one careful step at a time. 

In the kitchen, Avery has made a mess.  

You blink. "Ave," you moan, "what are you doing?" 

"I'm putting stuff away, mom, what does it look like?" 

She's sarcastic rather than cruel, there isn't a drop of attitude in her whole body. 

"It looks like an explosion," you say. 

"I'm putting stuff away," she insists. 

She's dragged a chair to the cupboard, there's canned food all over the counter, there's a busted bag of macaroni elbows on the stove, and the fridge has been open so long the lights inside have turned off. 

You have to laugh. "Do me another favour?" 

"What do I get?" she asks. 

You pretend to think about it, humming to yourself. "Hm, let's see… a kiss?" 

She shakes her head. 

"A hug?" 

She shakes her head again. 

You tip your face toward Dove's, who babbles an incomprehensible suggestion. "I don't know," you murmur, "I don't think that'll work." 

"What won't work?" Avery asks, a plastic wrapped head of broccoli in her hands. 

"What if… We have cake and ice cream after dinner?" 

"Friday treat?" Avery asks, gasping. 

"But on a Thursday!" you agree, turning your excitement to Dove. "My lovely girls deserve something sweet, I think. And your dad, too." 

Avery narrows her widened eyes into a more 'grown-up' expression, playing it cool like Steve pretends to sometimes. "What's the favour?" 

"You and Dove watch some TV while I make dinner?" 

"That's easy," Avery says.

You beam at her. "Thank you. You're such a good girl. Come here, give me some kisses before you go." 

You kiss Avery until she's groaning about slobbery cheeks and send her and Dove into the living room with a sippy cup of juice and two secret cookies, hoping to distract them for a while. You clean up Avery's mess, and you admit to yourself that she wasn't doing a bad job. Really it was sweet of her to even try. You make dinner, and while the veggies are sautéing you call your boss, Jessica. 

You don't explain, only ask if it'll be okay to take one of your holidays. She's not thrilled to give you one, but she knows you have three girls. 

And so, you have the day off tomorrow. Steve can take a breather. 

You pull the table away from the wall and plate up everybody's dinner one by one. Rather than shout, you do the rounds. 

Avery and Dove are snuggled up together in the middle of the big couch.

"Dinner's ready," you cheer, sweeping Dove into your arms. "Let me go get daddy." 

"I'll do it!" Avery says.

She runs up the stairs and you turn back to the kitchen. Dove hates her high chair, so you elect to have her in your lap, even if that means you don't actually get to eat anything. When Avery appears she's jubilant, hand in Steve's and pulling him through the door. 

"Hey, troopers," you say absentmindedly, focused on spooning mashed veggies into Dove's open mouth. 

"Hey." 

"Stevie, listen, I got the day off tomorrow," you say. 

"What?" 

"You just-" You lift your gaze to meet his. "You looked so tired." 

He stands by the side of your chair and drops a slow, sweet kiss into your temple. "You didn't have to." 

You kind of did. You don't want him to get sick, or — honestly, it's not even about overworking himself. You want him to be happy. Happy, and not overwhelmed. 

You savour the short squeeze he gives your neck. 

After the most pathetic dinner you've ever seen (seriously, your family are sapped), you get cake and ice cream in three bowls and line your girls up in a row on the couch. Nothing steals their attention more than sugar and Sesame Street.  

Finally, finally, you can talk to Steve. 

He sits in the armchair. 

You come to stand in front of him, not shy, but tentative. "Could I-" 

"Shut up. Don't even ask me, or I'm gonna be furious." 

You smile like an idiot and sit yourself down in his lap, careful not to put all your weight on him. He rolls his eyes and twists your around until your back is flush with one of the armchair's arms, legs hanging off of the other, ribs to Steve's stomach. 

"Stevie," you mumble, cupping his cheek, "you okay?" 

You cup his cheek in your hand, tugging his face closer to your own. His arms curl around your waist and he hangs onto you like a life raft. 

He looks as though he might brush it all off. Then, eventually, he confesses, "God, it's been never ending today. Dove- She smashed that weird paperweight from my mom, like, ten minutes after we got home from dropping off the girls, and then she screamed bloody murder when I wouldn't let her touch it." He lets his head rest against yours. "Then the school called me because Avery forgot-" He sighs. "I forgot to give her clothes for soft play. So we had to get back in the car, and you know how much she hates that car seat. She's been miserable all day, and I didn't eat until you made dinner so I've been miserable, and I hate when I'm like that because it's not her fault. I'm lucky Beth's been so quiet, but then she started eating pens, so..."

"It's not her fault, but it's not your fault either. Don't feel guilty about things you have no hand in, honey." 

His voice goes weak. "I don't want to be that fucking angry dad who's mad and miserable." 

"You're not. You never, ever could be," you say, laughing softly. You scratch his jaw. "I won't say they can't tell when you're upset 'cause we both know they can, but I can promise they know it's not permanent." You angle his face carefully to the girls, where they all sit happy as clams, lips sticky and smiling.

"Angry dad," you repeat. "Babe, you're barely mad. You're tired. It was a bad day." 

"Wasn't all bad. Thank you." 

"We are a team," you whisper, pronouncing each word emphatically. 

"I know. Thanks for being my team," he says. 

You rub your cheek against his collar. "Sorry today sucked, handsome. I swear tomorrow's gonna be better. You don't have to get up in the morning, I'll do drop off and breakfast, and then when you do get up we'll," — you kiss his neck — "spend the whole day doing nothing. Or, you'll do nothing. I'll do laundry." 

"I have to clean the bathroom." 

You kiss his neck again. "I'll do it. Don't worry, baby. I got you. I got you completely. You can write me a list, if you like, but I don't need one. I'll do everything." 

He whines into your neck dramatically. "I don't know how it gets this bad." 

You give him another kiss, another, folding love into each one. 

"I mean, I've been doing this- We've been doing this for six years. Six years," he whispers pointedly, "and I still can't perfect it." 

"Families definitely aren't supposed to be perfect." You suck in a quick breath. "I mean, mine is. My girls, my guy. You're perfect." 

"God." 

"Is there something you need me to do tonight?" you ask gently. "Do you want to go shower?"

He starts to torment you, hands rubbing all over your back and arms, face a heat smushed to the top of your head. "I need you to stay here. Can't remember the last time I got to do this."

You wiggle your feet over the armrest. You're not sure, either. Too long. 

He pushes against your stomach. When you're pregnant Steve's hand may as well be glued to it. Now, though, it's just soft. You'd be insecure if he weren't so loving, and loud about it; he worships you and your body unabashedly. 

You don't know how you feel about having more kids. It's too complicated to hash over tonight, you'll give yourself a migraine. You want more, you want as many as Steve wants, and Steve wants a football team, but you struggle through every pregnancy. Avery's had been terrifying, Beth's had been exhausting, and you'd been so sick and weak during Dove's that Steve had genuinely sat you down and made sure you knew you never, ever had to do it again if you didn't want to. For any reason at all.

But you look at your girls and you get this awful panging longing for more. And wouldn't Steve just adore a baby boy? Wouldn't you?

"You know, we have a pattern going," you say. 

Steve smiles. "What pattern?" 

"Two and a half between Ave and and Beth, two and five months between Beth and Dove. If we had another one, there would almost be two and a half between them, too. If we tried now, I mean." 

You're not just saying it to lift his mood, and you're not saying it because you definitely know what you want, but it's a conversation you wouldn't mind having. Steve's excited smile is a bonus.

"You want another one?" he asks. 

You stare into his eyes. "I'm not sure, but you do. Right?" 

"You know I do, but it's… it's your decision, it always is." 

Hasn't he told you that a thousand times by now. "Is it really only mine?" 

"You're the one who's at risk. You're the one who has to carry her." 

"Her," you say. "You're so sure it'd be a girl?" 

His laugh is warm where it kisses your cheek. "Pretty sure that's my only mode." 

"I'd want a boy, if we had another one. A boy who looks exactly like you. He would be the most handsome little boy in the world." 

"We can't have more that look like me," he argues, sounding like himself for the first time tonight. "Don't you think two's enough?" 

"No." Easiest answer ever. 

"Seriously? Dove glared at me earlier and it was like looking in the mirror." 

"I love your face, Steve. You know that? I really, genuinely, think you're the most beautiful person I've ever met. Of course I want our kids to look like you." 

Steve raises a hand to your neck and kisses you. You don't remember to close your eyes, he's too quick, and when he pulls away he laughs. "Shut your eyes, weirdo," he demands. 

You close them. For your efforts, Steve gives you a handful of quick, close-mouthed pecks that slowly soften, your favourite kind of kissing without getting too handsy.

His lips are a little bit chapped. You make a note to smooth him over with some chapstick tonight, and you laugh at yourself for making a note. 

"What?" he asks amusedly, words reverberating into your lips and tickling you. 

You don't want him to be insecure. "Just happy, Steve. So happy it's awful." 

He doesn't kiss you anymore than that. You're hoping you can entice him for at least a few more, but Beth has other plans. She slides down the couch and slinks to the armchair, looking very polite as she pauses in front of you. 

You and Steve have the same reaction. Rampant affection. 

"Hello, gorgeous," you say, holding out your arm. 

She struggled to climb up into your lap. 

"I haven't seen you very much today, have I?" you ask, helping her sit on your tummy where Steve's hand had been before. "Are you okay?" 

"I'm okay," she says sweetly. 

"Yeah? You have ice cream on your lip, you want me to wipe it away?"

She nods heavily and closes her eyes. You share a mischievous glance with Steve, and then you lean forward and kiss the corner of her mouth. 

"There," you say when you pull away. 

"Mommy," she mumbles giddily, "that's not wiping." 

"Sorry, I just missed you so much. Think I can have another one? Would that be okay?" 

"Leave some for me," Steve complains. 

Beth ignores him. "You can have-" She trips over the words but keeps going anyhow. "Can have as many as you want, mom." 

"I can?" you ask, delighted, barely waiting before you're pulling her into your chest to press soft little kisses into her chubby cheek. 

"Oh, she's my shy girl," you murmur at her lowered chin. "She's so shy. She has such a pretty face I just can't help it, I gotta kiss it." 

Steve noses along your ear. "'Cause she looks like you." 

You pinch his waist until he's threatening to roll you off him. 

"I'm serious." 

"Think of Beth," you say deadpan, before sinking right back into mom talk. "Me and my girl are having kisses and he's just jealous, right Bethie?" 

"Right," she says. 

Steve groans at such a terrible betrayal and deflates in defeat, his thighs sliding underneath you. "Whatever." 

You take pity on him quickly. Dove will side with you unquestionably, but Avery's about justice, so you psst at her until she turns your way, and you mouth, "Kiss your dad, pretty please" with raised eyebrows. 

She practically throws herself off of the couch and hurtles to the armchair. She's super tall for her age and she doesn't need any help at all to climb up. There's not much room but she makes it work, kneeling on the armrest beside your head, hands vying for her dad's arms. 

He looks up in surprise. "Hey, Avey." 

"Kiss?" she asks. 

Steve simpers. "I knew you were a good egg. Get off of me, mom." 

"No way," you say, squirming in his lap. 

Dove notices what's happening and makes her way to you with an expectant smile. Soon, you've whipped her up into your lap and Steve is submerged in his girls, hands and arms and kisses all over him. 

"Love you, dad," Avery says.

"Love you," you say, pleased with her amazing timing. 

"Love you, daddy," Bethie says, her ear to his heart. 

Dove raises a socked foot up toward him like it is the most important thing she's ever done, a signal for wanting tickles. He has to pull his arm out from where it's sandwiched between you and Avery, scratching the bottom of her foot until she's giggling infectiously. 

"I love you," he says. To all of you, presumably. 

This doesn't last as long as it should. 

"I love you all," he clarifies, "but one of you is crushing my leg." 

It's absolutely you. He's kind for not saying it. 

"Wanna move to the couch? I'll go get us some blankets," you offer, brushing hair from his eyes fondly. 

His eyes squint together ever so slightly. "That would be nice."

—

Warnings: smut, penetrative sex, exhibitionism, praise kink, very slight dub-con if you squint due to wording but not really, it’s also just assumed reader is on the pill, and strong language.

This is wrong.

She knows that she shouldn't be thinking or feeling any of the things she is at the moment, but, when she looks up from her spot on the floor in the Wheeler's basement to find Steve staring at her, she cannot ignore the butterflies that stir to life in her stomach. Those pretty brown eyes of his are quick to avert back to the task at hand, but, for the short few seconds that they lock eyes, his lips twitch with the urge to curl up into a smile at her.

The thing is, Y/N and Steve have been secretly fucking for a few weeks now. In her defense, she didn't actively seek him out for the sake of having sex with him.

It was dark and rainy that night, and she was caught up in the storm on her bike as she pedaled home from cheer practice, eyes nearly shut from the wind that blew up the street at her face. The uniform she donned all afternoon was drenched from the downpour, and her hair stuck to the sides of her face as well. It annoyed her that she was two miles from home and her useless mother couldn't be bothered to part with her boyfriend to drive to get her, sure, but she tried not to let it bring her down.

Then, out of the gloom that hung over Hawkins, the headlights of a familiar BMW came up over the hill in the road to shine in her face, and she knew it was Steve before he even had the chance to slow to a stop and roll down his window to talk to her. If anyone else did this—even him a few years ago when he'd been the king of Hawkins High School—they'd come off as a creep, but it was Steve. Her best friend Nancy's sweet, if not a little clueless, ex-boyfriend who babysits her brother and his best friends. There was nothing to worry about.

He asked incredulously, "What are you doing out in this?" The doors to the car unlocked with a click. "Come on, I'll take you the rest of the way. You're gonna get sick."

So, she went. Her bike barely fit in the back of the car, and once she slammed the door shut, he wasted little time in driving off into the rainy night.

"Where do you live?" he asked.

She shook her head.

"I was gonna go ask Nance if I could crash in the basement. My mom didn't answer, and when she doesn't answer, it's probably not a good idea to come home unless I want to walk in on something that'll make me wanna bleach my eyes. Learned that lesson the hard way."

The sound of his melodic laugh filled the car, then, when she just stared at him, the amusement fell from his face.

"Oh, you're not kidding?"

It was her turn to laugh.

"I wish," she said, cutting him a sidelong glance before setting her sights back on the road ahead. "She and her weirdo boyfriend literally demand that I don't come home on nights he's over. Apparently, it's their constitutional right to fuck on the kitchen counter, I don't know."

There was a dip of silence in which neither of them said a word after that.

In his peripheral vision, he could see her fiddling with the hem of her soaked cheer skirt awkwardly as she avoided looking at him at all costs, and, suddenly, something changed.

Y/N had befriended Nancy shortly before their breakup, so he hasn't been in close proximity to her many times. Seeing that they've been broken up for a year, he doesn't have a reason to interact with her except for when he's picking up or dropping off the kids from the Wheeler's house when she's hanging out there. But, that night in his car, she was acting strange around him. Strange in the way that girls used to act around him all the time back when they hoped and prayed for a chance with the most popular guy at school. He didn't understand why she was behaving in such a way now, though. The way he saw it, he was a loser who couldn't even get into college like his other classmates and worked at Family Video.

What he didn't know, however, is that she didn't think he was a loser at all. If anything, her view on him then made a complete turnaround compared to when he was dating her best friend. When she got stuck with him and the kids last year at Joyce Byers' house and watched him go head-to-head with Billy in defense of Lucas, she knew a small part of her heart would always belong to Steve Harrington. She was the one to clean the cuts lining his face, as well as the blooded nose caused by the beating he took, and place bandaids from under the Byers' sink on each one of them. After that, she didn't see him again outside of fleeting glances in the hallway and through the windows of his car parked outside the Wheeler's place until recently.

He said, trying to keep his cool with the smoking hot girl he never noticed last year due to his Nancy-induced heartache sitting in the passenger's seat of his car, "I just dropped Dustin off at Mike's and Nancy was on her way out to see Jonathan."

She asked, "How about your place, then?" and the rest was history.

It wasn't even a half hour later that she was laid back on his couch with his head buried between her thighs and a hand gripping a fistful of his hair as she panted for air amidst the build-up to her orgasm. Then, after she woke in his bedroom and snuck out of the front door before his parents could notice her presence in the house, it wasn't long before they crossed paths again...and again and again. She'd wait around the back of the school where she knew Nancy wouldn't see for him to pick her up from school after his shift at Family Video, and they began to develop a routine of swimming in his pool, having dinner together since his parents couldn't be bothered to hang around with him, and having sex before he had to drive her back home in time to do her homework before bed.

As far as she was concerned, they were just having fun and not labeling whatever it was that was going on between them. Steve, on the other hand, was already imagining how her name might sound with his last name attached to the end of it.

Now, as they're sitting in Nancy's basement and helping the kids with the projects they waited until the very last second to start, he's still fantasizing about all the things he wants to do with her. Not just sexually, either. He's been trying to work up the nerve to ask her on a date for the past few days, but every time he tries, his nerves get in the way. That voice in the back of his mind sings its doubts, telling him that she'll never want him in the same way that he wants her. No one has ever wanted him to be the one, so why should it start with her?

When Steve gets up from the couch to pay for the pizza they ordered to the house, Nancy casts a look over her should at him to ensure he's too far to hear and scoots closer to Y/N while the kids are engrossed in their own conversations.

She whispers, "Can I tell you something? It's about Steve..."

Anxiety tightens the muscles of Y/N's chest as she tries to keep her face schooled into a mask of neutrality. Although she feels like the truth is written across her face every time she comes into the presence of her best friend, she is outwardly as calm as can be. She doesn't know whether or not she should take pride in the skill she's acquired in lying since she and Steve began hooking up.

What else can she do except nod?

Nancy goes on in a hushed tone, "I've been kind of having these...feelings for him again lately. Feelings I haven't had since we were together before. And I love Jonathan, I do, but I guess I'm just worried about what I'm missing. I just don't know if I made the right choice now that these feelings are back." As soon as the words leave her mouth, she shakes her head and shuts her as if that'll take them back. "That was so fucked up of me to say, I'm sorry."

The news sinks home inside of her like lead weighing her down at the bottom of her stomach. Part of the reason she hadn't bothered entertaining the curious side of her that wondered if Steve felt anything more for her in the quiet moments after they had sex, when he'd linger on top of her for a few seconds longer and murmur his praises into the warm curve of her neck, was because she'd be confronted with the issue of her best friend being his ex. Granted, they weren't best friends for the majority of the time they dated. She was more of a post-Steve thing, but that isn't the point. The point is, her own moral code, as well as girl code, dictates that Steve is strictly off limits. But, if that's true, why does she want him so badly?

But because of this, she cannot do anything other than force a reassuring smile on her face as she reaches for her friend's hand and whispers, "Thoughts aren't inherently bad or good, they're just thoughts. Everyone has doubts to themselves, but I think it's important to remember how well you and Jonathan work together. I mean, he was the reason you left Steve in the first place."

The words she doesn't speak aloud but feels clawing at her from the inside begging to be released are something along the lines of, Please, don't drag him back just to break his heart again in another year. Don't steal him away if you don't really want him. But, she can't say that, not because it isn't her honest opinion regardless of her current relationship with him, but because Nancy would know based on the waver in her voice that something is going on between them.

To her mortification, her words don't appear to help the difficult debate waging war on Nancy's mind. If anything, it muddles things further and creates more discourse.

"You're right, you're absolutely right, but..." Of course, there's a but. "What if my instinct is trying to tell me something and I'm ignoring it?"

There's a drawn-out pause, then—

"Maybe just wait and see how you feel for a few more weeks before you say or do anything. It might just be one of those things that comes and goes, y'know?"

Nancy is quick to nod, setting her focus back on the partially painted piece of cardboard belonging to Max's unfinished project. For another minute or so, Y/N can't do anything but focus on her out of the corner of her eye, worry stirring to life within that the happiness she's experienced in the past few weeks will be taken from her the second Nancy decides to talk about the feelings she's having.

Steve isn't hers, so why does she feel this nagging possessive instinct whenever she imagines her friend acting on the feelings she just admitted to having? She never realized until now, but she doesn't think she can share him. Whether that means they will soon need to have a talk about their arrangement and how the feelings she's having are getting in the way of it being just "fun" or not, she isn't sure, but she knows one thing.

She needs to find him.

Y/N sets down what she'd been working in favor of standing from her spot on the floor, knees tucked beneath her bottom on a stray cushion, and offers up a placating smile when multiple faces around the room perk up to see why she's leaving.

"Where are you going?" Mike asks.

"Bathroom," she says. "Be right back."

With a quick, worried glance at Nancy calms her nerves instantly. There's no suspicion present on her friend's face. If anything, she's too focused on the task at hand, as well as the difficult debate going on within her head over the whole Steve versus Jonathan thing that has existed since junior year of high school, to notice or care about her sneaking away to "use the bathroom". It allows Y/N's racing heart to slow momentarily as she ascends the old staircase to the Wheeler's basement and enters the main level of the house. Slowly, carefully, she shuts the door to the basement behind her to keep any conversation she may have with Steve as private as possible.

The bright array of cozy lights strung up around the Christmas tree positioned in the corner of the living room passes in her periphery on her way to the front door where she sees Steve talking to the pizza guy with one hand casually propped against the open door. She assumes it must be an old friend, perhaps someone who used to be on the varsity basketball or baseball team with him back when they were in school together, but it matters little to her who they are at the moment. The only thing she can think to do is stake her claim before it's too late. Or, at least, have one last good night with him before Nancy takes him back.

She waits with her back leaned up against the staircase railing and watches him take the stack of three boxes from the delivery man after handing him the cash as payment.

"Alright, have a nice night, man," Steve says.

The man lifts a hand to wave goodbye over his shoulder as he's turning to walk off in the direction of his parked car, and, with that, the front door swings shut. When he turns around with the pizza boxes balanced precariously in one hand, it's difficult not to flinch and drop them all to the floor at the unexpected sight of her standing there.

"Jesus Christ, you scared the shit out of me," he says after a second is taken to steady himself, one hand pressed over his chest as though to soothe his heart after the drastic shock it received. When she remains quiet, he furrows his brows, continuing, "You're really quiet right now. It's actually kind of creepy." His voice then quiets as a new thought comes to him. "...Unless it's a weird sex thing, then I might like it."

All she does is allow her lips to curl up a bit at the ends in a slight smile before she turns to walk down the hallway to the kitchen. The living room is being used by Mr. and Mrs. Wheeler to watch a popular movie Steve so kindly held aside at Family Video for them when they asked Y/N if he could do so. And, of course, since she was the one who asked, it was delivered right to Mrs. Wheeler the second he arrived tonight.

In fact, the exact words he said, although quietly so anyone at the store couldn't hear, when she asked was, "Sure. Anything for my girl."

My girl.

As she walks through the entrance to the kitchen with her back to him, she picks the two words apart over and over again. Particularly, she gets stuck on the first one. My. It lights a fire in the pit of her abdomen, desire flaring to life at the memory of him casually declaring her as something that belonged to him. My. A possessive word. One he had been comfortable in using. The question is, would he be comfortable with it the other way around? The voice in the back of her head can't help but wonder...

Is Steve hers?

He keeps eyeing her up suspiciously throughout the process of setting the pizza boxes down on the kitchen island one by one and checking to make sure they're what they ordered before the delivery man pulls out of the driveway. Once it's confirmed that they are, in fact, two plain cheese pizzas and one pepperoni for Max and Dustin, he pauses to call her odd behavior into question again.

Steve asks, "Okay, you're really starting to freak me out. Are you okay? Did I do something?" She doesn't allow her face to give away any of her true intentions as she walks around the island, making sure in her peripheral vision that there's no one around to see them as she approaches. "If I did something, you can just tell me—”

His sentence is cut off at the end by her kissing him to shut him up.

It's a surprise, sure, but it doesn't take him any longer than a second or two to realize what's happening and react accordingly. As if it's an instinct as natural as breathing, he kisses her back with an urgency that brings a flushed color to his cheeks and settles both hands on her hips to tug them closer. The warmth of his fingertips touching the stretch of bare skin between her slightly too-short sweater and jeans draws a barely-audible noise from the back of her throat. But, he hears it. He always picks up on those little things about her, whether they be sounds, expressions she makes, or anything of the sort.

The kiss is cut short a second or two later out of fear of someone walking in, but his hands refuse to stray from her hips when she pulls away with a look in her eyes he knows all too well. Her pupils are blown wide with lush, glazed-over in a way they never get outside of moments such as these, and he knows straight away what she wants from him.

He asks, "So, it was a sex thing?"

Finally, she can't help but break her act of stoicism and offers him a bright smile.

"Shut up and follow me."

"What about the kids—"

The sharp tug of her hand wrapped around his wrist brings him away from the kitchen island, bringing him along in every step she takes toward the entrance to the hallway. She doesn't bother to look over his shoulder when she next speaks. Instead, she gives his hand a reassuring squeeze to get the same sentiment across as the words leave her mouth.

"They think I'm in the bathroom. And, for all they know, you could be outside talking to the pizza guy," she offers.

It's settled, then.

Still, in the time it takes her to drag him down the hall and up the staircase behind her, Steve can't help but check over his shoulder multiple times to ensure Nancy, Robin, the kids, or Nancy's parents didn't see them leaving to go up the stairs. The last thing he expected tonight was for her to pounce on him like a feral animal and drag him upstairs to have her way with him in a house filled with people. They've done it in risky places before, like on the break room table at Family Video and his car parked at Lover's Lake, but they've never done it in a place as risky as Nancy's house.

Despite the mild confusion it causes, whatever it is that has gotten into her, he prays it never leaves. It isn't unusual for her to initiate sex with him. Hell, half the time, she's the one who leans in to kiss him first or calls to ask if he's home, but he has always been the one to initiate in situations like these. It was his idea to fuck her on the break room table just like it was his idea to bend her over the hood of his car at Lover's Lake last week.

Every door they pass and briefly pause at is a no-go. Mike's room? Absolutely not. Mr. and Mrs. Wheeler's room? Never. Holly's room? That would be the most deplorable thing either of them has ever done. So, when they reach Nancy's half-open bedroom at the end of the hallway, Y/N has no other choice but to pull him inside and push him up against the shut door.

In between the eager, open-mouthed kisses she gives him, he murmurs, "We shouldn't be doing this. Nance will literally murder us if she finds out."

She shakes her head into the kiss and pulls back, breathless, to say, "Then, we're gonna have to be quiet, huh?" before promptly reconnecting their mouths.

His face lights up at the mischievous tone her voice takes, and he can't ignore how his cock starts to strain against the tight denim of his Levi's at the mere thought of fucking her while everyone else is unaware downstairs. She can feel him smirk against her lips, his chest jerking with the sound of him chuckling to himself at how this girl has him wrapped around her finger.

And there it is. With a conflicted feeling of acceptance, he finally realizes he's falling in love again.

As soon as he realizes that this is real, that they're truly about to do this, Steve takes control of the situation in a matter of seconds. His hands make quick work of tugging her sweater off of her body. Her arms rise to make the task easier for him as he frantically undresses her and tosses the knitted fabric onto the floor behind the locked bedroom door. When she's free of the confines of her warm sweater, she then reaches for his shirt and rips it off with the same frantic nature he had with her. There's a time and place for unhurried, slow sex, but this is not one of them. By her estimation, they have five minutes to spare before their friends notice their absence and begin to question their whereabouts.

He hefts her up into her arms with his hands grasping the backs of her thighs to bring them around his hips, but right before he can set her down on the bed, she shakes her head.

"No, Steve, the headboard hitting the wall will be too loud."

This earns a scoff from him.

Though he'd never be dumb enough to bring up his ex while he's about to have sex with her, Steve is as familiar with Nancy's room as she is, if not more. After all, he snuck inside a handful of times and had to get creative so as to not allow her parents to hear what they were doing while they were asleep across the hallway. Her headboard does bang against the wall, that she's right about, but her mattress doesn't creak much, and if he puts a few of her pillows between the wall and the headboard...

He tosses her down onto the bed with ease and crawls up to meet her where she lays with her head cradled against one of the pillows. His hand reaches to the side to grab the other one and maneuvers it between the wall and headboard, then grabs one of the many decorative ones to do the same on the other end before coming back to her.

Ignoring her previous statement entirely, Steve asks, "You're real cute when you're nervous, you know that?"

The button and zipper to her jeans come undone with a few deft movements of his fingers, and she can't help but grin up at him in spite of her fear of getting caught as he pulls her pants and underwear down her legs in one smooth motion.

There's something better to her about being called cute or beautiful by him rather than the typical "hot" label guys have thrown at her. Don't get her wrong, being called hot is flattering in circumstances of one-night stands or even random compliments from those she likes, but having the guy you like call you cute or beautiful in a moment of heady desire is different. She knows by the way he said it alone that she isn't just an easy fuck to him. He genuinely likes her, and that's not something she ever expected to happen seeing that he used to be a well-known jerk as well as her best friend's ex-boyfriend.

He hardly has the chance to undo his own jeans and shove them partway down his thighs before she's tugging him down onto her with a needy plea for him to fuck her. Her arms wrap around his shoulders as he kisses her, his tongue invading her mouth without warning, and uses one of his hands to guide his cock through her sticky folds. When his tip rubs against her throbbing clit, she can't help but whisper more desperately, urging him to get on with it.

"Steve," she says, a sharp gasp escaping at the feeling of his tip against her entrance, "Please"—her hips press up to sink the tip of his cock into her a little more—"Need you."

Usually, he'd be the insufferable little bastard he always is and retort something like, "Yeah?" or "Tell me what you need from me," for the sake of getting her to blush for him, but they have already used up at least a minute of their time before things become suspicious, so he gives her what she wants without protest.

She cries out beneath him when he sinks into her with no opportunity for her to gradually adjust to his thick cock. Her fingernails dig into the soft skin of his shoulders with enough force to leave crescent-shaped marks indented into him. Before she can think to make another noise again, though, Steve's hand is covering her mouth.

His eyes have gone wide, and the smooth motion of his hips stalling for a second as he listens for anyone coming up the stairs before he pulls his hand from her face. Somewhere to the right of her body, he reaches to grab something she cannot be bothered to look at.

He says softly, "Gotta be quiet, baby," and stuffs the shirt Nancy left on the bed into her open mouth.

Y/N doesn't even have the chance to be shocked or turned on by the fact that he gagged her with his ex-girlfriend's shirt—while they're fucking on her bed—because he starts to move the second he's sure her noises won't get them caught. Well, at least, the noises coming from her mouth. As for the sound of their bodies smacking together, as well as the wet squelching sound that accompanies it from how wet she is, whether or not anyone hears that is left up to chance.

His arms are braced against the bed on either side of her head, caging her in and forcing her to look at him while he ruins her. It doesn't take much for her to feel that fire in the pit of her belly flare up. All it takes is the feeling of him pushing in and out of her, the spare hair at the base of his cock brushing against her clit on the upstroke, and she's melting in his arms.

Seeing Steve above her is like seeing every one of her wet dreams come to life. Sometimes she does dream about him. Whether it be when she's alone in her bedroom or sleeping beside him on nights they're both too exhausted to stray from his bed, she'll wake on the edge of climaxing with her hands balling up the sheets into a fist. When she's alone, she'll take care of it herself. When she's with him, she'll roll over and start nudging her face into the curve of his neck, peppering kisses there until he begins to stir from his sleep.

The sound of her muffled moans coming through the makeshift gag encourages him in his efforts to press himself deeper inside of her on every thrust. One of the hands beside her head grasps one of the posts of Nancy's headboard for leverage while the other slips down between their bodies to press down on the lowest point of her abdomen. When he puts pressure there, it intensifies the pleasure felt from the steady rocking motions he makes into her, and she can't help but buck her hips up to meet his thrusts.

The heel of his hand presses down right above her pubic bone, leaving his fingertips in a perfect position to rub her clit for her. He knows they have very little time, so he doesn't bother trying to get her to come from penetration alone like he often does when they're alone in his empty house while his parents are out. Before him, she never even knew that was something her body was capable of. That's not to say every other guy before him was terrible in bed, but there's a reason he gained a good reputation with the ladies in Hawkins. The first of which was that he had, as she already knew from girls who gossiped about hooking up with him, a big dick. The second and most important reason of all was that he knew what to do with it.

The sight of her breasts bouncing, although hindered slightly by the bra they couldn't be bothered to remove, brings him closer to his end quicker than he expected. He'd like to think he's experienced enough to spend more than a minute and a half fucking a girl before he feels himself getting close, but, with her, one would think he's a touch-starved virgin with how easy it is for her to work him up.

His forehead drops down to press against hers as he mutters, "God, you're fucking perfect," with the words pitching up into a whine at the end from how she clenches around him.

Just when he thinks he can feel her tensing up and writhing beneath him with the build-up to her orgasm, someone knocks on the bedroom door.

He goes as still as death, and Y/N, too lost in a world that solely consists of Steve Harrington and nothing else, looks up at him with her brows scrunching in confusion until she too hears what drew his attention away from her and caused him to stop.

"Y/N?"

Her eyes go wide at the sound of Nancy's voice, her hand coming up to rip the balled-up shirt out of her mouth in time to respond to her. But, of course, Steve would never let her off that easily. As she opens her mouth to speak, he starts to thrust into her again—slowly, deeply—and it takes everything she has not to whine his name as he rubs her sensitive clit in lazy circular motions to interrupt her train of thought. With the careful pace set and the pillows preventing the headboard from hitting the wall, the bed's constant shifting doesn't make enough noise to alert Nancy of what's happening inside.

She clears her throat and calls out before he can snap his hips forward into hers again, "Yeah? What's up?"

The doorknob rattles as though the person behind the door is trying to get in.

"Why is the door locked?"

Y/N looks up at Steve with pleading eyes that beg him to cease this torture and allow her the time to respond, but he doesn't. He just dips his head down to kiss at her neck, careful not to leave a mark behind, and leaves her to fend for herself.

"Um," she says, voice a tad louder than she intended from a particularly hard jerk of his hips, and rushes to cover up the accidental outburst, "I figured I'd change into my pajamas for the night. If we're gonna be eating a lot of pizza I don't really wanna"—a whimper is choked back at his fingers speeding up their movement on her clit—"be uncomfortable in my jeans."

"Oh, okay. Well, we're all downstairs whenever you're done." There's a dip of silence, as though Nancy is hesitating before saying what comes next, then, "Have you seen Steve? Dustin was looking for him when he came upstairs. None of us can find him."

Under his breath, he murmurs in annoyance with his hot exhales puffing against her ear, shaking his head, "Henderson."

Of course, Dustin would be the one to send Nancy upstairs in search of him when he's seconds from coming inside her best friend.

Her cock-drunk brain takes a delayed few seconds to conjure a believable alibi for the man fucking her into the mattress right now as she claws at his back and bites down on his shoulder to stifle the moans that try to escape the back of her throat. As Steve grows more and more confident with his ability to ramp up the pace and depth of his thrusts without the bed making too much noise, she starts to unravel rather quickly. She can sense it building in the bottom of her belly and starts shaking her head at him as if he can do anything to get Nancy to go away.

She has to concentrate all of her energy on keeping her voice steady as she says, "He said he was going out to get some soda for the kids 'cause he heard El asking Mike if you guys had some. He was just going to the store for it, so he'll probably be back in like ten minutes."

The second the last few words leave her, she tips over the edge, and his hand comes down to smother her mouth to prevent any noises she makes from echoing in the small room. Neither of them acknowledges whatever parting words Nancy offers before she retreats downstairs to the kitchen for dinner. Steve is far too preoccupied with watching and, more importantly, feeling her come beneath him.

The euphoria rushing through her has tears falling from her watery eyes as she embraces the intense high with her arms clinging around his waist for support. Now that he hears Nancy bounding down the steps, every one creaking beneath her shifting weight, he pounds into her with no thoughts present in his head other than those relating to her and the climax he chases with little care for how the bed begins to squeak beneath them.

"Steve," she cries out with tears slipping down her cheeks.

He brushes her hair from her face in a soothing, repetitive motion and whispers, "Such a good girl," as he pins her to the bed with his weight and uses the remaining scraps of energy left in him to slam his hips down against hers with a ferocity she can hardly cope with in her sensitive state. It doesn't take any longer than a few seconds for him to be tipped over the edge along with her.

His eyes are squeezed shut on instinct when he spills into her, hips jerking haphazardly, but she's quick to remedy that.

"Look at me," she whispers with a hand closing around his neck to force his head up, and he obeys without hesitation.

And, of course, she was right to tell him to do so. As soon as he meets eyes with her, the explosive pleasure felt in the span of ten or so seconds it takes for him to ride it out is heightened to a degree he rarely experiences it at. Even as it begins to slip away from him, he keeps rocking into her at a slow pace until the dying undulations of his hips give way to an exhaustion he can no longer ignore.

He pulls out of her, careful in his movements to mind her sensitivity, and falls onto his back on the empty space atop the mattress beside her. The second he leaves her, she's quick to tug her discarded panties back up her legs to avoid staining Nancy's bedding with his cum.

His hair-smattered chest has a thin sheen of perspiration over it, a drop of it rolling up and down with the rapid rise and fall of his panting breaths. Y/N watches its path as she turns onto her side and scoots closer as subtly as she can to savor the warmth emanating from his body.

Steve doesn't even pretend not to notice her sneaky attempt at cuddling up to him. He stretches his left arm over her head and uses the other to scoop around her waist, bringing her in to rest her head on his shoulder how he knows she likes to. They don't have much time to spare, but, for the next half minute, they lay together in the afterglow and pretend they have eternity to waste away together.

Breaking the silence, he groans and rubs his eyes, saying, "Shit, now I have to go get soda for the kids."

The sound of her giggling brings his attention over to the pretty girl laying with her head on his shoulder. Her hand trances circles in the layer of sweat shining on his chest, playing with the hair growing there whenever she becomes bored with her designated pattern of tracing every once in a while.

"Sorry about that. I couldn't think of anything else," she says softly.

He just shakes his head, then presses a kiss to the top of her head.

"Don't worry about it."

She's the first one to leave the bed to search for her discarded clothes, and once she gets up, he doesn't have many reasons to continue laying there other than the fact that he gets especially tired after he comes. Still, he forced himself to get up out of bed after pulling his pants back up into place and zipping them up.

Together, they redress in silence and listen to the sounds of the younger teens shouting at each other and laughing in the kitchen below them. It brings a soft smile to her face to imagine everyone having fun together after all of the heartache they've shared as a group.

"What are you smiling for?" Steve asks.

Her head snaps up from where it had been craned down to search through her backpack for the pajamas she mentioned to Nancy not long ago.

She shrugs.

"I just like hearing them have fun. They deserve it after everything they've been through."

The conversation drops back off into silence again after this, and he can't help but smile to himself as he thinks over what she said, trying not to look up and watch her redress while doing it like a creep. It's only another minute that passes before they're both fully clothed again—he in the same outfit he was wearing prior to their impromptu fuck, she in the pink matching pajama set he's seen her wear a million times. Once she runs her fingers through her hair a few times, it looks as though nothing out of the ordinary happened during her trip upstairs.

While he waits for her to fold up the clothes she changed out of, sitting on the edge of the bed, a nagging curiosity compelled him to ask her, "Not that I'm complaining, but what made you so..." He trails off for a second, trying to find the right word for it. "Horny. We could've just gone on a drive to the store together and pulled over if you asked."

For the first time since she dragged Steve upstairs, the words Nancy said to her in the basement come back to the forefront of her mind. This time, however, it doesn't haunt her as much as it had before she came to find him. There's a lingering sense of insecurity, but after what just happened, she has a good feeling he's been over Nancy for a while. If he weren't, he probably would've freaked out and stopped when she knocked on the door, but he hadn't. Instead, he decided to keep going for the sake of teasing her and acted as though his ex wasn't even standing on the other side of the door.

Y/N avoids making eye contact with him at all costs when she finally answers.

"Um," she says, "When you went upstairs for the pizza, Nancy said something to me about wondering if she made a mistake breaking up with you, and I guess I got a little...jealous..."

Before he can even take a breath, let alone process everything she said and come up with a coherent response, she continues rambling out of fear of what he'll say when he responds. Part of her still fears that he'll end whatever it is they have for the sake of rekindling what he had with Nancy.

"I know we aren't—like—dating, obviously, but I haven't been with anyone else since we started doing this, and if you wanna get back together with Nancy, I won't get in the way. I promise. If that's what you want, it's fine." She starts to pace back and forth in front of where he sits, dumbfounded, on the foot of the bed. "I just—I like hanging out with you, and I guess I like you, and the idea of seeing you with anyone else makes me go nuts, so—"

This time, it's his turn to shut her up with a kiss.

She was so caught up in her improvised speech, she didn't even see him standing up from the bed until his hands were cupping her face to pull her into a desperate kiss. It doesn't last any longer than a moment, but, fuck, it makes her even weaker in the knees than she already is from getting fucked by him a few minutes ago. Her hands shoot out to grasp onto his biceps, squeezing hard to keep herself upright, and he reciprocates by allowing one of his arms to cocoon around her back to provide her additional security.

When he pulls away, she starts to chase his lips, and he must fight the urge to smile hard enough to make his cheeks ache at the sight of it. The hand cupping her face moves to tuck her hair behind her ear, then drags his pointer finger along the edge of her jaw until she opens her eyes to see him staring at her.

"I don't want Nance, I want you."

Heat rushes to her cheeks in response to his honesty to add to the flush already present there from the strenuous exercise they endured together. And he loved it. He relishes in how bashful and skittish his unabashed desire makes her. Typically, she never lacks confidence in their time spent together. She was the one who suggested they go to his place that first night when he found her biking home in the rain. She was the one who dragged him upstairs demanding they have sex. Yet, now, she's turning all shy on him.

She tries her hardest to play it cool, though, shrugging and saying through a smile, "Good," before taking his hand to drag him over to the window he used to use to sneak into Nancy's room.

It's the same window she uses to sneak into her room on nights when Mr. and Mrs. Wheeler say no to their daughter's pleas to have her friend over, so she's quite familiar with how easy it is to enter and exit from. Thank God he has his wallet and keys stowed in the pockets of his jeans. If he left them downstairs, he could always go out and window and come through the front door pretending he "forgot" them, but that wouldn't be the most believable excuse considering how long he's been gone.

Seconds after she opens the window, he's crawling through with a fumbling awkwardness that ends with him bumping his head on the side of the house with a soft, "Ouch!" muttered into the cold night air.

When he's finally settled on the other side of the window, standing on the roof of the garage with his hands gripping the window sill, he takes another few seconds to look at her.

"I'm gonna miss you tonight. I didn't know you were sleeping here," he says, not wanting to leave just yet.

To this, she simply bends down, pokes her head through the window, and kisses him goodbye. Her hand grasps the hair at the base of his neck to guide him into it, and he returns the enthusiasm immediately, rising onto his tiptoes to deepen the kiss as if doing so will make the short time they're to spend apart easier somehow.

Their lips are still brushing when she pulls back to whisper, "I'm coming over tomorrow night, remember?"

He pecks her lips again, then pulls back, saying, "It's a date."

Throughout the ordeal of Steve jumping down from the roof and landing on his feet in the driveway with a muffled groan, she watches with a goofy smile on her face from the bedroom window. The look he shoots over his shoulder at her to check if she saw him stumble on the landing only widens that smile, and she knows he's blushing in embarrassment without the porch light being on to light his face.

It's only when he drives off in the direction of the nearest store that she shuts the window to keep out the cold that's raising goosebumps on her skin and turns to lean against it with a sigh. It isn't an exasperated one or even a sad one. It's a sigh caused by disbelief and joy. It doesn't matter that he's her best friend's ex at the moment. They'll find a way to break the news with as little fallout as possible when the time comes.

"I called to check and work is closed because of the storm." He moves to stand next to you as you both look out at the snow.

"Damn," you say. "Guess we're snowed in. Good thing I went to Bradley's yesterday. Was this on the weather channel at all?" 

"Don't think so," he replies. "One point Indiana, zero points weatherman." He stretches, one hand in the air and the other scratching at this thatch of chest hair. You watch, still blinking the sleep from your eyes. "Bet the library is closed, too," he says, referring to your job. "I'll call 'em." He bumps your chin with his knuckle before going back to the kitchen for the phone. 

You go to brush your teeth and wonder how long it'll snow. Steve slides into the bathroom as you're spitting into the sink and leans on the doorframe. He still hasn't put a shirt on and if he keeps this up you're going to be forced to drag him back to bed. 

"Closed!" He grins at you. He wipes at his lip with the pad of his thumb and you copy his movement, but he shakes his head. "Hold on," he says, moving into your space. You stand still and let him clean off the spare bit of toothpaste.

"What are we going to do all day?" you ask. He shrugs and makes his I have an idea but I'm going to pretend it's a joke in case you don't like it face. You know this face very well.

"Oh, I don't know," he says, resting his hip against the counter. "We could have sex all day, I guess." He says it like he's talking about doing chores.

"Steve," you scoff. You're a little cold in the sweatpants and borrowed shirt you're wearing, and you can't deny that his words make you heat up a little. You could make him work for it a little, but he just looks so...fuckable right now. 

"What?" he says innocently. "Do you have any other ideas?" He reaches out to toy with the hem of his shirt that you're wearing. 

"Plenty," you say, and he looks ready to argue. "But yours isn't that bad."

"Wait, really?" he says, delighted. His hand slides under the shirt to palm your hip. "We don't have to have sex all day. But at least until lunchtime."

You take a step closer to him and run your nose along his jawline. "You're that horny this early in the morning?" He swallows and you hear it, you're so close, but before he can touch you more you step out of his hold and wander back to the bedroom to flop yourself on the bed. Steve is quick on your heels. 

"Duh," he says. You're on your back, feet still touching the floor but arms thrown wide. "How could I not be? I mean, look at you?"

You scoff. "Yeah, my bedhead and ratty pjs really scream sexy," you say. His eyes narrow and he moves to stand between your legs, reaching for you. You grab his hands and he pulls you up so you're sitting, staring up at him. He trails his fingers up your forearms, tracing patterns on your biceps until he cups your face. He presses one thumb firmly against the corner of your mouth and your lips part a little. 

"Exactly," he rasps. "Smart girl." His sleep pants aren't leaving much to the imagination -- when you look away from his pretty eyes and down your nose instead you can see the outline of his cock very close to your face. It looks like he's already half-hard and you haven't even done anything. Knowing that you can make Steve Harrington come undone like this never stops thrilling you. 

"Well, let's get started," you say. Your tongue darts out to lick his thumb and he makes a punched out sound that is nothing compared to the groan he looses when you dip your fingers under his waistband and pull down his sleep pants. He doesn't wear underwear to bed so they come off easily and his cock springs free. His fingers move from your jaw to tangle in your hair and you look up at him to find him glassy-eyed and slack-jawed already.

"Damn, okay," he says. "Happy snow day to me." You hold a hand up and he looks at it wordlessly for a second before he spits into your palm, lips parted as he watches you take him in hand for one long stroke. Steve is big, but you've had time to perfect blowing him. It takes a mix of your mouth and your hands and a lot of spit. You keep your eyes on him as you lick his tip and he hisses. "Christ."

"No," you say sweetly, "just me." He throws his head back and you can tell he's trying very hard not to pull your hair too much but he tugs a little as you start to suck in earnest, running your tongue over the ridge of his tip before bobbing on as much as you can take. Steve, for his part, whispers broken praises and only snaps his hips forward a few times. "So good, baby," he babbles. "Look so pretty like this."

Just when you feel him twitch a little in your mouth, he brings his hand back to your jaw to stop you. You pull off of him with a pop that makes him moan. "I'm gonna finish if you keep going," he says raggedly. His pupils are blown behind his thick lenses and his flush has spread all the way down his chest. 

"Isn't that the point?" you ask, stroking him slowly. He mutters something that sounds like fuck me . "You never let me make you come like this," you say. 

"Because I like coming inside you, you know that," he mumbles and you laugh, licking a long stripe up the underside of his shaft as you play with his balls. You relish the sound he makes, a broken gasp of your name. 

"Good thing we have all day then, huh?" Before he can reply you take him in your mouth again, pumping what you can't reach, though you take him deep enough that the head of his cock bumps the back of your throat a few times and you gag. You make sure to pop each ball into your mouth at least once, feel their heavy weight on your tongue, before he starts to pull on your hair a little too hard and you know he's close. 

"Gonna swallow for me?" he pants. "Gonna suck me dry--" He breaks off with a high keen and his hips stutter but you're ready for it, letting him thrust a few times as he spurts into your mouth and you swallow around him as best you can before popping off. 

He looks at you with such heat that you have to look away. "Pretty good, yeah?" You reach forward and tuck him back into his pants.

Steve wastes no time bending down to kiss you, wiping spit from your chin with his thumb as he does so. He must tastes himself on your tongue and it makes your cunt throb. "Really fucking good," he says, pulling on your bottom lip gently with his teeth. "Your turn." He hooks his hands under your armpits and manages to half toss, half shove you back on the bed before he takes his glasses off and puts them on the dresser behind him.

"Steve!" He kneels on the edge before crawling forwards to flop on his back beside you. He looks at you expectantly and you raise your eyebrows.

"You wanna sit on my face?" he asks, grinning. You've done it before, only a few times, and you've been wanting to ask him if you could try it again. It's just so...intense. "You don't have to," he adds. "I'll go down on you however you want."

"No, I want to," you say, lifting your hips and shedding your own pants and underwear. The cold bedroom air on your bare cunt is enough to make you clench, you're so worked up. "Coming in hot," you mutter, getting on your knees and swinging a leg over his chest.

"I sure hope so," Steve teases. His palms rest on the curve of your ass as he nudges you to scoot forward. You do, bracing your hands on the headboard of your bed. His hands settle on your thighs, fingers digging into your flesh. "So pretty," he breathes. "You know how pretty you are? Wet, too. Dripping, just from sucking my cock."

"Steve," you grit out. He laughs breathily and tugs you down so that his nose brushes your clit and you whimper. You pull one hand from the headboard to fist it in his hair and he hums before he licks a long stripe through your folds. "Shit," you groan. He pulls your thighs even farther apart so you sit more firmly on him and starts to lap at you in earnest, sucking on your clit and bumping his nose with it when he circles your entrance with his tongue. 

"Pretty sounds," he says when he pulls away for a moment. "You always make such pretty sounds when I'm eating you out, baby." You can't even look at him, can't get a single thought to make sense as you tug on his hair again. You're so close from his words, from his touch, from his mouth. You can feel your orgasm rising, rising, rising, and you need him to just keep going. 

"Don't stop," you grit out. "It feels so good. Please, Steve." He wastes no more time talking and instead laps at you like a man possessed as you spur him on with praise. "So good, Steve, I'm so close--"

A hand comes off your thigh and then you feel two fingers drag through your slick before he's pushing them in with no warning and you scream. "Yes," you cry. "Yes, Steve, oh my god--" He fucks you fast as he sucks on your clit and the hook in your belly draws tighter and tighter until--

Steve keeps lapping at you as you come, humming around your clit as you spasm around his fingers. You pull off of him with shaky legs as you start to come down from your high, the stimulation too much. His face is shiny with your slick and he looks appropriately smug. You flop back on the bed , your head near his hips and he reaches out to stroke your thigh. 

"Well, I'm hard again," he says. You turn your head and see the proof of it, the tip of his cock poking out over the waistband of his pants. Your cunt clenches even though you just came. "How do you want to start?"

"Start?" you laugh, heartbeat still slowing and breaths still fast. You close your eyes.

"Oh yeah, start." He squeezes your thigh. "We're gonna fuck ourselves into exhaustion by lunch, remember. It's not even 10:30!" 

"I think I love snow days," you say. You feel the bed shift and when you open your eyes Steve is on top of you, grinning. 

"Me too," he says before he dips down to kiss you.