land of ‘to-be read’ fics

Your eyes glanced at the ring around his neck now. Where the bat’s pronged tail had strangled him, sharp bits digging into the sensitive skin, the skin that you’d bitten and sucked and kissed better so many times. It was a clean, red, irritated circle around his neck now. You wondered if you’d ever be able to kiss his beautiful neck again without him wincing or flinching.

Right when he turned to meet your eyes, you had to refocus on the marred, bumpy road so you didn’t lose your balance. 

He was so fucking close to death. That thought wouldn’t leave your brain. If you’d jumped in after him even a second later, he might not have been riding a shitty bike right next to you right then. After the bats were hit off of his stomach by Nancy, after the third one was ripped from around his neck, your eyes had caught the bits of flesh that were on the ground.

His flesh.

You couldn’t count on your fingers how many times your lips and your fingers had touched that exact piece of flesh that was then ripped from his body, soon to be replaced with new flesh that your lips and fingers had never touched. You were desperate to feel close to him since he was so close to slipping from your fingers. And for some reason, you felt further from him than ever. Parts of him you’d shared were taken, chewed up and spit out onto the Upside Down’s charred ground like a bad piece of meat.

You finally pulled up to Eddie’s trailer. The battle wasn’t anywhere near over, but you were dying to go home. Or, basically the same, to be alone in a room with Steve so you could just hold him.

After some trial and error, Dustin managed to suspend a rope (a bunch of sheets tied together) between the gates, with a mattress on the overworld’s side for everyone to land on.

Robin went first. Then Eddie.

You honestly wanted to die rather than let Steve go last.

“Please,” you quietly begged. “You’ve been through enough. Please go ahead of me.”

He just smiled and shook his head, calm and collected as ever, like he wasn’t mauled by freakish creatures less than an hour ago. 

Knowing there was no budging him, you grasped onto the rope with a grunt, teeth grinding together as you worked to pull yourself up. Towards the top, you braced yourself for the nauseating switch between worlds where you would suddenly be falling.

You fell.

But it didn’t stop.

Before anything close to a scream could be ripped from your throat, you were hitting some sort of ground with a cough jolting through your lungs. Your eyes widened. You weren’t in Eddie’s bedroom in either dimension. It looked like Victor Creel’s house.

Rubbing your head, you slowly sat up. Pain shot through your body, your lungs still catching up with whatever just happened.

A low voice said your name. Your blood went cold, draining from your face, at the same time that your heart plummeted. Fuck.

You scrambled to get up, backing against the nearest wall. You couldn’t see the slimy, tendril-covered figure you knew as Vecna. Yet his voice sounded like it was right next to your ear. It felt like his long fingers were curling around your shoulder.

You yelped even though when you turned, no one was there. You stumbled through the house. Focus on getting out. Don’t let him in your head. Don’t look around. Just keep running.

So you ran. Ignoring his taunts and his stabs at your consciousness. You tried to search for anything that would get you back to your body, but the house seemed never ending. Rotting, decaying walls that extended forever, a ceiling dripping something thick and warm, floorboards that couldn’t stay in place that revealed crawling maggots under them when you misstepped. 

Vecna kept speaking right in your ear. You managed to tune it out until he said a name.

Steve.

Right when you realized what he said, you turned around, only to find yourself in a new room with his figure right in front of you. You froze in fear, save for your body’s trembling.

He leaned in close. Said your name again. “Oh… you really care about him don’t you?”

His claw came to hover right above your face. You sobbed, tensing under him, your head being forced to follow the upward motion of his hand. 

“No family. Few friends. He must be all you have.”

Hot tears streamed down your face. Your wide eyes stared directly at him in fear. You couldn’t do anything else.

“Imagine if I could take that all away.”

His hand quickly curled in on itself, drawing a gasp from you. 

Your brain was immediately flooded with images of Steve. Dead. Chest cavity ripped open by a demogorgon’s claws, face eaten and caved in by a bat, body impaled on a filthy spike in the middle of the upside down. Tens of hundreds of images of Steve without that beautiful little spark in his eyes plagued your vision, your brain, imbedding into your hippocampus for you to remember for the rest of your life.

Your eyes shot open with a gasp torn from your throat. Steve was in front of you again, but not dead. Not impaled or eaten or murdered. You collapsed backwards and he’s there to catch you, to make sure your pretty little head doesn’t hit the ground, murmuring reassurances to you and gingerly brushing back your sweaty hair.

Your body felt light, your brain barely there when he helped you through the gate. After some deliberation, his hands were gently guiding you into a separate room. Your blurry eyes took a moment to adjust.

He sat you on the edge of a tub. Okay. Eddie’s bathroom. Cramped and tight, nothing close to comfortable or calming.

“Hey,” Steve murmured, giving your cheek a gentle pat. “Hey. Come back to me, baby.”

Your eyes slowly focused on him again. He gave you the gentlest smile.

“There you are. Are you feeling alright?”

You couldn’t even begin to comprehend how to answer that question. So you just stayed silent. He sighed, running a hand through his thick hair.

“Honey. You scared the shit outta me, I gotta know that you’re at least still in there somewhere.”

You looked into those big hazel eyes, droopy and wide and sad. Your hands slowly came up to his face. Steve paused, looking deep into your eyes, searching for anything that told him what you were thinking.

An image that Vecna fed you flashed in front of your brain again, in front of your eyes. You couldn’t take it anymore.

So your lips found his desperately.

Steve hummed into the kiss, surprised, kissing you back for only a moment before holding your wrists in place and pulling back. “Hey…” He sighed. He squeezed his eyes shut as if holding himself back. 

“Talk to me,” he breathed. “What’s going through your head? What did you see when Vecna possessed you?”

You couldn’t bring yourself to say it. You just shook your head, tears flooding your eyes. 

“Please,” you whined. “I just… I need you. Is– is that okay?”

His face fell, yet it was still graced with a slight smile. “Here?”

“Please.”

Steve hesitated, busying himself by brushing back your hair and gently caressing your face with his rough, beaten hands. 

He answered by kissing you.

Tears ran down your face as you straddled him on the bathroom floor, your fingers combing through his hair, being careful where you put your weight because of his bandages.

He was so gentle. His touches were barely there, skimming your waist and your hips. He didn’t want to hurt you further than you were already hurt today.

Clothes were slowly peeled off, and when you finally sunk down on him, you began sobbing into his shoulder. Full-body, ugly, guttural sobs. Your hands clutched at his biceps as his arms wrapped around you, pulling you as close as possible without hurting himself.

“I thought I lost you,” you whimpered.

Steve scoffed, a light, barely there, dry chuckle. “I thought I lost you.”

You barely separated from him when you started moving up and down on him, whining into his shoulder, his hands on your hips aiding your movements. You couldn’t bear to be anything but close to him.

You pulled back to look into his beautiful, big, shiny eyes. The same eyes you’d envisioned over a hundred times without that shine in them, lifeless. You kissed him to try and brush the thought away.

His hands ran down your back. “I got you,” he murmured. “Don’t be scared. I’m right here, not leaving you. Always right here.”

His voice was calm, soothing. But his hips began to wantonly buck up into yours, meeting your movements, and his brows were pulled taught, eyes graced with something like fear hidden deep in there.

Steve was just as terrified as you.

When your body had stilled at the gate, your eyes rolled back, he thought it was over. It was a miracle that Max survived a possession, there was no way it would happen again. He practically saw it happen in his brain: your limbs snapping, your eyes being sucked inwards, all before your limp body folded and collapsed onto the floor with a squelch.

He had to shake the thought again. He had to focus on the feel of you, your wet warmth wrapped around him. He pressed kisses all over your face, just to feel your skin on his lips. Your warm skin. Blood still flowing underneath.

Steve took your hand and pressed it to his chest. You searched his eyes for an explanation.

“Feel my heart?” he said breathlessly, still fucking up into you. “It’s beating, yeah?” He pressed his hand to your chest now. “So is your’s, baby. We’re here.”

He pressed his hand to your lower abdomen now, drawing a gasp from you. “Feel me in here?” he groaned. He could feel his dick moving inside of you under his palm. “Just focus on that. Just focus on the feeling of me, right here inside you.”

You bit your lip to hold back a moan, tears pouring down your face, nuzzling into his shoulder again. Your walls clenched tight around him and Steve, knowing you like no one else, knew exactly what that meant.

“I got you,” he whispered in your ear.

Your vision went white as you came, as his own cum flooded you. You bit into his shoulder, gently so you didn’t hurt him further, to prevent your moans from being too loud, all while he shamelessly whimpered into your ear.

You collapsed on top of him, trembling. He rubbed your back a little firmer than gently, just to remind you he was still there. 

You pulled back to look at his face. His beautiful, beautiful face. Sleepy eyes with blown pupils, the strong slope of his nose, the pout of his lips, the moles sprinkled across his face that you once spent a while kissing each and every one.

While you were sure you didn’t look nearly as beautiful as him at that moment, broken and beaten and exhausted, the look in his eyes told you otherwise. Steve always looked at you like you were a goddess, his own personal Aphrodite sent to hold him and love him.

You leaned forward and gently pecked his lips. “I love you so much,” you breathed into him, barely above a whisper.

“I love you,” he breathed back, pulling you impossibly closer. “We’re safe. It’s not over yet, but we’re safe. I got you, baby.”

⋅───⊱༺ ♰ ༻⊰───⋅

steve knows he can flirt, he also knows she’s into him; she’s so obvious about it, with her wide eyes and stuttering and trying to hide her pretty smile and her pretty face.

the thing is, what steve doesn’t realize, is that she doesn’t take his interest seriously, i mean… he’s King Steve, right?

she thinks he’s just bored after breaking up and moving on from nancy wheeler, and it’s true, he has moved on, but she won’t believe he moved on because of her. she brushes it off as him just teasing her or joking or being naturally flirty or maybe he just wants to make her fall for him so he knows he still has that effect on girls.

he’d never truly want her, at least not for anything more than a hook up, and that’s just not her. even though yes, she’s falling for him day by day as he tries to get closer and closer to her, but she won’t let herself believe he might feel the same.

that’s what happens with girls like her, girls that never received any romantic validation. no one has ever taken an interest in her or tried to pursue her, and yeah, the fact she’s quiet and closed off and a loner plays a part in it, but she’s also demiromantic and demisexual, so she needs that extra emotional connection before romance or sex even becomes a possibility…

and there’s just no one that has the patience for that… right? and if someone does, what if she doesn’t reciprocate?

but she likes steve. she does. so much. she’s just trying her hardest to protect herself so she won’t fall for his charms, but he won’t let her!!! because steve sees that she likes him back, so he’s all in.

steve just thinks she’s so cute, so overwhelmingly kind, so sweet and soft and smiley, always giggling at silly things and petting stray animals and she always has flowers with her somewhere (from her job at the flower shop and the copious amounts of flora in her home), on her hair or behind her ear or just carrying them around; they make her feel happy and safe and calm. “ease her anxiety”, she once told him.

steve loves her flower printed dresses that look so good on her, and her flowy skirts that show off her pretty legs and soft thighs he’s dying to grab at, and her cute sweaters he just knows are soft to the touch just like her hands and cheeks that he’s managed to touch whenever she allows him just that little bit closer to her when he goes to her locker before third period.

then, there’s her pretty mary jane shoes or converse that always match her outfits in color, something steve finds so adorable, coupled with her dainty rings and a cute bee necklace she wears everyday that steve can’t stop imagining adding an ‘s’ pendant to someday.

but she dodges his advances. every time. chuckling as if he’s joking, walks away when she gets too flustered with a soft “gotta go, have a nice day, stevie”, like she doesn’t know his heart is about to burst out of his chest and that she’s the only one allowed to call him that at all. like she doesn’t see all the girls that are interested in steve look at her with jealousy because he only looks at her.

she’ll giggle and hide her cheeks and roll her eyes playfully and steve just doesn’t know how to make her believe him! how to prove to her he’s serious, that he wants something serious. with her, and her only.

so steve keeps flirting, keeps asking her out, keeps being sweet and affectionate and caring and tender, keeps making her so adorably flustered, smirking and winking at her, showing her his true self whenever he manages to keep her in his presence long enough before she scurries off… keeps ignoring any other girl that’s interested in him, saying he’s not interested and that he already has someone, and trying to make his baby finally give into him…

until one day she breaks down and just asks him to stop, tells him he won, she fell for it, he can stop now.

…what?

and that’s when he sees his sweet girl tear up, crybaby that she is, tells him he can stop trying to make her fall for him ‘cause she has and “he wins, okay?!” he can move on to the next girl and make her fall for him too. just to stop messing with her, it’s not fair.

and it breaks steve’s heart, it is actually painful. so he drops all of his walls and he confesses his love. though she’s hesitant at first, not believing her dream guy could possibly want her back, steve promises that if she gives him a chance, just one chance, he’ll prove to her she’s the only one he wants.

she says yes.

♡

── harmo’s footnotes:

hi ♡ this particular daydream is one that very dear to me, so i truly hope you enjoy it.

feel free to send some asks with further questions on this au and i’ll be more than happy to reply! maybe even write some small blurbs. i love you lots, mwah!

please remember to show your support by reblogging!

masterlist.

The afternoon sun warmed your shoulders as you walked through the glass doors of Munson's Bikes. A small bronze bell above the door jingled and then gave way to the familiar sound of classic rock music coming from somewhere behind the store.

The shop smelled like motor oil, gasoline, and warm metal. Motorcycle parts were scattered across workbenches, helmets hung from hooks along the wall, and dusty rays of sunlight streamed through the front windows, catching tiny flecks of sawdust and grease in the air.

You stepped up to the counter, glancing around. "Hello?" you called. "I'm here to pick up my dad's custom order." no one answered. "Eddie?"

A clatter echoed from the garage before a familiar voice answered. "Hang on."

A second later, Steve Harrington emerged from the back, wiping his hands on an already ruined shop rag.

Your breath caught.

He wore a white tank top streaked with grease, the fabric clinging to his broad shoulders. Dark smudges marked his forearms, and a strand of hair had fallen across his forehead from working. A piece of gum shifted lazily between his teeth as he looked up.

"Oh? Hey." Recognition flashed across his face.

"S-Steve." who owned the loudest bike in Hawkins, yet slowed down when some animals crossed the street.

He smiled, a little crooked. "Eddie's out making a delivery. Huge order." He jerked a thumb toward the garage. "Didn't trust anyone else with the shop, so... congratulations."

You laughed. "You got promoted?"

"Nah." He snorted. "More like tricked into free labor." His grin was enough to make you laugh again. "I was just fixing my bike while I waited."

Your eyes drifted past him toward the open garage.

Steve caught the look. "You...uh..." He rubbed the back of his neck, suddenly finding the floor very interesting. "You can wait here if you want. Eddie shouldn't be too long."

"I don't mind."

There was a brief silence. Steve shifted his weight from one foot to the other before blurting, "Actually... do you want to see my bike? I mean—you don't have to. It's just... already out there."

You smiled. "I'd love to."

His shoulders relaxed almost instantly. "Cool."

He led you into the garage, weaving around stacks of tires and shelves lined with tools. Near the back sat a beautifully restored vintage motorcycle, its deep black paint gleaming beneath the fluorescent lights.

Steve grabbed a folding chair tucked against the wall. He noticed the thin layer of dust covering the seat. He frowned, grabbed a clean rag from the workbench, and carefully wiped it down before draping the cloth over the chair.

"There," he said. "Didn't really think this through."

"You always prepare seats for your guests?"

He chuckled. "Only the important ones."

He cleared his throat and quickly crouched beside the motorcycle, reaching for a wrench before embarrassing himself further. "So..." He rested a hand against the fuel tank. "Found her behind an old barn a few years ago. She barely ran. Rust everywhere." He gave the bike an affectionate pat. "Everyone told me she wasn't worth fixing."

"But?"

"But I figured she deserved nother chance" His smile softened.

You watched him more than the motorcycle. As he tightened a bolt, the muscles in his forearms flexed beneath streaks of grease. A bead of sweat rolled from his temple, and without thinking, he brushed it away with the back of his wrist before returning to work.

His hands moved with quiet confidence, careful and practiced, as if he knew every bolt and every scratch by heart.

"Steve, I don't think you've looked at me once since you started explaining."

He looked up immediately. "I have."

Your eyebrows lifted. "You have?"

"I've just..." He scratched the back of his neck sheepishly. "been trying not to make it obvious."

Your cheeks warmed. "So you were trying?"

He stared at you for a second before laughing under his breath. "Guess I wasn't doing a very good job."

"No, not really you admitted with a grin.

Steve continued rambling about carburetors or the engine, completely unaware you weren’t listening. You took two steps forward that made him look up at you, then you kissed him. 

Silence didn’t last long when he spat the gum and crashed his lips into yours. Lips and teeth fighting for dominance, he spun you around until your ass hit the seat of his motorbike. You could feel his hard cock through his jeans pressing into you. 

“Stay right there,” his voice filled with lust. His hand slid between your legs, rubbing your pussy through your shorts. “Already wet? Dirty little thing getting wet just from kissing.” 

You moaned as he yanked your shorts and panties down in one rough pull. The cold metal of the fuel tank pressed against your bare skin. 

“Hop on, baby, and grind that pretty cunt of yours in my bike,” Steve ordered and you followed wholeheartedly. 

You started to grind on the fuel tank, your wetness made everything in smooth motion. The friction sent sparks through you, and only the man standing could give you the desire you wanted. It's so filthy you cannot imagine you're getting turned on by this, “Oh god, Stevee” 

Steve just watched you on the other end of the bike, enjoying the view. You kept grinding as your life depended on it. “Steve, baby, please touch me.” 

Steve being the man he is, obeyed, his tongue dragged straight up your slit in one long, wet stroke, licking from your clit.  You jerked and moaned, fingers curling around the handlebars.  

Steve didn't give you time to adjust. He buried his face between you and started eating your pussy like he was starving, sucking your swollen lips into his mouth before spearing his tongue deep inside yourhole.

“Fuck you taste good.” he inserted his two long thick fingers and started pumping. He curled them against your wall, rubbing that sensitive spot with every thrust of his hand. 

“Aahh shi-t, please don’t stop.” your one hand grabbed his hair to shove him deeper. 

Steve switch between licking your fold and stabbing your inside, mixing it with steady thrust of his fingers. “Don’t you dare close your legs, baby. Keep this pussy open for me.” 

All you could do was receive it all, holding the handlebars enough to keep you in place, chanting his name.  “That’s it, baby” he growled between licks, “Come on my tongue. I want to feel this cunt pulsing while I eat it.” 

"Look at you, spread out on my motorcycle," he said, voice rough. "Pussy dripping all over the seat. I'm gonna fill this cunt up." he said, unbuckling himself. 

"Steve, what if Eddie sees us?"

"Don't worry, he texted me he'll be gone long."

He flipped you onto your back across the tank, and hooked your legs over his shoulders. In one smooth motion he drove inside you, the new angle making you see stars. He fucked you deep and fast, one hand around your throat, the other rubbing your swollen clit.

Steve helped you to take off your top, you and he gently massaged your boobs, biting your lip to keep yourself quiet. 

“Be loud, pretty girl or else I’ll fucking stop fucking you.” Steve grunted while sucking the skin of your neck. 

"You like that? Getting used on my bike like a filthy slut?" he hissed in your ear. "Say it."

"Yes," you gasped. "Fuck me harder."

Your orgasm hit hard, your walls clenching around him as you moaned his name. Steve didn't stop. He flipped you again, this time sitting on the bike and pulling you onto his lap so you faced him. You sank on his cock, riding him while he gripped your hips and thrust up to meet you.

“Ride it, baby, “ he ordered. “Show me how badly you want my cum.”

"Mph! too mu-much" yet you cannot stop yourself bouncing on him.

You rode him hard, tits bouncing with every movement. He sucked one nipple into his mouth, biting down just enough to make you whimper. He reached around and slapped your ass. 

"Next time I'm taking this ass too," he promised, voice dark. "But right now I'm gonna pump this pussy full."

You came again shaking on his cock, Steve followed right after, burying himself to the hilt and flooding you with hot cum. He kept you impaled on him, breathing hard against you neck.

"Not done with you yet," he muttered, already starting to harden inside you again. "Wear my helmet and turn around. Both hands on the handlebars. I'm fucking you from behind until you can't walk straight. "

You and Steve have been seeing each other for a little over two months and in that time, he’s pulled out all the works. Thoughtful date planning, never showing up empty handed, never letting you touch a door or see the bill.

He listened when you spoke, always eager to give his two cents, and he remembered every little detail you let slip. He was enamored with you in every sense of the word. It didn’t take him long to introduce you to the group and just like  himself, everyone adored you.

Even if he couldn’t put it in exact words, he knew you were the one. He woke up thinking about you and fell asleep thinking of you. You were it for him, he was sure of it.

And right now, Steve Harrington was trying his best to remember all the chivalrous ideals his mother instilled in his head.

But as you sat perched on his lap, thighs bracketing his own, and your hips grinding against his cock – well, he suddenly felt a whole lot less gentleman like.

It’s late in the evening, you’d invited Steve into your house after another date gone perfect. He really did try to keep things classy – allowing himself to hold your hand or keep a palm at your lower back without over doing it. But when you dragged him to your bed with the promise of a movie? He didn’t stand a chance.

Your mouth smacks against his, the sloppy sounds bouncing off the walls around you. Your fingers were tangled in the nape of his hair, gripping and tugging every time he deepened the kiss.

He moaned against your mouth while his fingers squeezed at your hips. Subconsciously, his palms began following the movements of your hips – dragging your panty covered core over the inseam of his jeans.

Your hips stuttered at a particular drag, your lips parting as you breathe into his mouth.

Steve smirks against your mouth. “Yeah? That the spot, baby?”

You mewl against him. Your nails scratch against his scalp, all while you continue to grind against him. He stifles a smug chuckle against your lips and instead, sinks his teeth into your bottom lip, carefully pulling it back into his mouth.

He swallows down every moan you give him, savoring it on his tongue. Your shaky hands slip from his hair and slide between the two of you while you grab at his belt buckle. You fumble with the metal a few times before you’re able to unclasp it and in seconds, you pull it free and throw it to some forgotten corner of the room.

Your fingers continue their journey across his jeans, clawing at the zipper until it begins to slide it down.

Suddenly, Steve’s hands clasp around your hips in a real hold and he forces you still. He pulls his mouth from yours, the sound of both of your heavy breathing mixing together. He gently pushes you back so your bottom sits closer to his knees than his hips.

All he can focus on is the sad, confused look on your face as you look up at him.

“Are – Are you okay?” You ask softly and he’s quick to pick up on the insecurity blanketing your voice.

He swallows and for a second, he’s not sure how to respond.

It always goes like this. You and Steve can makeout for what feels like hours at a time but the moment he thinks it’s going too far, he stops.

It’s not that he didn’t want to have sex with you – he did, more than anything – but you two weren’t exactly official yet and he wanted to do things the right way. He didn’t want to rush things with you.

And maybe he was a little scared of how you would react when it happened.

Steve was a humble man, he could acknowledge the looks he had and the privilege it gave him. He was also acutely aware of just how much .. package he was given. It wasn’t always an issue, not entirely at least, but he knew there would always be a chance he could hurt you and he was ready to do everything to prevent that.

Even if that meant blue balling himself.

He keeps his hands on your waist, giving the skin a gentle and reaffirming squeeze.

“Yeah, I’m okay.” He smiles softly. “I just – I don’t want to make you uncomfortable,”

The shake of your head you give him is so fast it’s nearly comical. “I’m not uncomfortable.”

His stomach flutters at the sheer conviction in your voice. He gently pecks your lips.

“It’s okay baby, let’s stop here.” His voice is so kind that it almost doesn’t make sense for your response to be a frown, but it is and it’s deep. He hates being the cause of it.

He doesn’t push you off his lap and you don’t make a move either. Your eyes have casted away from his own, instead they stare intently at the necklace resting against his chest.

There’s a deep crease between your brows and your mouth is still turned down into a frown. He can see the questions and confusion swirling behind your eyes. Just as his lips part to speak, your voice fills his ears.

“Have I been reading all of this wrong?” You ask suddenly and your eyes filter back to his own. He stares back at you, his lips slightly parted, and the look on your face is enough to have him worried.

You keep talking.

“You’re a great guy, Steve, a really great one and it’s been weeks of us hanging out and going on dates, and even making out, but..” Your voice trails off just slightly. His eyes glance down to where your fingers have been nervously playing with the hem of his shirt, scratching at the frayed fabric. “But you always stop before it gets too far and if you’re like, not into sex then that’s – that’s okay, really! I’d – I’d never pressure you or anything but I just, I don’t want you to feel like you have to be with me or something.”

By the time you’ve finished, your voice has gotten significantly quieter and timid. You won’t look him in the eye and as your words hang in the air, he feels guilt heavy in his gut.

He’s never wanted to make you feel unwanted by him, but clearly his intention didn’t help.

Carefully, he brings both hands to your cheeks and holds them between his palms. Your eyes are glassy and you still avoid eye contact but when he brushes your skin with his thumb, you meet his gaze.

“I’m sorry I made you feel like that, sweetheart.” The look in his eyes is so sincere that you regret saying anything. You shake your head in his hold.

“You don’t have to apologize Steve, really. I’m – I’m being dramatic. We can just watch a movie, yeah?”

When you shift to slide off his lap, Steve’s hands drop back to your thighs and he holds you firmly in place. Your wide eyes stare back up at him and you let him pull your body closer, all the way until you’re settled right over his hips again. You’re hovering right over his cock and you’re both aware of how much muscle you’re using to keep yourself up on your knees. He doesn’t rush you.

“You’re not dramatic,” He says quietly but firmly. You let him continue. “It’s not that I’m not into sex or not into you because trust me baby, I’m really into you,” A smile grows across your lips as he speaks and he feels the guilt in his chest slowly dissipate.

“Then what is it?” You ask softly, your hands carefully sliding up his bare arms until your palms rest against his shoulders.

He pauses then. He has every intention of being honest about his worries but he’s not sure how to say it without you laughing in his face. But when he looks at you, all he sees is the most open and curious expression. So, he bites the bullet.

“I’m worried about hurting you, baby.” He says. Your brows furrow at his confession and he can tell it did little to offer any clarity. Steve swallows and slowly runs his palms up and down your sides – he tells himself it’s to comfort you but it’s really for him. “This is gonna sound like.. really weird, okay? Believe me, I know how it’s gonna sound,” He breathes. You nod quickly, a wordless way to let him continue.

He keeps eye contact with you and takes a few seconds to put his words together. Steve wasn’t just worried about sounding like a fool, he was worried about the outcome of the entire situation. You wouldn’t be able to help this being a problem even if you didn’t want it to be, and what was the alternative? Go through with it and have you in pain or force you into a relationship without sex? It felt like a lose-lose.

But as he looked at you and that beautifully curious look in your eyes, he knew he owed you the chance to make the decision for yourself.

He takes a deep breath. “It’s – when I’ve had sex before, there’s been like, a problem I guess. Sometimes..” Steve can’t bear to look you in the eyes as he finishes his sentence and with a flaming face, he focuses on your pleated skirt instead. “Sometimes I can’t always fit.”

Everything freezes.

Not just slows down or dims – no, it stills.

Steve continues looking down at your lap, his mind running a million miles an hour as he waits for you to say something. Or laugh – he’s really betting on your response being a laugh.

Honestly, he’s just ready for the ground to crack open and swallow him whole. Anything would be better than the complete silence buzzing in his ears – especially with you still firm in his lap.

Then your voice fills the silence.

“Like.. you’re too big?” Your voice is gentle, almost like you’re coaxing it out of him. He grimaces at your question, the skin of his face covered in a blush. He’s entirely too embarrassed to respond so instead, he nods. Just one, timid little nod but it’s enough.

Any day now, Hell. Just drag me under. He thinks.

“Can I see?”

Steve’s head shoots up to look at you. Your face is relatively emotionless – but calm and open, he can see. You’re not judging him or laughing. Your hands are still holding onto his shoulders, your thumbs tracing little circles against his shirt.

He swallows. “You don’t – you don’t have to, baby. We can wait a bit longer.”

You nod in response but nuzzle closer into his lap. Not to tease him, just to be close. Your head dips and you bring your mouth to hover over his. Your lips brush, just enough to feel a touch of electricity but not enough to satisfy either of you. “I want to, Stevie. It’s okay.”

His eyes flutter shut, his mind and body already getting lost in you. Whatever kind of hold you have on him has him addicted and he doesn’t ever want to be sober again.

He’s nodding before he even notices. “We’ll go slow, yeah? And if you wanna stop, you can tell me. I promise I’ll listen.”

His words ignite a fire in your stomach – a warm, gentle fire. You smile back at him. “I trust you.” You respond simply.

An identical fire lights in his own stomach and without another word, his mouth surges onto your own again. You both moan out of relief into each other’s mouth and in seconds, each of your hands are clawing at each other – at any part you can reach and feel.

Steve devours your mouth with his own to the point that it feels like you’re one being. His hands anchor at your hips and without thinking, he starts moving your hips over him again. You move in tandem with him, chasing exactly what you’ve been craving for weeks.

He slides his palms from where they rest at your hips and down to your thighs, all the way until they reach the end of your skirt. He slowly rubs the skin of your thighs and for  the first time, Steve finally lets his hands wander below your skirt, carefully trailing up your bare skin until the tips of his fingers reach the trim of your panties.

Your breath hitches at his careful touching but you do your best to keep the same pace of your mouth against his. He slips his tongue past your lips, easily licking into your mouth – at the same time the pads of his fingers rub soft and slow circles into your clit over the lace.

You whine into his mouth, very clearly wound up tight already. Your own hand drop down to his jeans and try to tug his zipper down but his free hand holds your wrist still. He stops kissing you for a moment, but his fingers continue rubbing your clit.

“Wait,” He whispers gently. His mouth still touches yours as you breathe into each others mouths. “Let me do this first, yeah? Promise I’ll give it to you, just be patient.”

You’re putty in his hands.

Your heart slams against your ribs as you nod. You let your hands steer from his jeans and instead, you splay your palms across his abdomen. You can feel his stomach tightening beneath your touch and you crave the feeling of his skin against yours.

His presses his thumb harder against you, just barely but enough to have you cry out. Your fingers curl into his shirt, fisting the fabric as his fingers work you over. Your forehead drops to his shoulder.

“Good girl, baby. Such a good girl f’me,”

You whine at his words, nodding into his shoulder. He chuckles at your reaction and is quick to take note of how much you like his praise.

He’s even more sure of himself when his fingers curl around the edge of your panties and tugs them to the side. Your breathing is erratic against his neck, warm and uncontrollable on his skin, and he brings his mouth down to your throat.

His teeth sink into your pulse point at the exact same time he sinks his middle finger inside your cunt.

You cry out immediately, loud and unapologetic, and bury yourself further into his neck. Your hands slip beneath his shirt, finally feeling his warmth against your palms. Your nails dig into his skin as his finger begins to plunge in and out of you.

Your wetness quickly begins to soak not just his finger but his entire hand, slowly pooling in the cup of his palm. He gently shushes you, curling his finger perfectly until he nudges that perfect spot.

“Fuck, you feel so good.” He breathes. Your hips begin to rock against his fingers and the obscene sounds of your weeping cunt fill the room.

“Oh Steve!” Your voice is a blubbering whine and it sounds like music to his ears. He hums against your skin and carefully slides another finger in. “SteveSteveSteve,”

His fingers crook inside of you, gently brushing that spongey spot that has you seeing stars already. His fingers move at a tortuous and satisfying pace all at once.

“So wet for me, baby. God, I can’t wait to feel you around my cock.” He groans. Your eyes roll back into your head and you can both feel the way your walls flutter around him.

He doesn’t have to ask to know you’re close. He quickens his pace, plunging his fingers deeper inside you and curling them just right to bring you closer to the edge.

“Oh my – fuck! Right there, right there.” You cry out. Your thighs shake around his hips and you’re so, so close to falling over.

Steve uses his free hand to tangle into your hair and gently pull you from your hiding place in his neck. Your eyes are squeezed shut, specks of both wet and dried mascara staining the skin under your eyes. Your mouth hangs open and just before your body locks up, Steve slides in a third finger – easily pumping all three fingers in and out.

Your orgasm crashes into you. One second you’re riding Steve’s fingers and the next, you’re on an entirely different planet. You can barely hear the faint sound of Steve’s voice murmuring into your ear as his fingers slow down but move enough to prolong your pleasure.

The only thing you can register is him. His fingers, his mouth, his voice. It’s what slowly draws you back to reality, light headed and bleary eyed. You can feel his mouth gently glide across your skin, leaving a trail of kisses.

Steve watched your eyes blink back to normalcy at him, he can feel soft trembles in your limbs over him. He gives you a sweet smile and plants a peck to your mouth.

“Did s’good for me, baby. I’m so proud of you,” He whispers. You shiver in his arms as your breathing slowly returns normal. The smile on your face is wide and Steve has no choice but to mirror it.

You press your mouth firmly against his, easily taking control. Your tongue licks into his mouth this time and Steve has to stop himself from regaining control. He lets you lead the kiss and when your hands tug at the hem of his shirt, he easily discards it.

Steve strips your shirt next, and then helps you slide the skirt down your hips, until you’re left in your matching red set. He groans at the stark color against your skin.

Minx.

But as much as he loves it, he’d rather see it on the floor. He quickly slips his hands behind your back and unhooks your bra. He throws it across the room and uses one hand to palm at your breasts, using the other to tug your panties all the way down your legs, doing the same with them.

You moan against his mouth, your own hands trailing over the expanse of his bare stomach and chest. His skin burns beneath your palms, his muscles contracting under every brush of your hands.

This time when your hands find his jeans, he doesn’t stop you, but he does whisper, “Are you sure, baby?”

You let your hands continue to tug at his jeans, pushing them down past his thighs for him to kick away himself. You press your mouth harder against his, swallowing every moan of his. “I’m sure, Stevie.”

Steve doesn’t dwell on his own worries any longer. His own hands move to help yours in pushing his pants away until they’re around his ankles. He kicks them to the pile of forgotten clothing and lets you wander your hands to his boxers.

Tentatively, like you’re waiting for him to change his mind, you rub your palm over his covered length. He throws his head back at the first real kind of contact you’ve made with his cock so far and he uses all his willpower not to finish right then and there.

You smile at his reaction, a smug one, and continue to slowly rub him over the fabric. You can’t help yourself from already tugging the garment down and letting his cock spring free.

It slaps against his bare stomach and the first thing Steve registers when he looks at you is the wide eyed look on your face. It’s not fear or surprise, but something resembling awe.

He can see it in your eyes – how you’re thinking he was definitely right before. Steve is big, definitely bigger than anyone you’ve been with before, and it makes your mouth water. He’s thick and long, his pink tip leaking with precum that’s just begging you to taste.

For a second, his insecurities creep back in and as if there’s an alarm in your head, your eyes snap to his. You look at his lust blown eyes, flushed cheeks and parted lips. You hold his gaze with your own as your small hand closes around his cock, gently stroking him.

He moans aloud, hips already thrusting up into your palm. It’s painfully obvious he’s wanted this just as much as you. Your hand continues to work him over slowly, your wrist twisting and rising over his length.

His thighs tighten beneath you, his chest heaving with uneven breaths as he tries not to finish early. Your mourn lowers to the column of his throat, sucking over his pulse as your hand continues its movements.

“Fuck just like that, baby. Keep – keep doing it like that.” He pants. You obey of course. You leave a trail of hot, open-mouthed kisses across his skin and even suck a mark into his skin.

Without Steve even noticing, you raise your hips and carefully guide his cock to your cunt. He doesn’t realize until he feels your soaked pussy siding against the tip of his cock.

His eyes shoot open, his hands gripping your hips tight – but he doesn’t stop you. His breathing stutters and his eyes flicker from your face and down to where you begin to connect.

“Baby –,” He gasps as you slide his cock through your folds. “Wait, go – go slow. I don’t want you to hurt yourself.”

His words are so sweet, so considerate, but you roll your eyes anyway.

You keep your hand wrapped around his length as your hips still over him. He can feel the tip of his cock just barely slip towards your entrance.

Your eyes lock with his and you use your free hand to hold his cheek. You wait until his eyes leave your pussy and find your own. That’s when you speak.

“Stop worrying so much, Stevie.”

And with that, you sink onto his cock.

“Oh fuck!” He whines out, his fingers digging harshly into the skin of your hips. Your cry is nearly identical as you slide down. You can feel every rigid and vein of his cock against your velvet walls and almost immediately, you’re pulsing around him.

The stretch is undeniable and intense but so good. It felt like being split open in the best way possible. Your eyes flicker down to where he disappears inside you and that’s when you realize he’s barely halfway in.

You moan at the sight. Your slick slides down his cock, soaking the base of him. It’s a sticky and lewd mess already.

Steve’s hips slowly rock upwards, his hands on your hips keep you in place. His own gaze locks onto where you connect and when you take a second to breathe, he thinks this is how much you’ll be able to take.

He’s not upset about it, not even for a second.

“You’re so good, baby. The fuckin’ best I’ve ever had, mhm.” He gasps out. You look down at him and the completely fucked out expression on his face, and you crave more.

You ignore the tremble in your thighs and sink down further. His beautiful brown eyes widen, his mouth hanging open as he watches your cunt swallow three more inches – almost all of him.

“Fuckfuckfuck,” He moans. “Don’t push yourself baby, it’s okay.” You ignore him, only responding with your own lewd moan as you finally sink down on him completely. Steve can’t hold himself back anymore, he sits up and wraps his arms around your body and thrusts his hips upwards.

Your hips meet his pace, dropping down into his lap with every thrust. The tip of his cock hits your cervix every time and your pussy weeps around him. The sound of wet skin smacking, mixed with his and your moans, fills the room.  

The feeling of your cunt squeezing and clenching around him has his head swimming. He can’t believe he’s been depriving himself of this.

“Fuck Steve, you’re so – you’re so big.” You whine and Steve slams you down harder onto his length. Your thighs burn with every drop but you hardly feel it with the way his cock splits you open.

“Jesus Christ,” He moans. “You’re so perfect, baby. Like you were made for me. You were, huh? Made just for me,”

You nod feverishly against him, because you were. Just as he was made for you.

Your arms tighten around his neck. Your cunt flutters around him and when he pulls his head back to look down at where you’re joined, he’s awestruck at the unmistakable white ring around his cock you’ve caused.

“Fuck look at you, taking all of it like a good girl. The only one who can take it, right? Only one who can take it so good.”

You body shakes around him, but the confirmation that nobody could ever take him the way you could has you slamming down harder.

“Just me, baby. Only me.” You whimper. He groans, teeth sinking into the skin of your shoulder. He brings his thumb down to your clit, rubbing tight and fast circles against your swollen bud.

It builds fast and intense. You know he’s just as close as his breathing hitches, hips stuttering as he thrusts up into you.

“Cum for me, baby. Let me feel you soak me like a good girl.”

Your second orgasm hits you like a freight train. It’s blinding and all consuming. Your mouth drops open in a silent scream, your thighs convulsing around his hips. Your cunt clamps around his cock, pulsing hot and wet until you feel Steve’s thrusts falter and in seconds, his own cum is filling you from the inside out.

You’re finally able to suck in a breath as you come down from your high. Steve holds you tight to his chest, his sweaty skin sticking to your own. Your arms wrap tight around his shoulders as you feel his cock twitch inside you.

You’re both boneless and exhausted when he finally comes back down to reality too. He pulls his head back to look at your face.

Your makeup is a runny and smudged mess, your hair is tangled and frizzy, and your cheeks are flushed red but you’ve never looked more beautiful to him.

He covers your mouth with his own in a slow and deep kiss. There’s to rush or really any rhythm to it – just the desire to feel your mouth against his. When you pull away, he leans his forehead against your own. Your eyes blink tiredly but there’s a dopey smile on your face.

“Told you I could take it,” You whisper.

Steve rolls his eyes and snakes his arm around your waist, holding you tight as he flops backwards so his back hits the mattress. Your body bounces on top of him and the movement has his cock stirring inside you again.

He uses his free hand to push a strand of hair out of your face. “Prove it.”

And you do.

All night long.

You blinked, caught off guard, but he laughed again, completely oblivious. “I was only kidding.”

Your forced smile appeared instantly. “Oh…yeah.” Steve looked up just in time to see it, the practiced smile, the way the light behind your eyes dimmed just enough to make him unable to focus on anything else.

A few minutes later, you insisted you were going home. “It’s okay.” You promised him. “I’ve got dinner with my parents anyway.”

Steve didn’t believe you for a second, and two hours he knocked on your bedroom window. After three taps and a pause, your curtain shifted.

“Steve?” He climbed in with the grace of someone who definitely had done this many times before.

“I brought snacks.” He held up two plastic bags with that lopsided smile of his, eyes gleaming with love.

You couldn’t help but shake your head and smile, the lines in your face deepening and pulling him forwards. “A real one this time.” He whispered to himself, you heard it anyway.

You sat on the bed while Steve unpacked his emergency supplies. A chocolate bar, packet of gummy bears, your favorite blanket he’d stolen from his own house because it was softer.

Halfway through the romance movie he put on, you curled into his side. His fingers absentmindedly traced circles across your arm. “You wanna tell me what happened?” Steve finally broke the silence.

You hesitated, talking about your feelings was harder than feeling them. “It was stupid.” You shrugged.

“Hey, nothing about you is stupid.” Steve lowered his voice into a soft tone you loved.

You looked down. “The customer today. He said I looked like I’d cry if someone yelled at me.” You swallowed thickly, willing yourself to get through your words. “And then he laughed.”

Steve remained silent, letting you express your vulnerability. “And I know he didn’t mean anything by it, I just hate that people can always tell.” You sighed.

His brows knitted together. “Tell what?”

“That—” your voice became embarrassingly small. “That everything gets to me. I wish I wasn’t like this.”

At the last sentence, Steve turned to you completely. “I don’t.” He said firmly, brushing your hair behind your ear.

“You know what I see?” He asked.

“What?” You stared into his brown eyes that were so close to yours.

“I see someone who’s more in touch with their emotions than anyone else could ever be.” He said so honestly, you blinked up at him already feeling tears blur your vision.

“You feel things deeply.” He continued, voice quiet like you were a startled deer. “Yeah, it means the hurt hurts more.”

His lips tugged into a small special smile. “But it also means the good things feel bigger too.”

You looked away, breath hitching. “I don’t know.”

Steve gently nudged your chin back towards him. “You get excited over the smallest things, you cry during happy endings because it’s all you’ve ever hoped for, you love people with your whole heart without asking for anything back.”

His gaze softened even further. “You notice everything about everyone because you care.” He laced your fingers together.

A shaky laugh escaped you. “Sometimes I wish I cared less.” You admitted.

Steve’s expression fell, to him, he never wanted you to change. You were his sensitive girl and he loved you for it. “But if you did…” he murmured. “You wouldn’t be you.”

Silence fell over you two again, warm instead of uncomfortable. “I love you because of how deeply you feel. You remind me that it’s okay to not keep things buried down.”

Your breath caught, sympathy filling you from the inside. “You never once made me feel like I had to hide how I’m feeling.” His eyes searched yours. “After everything I’ve been through, you know how rare that is?”

He rested his forehead against yours. “So don’t let one stranger convince you that your heart is something to be ashamed of.”

A tear escaped you despite your best efforts, groaning as you hid your face in his shoulder. “I’m literally crying again.” You huffed.

Steve chuckled as he wiped it away. “I know.” He coo’ed, holding your face gently between his hands.

“You were trying to make me stop.” You raised your brows, furious at yourself.

They told you that you should be talking to someone about how you feel or spending more time with family as you weren’t seeing him anymore, but your immediate thought was to have an escape from everyone that knew you. It sounded easier than sitting down and awkwardly having to explain that Steve was disappearing due to him going into a ‘darker version of Hawkins with alien-like creatures’ which led you to breakup with him in the first place.

You’d been curled up on the sofa in the living room with your parents on the sofa opposite you, and you’d been slowly trying to bring up that you wanted to sign up for an open space to become a scout leader without rushing into the conversation too quickly. You needed to make sure that they were in a good mood before you possibly ruined it or made it worse.

“Mandy is waiting on me to tell her if I’ll be signing up for the scout leader position.” You finally managed out and shifted on the sofa, flashing them a small, awkward smile. “There’s still space for me to join.”  

Your mother sighed and folded the corner of the page in her book, placing it down on the arm of the chair. “You’re putting yourself up to do something that you need to commit to. You can’t pull out a few weeks in because it’s too tiring or it’s not what you were thinking it was going to be. I don’t think this is a good way to get your mind off that boy either.”

“I want to do it, mom. I went to scouts for years and you know that I really enjoyed it. It’s the same thing, but I’ll be leading activities instead.” You replied, glancing down at the floor. “And I’m doing this because I want to, not for any other reason.” You mumbled.

She smiled at you, shaking her head. “I was young like you too once, you know.”

“And what? At least I’m not going out to party and drink. I could be doing that instead if you’d like. I think you should be appreciating this more.” You huffed, stretching your legs out on the sofa.

“Be nice to your mother.” Your dad said sternly, glancing at you over his glasses that might as well have been completely off his nose.

You glanced at your dad, then back to your mother with a sigh. “I’m doing nothing else at the moment. I really want to.”

“What about being with family?” Your mother asked.

Your parents were always the type to want to have quality family time together. They were always the first to host Christmas meals at their house where everyone in your family would come over to eat and play board games. If you were to ever suggest eating dinner anywhere that wasn’t the dining room with them, you were pretty sure that they would disown you.

“It’s not like I’m going to disappear from this house, mom. Scout meetups are a few times a week for a few hours, and they go camping every few months. I’ll still be here.” You reassured her. “I’m twenty. I’m not a kid anymore.”

“Yet you’re still living under our roof.” Your dad shrugged, clearly only speaking when he has something snarky to say.

Your mother sat forward, resting her elbows on her knees and clasping her hands together. “I’m used to you being with us all the time. You’re growing up.” Her voice wavers, and there was clearly more to it than wanting you to healthily manage your breakup.

For a second, your chest felt tight hearing the change in her voice, but you couldn’t give in and hold back on something that had been on your mind for weeks. “Mom...” You sighed, watching the sad look on her face. “I know that you don’t want me to go anywhere, but I need to at some point, otherwise I’ll be stuck here bored out of my mind doing nothing with myself.”

She went silent for a few seconds, listening to your dad rustle the pages of his magazine, and you were bracing yourself for her to come up with another way for you to not go. “How long is this for and are you sure that you would really like to do this? You can’t stay in bed if you’re feeling lazy when you’re supposed to be out with the kids.” She asked.

“I can stay as a leader for as long as I want, I don’t think there’s a limit. I’d at least like a few years. I’d get some really nice experience. I don’t know how else I can get you to agree with me. I really wanna sign up for this.” You nodded quickly, basically begging her at that point as your last resort. “Please, mom.”

Her eyes darted to your dad who just shrugged, but it wasn’t a no which was a good sign. She tilted her head to the side with a surprisingly gentle look on her face. “This doesn’t mean that you’re escaping our family time though.”

Your face lit up and you quickly pushed yourself up from the sofa, padding over to your mother, and leaning down to wrap your arms around her. It was the least that you could do so she didn’t change her mind. “I could never miss it. Thank you, mom.”

You decided to stay downstairs with your parents for a little longer so that you didn’t make it too obvious that you were only there to ask about signing up. As it started to get further into the night, you crept upstairs to your bedroom and pulled the application that Mandy gave to you ‘just in case’ out from your drawer, grabbing a pen and filling in all the details.

There were more forms that you needed to sign and some training you had to do before you became an official leader, but it seemed pretty sweet to you that you’d be reliving your childhood, but as a leader that you used to look up to instead. It would be something that you could proudly put on forms for future jobs.

You’d be shaping kid’s lives, watching them try out new things and seeing how their faces light up, just like yours did when you were in their position years ago. They’d learn something valuable that they could wave around and show off to their friends which most kids wouldn’t be learning if they were constantly in their homes.

Your finger traced under your writing on the application, checking that everything was correct before quickly scribbling your signature down at the bottom. Life sounded less dull knowing that you’d be lighting fires, securing helmets on children’s heads for rock climbing, pitching tents, kayaking through rivers and hopefully not tipping over instead of being in your home all day, rethinking your whole life.

It all came back to this being an escape to forget about Steve, because the awful thing about it was that he really was sweet until he came out with these childish responses, and that’s what you couldn’t wrap your head around. He was careful with you, and he had to fuck that up. You didn’t want to ever find out the real reason for his distance. It was probably best to never find out.

Every year, towards the end of the summer, all the scout groups in your area come together to host a huge three-night camp to celebrate the children’s and leader’s achievements. It was a way for the kids to show off the skills they have learned or a chance for new starters to learn something new and to earn badges they haven’t had the chance to get.

The coach journey on the way to the campsite was always one of the best parts. All the kids were chanting words, singing songs they made up on the spot, counting how many silver-coloured cars they could see, asking the driver ‘how long until we’re there?’ and groaning when the driver replied with ‘soon’. One of the kids came to the front of the coach to sit beside you because his tummy felt uneasy which happened every time.

Once the coach started rocking and bumping over the pebbles and branches, your head turned to look out the window and the campsite came into view. There were already other coaches parked up further into the campsite with the other Scout groups stepping off to set up their tents for the next few days.

The coach started to slow down along the rocky path, and the cabins in the centre of the camp started to come into view. All the leaders get to stay in a cabin whilst the children stay in a tent. It’s an unfair advantage that gets spoken about every year, but you always shrug and tell the kids that it wasn’t a decision that you made. In the centre, there’s a huge cabin with toilets, a seating area, self-catering area and a room for any emergencies or accidents.

As soon as the coach came to a stop in the parking area, you whip your head around and see all the children already unbuckling their belts and getting up to grab their bags from the overhead compartment which you had clearly told them not to do before you set off.

“Okay, okay! Everyone take a seat.” You rush to stand up and call out so that the children at the back can hear you. “No pushing. When the row in front of you have grabbed their bags, then you can get up and get yours.” You say, shaking your head. “Christopher! What did I just say? Sit back down.”

Christopher grins at you from the aisle, slowly moving back to his seat. “I’m very sorry, your highness. I won’t do that again.”

The children start to giggle between each other at his comment, and you press the heel of your palms to your eyes with a sigh, then turning to the driver who looks horrified, pulling a laugh from you.

“I’ll help you unload the bags in the luggage compartment, makes this easier and quicker for the both of us.” You say with a small smile.

He lets out a relieved sigh, opening the doors. “Thank you.”

For the next twenty minutes, you spend your time taking out bags from the compartment at the side of the coach, waving them in the air for the children to come collect them. The children are already distracted, getting impatient because you’re spending too much time grabbing everyone’s bags.

Once you passed the final bag over, the driver slams the compartment shut and thanks you a few times before sprinting back onto the coach. You walk over to your group that decided not to listen to you and wander off after they collected their bags. Their shoes are already covered in dirt, and you haven’t done anything remotely messy yet.

You sigh, adjusting the bag on your shoulders. “I encourage you all to go to the toilet before you do anything. We had a long journey, and I don’t want anyone to be complaining that they need to go when we’re halfway through an activity. Do I need to repeat myself?” You ask, looking around.

They collectively nod, earning quiet ‘yes’s from some of the children.

“Good. The toilets are in the main cabin in the centre. Place your bags in the seating area for the time being, then we’ll get the tents set up.” You confirm with a smile, leading them over to the cabin.

The main cabin is already busy, and you suspect that all the groups haven’t arrived yet. There are children already running laps around the outside of the cabin and leaders leaning against the railing with mugs in their hands. You step inside and hold the door open for your group, waiting for them to set their bags down and make their way to the toilets.

It heavily smells of pinewood mixed with coffee from the self-catering area. You glance around the room until your eyes land on Mandy, the main leader of your group, and walk up to her with a sweet smile, gently tapping her shoulder.

Mandy turns around and almost jumps back like she’s surprised you made it here in one piece. “I was beginning to think you weren’t going to make it. How was the journey?” She asks with a grin, placing her coffee down on the table and patting the side of your arm.

You suck in a breath. “The kids talking each other’s ears off as usual. My instructions went through one ear and straight out the other, apparently. How was setting up?”

She gives you a look that already tells you she’s ready to be up and out of here. Her hand comes up to cover her mouth so nobody can see or hear what she’s saying. “Oh, it was awful. All these leaders have badges that I’m surprised they have. Nobody was cooperating. So much for being a leader.” She mumbles.

“I’m glad I wasn’t setting up this year then.” You laugh.

“They’ve picked an awful spot for camping this year. I’ll be shocked if they even did a risk assessment on this place.” She rolls her eyes. “I’m so glad that we get to pick where camp is next year.”

You nod. “I trust that you’ll pick somewhere nicer.”

A man calls out from behind Mandy. “Hey, we need some help over here.”

She flashes a quick smile to the man and then shoots you a helpless look as she follows him. You settle down on a wooden chair nearby, crossing your leg over the other whilst you wait for your group to finish up. The main doors into the cabin open and a man steps inside with a heavy looking backpack that surely looks like it’s going to knock him over.

He shrugs his bag off his shoulders and places it down beside a chair with a grunt. When he turns around to brush the crease in his trousers, it almost knocks the air from your lungs. Your stomach twists and you turn your head to the side as if he won’t work out who you are that way, glancing at him from the corner of your eye.

The reason you were sat here in the first place is sat in front of you, and you have no idea if he’s up to something or if he innocently signed up for this. After a few seconds of trying to avoid his gaze, you can see his eyes land on you and how he freezes. You swallow, rolling your eyes before narrowing your eyes at him, trying to work out why he’s here.

“Steve.” You say coldly. “You’re kidding, right?”

He presses his lips together, awkwardly glancing around the room, then his eyes drop to the floor.

You raise your eyebrows. “Are you back to convince me that you were attacked by aliens and you saved the day in your little fairytale?” You scoff. “You’re such a child, Steve. It’s honestly pathetic.”

His eyes dart to yours helplessly. “Don’t mention that. Don’t ruin this.”

“Ruin this?” You laugh. “You’re acting like you didn’t ruin a whole lot of shit for me two years ago. Why are you even here? I didn’t think this was your type of thing. Thought you’d be sticking to partying, not camping.”

“I volunteered myself.” He says quietly like it’s something he should be ashamed of.

A laugh slips from you again. “No way. I’ve got to be in another world right now. Maybe it’s the one with all the monsters you warned me about.” You quip.

His shoulders slump and he brushes his hands against his trousers. “Are you going to be like this the whole time we are here?” He asks.

You shrug. “Depends.”

Before he can ask you anything else, your group comes rushing back into the seating area and he clears his throat, standing up and walking away. He turns his head around to look at you, only for you to still be looking at him, and he quickly whips his head back around to focus on the self-catering station.

You stand up from your chair, dropping your gaze to all the children in front of you with a small smile, trying to forget that your ex-boyfriend is in the same room as you. “Have we got everyone here? Where’s Lizzie?”

“She’s still in the toilet.” Sally says from beside you.

“Could you go and tell her to be a little faster? We need to stick together.” You ask.

Sally nods and stumbles her way through the crowd of people, disappearing into the toilets. She comes back out a few seconds later with Lizzie flapping her wet hands about, trying to dry her hands quicker. They stand in front of you and you do a head count, checking that you’ve got everyone.

“Perfect. Grab your bags. Let’s set up.” You say, grabbing your bag and quickly glancing over at Steve before you head outside.

After a long trek down the site to find an open area, the children set their bags down and their gear to pitch their tents. You help the children clear out the sticks and rocks in the area so that it’s flat enough to keep the tents stable. One of the children comes up beside you, leaning down to grab the twigs scattered around.

“Who was that man you were talking to before?” Sally asks curiously.

You turn your head to face her with a small smile, even though the thought of him right now is making you feel uneasy. “He was an old friend of mine. I haven’t seen him in a long, long time.” You reply with a half-lie. You weren’t looking to explain to a young teenager about a relationship you had when it shouldn’t be something she should be thinking about yet.

“You looked like you were angry at him.” She says, and you pause.

Your shoulders drop and you sigh. “Did I?” You ask, trying to sound like you didn’t know you looked angry, when you were very much more than angry at Steve.

She nods, holding her stack of twigs and sticks close to her. “Did he do something wrong?”

“Nothing that you should worry about.” You smile, gently rubbing her back. “We’re going to be pitching the tents in a moment, so you can place the sticks somewhere away from our area. Preferably in a place where nobody will trip over them.”

She flashes you a quick smile and hurries back over to her friends with a quiet giggle. They probably saw something that you didn’t catch, and you were mortified about whatever questions they were going to ask you over the next few days. You walk over to the camping gear and clap a few times to gain their attention.

“Quick re-run over the rules.” You call out and they shuffle along to you. “There are four of you allowed in each tent. We have an odd number, so three is okay, but we can’t have five. There’s not enough space for five in a tent.”

The children are looking at each other, waving at their friends as they silently work out who they want in their tents. Some of them silently start moving towards their friends, wrapping their arms around each other like you’re going to pull them away if they don’t.

“Are we allowed to switch tents with our friends, so we all have a turn?” Robert asks.

You slowly nod. “I’ll say yes, but you’re responsible for moving your own gear and items and if there’s any drama over switching, then I’ll stop you from switching at all. Any more questions?” You ask, and they go silent. “Okay. Let’s pitch the tents. Help each other out, that’s what you’re all here for.”

They grab their gear from beside your feet and rush to a space to claim it. Your group have a lot of practice with pitching tents, and if needed, they can help the newer children who aren’t sure what to do. The point of this camp is to show skills, and teamwork is definitely up there.

As you’re walking around to check in on the groups setting their tents up, you can hear cheers and giggles coming from somewhere nearby. You turn around on your heel to see another Scout group coming to set up beside yours, and then you see Steve slowly trailing behind them with their gear in his hands, looking grumpier than ever.

“You alright over there?” You laugh at Steve. “You look like you’re struggling.”

He huffs, gripping the bags tighter. “I’m fine, thanks.”

“Do they not have their own hands to carry their things?” You ask as he walks past you.

“Doesn’t look like it.” He grumbles, grunting as he placed the gear on the floor, stretching his arms out.

His group seem to be using him as their own personal assistant, holding their bags and now attempting to pitch their tents that they don’t look that bothered trying to do. You’ve been standing watching him try to set up one of the children’s tents for the past five minutes, but he keeps sighing to himself and convincing the children that he’s ‘got it’.

You glance at your group who have already pitched their tents, and they’re sitting inside them, sorting the sleeping bags. After a while of contemplating going to help Steve save himself from embarrassment and possibly ending up with the children sleeping on grass, you walk over to him.

He’s trying to push the poles through the tent, but the poles keep popping out of the tent, collapsing it. You stand beside him, assessing what’s in front of you. “Have you ever pitched a tent before?” You ask, looking him up and down.

He clears his throat, folding his arms over his chest. “No, I haven’t.”

“I can tell.” You murmur, glancing at the collapsed tent.

“Why’d you ask me then?” He sighs, rubbing his hand against the side of his face.

You grin. “Because you’ve been making a right fool out of yourself in front of everyone for the past ten minutes. It’s hilarious.”

“Help me out then.” He groans.

“Aw, that’s sweet. You’re asking me for help.” You tease, already leaning down to pick up the poles that popped out of place and securing them tightly. “It’s a tent, Steve. If you don’t secure the poles tight enough, of course it’s going to collapse. This is supposed to be able to get through all types of weather. I thought that would be obvious.”

His ears go red at your comment as he watches you thread the poles through the tent. “I know that. The poles just… weren’t tightening any further.” He replies. “Faulty.”

“Sure.” You drag out, pushing the poles into the ground. “Need the pegs.”

“What do they look like?” He asks, searching through the bag.

“Oh Jesus, Steve.” You sigh, looking over your shoulder. “They should be silver and look like a hook.”

He scrambles through the bag, metal clinking together, and he takes out a handful of pegs, placing them in the palm of your hand. You push a peg into the ground to secure the corner, then push yourself up to secure the other three. Once you’ve checked that the tent’s secured, you step back beside him and take a look at it.

You tilt your head to the side with a grin. “Think you can do that for the other tents?”

“Sure, I can. Seems easy.” He says confidently.

“If it was easy, you wouldn’t have been struggling to connect poles together, which isn’t even the hardest part of pitching a tent, by the way.” You add, pressing your lips together to suppress a laugh.

His eyes narrow at you and he drags his hand down his face, looking completely hopeless. “You’re making this sound worse than it is.”

“It’s pretty unfortunate that you can’t set up a tent. I’m looking forward to see you trying to do other things.” You flash a mocking smirk at him.

“This is like a field day for you.” He sighs.

You shrug with a smile. “Have fun pitching the rest of your group’s tents. I expect to be back here in five minutes, tops.”

You walked back over to your group, smiling way too much for someone who’s only been here for two hours.

By the time the sun set behind the trees, all the Scout groups came together to sit around a fire that was much taller than you. Every group was tasked by the camp manager to grab as many logs and sticks as they could and bring them over. It became a competition between the children in your group that the person with the most sticks won, and it caused a lot of bickering whilst you were walking over.

Your group are sitting on the grass with blankets settled over their shoulders as they try to stay warm as the fire is doing nothing to keep anyone warm right now. The camp manager advised everyone to stay as far back from the fire to prevent anyone getting caught on fire, which was silly because the fire was mostly there for aesthetic more than for keeping everyone warm.

Steve’s group are beside you, which isn’t surprising. You’re convinced he’s going to be practically by your shoulder every day, and you don’t know whether to be angry that he’s doing this or keep mocking him. He’s been glancing at you all night, then looking away when you look over at him. He’s not subtle at all, and that only makes it funnier.

His group move to sit around him, breaking the main circle that connected all the Scout groups together. You glance at him, then at your group, watching as they stop their conversations between each other to see what Steve’s group is up to.

He notices that your group’s attention is on him, and his eyes dart to yours. You’re about to say something to take offence of this betrayal, but his voice cuts through. “Would you like to listen to a spooky story?” He asks your group, and they nod quickly, already shuffling over to mix with Steve’s group.

You huff and roll your eyes, shuffling yourself over with your group because there was nothing better that you could come up with anyway. He only smiles at your reaction, his eyes staying on you for a moment.

“Does it contain monsters in this story?” You ask, clearly referencing what he told you two years ago.

“You’ll have to see.” He shrugs, leaning against the log behind him. “There was once a girl that was walking through the woods to get back home.”

You roll your eyes, mumbling. “Cheesy.”

He shoots a look at you. “My story is anything but cheesy, thank you.” He replies, turning back to the children. “Anyway. She stumbled across a house in the middle of the woods with all the lights on. It had vines growing on the walls and it was old looking. She decided to check out the house and saw that the front door was open.”

One of the children huddled up in the group calls out. “Why would she go look?!”

Steve grins and continues. “She walked up to the front door and knocked once, waiting for someone to respond, but nobody responded so she knocked again. Again, there was no answer. She pushed the door open and stepped inside. The house was nicely decorated with paintings hung on the walls.”

The children are all leaning forward, their attention set on Steve. This is probably the one time that they’re going to be listening to something that’s been said to them.

“She decided to look around the house, so she walked through the living room. There was a coffee cup on the table, so it was clear someone was inside there recently. She continued to walk through the house, checking out the kitchen and looking through cupboards.”

His voice started to deepen, and though you swore to yourself that some children’s story wasn’t going to scare you, you could feel goosebumps prickling at your skin. You wanted to blame it on him dragging out the story.

“Then she decided to walk upstairs, dragging her hand along the hand railing. She stopped at the top, looking left and right. To her left, there was a long hallway leading to a room at the end, and to her right, there was a bathroom. She stepped into the bathroom to look around. The bathtub was pristine and everything was neatly set out.” He continued, glancing around at the children.

“This doesn’t sound scary.” A child says confidently.

“She stepped out the bathroom and wandered down the long hallway, slowly pushing the door open. It was a huge bedroom. Everything in there was white. The walls, wardrobe, dressing table and the bed. Then she noticed that there was a bump under the covers of the bed.” He said as a whisper.

The children gasped, gripping onto each other, holding them close.

“She walked up to the bed, placing her hand on the corner of the covers and then… BOO!” He lurches forward with a loud scream that was surely going to capture the attention of the other groups, causing all the children to jump, pulling a laugh from him.

You flinch backwards, your heart hammering against your ribs, placing your hands beside you on the grass. His eyes land on you and he laughs, sliding his hand through his hair. “Scared, huh?” He asks.

You clear your throat, shaking your head and rolling your eyes. “Be quiet, Steve. That wasn’t scary. I wasn’t scared.”

“Sure, you weren’t.” He grins, proud of himself.

“What happened next?” Christopher asks.

Steve turns to look at him. “The rest is unknown.”

All the children gasp, leaning into each other to whisper. You awkwardly brush your hands on your legs, glancing at your group. “I think it’s time you all head back to your tents now. We have a long day tomorrow.” You say quietly, pushing yourself to stand up.

They all whine and groan at your comment, slowly getting up from the grass.

“You’ll be thanking me tomorrow, I promise.” You add, doing a quick head count.

Steve stands up, brushing the grass that was stuck to his trousers. “Did you like my story?” He grins.

“I’ve heard better, Steve.” You murmur, leading your group to their tents, turning your flashlight on as it started to get dark.

Once you made sure that they were settled down in their tents, earning a few complaints because it was ‘too early’, you head to your cabin. You stepped inside and closed the door behind you, walking straight over to your bed and flopping backwards. You weren’t sure whether to hope for the days to go quickly or for them to drag for as long as they could.

The birds on the window ledge of your cabin woke you up early in the morning. You’d barely sat up in bed, and you already heard the kayaks being dragged across the grass and water splashing as people jumped in. The best part about camp was that there was no strict timetable, but activities ran all day which meant you could stay in bed for an extra five minutes.

You eventually slipped out of bed and quickly pulled on baggy shorts and a T-shirt that slipped from your shoulder. The main cabin was packed with leaders sitting in the seating area, deep in conversation. You walked over to the self-catering area and picked up a mug, turning the kettle on and waiting for the water to boil.

You’ve barely had time to process that Steve’s here, and he’s always around, wherever you look. He’s stood in a corner, leaning against the windowsill, sipping his drink. The kettle clicking pulls your gaze away from Steve and you pour the water into your cup, stirring the coffee.

Mandy walks over to you with a more cheerful smile than yesterday. “Morning.”

“Morning.” You grin, leaning against the wall.

“I know I said that this campsite was awful, but the beds are really comfy, so I’ll give them that.” She says, raising her cup in the air.

You nod, taking a sip of your coffee. “Felt like I was back at home, honestly. The cabins are really cozy. I’m glad we get a pass and don’t get to sleep in a tent.”

“I’m thankful for that every time we camp.” She replies, glancing around the room, then back at you. “That guy has had his eyes on you for a long time, by the way.”

“Who?” You ask.

She nods her head backwards, gesturing to Steve. “Him.”

You glance at Steve who’s looking at you, and he quickly turns his head around, pretending to look through his pockets. “Right, yeah. Him.” You murmur.

“Now you’ve got to tell me.” She says curiously.

“Another time, another time.” You laugh. “This is not the place for me to be speaking about it.”

“Right, but I will keep pestering you.” She grins, sipping her coffee. “We’re on kayaking today. I’ve made sure that our kayaks are safe, and they’re waiting to be used.”

Your head drops dramatically. “I have to do the honors of bringing them there and trying to get them to be sensible with the kayaks, how fun.”

She nudges your side with her elbow. “You’ll do great. I’ll be taking over to do the nature trail later tonight, anyway.”

“My savior.” You laugh.

When you finally reached the group’s tents after a long, five-minute walk from the main cabin to their area, they were already out of their tents and dressed, playing noughts and crosses with sticks in the mud. You clap your hands together to gain their attention, and they drop their sticks.

“I’ll be going through this once, so listen up because I won’t be repeating myself. This morning you will be kayaking with me. Then we’ll be going to the cabin for lunch. You’ll have an hour of free time, as long as you’re staying on the grounds and behaving appropriately. Then Mandy will be taking you on a nature trail in the afternoon.” You say, clasping your hands together.

Then their questions started to flood in, and you could barely make out what anyone was saying to you.

“Whoa, whoa. One at a time.” You laugh and then point at Robert. “Go on.”

“Are we allowed to swim?” He asks.

You shake your head. “Not in the part of the river that we’re heading to, no.” Then you point to Sally.

“Did you like the spooky story last night?” She asks, earning giggles from the rest of the group.

“It was okay.” You say, trying to hold in a laugh. “Are there any serious questions?” You ask, watching as their hands drop down and you nod. “Let’s get going.”

Once you arrived at the dock by the river, the kayaks were already in the water, the paddles settled on top. The life jackets were hung up on pegs beside the dock, so you get your group to line up whilst you pass them the jackets and secure them tightly. As you’re finishing tightening the last life jacket, Steve appears in front of you with an awkward smile on his face, his group behind him.

“Oh, today is my lucky day.” You sigh, grabbing a life jacket for yourself and slipping it on.

He reaches behind you to grab the life jackets, passing them to his group. “Incredibly lucky.”

If you thought it was bad enough having to see Steve whilst you were in the cabin or gathering with your group at their tents, then kayaking was a whole lot worse. You got your group into their kayaks and had to pair one of your children with one of the children in Steve’s group as they were double kayaks, and you needed to fill space.

When all the children were in, you walked along the dock to get to your kayak with Steve trailing behind you, tightening his life jacket. You paused as you looked around the water, only seeing one kayak.

“Really? Are you kidding me?” You groan.

He peers over the fence. “Only one left, huh?”

“I’m so glad that you have eyes too, Steve.” You huff, looking around again like one will appear in front of you if you look hard enough. “Front or back?” You ask, folding your arms as you turn to face him.

He blinks at you. “What?”

“Steve.” You whine. “Front or back of the kayak before I change my mind.”

“Back.” He replies. “I don’t think I’ll be good at the front if I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m not experienced with kayaking in the slightest.”

You grip onto the dock, slowly lowering yourself down into the front of the kayak. “Of course, you’re not. I’m not shocked.” You mutter.

He lowers himself into the back of the kayak, holding onto his paddle. “I’m honestly quite shocked that you’re letting me in the same kayak as you.”

You gently push off the dock so that you have enough room to paddle. “Don’t get yourself too excited. There was only one kayak left, and you’re not allowed to leave your group unsupervised. I’m only doing this because we have no choice.” You mumble. “Legally.”

As your groups are already off down the river, paddling away, way ahead of you, you’ve barely made it past the dock. Steve’s been trying to use the paddle, but he’s only been pushing you backwards into the rocks.

You look over your shoulder. “Steve, are you even watching what I’m doing?”

“I am. Have some sympathy. This is my first time kayaking.” He huffs.

“We’re not in sync at all. You need to be paddling in sync with me.” You sigh, facing forwards again. “Just keep your paddle still whilst I at least try get us closer to the kids, then you can try again. Watch what I do.”

He sets his paddle down and you start to paddle down the lake, eventually catching up with the children who turned their heads around to laugh at you. Steve laughs from behind you, seeing you get so frustrated.

“They’re laughing at you too, Steve.” You snapped, only making the children laugh more.

They continued to paddle down the river, pointing out otters that are laid on their backs, probably having more fun than you are. Eventually, Steve starts to paddle too, getting the hang of the movements and following what you do. Your paddle swoops under water, coming up and splashing Steve in the face.

“Hey, you got me wet.” He grumbles, brushing his hand over his face.

You grin, turning your head around. “You were bound to get wet at some point, Steve. You’re on a river.”

He rolls his eyes and waits for you to continue paddling before he starts moving side to side, making the kayak rock. You stop paddling and brace your hands on either side of the kayak.

“Steve!” You squeal, water sloshing around you as he rocks the kayak.

“What? I thought we were supposed to get wet on a river?” He teases.

You whip your head around, shooting him a glare. “If we end up in the water because of you, I swear to God.”

When you completed a lap around the river, being the last kayak to get back to the dock, you were quick to get out of the kayak, pushing yourself up and drying off. You didn’t hear the end of it from the children. They were relentless about you and Steve failing to get around the river in shape. You were crowned as the losers for the rest of the day, which you could agree was deserved.

Some of the other Scout group leaders saw you and Steve trying to get around the river together too, and their comments were worse. You wanted to go into your cabin and stay there until the coaches arrived on the last day.

At least Steve got something fun out of it, because clearly, he was more bothered about getting a laugh out of everyone instead of taking it seriously and trying to kayak. He was still the same Steve he was years ago, and you hated that you enjoyed seeing him this way. It almost made you forget that you broke up, and you don’t have this version of him anymore.

Everyone was up and out of their tents and cabins as soon as the sun rose the next morning. The heat from the sun was sweltering, and there was no air conditioning in the cabins. You had woken up in a hot sweat, immediately kicking the covers off, running to open a window.

When it was hot during camp, the only way to cool off was to jump into the water, which you were sure was going to be packed with people, and that’d only make it feel hotter. You dress in a pair of blue shorts and a tank top before rushing out of your cabin, making your way down to the lake.

As you walked along the path by the side of the lake, you saw your group dipping into the water, some sat on the rocks with their feet dipped in, and the others splashing each other to cool down. You looked around to see many camp managers around with hi-vis on and whistles around their necks, so you took the opportunity to keep walking around and find somewhere quieter.

You pad down a dock further along the river, settling down on the edge and taking your shoes off, placing them to the side and dipping your feet in. Your body instantly relaxes, and you swish your feet around in the water. A familiar voice comes from behind you, and you don’t need to turn around.

“I see we’re on the same boat.” He says with a laugh. “Get it, because we’re on a dock?”

You roll your eyes with a grin. “Ha, ha. Very funny.” You say sarcastically.

He takes his shoes off, almost tripping over and losing his balance, and sits down beside you, dipping his feet into the water. His hand is too close to your hand. It might as well be on top of yours.

“It’s too crowded at the other end. There’s no way anyone is comfortable over there.” You say quietly.

“Yeah, that’s why I came over here. Figured it would be less busy.” He nods, glancing at you for a second. “Are you not going to get in?” He asks.

You tilt your head to the side. “I didn’t bring a swimsuit with me, and I’m not walking back to my cabin dripping in water. I’ll save myself.”

“Everyone will be doing the same.” He shrugs. “I will be doing the same.”

“Well, you’re not me, Steve.” You smile, focusing on kicking your feet in the water. “I’m more than happy sitting up here with my feet in the water.”

He exhales through his nose, standing up and lifting his shirt off his head so he’s just in his shorts. “Suit yourself.”

He jumps off the edges of the dock into the water, coming up to the surface with his hair stuck to his forehead, spitting the water out. You roll your eyes and brush the water away from your face. Your eyes flick down to the deep scarring on his neck below his moles that you’ve never seen before, and you can’t push down the worry that’s growing inside you.

You clear your throat and look back at his face, trying not to focus on the scars. “When did you become a Scout leader, anyway?” You ask.

“Around seven months ago.” He replies, treading water.

Your eyebrows raise, surprised. “Wow. That actually sounds like a long time for you. I’m shocked you’ve lasted this long as a leader.”

“The kids are fun when they’re not ignoring me.” He sighs. “They’re yet to take me seriously for once.”

“They seemed to take you pretty seriously when you were telling that spooky story the other night.” You grin, resting your hands on the edges of the dock.

He smiles and shakes his head. “That was a first and a last. They only listen if Colin is talking, the other leader.”

“It was the same with my group for a while. They’ll get used to you eventually.” You say, flashing him a small smile. “I mean, I’m not shocked that they don’t take you seriously though. You’re Steve.” You laugh.

“What’s that meant to mean?” He asks.

How he doesn’t know about the effect that he has on people is slightly shocking. He can effortlessly make everyone laugh, every room that he walks into. He’s done that for years.

You shift on the dock, resting your hands on your lap. “Don’t twist my words and think that I’m being friendly with you, but you’re really funny without meaning to be. You’re an idiot that can make anyone laugh. It’s stupid, really. Nobody can take you seriously when you’re making them laugh.” You admit quietly, already regretting potentially boosting his ego.

“You’re definitely being friendly with me.” He grins.

You kick your foot under the water, splashing his face with a laugh. “Like I said, don’t twist my words.”

“Right, right, whatever.” He smiles, rubbing the water from his eyes. “I always knew you’d end up signing up to be a leader, but when did this happen?”

“Two years ago.” You sigh, your shoulders dropping. “It took a lot of convincing my parents to get here. They really wanted me to stay with them.”

He presses his lips together. “Sounds like your parents, alright. You’re old enough to be making your own decisions.”

“Believe it or not but I said the exact same thing to them.” You laugh, your eyes flicking down to the scars on his neck again.

The conversation between you both went on for a while until the camp manager blew the whistle and you had to get up to meet up with your groups for the next activities, even through the heat. He pushed himself up onto the dock and threw his shirt over his shoulder, walking beside you to the main area.

Whilst you were doing the next activity with the children, your mind and eyes couldn’t help but wander back over to Steve. It felt like nothing had changed whilst you were updating each other on your lives since being apart. You felt sick thinking about the scars on Steve’s neck, and you felt a strong urge to find out what happened.

Later in the night, you tried to get yourself settled down in bed, but you only sat against the headboard, staring at your door. The scars on Steve’s neck were practically burned into your eyes, and you felt uneasy going to sleep to never find out. You padded over to your window, looking outside to see a few people with their flashlights walking down the path, probably the last people to get into their cabins.

For a few moments, you paced around your cabin, not caring so much if your movements wake anyone up, trying to fight back the urge to have all your questions answered overnight. You cave in and slip your shoes on, grabbing your jacket from the hook and opening the door, quietly closing it behind you.

You remembered where Steve’s cabin was as you’ve given the cabin annoyed glances every time you’ve watched him walk in or out over the past few days. Once you reach his cabin, you quietly walk up the steps and knock on his door, hoping that he’s awake. The door opens seconds after, he’s standing in a T-shirt and shorts, his hair still messy from the lake. His mouth goes wide open, unable to form words.

“I know it’s late, don’t tell me. Can I come inside?” You ask. “Please?”

He nods quickly, stepping to the side. “Yeah, yeah, of course.”

You walk inside, brushing your shoes against the mat beneath your feet, and he closes the door behind you. He stands closely in front of you, his hand hovering over your side, looking more confused than he ever has.

“The scars on your neck, where are they from?” You swallow.

His eyes glass over and he shakes his head with a scoff. “We are not going there, not tonight. I’m not looking for having an argument over this again.”

“What do you mean again? This is the first time I’ve asked you about this.” You ask, squinting your eyes at him.

“Because my answer is something that you think I’m lying about, and I don’t want to see you walk away from me because of it again.” He chokes out.

You freeze hearing the crack in his voice. There was no way that whatever he had to say was a lie if he’s being this vulnerable in front of you, and if he is lying, then you’ll give it to him that he’s a pretty good actor.

“Tell me.” You say, more quietly.

He shakes his head. “I’m not arguing with you over this again. It’s not worth it.”

You look down at the ground for a moment, then back into his eyes. “I’ll listen, Steve. No matter how insane you’re going to sound.” You say, gently taking his arm and already leading him over to his bed before he can say no, sitting down on the edge.

“Please listen.” He whispers, gently placing his hand on top of yours when you nod. “When I was constantly disappearing and not letting you know where I was, it was for your safety. I didn’t want you to come out and look for me only to get hurt. I wasn’t going to sit there and let anything come for you.” He swallows, squeezing your hands tighter. “So, when you asked me to be honest, I couldn’t lie to you.”

You nod slowly, letting him continue.

“I know it sounds like some fantasy. I get it, it sounded like a fantasy to me too until I saw it all, but everything that I told you was real. Since then, I lost more friends in that place. My friends have lost their friends there too. Part of me was glad that you didn’t believe me, because that way you were safe, but I lost you, which was one of the things I tried so hard to stop from happening.” His voice breaks.

Your thumb brushes over the back of his hand. “So, the scars are from one of the… creatures there?” You ask, the word sounding weird on your tongue.

He nods. “It was a bat. Not the kind of bats that you see here, though. I wouldn’t say that’s the worst scar I have.” He says, slightly lifting his shirt to show you the scars on his sides and over his stomach.

Your eyes widen. “Jesus, fuck, Steve. I don’t know how I never saw those.”

He shrugs, letting his shirt flop down. “They’re definitely not the most beautiful sight.”

You look into his eyes, your lip trembling. “I don’t even… I feel sick. You were getting hurt and I left you on your own, during probably the most horrific time.”

His hand comes to your cheek, gently brushing away a tear that you didn’t realize slipped. “No, baby. I understood why you didn’t believe me, because I know that I do sound insane when I say it. I’m not blaming you for not believing something that doesn’t sound real.”

The nickname coming so effortlessly from his lips snapped something inside you, and your arms carefully come around him, burying your face into his neck. “I’m still so sorry. You were hurt. I wasn’t there to help you.” You sob.

His hand gently comes through your hair, holding you close to him after years of not being able to hold you. “There’s nothing to be sorry for. I’m safe now. We are all safe now.”

He gently brings you closer, sitting you down in his lap, his hands resting on your waist. You slowly lift your head from his neck, your eyes glassy. “Nothing will hurt you again?”

“Nothing. We made sure of it.” He whispers.

Your face comes to his neck again, gently pressing your lips over one of the scars on his neck. His hands tighten on your waist, a soft gasp escaping from his lips. You pull back from his neck, and he immediately presses his lips to yours. Your hands slip into his hair as he deepens the kiss. He shifts and slowly lays you on your back on the bed, keeping his lips on yours.

His hand slides up your side to rest on your cheek whilst his tongue slips across yours, pulling a gasp from you. He slowly started to rut against you, and you felt your cheeks heat up at the sight, almost forgetting to take a breath. Your hand comes up to gently tug the sleeve of his shirt, and he pulls away from your lips for a moment, catching at your hint.

“Wanting this off?” He grins, and his cockiness is already back.

You nod quickly and he leans over you, slipping his shirt off, dipping down to kiss you again. He’s taking his time with you, and you don’t know if you want him to hurry up or keep at this pace as it’s been a while since you’ve had a moment like this. His lips brush against your collarbone and he gently slides a strap down your shoulder.

“Yes, off, please.” You gasp out.

He nods, pulling the other strap down and sitting you up for a moment to pull the tank top away. His lips come back down to your skin, trailing over your bra and down to your stomach, and then back to your lips again. Your fingers dig into his shoulders, a soft whine slipping from your lips.

His hand blindly comes down to your shorts, and he carefully tugs your shorts and panties down at the same time, throwing them behind him. One of your hands slips into his hair, pulling his head down and desperately pressing your lips to his again. You can feel him smiling against your lips and you feel the tears pricking at your eyes again.

Having him back under your touch again was something that you weren’t ever expecting to have again. You convinced yourself that he was making some silly remarks only to never speak to you again, but you were so glad that you were wrong. You’re always going to love him, even with how crazy his life got.

He pulls back again to pull his shorts down, his boxers going down with them too. A grunt falls from his lips as he presses himself against your skin. His forehead comes to your shoulder, his shoulders rising up and down with every heavy breath.

“I love you.” He manages out through the crack in his voice. “I never stopped. Even when I entered that… awful place, I thought of you. Not a day went by that I wasn’t wishing that you were safe.”

Your hand gently brushes the side of his face, then sliding back through his hair, brushing his hair out of his face. “I love you, Steve. I’m glad that you’re safe.”

A soft smile twitches at his lips and his lips press to yours before he murmurs against your lips. “Tell me want you want, baby.”

You whine into his mouth. “Want you inside me. Please.” You beg, trailing your hands down his back, pressing him closer to you.

He groans, pressing his forehead to yours. “Fuck, okay. I’ve got you. I’ve got you, baby.” He repeats, reaching down and stroking his cock, a strangled sound leaving his throat. “Y’gotta be quiet, baby.”

You nod and he nudges his cock between your folds, quietly cursing to himself, and he slowly pushes in as the both of you gasp. His hand comes to hold your hand that’s rested beside your head, and his other hand rests on your waist. He looks into your eyes desperately and you nod.

He took the opportunity to push further in with a desperate thrust, and his head drops to your shoulder again. Your hand gently squeezes his you get used to his little desperate thrusts. You needed a little time to adjust to him.

Once the pressure of your hand on his relaxes, he pressed his lips to yours as he began to roll his hips into yours, immediately hitting the most perfect spot. You hadn’t realized that you were making sounds until his hand on your waist comes to rest over your lips and he only thrusts deeper, grinning at you.

“There we go.” He coos, looking down between where your bodies meet for a moment before he looks back into your eyes, leaning down to press kisses along your jaw. “Doing so well for me, baby. So perfect.” He murmurs against your skin. “Fuck.”

You whine against his hand, your words coming out muffled. “So good, Steve.”

He removes his hand from your lips and quickly presses his lips to yours again to muffle both of your moans. His hands slip into both of your hands, tightly gripping them and pressing them down into the sheets. Your hands squeeze his as he shifts slightly and finds a different angle, his pace quickening.

Your hand tugs away to slip from his grip and you slide your hand between your bodies, adding pressure to your clit and rubbing messy circles with your fingertips. When he realized what you were doing, he groaned into your mouth, almost losing the pace that he set.

He murmurs against your lips. “Fuck, that’s hot.”

His hand comes to yours, removing your hand from between your bodies and replacing your hand with his, circling your clit at a brutally slow pace. You gently bite down on his plush lip. The slow pace he has on your clit mixed with his cock thrusting inside of you burns perfectly.

“Steve.” You whine.

He slightly pulls away from your lips, rubbing your clit a little quicker, watching the way your breathing hitches as you try hold back any sounds from slipping so that you don’t get a lecture from any of the leaders tomorrow. “Y’look so pretty, baby. Always so, so pretty.” He whispers. “I love you… fuck. You feel so good. Squeezing me so tight.” He gasps, gently biting on your lip to muffle the noises coming from him.

Your hands grip onto his back, trying to hold him as close as you can even with how sticky and humid the cabin is. “I missed you, Steve.” You mumble with a gasp. “I’m sorry for doubting you and being so angry. I’m not doing that again. You’re not a liar.” You admit softly.

His tongue slides across your lip. “I know, baby. I don’t blame you.” He murmurs, his thrusts getting deeper. “I won’t be disappearing like that again, any time soon. Unless disaster strikes again.” He grins.

Always trying to be funny, no matter where you are, and that includes in bed. You roll your eyes at his comment, gently swatting his bicep, though a little smile twitches at the corner of your lip. “Idiot.” You murmured breathlessly.

He laughs, pressing his lips to yours again, and he starts pounding into you rapidly, a muffled squeak coming from your throat. His body shudders on top of you as he feels you clench around him, and your hand slips up the back of his neck, gently rubbing slow circles below the hair at the nape of his neck, pulling the sweetest string of moans from him.

Steve’s always been vocal, and he would be a lot louder if it wasn’t in the middle of the night with other leaders nearby to his cabin. You can tell he’s struggling to keep quiet, and you can’t blame him. It’s been over two years since you’ve been able to do this, even months before you broke up.

You gasp into his mouth. “Steve. Fuck.” You squirm beneath him and his large hand settles on your stomach, gently pressing down. “I’m so close. You feel amazing. Fuck. Keep going. Keep going.” You repeat, rambling underneath him, your voice coming out as a whine.

He groans, pressing further inside of you. “Wanna feel you squeezing me.”

You gasp, tugging the hair at the nape of his neck. “Oh fuck… Steve.” You sob, your head dropping back on the pillows. “I’m coming. Oh, fuck! I’m coming.” You whine and he presses his lips to yours as you squeeze around him.

He whimpers into your mouth, and he weakly thrusted a few more times before stilling inside you, filling you up perfectly, shaking above you. You’re trembling beneath him, your breaths coming out uneven and shaky. He leans down, immediately pressing gentle kisses over your face, his hand sliding under your head to hold you close to himself.

For a moment, neither of you move, focusing on relaxing into each other. His hand on the back of your head strokes gentle circles, and he carefully pulls out, watching your face. He lays on his side, bringing you close to his chest, playing with your hair to soothe you.

“I love you.” He whispers, tucking your head into his chest. “Stay in here with me. We can talk more in the morning.”

You nod, your eyes fluttering. “Okay.” You whisper. “I love you.”

“Sleep, baby.” He murmurs.

For the rest of the night, he keeps you close in his arms whilst you both fall asleep. This wasn’t what you thought you’d be getting out of camp when you first saw Steve arrive, but it ended the final day of camp perfectly. You got to see the part of Steve that he kept quiet, and you listened, even though it felt weird to hear.

In the early hours of the morning, Steve woke you up with a few kisses on your face, and you could feel him grinning without having to look at him. You shifted in his arms, slowly opening your eyes. He leans his head back a little to get a better look at you and he flashes you a wide grin that you could say you missed.

“I know it’s pretty early, but I’d like for us to not deal with comments from the leaders whilst we’re in the main cabin.” He says sadly.

You raise your eyebrows. “Kicking me out so soon, huh? Pretty rude of you to do after last night. I’m taking full offence.” You joke.

He rolls his eyes, pressing a sweet kiss to your lips. “Y’know I’d love to keep you in here. You need to get to your cabin and pack your things, though. The coaches come pretty early, and you need to make sure your kids are awake and their tents are stored.”

“Let me guess, you’ll need help taking your group’s tents down?” You ask.

He huffs. “Possibly.”

“I’m glad to be of help.” You grin, pushing yourself to sit up.

He sits beside you, the covers pooling around your waists. Your clothes are halfway off the bed and on the floor. He pulls you in for a quick kiss before he lets you slip out of bed and pick up your clothes. You slip your shorts on and pull your tank top over your head, then you slip your shoes on and your jacket.

“I’ll see you if you make it to the tents in one piece.” You grin, walking over to his side of the bed and kissing his cheek.

“Missing you already.” He grins, watching you walk over to the door.

You turn your head over your shoulder to look at him before you walk out, quietly closing the door behind you. It’s starting to get lighter outside, so you rush back over to your cabin before anyone can question you. You get inside and change your clothes before you start packing your clothes and items into your bag.

There are leaders already making their way over to the main cabin, so you swing your bag over your shoulders and walk out of your cabin, locking it behind you. You spent some time in the main cabin with the leaders, everyone having their morning coffee and talking about how the camp has been, already discussing the next one. Your eyes keep darting over to Steve who’s grinning at you from the other side of the room, Colin beside him.

With a few complaints and groans as you had to go sort out your groups to get on the coaches, you walk down to the tents with Mandy beside you. The tents are still zipped up, and the children haven’t got up yet. You sigh and clap your hands together, earning mumbles from inside the tents.

“Alright, time to get up!” You say, weaving around the tents. “The coaches arrive in an hour, so you need to be up and dressed to take your tents down.”

They slowly shuffle out of their sleeping bags, tents zipping open as they crawl out, looking all groggy and grumpy. For the next few minutes, they lazily grab their gear bags and start to take the tents apart, which didn’t take as long as you expected. You turn your head to see Steve standing by a tent, trying to take it apart.

You glance at Mandy and the group who are putting the tent gear away, and you walk over to Steve, standing in front of him. “Struggling again?” You ask with a grin.

“I’m never going to work this out.” He mumbles.

“I can teach you at some point when you’re not under pressure.” You laugh and lean down to pluck the pegs out the ground.

He grins. “My house?”

“Sure, Steve. Sure.” You nod, but you’re more than happy to do so if it meant that you’d be around him.

He helps you take the tents apart, which he’s much better at taking them apart than pitching them. It was clear that he wanted you to come over and help him for the sake of it. When you’re distracted and he sees no one is looking at you both, he presses a quick kiss to your cheek, earning a laugh and a ‘Steve!’ from you.

Once all the tents are down, you make your way back to your group and walk down to the coach parking area, and you feel a strange tugging in your chest. You hated leaving camp anyway, but you weren’t ready to be away from Steve after already having to be away from him for two years.

As you’re loading the children’s bags into the luggage compartment at the side of the bus, he calls your name from behind you and you whip your head around, your shoulders dropping by simply looking at him. He breathlessly pauses in front of you.

“My bus is almost ready to go, but I needed to see you before I leave.” He gasps out, resting his hands on the sides of your face.

A smile twitches at your lips. “I’m glad you’ve not disappeared again.”

“That won’t be happening again, I swear.” He says, pulling you closer to him. “I wanted to ask if we could try us again? I understand if you don’t want to after knowing what you know, but I won’t be running off anymore. There’s nothing crazy happening in my life.”

You tilt your head and press a sweet, gentle kiss to his lips. “Yes, as long as we are safe and I’m not going to get eaten by some weird creature.”

He grins. “Trust me, you’re safer than ever.”

“Well, you know where I live. I haven’t moved anywhere, still with my parents.” You smile, dragging your hand down his chest. “Feel free to stop by.”

“Oh, I will.” He says with a cocky smirk. “I’ll need come camping lessons if I’m really going to get into being a leader.”

“I’ll give you some.” You laugh, resting your forehead against his shoulder. “Now, get back to your coach before they drive away and leave you here.”

He gently lifts your head from his shoulder and presses his lips to yours in a deep, slow kiss, a quiet sound slipping from him. “I love you.” He whispers.

“I love you, Steve. I’ll see you soon.” You whisper, brushing the back of your fingers over his cheek.

“Don’t be surprised if I turn up tonight.” He grins, slowly stepping backwards.

You fold your arms over your chest. “Oh, I’m expecting you to.”

He waves at you before jogging over to his coach and you turn back to the luggage compartment, shaking your head with a smile. Once the bags are loaded up, you step onto the coach and take a seat next to Mandy at the front, and the driver slowly starts to drive down the path.

“I thought you were mad at your friend?” Sally asks from the seat behind you, and your cheeks heat up hearing the children laugh. They definitely saw you kissing Steve.

Camp didn’t go the way you were expecting it to, but it got you right back to who you were missing, and you were glad your parents gave into you. Steve wasn’t lying when he said he’d come to see you, you knew that. You’re expecting him to be waiting at your door when you get home.

Steve moves towards you, messing with his hair on the way, but when he starts to sit beside you, you stop him with a hand on his arm.

Scooting backwards, you press yourself into the cushions and spread your legs to give him space to sit in front of you.

“Wha—right there?” he asks, blinking down at you, mussed hair haloed by the light of the TV. 

"Yes, right here.”

He chuckles softly, shaking his head before turning around and collapsing into the makeshift seat you've provided. 

"This what you wanted?" he grunts, letting all his weight fall back onto you and press you into the couch. “You sure?” 

“Mmhhm,” you breathe, wrapping your legs around his hips, and your arms around his broad shoulders. He's so warm. You bury your face into his shoulder, inhaling the scents of fresh grass and humid summer air. “Where does it hurt today?” 

He sighs, absently watching the sitcom on the TV from under heavy lashes. “Everywhere.”

You rest your chin on his shoulder. The laugh track plays quietly through your house just as the first raindrop hits your window pane.  

Every time a storm rolls in, Steve gets this way. 

His old wounds have long since healed by now, but under intense shifts of barometric pressure, they come back to haunt him, driving a gnawing, clamping ache into his body that whisks away his concentration and make it hard for him to breathe. 

When the weather changes, he’ll say that bone in his nose aches, or that joint in his shoulder is killing him. But his side hurts the most. Those frayed nerve endings and hairline fractures in his ribs never got proper care thanks to his neglectful parents who never noticed their son was in pain.

Through the years, you’ve found a way to help him. Fill his mind with pleasure instead, and make him forget—even just for a minute. 

So, your hands start to roam. Traversing him in that way only lovers do—those who know someone else’s body better than their own. Curling over his forearm, brushing the hair there with your thumb. Caressing the rough knuckles on his hands. Trailing the bulge of his bicep, his capped shoulder, until finally skimming up the side of his head to plunge your fingers into this hair. 

Steve sinks further into you with a groan, but his shoulders tense when he hears you take a stuttering breath. 

His hands fly to hold yours still on his body. “Shit, ‘m not crushing you, am I?"

You shake your head, lips trailing the vein in his neck. “Relax, Steve. Let me make you feel good.”

You hear him swallow hard, hesitating. Then, finally, his hands fall away from yours, giving them permission to drift down to his waistband. He helps you out, undoing the button on his khakis for you. You shift behind him and reach down further until your fingers brush his cock, already straining against his boxers. 

Steve sighs, hips shifting as he chases your touch. “Baby, you know you don’t have to if you don’t wan—”

“I want to,” you say. “Let me fix it.”

His heavy palm comes down on your shin in his lap, warmth bleeding from his fingers. It’s a grounding, touch, not meant to stop you. Something to keep him centered while pleasure and pain war inside, threatening to pull him apart. 

You brush your fingers across his hard length, earning a soft groan of approval. Weighing the velvet steel in your hand, you wrap your fingers around him and squeeze at the base, just how he likes it. 

He curses, his head falling back against your shoulder just as thunder rolls in the distance. His lashes flutter shut, throat bared in the TV light, and you swear you’ve never seen anything more beautiful. 

You stroke him slowly. Languidly. The pleasure glides through his veins like silk, stealing the bite from his wounds, relieving the teeth digging into his ribs, before pooling into a different kind of pressure low in his abdomen. One that’s dull, and drugging, and promises relief. 

“Relax,” you whisper again against his ear.

Steve obeys, his body going a little more pliant. His thighs fall further apart, pinning you into the soft cushion. But his weight on you isn’t the only thing that steals the breath from your lungs. It’s the way he finds sanctuary in you. You love him like this. Open, and trusting, and wanting. Needing you, even when he’s in pain. Especially when he’s in pain. 

Your hand falls into the tempo he needs without him having to ask. It’s still slow, but steadily grows harder, grabbing that thread of need from inside his hips and pulling it tight. 

His back rises and falls with uneven breathes against your chest, but he stays still. He knows better than to buck up into your touch. If his hips lock up, your hand disappears. His shoulders tense, and your kisses stop. 

He has to be relaxed, pliant, and totally at your mercy for this pain relief to work.

Outside, the sky darkens further, turning that mottly shade of blue. The one you’ve seen bloom on his body time and time again over the years. The rain starts to fall steadily, tinking and plunking onto the glass pane.

Your knuckles rasp against his pants as you touch him, your forearm catching on his shirt with every stroke, and when your tongue darts out for a taste of his salty skin, and you’re rewarded with a moan that sends heat licking up your spine. 

He must really be hurting today. By this point, he’s usually trying to catch you by the ankle and pull you underneath him, pushing your legs apart and dragging his tongue through your pussy before you're done with him.

You shift underneath him, the heavy, slick weight of your arousal pooling in your panties, but you’ll deal with that later. Right now, you just want him pain free.  

His cock jerks in your hand, precum smearing across your fingers as his hand squeezes your shin, the other grasping uselessly at the couch cushion beside him. 

From this position—his head resting on your shoulder—you can only see the slope of his nose against the storm clouds, but his eyes are screwed shut, his brows furrowed even as little huffs leave his parted lips. 

You drop a sweet, reassuring kiss to one of the moles on his face. 

Steve’s always struggled with accepting care. It’s taken a long time to get him here. 

Hooking your ankle around his knee, you pull your leg towards you and spread his thighs even wider so your other hand can crawl underneath his arm and disappear into his shirt.

He turns his head and trails his lips across your cheek, your jaw, until finally you turn and capture his mouth with yours. His tongue dips into your mouth as your hand travels over his ribs, his scars, with soothing, sure touches that have him groaning into the kiss. 

But when his socks start to whisper against the carpeted floor as he tries to get leverage to shove his hips up into your touch, you break apart and pull your hand from his dick.

You’ve practiced edging Steve many times, so you don’t even have to say anything for him to get the picture. 

“Just feels so good,” Steve groans. “Sorry, I—yeah.” 

Rain pelts the window now, drowning out the distant laugh track on the TV, and Steve's heartbeat kicks up against your palm.

A hiss of pleasure escapes him when your touch resumes, but you tighten your grip, jerking him steadily until he swallows hard and relaxes again. 

You press gentle, openmouthed kisses along the column of his neck, his curls brushing your ear as his sounds grow breathier and louder. And when his cock thickens in your hand, you know he’s close. 

You bite your lip as his hips go stiff. Listening to him pant like this is really working you up. Finally, he groans, and jolts in your hold as hot ropes of come paint your knuckles. 

You slow to a stop, still kissing his neck to bring him down, making sure he's utterly relaxed before slipping your hand free. 

Steve tips his head back onto the couch and looks over at you, his eyes shining with love, but they darken swiftly as he watches your fingers disappear into your mouth, your pink tongue swirling around to catch every salty drop of him.

“You gonna let me take care of you, now?” he rasps, eyes on your mouth. 

You smile softly. “Steve, you’re hurting—”

“Not anymore.” 

His arm wraps around your waist, and then he shifts you lengthwise across the couch, his body following you down.

“You gave me my fix," he says, trailing a hand between your bodies, and your breath hitches as his long fingers disappear into your panties. “Now, let me give you yours.”

a/n: Woke up this morning to a thunderstorm and plans to write something completely different. But, when I put pen to paper, this is what happened instead. It's been a minute since I've written something completely new and not from my drafts, so I'm not complaining. (It’s probably also due to the fact that I'm still thinking about Steve and reader from Truce)

steve masterlist | banner from @cursed-carmine

Deep and guttural, dragged up from somewhere starved. His hands clamp around your waist, fingers digging into your ass as he hauls you flush against him. Denim rasps against the inside of your thighs when he rolls his hips up, grinding into you.

That thick, heavy bulge makes itself known, humiliatingly honest.

Blood in his mouth. Dirt under his nails and the sour, rotten tang of that other place still caked in his hair. 

And he’s hard.

Something in him is broken that way.

Years of surviving by the skin of his teeth—beaten and concussed and tortured and choked and drowned and devoured—it’s fucked up the wiring in Steve Harrington’s brain.

Pain tolerance shot to hell. Fear braided with dopamine until his nervous system can’t tell the difference anymore.

Getting hurt no longer scares him.

Now, agony comes hardwired with clarity. That split second before impact, when adrenaline screams through his veins and he’s teetering on that razor-sharp edge of death, that’s when he feels most alive.

Your thumb presses into the fresh cut on his lip, smearing his blood back into it. His lashes flutter. His hips jerk up, rutting against you like you’re fucking him.

You grab his jaw, fingers digging into the sharp hinge to force his gaze down to yours. His pupils are blown impossibly wide; barely any color left, drowned beneath an endless wash of black.

“Yeah?” you whisper, venom-sweet. You drag your thumb down his throat, feel the jut of his Adam’s apple jump under your touch. “Does that feel good?”

He nods.

Doesn’t even have the decency to look ashamed. Whatever scrap of self-preservation he’d once possessed hollowed out by hunger—by that sick, reckless void inside him that only ever seems to ignite after he’s survived something that should have killed him.

A cruel cosmic coin toss that keeps landing in his favor—and instead of gratitude, it leaves him burning for more.

You lift your knee and press your thigh into the seam of his pants. He sucks in a sharp breath through blood-slick lips, head tipping back, throat bared.

You despise it.

You despise that this is the language his body understands. That he can shove you out of the way without a second thought—dangle over two hundred feet of empty air because he decided your life was worth more than his—and still get hard when you hurt him for it.

You drag your bloody thumb to your mouth and suck it clean, eyes never leaving his.

He watches you do it, watches your lips wrap around the pad of your finger to taste, to swallow—swallow his blood like it’s yours, like he’s yours, like the world could never take him from you.  

Like he hasn’t already tried to give himself away.

Only this time... it was for you, wasn’t it?

Hurled himself into the abyss without hesitation, fingers scraping at metal while the yawning darkness waited below.

One second slower. One fraction of a heartbeat, and—

Your palms slam into his shoulders.

Just like his had slammed into yours.

Bile surges up your throat as you claw at muscle and bone, shoving and shoving until his balance falters.

He stumbles back, heel catching on the edge of the bed. Momentum betrays him for a second time and he falls back onto the mattress with a startled grunt.  

Your stomach falls with him. Phantom vertigo clawing up your spine, even now.

And the moment you close your eyes—

You’re standing on top of that tower.

You remember the look on his face.

That awful, quiet resolve of someone who had already made peace with his fate.

You remember his hands on your shoulders. The firm press of his fingers, the way he held on just long enough to make sure you were steady, to make sure you were far enough away.

Far enough that you couldn’t reach him.

Far enough that you would live.

And then he let go.

You remember the force of it careening you backward, your boots scraping against the metal platform as you fought for balance. You remember the cold bite of the railing against your back. You remember watching him move in the opposite direction, his own momentum carrying him toward the open edge.

You remember his hand shooting out on instinct, searching for anything that would keep him there. His palm scraping against rusted steel, leaving streaks of red behind as his fingers curled desperately around the railing.

The same hands that had pushed you away.

The same hands that had held yours on the way up, guiding you over every rung of that ladder when the height made your stomach twist.

You remember his mouth opening like he might say something—your name, maybe—a goodbye, something he needed you to know—but all that came out was a broken, ragged breath.

You remember the color draining from his face as he looked down, the terrible understanding settling in his eyes.

You remember lunging for him without thought.

You remember Robin’s arms locking around your waist, holding you back so tightly it bruised, her grip the only thing keeping you from following him over the edge.

And then his fingers slipped.

You stalk toward him now, trying to outrun the memory, fists clenched so tight your nails carve crescents into your palms.

He’s sprawled across the sheets, chest heaving, arms flung wide in surrender.

“Why?” you demand, climbing over him, straddling him with an anger so raw it shakes your whole body. “Why the fuck would you do that?”

He lets out a quick breath through his nose, incredulous. Raises his brows like you’re the insane one.

“Seriously? You’re seriously asking me that.”

He’s smiling.

A crooked, boyish thing, manic brightness behind the eyes, adrenaline still lighting him up from the inside out.  

It detonates something in you.

You slam your weight down on him, knees digging hard into his sides. The mattress groans, the air punching out of his lungs in a sharp grunt.

You fist the hem of his shirt and yank it up.

The sight underneath steals your air right back.

It never gets easier to see.

Bruises bloom fresh and vicious across his ribs, inky purples bleeding into sick reds. New hurt swallowed by old hurt, skin that never gets the chance to heal clean before something tears it open again.

Jagged crescents from teeth, ropes of pale, warped ridges that split the tan of his skin like fault lines, ready to crack him open. That chunk of puckered flesh on his right side that never healed right—and it never will.  

Your fingers drag down the center of his chest, shaking.

“What was the plan this time, hm?” you spit, nails scraping over the soft plane of his stomach, catching on one of the scars. “What was the fucking plan, Steve?”

You hook your fingers into his belt buckle and rip it loose, hard enough that the metal clangs against itself.

“Answer me. What would you have done if—if Jonathan didn’t catch you? If you slipped?”

His head falls back, exposing the flushed column of his throat, pulse hammering wild and alive under skin you’ve kissed a hundred times.

“What the hell was I supposed to do?” he pants. “Let you fall?”

“You didn’t know I was gonna fall!”

“Well I wasn’t gonna fucking wait to find out, alright?”  

The mattress groans when he pushes himself upright too fast, pain flashing across his face before he buries it immediately, one hand flying to his ribs on instinct.

“I can’t... I’m not gonna just stand there and wait for something to happen to you.”

Your body goes still.  

The bright sting behind your eyes arrives right on cue, the fury choking off in your throat until all that’s left is grief.

“You know,” you whisper, quieter now. “You know I’m not just talking about the tower.”

There’s a moment of recognition in his eyes as the words sink in, a flash of something that might be guilt if he ever let it sit long enough.

He knows exactly what you mean.

Then, just as fast, he shutters himself. Lets the feeling die before it can root.

His gaze slides away toward the ceiling.

“No, don’t... don’t do that,” he mutters. “Don’t make this into some... suicidal thing. It wasn’t.”

“Wasn’t it?”

“No.”

“You could’ve died tonight.”

“But I didn’t.”

“That’s not the fucking point!”

“Well what do you want me to say?” he fires back suddenly, frustration cracking his voice. “That I’m sorry I stopped you from falling?”

“I want you to stop acting like your life means less than mine!”

He clamps his mouth shut, an audible click of his molars as he frowns, incredulity settling behind his wide eyes. His brows pulling together as he stares at you like he can’t understand why you could possibly be saying this.

Steve doesn’t consciously believe his life matters less.

He would never say that.

But somewhere deep down—in the ugly marrow of him, in the abandoned, lonely places built inside him when he was a kid—he believes it instinctively.

You’ve known that for a long time now.

Steve grew up starving.

Not for food.

For affection.   

A reason to believe he mattered even when there was nothing he could offer except himself.

Love, in the Harrington house, was conditional.

And at Hawkins High, he traded one kind of emptiness for another.

Built himself a throne out of borrowed attention and hollow praise.

Then the world ended, and suddenly everybody needed him.

Needed his fists, his strength. Needed the frightening way he could take hit after hit after hit and still stand back up bleeding.

Steve latched onto that feeling with both hands.

And his body became a type of offering.

A thing to spend.

You’ve lost count of how many nights ended exactly like this.

Both of you stumbling back home, adrenaline clawing through your veins, slick with sweat and blood—yours or his, it doesn’t matter anymore. Shaking so hard your teeth chatter while you scream at him, fists slamming into his chest.

Screaming and shoving and crying and kissing and begging—begging him to please, please stop being so fucking careless with your life. What’s the point of any of this shit if you’re dead, Steve?      

It always ends the same way. Your anger dissolving into something wetter as Steve reaches for your waist with bruised hands, dragging you against him, mouthing apologies into your throat he’ll never say aloud. Fucking you on top of bloodstained sheets while the smell of iron hangs thick in the room, face buried in your neck, every thrust a word he won't say.

Sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.

You stare at him now, chest heaving, lungs scraping for air that won’t come.

Then you reach down and pull his wrists together.

The leather creaks when you thread his belt around them.

Loop, thread, pull, cinch.

Survival knots perfected in the dead of night, in basements and back rooms, hands slick with sweat while you practiced until it stuck. So when the time came, you could hold down something thrashing and dangerous.

Because hesitation is what gets people killed.

It makes sickness crawl up your throat, how naturally your body remembers.

How this world has taught you to restrain someone you love—and taught you well.

You yank his arms above his head, the strap biting into his skin, pulling tight until the leather creaks and his skin pales underneath.

Steve doesn’t fight it, doesn’t even try. Just lets his head fall back against the pillows, wrists falling limp over dark linens.

Has the fucking audacity to smile.

“What,” he breathes, wrecked in an entirely different way now. “You gonna punish me?”

You yank the belt tighter.

He hisses softly through his teeth, brows creasing in a fake show of pain, hips stirring in anticipation.

“Okay, easy, easy,” he mutters breathlessly, grin crooked. “Jesus—easy, honey.”

“Oh, so now I’m honey?”

You shove his wrists harder into the pillow, then drop your hands to his pants, fingers rough and impatient. The button fights you before snapping loose, his zipper dragged down with a harsh metallic rasp. He sucks in a breath, back arching as the pressure eases off his swollen cock.

“Baby...” he tries, a soft laugh in his voice. “C’mon, you don’t have to, just—”

“Shut up.”

You shove him back into the mattress, gaze burning furiously through him.

He just stares back, that reckless, adrenaline-drunk smile still clinging to him like he hasn’t learned a single fucking thing.

So you wrap your hand around his throat.

Four fingers digging into warm, sweat-slick skin. Your thumb presses into the hollow beside his windpipe until you can feel it.

The frantic thump-thump-thump of life.

Life he throws around like loose change.

“S-shit, babe...” he chokes softly, lashes fluttering, eyes rolling back, the fucked-up wires in his brain firing off all at once. He uses what little leverage he has to lift his hips, grinding against your ass until you tighten your grip, a crease of real strain forming between his brows as his breath snags under your palm.

But even then, he doesn’t push you away. His bound hands strain downward, fingers grasping uselessly at your wrist, tugging you forward so he can get you closer, grind up harder.

You hate him.

You love him so much it makes you violent.

And he’s still fucking bleeding.

Face covered all over in fresh cuts and bruises, illuminated by the soft blue glow of the dinosaur nightlight in the corner—same one he’s had since he was five.

This bed once held your first kiss.

Your first time.

Steve laughing breathlessly into your mouth at sixteen years old because he kept fumbling the condom wrapper with nervous hands.

Whispered promises under blankets about senior year and college.

A hundred different somedays and maybes.

About a future that didn’t look like this—didn’t include gates or monsters or watching the boy you love come within inches of disappearing, over and over again.

Now you’re choking him in it.  

Straddling him with your hand around his throat because you don’t know how else to make him understand that you cannot survive loving somebody who keeps choosing death.

It won’t leave you alone, the image of his face on top of that tower.

Not an inch of hesitation.

Like it wouldn’t have mattered, either way.

Your other hand comes up, circling his throat fully now, pressing in. 

Your eyes sting as you narrow them, forcing yourself to hold his gaze.

Barely a whisper, the words cut you on their way out.

“Fuck you.”

Some days you think about killing him yourself.

Ending it before the world gets to.

Precipitate the inevitable doom that is loving a man who would bleed for you, break for you, die for you—

But won’t live for you.    

At least it would be quick, then.

At least you wouldn’t spend the rest of your life waiting for the inevitable moment where his luck finally runs out.

It’s unbearable.

Loving someone who would move mountains to keep you alive, but cannot understand why you’d want the same for him.

Calm in the face of oblivion, martyrdom fits him like a second skin. 

That’s what terrifies you most.

Because somewhere deep down, you know he doesn’t fear death the way he should. The way a normal person would.

Sometimes, you think a part of him finds peace in the idea of going out useful.

And it’s all so completely, irreparably fucked, because you don’t love him despite it.

You love him because of it.

Loving Steve Harrington feels like standing on a fault line, waiting for the ground to split wide and swallow you whole.

It’s a special, exquisite kind of torture, to be so in love with a man who throws himself at death like it’s a dare.  

And it is love, undeniably and irrevocably so.

You love him.

By god, you love him.  

Because his martyr complex is just a twisted language for devotion. When he throws himself into danger, you know it isn’t bravado—it’s instinct. A reflex burned into his bones, older than logic, older than fear.

Love is the only language Steve Harrington has ever been fluent in, and he speaks it with his whole body.  

It turns his skin into armor, his heart into a blade. Sharp enough to carve permanent lines inside you—wounds that might close, someday, but never fade.

And he really does believe it.

That this is what it looks like, loving somebody.

But what good is devotion if it buries you?

What good is love from someone six feet under?

Your hand loosens around his throat, just enough for him to drag in a ragged breath. His chest heaves under you, pulse still racing against your palm.

His Adam’s apple bobs, sending ripples of light over the pale rings circling his neck, thin and white against his flushed skin. Scars that still have him jerking awake some nights, clawing at his own throat, gasping like he’s still back there.

Nightmares that leave him staring at the ceiling until four in the morning because every time he closes his eyes, he sees vines threading around broken bodies. Migraines that get so bad after trips to the Upside Down he has to sit alone in dark bathrooms, forehead pressed against cool tile, breathing through the nausea until the room stops tilting.

His hands still reach for a nail bat when the house creaks at night, before he's even fully awake.

Fear has never made him run. It only ever taught him to step forward.

And the tear you've been holding back all night finally slips free, landing on his bare stomach with a soft, awful plop.

Steve flinches like it’s acid, muscles clenching underneath you.

“Baby...”

You let go of his neck fully as you sink back onto his thighs, fingers gone numb, teeth digging into your lip until copper floods your mouth.

“You didn’t even hesitate.”

You watch as his expression immediately sobers, brows drawing together, eyes flicking between yours.

“Y-you never do. You never fucking hesitate,” your breath starts coming in tight hitches, catching in your chest. “And it’s like—it’s like—”

The rest of the words slip free, torn loose now that everything’s exposed, out there in the open, your handprint around his throat and his wrists bound in leather.    

“...It’s like you don’t even care if you leave me here.”

Steve goes silent for a moment, shoulders slumping with a quiet breath.    

You watch—eyes burning, body trembling—as he slowly reaches for you. The leather belt creaks as his wrists slide down until his fingers brush yours.  

You feel the metal burns on his palms against the back of your hand—his skin split from gripping the railing so hard he tore himself open just to keep from falling.   

He whispers your name on a soft breath.

“Baby, if I ever lost you?” He shakes his head faintly. “That’d be it for me.”

You sniff hard, refusing to blink.

“I mean it.” Light pools in his eyes, trembling along the lower lashes until they glimmer like wet glass. “I’d never… I’d never leave you behind. How could I?”

He closes his fingers gently around your wrist, thumb brushing over your pulse.

“I love you. More than... more than anything. You know that.”

You lift your gaze slowly to meet his.

“Do I?”

Two words, but it’s the ugliest thing you’ve said all night.

It's suffocating, the silence that follows.

“Do you ever think about us? About me?”

Because that’s what this is really about, isn’t it?

For all the names you’ve thrown at him in your worst moments—reckless, stubborn, idiot, a selfish asshole with a death wish—

It’s you who feel selfish.

For wanting him to stay.

For wanting to keep him in a world that seems determined to take him first.

For wanting him to choose you over the next disaster that crawls out of the dark.

Because you’re terrified that when the moment comes, when it’s you or the world, he won’t have to think about it. That the world will always reach for him first—and that one day, it’ll win.

Or worse, that he’ll choose you instead.

That he’ll stop running toward danger because of you. That loving you will make him hesitate.

And you’ll be the reason he changes.  

The reason the world breaks.

Steve’s expression changes in a flash.

The belt creaks as he tries to sit up, a real wince cutting across his brow when his bruised ribs take the pressure. He sucks in a breath through clenched teeth, dragging himself upright.

“Look at me.”

You turn your head instinctively, but he follows.

“Hey. C’mon. Look at me.”

Hazel burns molten in the dim light, the shine in them trembling.

“Of course I think about you,” he whispers, breathless. “You don’t think I think about you? Hey, hey, look at me—you’re all I think about. You’re in my head, all the time. Every fucking second.”

Your tears spill harder, falling freely now, dripping from your chin onto the dark brown fabric of his cargo pants, leaving small damp spots that bloom between you.

“Every time something goes wrong, or—or I’m thinking about doing something stupid, you’re there. First thing. Your face, your voice. Telling me to stop being an idiot, telling me to think—"

You shake your head, a broken sound catching in your throat.

“And if I just stood there tonight,” he presses on, eyes locked on yours, brimming with tears but never flinching, “If there was even a chance you could fall, and I didn’t do anything?”

He swallows.

“I couldn’t live with that. I mean it, honey. I couldn’t.”    

A tear slips loose and slides down his own cheek. He doesn’t wipe it away.

“Baby, I... I wasn’t trying to die. I was trying to end this. All of it. So we don’t have to keep doing this forever.”

His mouth twitches faintly.

“You remember what we talked about? About college? That stupid road trip idea I had with the camper van?” He shakes his head, letting out a quiet laugh. “Six kids, right? Or... whatever insane number I said.”

His hands come up as much as the belt allows, clumsy from the strain in his shoulders, and cradle your face. His thumbs drag across the wet heat beneath your eyes, catching tears as fast as they fall, rubbing salt into flushed skin. 

“That’s the goal. That’s always been the goal.”

He leans forward until his forehead presses against yours.

For a long moment, he says nothing. His hands stay on your face, thumbs brushing softly over your skin, his breathing uneven in the small space between you.

Then, almost too quietly to hear:

“I would’ve jumped with you.”

You recoil immediately, shaking your head hard, eyes squeezing shut.

“Don’t. Don’t fucking say that.”

Steve pushes on, voice low and terrifyingly calm.

“If you’d fallen off that tower tonight, I would’ve followed you.”

His thumb brushes under your eye again, catching another tear before it reaches your jaw.

“Wouldn’t even think about it. I’d just go.”

“Steve—”

“I’d go.”

Your eyes snap open.

Those big, stupid hazel eyes bore into yours.

That stupid nose. Those stupid thick lashes and those stupid moles and those stupid lips.

And underneath all of it, that huge, catastrophic, stupid heart crammed inside a body that keeps throwing itself into danger like it doesn’t belong to him.

Your chest aches just looking at him.

You’ve spent countless nights staring at Steve Harrington while he slept beside you, wondering if loving him would always feel like standing barefoot on train tracks.

Waiting.

Feeling the vibrations underneath your feet before the impact ever comes. Knowing that something massive and merciless will come racing toward you and there won’t be a damn thing you can do to stop it. 

Sometimes you’d trace the slope of his nose with the back of your finger. Follow the shape of his eyebrows. The tiny scar under his chin from a T-ball game when he was six.

You’d study the dip of his cupid’s bow, the soft curve of his lips as he breathed into his pillow, completely unaware of how thoroughly he’d ruined your life for anyone else.

And you’d torture yourself with the same impossible question.

If someone had stopped you before all of this, taken your face in both hands and said:

Here, this boy is going to become the center of your entire world.

He's going to make you laugh so hard your ribs hurt.

He’s going to kiss you like you’re the last person on earth, and he's going to love you so completely you'll forget there was ever a version of yourself that existed before him.

He's going to look at you like you're the only thing worth finding at the end of the world.

Then one day, he’ll start throwing himself in front of monsters and nightmares beyond comprehension. 

He's going to throw himself off a tower without hesitating if it means you get to live.

Would you still choose him?

Would you still let him in, knowing one day he might not make it back?

Would you willingly hand your heart to someone who would protect it with his life—

But never his own?

And even in the quiet space of that hypothetical, the answer had never changed.

You would.

Every fucking time. 

“I love you,” the boy in front of you whispers.

The words slice straight through you, scraping against everything frayed raw inside your chest.

“Shut up,” you breathe, eyes squeezing shut.

Because if he loved you, wouldn’t he try?

Wouldn’t he try?

“I love you.”

“Steve, s-stop.”

“I love you. There’s nothing—nothing—that matters to me more than you.”

“Steve, I swear to god—”

“You’re it for me. And if it came down to it again—”

“Please, stop—”

“—I’d choose to jump. Every time.”

It feels like a seam is splitting inside your chest.

Your breath caves first—a sharp, stuttering inhale that catches in your lungs hard enough to hurt—before your body moves on instinct.

You surge forward, the mattress groaning beneath the force of it as you crash into him, fists tangling in the front of his shirt.

“Fuck you,” you sob.

Steve sucks in a breath as you pound weakly at his chest, his restrained hands jerking uselessly between your bodies.

He can’t hold you properly. Can’t wrap his arms around you the way he wants to.

Still, he tries.  

He shifts forward on the mattress, pulling you between his thighs. The leather around his wrists creaks when he strains to hook his arms around your waist.

You bury your face against his neck.

His entire body folds around yours, chest pressed flush against you so tightly you can feel the frantic hammer of his heartbeat through his sternum, the uneven rise and fall of his lungs where your bodies are crushed together. He presses his cheek against your temple, breathing hard through his nose.

“I know,” he murmurs hoarsely into your hair. “I know, baby. I know.”

“N-no, y-you don’t,” you choke out.

Your hands claw at his shoulders hard enough to bunch the fabric beneath your fists. You need him closer. Closer than skin, closer than bone. If you could unzip his ribs and crawl inside his chest just to keep his heart beating yourself, you would.

“You don’t know,” you sob against his throat. “You d-don’t know what it f-feels like—”

“Hey,” Steve whispers shakily. “Hey, c’mon. Breathe for me, baby. Please.”

You curl tighter against him, fists twisting in the soft cotton of his shirt until your knuckles throb from the effort. The tears don't stop. They soak into the warm skin at the base of his neck, your breath catching against him in broken, uneven pulls until your throat burns and your ribs ache with every desperate inhale.

Steve gathers you as close as his battered body will allow. Every so often, he presses another lingering kiss into your hairline, your temple, the crown of your head, each one quiet enough to say what words can't.

“I’ve got you, baby,” he murmurs into your hair. “M'right here, I got you. Not going anywhere.”  

You let his words settle over you, one shaky breath at a time. The sobs begin to lose their violence, splintering into uneven hiccups that leave your chest sore and hollow.

When you finally pull back, it's only far enough to see him. 

Your hand trembles when you lift it to his face.

Steve goes still as your fingertips ghost over the scrape on his cheek, tracing down the line of his jaw. He doesn’t so much as flinch when your thumb brushes over the split in his lip, featherlight over the broken skin there.

The first kiss is soft.

Nothing like the frantic, bruising collision from earlier.  

But it’s worse like this, somehow.

Wet with tears, with blood, salt and iron passed between soft, shaking kisses. Steve sighs into it, a trembling sound that vibrates against your lips as he tilts his head and follows you deeper. His nose nudges against your cheek, his kisses careful, almost hesitant in how tender he’s being with you.

And it’s funny, really.

How grief can change shape in the span of a heartbeat.

One moment it's lodged beneath your ribs like broken glass, your body still trapped on that radio tower, watching Steve disappear over the edge.

The next, it's here.

In the careful way he kisses you, the warmth of his breath against your mouth.

In the slow, wet drag of his tongue against yours, your fingers hooking into the open button of his pants. The zipper presses cold against the side of your hand before you push deeper, slipping beneath the elastic of his briefs.

He’s already half-hard. Heavy and thick and burning hot against your palm, velvety-soft skin twitching when you wrap your fingers around him. The soft curl of hair at his base brushes against your knuckles when you adjust your grip.

He pants openly into your mouth as you slide your other hand into his hair, gripping tight, yanking his head back at the angle you want it.  

Nose to nose, lips brushing even as you’re not kissing—only sharing air and spit, slick between swollen mouths.

And your eyes stay open, watching him.

Darkened hazels and helplessly fluttering lashes, his is a face that will haunt every version of your future. The one you almost lost, the one you’re still begging the universe to let you keep.

“Show me.”

He blinks at your words, lips parted in soft pants.

“Show me how much you love me.”

He swears under his breath, eyes clenching shut.  

“Fuck…” he groans, shaking his head slowly, side to side, grunting when you drag your thumb across the sensitive tip. “Baby, please... just untie me,” he pleads, straining against his binds again. “Please—fuck—let me touch you—”

“No.”

“Please, baby—”

“No,” you repeat, wrist rolling as you start to stroke him harder, feeling him swell fully in your grip.

He grunts, brows creased in pleasure as you continue to squeeze and glide your palm up and down his length, lips parted to keep kissing you in this obscene way, tongues sliding together in slow, wet strokes.

“God, you’re so... so pretty when you’re mad, you know that?” He huffs against your mouth, almost a laugh, throat gone hoarse and dry from how hard he’s been panting.

“You get this look like you’re—ah, fuck—like you might actually kill me.”

You squeeze your grip around his cock, dangerously tight.

“Maybe I should.”

Something catches in those soft hazel eyes, then.

Pinning you in place with nothing but their unblinking stare, almost unnervingly steady.

You watch, helpless, as he lifts his own hands up toward his mouth. He spits lewdly into the hollow of his right palm, shoving his waistband down just enough to free his cock, replacing your hand with his own.  

Wrists still bound, he slicks himself in slow, wet strokes, eyes never leaving yours.

"Yeah?" he asks quietly. "You gonna punish me?"

He tips his chin up toward you, lashes nearly brushing your skin when he blinks.

“You gonna use this cock, baby? Take it out on me?”

He uses what little range of motion he has to rub his tip up and down your glistening slit, obscene schlicks that fill the space between your breaths, spurred by the impatient grinds of your hips.

And the moment he pushes inside you, he breathes the words against your skin.

“I love you.”

His mouth swallowing your whimpers at the stretch of taking him this way—no prep, no lube, just spit—yours, his, it doesn’t matter anymore.

“I love you. I love you. We’re... we’re gonna be okay, baby, I promise. We’re gonna be okay.”

Your hands shake as you reach for the belt around his wrists, the buckle catching under your fingertips before releasing with a muted clink. He cups your cheeks as soon as it does, cradling your face, pressing his lips against yours. 

“I love you,” he repeats against your mouth, over and over. “I love you. I love you.”

Grief really is a funny thing.   

It burns until there's nothing left to consume

And the anger that had kept you upright for hours—the frantic, desperate need to make him understand how terrified you'd been—begins to crumble beneath the weight of what you almost lost.

Your strength gives out in increments. Your fingers slowly uncurl from his biceps, the crescents your nails pressed into his skin easing away. Your forehead finds the warm slope of his shoulder instead, eyes slipping shut as the last of the fight drains from your body.

You sag forward, soft whimpers and low groans exchanged between your lips as you rock back and forth on his cock, letting it fill up the hollowed-out places inside you.

And when you get too tired to do even that—when your strength gives out, thighs trembling with the effort of lifting yourself up and sinking back down—he’s there to catch you.

One arm sliding securely around you as he eases you onto your back, the muscles in his shoulders rippling under your fingertips as you wind your arms around his neck. You cling to him as he kisses you hard and deep, exchanging punched-out breaths as he starts up his thrusts with newfound fervor.

"Gonna marry you," he pants suddenly, stealing what little breath you have left.

You gasp against his mouth, caught between a disbelieving laugh and another sob. “Steve—”

“I mean it,” he insists, hips snapping into the mattress, barely pulling out before burying himself back in. “I-I want all of it. That house with the... the porch. That trip we keep talking about, in the camper van, and—”

His face screws up and he has to stop moving for a second, drawing in a shuddering breath.

“I’m gonna marry you and—fuck—gonna give you a baby.”   

You choke on the words, a helpless sound catching in your throat as you cling to him, bruisingly tight.

“Yeah?” He strokes your hair back, cupping the crown of your head with his palm. Smoothing the sweat-slick strands away from your face, thumb lingering at your temple as his eyes search yours. “You want me to give you a baby?”  

You nod into him, unable to find the words.

“How many?”

His pace is unrelenting—thrusts hard enough that the bedframe is thudding repeatedly against the wall, hard enough that you know the wallpaper’s going to show it tomorrow.  

“Tell me,” he grunts, voice rough with emotion, like he needs to hear you say it out loud. “How many?”

Sweat shining along his skin, hair a damp mess across his forehead, but he never once looks away.

“F-fuck, I don’t...” you break on another sob, eyes clenching shut. “Two. Maybe... maybe three.”

“Three,” he repeats to himself, and his hips snap a little sharper. “What about... what about four? Make it a—mm, fuck—make it an even number.”

And it’s hardly new—the kind of bullshit he spouts when you’re both this far gone, when adrenaline has burned through every last nerve and neither of you are thinking straight anymore. He’s always been prone to making wild promises in the heat of the moment—spinning out impossible futures and reckless dreams, building an entire lifetime in the space of a few breathless minutes—just to get you both off.     

But tonight, they don’t feel like a fantasy at all. 

“You’d look so... so fucking pretty,” he pants, voice breaking. “Pregnant with my kid. Jesus.”

“Mm, close...” you whisper weakly, face scrunched at the unbearably mounting pressure in your lower stomach.  

“Yeah? You’re close? You gonna come for me?”

You nod, burying yourself closer, clinging to him harder. “T-tell me again.”

“Tell you what, baby?”

“That you... that you love me.”

“Fuck,” he groans, thrusts turning sloppy as he buries a loud groan against your lips. “I love you. Love you so fucking much. I don’t even know what I’d do without you. I—shit, a-are you coming? Oh, fuck, that’s—that’s it. That’s my girl.”

Your orgasm hits hard and blinding. A broken groan ripping out of you as you clamp your thighs around his waist, mewling into his skin. You blink your eyes open just in time to see his gaze fixed on you—expression reverent, chest heaving as he watches you shake underneath him.

And as you go to kiss him, feeling the labored grunts of his mounting pleasure against your lips, the weight of his breaths and the slick drag of his cock against your heat—

When you press your lips to his and whisper for him to come inside you, make me yours Steve, get me pregnant, keep me, love me, stay with me, stay, stay, please fucking stay—

When he presses inside all the way to the hilt and lets his own pleasure overtake him—

You finally whisper the words back.

Three syllables against the enormity of what lives inside your chest.

Three syllables trying to hold every sleepless night and every quiet morning, every time you pressed your lips to the places on his body that hurt and wished that love alone could take his pain away.

They cannot carry it all.

They never could.

But when he closes his eyes and tips his forehead to yours—his weight melting against you as he presses an exhausted, dazed smile against your lips—you realize maybe the words don’t have to hold it all.

Maybe he can feel the rest.

· · ·

The seal breaks with a sharp snap, the plastic ring splitting loose and skittering across the bathroom floor.

You turn the bottle over in your hand, staring at it for a moment.

It’s the good kind—the expensive kind stored in heavy glass, the label still clean. You haven’t touched it since the day Steve brought it home months ago, back when you could still ask for things like Epsom salt and a box of chocolates at the general store without anyone looking at you like you’d lost your mind.

He’d shown up at your door that afternoon grinning like an idiot, grocery store roses tucked under one arm and a paper bag in his other hand that clinked when he lifted it.

“Thought we deserved something nice,” he’d said, holding up the bag with that stupid, proud little grin. “We haven’t done a proper date night in a while, right?”

But you hadn't used the bottle then.

You'd saved it.

For a night that felt right.

For a night where you weren’t just surviving long enough to see morning.

Your hands shake a little as you tip the bottle now.

Pouring more than you should, watching the pale liquid ribbon into the rushing stream of water, swallowed by the force of it before slowly blooming back to the surface in soft, frothy bubbles.

The smell hits a second later. Sweet, heavy lavender that clings to the back of your throat, swirling with the clean heat of the water.

For a moment, you let yourself go back.

Back to the day Steve bought this because he wanted to take care of you. Because he wanted one normal night where you could both pretend the world hadn’t changed.

A night where the biggest problem was what movie to put on.

Then, the sink creaks behind you.

You turn immediately, heart jumping.  

Steve’s reflection is blurred in the mirror—shoulders slumped, chin dipping toward his chest. He’s got one hand braced against the counter, knuckles pale from how tightly he’s holding on. The other fumbles with an orange pill bottle.

“You okay? You need help?”

He shakes his head. “Nah, I got it.”

The words are automatic. Steve’s favorite answer to anything that worries you.

He tips a couple pills into his palm, fills the glass beside the sink, and swallows them down.

You watch his face tighten afterward, eyes squeezing shut as he waits for it to pass. His throat works hard, his whole body briefly tensing, muscles bracing against something that should have been painless.

You step closer, hands settling carefully on his arms as you turn him toward you. 

He doesn’t argue when you crouch in front of him.

You start with his shoes.

Fingers working at the laces, easing them loose before pulling them off one at a time. They hit the tile with a quiet thud. His socks peel off next. Then his pants, the buttons still undone. His briefs.

He stays silent through all of it, one hand resting lightly on your shoulder.

It’s not much pressure, but you feel the way his weight leans into you, the slight sway when you shift back, like he’s having to constantly correct himself just to stay upright.

Helping him into the tub takes time. You stay close while he steps over the edge, one hand gripping your arm, the other braced against the wall.

Slowly, carefully, he lowers himself into the water.

The second it reaches his ribs, he hisses.

“Shit—”

His head falls back against the tile, eyes squeezing shut as a sharp breath slips between his teeth. His hand tightens reflexively around your wrist.

Foamy water laps against his chest, darkening the hair across his sternum, rising and falling with each careful breath.

“Too hot?” you ask quickly, already reaching for the faucet.

He cracks his eyes open, shaking his head.

“’S perfect.”

You keep watching him, searching his face for the slightest sign that he's only saying it to spare you.

Then, little by little, the strain begins to loosen its grip.

The hard line of his jaw softens first, his fingers easing around your wrist. His shoulders sink another inch beneath the warm water, the tension slowly melting out of them as the heat works its way into his muscles.

His next breath comes easier. Then another.

After a long moment, his eyes drift open again.

They're hazy with fatigue, heavy-lidded and unfocused, but they find you where you're perched beside the tub, knees tucked against your chest.

He squints, mouth twisting into a petulant frown.

“What?” he murmurs. “You’re not getting in?” 

A smile tugs at your lips. “You want me to?”

He gives you a slow, incredulous look—the classic Steve Harrington stare.

“Uh, yeah,” he mumbles, like it’s obvious. “How else am I supposed to feel better?”

You roll your eyes, but you’re smiling as you stand.

Your hands aren’t as steady as you’d like; you notice it more now, with nothing else to focus on.

You pull your shirt over your head, and immediately hear the quiet shift of water beside you, a soft slosh.

By the time you glance up, he’s already looking at you.

Sitting a little straighter than he was a moment ago, chin lifted despite the exhaustion pulling at him. Steam curls between you, softening the edges of his face, but his eyes never leave yours. They follow every movement with boyish concentration, fixed on you in a way that’s not even pretending to be subtle.

You huff a quiet breath through your nose, fighting a smile as you tug the rest of your clothes off.  

“Seriously?”

The corner of his mouth quirks, all innocence.

“What? Sue me.”  

He shifts deeper into the tub, water rolling around him as he eases back, making room between his legs before patting the space in front of him.

You step in carefully, goosebumps prickling as the heat climbs slowly over your ankles, your calves, your thighs. The water embraces you inch by inch until you're lowering yourself fully beneath the surface, warmth wrapping around you like a heavy blanket scented with lavender.

The moment your back brushes his chest, his arms find you.

They slide around your waist with familiar certainty, one settling securely across your middle to draw you closer.  Your hand rises on instinct, covering his forearm where it rests across your stomach. His skin is warm and damp beneath your fingertips, the fine hairs catching against your palm as your thumb strokes absent circles over his wrist.

His chin grazes your shoulder as he nestles closer, his next breath warming the side of your neck.

“This is nice,” he hums, body growing heavier where it rests against yours.

You let out a slow breath. “Yeah.”

You let your weight settle back into him completely. He answers by tightening his arm around your waist, one hand gliding up to squeeze your side as he draws you a fraction closer.

You take the other one for you to keep.

Turning it over slowly, relearning it by touch. The familiar roughness of his skin, the broad span of his palm, completely swallowing yours whenever he laces your fingers together. Your thumb glides over the callus at the base of his index finger, the thickened patch of skin from years of gripping weapons he never should have had to hold.

You rub over it absentmindedly, once, twice, then again.

“How do you know?”

The words come so quietly you're not even sure you've said them aloud.

“Hm? Know what?”

“How do you know...” You swallow, unable to lift your eyes from where the water laps gently over your joined hands, pale violet opalescence that ripples around you both. “How do you know this is real?”  

He goes still at that, the only sound between you the soft ripple of water and the rush of your own thoughts filling the space.

“We could still be down there,” you whisper, the words gathering speed the longer you speak.

“Maybe... maybe we never got out. Maybe Vecna just made us think we won by giving us...” You gesture around the room. “...this.”

The lavender.

The warm water.

Him.

“What if none of it's real? What if he just—what if he made us think we were safe because it'd hurt more when he took it away? I mean, how would we even know?”    

Your chest feels tighter with every word.

“What if we're still—"

“Hey.”

Steve's voice is so soft that you almost miss it.

“Hey. Look at me.”

His face is drawn with exhaustion, pain lingering in the tightness around his eyes, in the careful way he holds himself, like every breath reminds him of another bruise.

But they’re still his.

Still that same warm hazel you've spent so many nights memorizing, never daring to believe you'd get a lifetime of looking into them.

“You know how I know?”

Your throat goes tight. “How?”

“Because you’re scared.”

Your brows pull together, fingers tightening around his. He squeezes your hand back, gentle but certain.

“That’s how I know. Because you’re sitting here trying to figure out if this is real instead of just being happy that we’re okay.”

Steve watches you for a moment before looking down between you, at the lavender bubbles drifting around your joined hands.

A bead of water clings to his lashes before he blinks it away.

“I mean…” He draws out a slow breath. “I don’t know if I can prove it. How could anyone, right? After everything that happened? I don’t think any of us are supposed to just wake up the next day and be like, ‘Cool. Guess that’s over.’”

He pauses, a small smile pulling at his mouth.

“But then I look at you and… and I just see you doing that thing.”

You blink. “What thing?”

He lifts your joined hands from the water, droplets sliding down your wrists as the surface ripples around you.

“This.”

He gives your hand a little squeeze, lacing your fingers together more securely. 

“You always start messing with my hand when you’re freaking out.”

Your brows pull together. “What?”

He lets out a soft laugh, reaching up with his free hand to gently tuck a damp strand of hair away from your face.

“Yeah, you grab my hand and then you start doing this weird little... I don’t know. Thing. Like you’re inspecting it or something.”

Only then do you realize your thumb has been moving back and forth over the same callus on his palm, tracing the same small patch of rough skin.

“...Oh.”

“Yeah.”

There’s something teasing about his voice now, his smile.

The same Steve who’d make an absolute idiot of himself just to get you to roll your eyes. Who could make you laugh in the middle of the worst days of your life.

His smile softens as he looks down at the water, where your fingers are still tangled together.

His thumb brushes slowly over the back of your hand.

“I guess… I guess that’s how I know.”

The steam curls around you both, blurring the edges of the room until there’s nothing left but this.

His hand in yours.

His heartbeat steady against your back and his voice low and certain beside your ear.

“Because I know you.”

He tightens his fingers around yours.

“I know you.”

· · ·

Eventually, the warmth of the bath starts to fade.

The water isn’t quite as hot as it was when you first climbed in, the lavender bubbles breaking apart into a faint, delicate layer.

You’re still holding his hand.

Neither of you has let go.

“Hey,” he murmurs after a while, giving your fingers a small tug.

“Hm?”

He lifts your joined hands out of the water, turning his palm toward himself.

Then he starts tracing something, slow and awkward, brow furrowed as he studies the lines crossing his palm.

You can tell he’s searching for something—squinting at the grooves in his hand, trying to remember a detail you’ve explained to him once or twice before, maybe more.

You watch him for a second, then mumble:

“You’re doing it wrong.”

“I’m doing it wrong?”

“Yes.”

He turns to look at you, eyebrows raised, genuinely offended in that exaggerated way he does when he knows he’s being teased.

“How can I be doing it wrong? It’s my hand.”

You give him a look.

“Because you don’t know what you’re looking for.”

He glances back down at his palm, then back at you.

“Okay, fine, genius,” he huffs, holding his hand out toward you. “What’s this one mean?”

You smile faintly.

“You don’t remember?”  

“No, I do. Just... tell me again? I remember you said mine was good.”

You did. Sitting cross-legged on the couch years ago, his hand stretched across your lap while you traced the lines in his palm. You’d laughed the whole time because you didn’t actually believe in any of it. But Steve had listened like it mattered, eyes serious, hanging onto every word.

You adjust your grip now, turning his hand so you can see it properly. Then you take his index finger between yours and guide it slowly along the deepest line on his palm.

“Here,” you murmur.

His finger follows where you lead it, brushing over the groove that starts just beneath his pinky and curves upward across his hand.

“This is your heart line.”

Steve doesn’t look at his hand.

He looks at you.

“It’s deep, and it doesn’t break. That means you feel things deeply. You lead with your heart.”

He hums softly, leaning forward to press a soft kiss to the top of your shoulder.

You keep tracing, guiding his finger toward the end of the line where it curves upward.

“And here, it turns up.”

You press lightly into the space beneath his index finger.

“See that spot?”

“Mm.”

“That’s called the Mount of Jupiter. And when your heart line curves up like that, it kinda means you’re... a hopeless romantic.”

You don’t even have to see his face to know he’s smiling. You feel it in the small twitch of his fingers around yours, in the quiet huff of amusement against your shoulder.

“Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

You follow the line with your own thumb, pretending to study the grooves of his skin like they might reveal something you don’t already know.

But the truth is, you're not really reading his hand.

“It also says you don’t know how to love halfway.” Your thumb follows the line one last time. “When you care about someone… you give them every part of yourself.”

When you glance back over your shoulder, he's already watching you.

Something achingly fragile settled over his expression, a quiet wonder in his eyes as though he's seeing himself the way you always have.

“Yeah?” he whispers.

You nod.

“Yeah.”

You lean in to close the small space between you, brushing your lips against the uninjured corner of his mouth.

It’s a delicate thing, more of a press than a kiss.  

His fingers tighten around yours beneath the water.

“Tell me what else.”

You smile, looking back down at his palm.

“You want me to read everything?”

“Yeah. Obviously.”

You turn his hand back toward you, guiding his finger to another line.

“Okay. This one is your head line.”

Steve settles back against the tub, his arm tightening around you as you continue tracing the little grooves and curves in his palm, explaining what they’re supposed to mean.

The truth is, none of this is anything you don’t already know.

You don’t need the lines in his hand to tell you who he is. 

You’ve known for a long time.

So you tell him what you've been carrying in your heart for longer than you can remember.

That he’s stubborn.

That he’s brave.

That he loves harder than he knows what to do with.

That he’s always seen himself as ordinary when he’s anything but.

And Steve listens.

· · ·

You stay there together until the water goes cold around you.

And though the lavender fades from the bath, the scent still clings to your skin, lingering long after the warmth has left.

Outside this room, there will still be reminders.

Things neither of you can outrun.

Memories that return without warning, scars that ache long after the wounds have closed.

Maybe some things never fully leave.

Maybe they don’t have to.

Because the bad things are not the only things that get to stay.

And when the first light of dawn slips through the bedroom window the next morning, washing everything in soft gold, Steve is still there.

Beside you.

His hand wrapped around yours.

But then you got the call from Robin in the middle of the night, panicked and crying and breathless as she says, “Steve’s dad died a couple of days ago, and I know you guys haven’t talked in forever, but he’s really falling apart and I don’t know what to do and he won’t talk to me and Mr. Harrington’s funeral is today and—”

That’s all you needed to let her know that you would make the hour and a half drive up from Indy, kicking out your date that slept over the night prior and packing a bag in a massive rush, only remembering at the last minute that you’re about to attend a funeral, that you need to be dressed for a funeral, and—

And you make it back to Hawkins by ten, a black dress on and pearl earrings that Steve once gifted you hanging from your ears.

The town is the same as you left it. Still small, still aging, still quiet. Everything that you thought you hadn’t wanted in life, and everything that you found yourself yearning for once you got your apartment above a restaurant on Mass. Ave and a shiny new job at a bank downtown.

For a moment, you almost let your muscle memory take over, to guide you towards the northeast end of town to the white, two-story cottage with a fenced in backyard and hydrangea bushes spilling out everywhere in the summer. The kind of house, the realtor had said, that was perfect for raising a family, with its tall ceilings and big windows and creaky stairs, ready to withstand everything from the small pitter-patter of feet across wood floors to the slamming of doors from teenage fueled angst.

The house that you know Steve still lives in, even two years later.

But you don’t let old instinct take over. There’s enough heartbreak being back in Hawkins as it is.

The funeral home sits in the center of town, the one that Will Byers was once memorialized in before he was found alive just days later, and sits opposite of the place the MAC-Z used to sit.

(The place where Steve had been released from military custody to you, and the place where he had dropped to one knee and asked you to marry him just minutes later.)

(The place that you had said yes through your confusion and tears, because he disappeared for weeks without a word, and you’d only had a thirty minute warning from the military to come collect him.)

(Steve never told you why he had been held in custody.)

(You never asked.)

You park down the street and make your way through the well-worn sidewalks, carving out the same path that you used to take with Steve in that summer after the two of you graduated high school, hand in hand whenever he had a free moment from Scoops.

(A summer that, as you recall, had been cut short by a mall fire and grief and the three weeks you spent by his side in the hospital, worrying and fretting as you slowly watched the swelling around his eye go down. A summer where too many people died, Steve had to be kept under observation in case of a brain bleed, and in the aftermath, he became more cagey than ever.)

A sea of mourning black surrounds the pristine white funeral home as you make your way closer, the crowd surging towards the ornate double doors, and it’s only then that you spot him.

Steve.

Steve Harrington in all of his glory. His hair is a little shorter than you remember it, a little less styled, and there’s new laugh lines crinkled along his eyes. But despite the differences in the man you once knew and the man in front of you now, he’s still the same Steve he’s always been with a soft look on his face and a steadiness to his broad shoulders despite the occasion.

And like a moth to a flame, he meets your gaze through the mass of people. His brown eyes widening with recognition as his face does something funny, like he’s not sure whether to laugh or cry or both, and you can’t help but offer him a small smile.

He smiles back.

The moment is cut short when someone calls his name, and with one last, lingering look in your direction, he disappears inside.

You stand there for a moment, heart pounding, before slipping into the building after him.

You find a seat in the very back of the hall, away from the congregation of people you once knew, the people you once considered family. There will be time to greet your former mother-in-law later, when she doesn’t have Robin on one side and Steve on the other, and there’s no part of you that has any desire to run into Dustin Henderson who’s lingering near the front.

(Not after the last time you talked to him, two months after you filed and he went from begging you to not go through with it to insulting you when you told him that you unequivocally were not going to stop the proceedings.)

(Two weeks later, Steve had found out what happened and forced Dustin to apologize, but you never quite stopped nursing that wound.)

It’s a beautiful service, really. Not that you’d expect anything less from the Harringtons. Friends of Danny’s give their eulogies, colleagues talk about his business prowess, until finally, Laura and Steve step up to the dias side by side.

You can tell, even from a distance, that Laura isn’t quite holding it together the way you know she wants to. The way she needs to, really, because Laura Harrington has always prided herself in being put together and in charge, a matriarch in a family full of nothing but men for generations. You can tell that Steve notices, too, by the way he squeezes her arm and pulls a paper from his pocket, spreading it along the wooden surface of the podium.

He searches the crowd for a moment, and his eyes settle on you in your seat in the very last row. You’re not sure what he’s looking for, but whatever he derives from seeing you, it has his shoulders relaxing. And quietly, hesitantly, he glances down at the paper and begins his speech.

His voice is strong and steady as he reads, the same soothing timbre to it that he’d once used to calm you down after nightmares and hard days at work. A reassuring quality to his tone, one that could make anyone relax, as he talks about his earliest memories with his father — little league games, vacations to the Harrington beach house, morning spent snuggled between his parents — to his early twenties and learning how to navigate adulthood with his father’s guidance.

(He skips past the teenage years, the ones where you first entered Steve’s life. The arguments with his father about his future, the worries about his past, the stress that he might never amount to something. The period of time where resentment had swelled up so much between the two that it bubbled over constantly.)

He talks about the last conversation he had with his father, only a week prior, where the two of them had sat in the backyard of Steve’s house. And Danny, never a man with much to say, had clapped Steve on the shoulder and said, I’m proud of you, Steve. Truly.

You don’t miss the way Steve surreptitiously wipes his face.

“Anyone who met him would tell you that he was a complicated man,” Steve says. “But at the end of the day, no matter what other role he filled, he was my father. All I can say to that is thank you, Dad, for loving me even when I didn’t think you were, and—” He pauses, clearing his throat. “I’ll miss you, and I hope you’re resting easy now, wherever you are.”

The funeral ends and everyone is ushered to the graveyard, where Steve serves as one of the pallbearers and stands strong as Laura finally crumples into his side. 

You hang further back once again, away from the prying eyes of anyone who would ask too many questions, and you lose sight of him when the crowd migrates to the reception in a local church.

There’s part of you that wants to seek him out, to offer him your condolences and ask if there’s anything you can do, but—

Your eyes catch on Laura standing in the corner by herself, gazing at a family portrait of her and Danny and Steve from Steve’s childhood, and you cross the room without thinking, falling into place next to her with a quiet, “He was a good man.”

Laura blinks at you, though she doesn’t look surprised to see you there. Happy, maybe, but not surprised.

“Danny loved you, you know,” she says, apropos of an actual greeting, like this isn’t the first conversation you’ve had with her since you filed for divorce. “Never stopped talking about how get togethers weren’t the same without you beating him at cards.”

“I’m sure he’s having a big laugh that this is what got me back in Hawkins,” you say. Her lips twitch up. “He could’ve just asked, honestly. Spared us all the dramatics. I would’ve come for less.”

The corners of her eyes crinkle together the same way Steve’s does, and she draws you into a warm hug with shaking hands, the smell of her floral perfume overwhelming your senses. 

“I’ve missed you,” she whispers. 

You feel your throat grow tight. “I’ve missed you, too.”

You stay like that for a few moments, letting her rock you back and forth and draw whatever comfort it is that she needs from your bones, until a throat clears and you look up to see the familiar face of Robin Buckley. You pull away from Laura and offer Robin a small smile, one that she easily returns, and you know that the two of you will catch up later when she squeezes your arm. 

“Mrs. Harrington, let’s go get some food,” Robin says.

Laura rolls her eyes, but lets Robin loop their arms together. “Steve’s had her on ‘Mom watch,’” she tells you conspiratorially.

“Well, there’s worse company to be had,” you say. “Robin always has a few jokes on hand, at least.”

“That’s what I’ve been saying!” Robin says, and you let yourself bask in the raspy warmth of her voice for a few moments before stepping out of their way. And just as she’s slipping past you, she stops to whisper in your ear, “He’s in a private room down the hall.”

You stare at her, surprised, but she only leads Laura across the room without further acknowledgement. 

You shouldn’t go. Honestly, really, it’s a bad idea as it is — meeting him surrounded by people was one thing, but a private audience with your ex-husband is—

(Your feet are moving across the floor before you can even finish the thought.)

The hallway is quiet and empty, the conversation from the reception hall only a quiet buzz compared to the pounding in your ears as you slowly and methodically check each room you come across until finally, at the end of the hall, you spot one with the door cracked open.

You press your palm flat against the wood, the hinges creaking in protest as you ease it open just a bit wider, and find Steve sitting on a couch, leaning over his knees with his face pressed into his hands.

He doesn’t move.

The door clicks shut behind you.

You settle on the couch next to him, silent and waiting for something — anything — to tell you what to do. Any cue or sign from Steve or God or anyone who will listen, because your hands are shaking and your throat is dry and Steve—

Steve. Strong, brave, kind Steve, who once held you as a doctor stitched up an ugly gash in your leg, is hiding his face as his shoulders tremble, trying to pretend like his tears aren’t catching in his throat.

“I want to be left alone, Dustin,” he mutters. “Just five minutes. Please.”

You bite down on your lip and, quietly, say, “I’m not Dustin, but I can give you space.”

He jerks up, tears still coursing down his face, and stares at you with wide-eyes, his voice little more than a whisper when he says, “Oh.”

You smile. “Hey.”

“You’re here,” he murmurs, full of wonder, as if he’s trying to figure out if you’re real or simply a mirage.

“Yeah,” you say, just as quiet. “I’m here.”

It starts with his brows pressing together, then his jaw clenching. He presses his eyes shut, his nose flares, and you pull him into your arms before the first hiccuping sob has a chance to billow out.

He doesn’t fight you, only wraps himself more firmly around your waist as he buries his face into your chest, his back heaving from unrestrained grief and everything left unsaid between the two of you. He cries and cries and cries, letting everything out until he’s stripped down to his rawest form, the image of a man held strong for far too long finally letting himself fall apart entirely.

You let him.

You smooth your hand down his back and card your fingers through his hair, comforting him in the way you only know how.

(The only way you learned how, back in those first few, fraught hours after the mall fire back in ’85. Back when you’d sat in the waiting room, leg bouncing, waiting for anyone to tell you that he was okay. Waiting for his parents to catch a flight back from their beach house in North Carolina, waiting for a nurse or a doctor to come out, waiting for a sign that your boyfriend was going to make it.)

(And when you’d finally been allowed into his hospital room, he’d grinned, all boyish charm and bloodied teeth, like it was no big deal that he’d been hurt.)

(It was the first time you’d seen him so injured.)

(It was nowhere near the last.)

“It’ll be okay,” you whisper. “I’ve got you, Steve. I got you.”

The front of your dress is completely soaked through, but you find that you don’t quite care. Not when he lets out a heart shattering, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry—”

Your entire body freezes.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry—”

“Steve?” You press at his shoulders, suddenly desperate to see his face. “Steve, what are you talking about?”

He pulls back, and for a moment, he’s the eighteen year old boy who smiled at you with a swollen eye and a split lip, tutting affectionately when you sobbed into his shoulder. He’s the boy who pulled you into his strong arms, uncaring of the IV line he was surely at risk of tugging out, and said, I know, I know, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, honey, I know that I scared you— 

“For everything,” he gasps out. “For keeping things from you, and — fuck, crying on you — and I know you’ve moved on, but I just — god, I’m so sorry for everything, for the divorce and the secrets and—”

(And your heart breaks all over again, because can anyone ever truly move on from Steve Harrington?)

“Steve,” you murmur, brushing a thumb down his cheek. He tilts his head just a little bit more into your palm. “It’s okay.”

“It’s not okay,” he insists. “I mean, fuck, I kept so much from you, and everyone told me not to and I drove you away and—”

“Steve.”

He falls silent.

“I forgave you a long time ago,” you say. “You don’t need to worry about me, okay?”

(It’s the same thing that he said to you before disappearing off the face of the earth for weeks. The same words that he whispered as he held you close in the doorway of your apartment, his arms trembling as he murmured all of his love and affections into your ears, like he only had one more chance to tell you. Like he wasn’t sure he’d ever see you again.)

(It’s what he said before disappearing for twenty-five days, nine hours, and three minutes, leaving you alone as the earth heaved and shook and groaned, when it felt like the entire planet was once again at risk of falling apart, and you thought that you might die without ever getting to see his face once again.)

(And it’s what he said just minutes after the military released him back to you, seconds before he dropped to his knees and desperately said, I can’t live without you, will you please, please marry me? I’ll do anything to make you happy—)

“Your father just died,” you gently say. “You’re allowed to worry about yourself for once.”

He looks like he wants to argue, like he wants to push back, but you watch the fight leave his body. He gives you a wobbly smile, you give him one back, and for a moment, you can let yourself pretend that you hadn’t thrown eight years down the drain in the matter of a single night.

(That last argument still haunts your dreams. The way your voice cracked as you begged for him to let you in, to let you understand. How his fists shook when he said, Can’t you see that I’m doing this for you? The calm resolve you felt when you realized with an icy clarity that the two of you were too stuck in your ways to change.)

(The moment, nearly a year later, when you realized that you weren’t quite sure if you wanted to change into a new person without him.)

(Looking at him now, you think he might feel the same.)

You let out a sigh and draw him closer, resting your forehead against his the way that you always did, letting the feel of stubble rough up your palm.

His breath catches.

You peek at him through your lashes to find him searching your face with barely disguised desire.

You want to laugh. Truly, you do, because if there was ever a wrong time and place to feel desire, it would be your ex-father-in-law’s funeral, but you can’t help the timeworn flame deep inside of you from flickering to life once more, a fire that’s only ever been maintained by Steve’s careful hands.

“Honey,” he says hoarsely.

You swallow, tilting your chin just a bit closer.

That’s all the encouragement that he needs.

His fingers grip your waist, dragging you across the cushions and into his lap, and it’s need that has you tangling your hands with his hair. Need to be closer, need to be with him, need to be one with him.

(Need to remember what it’s like to fall asleep with his arms wrapped around your skin, whispered promises of nothing ever hurting you, swaddling you as you drifted off.)

“Tell me to stop,” he begs, his hot breath ghosting your skin. “Tell me to stop right now, and I will. I swear, I will.”

“Don’t stop,” you say, and he surges forward, capturing your lips with his own.

It feels like coming home, in a way. Kissing him, feeling him under you. Like stepping into a soft memory, carried along by hands that have long since learned the tune of you, held by a man who had dedicated so much of his life in pursuit of the knowledge of who you were, inside and out. 

Like your body had been held in stasis for two entire years, frozen in time, only able to come back to life with the key he held in his heart.

You giggle into the kiss, suddenly elated, as his tongue swipes against your bottom lip, teasing for more.

And you give it. God, you give him more. You’d give him the world, if you could, and suddenly you’re crying, your heart twisting, because you wasted so much time, because you were so, so stupid, because—

“I’m sorry,” you gasp into his mouth. “I should’ve listened to you, I should’ve trusted—”

“Not your fault, honey,” he assures, pressing a trail of kisses down the column of your throat. “I kept so much from you — there’s so much I need to tell you, and—”

And— 

There’s a knock at the door.

“Steve?” Robin’s voice, hesitant and unsure, calls through the wood. “Are you in there?”

He drops his head against your shoulder and lets out a world weary sigh.

The doorknob turns, and you don’t even have time to gather yourself or launch yourself across the couch, to pretend like Steve doesn’t still have his body wrapped around yours, before Robin’s peaking inside.

“Oh,” she says dumbly, eyes wide as she takes the two of you in.

Your face burns with embarrassment.

“Uh, Steve,” Robin begins, clearing her throat uncomfortably. “Your mom is asking for you. What… do you want me to tell her?”

“I’ll be there in a second,” he says. “Just give me a minute, Rob.”

Robin nods, and with a lingering look towards you, shuts the door behind her.

The two of you stay frozen like that, your legs still wrapped around his hips, his forearms still pressed into the small of your back, until—

A shocked laugh escapes him.

“Fuck,” he says, releasing his hold on you to scrub at his face. “Fuck, I’m sorry, I have to go check on my mom, but later — can we talk? Later? Are you staying in Hawkins, or were you planning on going back to…?”

“I packed a bag, but I wasn’t sure what my plans were,” you say. “I can stay, though. We can talk. I think—”

I think we need to talk.

“Come over,” he says, an urgent strain to his voice. “Tonight. Please.”

“Of course,” you say, because after everything, there’s no way you can deny his request. “Of course I will, but you should—”

“Yeah, I know,” he says, already beginning to shuffle you from his lap, keeping you steady as he settles you onto the cushions once more. “I know, just — you mean it? You’ll—?”

“I’ll be there,” you say. “I promise.”

He smiles, soft and true, and presses one more chaste kiss to your lips, as though he’s leaving the promise of something more for you to chase later.

Three nights with your notes spread across your desk, your pencil worn down to a nub, and your mother calling from downstairs that dinner was getting cold. Three nights reading through library clippings about school funding, college acceptance rates, and the way girls in Hawkins were politely encouraged toward “practical” futures while boys with half of your grades were told they had potential. You had interviewed four seniors, two teachers, one guidance counselor who had smiled at you with the concerned tenderness adults reserved for girls they planned to ignore. 

It was practically perfect.

You had written it carefully. Not angrily, though you had to admit that anger had lived under every line you wrote, warming the words from dpwn below. You had made it clean, sharp, and correctly sourced. You had imagined your byline on the front page. You had victoriously imagined holding the paper in your hands and seeing proof that all the hours you spent noticing things nobody asked you to notice had finally become something real.

The reaction to it, unfortunately, had left much to be desired.

Mr. Walsh held the pages in one hand and adjusted his glasses with the other. His voice was polite enough, but it held that familiar detachment.

“It’s very thorough,” he noted with a faint nod of his head towards the article.

You knew you were absolutely dead, or rather, any hopes of seeing a cover page was.

Across the table, Mark Ellison leaned back in his chair, tapping his pencil against his front teeth. His article was a soft little thing about “school spirit making a comeback,” built around three quotes from basketball players and one sweeping paragraph about how Hawkins High had ‘survived difficult years by pulling together’. He had written it during study hall. You had watched him do it while eating chips from a vending machine. You had also watched him pay more attention to his stupid Walkman than his article.

Mr. Walsh then gave Mark’s pages a fond pat from beside you. You had to physically stop yourself from letting the steam errupt from your expression, and curled your fingers into your palm. You didn't, however, hide the scoff when the teacher told the boy his next words.

“I think this is what we need above the fold this week. Something upbeat. The town’s had enough heaviness, don’t you think?”

The room moved on. You couldn't even get another word in before everything decided it was time to start up again. That only served further in building up your irritation. 

Someone asked about the sports column, someone else complained that the typewriter ribbon was fading again, and most annoyingly, Mark grinned without trying to look too pleased, which made him only look worse. You sat very still with your hands folded over your notebook, your nails continuing to press little moons into your palms.

“Maybe we can run yours inside,” Mr. Walsh added, almost kindly. You hated how he made it seem like it was somehow charitable of him to do so. After all, his excuses were always relatively  the same. “It’s strong work. Just a bit… intense for the front page.”

Intense.

You looked down at your notes until the letters blurred into a block of black.

That was what they always called girls who didn't make unfairness easier to swallow for others. Intense. Difficult. Ambitious in a tone that meant unattractive. Boys were driven. Boys were promising. Boys were leaders, even when they had to borrow a pencil to write a paragraph about pep rallies. Even when half of them couldn't even write clean enough for legitimacy on papers of loose leaf.

You smiled promptly then because you knew how to make adults comfortable. You weren't so sure your face was able to hide your growing annoyance, though. It was practically humiliating in its steady routine, but you'd learned over the years Mr. Walsh was as stubborn as the donkey he was named after.

“Sure,” you gave a small exhale alongside your smile, your tone was too light to be breezy and far too sweet to be real. “Inside is fine.”

Inside was not fine.

At lunch, you stabbed your fork into a pile of cafeteria mashed potatoes until they lost their shape entirely. With a cheek resting in hand, the sight of the sullen plate reflected your own inner turmoil. Conversational chatter flattered about around you.

“He said it was intense?” One friend asked, sitting across from you with a carton of milk she had not opened. “Everything's intense to that guy. Mr. Walsh wears the same brown sweater every day and once called Pat Benatar ‘too confrontational.’”

“He didn’t say Mark’s article was intense,” you muttered with poorly disguised disgust. Your brows twitched together and your eyes flicked up in a roll. The moment replayed in your head, Mark getting far too much praise for something he spent the better half of an hour listening to Olivia John-Newton, though he'd refuse the accusation vehemently if questioned.

“That’s because Mark’s article has the emotional range of a gym sock,” your friend Stacey said from beside you. She had bright blue eyeliner, a talent for gossip, and the terrifying confidence of someone who had never once doubted she deserved to take up space. You admired her for that.  “You need something undeniable.”

“I had something undeniable.” the response came almost petulant, and if you were still holding onto the leverage that you had a shoe-in for an article, you'd have refrained from saying it.

“No,” Stacey clicked her tongue, pointing her plastic spoon at you. “You had something true. That’s different. Truth makes people sleepy unless there’s blood on it.”

Leah made a face, looking down at the strawberry jam on her cake slice, and promptly pushed it forward. “Please never go into medicine.”

You tried not to laugh and failed halfway, the sound catching in your throat before it could become anything that felt good. For a moment, there was something besides that sense of annoyed displacement. 

The cafeteria around you churned with noise. Trays clattered, and somebody at the far end started chanting for reasons that probably involved a dare and milk coming out of someone’s nose. You let the spark of clear judgement light through your expression as you looked over to  the basketball table occupied its usual territory near the windows.

They were loud enough to own the room without having to ask, a result of years of indulged arrogance,  you could only assume. Tommy H. was telling a story with both hands, his laugh sharp and performative. A few juniors watched him the way freshmen used to watch Steve Harrington.

Steve did not sit with them anymore, that was something practically everyone noticed since last year.

He sat two tables away from the old crowd, alone with a slice of pizza gone stiff at the edges. His hair was still perfect in the way that seemed less accidental the longer you looked at it, all careful lift and feathered brown shine.

His shoulders filled out his yellow polo, but they were rounded inward today, one hand pressed against his temple while he stared at a textbook he did not seem to be reading. There was a bruise near his jaw, faded yellow at the edges. His eyes kept moving toward the basketball table and then away before anyone caught him looking.

King Steve, deposed but still dressed for court.

Stacey followed your gaze. Her mouth curved before you could shove it away off of her.

“If you want the front page,” she brightened up with a revived vigor, “you have to write about the biggest tragedy in Hawkins.”

Leah, unfortunately, looked too.

“Oh Stace’, I don't think that's a good—” she was swiftly cut off by your mutual friends voice dipped in delight

“The fall of King Steve,” Stacey finished and you gasped at her.

You snorted without ceremony promptly, her words did less to entice you and more to amuse you. If there was anything you couldn't find yourself caring less to write about, it would be about anything involving Steve Harrington. “That’s not an article.”

“It is absolutely an article! It’s got everything. Popularity. Masculine fragility. Hair products.”

Leah leaned forward then, lowering her voice. She looked besides you two with a more hesitant approach, her eyes flicked to the table a few feet away from you. “Also maybe just leave him alone? He looks one spilled pudding cup away from a complete collapse.”

“That’s the point,” Stacey had taken to promptly ignoring the two of you. “What happens when a guy builds his whole identity on being wanted, and then people stop wanting him?”

The words landed before the joke did.

You looked at Steve again. He dragged a hand through his hair, then immediately seemed to regret it, patting the front back into place with a reflex so automatic it made your chest pinch in spite of yourself. If you were to compare it to anything, it would be akin to a kid being filmed for a birthday party. It held the familiar awareness of being all too stiff, even in the singular companionship of just himself.

A whole identity built on being wanted.

The cafeteria lights flashed across the windows as usual. Outside, October had pulled Hawkins into a cold, colorless stretch of afternoon. The trees beyond the parking lot shivered with half-bare branches, leaves gathered wetly along the curb. It was a domestic background that you've memorized in routine these past four years. 

You pulled your notebook from your bag suddenly. Stacy's words had flicked on a small lightbulb in your brain.

Leah's  brown eyes blinked wearily on you as the next few minutes were received in silence from your side, only the sound of pen to paper filling your ears. “Oh, God. Stacey, you broke her.”

You rolled your eyes at that.

“I inspired her.” Stacey gave a self assured correction, her fingers going up as if it would further solidify her point.

There was no real attention paid to your friends for the next whirlwind of time, and you clicked your pen every so often in an attempt to soften the strokes of ink.

At the top of a previous blank page, you had written:

The Lifecycle of a High School God: why a crown crushes a king.

Stacey leaned over your shoulder and let out a delighted gasp.

“That is disgusting,” Leah immediately. Her eyes widened and she threw you a look that your promptly avoided. 

“It’s not, it's anonymous… and a work in progress,” you murmured in weak retaliation, already thinking faster than you could write. “Stacy's  right, it'd be a good article. How we make gods out of boys and then act shocked when they don’t know how to be human.”

Leah’s expression softened in a way you did not want to look at too closely. Realistically, you realized this might be a bit too cruel. But you were already on your verge, and no matter how absurd the idea had seemed before – you could admit held strong potential. 

“And Harrington?”

You watched him push his tray away untouched, and your gaze was less detached than you had been before.

“Steve is the case study.”

You told yourself that made it cleaner, and you also told yourself a lot of things that week. Things that in hindsight, might’ve been necessary to proceed with caution.

—

You approached him after basketball practice on a Wednesday, when the hallway outside the gym smelled most strongly of rubber, sweat, and floor wax. Most of the team members had already spilled toward the locker room, their voices echoing against the cinderblock walls. Steve came out last, a gym bag slung over one shoulder, and damp hair falling looser than usual around his forehead.

He looked tired enough that the sight of him made your plan wobble. It was one thing to think this out carefully and assume control, and it was another to actually act it out. 

Then, finally, he glanced up and saw you waiting by his locker.

You pushed off the wall before you could think better of it. Any further delay would only serve in faltering you more. 

“Harrington,” you called out firmly, letting your voice carry the boldness you had practiced in your mirror. Though, you weren't entirely sure you properly hid the wince that came with addressing him like that. “I’ve been looking for you.”

His eyebrows lifted then, that was what you'd noticed first. His face seemed to twitch in a complicated way, his face didn't hold a smirk, not right away at least. Surprise was there first. Real surprise, open and unguarded enough to make you feel briefly cruel. Your tried not to ponder on him for too long.

“For me?” his voice held a sincere curiosity that had you irritated at repeating yourself.

“No, the other guy with gravity-defying hair and a tragic aura.”

That got him.

A breath left him, almost a laugh, you saw the movement happen in real time. He leaned his shoulder against the locker, trying to recover his balance by looking casual. His thumb hooked into his belt loop. His shining eyes flicked over your face, landed on your mouth for half a second too long, then jumped back up.

You really had to refrain from the scoff that wished to escape you. 

“Tragic aura,” he repeated, his eyes twisted in a regained stability. His voice was more awkward than you remembered it being,  strangely that'd been your first true thought of him. “Wow. That’s, uh… that’s new.”

You gave a low hum in response.  “I’m a journalist. We notice things.”

“Is that why you’re here? To notice me?”

The line should have been smooth. You could actively hear him reaching for an older version of himself, the one who would have tilted his head and let girls do the work of melting. But his voice caught on the last word. Not much, but it was just slightly enough that you felt something in you feel successful.

You smiled, the formation stretched across your face as you cleared your throat softly. “I need help.”

Now, he seemed a bit confused,  his head tilted slightly in a way that reminded you of the neighborhood poodle. You let a smile turn slightly genuine at the semblance found between the two. 

“With?”

You stepped closer finally, and you stepped close enough to see the faint line where his tan had started to fade at his throat, and certainly close enough to catch the smell of clean soap beneath sweat and cologne.

“Understanding someone.” the words came out a bit hesitant, not at all like the suaveness you had practiced by standing in front of your bathroom mirror.

His gaze sharpened a little. Instinct took over him well. “Someone?”

“A boy,” you said quickly. Whatever it was that appeared in your face seemed to have gotten to him.

You saw the ghost of King Steve ever so slightly stir in movement in him. His mouth curved, one corner first, then another. It was almost unfair how quickly he could change expressions, and even worse so, that each expression of his seemed to cause your nerves to fray.

“Well, lucky for you, I happen to be an expert.”

Your eyes flickered to his, though not before you let your gaze find the small details of his face that were only exposed up close. “You do?”

“Former expert,” he amended, and something dry entered his voice. “My credentials are under review.”

You laughed before you meant to. You couldn't help it at the moment. It came out too genuine and his face changed with it. Not entirely dramatic, though. He just went still, the way people did when a sound touched some starved part of them. His own pools of hazel seemed to be too flittery for someone you were sure had done this plenty of time before. Still, against your better judgment, you kept staring into his eyeline.

You should have written that down later, a faint voice echoed through your head. Not the eyes part, you quickly denied and even got upset at yourself for supplying the image. You really should have been memorizing any small part he'd exposed, even more of the behavior you were out to conquer.

Instead, you remembered the exact angle of his shoulder against the locker, the wet curl slipping toward his eyebrow, the way he looked at you with confusion and cautious interest and a kind of bruised hope that had no place in your article.

You tilted your chin, chewing on the bottom of your lip by pure instinct. By now, you were close enough to have to tilt your head up to meet his gaze. You blinked, breaking whatever power he seemed to have had momentarily to have you swept up and cleared your throat.

Your voice was back to being confident again, since practice made perfect. “Pick me up Friday?”

His mouth caught in a faint sputter, you could tell you had caught him completely off guard. Faintly, as if it were a bodily response, you softened your smile into something smaller, tilting up at him for the silent moment.

“Friday,” he said after a beat. Steve’s voice seemed to have taken a breathless edge now. It did something all weird and wonky to you. “Yeah. I can do Friday.”

“Seven.”

“Seven,” he repeated, and appearing to remember he wasn't an apparition, Steve's body seemed to lean toward yours as he continued. “Where are we going?”

You hadn't thought that far. Instead of deciding on the spot, you bit the inside flesh of your cheek as an amused exhale escaped your lips.

“You’re the expert, Harrington. Impress me.”

You walked away before your nerve gave out. You could feel him watching you down the hall, could feel the whole plan beginning to take shape behind your ribs. You had even taken to looking through your sosters old magazines for inspiration. Hot and cold. Interest and withdrawal. Private sincerity, public disruption. All those where supposed to be tactics to reuse interest in relationships,  but you figured that the same could also be said for an indirect character study. 

Observe the subject under changing social conditions. Note responses. Analyze, that had been your plan split up into groups.

You were very good at making terrible ideas sound academic.

—

On Friday, his Beamer waited by the curb under a sky the color of sad, wet cement.

He got out when he saw you, which you hated because it was exactly the kind of performative gentleman routine you had expected, and also because he did it without checking if anyone was watching. That complicated your observations, causing a flutter to go through you. He wore a brown leather jacket over a striped shirt, jeans that fit him too well, and that expensive cologne that seemed built into the mythology of him.

Ralph Lauren, Stacey had said with the authority of a girl who knew these things and lived vicariously through others. It mixed with the leather and the faint sweet smell of cherry chapstick when he opened the passenger door.

"Aren't you going to get in,” Steve gave you a wounded look. His head was tilted down slightly towards you and it seemed like he was more offended you had even made an attempt to reach for the door. 

You looked at the open door in his hand, feeling less like a mastermind and more like a nervous girl.  “Do you do that for all your dates?”

Steve's hand went up to run the back of his neck as he let out a weak exhale,  the ghost of a smile on his face. “Only the intimidating ones.”

You slid into the car after that, tucking your notebook deep inside your bag where he would not see it. The seats were cold through your skirt. The dashboard glowed amber when he turned the key, washing his face in soft light as the engine rumbled awake.

He didn't take you to Enzo’s, where everyone went to be seen. He drove past the diner, past the arcade, past the bright places where Hawkins pretended it had a pulse. The town fell away into dark stretches of road bordered by skeletal trees and damp fields. Eventually he pulled into a small overlook above the park, where the swings moved gently in the wind below and the streetlamps made small gold circles on the path.

“This is your idea of impressive?” you couldn't help the baffled tone that took over as you asked, but your voice had taken a softer lift.

He shrugged, fingers resting on the steering wheel. “You said you wanted to understand someone. Hard to do that while watching someone like Tommy try to fit an entire breadstick in his mouth.”

“You’re not friends with him anymore?” you didn't really need the answer, everyone practically knew the answer by now. But still, it's different to have someone tell you something by choice than admit knowledge by association.

His thumb moved along the stitching of the wheel. Back and forth. Back and forth.

“Not really.”

“Why?”

He gave you a sideways look. “Wow. Straight to it.”

“I told you. Inquisitive.”

“Right.” He exhaled through his nose, not quite laughing. The smile on his face was soft in its hesitancy. “I don’t know. Stuff happened. I got tired. He got meaner. Or maybe he was like that, and I just stopped thinking it was funny.”

The words fell between the two of you in a hush.

You watched him in the dashboard light. Away from school, he seemed younger and older at once. Without the noise around him, without the audience, the space he occupied seemed to changed shape. He rubbed a hand over his face, then caught himself before he ruined his hair and dropped it to his lap. He did that a lot.

“You okay?” he asked suddenly, breaking you out of your trance. You quickly gave a few hard blinks to refocus, you seriously had to stop doing that around him.

“What?”

“You’re shivering.”

Were you? You hadn't noticed much besides him. “I’m fine.”

“You’re obviously not fine.”

Before you could answer, he shrugged out of his leather jacket and draped it over your shoulders. The weight of it settled around you, warm from his body, lined with the smell of him so completely that your next breath came slower than the last.

“You’ll get cold,” you said, a frown finding its way on to your face. It was a cold evening in Hawkins, the chill more prominent than usual. Your worry was quickly shoved down by him.

Steve seemed to just fidget by habit now. The muscle in his forearms tensed and gained your attention as his arms crossed against his chest. He gave a slight shove and his smile was all teeth and unintentional charm.“I’m tough.”

Now, you didn’t even bother to hide your scoff. A challenging twist of your brow appeared and you pointed out the faults in his words. “You just complained about the heater not working.”

“I’m selectively tough,” his grin stayed and was backed up by a small chuckle. 

You looked at him, and he looked back, and something quiet opened in the car.

The conversation shift quickly after that. You asked questions you had meant to use later. What did he want after graduation? He did not know. Where did he want to go? Away, maybe. Or nowhere. What was he afraid of? He made a joke at first, something about being left unsupervised with fireworks, and then he went quiet long enough for the windows to begin fogging at the edges.

“I don’t think I’m good at anything,” Steve told you after that. He said it plainly, almost casually, which made it worse. It was easier to dissect him clinically when he didn't wear that expression that caused you faltering to gain back control. 

You shifted toward him, eyes dragging over him.  They seemed darker with the setting say, but somehow they had something stored away that made you want to push back on his words.  “That’s not true.”

He gave you a look that unnerved you. “You don’t know that.”

You didn't let it get to you. You pushed through because for some reason, you felt like you couldn't stay silent. “I know you noticed I was cold before I did.”

The words had you faltering from the truth it held.

Steve gave a wry exhale, his head tilted back against his seat with his eyes on you. “That’s not a skill.”

Your voice felt firmer now. “It is, actually.”

He stared out through the windshield. Below, the park sat empty and silvered by frost. You couldn't really focus on that, not when Steve sat besides you looking less like the king you knew and more like a boy you wanted to know. You couldn't even process the words before Steve continued in. “Nancy used to say I had good instincts when I got out of my own way.”

Nancy.

There it was. The bruise beneath the bruise. It wasn't  one you were exactly shocked to hear, the whole sum of Hawkins new about the romance between the Wheeler daughter and him. Still, you weren't going deny the tinge of discomfort you felt at the mention.

What? Why were you uncomfortable? You immediately shut down the thought. A hard clearing of your throat helped stabilize yourself. You had to remind yourself that you weren't here for whatever reason that your body seemed to mistake. Instead, you focused on the task at hand, or at least tried to. You should have leaned in then when his head bowed slightly. You should have gathered the quote, traced the wound back to its social function, and built your thesis brick by brick.

You settled on something else, because strangely, anything else seemed harsh. “She sounds smart.”

“She is.”

The words carried no bitterness. That threw you off. You'd have known guys to turn completely hostile after break-ups, and you couldn't even remember a time where someone from Steve’s circle stayed genuine for the moment. You'd completely expected him to talk badly about her, about the situation, and frankly just about anything and everything that came up. To place blame in everything that never warranted it. 

You'd have felt more comfortable if he reacted like that. He didn't notice your turmoil.

“She’s also right,” he added, turning back to you. His hazel eyes mesmerizing in its softness. “I get in my own way a lot.”

You wanted to ask how. You wanted to ask why. What came out was a stupid joke about how his hair probably counted as a separate obstacle. “How, by looking in the mirror and not finding your face under all that hair?”

His laugh wasn’t loud, it certainly was not the cafeteria laugh you'd have known, not the old one that announced him from across the room. It was small and startled and breathless, given to you without polish. It didn't help you when he leaned back against the seat, smiling at the roof of the car, and your pulse betrayed you completely.

What happened next made you feel less like you were playing him and more like he was playing you. When he reached over to tuck a loose piece of hair behind your ear, he did it slowly enough that you could have stopped him.

You didn't. You didn't stop him.

You told yourself it was because you were playing an act.

His knuckles brushed your cheekbone, working in breaking you out of your mind. Steve’s hand lingered there, his thumb moving once over your skin, it barely had any pressure. He watched the place he touched instead of your eyes, and the careful uncertainty of it burned through you harder than confidence would have.

For one long second, you wanted him to kiss you so badly that you forgot why you were there.

Then a car passed on the road behind you, headlights cutting through the windows, and both of you shifted apart.

Steve cleared his throat, his head turning to look out the driver's side.  He seemed to have looked aware of just how vulnerable the moment was,  and didn't know how to navigate it.  “So. Did I help?”

You looked down at his jacket wrapped around you. It made feel warm in ways you almost wished it didn't. 

“Yes,” your voice came out all wrong,  small and breathless. “You did.”

You wrote three pages that night and hated all of them. It was as frustrating as it was complicated.  The problem was not that Steve failed your test. You found that out quickly. 

The true problem was that he kept passing in the wrong direction.

—

In public, you performed coldness with the sharp dread of a person setting a match to her own sleeve. Or at least, you truly hoped it looked like that. 

Monday morning, Steve found you near your locker with a bright, almost boyish smile that made you glance away before it could hit directly.

“Hey,” he leaned besides you near the locker. “I was thinking maybe after school we could—”

You shut your locker too hard.

“Can we not do this right now?”

His hand, halfway extended toward yours, stopped in the air. He dropped it quickly, trying to make the movement look natural.

“Do what?” his voice had you wanting to falter. God, since when were you this weak?

“This.” You gestured between you, impatient and vague. “The whole thing.”

People moved around you in the hallway, a current of denim jackets and textbooks and perfume. Someone bumped your shoulder. Before you could stumble, Steve stepped closer, placing himself between you and the rush of bodies. It was an unconscious movement. Protective without announcement.

Your stomach turned. You bowed your head to ignore looking into his enrapturing eyes. A warmth came instinctive in your stomach standing in such close proximity with the boy in front of you. You tried to push it down.  

Keyword, tried.

His voice dropped, his head leaning down to yours in an attempt to meet your gaze. “Hey. What did I do?”

His voice had you feeling weak already. “Nothing.”

“Okay, well, I’m getting a pretty strong not-nothing feeling here.”

You looked past him toward Stacey at the end of the hall. She watched with wide eyes, silently mouthing something that might have been commitment or abort. Her hands moved in front of her in a weaving gesture. You weren't sure what she'd been trying to convey, so you only assume she wanted to to keep going.

You crossed your arms, forcing your tone to turn cold and far away. No words really landed cleanly in your head for inspiration, so you took the first ones that would stick. “Maybe you don’t have to be so… much.”

Steve blinked.

His jaw tensed with movement,  your eyes drew to the action by unfortunate reflex now. He glanced down, then back up, searching your face with a focus that made your skin feel too thin and your act feel too hesitant. 

“I’ll fix it,” the words came quietly. You were sure your expression was dumbfounded, sure you had been acting like this on purpose – but what did he gain from doing that? You were so rapidly expecting a textbook fit. Instead, you got patient murmurings. That was worse than any possible anger.

“I don’t need you to fix it.”

“Then tell me what you need.”

His breath warmed your forehead. His hazel eyes showed no sign of any true hostility. They were worried and confused, and there was something heartbreakingly earnest in the way he tried to solve the version of the problem you had invented. You liked that. You liked that he seemed to act like that by instinct.

And so, because of that, you almost reached for him.

You willed yourself to iron quickly. Wetting your bottom lip, you finally looked up at him. eyes. The action had you remembering just why you were so hesitant to meet his gaze, having a look that could melt anything in them. Instead, you stepped around him and walked to class with your throat tight enough to hurt.

At lunch later, you made notes that took up new space in your writing notebook.

He responded to social rejection not with aggression but accommodation. Attempts repair. Shows confusion when expected script fails. Public status seems less motivating than personal connection.

You underlined personal connection so hard the paper tore.

Even detached on paper didn't feel right.

— 

The next test, as the girls had dubbed it, was supposed to be funny. You were sure it was meant to be, but it still held an underlying issue. It was Stacey’s idea, though you were the one foolish enough to do it.

The party was at some fellow senior’s house on Maple Street, loud enough to rattle the windows from the street. Steve picked you up with his hair arranged into what could only be called architecture. He seemed nervous about the party in a way he tried to bury under commentary about the radio, the road, and the fact that you were late even though you had been ready for ten minutes and had simply stood in your room wondering when exactly you had become the villain in your own story.

It was a rough start to say the least.

When you got there, he came around to open your door.

You stood and tried not to let the deep inhale of breathe be heard. The last thing you needed was to look as nervous as you felt. And quickly after that, you took one look at his carefully styled hair, and before you could lose courage, reached up and ran both hands through it. A smile found its way on your face, practiced and teasing, mirroring the girl in the catalogue of your People magazine.

The brush through his hair wasn't gentle, although his hair certainly was. Seriously, you had to ask later on what his secret was. 

The structure of its volume collapsed instantly, and Steve froze. His head still remained in its bowed position from where he leaned down from the passenger seat door of his car. His brows twitched together as your hands ran along his temple. You froze too, fingers still threaded into his hair.

For one second, you waited for the familiar snap. For the old King Steve to step forward with wounded pride and a cruel mouth. The porch light hummed above you. Inside, someone shrieked with laughter. His friends, or former friends, or whatever they were now, could see you from the living room window.

Steve looked at his reflection in the dark glass of the car. He let out a small sigh, and the familiar heart fluttering charming grin appeared on his face. Steve's eyes shut for a moment but his expression didn't falter, even as a series of laughter escaped him. The sound felt warm to you, and your body responded in turn.

“Better?” Steve then fluttered his pretty eyes back open, his head tilting with curiosity. “It was exhausting keeping that up anyway.”

Your hands fell quickly, your finger tips missing the way his hair felt against your skin instantly. The joke died so completely that you could almost hear it hit the pavement.

He glanced at you, the ruined hair falling soft around his face only enhancing him.  “Does it look terrible?”

“No,” you denied, and it came out too quickly. You winced at that, a small noise escaped Steve. 

His mouth twitched. “That was very convincing.”

“I mean it.” you did. 

He looked younger again. Not smaller, exactly. Just less fully arranged. Another strand fell over his forehead, and you had the sudden, awful urge to smooth it back with care instead of strategy.

The party behind you roared alive, and Steve heard. His shoulders tightened, but he didn't turn toward them like you thought. He looked at you instead, waiting for your reaction, which somehow made you responsible for the whole fragile moment.

You reached up and fixed one piece of hair near his temple. Something in you liked doing that. 

“There,” your voice was stronger now, and your smile had turned real moments ago. “Better.”

The smile he gave you was crooked and private. It really was nothing in comparison to the rest of the party, but it lingered. You spent the next few hours trying to get him to smile like that again.

You didn't take notes that night, or any of the other future nights.

You just remembered things instead.

You remembered the blue flicker of a movie screen across his face two nights later, when he sat beside you in the theater and kept his arm over your shoulders for the first half hour because that was what Steve Harrington knew how to do. Smooth. Easy. Practiced. Then, sometime after the second reel started rolling, his fingers stopped drumming against your sleeve and settled there with a hesitant weight, not claiming, only asking.

You remembered the way he drove with one hand when he was showing off, then switched to both hands when he told you about the time he forgot about his gym clothes and his coach made him wear an extra one two sizes too small. You remembered that he kept cherry chapstick in his glove box beside a flashlight, two old cassette tapes, and a receipt from a gas station outside Indianapolis. You remembered him stealing fries from your plate at the nearby diner and pretending to be wounded when you kicked his shin under the booth.

And in the next important memory, you remembered rain.

It came hard one random Thursday night, turning Hawkins into a blur of headlights and slick black roads. Steve’s house was empty in the way large houses could be empty even before you stepped inside. It was too clean, and far too quiet. The kind of place where expensive furniture sat untouched, waiting for adults who came home late and left early.

You ended up in his bedroom because the living room felt too much like a showroom for you.

His room was warmer than you expected, messier in an unapologetically human way. A baseball glove rested comfortably on the nearby dresser. Records stacked crookedly near the stereo. A half-open drawer with socks spilling out. Hair products lined along the bathroom counter with an intensity that might have been funny if it did not now seem faintly sad. Still, you had gotten a few quips out in hopes of cracking a smile from him.

The storm rattled the windows deeper into that even when conversations died down. You sat on the floor with your backs against the thick wooden frame of his bed, sharing a blanket that smelled faintly of detergent and his cologne. It was a familiar scent to your mind now. His knee pressed against yours beneath the fabric. 

Neither of you moved away. 

“I used to think this place was cool,” Steve had mentioned offhandedly after a moment, looking around the space of his room.

You didn't quite follow why his tone seemed far away, to you, his words were still holding up. “It is cool.”

“It’s big.”

Your head turned to face him, a hum on your lips. “That’s usually part of cool.”

He shook his head, the slight shake of his hair reminded you of how you missed touching it. You shook your head and focused once more when he spoke again. “No, I mean… it’s just big.”

You understood what he meant.

Near his large bedroom window, thunder rolled low over the town. The room flashed pale for a second, then settled back into the lamplight.

You rested your cheek against the edge of the mattress, warm eyes pouring into yours as he mimicked your actions. “Are your parents gone a lot?”

“Yeah.” Steve then picked at a loose thread in the blanket. His next words came out short and detached, so unlike the guy you've known. “Dad travels. Mom goes with him when she’s tired of pretending she likes Hawkins.”

You didn't like how his eyes dimmed.  “And you?”

“I stay.”

The word sat between you.

He laughed once, it was without humor, and rubbed at his eye with the heel of his hand. His voice held that rasped edge that sent tingles down your spine.  “God, that sounded pathetic.”

“It didn’t.” The reassurance came so quick it shocked you. You attempted to play it cool, repeating the words slower. 

“It did.” He looked down at his hands, the same ones you found yourself wanting to hold without the premise of a lie. “I just… I don’t know what happens when this is over. School. All of it. Everybody keeps acting like we’re supposed to know.” You didn't know what to say, it was the first time you've seen him so visibly wrecked.  “College, jobs, whatever. And I’m sitting there thinking—what if this was it? What if being King Steve was the only thing I was ever good at, and I wasn’t even good enough to keep it?”

Your chest tightened, it seemed like the world was laughing at you. Her he was, sitting on his bedroom floor besides talking about his insecurities all while you were actively trying to back on them. 

The article was in your bag downstairs. A draft. A title. A guillotine made of clever sentences.

“Steve,” the name came of gentle from your lips. 

He would not look at you, he kept staring at a spot on the floor. 

“Nancy figured it out before I did,” he went on, his voice lower now. His shoulders carried his tension clear as day. “That all the stuff people liked about me was just… noise. Parties, basketball, the car, the hair. The Harrington house. I thought that meant something. Then it didn’t, and it was—”

He stopped and didn't continue any further. You knew the signs before it came, and the room quieted down. 

His throat moved, a small, forcefully restrained noise finding its way out. The rain that thudded against his window filled the silence for him. And for you. 

You reached for his hand quickly.

He looked at your fingers covering his, then turned his palm upward and held on. You opened your mouth to speak, but not much came out. His grip was still foreign to you,  but it was different right now. It wasn't smooth, and it didn't feel like it held any kind of plan. His grip tightened once, almost too much to be soft, but then he quickly loosened it.

You shifted closer.

That was all it took.

He pulled you into his lap with a suddenness that stole your breath, then seemed to realize what he had done a second after doing it. His hands hovered at your waist.

“Sorry,” he whispered.

You settled there instead of moving away. Your own eyes were blown wide and mirroring his. You tried to speak but it came out all airy. “It’s okay.”

His breathing changed when yours did. Steve's eyes seemed to track your face, and the air seemed to turn into something deeper. 

For a moment, neither of you spoke up again. He lowered his forehead to your shoulder,then to the curve of your neck, his breath warm against your skin. The response that you gave was instantaneous, a rapid rising and falling of your chest went through the warmth of your body. His hands gripped your waist through the blanket, not possessive necessarily, you thought it felt more like clinging. Tethering.  The storm made the windows tremble. His hair brushed your jaw.

You lifted a hand and threaded your fingers into the back of his hair. The return of the welcome feeling was pleasant in your grasp.

He went still under your touch, and for a moment. Then he exhaled, deep and unsteady, and held you closer. Your faces were breaths away now, the bridge of his nose softly touched yours.

“Hey,” your voice came out weak. It was too soft to be teasing like you'd hoped. 

Steve’s eyes softened instantly. You saw it happen. You saw the moment the small, genuine grin stretched across his face. His voice came back whispered, as if scared to break the moment. “Hi there.”

When he finally pulled back, his eyes searched your face with an openness that made lying feel entirely  impossible. You knew he was about to kiss you. You knew that you really should stop him. You knew the truth should come out before his mouth touches yours, before this became another thing you had stolen under false pretenses.

But you'd been stupid, and so you didn't stop him.

The kiss began softly, almost carefully. His lips were brushing yours once before returning with more certainty. He tasted faintly sweet from the chapstick he pretended not to use. The kiss felt like it was bewitching your body whole. His hand rose to your hair, fingers sinking in with a restraint that kept breaking and returning. You gave a slight laugh against his lips before calming down. You felt him trying not to rush, trying not to take more than you gave, and the effort undid you more thoroughly than any practiced confidence could have. Because it was just so him.

You kissed him back.

Not for the article. Not for the headline. Not because Stacey would demand details or because Mr. Walsh would have to admit you knew how to find a story

You wanted to, you truly wanted to..

You kissed him because his hand was warm against your back and his breath caught when you touched his face. Because the room smelled of rain and leather and laundry soap. Because his mouth moved against yours with need and care tangled together, and your whole body answered before your conscience could organize a defense.

When you pulled away, his forehead rested against yours. The faint flush from his skin felt nice against yours

He smiled, small and dazed. You added that of the list of expressions you liked to see on him.

“Does this mean I’m helping with your boy problem?”

A laugh broke out of you, shaky and real. You pressed your face into his shoulder to hide it. With a lightness in you chest you lifted your head up as you rolled your eyes. Your hand moved on its own account now. It slid up to grasp the side of his face, your fingers sliding against the shape of his jaw.

“Shut up, Steve.”

His arms tightened around you, and his lips found yours once again. His own lightness expressed through the laughter that filled the echoing bedroom. "Ouch, you wound me."

For a few minutes, the world narrowed to the storm, his heartbeat beneath your palm, and the terrible knowledge that you had done something you could not write your way out of.

—

The article sat unfinished for two days.

You told yourself you would kill it. You also told yourself that you had time. Then you told yourself you would revise it.

So you sat in the newsroom after school, staring at the draft title until the faniliar letters turned cruel.

The Lifecycle of a High School God: why a crown crushes a king.

It sounded brilliant in the cafeteria. You distinctly remember thinking that. But now? Now it sounded mean. 

No, mean was too light of a word. It felt cruel.

You pulled the pages from the typewriter, folded them once, and shoved them into your folder. You would tell Mr. Walsh you had changed direction. You would write something else. Anything else. A review of the cafeteria pizza. A profile on the marching band. A blank page with sorry written in the center.

The front page spot didn't seem so enticing anymore when the cost came so harsh.

You were reaching for your bag when Mark appeared in the doorway, looking over at you. You didn't bother to hide the deep exhale you gave, you whole body tensing on on instinct.

“Working late?”

You stiffened and corrected him. “Leaving, actually.”

His eyes dropped to the folder in your hand. You immediately shut the folder, not liking the look in his gaze. “Is that the mystery column everyone’s whispering about?”

“No.”

“So yes.”

You tucked it against your chest. You had truly no paitence for the boy. You had been feeling horrible all last night yesterday, well, even more so last night than usual. “Move, Mark.”

He held up both hands, smiling. You didn't like his smile. It was nothing like the comforting presence of Steve's. The thought only made your mood worsened. “Relax. I just wanted to see what was so important that Walsh was considering bumping my school spirit piece.”

“He wasn’t.” You wished you sounded as steady as you needed to, but the flicker in your voice betrayed you.

Mark noticed. Boys like Mark always noticed weakness when it benefited them. And Mark himself no doubt would revel in any chance of taking an empty shot at you.

“Come on,” he clicked his tongue in a way that made your blood boil from its condescension. “We’re all on the same staff.”

“No, we’re not.” You pushed past him quickly. 

You did not know, however, that then one folded carbon copy had slipped from your folder and landed beneath the table, half-hidden by the trash can. You did not know Mark found it ten minutes later. You did not know he read it standing under the buzzing lights with his mouth slowly opening into the delighted shape of opportunity.

If you knew, you certainly wouldn't have lived through the reoccurring nightmare you've been having for the past few weeks.

You found out the next morning when Hawkins High came alive with your words.

Not the final version of your words, for it surely would've had a different result. It wasn't even the whole draft.

It was the worst version, the sharpest version.

The version written before you knew the way Steve looked when he gave away his jacket and pretended not to be cold.

Copies appeared on lockers before first period. Someone had run them fast and dirty, the ink uneven, the margins crooked. The title screamed from the top in bold type.

By second period, everyone had read it. By lunch, they were reading it aloud. You pushed through the hallway with your heart hammering so hard your vision pulsed at the edges.

A boy near the trophy case laughed. “Listen to this part—”

You snatched the page from his hand and you were sure the rhythm of your heart could be heard from miles away.

There it was.

Your article.

Your voice, sharpened into a blade that you couldn't even begin to imagine dulling.

The Lifecycle of a High School God: why a crown crushes a king

Every high school builds a throne, though no one admits to carrying the wood to make it. We vote with our eyes, our invitations, and our laughter at jokes that are not funny enough to deserve it. We create a boy and call him a king because it is easier than admitting we are the kingdom that is faulty.

The high school god is rarely born exceptional. He is assembled meticulously. A good car. A good face. The right jacket. The right table. Enough people saying his name in the right tone until even he begins to believe there is something sacred in being wanted. These continue to enforce how sincerity rarely makes the cut.

But worship is not love. Anyone will tell you that, and those who disagree would be dumb enough to face the consequences. Popularity feeds on performance, and performance rots whatever is underneath the layer given. A boy taught to survive by being admired will eventually mistake attention for affection, control for confidence, and loneliness for proof that everyone else has failed him

When a crown falls, what remains is often not a villain, but something more ordinary and more frightening: a boy with no language for himself beyond what other people once applauded and now isolate.

Hawkins High should ask why we keep making kings out of boys who do not know how to be human — and why we act surprised when the weight of a crown crushes them to dust.

You had written every word. It would have been easier to say that Mark embellished over your words, and exaggerated for journalist effect. But he didn't,  you were the one to do that. It was the worst part of the draft he could have chosen, simply because of the fact that you had left out everything you saw after.

You had also left out every human thing that would have saved him.

You found Steve in the print room a few hours later. And before you could assume any sort of hope of a clean explanation, it was shot and dead in front of you. You almost wished he hadn't gone there.

But of course he would have gone there, and of course the place where your betrayal had been made public still smelled of ink and metal and hot paper. It was proof of the now posted article that you didn't even want out. Faintly, you could hear something loud with the clacking press that someone had forgotten to turn off. Steve stood near the long table, one of the copies in his hand, the page trembling slightly between his fingers.

He looked up when you entered and you almost wished he hadn't. 

His eyes were red.

Not crying, not exactly. Worse. It made your heart drop and panic spike up into you. It seemed he intended to hold back so hard that the effort had hollowed out his face.

“Steve–” you didn't recognize your voice. It was so desperate and and pleading. You opened your mouth and tried to stammer out any explanation that came into your head, but there was nothing you found coming to mind. 

“Steve, please! Just listen, I–” He interrupted you and laughed, but it shook you. It wasn't like the laughter you had come to live,  this one had no warmth in it. It was so unlike him and you hated it. You hated causing that. 

“Was any of it real?”

You stopped short, any explanation does quickly in the tip of your tongue. 

He held up the article for you to see. As if you needed to be reminded of what you'd have done, a small breath part of you mouthed off bitterly. 

“When you looked at me like that. When you stayed with me. When you—” His voice caught, and he looked away, jaw tight. You immediately took to shaking your head, the implication of his words just. Because they were true.  And because they weren't. “Was that just material for your front page?”

“No!”

“No?”

“It started—” You hated yourself before the words finished forming. “It started as an article, but—”

His face changed and your heart seemed perpetually lodged into your ribcage. There were some truths that did not deserve the dignity of a full explanation. Steve just exhaled out sharply, his head finally facing you. The reaction wasn't what you wanted, you wanted–no, needed to explain yourself.

He nodded slowly, eyes dropping to the floor. Steve didn't give the you the chance to continue. “Right.”

“Steve, I was going to stop it. I didn't even turn it in! I swear, I wasn't going to hand it over. Mark found an old draft, and he—”

“Don’t.” He looked at you then, and the quiet in his voice hurt more than shouting would have. The word held so much that you froze on instinct. Your eyes stung viciously as you opened your mouth but nothing came out. “Don’t make this about him.”

Your mouth closed then. You felt utterly helpless, which might have been deserved. You desperately wanted to tell him everything,  wanting him to understand that it was real – is real. But your eyes, wide and frantic, just froze. He stepped closer, the paper crumpling in his fist.

“Everyone else wanted to see me for my status,” Steve began with a sharp inhale. You felt the stinging turn more prominent in your eyes, you tried to take a step forward but that was rejected when he almost flinched back two steps himself.. “The car, the parties, the game. Whatever. I got that. I was stupid, but I got it.” His breath shook. Steve’s voice cracked  nearing the end, and that was the last thing you heard before your vision blurred into spots. “I thought you were the only one who didn’t care about it.”

“I did! No, I mean–I do, you have to believe me, Steve.” Your voice was surely pathetically small. Everything else seemed to turn into static silence in the empty printing room and you desperately needed to fix it. You wanted to, but you felt so utterly unsure of your next steps. You reached for him on instinct.

Steve flinched back.

The movement was small. Instinctive. As if his body no longer registered you as a comfort, and that split something open in you. You felt the first few tears fall from your lashes, each blink dropping tiny little pearls. Steve made a noise you couldn't properly translate, his eyes were on yours but they held a thousand words and emotions in a single look. His own hand twitched open and shut before being brought up to bury itself in his hair, Steve then forced his eyes shut and his head turned to the side. He couldn't decide what hurt more, being hurt by you, or seeing you hurt.

He was the one that came back sharp and strained.

“Turns out,” Steve’s voice was so rough, it could have been unrecognizable. You opened your mouth immediately to shut down whatever he would say, but he beat you to it.  “you just used me for a headline.”

The press clattered behind him. A sheet slid loose and fluttered to the floor.

“I’m sorry,” you whispered, your voice cracking and stinging from feeling utterly defeated. Because he was right, you did. You did get to know him for a chance at a headline, so that was why you could only apologize. But you wanted nothing to do with that stupid article, and regret washed over you at the thought of him thinking none of it was real. Because yes, it was messy, but it was real for you. “But–fuck, Steve... please you have to understand that–” you were cut off before you could even continue. 

He stared at you for a long moment, and you could see the part of him that wanted to believe you fighting with the part that had learned too many times what wanting cost.

Then he turned and walked out.

The room didn't become empty when he left, there was no relief that came with him leaving. And the room didn't become calmer in his disappearance; instead, it filled with him.

The absence of his cologne. The missing warmth of his jacket. The ghost of his hand at your cheek, careful and uncertain, before you had earned any of it. All of the little things that were so present just a moment ago were gone and let the physical trail of what happened.

You were left alone with the faint clacking of the room's machinery. And for a moment, you were so ready to run out to try and plead. To explain, to tell him every complete thing he was missing in hopes of him understanding. But you couldn't do that, not when you were already reason enough that he was hurting all over again.

With a loud curse, you found yourself feeling completely lost in a room that you've only ever compared with a haven. 

— 

For two days, Steve Harrington became visible to you in a way he had never been as king.

You saw him at his locker the next Friday morning, hollow-eyed and quiet, pretending not to hear the whispers. You saw him in the cafeteria, sitting with a younger boy you didn't know for exactly six minutes before the younger boy said something animated enough to make Steve almost smile. Then Steve caught sight of you across the room and the almost vanished.

That hurt like a stab to the heart. 

Then came the other little things that made you feel significantly worse.  He stopped coming to the parking lot after school until the buses had left. He stopped looking down your hallway. He stopped being available to your guilt.

You tried to corner Mark. He denied leaking it with the loose, oily confidence of someone who knew proof mattered more than truth. Mr. Walsh gave a speech to the staff about journalistic ethics while refusing to meet your eyes. Stacey apologized three times, then stopped because the apologies had nowhere to land when she held you while your sobs filled your bedroom. Leah sat beside you at lunch without talking much. That was the kindest thing anyone did.

By Friday afternoon, the newsroom felt smaller than it ever had for you. More suffocating. 

The printing press sat under the window, still and waiting. Dust turned in the late sun. Your original ambition lay around you in stacks of paper and headline sketches and discarded layouts.

You looked at the front page proof with Mark’s article on school spirit and felt nothing.

Not disappointment. Not anger.

Nothing.

That truly scared you more than pain did.

You had thought giving up the article would be enough. You had thought killing the story would count as a moral act. But the story was already alive, crawling through Hawkins High with your fingerprints around its throat. You didn't know what to do, the words were already there for everyone that listened. 

You sat at the typewriter.

For a long moment, you did not move. Shortly after a fit of tense silence, you finally rolled in a clean sheet. The keys struck hard enough to ache in your fingers.

This time, you did not write anonymously because you were clever. Or because you were trying to be witty or cruel. You wrote anonymously because the confession was not meant to redeem your name. It was meant to give him back his.

By the final bell, the flyer was everywhere, curtesy of your desperate and frantic efforts. 

It wasn't approved, it certainly also wasn't polished. Id didn't become formatted with Mr. Walsh’s careful little rules. It was just a single page copied until the machine jammed twice and your hands were black with ink that you couldn't scrub off

Students grabbed them from the tables, from the lockers, from the floor where they skidded under shoes. After all, no one loved potential hidden stories more than Hawkins High

You didn't wait to watch them read. That had been the least of your priorities. There was more important things that you cared about than who read a piece of your work now, and he had been gone from your sight long enough.

So, you ran.

The hallways exploded around you with the annual end-of-week chaos of Hawkins High School. Lockers slammed open, someone yelled about a shared ride, and a freshman dropped an entire stack of books and cursed with such feeling that a teacher shouted his name from twenty feet away. The sun poured through the front doors in a white-gold sheet, way too bright after the fluorescent dimness of the hall.

Steve was not at his locker. He was not outside the gym. He wasn't by the trophy case or the pay phones or even the side entrance near the band room. Your lungs burned by the time you shoved through the heavy double doors and stumbled into the afternoon.

The parking lot sprawled ahead of you, shining under the cold sun. Cars backed out in crooked lines. Girls shouted through open windows. The air smelled of gasoline, damp leaves, and somebody’s cigarette. It was all nothing that you cared about. The one thing you did seemed to be missing from the scene. Your eyes squinted in the light as it traveled across the parking spaces of the lot, failing to find what your heart desperately wanted to see.

At the far end, the BMW’s engine roared to life.

“No,” you breathed with pure adrenaline rushing through your veins. Steve sat behind the wheel, one hand on the gearshift, his profile hard through the windshield. 

Before you even knew it, you started running. 

It was stupid, rushed, and entirely filled with desperation. Your shoes slapped the asphalt. You heard Leah faintly calling your name, but you didn't turn back. The wind tore at your hair. Your bag bounced painfully against your hip but you paid it no mind. You cut between two parked cars and nearly slipped on loose gravel.

“Steve!”

He did not hear you, or pretended not to. You gave a groan of loud annoyance, but it still did little to deter you.

You reached the car just as the reverse lights flashed.

Without thinking, without dignity, and definitely without any plan beyond the awful certainty that if he drove away now something inside you would never forgive you, you threw yourself in front of the driver’s side door.

The car jerked to a stop and Steve froze behind the wheel.

Through the glass, his beautifully bright eyes  widened. Hurt, shock, and stubborn pride moved across his face so quickly you could barely separate them. Then his mouth tightened. You could tell he wasn't expecting your actions, and you couldn't exactly say you were the most sane person now.

The window rolled down slowly, the crank turning under his hand with mechanical, agonizing patience.

“What are you doing?” his words came loud and filled with unresolved frustration. Steve’s voice was rough. Thick in its tension. He wouldn't look straight at you. You refused to settle for that, the days spent with the familiar feeling practically left you numb and empty. 

“Go back inside,” Steve’s eyes and words seemed to contradict each other. He shifted back into looking into his dashboard instead of you. “Go celebrate your front page.”

You shoved the crumpled paper through the open window. It landed in his lap.

“I don’t care about the stupid article, ” you said, breathless enough that the words broke apart. “I don’t care about the front page. Just–read it. Please.”

His jaw flexed. For a second, you thought he would throw it back at you. Then Steve looked down at the copy of printed words.

You watched his eyes move over the page.

Correcting mistakes:

There was an article circulating this week about a king. It was clever in the cruel way people mistake for intelligence when they are too afraid to admit they have been wrong.

The girl who wrote it thought she was exposing a system. She thought it clever and brilliant. She told herself the boy at the center of it was an idea, a symbol, a lesson with good hair. She thought distance made her fair and judicial. She thought observation made her honest.

Then the boy gave her his jacket when she was cold.

Then he admitted he was afraid of being forgotten, and the girl realized she had been so busy studying the crown of his that she had ignored the weight of it on his own head.

The first article was right about one thing: Hawkins High School makes kings out of boys and then punishes them for not knowing how to be anything else. That wasn't the mistake here. But it was wrong to confuse a boy’s damage with his character. It was wrong to turn trust into evidence. And it was wrong to take the softest things he offered and sharpen them for public consumption.

This is not an apology meant to earn forgiveness. This is meant, instead to fix the record.

The boy was never a god. 

He was kinder than any story allowed him to be, and he was kinder than she deserved. 

Steve stared at the paper.

His chest rose and fell under his yellow polo. His rings glinted where his fingers gripped the page. Around you, students slowed. A few openly stared. You could feel the parking lot turning toward you with the appetite of a place that loved spectacle.

For once, you really, truly, couldn't care.  

Steve’s eyes lifted to yours,  and you could weep just from that alone. “Why should I believe you?” he asked.

The question was quiet enough that no one else could hear. You stepped closer, hands gripping the edge of the open window. Your own voice want any better, it was loud and messy, and undeniably real. A breathless bount of laughter escaped you “Because I was playing a game and I lost, Steve.”

“I lost.”

His throat moved but you hadn't seen it.

“And I lost you,” you sighed with your head hanging low in shame near the open window, voice shaking now, “and I regret it. I was supposed to push you away, but every time you held my hand, every time you looked at me like I actually mattered, I—”

Your breath caught, and you forced it down in order to continue.

“I don’t care about King Steve. I don’t care about the crown or the table or the stupid front page. I want the guy who gets cold in his own car because he gave me his jacket. I want the guy who pretends he doesn’t use cherry chapstick. I want the guy who worries too much and fixes his hair when he’s nervous and acts tough until somebody he cares about needs him to be gentle.”

The words were embarrassing in their vulnerability, and it didn't help that Steve just stared at you. But even small battle wins were tremendous to those who were cautious.  The defensive hardness in his face trembled.

You leaned closer, not touching him. Though God knew you wanted too. But you wouldn't take what he had not offered.

“I just want you,” you said and the words hung there in the bright afternoon.

For a second, nothing happened. That scared you.  Because if even though all of this, he didn't believe you, you were sure that would break you entirely. You didn't understand how looking at him now, with his beautifully enrupturing genuine gaze and constellations of freckles so faint kissing his skin with blessings, you could have been so stupid.

Your panicking monologue was cut off when Steve let out a breath that broke halfway into a laugh.

It made you falter momentarily. You wouldn't exactly describe it as fully happy or clean. Instead, it was more ragged. Disbelieving. Full of relief that came so sudden it seemed to knock the strength out of him. He looked down at the crumpled printed again, then back at you. You saw the exact moment when whatever he had been holding together for two days came apart in his hands.

“You’re insane,” Steve held his head in his hands. The heels of his palms dragged to his eyes, and that when you noticed the concealed redness there. Your panic was a quick guest arrival as your hand hesitantly went over the threshold of the open window and found its spot tangling through his hair at his temple.

Your voice came out soft. “I know.”

“You ran in front of my car.” Steve's was returned in a disbelieving laugh. The sound on instinct made you smile.

“I know.”

“I could’ve hit you.”

You weren't quite so sure you believed that. And it seemed like neither did he fully either. The both of you stared through the air between you “You're not exactly driving donuts with your Beamer in a school parking lot, Harrington. You were going four miles an hour, max.”

His mouth twitched and your heart found its comfort. There he was. That was the boy you wanted to see, the one who was sincere and silly and all of the words in between.

The moment didn't truly feel fixed all the way, and it didn't feel so easily forgiven so neatly that the hurt could be vanished beneath a kiss. But there, beneath the bruised pride and the red eyes and the stubborn set of his jaw, was the boy from the park. The boy from the rainstorm. The boy who had laughed quietly when nobody asked him to perform.

He shoved the car door open.

You barely had time to step back before he was out, hands catching your waist. Steve lifted you clean off the pavement, and a startled sound escaped you as your hands grabbed his shoulders.

“Steve—”

“Shut up,” he rasped, but his voice broke around the smile. Then kiss that came next didn't surprise you. But it certainly didn't prepare you for it either.

It was not exactly graceful, but it was completely and utterly impassioned.

Someone in the parking lot whooped. Someone else yelled something that sounded suspiciously like “Harrington!” A horn blared because a car was stuck behind his open door. The reminder of just how crazy this whole situation was roared in your ears. 

Steve didn't seem to hear any of it. You had a feeling that he did, but just pretended he didn't. That made you smile on reflex against him.

His hands held your waist with desperate certainty, then slid up your back, pulling you close enough that the cold afternoon disappeared between you. Your fingers tangled in his hair, ruining it again, and he made a sound against your mouth that was half laugh, half relief. He tasted the same sweet cherry chapstick you started buying for yourself and breathless warmth. The kiss carried every unsaid thing neither of you knew how to organize yet. Anger. Want. Hurt. Forgiveness beginning somewhere far off and walking slowly toward you.

When your feet touched the ground again, you were dizzy. It was a good dizzy, and the pounding in your side was a welcome pleasure now. 

Steve rested his forehead against yours, breathing hard. His hands stayed anchored at your hips, refusing to let you drift away. Up close, you could see the faint details scattered along his neck, the tiredness under his eyes, and the careful hope he was trying not to show too quickly.

“You really printed that?” The question broke you out of your stupor. You were still so dazed from his touch that you distantly found yourself nodding. Your hands refused to leave their spot in reaching for him now that there wasn't a lie justifying it.

“Over Mark’s stupid school spirit thing?”

Your words came mechanical,  as if offended he'd even question it. “Technically under it. Around it. On top of some of it.”

“I made a stupid amount of copies.” The confession came paired with you momentarily dropping your hands where they were wrapped around him to hold up the black ink stains on your fingers.

His smile spread, crooked and real enough to hurt. And you swore that it was the most beautiful sight in the world.

“Good.”

You laughed weakly, your hands finding their way back into sliding to the back of his nape. “That’s what you took from the public confession?”

“I’m processing.” His thumb moved along your jaw, slow and familiar. “Also, I liked the cherry chapstick line.”

“I hoped you would,” you felt like a cat relishing in caresses. The smile that mirrored his came quick and teasing on your mouth.  His eyes stayed on yours, and his smile softened at the edges.

“You’re a terrible writer.”

Your brows lifted in instinctive defensiveness of your craft. “Excuse me?”

He brushed his thumb beneath your chin, eyes bright with that old Harrington charm, gentler now, and clearly worn in rather than performed.

“You didn’t even come close to losing me.”

The ache in your chest loosened all at once.

It would not be so easy for you to say it was gone, you would still have to apologize without speeches. He would still have to decide what trust looked like after being turned into copy. 

But Steve was standing in front of you with his hair wrecked by your hands and your confession folded against his car seat. He was looking at you, really looking, not the way a king looked over a crowd, but the way a boy looked at the girl he was still willing to let close enough to hurt him.

You rose onto your toes with a soft shake of your head and grin. “Just shut up and kiss me, Harrington.”

His grin flashed.

“Yes, ma’am.”

This time, when he kissed you, the whole parking lot blurred into sun and noise and the smell of gasoline warming on asphalt. His hands were still careful. Yours were not. You held onto him with ink-stained fingerspads and a heart that learned how to be true.

Because when Steve looked at you, really looked at you, his mind told him to run. Not because he didn't love you, but because loving you was terrifying. Because loving you felt so easy, which made it dangerous. It was dangerous, love was dangerous, you were dangerous.

Unlike you, Steve knew the exact moment that he fell in love with you. The moment was etched permanently into his brain... a dream and a nightmare rolled all into one. It was the night after the group battled in Starcourt Mall:

You stood between Steve's legs, a first aid kit sat beside him on the counter. You held his face in one hand, the other gently cleaning the wounds left by the soviets. Each time a cotton ball soaked with antiseptic touched the cut just below his eye, your thumb would gently run along his chin. It was the simplest of touches, and yet it carried a heavy weight with it. The way you held, touched, cleaned, looked at him, made him feel fragile. Like his life had meaning beyond being a human shield. If not to himself, then to you.

That night, there had been a shift between the two of you. Instead of sex filled with heavy breaths, random words, and distraction, that night had changed the course of whatever the hell was going on between you two. You had finished cleaning his wounds, and now rubbed his back as he threw up more and more of whatever drug he had been injected with, brushing his hair from his face as he sat back on his heels.

Steve collapsed against the lower sink cabinets, taking the glass of water you had miraculously conjured from thin air. He looked up at you, taking in the small cuts that littered your face, the red hand print on your cheek given by one of the soviets, the cut on your side from Steve crashing into Billy's car. All that hurt, and yet here you were taking care of him. He thought that it should be the other way around, but selfishly, his heart was begging to be taken care of. And who were you to deny the poor boy's heart?

"You're hurt." Steve nodded towards your side.

"Maybe, but I'm not the one still drowning in some russian drug." You smiled, nudging his foot with your own.

He managed a gruff laugh, "Not sure how you're still not reeling from it."

"Because I made myself throw up way before you and Robin." You leaned forward, wiping away a bit of lingering drool.

"This should be the other way around." He searched your face for any trace that you were frustrated with the situation. He found none and it cracked something inside him. He didn't understand it. Why were you here helping him when there were others you could be helping? You could've been with Robin or Dustin or Max or El, anyone but him. So why-

"Steve." Your voice pulled him from his thoughts. "You deserve to be cared for too, y'know."

Steve looked at you, really looked at you. Before now, he wasn't exactly sure what you meant to him. Of course he cared for you, of course he loved when you were around, and of course he loved that you were game for whatever this unspoken thing was between you both. But he hadn't allowed himself to really enjoy your company beyond that, not with everything going on. But now, sitting across from you in his own bathroom, he couldn't ignore what he had been pushing down for so long.

Steve moved cautiously, scooting across the floor until he was sat next to you, propped up against the tub. He felt the way your eyes tracked his every move, and secretly filed away the slight hitch in your breath when his shoulder touched yours.

You relaxed beside him, moving your arm to allow him to lean into your side. Slowly, Steve melted into you, letting his guard down inch by inch. You felt the way his hair brushed against your neck as his head nuzzled into the crook of your neck. Carefully, you wrapped an arm around his shoulders, your hand threading through his hair.

Steve wasn't sure when the tears had started, but he found himself quietly crying into the crook of your neck. You didn't shush him, you didn't try to convince him he was okay, you didn't try to cheer him up, you didn't tell him that everything was going to be fine, you simply held him.

It was the kind of hold that Steve had longed for his whole life. It was a touch that told him he was truly cared for, a touch that told him there was at least one person in his life that saw him as more than a human shield or a punching bag. And he needed more of your touch. Once his tears stopped, his love started.

 He kissed you hard, taking your face in his hands. His hands slipped under your shirt, his palm holding you like you were fragile as he pulled you up from the tiled floor. He led you over to his bed, the two of you standing in front of it as he gently undressed you. He slipped your shirt over your head, pressing small kisses along your shoulder as he took care of your denim shorts. You did the same for him. Carefully pulling off his clothes while pressing sweet kisses to his skin. Your fingers brushed against a bruise, pulling a strangled sound from his stomach. 

You glanced up at him, "I'm here for you, Steve." And that was it. Any shred of retraint he had flew out the window. He lowered you onto the bed, cradling your head carefully as he crawled over you. You pulled his face back to yours, kissing him as his body settled between your thighs. Something about the night felt different. The way he touched you felt less like a grip and more like a caress. He was both nosier and quiet at the same time. The only sounds that escaped him were low groans as he pushed into you slowly, breathy whimpers when you kissed a bruise, and achey moans that fell into your neck as you squeezed around him. Everything felt slow and deliberate. Each slow thrust into you pushed you against the sheets. He kissed you slowly, taking his time to cover every inch of your skin as you let out breathy moans against his ear. Steve clasped his hand in yours once he finally picked up speed. The headboard knocked into the wall steadily, as he pushed deeper and deeper. Steve watched your face twist delicately as he hit the perfect spot. He groaned lowly, as you clenched around him, his name falling from your lips like a prayer. 

You nodded slowly, arms looping around his neck as you both drew closer and closer to the end. "I'm here, Steve. Give it to me." Your words unravelled him. A desperate, achey moan fell from his lips into your neck as his hips stuttered. You followed after him, gasping slightly as he carefully bit down on your shoulder. You didn't leave that night, not like was normally expected. No, you stayed put. You threw on one of Steve's shirts after he cleaned you up, and you got him water from his kitchen before he went to bed. Once the lights clicked off, he wordlessly pulled you into his arms, wrapping you up tightly. His head pressed into the crook of your neck, his breath becoming even against your skin as he fell asleep.

That had been the night that casual, coping sex had turned into something different. The sex that had once served as a distraction turned into love that served as a reminder. A reminder that even if neither of you could speak the words, there was a care so deep that it had solidified in both yours and his bones. And that kind of care was more than just mutual feelings, it was an infused reverence, and devotion towards one another.

After that night, both of you had silently stopped seeking out others in a sad attempt to escape the other. Instead, you leaned into it even more. The both of you weren't shy about it, there was obviously something going on between you two. It just didn't have a name. And how could it, when there was no possible label that could cover exactly how deep the feelings ran.

It was hard to explain when asked about it. Because sure, on paper, you considered Steve your boyfriend, by definition you were dating. But out loud was so much more complicated. Because now didn't seem like a time for silly labels like boyfriend and girlfriend. Steve felt like now wasn't the right time to dive into anything "too serious," even if that line had long been crossed.

The Upside down didn't care about whatever the name was, it just took and took and took. And deep down, Steve believed that if there was no actual name for what he felt for you, then maybe you would be safe. Maybe if Vecna or the Mind Flayer or those stupid bats and monsters couldn't hear what you meant to him, they would leave you alone.

Steve knew deep down that none of that actually mattered. If Vecna wanted to take you... he was going to, and reasonably there was nothing Steve could actually do to stop that.

So Steve decided that in case the worst were to happen, maybe if there was no label it wouldn't hurt as much. And Steve figured that the same could be said if the roles were reversed. Maybe if he held out from you it would be an easier pill to swallow when something inevitably happened.

Yes. Steve had decided something would eventually happen to him. The same way something had happened to Billy, Hopper, Barb. Because if there was one thing he knew, it was that he would under absolutely any circumstances lose someone else. So Steve got reckless. Too reckless.

He jumped head first into any sign of danger, throwing himself at the first movement of evil, using his own body like it was simple collateral. He hid the reality, shoving the words "instinct" in front of what it really was. And almost everyone bought it and gave a simple reminder to "be more careful next time," but you saw through him.

Of course you did.

There were plenty of giveaways, but there was one particular one that stood out.

Steve Harrington was a man of his word. If he swore he would do something he would do it despite whatever stood in his way. And one thing he had yet to swear on was to be careful. Even when you tried again and again, he would simply smile at you with that stupid grin, and leave without a word.

"Don't get yourself killed." Was met with a small chuckle before he kissed your temple and ran into danger.

"Take care of yourself out there." You got a smile and a quick kiss.

"Don't do anything reckless, please." A squeeze and a roll of the eyes.

"Please, just be careful."

"Don't be a hero."

"Don't hurt yourself."

"Make sure you come back to me."

None of it was met with any sort of indignation that he had the intention of coming back. And it was tearing you apart. Because you loved Steve. Really, really, really loved him. And you wanted to make it through this shit show, and you wanted him to make it out with you.

You wanted to be able to go on dates and call them that. You wanted to say he was your boyfriend when one of your friends asked. You wanted to fully call him yours.

But it seemed Steve was hell bent on spoiling those plans. Especially after he had volunteered to swim down to the bottom of Lovers Lake to find the gate. Especially after he had been pulled down. Especially when you dived in after him, finding him being ruthlessly attacked by three of those stupid monster bats. And even after you had killed two of the bats and he had taken a chunk out of the other and more bats came flying in. Even then, still breathless and bleeding, he shoved you behind him. Even when the ground shook violently he covered your body as if it mattered more than his own.

And seeing him hurt, biting back the pain as you and Nancy did your best to tend his wounds while in an alternate dimension, it had you practically breaking in half. Because you had seen it. You had seen the way that stupid bat's tail was wrapped around his neck, his face draining of color. And yet when he had noticed you beside him, slamming a wooden ore down onto one of the bats at his side, he had still yelled for you to leave. He had still cared more about your life even when Death was looming over his own head.

It was breaking you faster than any monster from the Upside down ever could.

The group of five made their way to the Wheeler's house, the journey unpleasantly quiet. Nancy led, Robin and Eddie taking the middle, and you and Steve trailing behind. You kept your focus ahead, trying everything you could to push away the image of Steve strangled and struggling on the ground.

And while you walked absentmindedly, Steve couldn't keep his eyes off you. He had seen just about every single expression you had to give, and this one was new. It wasn't a defeated look, or the sad look you gave him when he refused to promise he would be careful, it wasn't even the angry expression you wore when he had done something clearly reckless. This look was different. You looked lost. And he hated it, because Steve knew he was the cause of it whether you would admit it or not.

"What's on your mind?" He asked, bracing for the lash out.

Your brows twitched downward. As much as you wanted to chew him out, to be angry, to call out his behaviour, you couldn't bring yourself to do it. Not when he was still hurt, not when there was a ring around his neck where the bat had been, not when every glance served as a reminder that you almost lost him tonight.

"You need real bandages, and antiseptic or rubbing alcohol." You blinked slightly, rattling off a long list of medical help he needed.

Steve stared at you, bewildered. Because the last thing he had expected was for you to still be so worried about his wounds. If anything, he wanted you to yell, to scream, to berate him, call him stupid, cry, give any indignation that you were frustrated. And instead he was met with the brutal reality that no matter what, above anything else, you cared. Deeply.

"That's really what's on your mind right now?" He pressed, trying to get something from you. A slip of anger, an eye roll, anything.

And instead you took his hand, eyes forward. "Yeah, it is. Because the last thing I want is for you to turn into some mutant bat-human-monster thing."

The joke would have been funny had Steve not seen the way your lip trembled slightly.

"Baby-"

You shook your head, tightening your grip on his hand. "Please, not right now. I never push you to say you'll be careful. So please, don't push me to talk about it. Not right now. I just want to get home, and make sure that you're alright." Your voice stayed calm. There was no hint of malice or frustration, just a calm plea for him to drop it.

Steve nodded. He watched the way your thumb moved to the pulse point on his wrist. Steve stepped closer, allowing you to hear the evenness of his breath. He noted the way you silently counted his breaths, tucking away the information for a later time.

He wanted to keep pressing you, but you were right, you had never forced him to swear on his own safety. Even when it hurts you. And now, he was understanding just how much it hurt. Because he wanted more than anything for you to let out all your emotions, but you couldn't. It seemed like you were physically incapable of it, the same way he was incapable of providing you the promises you longed for.

Almost a full day has passed now. You had stayed true to your word and had successfully tended to Steve's wounds the second you had the chance to. The group had planned out an attack, had showered, had gotten the ridiculous weapons needed, and now were preparing for battle. And through all of it, you had yet to give Steve the fight he wanted.

And Steve had had enough. Especially with this ultimate battle looming over everyone's heads, the last thing he wanted was to go into that shitty hell hole with unspoken feelings.

Steve spotted you sharpening some weird metal looking thing, and decided that if you weren't going to bring the fight to him, he would bring it to you.

He carefully took the sharp object from your hand, tossing it to the side and sitting in front of you. "Alright, what's the issue?!"

"Not now, Steve, please!" You reached to grab your makeshift weapon.

Steve grabs your arms, "Yes! Yes now! Come on, give me something!?"

"No, no, no. We aren't doing this!"

"Why not!?"

"Because I don't want our last real moment to be a fight! God- Steve do you realize every time we get split up I have to wonder if it'll be the last time I see you?!"

"You think I don't think the same thing!?"

"No! Not the way I do! Because you're prepared to die, Steve!!" You push at him slightly, tears already stinging in your eyes. He freezes. "You leave with every intention of walking into fire! You go out there ready to die because you've preordained it!"

"That's not true!" The lie slips out before he can even stop it.

"You think I don't see it!? Steve if there is one thing anyone knows about you is that you don't make promises that you can't keep. So you don't make promises to me." You quickly swipe away the falling tears, trying to keep yourself composed. "You don't promise to be careful, to take care of yourself, to come back home. None of it! You avoid it like the fucking plague! And each time you avoid another promise I have to wonder if that was really it! If that was the last time I get to see you, the last time I get to feel your touch! You've decided it's your time before there's any danger in sight!"

Steve stared at you, the woman he loved, breaking down over his death despite the fact that he was right in front of you. The weight of your words settled heavy on his chest. Seeing you like this made him sick, sick knowing that his own carelessness had bled over to you. It made him sick knowing that despite his best effort to protect your heart by denying there was anything serious going on, you were still hurting. He spoke your name softly, grabbing your hands.

"So what am I supposed to do about it!? It's not like I have any right as a girlfriend or a partner. I can't tell you to come back to me because we have a date planned because we don't even call them that! I can't seem to convince you that I care more than you even know! I can't convince you that I'm worth sticking around for because I don't even know if you feel the way I do!"

"I do! God I do! And I know you care, and that's what scares me. Because no one has cared about me the way you do. And I know it's stupid, but I thought that maybe if there was no name behind it, maybe if I kept pretending that I don't love you, the care would fade away and you would be safe. But you won't give up on me and I don't know why! You hold me closer, your care grows, and it's terrifying!" His hands moved up your arms, gripping your shoulders

"You don't get to decide when enough is enough for me, Steve." You cupped his face. "I love you, I care about you, I always have. I care so much that I look out for myself, because I think about you. You keep me coming back, even when I know that I'm not enough for you to do the same. And I wait on you like I'm watching paint dry, waiting for you to realize that I'm not a fluke. I'm not going anywhere, even if you seem determined to leave."

He shakes his head, "I don't want to leave." His voice catches, "I- I don't want to die. I want to come back. I want to see you again."

"Then why don't you try?" Your thumb smoothed over his cheek.

"Because I can't lose someone else." He spoke softly.

"But you do realize that you could be that someone else. The way you don't want to lose someone, I don't want to lose you." You pressed your forehead to his. "I can't lose you. Even if you're technically not my boyfriend, losing you would be like losing a part of myself."

"I don't want to lose you either." Steve's head dropped into your shoulder, resting there for a moment.

"You do realize if you die then you do lose me... right?" You gently scratched the back of his head.

"Losing you would destroy me." He admitted softly, looking back up at you.

"So then don't die." You held his face in your hands firmly.

He paused for a moment before slowly nodding. "I won't." The promise was quiet.

You pulled his face to yours, kissing him deeply. He met you with the same intensity, pulling you closer by the waist. His mouth was heavy on yours, each kiss a promise that he would truly try to stay alive. You pulled back, laughing as his mouth chased after yours. He pulled you tighter in his arms, hugging you tightly, his head buried in your shoulder.

"I know this is definitely not the best timing, and I'm way late to the game... but I want you to be mine. For real. I want the name, the label, the openness, the love. I want all of it, and I want it with you."

You smiled, "You askin me to be your girlfriend in the middle of the world possibly ending, Harrington?"

His eyes widened, "I thought you said you wanted-"

You laughed and cut him off with a kiss. "Relax, I do."

"Soooo, you'll be my girl?" He smiled brightly.

"Yes, Steve. I'll be your girl."

He fist pumped, and looked over to Dustin, yelling, "Hey Henderson! I told you I still had game! I just got a girlfriend in the middle of the world ending!"

You rolled your eyes, laughing lightly as Dustin yelled back. "Doesn't count!! You guys have been grossly in love for like a whole year, you just finally had the balls to make it official!"

Steve gave you a shocked look, "Can you believe that kid?"

"Yeah, cause he's right." You stood up, grabbing your weapon.

"Hey, you're my girlfriend now, you're supposed to take my side!" He gave you a pout.

"Mmmh, I'll take your side if you help me make this thing as sharp as possible." You smiled sweetly.

"Deal, now come here, we need to figure out where we want to go on our first official date once this whole thing is over. I was thinking a real nice dinner at Enzo's, and then a movie marathon after." He pulled you next to him, his hand squeezing yours.

"That a promise?" You teased.

He looked over at you, eyes meeting yours. "It's a promise."

『••✎••』

His face changed in an instant.

The easy, half-apologetic smile Peter had been wearing—sorry, my bad, let me help—froze, then cracked. His brown eyes widened, pupils blowing out like he’d been hit with a flashbang. The color drained from his already pale cheeks, leaving the faint acne scars and the sheen of nervous sweat stark against his skin. His mouth parted, lips forming a silent what? before any sound could escape.

You blinked up at him, crouched on the grimy New York sidewalk, one hand steadying your precariously tall stack of books, the other hovering over the scattered ones at your feet. The world kept moving—the rumble of the subway beneath the pavement, the wail of a distant siren, the shuffle of pedestrians flowing around the two of you like water around stones. But in the sudden, suffocating vacuum between you and him, all of that noise simply dissolved.

"Sorry, sorry, I’m so sorry," he’d been saying just a second ago, a familiar, breathless rush. He’d bumped into you—a classic traffic jam on the sidewalk—and your world had tipped sideways. Physics took over. Textbooks on organic chemistry and literary theory splayed out across the concrete like a fan.

He remembered you. He was sure of it. You sat two rows ahead and one to the left in Mr. Harrison’s history class. You never spoke, but he knew you were one of the smartest kids in the room, your hand perpetually in the air while he was usually trying to calculate if he had enough web fluid for patrol later that night. He’d seen you in the halls—a quiet, focused presence that never seemed to intersect with the chaotic orbit of himself, MJ, and Ned.

You smiled, a small, polite curve of your lips as you both reached for the same copy of The Great Gatsby. Your fingers had brushed.

"It’s okay, happens all the time." You had said, gathering the last book and tucking it into your stack. Then you looked him in the eye, a brief, friendly glance of acknowledgment, and said the words that had just short-circuited his entire nervous system.

"See you around, Peter."

And just like that, the universe tilted on its axis.

You’d pushed yourself to your feet, adjusting your bag, giving him another polite smile before turning to merge back into the river of people on the sidewalk. The moment was over—a simple, forgettable bump with a vague acquaintance from high school.

Except it wasn’t.

Wait.

His lungs seized. The name echoed in the hollow of his chest, a ghost of a sound, but it was the most real thing he’d heard in an eternity. Peter. Not "hey, kid" or "that guy" or the frustrated sigh of a landlord who never knew his renter’s name. Peter. Said with the casual familiarity of someone who had always known it.

A frantic, desperate energy seized him. He couldn’t let you go. He couldn’t let you walk away and vanish back into the faceless crowd, leaving him to wonder if he’d finally, truly lost it.

"Wait!"

He shot forward, a burst of speed that felt more like a spider’s leap than a human’s jog. He caught your arm just above the elbow. It was a gentle touch, barely any pressure, but you stopped instantly, turning back to him with a look of surprise, your brow furrowed. Your books wobbled in your arms.

His heart hammered against his ribs, a frantic drumbeat in a silent room. He leaned in, not caring that he was blocking the flow of foot traffic, that a businessman had to sidestep him with an annoyed grunt. All that mattered was your face, your confused eyes, and the five letters he needed to hear again.

"Wait," he repeated, his voice raspy, thin. "What… what did you say?"

Your confusion deepened, a small line creasing between your brows. You glanced from his wild-eyed face down to where he was still touching your sleeve, then back up again.

"Uh…" you hesitated, clearly thrown by the intensity of his reaction. "I just said, ‘see you around’?"

"No, before that. The… the last part." He could barely breathe the words out. Please. Please say it again. Let him know he wasn’t hallucinating, that the loneliness hadn’t finally cracked him open.

You blinked, slow and deliberate, as if trying to decipher a foreign language. A flicker of something like concern crossed your features.

"Peter?" you said, his name a soft, questioning thing in the city noise. "Are you okay?"

The world shattered around him.

It wasn’t a question of how. He didn’t care how. Not yet. The sheer, overwhelming fact of it crashed over him like a tidal wave. The weight of a year’s worth of invisibility, of nonexistence, suddenly lifted. Air rushed into lungs that had been starved for so long he’d forgotten what it felt like to breathe. A tremor ran through his entire body—a violent, shuddering release of tension he hadn’t even realized he was holding.

He didn’t answer your question. He couldn’t. All he could do was stare, his grip on your sleeve slackening until his fingers just brushed the fabric of your jacket. He was looking at you, but he wasn’t seeing a college student with a stack of books anymore. He was seeing an anchor. A lighthouse in a fog that had swallowed him whole.

A shaky, disbelieving laugh escaped his lips—a broken sound that held the ghost of a sob. He stared at you as if you’d just handed him the entire universe, piece by precious piece.

You, completely unaware of the magnitude of the moment—of the dam you’d just broken—just stood there. You took in the dazed look, the trembling hands, the way he was looking at you like you were a miracle.

And you just looked… concerned. Worried for the weird guy from your old high school who was currently having some kind of meltdown on a public sidewalk.

"Peter," you said again, a little firmer this time, reaching out a hesitant hand. "Seriously. Are you alright?"

And he was. For the first time in what felt like forever, he was more than alright.

So yes, Steve sucked at keeping secrets. Making the fact that he was hiding something, something big, from Dustin Henderson of all people felt like a sick joke. Like the universe was daring him to fuck it up.

Because this wasn’t a fling. This wasn’t some temporary, easy thing he could shrug off when it got complicated. It was you. 

Yet Steve couldn’t find it in himself to end whatever had started between you both, bcause dating you was somehow the easiest thing he had ever done and the hardest thing he had ever survived.

Easy, because being with you made everything lighter. You slipped into his life without force, without noise, and suddenly he wasn’t so tense all the time. He laughed without thinking. He breathed without bracing for impact. The constant knot in his chest loosened, replaced by something warm that stayed with him long after you walked away.

Yet, it was so hard because it had to stay hidden.

Steve did not entirely hate the secrecy, and that fact made him feel like a bit of an asshole. There was something selfishly intoxicating about it, about having you all to himself, about the way your smiles and touches belonged only to him in stolen moments and half-lit rooms. Still, the logistics were a nightmare. 

Timing everything down to the minute, picking places that were quiet enough to be safe but not suspicious, constantly looking over his shoulder like he was doing something criminal instead of just falling in love.

All of that made it hard, yet the worst part of it all was Dustin.

Dustin was the one person Steve hadn’t lied to yet. Which was impressive, considering he was your brother and more than capable of beating the living shit out of him if he found out about your relationship.

So yes, in short, Steve hated lying about your relationship.

Though unlike Steve, you were an exceptional liar.

It was a talent you wielded effortlessly and oh so smoothly, never hesitating and never overexplaining. You could look someone dead in the eye and spin a perfectly believable story without your pulse so much as fluttering. 

Steve did not value dishonesty as a character trait. He really didn’t. But you were devastatingly good at it, and watching you lie with that calm, confident ease was — if he was being honest with himself— a huge turn-on. Which probably said more about him than it did about you.

Which was how he ended up now knocking quietly on your bedroom window at 8:30 in the evening.

You opened the window almost immediately, already grinning like you had been waiting there the whole time. Steve barely had time to step inside before your hands were on him, fingers curling into his jacket as you kissed him. 

He was about to say I missed you, baby, but it came out muffled and stupid as your mouth moved against his, sounding more like “I miffed you” than anything intelligible.

You pulled back just long enough to smile at him. “Missed you too, Stevie.”

He laughed under his breath, hands finding your waist automatically as he nudged you backward until the backs of your knees hit the bed. He pushed you down with gentle insistence. “You called me over like it was an emergency,” he said, brushing his nose against yours. “What’s going on?”

You pouted dramatically. “What, I can’t wanna spend time with my boyfriend?”

Steve rolled his eyes fondly. “You can, but you were very ominous about it.”

“It’s boring here,” you complained, propping yourself up on your elbows. “All Dustin does is run around with his friends doing weird shit. I swear, if I hear about another goddamn radio one more time—”

“Yeah,” Steve cut in, grinning, “exactly. Which is precisely why I should not be here right now.”

You waved him off, completely unbothered. “Relaaax. He’s across the hall and deeply invested in something grossly scientific. We’re fine.” you said, dragging out the words.

Steve glanced toward the door anyway, nerves prickling despite your confidence. “You say that, but I am one unexpected door opening away from ruining my entire relationship with your brother.”

“You’re dramatic,” you said, reaching out to tug him closer by the collar. “Sit.”

Steve leaned back against the headboard while you talked, filling him in on your day in a rambling, animated stream. He listened the way he always did, half-lidded and indulgent, kissing your neck like he had all the time in the world as you complained about something Stacey–or whatever her name was— from gym class did.

“She actually said it was my fault,” you scoffed, waving a hand. “Like I tripped her.”

“Mhm,” Steve hummed, lips brushing your skin again. 

You snorted. “You’re not even listening.”

“I am,” He finally looked at you then, eyes hazed and heavy-lidded, that familiar warmth darkened into something lazier, hungrier. His hand slid from your waist to your hip, fingers curling just enough to pull you back against him.

Then, softer, almost amused against your skin, “You know… I don’t think you realize how unfair you’re being right now.”

You hummed, a quiet sound that made him smile into your neck. “Unfair how?”

“These shorts…” he said, kissing just beneath your ear, lingering there. “You look really good in them. Like distractingly good.”

You laughed softly, fingers curling into the collar of his jacket. “They’re literally just pajamas, Steve.”

“Yeah,” he said, pulling back just enough to look at you, eyes warm and amused, “and yet somehow they’re ruining my ability to think straight.”

You rolled your eyes, but you were smiling, cheeks warm as you leaned forward to kiss him properly this time. He kissed you back without hesitation, familiar and easy as his hands slowly started to trail lower until they slipped past the waistband of your shorts.

The room was quiet except for the soft rustle of sheets and the faint sounds of the house settling around you.

Then there was a loud thud from across the hall.

Steve stiffened instantly, hand pulling away from you as you pushed him away. You froze too, heart jumping straight into your throat.

Footsteps followed, quick and careless, moving closer.

“Oh shit, shit, shit!” Steve whispered, pulling back completely.

“Window,” you hissed.

He scrambled off the bed, movements suddenly frantic as he headed straight for it, fumbling with the latch. He had just shoved it open when the door flew inward.

“Hey, I was just gonna ask if you—”

Dustin cut himself off.

He stood there, a bunch of wires in his hand, staring like his brain had completely short-circuited.

“…Steve?” he said slowly. “What the hell are you doing here?”

Steve turned around, caught mid-motion, hair messy, nerves written all over his face. For half a second, he genuinely looked like he might faint. His mouth opened yet nothing came out.

You stepped in immediately.

“Oh,” you said easily, swinging your legs off the bed and standing up like this was the most normal thing in the world. “Steve’s fixing my window.”

Dustin blinked. “Your window?”

“Yup,” you said, nodding toward it. “It’s been rattling for days. You just don’t notice because you’re always blasting that weird static crap in your room.”

“It’s not static,” Dustin said automatically, then frowned. “Wait. Since when does Steve fix windows?”

You didn’t hesitate for a second, the lie slipping smoothly. “Since he fixed his car window last week. Remember? When it got stuck halfway down and he couldn’t roll it back up?”

Dustin glanced at Steve. “You fixed that yourself?”

Steve nodded quickly. “Yeah. I mean—car windows, house windows… glass goes up, glass goes down. It’s all the same at the end of the day..” he laughed nervously.

That seemed to satisfy him. Dustin stepped further into the room, peering at the window inspecting the damage. “Huh. That’s actually kinda cool. You should’ve told me you knew how to do this. We could use that at Cerebro. The latch keeps sticking.”

“Yeah,” Steve said, forcing a smile. “Totally. I can look at it sometime.”

“Does it really rattle?” Dustin asked you.

“All the time,” you dragged out the words. “Especially when it’s windy. It’s annoying as hell.”

Dustin nodded thoughtfully. “Weird. I’ve never noticed.”

“That’s because you’re never in here,” you shot back.

He shrugged. “Fair.”

You grabbed your hoodie from the chair and headed for the door. “I’m gonna get the screws from the garage. I think they’re in the toolbox by the washer.”

As you passed Steve, he glanced down briefly, then back up at you, eyes wide and desperate. His expression screamed that this situation had become deeply inconvenient in more ways than one—mostly thanks to the very obvious bulge in his pants from your previous activities.

Steve desperately hoped he could pray this boner away (fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, fuck you, amen).

“So how long is this gonna take? Mom said dinner’s in like twenty minutes and—”

“Uh,” he said, voice strained as he tried to angle himself away, hiding his little (but apparently not-so-little) friend, “not long. Just gotta… make sure it’s secure.”

Thankfully, Dustin seemed convinced and retreated back to his room, not even slightly suspicious. Steve let out a huge sigh of relief, knowing he would have been absolutely fucked if Dustin had noticed he had a boner while fixing his sister’s window.

2.

“Honey, you want butter or salt on that popcorn?” Steve called from the counter, holding a bucket that looked way too big for what you asked for.

“Is there caramel?”

“Yeah, yeah, of course, I’ll get that,” he said, and you heard the familiar shuffle of his shoes on the tiles as he walked toward the popcorn dispenser.

You followed behind, pretending to look around but really just watching him—Steve, who somehow looked like the absolute model of a gentleman right now, carrying your purse and filling up two massive buckets of popcorn. You’d asked for a medium, but of course he insisted on spoiling you, like he hadn’t just ripped your dress off a few hours ago in his car. God, you really had it bad for that man.

“Two tickets for E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial ,” he said, grinning at the cashier. He added, just for good measure, “The best seats, please.”

After getting the tickets and ordering, yet again, two large slushies, Steve turned, and started walking toward you. He leaned in, presumably for a kiss until you both were interrupted by a round of laughter.

A very familiar, very annoying, very fucking loud laughter.

You both froze. Slowly, you turned.

Dustin, Lucas, Will, Mike, Eleven, and Max were all marching into the theater like they owned the place. Max’s eyes locked on you two first as she saw you both standing right at the ticket counter. 

“Steve… and Y/N??” she asked, voice rising in shock.

Steve sighed, a long defeated sigh. “Oh, for fuck’s sake…” he murmured, more to himself than anyone else, as he tried to figure out how the hell you’d all just become the center of attention without even knowing.

Dustin’s mouth hung open for a second, then he leaned forward, pointing a finger at Steve. “Why are you two…here?”

“Oh, hello everyone!” you laughed nervously and very much annoyed at the aspect of your date being ruined.

Steve gestured vaguely around the lobby. “Uh. We are here to watch  E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.”

Dustin blinked. “Together?”

Steve laughed. “What, no. No, man. Jesus. We just came here because—” 

Before Steve could finish his horrible half-assed excuse, Mike suddenly stepped forward, voice cracking just slightly as he blurted, “I invited them!”

Every head snapped toward him.

“You did?” Dustin asked.

Lucas frowned. “You did?”

Max raised an eyebrow. “Why didn't you tell us?”

Mike nodded nervously. “Ehm–yeah! Thought you guys would enjoy the movie. Y’know, fun group outing. No big deal.”

You shot Mike a look, half confused, half relieved.

Dustin let out a long, dramatic “Ooooh,” instantly forgetting his suspicions. “Well. I mean. If Mike invited you...”

“Then you’re welcome to join us! We are also watching E.T!” Will exclaimed after Dustin.

“Yeah,” El added. “You’re welcome!”

Steve exhaled through his nose as the tension eased and the kids started drifting toward the ticket counter, already arguing about seats. He leaned closer to you, lowering his voice. “Well, our date is ruined.”

You snorted, slurping your slushie. “Be thankful it’s only ruined. If Mike hadn’t jumped in, you’d be six feet under once Dustin put the pieces together.”

Steve grimaced. “Fair point.” He watched Mike for a second, still baffled. “But I don’t understand…why the hell did he do that?”

You took another slow sip as the sound of the slushie left a grrrrr sound, eyes following the group. “Let’s just say I caught him a few days ago in a… similar predicament to ours.”

Steve frowned. “With who?” He paused, then frowned harder. “El?”

You shook your head, nodding toward the counter instead.

Steve followed your gaze. Mike and Will were standing too close, shoulders brushing, heads bent together like the rest of the world didn’t exist. Something clicked behind Steve’s eyes.

“Oh my god,” he whispered. “He’s screwing Byers?”

You laughed, nearly choking on your slushie. “Lower your voice, Jesus.”

Steve stared, stunned, then let out a breathy laugh. “Holy shit. That explains everything.”

“Exactly,” you said, smirking. “He owes me one for keeping his secret.”

Steve shook his head slowly, a grin creeping onto his face despite himself. “This town is insane.”

“Tell me about it.”

3.

Dustin knew Steve was hiding something.

It was obvious, painfully so, even to someone like him. Dustin liked to think of himself as reasonably perceptive, and even if he wasn’t some kind of psychic genius, his best friend was not subtle.

Although Steve had many talents. Secrecy was surely not one of them. The signs were everywhere. The constant disappearances, the excuses that made no sense if you thought about them for longer than five seconds, the sudden inability to hang out because he was “busy”. Everything was pointing at one obvious conclusion.

And then there was the glow.

Dustin usually didn’t buy into that whole love makes you glow bullshit. It sounded fake, like something Shakespeare would’ve thrown into a sonnet just to sound deep. But Steve had been walking around lately with this stupid look on his face, like his brain had short-circuited and decided to replace all higher functions with glitter and rainbows.

Which was really pathetic, if one asked Dustin.

He was smiling at nothing, laughing under his breath like an idiot, and generally acting like someone had slipped something into his morning coffee that Dustin was starting to reconsider his stance about the whole glow thing.

Dustin was currently slouched in the passenger seat of Steve’s car, watching through the windshield as Steve stood at the counter of the gas station’s grocery shop loading up on sodas. 

The cashier rang everything up at a painfully slow pace, and Steve just stood there tapping his fingers against the counter, completely zoned out, grinning at absolutely nothing in particular.

“Jesus,” Dustin muttered under his breath. “Get a room with your own thoughts, man.”

Steve didn’t hear him, obviously, too busy living in whatever fantasy world had apparently taken up permanent residence in his head. 

Yeah. No question about it. Steve was in love, and therefore, almost definitely dating someone.

The realization did not make Dustin mad. If anything, it made him weirdly relieved. Steve deserved good things, deserved someone who made him smile like that instead of wearing that tight, exhausted look Dustin had gotten used to over the year. 

Still, there was a dull, uncomfortable tug in his chest that he could not quite ignore. Because Steve had not told him.

And Steve told Dustin everything. That had always been their thing, right? So why the hell was he suddenly holding something back now, of all times?

Steve was still inside, taking his time, so Dustin shifted in his seat. eyes drifting around the car. The car was a mess, as usual. Empty wrappers, crumpled receipts, a couple of cassette tapes shoved haphazardly into the compartment between the seats.

Dustin leaned forward, absently opening the little storage drawer built into the dash. He wasn’t snooping, not really. He was just bored, and that was a perfectly reasonable explanation to look around.

His fingers brushed against something small and solid in the drawer. He frowned, then pulled it out.

It was a box; red, neatly packaged, tied with a thin ribbon that had clearly been adjusted more than once. Dustin stared at it for a second, his curiosity getting the better of him. Slowly, he undid the ribbon and lifted the lid.

Inside was a golden, delicate necklace with a small heart pendant resting against the velvet lining. Definitely did not look cheap in any means. 

“Ohhh” he murmured quietly.

That settled Dustin’s suspicions; Steve was definitely dating someone, and the idiot was clearly head over heels.

He closed the box immediately and retied the red ribbon, and slid it back into the drawer exactly where he’d found it. 

Steve climbed in seconds later, arms full of junk food, that stupid, soft smile still firmly glued to his face. He dumped everything in the space between the seats and tossed a soda toward Dustin without looking, who caught it out of instinct.

“Got your favorite,” Steve said easily. 

Dustin cracked the soda open but kept his eyes on Steve as he leaned back in the driver’s seat, humming quietly while he sorted through the bags. “You’re in a good mood,” he said, keeping his tone casual.

Steve glanced over. “Am I?”

“Yeah, man,” Dustin said flatly. “You’re glowing. It’s gross.”

Steve scoffed. “Must be the new face wash I’ve been using then. Glad to know it works ‘cause that shit cost me 20 bucks.”

Not that kind of glow, Dustin thought.

“You spent a good three minutes smiling at a bag of chips back there,” Dustin shot back. “So either you’re in love or you’ve finally snapped.”

Steve froze for half a second, his panic showing through. It was subtle, but Dustin caught it anyway.

Interesting.

“In love? Nah man. Where the hell did that come from.” he laughed nervously.

Dustin said slowly, eyes widening. “You have a girlfriend or somethin’?”

“What?” Steve laughed, and far too quickly. “No, I don’t.”

Dustin tilted his head, unimpressed. “Steve.”

“I don’t,” Steve insisted, shaking his head as he started the car. “I’m just, y’know, in a good mood.” he shrugged.

“Gosh,” Dustin said, rolling his eyes. “You suck at this. You’re actually terrible at lying.”

Steve opened his mouth, then closed it again. He sighed, rubbing a hand over his face. “Okay. Fine. Yes!”

Dustin grinned. “Yes, you have a girlfriend?”

“Yes,” Steve admitted. “I have a girlfriend.”

Dustin let out a loud, undignified noise, twisting in his seat so fast he nearly smacked his knee against the glove compartment. “Holy shit,” he said, grinning like he’d just been handed front-row tickets to something incredible. “That’s amazing. Seriously. Why the hell didn’t you tell me?”

Steve hesitated, his hands tightening on the steering wheel like it might give him guidance if he squeezed hard enough. “I just… I’m keepin’ it on the low right now, okay? It’s not a big deal.”

Dustin snorted. “You? Steve Harrington? The guy who once announced he had a crush to the entire video store after one date? You’re doin’ ‘low’ now?”

“Okay, shut up,” Steve shot back, but the words were undercut by the way his mouth curved into a smile anyway. “I mean it. I’m just… takin’ my time with this one.”

Dustin’s eyes lit up immediately. “Oh, this is serious then.” He leaned closer, lowering his voice like he was about to be let in on a state secret. “So who is she? Do I know her?”

Steve shook his head without missing a beat. “I’m not sayin’.”

“Oh, come on,” Dustin groaned, dropping back against the seat. “You can’t drop that on me and then clam up. I’m happy for you, Harrington. This is huge!”

“I know,” Steve said, quieter now, eyes fixed on the road. “I just need a little time, alright? That’s all I’m askin’ for.”

Dustin studied him for a moment, and whatever he saw there seemed to soften his hurt. He nodded once. “Alright. Fine.” Then his grin came back. “But for the record, I fully expect details eventually. Also, congrats on finally having consistent sex.”

Steve nearly swerved into the next lane. “Jesus Christ, Dustin!”

“What?” Dustin asked, it wasn’t like the topic of sex was taboo between them. 

“You’re clearly happy. And besides, it’s kinda comforting to know you’re finally screwing someone on a regular basis. So honestly, you might as well spill some details.”

“Fuck no,” Steve said immediately, horrified. “Absolutely not. I would rather drive this car into a ditch than talk about that with you. And I’m pretty sure you don’t wanna hear it either.”

“Oh please,” Dustin shot back. “I have heard all the details about your hookups. Tammy Thompson, Carol Perkins, Emilia from—”

Steve winced. “Okay, first of all, you were not supposed to hear about half of those, and second of all,” he added quickly, “you really wouldn’t wanna know about this one.”

“Whatever, I’m just happy for you.” Dustin shrugged.

4.

There’s a saying that goes: even when life takes so much from you, it also gives a lot back. Time heals all wounds, but that was hard to believe when your nights were haunted by the things you’d seen in the Upside Down. 

Even though it had been over a year since the painful experience, the monsters, the screams, there were nights—far too many nights—where the images came back, vivid and cruel. 

Which is exactly how you found yourself lying on the cold kitchen floor at one in the morning, phone pressed to your ear, body curled slightly as though curling into yourself might make the world feel safer. That old wired phone—the one that belonged to your parents—was pressed just so, and your nose was red from quietly sniffing.

“No, Steve, it’s fine,” you whispered, voice tight. “You really don’t need to come over. I… I’ll be okay.”

There was a pause on the other end before Steve’s voice came, tight with worry. “Are you sure? You’re sure you’re okay? I don’t care about the time. It’s a ten minute drive, maybe less, and I can be there before you even blink.”

You sniffled again, blinking against the tears you didn’t want to admit were falling. “I… I just want to hear your voice,” you admitted softly. “That’s enough.”

“No, that’s not enough,” he said, frustration and concern threading through his words. “Y/N, you woke up from a horrible nightmare all shaken up and you’re telling me you’re fine? I don’t think so. I’m coming over. I can’t not.”

You let out a soft laugh, barely audible. “Steve…please. I don’t need you to drive over. Just—just talk to me for a minute. I’m too tired to deal with…everything else right now.”

There was a long pause, then the faint sound of him running a hand through his hair. “Okay, okay, fine. I’ll stay on the phone. But if you change your mind, I’m out the door in ten seconds.”

You shivered slightly, clutching the phone closer. “I’m… trying. I’m tired, Steve. I just… the nightmares won’t let me sleep.”

“I know, baby,” he murmured softly. “I know. And I’m sorry you have to deal with that. It’s not fair. You didn’t ask for any of this. You didn’t ask to see all that shit, to go through all of it. But I’m here. I’m right here. And you’re not alone, alright?”

You sniffled again. “Mhm. I just… sometimes it feels like it’s back, y’know? Like it’s all around me, and I can’t… breathe.”

Steve’s voice came soft, almost a whisper, like he was leaning over you even through the phone. “Hey… shhh, hey, it’s okay, baby. I know it feels heavy right now, I know it does. But you’re still here. You’re safe and I won’t let anything harm you. I’ve got you, alright? I’ll stay right here on the line as long as you need me.”

A quiet tear escaped, and you pressed the phone harder to your ear. “You really mean that?”

“Every word,” he said. 

“I… I’m really tired,” you whispered, eyelids heavy. “But… thank you. For staying on the phone.”

“I’ll stay as long as you need,” he said. “You hear me? And tomorrow, if you want, we can hang out, eat some junk food, and watch some dumb movies, how’s that sound?”

A soft laugh broke past your exhaustion. “Okay,” you murmured. “Tomorrow sounds… good.”

“Good,” he said, smiling through the phone. “Now close your eyes. Try to rest and I’ll be right here. I promise.”

You yawned, the sound muffled against the phone, and whispered, “I’ll try.”

You were too drowsy to notice the quiet shift on the staircase. Dustin had stopped midway, listening to the faint conversation after he woke up from the sound of rustling downstairs only to find you on the phone. 

His heart twisted hearing your soft, shaky voice. He couldn’t hear Steve's side of the conversation—only your side. But from the way you spoke, he could tell Steve was there comforting you and keeping you safe.

The alarm bells went off in his head, but he shoved them aside. If Steve was the one who could help you through the nightmares, then Dustin didn’t need to dig any deeper for answers or suspicions tonight. 

With a quiet sigh, Dustin crept back upstairs, leaving you to your whispered reassurances and the fragile sense of peace settling over the kitchen floor.

He was, after all, too sleepy and exhausted to think too much of it.

+1

If there was one thing you hated more than anything, it was fighting with Steve.

And somehow, against all odds, he was currently sitting in the living room of your house with Dustin, like this was totally normal and not driving you completely insane. 

Worse, there was nothing you could do about it. You couldn’t exactly kick your secret boyfriend out in front of your brother. You also couldn’t scream at him, or throw something at his head, or do any of the other deeply satisfying things you’d been imagining for the past two days.

Steve hadn’t even been subtle about it. He’d shown up under the excuse of “hanging out with Dustin,” which was bullshit, because Dustin was busy ranting about some new gadget and Steve hadn’t been listening to a word of it. 

He kept glancing toward the kitchen like he was waiting for you to look back at him, like that would somehow fix everything.

It wouldn’t.

You were in the kitchen, cutting watermelon into uneven slices, jaw clenched so tight it ached. You told yourself you were being efficient, but really, you were being petty. Every slice you set aside for Steve had as many seeds as you could stuff in there—a small, vindictive way to get back at him for the kind of shit he’d pulled.

You didn’t even feel bad about it. He deserved to suffer a little after pulling the kind of shit he had.

You dragged the knife through the rind harder than necessary. And then it slipped.

“Shit,” you hissed as pain flared across your palm, sharp and immediate. The knife clattered onto the counter before you could even process what happened.

Before you could grab a towel, the knife was gone.

You looked up, heart jumping, and there was Steve, standing way too close behind you in the kitchen.

“What the hell are you doing,” you snapped, instinctively pulling your hand back. “Why are you following me in here? Isn’t it enough that I have to pretend we’re fine in front of Dustin?”

He didn’t argue or even joke. He just sighed, long and tired, like this had been weighing on him for days too.

“Let me see your hand,” he said quietly.

“No.”

“Don’t do that,” he replied, gentle but firm, already reaching for you. “You’re bleeding.”

You hesitated, then let him take your hand. His grip was careful, thumb brushing lightly against your skin. He grabbed gauze from the drawer without even thinking, muscle memory kicking in, and turned the faucet on low.

“This is exactly what I mean,” you muttered. “You act like this and then expect me not to be mad.”

Steve cleaned the cut slowly, eyes fixed on your palm. “I know. And I fucked up. I know I did.”

You stayed quiet, letting him talk. The kitchen felt smaller than usual, the sound of running water filling the space between you.

“I wasn’t trying to make you feel hidden,” he continued, voice low. “I just… every time I thought about telling him, I pictured his face. And the questions. And the way he never shuts up. And I panicked. That’s on me. Not you.”

He wrapped the gauze around your hand, careful not to pull too tight. “You don’t deserve that. You don’t deserve to feel like I’m ashamed of you, because I’m not at all. I’m just an idiot.”

You swallowed, throat tight, still not looking at him.

“I should’ve done better, but I—” 

“What’s going on in here?”

Both of you froze up. You turned just in time to see Dustin standing in the doorway, eyes locked on your hand in Steve’s, on the gauze, on how close he was standing.

You both turned around quickly, trying to act casual. You held your hand up like nothing happened. “It’s fine,” you said, forcing a shrug. “I’m not, like… we’re not holding hands or anything. Steve was just helping me because I cut myself.”

Dustin raised an eyebrow, clearly skeptical. “Uh-huh. Sure.”

You rolled your eyes. “I mean it, Dustin. It’s not what it looks like.”

“Oh, I’m not worried about that,” he said with a shrug. Then, without warning, he held up a necklace in his hand. A delicate gold chain with a heart-shaped locket dangling from it.

Your stomach dropped. “Oh. Where—where did you find that?”

Dustin turned toward you, raising the locket so you could see it better. “I went to your room to look for that Indiana Jones DVD you mentioned,” he said casually, “and well… this was just sitting on your dresser.”

Your jaw went slack. “You went in my room?”

He ignored the mini-panic in your voice and glanced at Steve with a sigh that could’ve crushed the both of you. “And you, Harrington…”

Steve straightened, trying to look casual, and opened his mouth. “Listen, it’s not—”

“—so, this is not the same necklace I saw in your car a few weeks ago that was meant for your secret girlfriend?” 

Steve froze for a second, hands halfway raising in defense. “Woah, okay. Uh, I don’t think we should be talking about this like that.” he said, voice cautious.

You jumped in, waving your hands. “Dustin, wait—you need to calm down, okay?”

“Calm down?” Dustin repeated, narrowing his eyes at Steve. “You mean the part where he's been screwing my sister and I find out by a fucking necklace?”

Steve threw his hands up. “Okay, okay, I get it! Look, I wasn’t trying to hide it, not exactly. I just… didn’t know how to tell you. I thought you’d get mad. And I didn’t wanna risk our friendship, man. I swear, I was gonna tell you soon, like really soon. It just… happened. And, things kinda happened.”

Dustin tilted his head, holding the necklace up again like it was evidence in a murder trial. “ Steve, you’ve been sneaky and going around hiding stuff, and I get it—you’re happy—but come on!”

The room felt too small all of a sudden. Steve opened his mouth again, clearly ready to keep apologizing and explaining himself, but Dustin didn’t even look at him this time.

His eyes flicked to you instead, sharp and searching in a way that made your chest tighten.

“Can we talk alone?” Dustin said, already turning toward the hallway. It wasn’t really a question.

Steve hesitated, glancing at you with eyes full of worry. You squeezed his fingers once before letting go, a quiet reassurance, and nodded. He stepped back, lingering near the counter.

Dustin led you out into the porch where you sat on your mom’s fluffed up garden couches.  For a moment, neither of you spoke. He stared at the floor, the necklace looped around his fingers now instead of held up like a weapon.

“I’m not mad,” he said finally, voice lower than usual. “Okay, maybe a little mad. But that’s not what this is about.”

You waited. You knew better than to rush him.

He glanced at you then. “I just wanna know if you’re… happy. Like, actually happy.”

You leaned back into the couch, shoulders brushing his. “I am,” you said honestly. “Steve makes me happy. He makes me feel safe. He listens to me, even when I’m being stubborn or when we argue. And yeah, we fight sometimes—but I am happy.”

Dustin was quiet, picking at the chain in his hands. “He better,” he muttered. “Because I swear to God, if he ever—”

“I know,” you said softly, bumping your knee against his. “And I wouldn’t be with him if I thought he’d hurt me. I promise.”

That seemed to ease something in him. He let out a slow breath and leaned back, eyes on the ceiling. “So why hide it? I mean… I’m annoying, yeah, but I’m not, like gonna sabotage your relationship if you’re both happy.”

You huffed a small laugh. “I know. It wasn’t about not trusting you. It was just… complicated. You’re my younger brother. He’s your friend. And I didn’t know how to tell you without making it weird or feeling like I was crossing some invisible line. Plus, we wanted to keep it private for a while. Just… us.”

Dustin nodded slowly. “You could’ve told me,” he said, quieter now.

“I know,” you replied softly, voice a little tight. “And I’m sorry I didn’t. I didn’t want the first time you found out to be like this.”

He glanced at you, lips twitching despite himself, a reluctant little smile tugging at the corner. “Yeah… well. Finding out via incriminating jewelry isn’t exactly ideal,” he muttered, shaking his head.

You let out a small, rueful laugh, leaning your head against his shoulder for a moment. He didn’t pull away, and you let yourself stay there for a beat longer than you should have. “I’m really sorry, Dustin,” you whispered, tone earnest. “You’re my baby brother. I shouldn’t have kept this from you, especially since I know how much Steve means to you. I wasn’t trying to hurt you.”

Dustin’s fingers flexed around the necklace in his hand, and he let out a long, slow sigh, finally pushing himself to his feet. “It’s okay, Y/N,” he said quietly, voice calmer now. “I get it. I just… I wanted to make sure you’re actually happy. Not just saying it because I asked. I needed to know that he… that you’re good with him.”

You smiled, warm and a little tender, and stepped forward, wrapping your arms around him in a tight hug. 

He froze for half a second, then awkwardly hugged you back just as tightly. 

“Awwww,” you teased softly, pulling back just enough to peek up at him. “My little baby brother, all protective and worried about me.”

Dustin groaned, rolling his eyes but smiling despite himself. “Shut up, Y/N,” he said. “I’m not your baby.”

“Sure you’re not,” you said, still smirking, giving him a playful squeeze before letting go. “Now go. Go tell Steve what’s what before he freaks out even more.”

Dustin muttered something under his breath, tugging the necklace off his fingers, then straightened and strode toward the door. 

You couldn’t help laughing quietly to yourself, watching him go, knowing that underneath the eye-rolling and teasing, he really did care—and that you were lucky to have him in your corner.

Dustin slipped back inside. He found Steve standing near the couch, eyes unfocused, staring at nothing in particular. When Steve finally noticed him, his gaze sharpened, and it was full of regret and worry.

“Uh… hey,” Dustin said slowly, shifting from foot to foot. He swallowed, uncertainty flickering in his eyes. “Can I… can I ask you something?”

“Yeah,” Steve replied immediately. “Anything.”

Dustin swallowed. “Were you ever friends with me just because you wanted her?”

Steve’s stomach dropped at the question.

He straightened, brow furrowing. “What? No. Dustin—”

“Because if that’s the case,” Dustin rushed on, voice tightening despite himself, “I just wanna know. I can deal with it, I just— I don’t wanna be the idiot who thought this meant something if it didn’t.”

Steve took a step closer without thinking. “Hey. No. That’s not—” He scrubbed a hand over his face, searching for the right words. “Man, I didn’t even know she liked me when you and I started hanging out. You were just… you. And you mattered to me before anything else did, you were—are my best friend before anything else.”

“I just—” he hesitated. “I keep thinking maybe I was stupid. Like maybe you were always here for her and I just didn’t see it.”

Steve stepped closer, shaking his head. “You weren’t stupid. And I wasn’t using you. I swear.” He paused, choosing his words carefully. “What happened with her wasn’t planned. It wasn’t a thing I decided to do.”

“Then what was it?” Dustin asked.

Steve exhaled. “You know how people say you fall in love?”

Dustin nodded slowly.

“Sometimes it’s not like that,” Steve said, voice low, almost careful, like he was trying to measure every word. “Sometimes it’s not this lightning strike or a moment that hits you and knocks you off your feet. Sometimes…it’s more like…you walk into it.” 

Dustin seemed stunned at Steve’s words, not expecting this amount of vulnerability. 

“You walk into it slowly, one step at a time. And at first, you don’t even notice. You think it’s just…life. Just…routine. You don’t realize it until you’re already in the middle of it, completely surrounded, and there’s no going back without losing something you didn’t even know you had.”

Dustin’s voice dropped, small and uncertain. “You couldn’t…help it?”

Steve shook his head, a short, humorless laugh escaping. “No. I couldn’t. Not at all. I thought I could, you know? I tried. I tried to keep it at a distance. I told myself it was a really bad idea.” He stopped, his jaw tightening. 

“But it wasn’t. It was everything. Little things. The way she laughed at the stupidest jokes, even when I was barely funny. The way she listened when I rambled about shit that didn’t matter. The way she could look at me and make me feel like I was enough, even when I wasn’t sure I deserved to feel that way. It’s all those moments, one after another, stacking up quietly until suddenly…it was overwhelming.”

He paused, and his hands flexed against the counter, knuckles white. “And I kept telling myself I was imagining it. That it would pass. That I could step back before it got too…real. And then one morning I woke up and looked at her, really looked at her, and I realized I had it so bad, Dustin. So completely, hopelessly bad. And by that point, it wasn’t a choice anymore. I didn’t even know how to stop. I didn’t want to stop. And I was terrified—terrified that if I stepped away, I’d lose both of you. I’d lose my best friend…your sister…everything.”

He swallowed, eyes glimmering. “And that’s when I understood that I couldn’t help it, Dustin. I didn’t want to.”

Dustin’s shoulders sagged a little. “You were scared.”

“Yeah, terrified.” Steve admitted. “I didn’t want to lose you. I didn’t want you thinking I crossed some line on purpose. I was just… trying to figure out how to be honest without blowing everything up.”

For a long second, Dustin didn’t say anything. Then he stepped forward suddenly and wrapped his arms around Steve’s middle, hugging him hard.

Steve froze, then hugged him back just as tight.

“I don’t like it,” Dustin muttered into his shirt. “But I get it.”

Steve let out a shaky breath. “I’m sorry.”

“I know,” Dustin said, pulling back and wiping his face with his sleeve. “Just—don’t screw it up.”

“I won’t,” Steve promised. “I swear.”

Dustin dug into his pocket and pulled the necklace back out, the gold chain glinting under the kitchen light. He held it out to Steve, not like evidence this time, but like an offering.

“For the record,” he said, tone almost shy now, “it’s a really nice necklace.”

Steve blinked, then let out a breathy laugh as he took it. “Yeah,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck. “Thanks.”

There was a pause as Dustin leaned back against the counter, arms crossed, eyes flicking toward the front door.

“So,” he said casually. “Why were you guys arguing before I caught you?”

Steve’s stomach dropped.

“Oh. Shit.” He looked at the necklace in his hand as he realized he forgot about the argument you both had.

“Oh shit, I—fuck.” He ran a hand through his hair, panic setting in fast and unfiltered. “I gotta go. I really screwed it up. Fuck, man, fuck.”

And before Dustin could even respond, Steve was already moving, shoving the door open as he hurried outside.

Dustin watched him go, lips twitching. “I’d say get a pair of earrings this time!” he called after him, laughing when Steve shot him a frantic look over his shoulder and kept going.

He stayed where he was, drifting toward the window without really meaning to. Outside, Steve was already rambling, hands flying as he talked, apologizing in that messy, earnest way of his, clearly trying to fix whatever dumb thing he had managed to screw up.

You stood there with your arms crossed, weight shifted to one hip, expression unimpressed in a way Dustin knew very well. The bratty attitude of yours was all there.

Not even halfway through Steve’s frantic explanation, you stepped forward and wrapped your arms around him. Steve froze for half a second before melting into it, relief written all over him as he broke the hug to clasp the necklace around your neck, murmuring something Dustin couldn’t hear. 

Then he leaned down and kissed you.

Dustin immediately turned away. “Gross,” he muttered, scrubbing a hand over his face.

Still, he smiled.

Because even if he wasn’t ready to watch it, even if it was weird as hell seeing his best friend kiss his older sister, he knew it was right. He knew you were happy.

And he knew, deep down, that Steve had somehow managed to stumble into exactly the person he was meant to love.

steve harrington masterlist

a/n: for some reason this fic took me a whole 40 days to write, but nonetheless it was a very fun and cute experience <3 i enjoyed exploring more of steve and dustin's dynamic, so hopefully i did it all justice!!