dash 🍎⋆˚࿔

The shower was still running and the owner of the bed he was in was nowhere to be seen despite the early hour. He took it as a sign. Clearly, his late night companion hadn’t wanted to wake him. There’d been no touching, no noise, no switched on lights or coffee made. That was fine by him, he was more than happy to skip the awkward morning after, he was totally okay with that.

He gathered his clothes from around the room, stumbling on unsteady feet as he yanked on his jeans and searched for his shirt. If he was entirely truthful, he was a little disappointed. He couldn’t remember a lot from the night before but he did remember how fucking attractive he’d found you. Too pretty to ignore, because he’d wasted no time in approaching you. He’d even danced with you, something usually only reserved for his Nanna at family gatherings. Although, the way he’d moved against you had been far from appropriate.

And then the taxi ride to yours— fuck, the taxi. He’d never been kissed like that. Whatever you’d done to him had made him feel like a teenager again. He’d been rock hard the entire journey, something that not even the eyes of the driver had quelled. He hadn’t been able to keep his hands or mouth off of you, both of you half stripped before you’d made it to the bed.

Steve bit his lip, remembering it. His gaze raked over the bed he’d just left, sheets twisted and sprawled near the foot of it, a pillow hanging off one side. Yeah, shit, it had been a good night. But still, he shoved his feet into his trainers once he’d found them, patted his jeans pockets to make sure he had his keys and slipped out the apartment door just as the shower switched off.

But of all the things that had happened in the last twenty four hours, seeing your face again was definitely the wildest.

He’d found out about the linecook position from an old friend. He’d been told that The Gate was a cool place to work. Fifty hours a week, overtime available and despite the fact the boss was too cheap to give health insurance, he was apparently never on site, which meant unlimited smoke breaks in the alleyway out back. He hadn’t even needed to apply, Eddie had told his boss that Steve was a solid choice and he knew him from working at a diner back home in Indiana.

Steve had got a text from Eddie the same day, telling him to turn up at seven thirty the next morning, bring his knives and that he’d take care of the rest.

But there you were. Staring at him through the glass door before you’d opened it and then stared at him even more, eyes wide as you took him in from head to toe. You were just as pretty as you had been the night before, even if the space under your eyes were smudged with tiredness. You looked cute in your work uniform, a little black skirt with an even smaller apron tied around your waist, a white polo shirt with The Gate’s logo on the chest tucked in neatly.

Fuck. Fuck.

He was standing like an idiot, finger pointed at his own chest and mouth hanging open because you very clearly recognised him. Which, Steve realised, was absolutely okay. And understandable. Because it had only been a little over four hours since he’d been buried to the hilt inside of you and he’d have probably felt a little stung if you hadn’t remembered his face.

But you definitely worked here and Steve had no idea if you were his shift supervisor or just someone he’d have to spend a lot of time with. He knew your face, the colour of your bedroom walls, the way your name sounded on his lips when it was coloured with a moan and how you liked to be kissed on the neck when you got fucked.

That was it. That wasn’t a lot of information and he didn’t have a lot of time to process much else. An added bonus was the leftover vodka that was still coating his insides and the sun was too bright, even with his sunglasses covering his tired eyes.

And, well, he was a man.

So he dropped his hand and smiled again, a little too fake and said, “hi, I’m here for the kitchen position. I’m Steve, nice to meet you.”

𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟

Was he fucking kidding?

You stared at Steve with an expression of complete disbelief, the audacity of his words taking over from your shock at seeing him there. You couldn’t really see his eyes behind his sunglasses but he was smiling, warm and polite and suddenly you realised that you hadn’t said anything else for a minute now.

It turned out you couldn’t say much, but you managed to close your open mouth and smile back, awkward and polite, much like every other interaction at work. You gestured to the open door as you held it open, hating that you recognised the aftershave as he walked by you, silently furious that he was wearing the same one he’d worn when he’d approached you the night before.

What did he mean, ‘nice to meet you?’

Did you look that different? Did he seriously not recognise you?

You wanted to ask, you wanted to confront him. Your hangover made you mean, it made you square up for an argument that could never happen here because Eddie was coming out of the kitchen with a wide, easy smile on his face just as Steve pulled his sunglasses from his face.

“Harrington! Long time no see man, how you doin’?” He clapped the new guy on the shoulder before bringing him into a full hug, laughing as they jostled each other in the way only guys did. “Welcome to the city, big boy, it’s good to have you.”

Steve replied with something you didn’t hear because you were too busy staring, completely unashamed, at the side of his face. It was definitely the same guy. He had the same moles and freckles dotted across his skin, the same messy hair that curled under his ears and at the nape of his neck. And there was a hickey in the shape of your lips just under his jaw, a mark you remembered gifting him in your tiny hallway, right when he’d backed you into the wall and slid one large hand into the front of your underwear.

Someone was calling your name. Repeatedly.

“What?” You blinked, finding Eddie and Steve both watching you as you felt the heat of being caught creep up the back of your neck. “Sorry, I— sorry. Hangover.” You said as a way of explanation.

“This is Steve Harrington,” Eddie took Steve by the shoulders, giving him a little excited shake. “An old friend from back in Hawkins. We worked together at Jim’s old diner, I taught him everything I know, didn’t I? Steve this is—”

You didn’t listen to Eddie's introduction to you, you just watched as Steve nodded and smiled, polite as ever, eyes skating over you as if he was seeing you for the first time. His gaze lingered on the open buttons of your polo shirt, staring at the skin that had been marked by someone’s else’s lips - his fucking lips.

He didn’t say anything. He just looked back at Eddie laughing at something he said before he was introduced to Robin and Argyle too.

You spend too much time standing in Hopper’s office after that, your sore head pressed against the cool wall of the big ass metal safe he insisted on keeping beside the computer that was from the nineties. You felt like you were going crazy, like you’d only dreamed of getting absolutely railed by the hot new guy who was now in the kitchen, being shown the freezer and the pantry.

But the thump of your head and the ache between your thighs told you otherwise, and Jesus Christ, you tugged at your neckline, hiding the hickey there. It was him, right? It was definitely him. He was holding the same sweater he’d been wearing the night before. You’d tugged it off of him, you had stepped over it on your way to shower just hours before. How was he just acting like he didn’t—

The door to the office opened and when Steve stepped inside with you, it became infinitely smaller. It closed with a click behind him, the low lamp on Hop’s table making the already grey-blue walls look darker and moodier. Steve leaned against the wood and for a second or two, you both only stared at each other, as if remembering what the other looked like naked. You could recall the mole on his left shoulder, right beside the space you’d sunk your teeth into when he’d called you a good girl, the scratches you’d left on his back when he’d told you to ride him harder.

“Eddie said you know where I can find some whites?”

His sunglasses were in his back pocket now, his face the same one you’d invited back yours. There was zero doubt about it. His gaze was fixed on your own, a game of chicken neither one of you was willing to lose until— Steve’s eyes dropped.

A glance that turned into more, a heated look that lingered from where it started on your bare legs, drifting upupup over your hips and chest. His eyes met yours once more, but still, he didn’t say a damn thing.

Fuck it.

“Do we know each other?” Your voice was a lot more blunt than you intended it to be, but working at seven am with a hangover did that to a person. Your face was blank, neutral, at least you hoped.

Steve took his time to ponder it, face just as expressionless as your own before he shrugged, lips turned down. “Nope. Don’t think so.”

You stared at him. He stared back.

“Uniform is down by the bar,” you finally conceded, voice sharper than a chef knife. Cutting, only dulled slightly by a chipped ego. You didn’t know what the fuck you were supposed to say, but your pride was finding that swallowing the words down harder than a dry pill.

But what were you supposed to say? We fucked last night? You were in my bed this morning? Loved it when you went down on me, by the way, welcome to the team?

You didn’t say any of that, of course you didn’t. You did, however, knock your shoulder into Steve’s when you made for the door. He didn’t say a thing, but he did follow you. Too closely, and you could smell his aftershave, the same one from the night before. He followed you back to the kitchen, new chef whites in hand after he’d grabbed them from the bar and the room was already too busy to talk quietly.

The grills were aggressively noisy, sparks of hot oil landing on the tiles behind it, Eddie’s speaker playing music too loudly. Argyle was hammering fillets of chicken breasts with a wooden mallet as he prepped for lunch and you decided to very much not look at Steve as you spoke.

“Pantry door sticks a little, freezer temp jumps sometimes so let Eddie know if things start melting. There’s a set of knives in that second drawer over there and no opened toed shoes in the kitchen - you’d think that would be common sense but nobody told Argyle, apparently.”

Steve suppressed a smile and nodded. “Got it.”

“Hopper’s barely here so ask Eddie for anything you need, wages go out the last Friday of every month, deliveries come at six on Monday mornings and you want any of the wait staff’s help, you ask nicely. No one yells at my girls.”

You turned then, waiting for another agreement, eyebrows raised.

Steve let his eyes roam over you, his lips curving. “Right,” he said.

You felt yourself boil over at the sight of his smile, at the way his hair flopped in his eyes and you hated that you suddenly remembered yourself brushing it out of the way when you were kissing him hours before, your knees hitched at his waist, pressed into your own bed. “If you need a first aid box, you’ll have to buy one and try not to sleep with any other staff members before lunch.”

The kitchen halted to a screeching stop at that. Eddie’s spatula stopped half way to the pan and Argyle’s mallet tumbled out of his hand. Both men stared at you, their eyes flitting to each other and then to Steve, whose cheeks were pink from more than just the warm air. If anyone was planning on saying anything to you in return, they were too late.

You were storming out, hands slamming onto the door so hard it hit the wall behind it. “Welcome to The Gate,” you yelled over your shoulder, just as Robin was unlocking the front door and the first of the regulars poured in for their morning coffee.

It was going to be a long fucking shift.

𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟

Eddie let out a long, low whistle. “Dude. It’s been ten minutes. The fuck did you do?”

Steve was still staring at the swinging door, long after you’d disappeared from sight. He groaned, rubbing at the back of his neck that was prickling with an uncomfortable, embarrassed heat.

“Something bad, I think.”

Eddie appeared at his side, eyes glittering with amusement. “You know her, man?” He dug an elbow into Steve’s ribs, a gasp leaving his lips when Steve opened his mouth and didn’t respond. “Oh shit, you two totally banged.”

Steve still didn’t reply, instead, tugging on his chef’s jacket over his shirt, head bent and eyes avoiding Eddie and Argyle, who was back to filleting chicken and definitely listening in

“Dude, when?” Eddie was beside himself now, his grin too big and too happy at Steve’s miserable situation. “Did you not call her back or somethin’? I mean, you’d be crazy not to - I’ve been flirting with the girl for over a year now and she won’t crack—”

“Last night,” Steve was leaning over a butcher's block, his hands in his face as he regretted every single action he’d taken since he opened his eyes that morning. “Well, technically this morning. Like, five hours ago.”

Argyle dropped the premise of pretending to not listen. He snorted, looking over Steve with a mixture of awe and disbelief. “Oh you’re so screwed, Eddie’s friend. Why you out here actin’ like you don’t know the lady?”

Steve scrambled for words, his hands gesturing helplessly to the closed door, out to where he couldn’t see you. “I— I don’t know, okay? I panicked. I woke up this morning and she was gone! I didn’t know she worked here! I thought— I thought it might have been easier to just pretend it didn’t happen, that we didn’t know each other.”

Eddie was staring, his features set in an unimpressed mask. “Jesus, Harrington, that’s so fucking dumb, even for you.”

“I know, okay!” Steve snapped and then crumbled once more. “Fuck, I was standing at the door and I don’t know, I thought she might have been my fucking boss or something, I don’t know how to be professional when it’s been in the fucking morning, I’m probably not legal to drive yet and my dick is still half hard from how many times she ro—”

The door swung open and Robin appeared. “There’s four people wanting to know where their bagels are, why isn’t anyone taking tickets? Eddie, what the fuck?” She gestured to where there was a trail of receipts hanging on the rack by the kitchen window and sure enough there were tables filling up, groggy eyed customers all waiting for breakfast.

Steve spotted you through the open hatch, your back to him as you took another order from a table taken by a tired looking dad and his three kids. There was already spilled salt on the wooden surface, an iPad blaring on the bench seat and despite the way he could hear you speaking pleasantly, your foot had set an impatient beat on the tiled floor.

He didn’t take his eyes off of you when you turned and walked towards the kitchen, heading for the hatch with your order in hand - he couldn’t. Steve was staring - blatantly. And for a second, maybe two, you looked back with just the same intensity, like you were sharing the same memory, both of you remembering the way the other had moaned their name, the way the bed had creaked and groaned with every stroke of Steve’s hips. Like you were thinking of doing it again, like neither of you would’ve minded a repeat in the back office, crushing each other against the lockers or on top of Hopper’s empty desk.

But then you reached the hatch and your gaze hardened. You slammed the order down with a sharp hand and when you lifted it, your middle finger saluted Steve before you walked away once more.

He tried to distract himself. Amanda on Monday. Mary on Tuesday. Both futile. He felt disgusted with himself, guilty in a way that didn't make logical sense. You two weren't together, had never been together. But the guilt sat in his chest regardless, heavy and persistent and— fuck.

Another secret he's been carrying for two months: he's been faking it with everyone else.

He slips the condom off before they can notice, drops it at the bottom of the bathroom trash, and waits in there until he's sure they've left. He never finishes himself off afterward. He knows the only way he can is if he thinks about you, and that knowledge sits in him like something radioactive. It’s too dangerous to acknowledge directly and too present to ignore.

He can’t sleep. He tosses and turns, wondering what you’re doing, if you’re in your dorm with Robin or if that meathead is feeling you up— nope. He can’t be jealous. It’s not fair to you if he’s jealous of you messing around with other people too. Even if it’s a fucking Alpha Tau. 

He doesn’t know what is wrong with him. 

On Wednesday you were walking out of the library when he caught sight of you, and his entire body responded before his brain could intervene. You looked so pretty in the moonlight. He watched you laugh when you caught his eyes, your breath a small cloud in the cold air, warm and there and real. Your hand squeezed his arm when he held the door open, and then your mouth was on his neck and his hands were moving under your blouse— butter yellow, soft against his palms, genuinely so pretty on you. It drove him mad.

He always hated when the other girls left marks on him. But yours were different. Yours he'd flaunt, wearing shirts that wouldn't cover them, pretending in some parallel life that he was allowed to show off that he was yours. People assumed it was Robin. He let them assume.

Neither of you had the patience to undress properly. He'd hiked your skirt up, your legs hooking around his waist, pulling him deeper. His chain had swung against your collarbone with each thrust. His jeans bunched at his thighs. Both of you loud and breathless, the car rocking with the rhythm of it, your skin against his a sound he'd been replaying ever since.

He'd looked down at you— eyes clenched, fingers digging into his shoulders, neck arched— and dragged his tongue up the column of your throat. When he spat into your mouth and watched you swallow, the moan that tore out of him was completely beyond his control.

Sex had always come easily to him. But with you there's a challenge he keeps wanting to solve. He loves being the reason for your sounds, loves finding the specific combination of things that makes you cry out, loves the places in you that he finds and you didn't know existed. He loves how he fits inside you, the way you stretch and clench around him perfectly. He thinks about what it would feel like without a condom— like the first time. He thinks about it too often.

With you he doesn't hold back. He never has to muffle himself or perform. He just is. And that, more than anything else, is the thing that terrifies him.

He knows what anyone would tell him if he described this out loud. End it with the others. Or if he can't do that: think of you when he's with them. He's tried the second option. He's ashamed to admit it, more ashamed to admit what happens when he does.

He doesn't think of you in those moments. His mind doesn't go to anything compromising. It goes, instead, to conversations. The way you make him laugh. The particular sharpness of your wit, the patience you extend to Robin and— somehow, inexplicably— to him. More patience than he deserves and you both know it.

He thinks about how people are drawn to you and you have no idea. How they gravitate toward you at parties, on the sidewalk, in line at the library, and you move through it all like it's ordinary. He thinks about the line between your brows when you're irritable, and how badly he wants to press his thumb there and smooth it out. He thinks about how when you get mean, you're ferocious— certain and passionate and immovable— and how hours later you always go back and apologize to whoever it was. You always know what to say. He has never once known what to say.

Thursday, he tried to write off everything as stress and a bad week. This time of year is always hard for him. Nightmares. Headaches. The insomnia that arrives like a seasonal houseguest who doesn't know when to leave. He guesses he can add ejaculation issues to the list too.The anniversary of the accident, seeps in, coloring everything gray, his scars aching before his brain has caught up to what day it is.

He'd skipped his classes and gone out once for air. He told himself it was coincidental that he wandered toward the building where your class meets. That he hadn't, over the course of the past several weeks, memorized the rough shape of your schedule. That he didn't sometimes take routes that would put you at the edges of his vision, even from a distance.

Purely coincidental.

He wasn't even sure he'd say anything if he saw you. He could ask if you wanted to get lunch, take a walk— two friends, only two friends, who happened to be sleeping together. He ignored the small sharp pain in his chest at the phrasing.

When he rounded the corner and found you kissing Sammy, the guy's hands on you and yours on him, Steve stopped walking. He stood there for five full seconds. Then he turned around and went back to Pike.

He'd like to say he did the honorable thing after that. Moved on, let it go, focused on something else. He can't stop thinking about it. It's his own rule— the one he made, the one that's supposed to protect both of them— and it's eating him alive.

Which is why he snapped at Robin when she started in about Nancy. He knows it's different for them. He does. But a selfish, rotting part of him was jealous— not that he'd ever say so— jealous that at least she got to be with someone she loved without everything being underwater. He felt guilty about it almost immediately. It wasn't that he wasn't happy for them. He was. He is.

He's also drowning.

He didn't even register you asking to come in when you appeared in his doorway later. He was too busy being struck dumb by the sight of you— hair up, pink sweater he loves tucked into your light wash jeans, fresh manicure you'd probably done in your dorm with Robin. He watched you cross the room and felt his chest do that thing it does. Tighten first. Then soften, like something rigid giving way.

You touched his knee. You gave him the look that meant it was okay.

He felt safe. He always feels safe, and that is the most dangerous thing about you.

His rules dissolved and he put his head in your lap because it was the only context in which he was allowed to do that. He went limp and hoped you couldn't see his eyes going wet. He breathed you in— clean laundry, something faint and warm underneath, the specific scent he's started associating with a future he wants and can't have. He asked you to talk about your day because he could sit for hours inside the sound of your voice. You made the mundane parts of your life sound like somewhere he wanted to be.

Broken, he told you. He feels broken. He didn't tell you he wasn't sure how to fix it. Or that he suspected he knew exactly how, and was terrified of what it would cost.

After you left, the thought of you kissing Sammy returned and wouldn't stop. It moved through him in different frequencies. He wondered what your lips would feel like against his— not his neck, not the geography of his shoulders and chest, but his mouth. He wondered if the rhythm would be the same as everything else between you, that strange melodic fit, the way your bodies always seemed to find the same tempo without trying.

On the night of Mardi Tau, he'd told Robin three times he wasn't going. He couldn't. Couldn't watch you across a crowded room, couldn't watch you dance with Sammy, couldn't see your mouth on someone else's again and pretend the sight wasn't carving something out of him.

He watched from his window when your car pulled up and Eddie climbed in. It was dark outside andhe couldn't see you. His heart thumped anyway.

The car pulled away.

His heart sank.

It should be him.

.-.-.-.

Katrina was always a sweet girl. Her hair was a bit much sometimes— reminded him of when Tammy Thompson got her first perm and he couldn't see the board in Mrs. Click's class until he finally moved seats. 

But she didn't deserve tonight.

Everything was going well. He did everything he normally did, and by her sounds, Katrina was enjoying herself. All while his mind kept drifting to Sig Tau. To you. His heart racing because the rumors had been circulating through Greek life all week— that Sammy really likes you. 

It was all dirty touches and heat between them until he got Katrina over the edge.

But when it was his turn and she went to touch him— nothing.

He laughed it off awkwardly and told her to give him a second, spitting in his hand, trying to coax any reaction from his body. The redness crept up the back of his neck and deepened in his cheeks, not from the sex but from something worse. He kept trying. But even looking at Katrina sprawled naked on his bed, cheeks flushed, watching him with patient eyes, he still couldn't think properly.

He kept thinking about what an asshole he was. What an utter prick, to be here with a nice girl who deserved better than this. All because he couldn't fucking admit what he'd been running from all this time.

His shoulders drooped. He deflated.

"Oh my god," Katrina whispered.

Steve opened his mouth, a lump rising in his throat. "I—" Nothing came. No excuse worth saying out loud. "It's not you. I swear—"

"Oh my fucking god." She stood up from his bed. He could tell she wasn't happy by the way she moved— quick and stiff, snatching up her clothes. He saw the tears rolling down her face before she turned away.

"Katrina—"

"I am missing the biggest party of the year for this," she said, voice unraveling as she pulled her shirt over her head.

Steve stood there, still holding his limp dick, unsure whether he should wait until she left. He didn't know the proper etiquette for this situation. He'd never had anyone leave in the middle of a hookup before. Never because he couldn't get hard. He rubbed his face with one hand, trying to think.

"I'm sorry. I'm really stressed out—"

She turned around, lip quivering. "This," she hissed, motioning between them, "is what's supposed to relieve you of stress."

Steve picked up his boxers and slipped them on, feeling her watch him. Then his jeans. He looked at the floor, then up into her eyes, hoping and praying her memory of the last half hour might somehow evaporate.

It was in that humiliating moment he realized it wasn't only hating the fact you were with someone else tonight. He was too. Even though his hookups with other girls had become rare. Even with the lie he'd told you from the start— that he had a once-a-week rule— it still sent pain radiating through his chest, the particular kind that comes from knowing you're doing something wrong.

"I don't think we should keep seeing each other," he said, trailing off because he was a coward.

Katrina ticked her jaw. She sniffled once, sharply, through the hurt. He watched her shrink into herself, arms crossing over her chest, trying to make sense of something that didn't make any sense. She didn't have feelings for him— he knew that. But he could almost see the trust between them severing, clean and quiet as a cut. Without another word she picked up her handbag and walked out.

He wished he were man enough to sit with it or run after her to tell her… anything that would make her feel better. To feel the full weight of hurting someone he hadn't meant to hurt. To reckon with the ways his selfishness was splitting him apart from the inside.

Instead he got dressed quickly and put on his glasses. He needed to see you.

Not needed. Wanted. Both. He couldn't untangle them anymore.

His adrenaline was high and he ignored the beaming DON'T DO IT sign glowing right in front of him. Rules be damned. There were never really rules with you to begin with.

He smoked two cigarettes on the walk to Sig Tau without realizing it, and hadn't noticed he'd arrived until he was already pushing through the crowd outside and through the doors. He stood in the middle of the main gathering space, chest heaving, eyes scanning the room.

The scary thing was he always knew when you were there before he found you. Some magnetic pull in his chest that swung toward you like a compass finding north— maybe it was your perfume, the one you only wore when you went out. He found you before his brain caught up to the fact that he was looking.

You were alone. Relief moved through him so fast it embarrassed him.

Except you were scanning the room the same way he had been, searching for someone— Sammy, probably. Then you stopped. Hair framing your face, lip gloss catching the colored lights. He watched your expression shift. Watched your lips flicker upward. You looked exactly as relieved to see him as he felt seeing you.

He crossed the room toward you, taking you in the whole way. Gold crop top. Your purple skirt and white pumps. The line of your collarbone. But he kept returning to your eyes. He drowned in them every time and he did it willingly, like a man who had made peace with the water.

You were the most beautiful person he'd ever met. It drove him absolutely crazy.

He was so close but he needed more, and if there weren't people watching he'd have pulled you into him right there. Instead he motioned toward the bathroom tucked out of the way, the one nobody else seemed to know about.

He pulled you inside and crowded you against the counter.

"Touch me," he said. The words came out wrecked. A plea, not a request.

You started to say something and he shook his head. He said please. Said it again. Please.

And you did. You touched him exactly where he knew you'd touch him first, and he twitched and let out a breath that was equal parts relief and pleasure. His skin knew you. Reacted to you the way muscle reacts to memory— without instruction, without hesitation. He whimpered when your fingers traced along his scars and brushed through the trail of hair on his stomach.

He pressed his hips against you involuntarily. Already hard against your bare thigh.

Both of you were asking for more without saying it. You pulled his hand and pressed it against the damp cotton of your panties. His knees buckled, his weight nearly crushing you as he started working slow circles against your clit. His mouth found your cheek, breath short and ragged.

Then you were up on the counter and he was fucking you with his fingers, his cock aching against his zipper, completely engulfed in your wetness and the sounds falling from your mouth. You clutched at him. He still wasn't close enough. It wasn't enough anymore. It hadn't been enough for a long time.

He worked faster, stretching you with another finger, curling to find that spot that made your whole body shift. He could feel you shaking. He could hear the pitch of your whimpers climbing.

He rutted against your leg, moaning into your neck, until you made a sound he'd never heard from you before. He pulled back to look at you— half-lidded, mouth open— and his eyes dropped to your lips. Parted and pretty, lip gloss still sticky.

Before he could think longer he grabbed you by the head, fingers fisting your hair, and kissed you.

Then froze immediately.

"Fuck. I'm sorry. I'm sorry—"

You smirked at him. Hunger in your eyes. One finger hooked into his chain necklace, pulling him back.

Your lips crashed against his.

He grunted when you bucked your hips, grinding on his hand still inside you. The kiss was messy and filthy and open-mouthed and unforgiving, and it rearranged everything inside him. His skin felt like it was burning, the heat moving straight to his cock. But underneath all of it— underneath the want and the noise and the desperate friction— his heart was beating against his ribs in a rhythm he recognized from somewhere he'd been trying not to visit.

He couldn't ignore it this time. Didn't want to.

All he wanted to do was smile. Because he was kissing his girl. His Hot Shot. Finally.

He felt you getting close and threw himself into it— fingers moving faster, palm pressing harder. His tongue licked into your mouth because if this was the only time he got to do this, he refused to forget what you tasted like. Sweet and warm and everything kissing was supposed to feel like and never had before. Feeling you kiss him back with the same urgency, the same hunger, he whined against your lips.

You nipped his bottom lip between your teeth and let it go.

In the fraction of a second it took, he thought about your first time together. How he'd wanted to kiss you then. How he'd wanted to kiss you every single time since. He thought about how swollen your lips were now— wet from him, undone.

That was all it took. He came, pressing against your leg, letting you feel it. Letting you know it was all you.

But he doesn't stop kissing you.

Can't.

And the thing is— he knows, standing here with his hand leaving your thighs and both arms pulling you in instead— that this has nothing to do with sex anymore. It stopped being about sex somewhere between the first time your mouth found his and right now, in this dim bathroom at a party neither of you particularly wanted to attend. What he wants is not the thing bodies want. It's something older and quieter and much more frightening.

He wants to keep kissing you in the morning. He wants to know what you look like when you're half-asleep and grumpy. He wants to sit across a table from you and argue about something stupid and be wrong and have you tell him so. He doesn’t want to say goodnight, because then that means leaving. And he’s so tired of leaving.

Your fingers tighten in his hair, pulling hard enough to sting, and the groan that comes out of him is helpless. It’s not because of the pain but because of the wanting underneath it, the sheer volume of it. He wraps both arms around you, one hand wide and flat across your lower back, the other cradling the back of your head, and he holds on.

You clutch at him with the same desperation and something in him cracks open. He moves his mouth to your jaw, your throat, pressing kisses into the warm skin there. He needs to touch every part of you he can reach, needs you to know he's here, he's here, he's been here this whole time.

His hands won't stop moving. One slides up your side, thumb grazing the underside of your tit through your top, and the other grips your hip hard enough to mark. He's not sorry. He wants to mark you. He wants there to be proof.

You pull his face back to yours and he comes back willingly and gratefully. If he's honest, every second his mouth isn't on yours feels like something wasted now. The kiss shifts, messier, all tongue and teeth and two people running out of ways to say something neither of them has said yet.

You slide your hands under his shirt, palms flat against his stomach, and every muscle in his body contracts under the touch. Your nails drag up his sides and across his ribs and he shudders. It’s not even from sensation but from the specific tenderness of being known. You know exactly where to touch him. You've always known.

He pulls you impossibly closer, hands roaming across your bare back, until there's no space left between you. Chest to chest. He can feel your heartbeat against his own and he doesn't know which is which. Doesn't care.

He kisses you slower this time. Still wanting, still urgent, but slower. His tongue slides against yours and he thinks: this is the problem. This has always been the problem. There is no casual version of this. There never was.

Your fingers find his belt loops and pull his hips flush against yours. He can feel the wet warmth in his jeans against your inner thigh. He makes a sound into your mouth. It’s broken and wanting and almost pained, like something has been held under pressure for a very long time and is only now, in increments, being allowed to surface.

He brings his hand up to cup your face. His thumb strokes your cheekbone with a tenderness he has no business feeling, and he knows it, and he does it anyway. You tilt your head and deepen the kiss and he thinks: I would do anything. I would blow up every rule I've ever made. I would stop being careful entirely.

The kisses slow. Gentle now. Each one landing separately, softly. Just lips resting against lips. Just breathing the same air. Just staying.

He draws your bottom lip carefully between his teeth one last time. His tongue soothing the place, and then he pulls back.

Steps away.

He looks at the floor. Then at you.

Something moves across his face that he can't stop in time. Something guilty and sad and full of all the things he hasn't said and should have, all the moments he's walked away from and chosen rules and Robin over this, over you.

He opens the bathroom door.

He leaves.

The click of the latch behind him sounds, in the silence that follows, like the loneliest thing he's ever heard.

.-.-.-.

Steve walked into the empty Pike house and the silence swallowed him whole.

His eyes were still blown wide, hair wrecked, clothes wrinkled and askew— every detail of him a confession he hadn't meant to make or even think. He trudged inside and let out a heavy breath, both hands dragging down his face like he could physically rearrange what had happened tonight into something he could live with.

He knew he'd fucked up. The only thing he could do to avoid thinking about it was sleep, which meant he was going to lie awake staring at the ceiling and think about nothing else.

He made it to his room and threw himself backward onto his bed, depleted and spent. His fingers drifted to his lips without him meaning for them to— still buzzing faintly, still warm from where your mouth had been.

A smile crept onto his face before he could stop it.

Then, as fast as it arrived… gone.

His phone rang.

He launched himself off the bed. He looked at his watch and wondered who the hell was calling at this hour. Eddie? Robin? His heart lurched sideways at the thought that it might be you. Could it be you calling to come over, to talk, to say something that would either fix everything or make it completely irreparable?

He picked up. "Hello?"

"Steveee," a voice slurred.

Steve pulled the receiver away from his ear, stared at it, put it back. "Uh..."

"Were you asleep?"

His eyes went wide. "Max? Why are you calling this late? Are you okay?"

"Stevee, I'm more than okaaay." She hiccupped.

"Are you drunk?" His voice came out protective before he could temper it. He knew he'd gotten into things he shouldn't have at her age, but he was an idiot. Max was not. He bit at the skin around his thumbnail. "Are you safe?"

"I'm at Wheeler's." The line crackled and her voice dropped to a hushed whisper. "We got into a bottle of Mrs. Wheeler's wine playing truth or dare."

Steve laughed, the coiled tension in his chest easing slightly. "Right, and are you doing a dare right now?"

"Yuuuup," Max sang.

"What is it? You supposed to prank call me or something?"

"Nope. Got dared to tell someone I love them. Dustin, the shithead he is, wanted me to probably say it to Lucas in front of everyone, because apparently I kind of suck at telling people that shit..."

Max's words drifted off.

Steve went completely still. He replayed the sentence. Made sure he'd heard it correctly. Because it was true—Max had never said that to him. Not once. Not directly. Not without enough sarcasm layered on top to make it deniable.

"Steveee, oh my god, did you die over there? Hellloooo?"

"Yeah." He swallowed hard. "I'm here. Sorry."

"Oh god, don't tell me it cut out and I have to say it again," she groaned.

He smiled at the ceiling, something loosening in his chest. "No. I heard you."

A beat of silence.

"I love you too, kid."

Max made an immediate and theatrical gagging noise. But he could still hear her smiling on the other end. "Gross, dude. You didn't have to say it back."

The quiet that followed wasn't really quiet at all. It was the specific kind of silence that exists between two people who both meant exactly what they said and know the other one did too.

"Now it's my turn to dare you to do it," Max giggled.

He rolled his eyes. "That's not how the game works and you know it."

"Maybeee. Or maybee you're scared."

"Max—"

"Steveeee," she mocked.

"I'm going to hang up now. Go be a pain to Wheeler or something." He shook his head when he heard her cackling.

She went quiet for a moment. Then: "You never called this week."

His throat went dry. He sighed, picking up the base of the phone and moving to sit at the edge of his bed. She couldn't see him, but he looked down anyway. "Yeah. I know. I got busy. I'm sorry."

Another wave of silence settled between them— the weighted kind, the kind that carries whole seasons inside it.

Steve raked his fingers through his hair.

"I don't miss him, y'know?" Max mumbled, her words soft and slurred but perfectly clear.

"Max—"

"And I know you still feel guilty, and we haven't really talked about it. But I needed you to know that."

She was right. They hadn't talked about the accident. That was probably mostly his fault—he never wanted to drag her back into bad water. He wasn't sure what to say.

"Drink water before bed. Okay?"

"Steve." His name was soft on the receiver, careful with him in a way she rarely was out loud.

"Yeah?"

"I dare you to tell me if you love her."

"Robin? Of course I love her, you know it's not like that thou—"

"No, not Robin." Max said your name.

It moved through the phone line and landed somewhere behind his sternum.

He froze. His face fell. Something cold and certain moved through his blood all at once. "Max, you know that's—I can't—why would you—she's a friend. A friend, okay?"

"Do you?" she asked again. Steady and almost sober-minded. Almost like she already knew the answer long before he ever did.

And Steve felt all the weeks of careful avoidance collapse at once.

He thought about you. He let himself, fully, for the first time in months— didn't redirect the thought, didn't shut the door on it before it could open. He let it open.

It wasn’t like a lightbulb, or a lightning bolt striking him. That was the thing about it that undid him. It didn't arrive the way he'd always assumed love would arrive. He had always imagine it to be loud and obvious and impossible to miss. It had crept in the way warmth does in a room you've been sitting in for a long time. Slow. Pervasive. Already everywhere before you think to notice.

The specific moment for him was all on Valentine’s when he saw you lying on his chest fast asleep. It overwhelmed him. It excited him. He knew it then, there was no one else. But he stayed in denial, tormented by thoughts of what it’d be like to go steady with you.

It felt like something that had always been true and was only now, under the specific pressure of Max saying your name through a crackling phone line at midnight, being acknowledged.

He carried it the way you carry an injury you've decided not to mention— working around it, adjusting your movement, telling yourself it wasn't that bad. But it had been pressing into him constantly. Heavy and specific and shaped like everything about you: the way you looked at him when he wasn't performing anything, the particular patience you extended to him that he hadn't earned, the sound of your laugh when something caught you off guard, the way the room organized itself differently when you were in it.

It felt like something that was equally killing him inside but also the thing that was keeping him alive. 

He wanted things he hadn't let himself want in years. Simple things. Quiet things. He wanted to call you for no reason. He wanted to make you breakfast. He wanted, god help him, to introduce you to people and have a word for what you were to him that was true.

Instead he had rules. He had arrangements. He had you hidden away in a bathroom, holding a kiss that rearranged everything and a door he'd closed behind him anyway.

The wanting sat inside him like a lit match in a closed room. It illuminated everything, consuming itself, running out of air.

"Yeah," he whispered. "I do."

The words landed in the quiet of his empty room and he didn't take them back.

When he finally got off the phone and lay down in the dark, Steve stared at the ceiling and wondered if this was what it was like in every version of things. Every alternate arrangement of choices and timing and circumstance– did they all wind up here? Something in him said yes. Something in him had been saying yes for a while now, quietly, in a register he'd been working very hard not to hear.

No matter what he built around it. No matter how many rules he made or broke or pretended still applied. No matter the timing, no matter the cost.

It was you.

It had probably always been you.

You were worth falling in love for.