Maladaptive Daydreams

♡ The Warmest Lie:  (ongoing)

"Steve Harrington is annoying, smug, and tragically tan — but if fake-dating him is what it takes to get Robin and Nancy to finally make out, then so be it."

♡ What the Quiet Holds (completed) | Angst. Soft in the aftermath. Hurt/comfort.

When the Upside Down goes still, Steve Harrington knows something is wrong.

What follows is not one moment, but four:

the quiet before disaster, the echo of what almost happened, the pause where nothing is certain, and the breath that finally comes after.

♡ Even in the Fire, I Looked for You | smut & hurt/comfort | Enemies (ish) to lovers

You were the first person I looked for. In every room, it will always be you. 

♡ The Only Real Thing Was Loving You | hurt/comfort & angsty | Friends to lovers

Even when I believed the lie, I wanted to believe you more.

♡ Dandelion Wishes | fluff | Childhood best friend!reader

Some wishes don’t fade — they just wait for the right time to come true.

♡ If Only You Could See Yourself Through My Eyes | smut & hurt/comfort | Enemies to lovers

Sometimes the people we claim to hate are the ones who see us most clearly.

♡ It’s Always Been You | WIP

Every almost. Every maybe. Every chance he thought you might finally see him — led to this.

It’s Always Been You (In Another Life) | S4 canon companion piece

♡ All That the Night Allowed (part one) | fluff | Friends to lovers

 If I ever got to build something real, I’d want it to be with you.

♡ All That the Morning Promised (part two) | smut & fluff | Friends to lovers

The night allowed you a truth you’re afraid the morning will take back.

♡ Easy to Love | Angst with comfort & fluff

Because loving you? That’s the easiest damn thing I’ve ever done.

♡ Proof of life | smut & hurt comfort

He makes you come like he’s dragging you back from the dark.

Her masterlist 🫶🏼

♡ You’re Not Alone (not when I’m standing right in front of you)

When everything feels too much, he’s there to hold you through it.

♡ Hawkins’ Midwinter Recipe Book (12 Days of Harrington Warmth)

"Hey… you’re okay. I’ve got you.” | a little enemies(ish)-to-something-more, hurt/comfort. Steve Harrington x Reader.

“I don’t know how to be okay without you.”| a little co-workers-to-something-more, hurt/comfort. Spencer Reid x Reader.

Dad! Steve Harrington reassures you when you need to breastfeed your baby in public

Eddie (and the gang) looks after you when you're sick

Spencer Reid and BAU!Reader find peace in secret late-night conversations and soft touches

Spencer Reid and Wife!Pregnant!Reader debate baby names

A ripple of whispers spreads through your fifth-grade classroom.  

You blink, already pushing your chair back. “Did he say what kind of emergency?”

Eli shakes his head, serious as anything. “No. He just said we need to hurry.”

Your stomach gives a small, uneasy flip.

Eli isn’t the type to exaggerate. He’s sweet, careful. Reminds everyone when it’s time to line up after recess and always volunteers to erase the board without being asked. He's the sort of kid teachers trust without thinking twice.

If he’s the messenger, it’s because of something important.

“Alright, everyone,” you call to the class. “Keep reading quietly. I’ll be right back.”

A chorus of shuffling follows as you reach for your cardigan.

“Hurry, hurry,” Eli bounces on his heels, voice small but insistent.

Before you can answer, he reaches for your hand. His grip is tiny, warm, a little sticky—surprisingly strong. You find yourself getting dragged by his bouncy, determined steps, weaving past rows of lockers, dodging a cluster of kids heading to recess. He zigzags through the main hallway, past the water fountain, the art room, taking the shortcut through the library until you arrive at the wide, double doors leading into the gym.

The moment you push them open, chaos erupts.

Bright rubber dodgeballs zing through the air. Sneakers squeak across the glossy, lacquered floor. Laughter and triumphant shrieks ricochet off the walls, punctuated by the occasional, “Yes! Got you!” from victorious first graders.  

Coach Steve's leaned casually against the far wall, clipboard tucked under one arm, whistle hanging loose around his neck. He’s sipping from a blue ceramic mug that reads World’s Best Teacher in chipped white lettering.

Only five months into the job, yet he’s already something of a legend here at Hawkins Elementary. The younger kids adore him—dodgeball days and ridiculous warm-up games where he pretends to be a shark, stalking the gym with dramatic dun-dun noises until they’re all shrieking with laughter. Older kids trust him in quieter ways, lingering after sex ed to ask questions they’re not brave enough to bring home. 

Despite the nerves you remember from his first day, Steve has settled into teaching like it’s been waiting for him all along.

Right now, though, he’s fully in coach mode. Brow furrowed, stance wide, eyes tracking the game like it’s a championship match instead of a bunch of kids still learning how to throw straight.

“Out of bounds! That one doesn’t count.”

“Woah—no head shots, Jacob! C’mon, we talked about that.”

“You okay, Alex? I got you. Here, try it like this. Yeah, there ya go bud!”

Eli, who had been clutching your hand the entire walk across school, suddenly lets go and races toward his favorite teacher.

“Coach Steve! I did it! I got her!”

Steve looks up. Sees you.

And the grin that breaks across his face is so immediate, so fond, it'd be enough to give you both away if anyone was paying the tiniest bit of attention.

“Hey!” he laughs, stepping forward. “Nice work, buddy. Thanks for the help.”

You watch, eyes narrowed in confusion as he ruffles Eli’s curls and slaps a high five against his tiny palm.

Eli puffs up with pride and pivots to sprint back to the game.

“Whoa—hang on, pal.”

Steve drops to his knees, setting the clipboard aside as he reaches for the loose strap on Eli’s shoe. He fastens it with careful, practiced fingers, giving it a quick tug to make sure it’ll hold.

Your stomach melts a little at the sight of him crouched like that: focused, patient, so gentle with this kid who’s staring at him like he hung the moon.

“There we go, champ,” he grins, giving Eli's sneaker a little pat. “Good as new. Now go have fun, alright? Your team missed you.”

Eli nods hard, then rockets back into the game without another word.

Steve straightens and finally turns to you, eyes warm, smile soft—and just a touch guilty.

“Mr. Harrington,” you say, crossing your arms carefully, “what exactly is the emergency you pulled me out of class for?”

His mouth quirks sheepishly, hands slipping into his pockets.

“Well, I just…” He steps closer, dropping his voice. “Haven’t seen you all morning. I missed you.”

You blink.

“You—” A breathy laugh slips out before you can stop it. “You sent poor Eli to fetch me because you missed me?”

He nods like it’s the most logical thing in the world. “Yeah. He's my fastest kid.”  

“No, that's not the...” you trail off, turning your head, failing completely to hide your smile.

Steve steps closer, angling the clipboard between you so that, to anyone looking in, it would look like you’re addressing some very concerning issues with the class roster.

Well, except for the part where his eyes are glued to your face.

There’s this soft intensity in his gaze that makes your breath hitch, just by holding it. You find yourself staring back, unable to look away, appreciating the faint creases around his temples, how they deepen with his smile, the plush curve of his bottom lip and the rounded apples of his cheeks as they get pushed upward.

“That’s better,” he murmurs, voice all deep and honey-warm. “Just needed to look at you for a second.”

You shake your head, cheeks warming despite yourself.

There’s a reason you’ve been keeping this thing with Steve a secret.

You both realized, pretty early on, that acting normal in a building full of nosy children and nosier adults was a losing battle. You had to learn to bend with it, catching tiny, fleeting moments in the spaces between, holding onto each one as tightly as you can.

It wasn’t perfect. Mrs. Kline, the school secretary, has definitely noticed the two of you laughing a little too freely by the copier. One of your students will occasionally squint at you during silent reading time, wondering why a tiny scrap of paper left on your table at lunch leaves you grinning for the rest of the day.

Still, you make it work.

A shared coffee in the teachers’ lounge before the morning bell. Standing side-by-side near the parking lot fence as the buses roll in. A granola bar tucked under your desk with a note folded impossibly small.

you look beautiful today ◡̈

He repeats the message to you now, even as you roll your eyes and try to look away.

“Seriously, I mean it," he murmurs, tracing your face with his eyes—the slope of your nose, the curve of your cheek—before lingering, unmistakably, on your mouth. “Want to kiss you so bad right now.”

You snort, nudging the sleeve of his sweatshirt with a finger. It’s soft, heather-gray, the Hawkins Elementary mascot faint and cracked across the chest.

“That’s deeply unprofessional of you, Mr. Harrington.”  

He groans under his breath, brow creasing as he tips his head back. “God, I love it when you say it like that. Say it one more time?”  

“Jesus—Steve!” you hiss, half-laughing, eyes darting toward the gym floor like the kids might suddenly develop super-hearing over the screech of sneakers and flying dodgeballs.   

Instead of stepping back, he leans in closer, lips parted in that familiar half-pout, eyes full of mock agony. “Can’t help it, honey. You’re fucking killing me over here.”

“Language,” you warn him, simply out of pure habit.

He smirks, lips twitching.

From the far end of the gym, a group of kids cheer triumphantly, “Yes! Coach Steve! We won!”

You both jump back like you’ve been caught doing something much worse than grinning at each other like idiots.

“Uh—great! Great job, gang!” Steve calls, clapping his hands. “Let's get all the balls in the cart and then grab some water, yeah? Five-minute break.”

Then he leans back in, brows raised. “See? Total professional. I’m telling you.”

You shake your head. “You’re unbelievable.”

You’re still smiling when he pivots, glancing over his shoulder to make sure no one’s paying attention. Satisfied, he turns back to you, brows drawn into a hopeful, pleading slant.

"C'mon," he murmurs, lifting the clipboard up like a partition. "I’ll get another game going. The kids won’t even notice. Just you... me...” He gestures between you, then toward the double doors leading outside. “Five minutes?”

You press your lips together, schooling your expression back into something stern. “Steve Harrington. I am not fucking you behind the school gym.”

"Language!" He gasps, mimicking your tone. “And jeez, who said anything about that? I was just gonna, you know, have a very professional conversation with you… about teaching.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Oh, c’mon, bab—"

“Coach Steve?”

Both of your heads snap down at the same time.

Eli stands there, chin tipped up, hands clasped neatly behind his back like he’s been waiting for his turn to speak. He’s rocking gently on his heels, eyes bright with curiosity as he looks between the two of you.

“Heyyy, buddy!” Steve laughs nervously, voice jumping up an octave. “What’s up? You okay?”

Eli nods.

Then, completely matter-of-fact, he asks:

“Coach Steve, when you marry her, can I come?”

Steve chokes on absolutely nothing.

“When—what?”

“When you get married,” Eli repeats patiently, like Steve’s just being a little slow today. “I wanna come.”

Steve squats down so fast he almost drops the clipboard.

“Eli,” he says carefully, “why do you think we’re getting married?”

Eli shrugs, unfazed. “’Cause you’re prac-tis married.”

“Practice… practice married?”

“Yeah. Like my Auntie Jen and her friend Mark at Thanksgiving.”

Steve blinks. “Okay, and what's... why do you think we’re practice married?”

Eli doesn’t hesitate. He points toward the front of the gym, in the general direction of your classroom. “’Cause you always wait for her outside her door.”

Steve opens his mouth. Closes it.

“And you bring her coffee. But you don’t bring us coffee.”

“Well,” Steve murmurs faintly, “that’s ‘cause you’re six.”

Eli shrugs again. “And you talk to her really soft. Like this,” he cups his hand around his mouth to demonstrate, whispering loudly. “Also, you always save her a chair at ass-em-blee.”

Steve rubs a hand down his face, glancing up at you before looking back at Eli. “That’s, uh… very observant of you, buddy.”

Eli isn’t done.

“And you make funny faces at her in the hallway. Oh! And you fixed her pencil sharpener. And, and, there was one time you looked at her, and you didn’t look away for one... two... three...” He glances down at his fingers and starts counting under his breath. “five... six... seven... eigh—”

“Okay!” Steve laughs loudly, holding up his hands. “Okay, buddy, I get it. That’s... that’s a long time.”

Eli nods, clearly pleased with himself. “Auntie Jen and Mark, they used to go everywhere together. And Mark fixed all the stuff around her house. Then later they got married for real.”

He looks between the two of you, satisfied.

“So. I think you’re practice married.”

You bite the inside of your cheek and crouch beside Steve. “Well... I think that’s a pretty solid theory, Eli.”

“Mm-hm, thanks,” he nods confidently. Then he spins back to Steve. “So, when you do the real one, can I come? I’m really good at sitting still. And my mom says when people get married they always eat cake. I love cake.” He spreads his arms wide. “Auntie Jen’s was this big!”

Steve presses his lips together, letting out a short, incredulous snort. “You know what, pal? Sure. Whe—if we get married, you’re more than welcome to come. And we’ll get the biggest cake we can find, okay?”

Eli beams. “Okay!”

He starts to run back to the group, then skids to a stop and turns around.

“Hey, Coach Steve?”

“Yeah?”

“You should ask her nicely,” Eli says, serious as anything. “With flowers. Mark did that.”

And then he’s gone.

Steve stays crouched, staring after him, jaw slack.

“…Did a six-year-old just give me relationship advice?”

“Mm, seems like it.”

He stands slowly, running a hand through his hair, eyes still following Eli as he rejoins the others.

“You think he spotted it before we did?” he asks quietly. “Back when... you know, we were still trying to figure out what we were doing?”

You smile. “Probably way before then.”

Steve's still distracted when you put your hand on his shoulder, quickly checking to see that no one’s watching before pressing a soft, fleeting kiss to his cheek.

He blinks, stunned. “Wha—no, wait, shit—”

He reaches for you a full second too late; you’re already headed for the door.

“Language. Have a good rest of your class, Mr. Harrington.”

Steve watches you go, hand frozen at his cheek.

Across the gym, Eli spots you and waves enthusiastically, completely unaware of just how accurate his little theory was.

The proof?

Not Hawkins—Hawkins is full of grown-ups who bend down too close, their eyelashes like moving spiders as they pinch his cheeks and say, Oh, Catherine, he looks just like Daniel already, doesn’t he?

No. Steve wants to go home to his room. Where all his dinosaurs live. Where his blue night-light makes everything soft and underwater-colored. Where no one tells him Smile, Stephen, or Be polite, Stephen, or For heaven’s sake, Stephen, stop fidgeting.

His new sandals hurt. Bad. The buckle is sharp and keeps poking the soft part of his ankle every time he moves. His shirt itches him everywhere—his neck, his sides, his armpits—and no amount of wriggling seems to help.

He tugs at the collar, trying to make it stop.

His mom’s hand lands on his shoulder.

“Stephen, sweetheart, keep still.”

He tries. He really, really does.

But all around him, the grown-ups are being very loud. They stand in little circles, laughing these big, sharp HA-HA-HA laughs that poke straight into his ears. Every time his dad says something, it’s like someone presses a button and they all explode at once.

Someone tells his mom how tall Steve’s getting. Someone else winks at his dad and keeps saying the word “Princeton,” which Steve thinks might be a kind of car, but it makes his dad laugh loudly and look at Steve with a funny smile.

Another woman bends down and tells him he’s going to “break so many hearts one day.”

Steve frowns.

Why would he do that?

He likes hearts.

Hearts are for loving, not hurting.

He looks past the grown-ups—past the chairs and tables and the flowers that smell too strong—toward the tiny slice of ocean peeking between the dunes. Blue and shiny and very, very far away.

He wants it.

Wants to touch the sand with his bare feet. Wants water he’s allowed to splash in.  

Wants a summer that belongs to him instead of everyone else.

His mom squeezes his shoulder again. “Posture, Stephen. Stand up straight.”

He thinks maybe that’s his name now: Posture Stephen.

“I am standing straight,” he mutters.

“What was that?” 

“Nothing.”

He wants to run.

Run until the HA-HA-HA sounds disappear. Run until nobody’s watching him. Run until he hits the water.

So when his mom gets called over by someone waving a fancy glass, and his dad tells another joke that makes everyone explode-laugh again—

Steve sneaks away.

He’s fast and light, like a ninja.

He slips between chairs, tiptoes down the wooden steps, and as soon as the dunes come into view, he runs.

The sand squishes under his feet, and Steve sighs so big his whole chest feels lighter. He breathes in deep, holding as much salty air as his lungs can fit.

The beach is huge. Bigger than his school playground. Bigger than Hawkins, even. Tall grasses wave on the dunes like they’re saying hello, and beyond them is nothing but water—blue and green and silver, stretching all the way to forever.  

The ocean roars, but it’s a good sound. A soft whoosh-whoosh-whoosh that fills his ears without hurting them.

On his way toward the water, he finds a stick.

A really good stick. Long and a little pointy on one end.

It could be a cool pirate sword. He’s gonna use it to make the biggest hole in the world.

He plops down, criss-cross-applesauce, and starts digging. Sand sticks to his shorts, but that’s okay. He can say he tripped later.

He stabs the stick into the ground and drags it out.

The sand slides back in.

He digs again.

Slides back in again.

He huffs and tosses the stick away.

“This is dumb,” he mutters. “You’re dumb.” He means the hole. And the stick. And the sandals. And maybe the whole world.

He’s just about to flop onto his back and stare at the sky, because that usually gets someone to notice him—

When a shadow falls over his hole.

“What’re you doing?”   

Steve looks up.

It’s a girl. About his age.

You stand there, barefoot, hair wild like you ran through ten windstorms. Sand is smudged on your cheek like face paint. He stares at your toes curling happily in the sand and feels a sharp pinch of jealousy.

You drop a bright plastic bucket beside him. It’s full of shells and rocks and something that moves.

A crab lifts its tiny claws and clicks at him.

Steve jerks back. You don’t.

Instead, you plant your hands on your hips and squint down at him like you’ve known him forever.

“You’re not diggin’ right.” you announce.

He blinks. “…I’m not?”

“Nope.” You point at the hole with your whole arm. “Sand’s too dry. It just falls in. You gotta use wet sand.”

“Oh.” He feels silly for not knowing that. “I didn’t know.”

“Well, now you do.” You plop down beside him. Your knees are dirty, covered in scratches and tiny dots from the sand, but you don’t seem to care. “Wanna see how?”

Nobody ever asks him that.

Nobody ever asks him if he wants to see something.

He nods fast. “Yeah.”

You grin and grab his hand, yanking him up so quickly he stumbles.

“I-I’m Steve,” he blurts as he gets dragged toward the ocean, because he knows he’s supposed to introduce himself to new people.

You tell him your name proudly. Then you tilt your head, thinking.

“Can I call you Stevie?”

“Stevie?”

“Yeah! My mom’s favorite singer’s named Stevie.”

Steve thinks about it.

Nobody’s ever given him a nickname before.

It feels special. Like a secret.

“Okay,” he nods, smiling.

You beam and tug him toward the water. “C’mon, Stevie!”

Stevie.

He likes it.

Loves it.

It feels like the sun just turned on inside his chest.

⚓︎

Steve Harrington is 6 years old when summers suddenly mean everything.

The Hamptons stop being itchy shirts and sharp laughs that hurt his ears.

They become you.

Summer means you. It means your laugh, your bucket full of strange treasures, your hair decorated with seashells “because it looks cool.” It means your brave, bossy voice telling him what to do, but always in a fun way.  

Every month of the school year, Steve waits.

And every night before bed, he lines his stuffed dinosaurs up by his pillow and tells them stories about the beach. About the girl with the crab bucket and the sand-matted hair the wind couldn’t catch. About how you call him Stevie because it’s the name of your mom’s favorite singer. About how you don’t care when he wiggles, or gets dirty, or says some words wrong.

When his mom asks if he’s excited for the Hamptons, he just shrugs. “I guess.”

But inside, his chest feels all tight and fizzy, like a soda can he’s not supposed to open yet: Coca-Cola, his favorite.

The whole flight to New York, Steve squints at the numbers on his watch, trying to decide if the big hand is halfway or not. He’s still not very good at telling the time, but he knows enough to know the flight feels like forever.

He ends up staring out the little oval window instead, at clouds that look like giant dinosaur eggs. He wonders if you’d think so, too. He’ll ask you when he sees you.

If he sees you.

What if you aren’t there this year? What if you forgot him?

The thought makes his stomach feel all wiggly and twisty. He doesn’t like it.

He hopes you’re there. He hopes you didn’t forget him.

The moment the car turns onto the long, winding road toward the summer house, Steve scoots forward as far as the belt lets him, pressing his face to the window. When he sees the ocean shining in the distance like a giant blue secret, his chest gets so tight he can hardly breathe.

He can’t wait. He can’t.

He barely waits for the car to stop.

“Stephen! Shoes! Your shoes are going to—oh, for heaven’s sake…”

He doesn’t listen. He takes the steps two at a time, sandals smacking hard against the wood.

He’s taller now. A whole two inches and a half, thank you very much.

He’s faster, too. Knows he is. He’s been practicing during recess, racing Tommy H. behind the swings.

He leaps off the last step and skids into the sand—

“STEVIE!”

He spins around so fast the world blurs.

You’re barreling toward him at top speed. Sand spraying behind you, hair flying everywhere. Your bucket bangs against your knee as you run, rattling and clanking and sounding even fuller than last year.

Steve’s face splits into the biggest grin he’s ever had.

You crash into him, arms wrapping tight around his middle, and the force of it nearly knocks him onto his back.

“HI! Stevie, Stevie—you gotta see this shell I found! Wait, hang on—”

You pull back just far enough to dig frantically through your bucket, dumping half of it into the sand. Rocks tumble out. Then a string of green, slimy seaweed. You grab something big and lumpy and shove it up toward his face.

“See?”  

Steve blinks.

The shell is huge, bigger than his whole hand. Pale pink and creamy white, spiraled tight at one end and opening wide at the other. The outside is dotted with rounded little spikes that feel rough when he traces his fingers over them, but the inside is smooth and shiny.

“That’s really cool,” he says, because everything you do is cool. “It kind of looks like…” He squints hard, turns it sideways. “…a horn?”

Your eyes light up. “Yeah! Like a unicorn.”

He smiles. “Or a dinosaur.” 

“That’s better,” you nod seriously. “Okay now listen!”

Before he can ask what you mean, you press the wide end right against his ear. It’s cold and sandy against his cheek.

“…What’s it do?”

“Just listen.”

He holds very still, not sure what he’s supposed to be listening for.

And then—

Whoosh. Whoosh-whoosh.

His eyes go huge.

“Whoa,” he breathes.

“Cool, right?”

“It’s loud.”

“That’s the ocean.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. It’s stuck in there.”

You drop the shell into his hands and curl his fingers around it. “Keep it.”

He frowns. “But… you found it.”

“It’s okay.” You shrug like it’s obvious. “I’ll find another one. The beach has, like, a million.”

He looks down at the shell again, then back at you. His chest feels funny, all warm and full. It feels good. Really good.

“Hey,” you say suddenly, squinting out toward the water. “Wanna see something even cooler?”

Of course he does.

⚓︎

You drag him everywhere.

To tide pools where little fish zip and hide under wet rocks and the seaweed shimmers in the water. Look, look, a crab!

To a secret hideout between the dunes where the grass grows taller than your heads. This way, Stevie!

To the treasure spot, because every beach has one if you know how to look. You draw an X in the sand with a stick and make a crooked map with squiggly lines and arrows. Quick, Stevie, dig! We have to find the gold before the sea monsters come!

You show him your jar full of hopping sand bugs. One brushes his thumb and he squeaks.

You laugh. He stands up straighter and pretends he wasn’t scared.

You even show him your Very Important rock collection. which is a big deal because you don’t show anyone your rocks—not even your cousins, who are “mean poop-heads who don’t appreciate cool stuff.”

Later, you’re sitting in the sand, sorting shells by color—white pile, pink pile, stripey pile—when you tell him you’re flying back to California when the summer’s over.

“Cal-ee-for-nee-yah,” you say proudly.

Steve blinks. “Why?”

“That’s where my house is.” You shrug. “I stay here with my aunt in the summer.”

“Oh.” He digs his toe into the sand. “So… you’re goin’ away?”

“Just for school.” You glance at him. “I’ll come back. I’ll always come back.”

He looks at you fast, careful, like maybe it’s a trick. “Really?”

“Uh-huh.”

“When?”

“Next summer.”

He thinks about that. A whole year sounds really long, but summers always come back. They have to.

“You promise?”

“Promise,” you nod, sticking out your pinky.

He hooks his around yours immediately, serious as anything. Pinky promises are the strongest kind. Everybody knows that.

“Okay,” he says, finally breathing again. Then his forehead scrunches.

“Where’s… um…” He sticks his tongue out, trying to remember how you said it. “Cal… Cal-uh-for-nee… Cal-uh-for-na?” He shakes his head, mad that he can’t say it right.

You smile. “Yeah! It’s super, super far. You gotta take two planes.”

“Oh.” He nods slowly. Two planes sounds like forever.

You tell him it’s hotter there. That the trees are huge and tall, with giant leaves like green fireworks stuck in the sky.

You tell him the beaches there are bigger. Way bigger.

Steve looks out at the miles of Hamptons shoreline and frowns. “How?”

“They just are,” you insist, tossing a shell onto the striped pile. “And people surf there.”

“What’s that?”

You squint up at the sky. “It’s like… flying. But on water. They stand on boards and go really, really fast.”

Steve blinks, tries to imagine it.  

Flying… but on water.

He knows you can’t fly. Birds can. Planes can. People can’t.

And you definitely can’t stand on water. He tried once in the bathtub. You just sink.

His mouth twists.

“That’s not real,” he says, sure of it.

You scrunch your nose, lip jutting out. “It is too!”  

You shove him—not hard, just enough that he flops backward into the sand with a surprised oof.

For half a second, his stomach drops. Maybe he did something wrong.

He stares up at you, eyes wide, waiting for your face to go tight like grown-ups’ faces when he messes up.

But you’re laughing.

Bright and easy, like nothing’s wrong at all.

Sand sprays as you jump up and spin away, yelling over your shoulder, “Race you to that big rock!”

And you’re gone before he can say wait up.

The tight feeling in his chest disappears.

He scrambles up, laughing too, chasing after you with everything he’s got. Legs burning, sandals slipping, but he doesn’t care.  

It’s perfect.

It’s the best day of his whole life.

Until you fall.

It happens so fast.

One second you’re running ahead of him, laughing, hair flying everywhere.

The next, you stumble over a hard patch in the sand and go down hard.

“Ow!”

Steve skids to a stop so fast he almost falls too. His heart leaps into his throat.

He drops beside you right away. “Are you okay? Are you okay? Oh no, oh no—” His eyes dart all over you, scared and frantic. There’s a smear of red mixed with the sand on your knee. His breath catches.

“Your... your knee,” he whispers.

You sniffle, lip wobbling. “H-hurts.”

It’s the worst word he’s ever heard.

“It’s okay,” he says fast, even though his hands are shaking. He reaches for your arm, then stops, afraid he’ll make it worse if he touches you wrong. “It’s okay. I can fix it. I know how.”

You look up at him, eyes shiny. “…You do?”

He nods hard. “Yeah.”

He doesn’t really know. But his mom fixed his knee once after he fell off his bike. He remembers the cold wipe. The sting. The band-aid after.

“I’m gonna get the band-aid box,” he blurts, pointing up at the house. “I’ll be super fast. I promise.”

“O-okay.”

Before he runs, he leans in and gives you a quick, careful hug around your shoulders, making sure not to touch your knee. It always makes him feel better when you hug him.

“I’ll be fast,” he promises again. “Really fast.”

And then he sprints.

He sprints like he’s never sprinted in his life.

Across the beach, up the steps, through the house, ignoring the sharp call of “Stephen! Shoes!” as he dives into the bathroom.

He drops to his knees and yanks open the cabinet under the sink. He grabs the entire first aid kit, almost the size of his head, and runs back with it rattling in his arms.

You’re still there when he gets back, sitting exactly where he left you.

“I got it!” he pants.

He flips the kit open, hands clumsy, trying to remember how his mom did it. He finds a wipe, tears it open, and gently presses it to your knee—

You hiss and pull back.   

“Sorry!” His eyes go wide. “Sorry, sorry! I’ll do it softer.”

He leans down and blows carefully on your knee.

“Better?”

“…Yeah,” you sniff. “A little.”

He nods, relieved. He wipes as fast and gentle as he can, tongue poking out while he concentrates. Then he grabs a band-aid, peeling it open with his teeth because his fingers won’t work right. He sticks it on crooked, pressing the edges down with both thumbs.

“There,” he breathes, nodding to himself. “All done.”

When he looks up, your eyes are huge and your mouth is open like you just saw a unicorn.

“Hey, are you oka—oof!”

All the air is knocked out of him when you lunge forward, both arms wrapping tight around his neck.

A warm, squishy, full-body hug.

“You’re the nicest boy ever,” you mumble into his shoulder.

Steve freezes.

His ears go hot. His whole chest feels too full, like it might pop.

No one’s ever said that to him before.

“Oh... okay,” he whispers, because he can’t think of any other words.

He hugs you back, being careful and gentle.

And inside him, something huge and glowing starts to form.

Something he doesn’t have a name for yet, but he knows he will carry it with him forever.

⚓︎

Steve Harrington is 10 years old when he realizes he’ll never forget you.

It’s the end-of-the-summer fireworks festival.

He sprints down the familiar sandy path, sneakers thudding, two glass bottles of Coca-Cola clinking together in his hand. A crinkly bag of potato chips is tucked tight under his arm—salt and vinegar, your favorite, even though they make your mouth pucker and your nose wrinkle.

His heart thumps in that way it always does during the very last week of summer, when everything fun is happening all at once—and also ending.

He knows you’re there, waiting for him.

You always are.

Your spot is exactly where it’s been for five summers now: a small dip between two grassy dunes, hidden from the rest of the beach. The sand curves around it like arms, blocking the wind and the noise from the crowd.

You’re sitting on your blanket, legs crossed, tongue poking out as you carefully tie pieces of sea grass together into a bracelet.

When you see him, your whole face lights up.

“Stevie! You got it!”

“’Course I did,” he grins, holding up the chips. “My mom wouldn’t stop talking to Mrs. Aldridge about… I dunno. Hair stuff? It took forever.”

“That’s ’cause grown-ups love being boring,” you say, scooting over. “Sit, sit! The first one’s gonna happen any second.”

He flops down beside you, and you shuffle closer until your shoulder presses against his.

Closer than last year, he thinks.

Your hand brushes his knee when you reach for the snacks. Steve pretends he doesn’t notice, but he notices like crazy.

The first firework explodes with a loud crack, red sparks bursting across the sky.

You gasp, sharp and happy, and grab his hand without thinking.

Your fingers slide between his.

Steve looks down, startled.

Your palm is warm, a little sweaty. His own hand is rough in spots, scraped from climbing the rope at recess back home and picking at scabs he shouldn’t. Your thumb rests right against it.

You don’t let go.

He definitely does not let go.

“Whoa,” you whisper as the sparks fade. “Did you see that? It looked like a flower.”

“Yeah,” Steve says.

But he’s not looking at the sky at all.

The fireworks flash over your face, turning your eyes all sorts of bright, pretty colors: blue, then gold, then pink. Your nose scrunches when one pops extra bright. Every time a big one crackles, you squeeze his hand tighter.

So he squeezes back.

Carefully at first. Then a little braver.

Green fireworks shoot out like tree branches, spiraling high into the dark, but he only really notices because they shine in your eyes.

You’re brighter.

You’re always brighter.

When the sky goes dark for a second and everything is quiet, you turn to him.

“Hey, Stevie?” you whisper.

“Ye-ah?” His voice cracks halfway through. That’s been happening a lot lately. He clears his throat fast and hopes you didn’t hear it.

You smile at him.

“You’re my best friend.”

His stomach flips, like that time he went on the biggest roller coaster at Indiana Beach and thought he might fly right out of his seat.

He sits up a little straighter, squeezing your hand.

“You’re mine too,” he blurts. “Like—like the most. Outta everyone. In the whole world.”

Your face breaks into the biggest smile yet, and before he can think about it, you lean in and wrap your arms around his neck.

A hug.

It feels familiar. But also different.

Bigger. Like it means more than it used to, even if he doesn’t know why.

He hugs you back right away, pressing his nose into your hair. You smell like sunscreen and grape popsicles and the ocean.

“You’re the best, Stevie,” you whisper into his shoulder. “The best ever.”

That fluttery feeling in his stomach comes back, stronger this time. He swallows, nods even though you can’t see it.

“You too,” he says quietly, squeezing you just a little tighter.

Then, just as you pull back, you press a quick kiss to his cheek.

Barely there.

But it feels like something exploding inside his chest.

His face goes burning hot. He’s really glad it’s dark, because he’s pretty sure his cheeks are as red as the fireworks.

Up above, the finale roars to life: fountains of silver streaking upward, bursting into brilliant gold that lights up the entire beach.

You turn back to watch like nothing happened, scooting closer until your head tips and rests against his shoulder.

Steve freezes.

He doesn’t move. Doesn’t breathe.

When he finally has to, he does it slowly, careful not to move an inch. Your fingers curl into his shirt. Your breath is warm against his neck when you let out a small, sleepy sigh.

The fireworks crash and boom overhead, sparkling like giant flowers.

Steve stares at the sky, heart pounding, feeling something change inside him.

Something big.

It’s the first time he understands something he’s never felt before.

Steve Harrington is ten years old when he falls in love with his best friend in the whole world.

⚓︎

Steve Harrington is 12 years old when everything gets... weird.

He’s a lot taller now, second tallest out of the boys his class. He’s faster, stronger. His shoulders are broader, his arms a little longer than he expects when he stretches them out. His hair brushes the tops of his ears, and he kind of likes it that way, even though his mom keeps telling him it’s time for a trim.

And his voice... his voice keeps doing that awful, traitorous squeak. Especially when he’s around you.

But none of that really matters.

Because you’re here.

You’re back.

And you’re different, too.

Not in a big, obvious way. You still run like you’ve got rocket boosters strapped to your ankles. You still crouch by tide pools and whisper to crabs like they’re old friends. You still call him Stevie in the exact same way.

But now...

Now you lean on him sometimes when you sit together. You don’t move away when your knees touch. Now your eyes flick to his mouth when he’s talking, and Steve doesn’t really know what that means, but he knows it means something.

The wind is steady and warm today, bending the dune grass in lazy waves. The two of you sit cross-legged in your secret spot, the same hidden hollow you’ve shared since you were five. Piles of shells and weird rocks you swear might be fossils are scattered between you.

You hand him a perfectly round one with swirls. “This one looks like Neptune,” you declare.  

Steve nods, even though the only thing he knows about Neptune is that it's blue.

He’s not looking at the rock, anyway.

You’re telling him a story about a crab you swear was as big as a dog. You stretch your arms out to demonstrate the size, ridiculously wide.

“Stevie, I swear,” you insist. “Its claws were this big. Could’ve snipped your big toe off.”

Steve nods along, trying to focus on the part where he should laugh.  

But he can’t stop staring.

At the color of your eyes in the sunlight. At the way the breeze lifts strands of your hair and drops them back against your cheek. At the curve of your mouth when you get excited.

He feels weird all the time now. Fluttery and unsteady, like the moment at the top of a roller coaster right before it drops. It happens every time he looks at you, or thinks about you, which is basically always.

He’s thinking about how pretty the sun looks reflecting off your skin, how it catches the little beads of water on your cheek and makes them glint like tiny stars, when suddenly—

You go quiet.

Really quiet.

Steve’s stomach tightens instantly.

You’re never quiet unless you’re asleep or thinking about pulling a prank on him. He stiffens, glancing around for whatever bug or crab you might’ve hidden.

There’s nothing.

You’re just… looking at him.

“Hey, Stevie?” you say softly.

His throat makes a weird clicking noise. “Yeah?”

You scoot closer. Your knee presses against his leg and doesn’t move away.

Your voice drops to a whisper. “I’m gonna do something. Don’t freak out.”

He’s already freaking out. He doesn’t think he’s ever freaked out this much in his entire life.

“O-okay,” he manages.

You nod once, take a tiny breath, lean forward—

And you kiss him.

Right on the mouth.

His first kiss.

Your lips are soft and warm. They press against his for just a second, shorter than a blink, gone before he can react.

You pull back, eyes still closed. Steve is frozen, eyes wide open, mouth puckered.

Your nose crinkles when you open your eyes and see him.

“Stevie,” you giggle. “Close your mouth!”

He snaps it shut so fast his teeth click together.

You completely lose it, laughing as you fall sideways into the sand.

“Oh my god,” you wheeze. “You looked like a fish!”

He groans, mortified, covering his face with both hands as he flops down next to you. “Don’t laugh!”

“I’m sorry!” you say, laughing harder. “I’m not—it’s just—”

He peeks through his fingers, smiling despite himself. He loves the sound of your laugh, even when it’s at his expense.

When your giggles finally soften, you scoot closer on your back until you’re nose to nose, lined up from shoulder to ankle.

Steve turns his head to look at you.

Up close, he can see the little grains of sand stuck to your forehead, the way your lashes cast shadows on your cheeks. His face burns.

“Is…” His voice cracks again, and he swallows. “Is it okay if we… do that again?

Your smile is huge and immediate. “Yeah. I wanna.”

This time, he leans in first.

And this time, he’s ready.

He closes his eyes. Keeps his lips together. Moves slow and careful. His nose bumps your cheek, squishing awkwardly from the angle, and you break into giggles again, turning the kiss wobbly and messy.

When you pull back, you’re both smiling the exact same way.

“Oh my god, your face is so red.”

“It’s—it’s because it’s hot out,” he stammers.

“Nope. It’s you.”

You reach up and ruffle his hair, messing it up completely.  

“Hey!” he sputters, batting at your hand.

You climb halfway on top of him, not really tackling, just laughing, squirming, wrestling in that loose, joyful way where nobody’s trying to win, and he'd let you anyway.

You’re both out of breath by the time you flop back onto the sand, laughing so hard it hurts.

Steve throws an arm over his face, smiling wide, everything dizzy and bright.

The wind brushes over him. The sun hums overhead.

After a while, you stretch your pinky toward him.

He feels it tap against his hand and hooks it without even looking.

“Promise we’ll hang out every summer,” you say.

“That’s easy,” he answers immediately. “Promise.”

Then he props himself up on one elbow and looks down at you, suddenly serious.

“Actually, next time, I’m gonna bring something.”

Your eyes go bright. “Like what?”

“It’s a secret.”

You shove him lightly. “What? Tell me!”

“Nope.” He flops back onto the sand, grinning. “You gotta wait.”

You groan dramatically at the sky, pinky still tangled in his. 

“I hate you.”

He closes his eyes, smiles at the sun.

“No you don’t.”

⚓︎

Steve Harrington is 13 years old when his world stops for the first time.

It happens on a warm June morning, with sunlight slanting through tall windows and the smell of pancakes drifting through the house.

He starts the day happy.

He hums as he packs, can’t help it. He doesn’t even care that his room’s a disaster: swimsuits tossed over the chair, T-shirts half-folded, socks everywhere.

On his desk sits a small shoe box.

He pauses in front of it.

Inside are the things you’ve given him over the years. Precious, timeless treasures.

The spiral shell shaped like a dinosaur horn. The seaweed bracelet, brittle now, faded pale from time. The smooth blue stone you said looked like Neptune.  

He picks up each thing carefully, touches it, turns it over in his hand.  Then he puts them back exactly how they were and closes the lid.

The box goes into the bottom drawer, where it’s safe.

Then he picks up his gift.

It’s clumsy. Strung together with twine, wrapped messily in torn comic-book pages because he couldn’t find real wrapping paper. The corners are taped crooked, the edges uneven. He’s worked on it for years, adding to it bit by bit every summer, telling himself next year every time.

But this year feels different.

This year, he thinks he can give them to you.

He’s even written his address on the top one—carefully, in his neatest handwriting—so maybe you could write to him in California. You’re smart. You’d know how.

He smooths the edges with nervous fingers.

He’s practiced what he’ll say all week.

Hey, these are for you. Too boring.

You can have these, or whatever. Too nothing.

You mean everything to me. Too much. Way too much.

He settles on a smile instead.

You always say he has a nice one, that he smiles with his whole face, that his eyes squish up “like a happy chipmunk.”

No one else ever says things like that to him. Not the way you do.

He’s halfway through folding a beach towel when his mom’s voice floats up the stairs.

“Stephen? Breakfast.”

“Coming!” he calls, already jogging down barefoot, taking the steps two at a time, giddy.

His mom is in the kitchen, stirring her coffee neatly. His dad sits at the table with the newspaper spread wide.

“Hey, Mom,” Steve says, breathless. “Have you seen my hat? The one with the red stripe? I can’t find it.”  

She doesn’t look up.

“Stephen,” she says evenly, “we aren’t going to the Hamptons this summer.”

The world stops.

“...Huh?”

She sets her spoon down. “We’ve decided to do Europe instead.”

For one second, he thinks it’s a joke. He lets out a short, confused laugh and looks at his dad.

His throat goes tight when nobody smiles.

“What?” Steve croaks.

“You’re thirteen now, Stephen,” his dad says, turning the page. “It’s time you saw culture. Real culture.”

“But...” Steve shakes his head, hair falling into his eyes. “But we always go to the Hamptons.”

“This will be good for you,” his mom says, smiling lightly. “Europe will be lovely.”

Lovely.

Like the sound of your laugh.

Like the colors of fireworks in your eyes.

Like the warmth of your hug when you called him the nicest boy ever.

“N-no, but—” His voice cracks. “But I have a friend.”

“You’ll make new ones.”

“You don’t understand,” he says, words tripping over each other, panic rising fast. “I have to—I promised—I told her I’d—”

His dad sighs, newspaper crinkling. “Stop whining.”

Steve flinches.

“I’m not whining,” he whispers.

His mom steps closer and smooths his hair back like he’s still little. “You’ll love Europe, darling. Now eat your breakfast. You can finish packing after.”  

Something hot and awful swells in his chest.

He wants to scream. He wants to cry. He wants to throw the coffee pot at the wall and watch it shatter.

Instead, he tries again.

“Please,” he begs, voice breaking completely now. “Please, Mom. We have to go. She’ll be waiting. I told her I’d come back. Just this year. Please.”

He promises to be good. That he won’t run off to the beach without permission. That he won’t complain during parties. He swears he’ll do more chores, stop arguing, get better grades. He’ll be perfect. He’ll be anything.

Anything.

“Stephen,” his father snaps, voice like a slammed door. “Drop it.”

Something inside Steve drops with it.

Falls.

Cracks.

Shatters.

⚓︎

He runs upstairs, slams his door and locks it. Drags his dresser in front of it with shaking arms. Slides down onto the carpet, breaths coming in sharp, broken pieces.

He doesn’t come out the rest of the day.

That night, he sleeps with your shell clutched in his hand, pressed tight against his ear. The ocean hums inside it. If he closes his eyes, he can pretend he’s there—pretend you’re tugging his hand, pulling him toward the water.

Stevie, look!

He cries until his pillow is soaked.

⚓︎

The Hamptons house stays closed all summer; curtains drawn, doors locked, a whole season going on without him.

On the way to the airport, Steve presses his cheek to the car window and watches the world blur past.

He doesn’t know how to send a letter. He doesn’t know where in California you live.  

He can’t call. Can’t write. Can’t find you.

There is no treasure map back.  

Just sandcastles washed away by tides and a pinky promise he couldn’t keep.

He pictures you standing in the dunes, bucket in hand, looking over your shoulder.

Waiting.

Maybe you’re mad.

Maybe you’re worried.

Maybe you’re thinking he forgot you.

That thought hurts so badly he has to bite down on his knuckle to keep quiet.

⚓︎

In hotel rooms across Europe, Steve lies awake at night, staring at unfamiliar ceilings.

He tries not to cry.

Some nights, he fails.

But he does it silently, face shoved into a pillow, because boys his age aren’t supposed to do that anymore.

In Florence, he stares at the Arno River and thinks of the ocean. Wonders if you’re there right now, toes buried in the sand, waiting for him to complain that the water’s cold just so you can grab his wrist and drag him in, laughing.

In Paris, he watches fireworks bloom over the Eiffel Tower and feels sick.

Red, gold, and blue explodes across the sky, but all he can see is your eyes. Your hand laced through his, your head heavy and warm on his shoulder.

You’re my best friend.

He cries himself to sleep on expensive hotel sheets, muffling his sobs into Egyptian cotton until it’s dark with salt.

In dreams, he is flying.

The wide blue waters of California stretching endlessly below him, carrying him closer to you.

⚓︎

Steve Harrington is 15 years old when he learns how to disappear.

The hallways are packed tight with shouting and shrill laughter. Boys slam into each other on purpose. Everyone pretends they’re bigger, tougher, cooler than they were three months ago.

So Steve pretends, too.

He discovers the power of hairspray, learns how to make his hair work for him.

By October, everybody has an opinion about him. Mostly girls.

“Oh my god, Steve Harrington is so cute.” “Right? He looks taller than last year.” “Did you see his hair? Total dream.”

He smiles. He flirts. He jokes. He learns to be charming the way his father is at dinner parties—making people laugh, making them lean in close.

It works.

High school is a costume. And Steve Harrington wears it well.

⚓︎

One afternoon in P.E., Tommy Hagan decides Steve is “my best bud, actually.”

It happens after the 100-meter sprint. Steve wins without really trying, legs strong and fast from years of racing barefoot across sand dunes.

Tommy slaps him on the back hard enough to knock the air out of him.

“Harrington! Jesus, dude, you move.”

Steve grins, even though his shoulder stings.

Harrington. Not Stevie.

Tommy hooks an arm around his neck like they’ve been friends for years. Carol Perkins tells him she likes his hair.  

And for the first time since losing you, Steve feels something close to relief.

He’s not alone.

⚓︎

Sophomore year, someone calls him King Steve for the first time.

He laughs, because it sounds stupid.

But the name sticks, like gum on a shoe.

He’s captain of the swim team now. Sixteen years old and he’s already broken the state record for the 200-yard freestyle. His body does what he tells it to, and he likes that. Likes the rush of being good at something, the roar of the crowd every time he touches the wall first.

His parents are almost never home anymore. No more summer trips to Europe, or anywhere. They leave him with a credit card and a spotless house.

Steve makes it his personal mission to ruin that.

He throws the loudest, wildest parties he can, every chance he gets. Music shaking the walls. People jumping on furniture, spilling drinks, diving into the pool with all their clothes on.

Everyone loves the parties.

Everyone loves King Steve.

⚓︎

Steve has a drawer that no one opens.

Not his parents. Not the housekeeper. Not even him, most days.

The wood sticks when it’s pulled, swollen from years of humidity and neglect.

Inside it is a shoe box.

Shells. Rocks. A bracelet that doesn’t fit anymore.

Remains of summers he pretends not to remember.

Most nights, he leaves it alone.

But sometimes—when the house feels too big, when everyone’s gone home and the silence presses in—he opens the drawer.

Lifts the lid.

He doesn’t touch anything.

Just looks.

He wonders if you remember him.

If you still call him Stevie in your head.

If you ever think of those summers: the dunes, the fireworks, the scrape on your knee.

Then he closes the box. Slides it back into the dark.

In the morning, he is Harrington once again.

⚓︎

Steve Harrington is 18 years old when the letter finally arrives.

It sits on his desk for three days, unopened.

The envelope is thick, cream-colored and heavy. He knows what it says. He’s known since the phone call, since his coach clapped him on the shoulder and grinned, since the guidance counselor told him he should be so proud of himself.

He isn’t sure if he is.

On the fourth day, he carries it downstairs.

His father takes the packet without ceremony, skims the first page, and scoffs.

“California,” he says flatly.

Steve nods, throat tight. “They’ve got a really strong swim program.”

His father exhales through his nose and sets the packet down like it might stain the table.

“A public university. On the other side of the country.”

“It’s—” Steve clears his throat. “They offered me a scholarship.”

The look he gets says more than words ever could.

“Stephen,” his father says, tone perfectly level, “state schools are for kids who don’t have better options. California is lazy, full of idlers. It’s not the kind of place where you get serious about your future.”

Steve feels a familiar pressure building up in his chest, hand around his ribs, that same old relentless squeeze.

“Real academics are here, on the East Coast," his father continues. “Institutions with standards. History. You don’t see men running this country who went to beach schools.”

“Dad,” Steve says quietly. “I worked for this. I earned it.”

His father doesn’t even look up. “You were recruited. Because you can swim.”

Steve’s fingers curl around the edge of the chair, knuckles whitening beneath the table.

“I’m not paying for you to run off to California,” his father says, voice precise, final. “Just so you can throw parties and chase girls and waste your life on nonsense.”

The room shrinks.

For a moment, Steve is thirteen again.

Bare feet on cold tile, begging for one last summer.

Promising he’ll behave. Promising he’ll try harder. Promising he’ll be whatever they want him to be.

He really thought this time would be different. Thought being older meant they’d finally listen.

Something quiet settles inside him.

“Fine,” he says, pushing his chair back. “I’ll pay for it myself.”

His father lets out a short laugh. “With what money?”

Steve picks up the envelope. Feels its weight.

Possibility, distance, risk.

Hope.

“I’ll figure it out.”

He doesn’t wait for an answer.

He goes upstairs and starts packing that night.

⚓︎

Numbers race furiously through his mind as he clears his room.

The scholarship covers some of the tuition, but not housing. Not books. Not fees.

He’ll start lifeguarding again in the summers. Take early morning shifts during the year, work weekends. Take out loans under his own name.

It won’t be easy.

But it will be his.

⚓︎

He loads his entire world into the BMW.

It doesn’t take long.

For someone who’s grown up with so much, there isn’t much that’s actually his.

Clothes. Swim trophies. His alarm clock. A framed photo from a family vacation he’s too young to remember: his parents smiling, arms around each other. He hesitates, then slides it into a box face-down.

The last thing he opens is the drawer.

It sticks, like it always does.

Inside is the shoe box.

And beneath it, the gift he never got to give you. Built slowly, carefully, over summers that feel like they happened to someone else now.

He tucks them both into his duffel bag, wedged between folded clothes so they won’t shift.

His father doesn’t come outside.

His mother stands at the edge of the driveway, watching him pack the car in silence. When he’s finished, she steps forward and smooths his collar the way she used to when he was little.

Then she presses a folded envelope into his hand.

It’s heavy.

He doesn’t open it. Just nods, gives her the best smile he can manage.

Closes the trunk.

Gets behind the wheel.

Looks west.

⚓︎

Steve Harrington is 20 years old when his world stops for a second time.

He likes California.

The weather, the people, the food. He likes the way the air always smells like the ocean here, the way winter barely exists. He never liked the cold anyway.

College is different in ways he didn’t know to expect. He’s found classes that actually interest him, professors who ask questions and wait for real answers.

He has friends now who say they’ll see him tomorrow and mean it. Who sit on the floor with him at two in the morning talking about nothing and everything: music, stupid theories, what they want to do after graduation, whether anyone really knows who they are yet.

He still gets tired sometimes.

Tired of himself. Tired of that old, hollow echo that never fully went away. But that weight isn’t constant anymore. It shifts. Recedes. It loosens its grip when he’s laughing with his roommates, tossing a beach ball across the sand, swimming lap after lap until his muscles burn and his mind goes quiet.    

The house is packed tonight.

Last party of the school year. Spilled soda, cheap perfume, summer sweat and warm beer. Music thunders through the walls. Bodies press together, shouting and laughing over the noise.

An older teammate claps him on the back. “Harrington! Hell of a party, man.”

Steve smiles, nods, laughs along.

Can’t shake off that feeling, still. That faint sense of displacement that hums under everything.  

He drifts through the crowd, eyes unfocused, letting motion and color wash over him. Someone nearly spills a drink on his shoes. Someone dances too close. It all registers. None of it sticks.

Then, he hears it.

A laugh.

Clear. Bright. A recognition that tightens his chest before his brain can catch up.

Steve turns slowly, frowning, not sure why his body is moving toward the sound.

Near the doorway, head tipped back in laughter, hair catching the light—

There’s a girl.

Not quite a stranger. Not quite someone he knows.

Familiar in the way a dream is: sharp in feeling, slippery in detail. Memories flicker past him, too fast to grab—the curve of a smile, the tilt of a head—dissolving like sand through his fingers.

He stares without meaning to.

You turn.

Your eyes find his.

Your drink freezes halfway to your lips. Confusion flickers across your face, soft and fleeting.

Then recognition.

Disbelief.

“...Stevie?”

Something in his chest detonates.

The hollow feeling he’s been carrying shatters into a thousand fragments of warmth and longing he didn’t know he’d been saving.

You step closer, eyes wide, face lit with a smile he hasn’t seen in years but never truly forgot.

“Oh my god,” you breathe, half-laughing. “It’s you.”

Steve can’t speak.

His throat closes. The world narrows.

He’s thirteen again, standing barefoot on cold tile, begging for a summer that never came.

He’s ten, sunburned and breathless, watching fireworks bloom in your eyes.

He’s six, running barefoot toward the sound of your laughter, sand sticking to his ankles.

He’s five, staring up at a girl with a bucketful of stolen seashells, telling him he’s digging wrong.

He’s a lonely kid on the beach, carving crooked shapes into the sand, waiting for someone to come find him.

And you did.

You always did.

The cup slips from his hand. Beer splashes across the floor, unnoticed.

He whispers your name.

A decade of wanting, released in one sound.

⚓︎

“...Hi.”

“...Hi.”

“How—”

“What—”

He laughs, scrubs a hand through his hair, suddenly nervous in a way he hasn’t felt in years. His palms are damp, heart stumbling over itself.

“Sorry,” he says, shaking his head. “I just—I can’t believe you’re actually—”

You surge forward and wrap your arms around his neck, tight enough to knock the air from his lungs.

“Oh my god,” you whisper against his ear, voice breaking. “I missed you.”

For a second, Steve just stands there.

Stricken. Breathless. His brain lagging behind what his heart already knows.

Then his arms come up—slowly, instinctively, carefully folding around you. He lowers his head, presses his nose into your shoulder, breathing you in like proof.

He doesn’t say I missed you too.

It wouldn’t be enough. Wouldn’t come close. Wouldn’t touch the years, the distance, everything he’s lost and carried and never learned how to put down. How your memory has lived inside him like a second spine, holding him upright when nothing else did.

Instead, he tightens his grip and whispers:

“I’m sorry.”

You don’t say it’s okay.

But you let out a soft breath and pull him closer, arms firm around his shoulders.

And that, more than words, feels like forgiveness.

⚓︎

The place is called Scoops Ahoy. 

Steve hasn’t been inside it in years, but the second he steps through the door, it all comes rushing back.

The headache-bright fluorescents. The aggressively nautical theme: ropes and anchors, boat-shaped displays that never quite made sense. The faint, permanent stickiness of the floor, no matter how often it gets mopped.

He worked here his freshman year, back when he was desperate for cash and all the good jobs were taken by upperclassmen with better timing. It had been fine. Mind-numbing, but fine. The ice cream was decent if you ignored the décor and the way the lighting made everyone look a little sickly.  

At this hour, it’s dead.

Completely empty except for the girl working the register—short, sandy-brown hair, half-slouched over the counter as she flips through a comic, clearly counting down the seconds until closing.

But Steve can't bring himself to focus on any of it.

Because you’re here.

You’re actually here, leaning over the glass case, eyes flicking back and forth between flavors like this is the most important decision you’ve made all day. You bite your lip and his eyes follow the movement, unbidden.

He can’t stop staring.

The whole thing feels surreal, like a fever dream his brain stitched together out of old memories and wishful thinking.  

Like he might blink and you’ll disappear.

But the details are all the same.

The way you tilt your head when you’re thinking. The faint crease between your eyebrows when you’re overanalyzing something that really shouldn’t matter this much. The way your mouth presses into that familiar line when you can’t decide.

And when you glance back at him, eyes warm and expectant, that exact same light glows there. 

You smile. “What’re you getting?”

Steve blinks, realizing he’s been staring for way too long. He clears his throat and forces himself to look down at the ice cream like he hasn’t seen this exact lineup a hundred times before.

“Uh,” he says, squinting thoughtfully. “The salted caramel’s usually pretty good.”

“Ooh.” You nod, completely serious. “Yeah, that does sound good.”

He smiles before he can stop himself.

His eyes flick up to the menu on the wall, scanning for something he half-hopes they got rid of. But no—there it is, in all its over-the-top glory.

The Triple Decker Extravaganza.

“Why don’t we just get the sundae?” he offers. “That way you can pick whatever you want.”

You turn to him, eyes lighting up. “Really?”

“Yeah,” he grins. “Go nuts.”

Your face brightens instantly, and something in his chest goes warm as he watches you lean forward again, picking out flavors, debating them out loud.

Steve just stands there, smiling like an idiot.

When he pulls out his wallet without thinking, you don’t stop him.

“Thanks,” you say softly, glancing at him.

“Don’t mention it.”

He shoots the girl behind the register an apologetic look as he pays, knows this order’s a nightmare. Hot fudge, caramel, whipped cream, cherries. Those stupid little sail-shaped cone pieces that always break in half. He slips an extra ten into the tip jar, and her expression improves instantly.

The sundae arrives in a ridiculous plastic boat, wobbling under the weight of it all.

You laugh, delighted, as Steve carefully carries it over to the counter by the window. You hop up onto a stool, legs swinging as you settle in.

Outside, the street is calm, washed in neon and soft sodium light. The glass reflects both of you faintly, past and present overlapping in double exposure.

Steve sits beside you, close enough that your shoulders almost brush.

You start asking questions the same way you always did, listening like every answer matters.  

“What’s your major?”

“Business,” he shrugs, digging his spoon into the ice cream. “But… I don’t know. I’ve been thinking about switching. I like my psych classes way more than econ.”

“Really? What kind of psych?”

“Developmental stuff, mostly. Kids, families. That kind of thing.”

You nod, thoughtful, spoon hovering midair. “You’d be really great with kids.”

He lets out a surprised laugh. “Yeah? I mean... I don’t know.”

“No, I’m serious,” you insist, turning on your stool to face him. “You’ve always been patient. You’re a great listener. You care.”  

He blinks, goes quiet. Looks at you for a beat too long before remembering to glance away.

“Thanks… uh, what about you?”

You tell him about your classes, your roommates. The professor who assigns too much reading. The weird smell in your dorm hallway no one can identify. How the ocean never really gets old, even when you see it every day.

“So,” you ask eventually, tilting your head. “How’d you end up picking a school all the way out here?”

Steve stirs the melted ice cream with his spoon, not meeting your eyes.

“I don’t know. I mean, the scholarship helped, but I guess I just wanted somewhere warmer. Closer to the water.”

He doesn’t say how much of it was quiet, impossible hope.

Doesn’t say how a tiny part of him thought maybe, just maybe, he’d find you here.

“You know,” he says after a moment, voice lower, “I should’ve asked for your phone number back then. Or your address. Or... something.” He huffs out a breath. “I don’t know why I didn’t.”

“Hey,” you slide your hand over his, squeezing once. “We’re here now. Right?”

He nods, throat tight. “Yeah.”

You smile and return to the ice cream. He does too.

A new song crackles over the speakers, and you start humming along absentmindedly. It takes him a second to realize what it is.

Edge of Seventeen.

Stevie Nicks.

He meets your eyes.

Feels something click, then.

He’s never really believed in fate.

But if there were ever a reason to try, a reason to hope in a world that so often disappoints, he thinks that reason would be you.

⚓︎

When the ice cream’s gone and the girl behind the counter starts wiping things down a little too pointedly, you hop off the stool.  

June nights in Santa Barbara are warm, carrying faint traces of salt from the ocean. You stop beneath the neon glow of the marquee outside, the lights painting your silhouette in soft blues and pinks.

Steve’s heart stutters.

What happens now?

He's dreading the ending; there are years stretched between you now, whole versions of you he’s never met. So much left to ask, to know. To say.

He rubs the back of his neck.

“It’s late,” he says. “I should probably let you go. Maybe I could get your dorm’s phone number? Or we could grab lunch someti—”

You’re smiling when you kiss him.

Up on your toes, fingers clutching the front of his shirt as you pull him down. Your lips taste sweet: strawberry and chocolate, cherry and vanilla. Every flavor, because you couldn’t decide. Because he wanted to share.

The neon hums above you. The world narrows again.

This kiss lasts longer than the last one he shared with you. Long enough for him to cup your cheek, to brush his thumb along your jaw, to realize, distantly, how much better he is at this now.

He knows how to angle his head just right, slant his lips to deepen the press, to pull you closer by the small of your back and have you flush against him.

When you pull back, he chases your lips all the way until you've dropped back onto your heels.

You blink your eyes open, tongue darting over your lip like you’re tasting him, too.

He has to force himself to step back, fight the urge to lean in again.

You both speak at once.

“So—"

“Would you—”

He laughs. “Sorry. You first.”

You laugh too, shaking your head. “I was just gonna ask if you wanted to come back to mine. My roommates are gone for the weekend.”

He stares at you, stunned. Hopes the neon glow is bright enough to wash out the red rushing to his cheeks.

“Yeah,” he manages. “Sure. Yeah. Okay.”

You smile and reach for his hand, threading your fingers through his.

You don’t let go.

He definitely does not let go.

⚓︎

You’re kissing him the moment the door clicks shut.

There’s no pause, no awkward second-guessing—just the soft thud of the door and then you’re there, hands fisted in his shirt, lips warm and insistent against his. It’s messy and eager, teeth knocking, breath tangling, soft laughter trapped between two mouths as he murmurs, We should—we should probably slow down, even as he’s nudging his sneakers off with his heel.

Your apartment is small in the best way, quiet and lived-in. Soft amber lamplight, a throw blanket folded over the couch, lingering scents of citrus and cinnamon. Steve takes it in only in flashes, details flickering at the edges of his vision before your fingers slide back into his hair and the rest of the world drops away.

Clothes come off in a scattered trail to your bedroom.

Your jeans get kicked aside in the hallway. His shirt gets stuck halfway over his head and he has to pull back, laughing breathlessly while you help tug it free, your hands warm against his sides. He keeps his lips pressed to yours as he guides you backward, hands around your waist, bumping his shoulder in the doorframe and grinning like an idiot.

It’s not until you’re straddling him that he really stops.

Until he’s sitting on your bed, your sheets rumpled under his hands, your pillow pressed against his back.

You’re in his lap in nothing but your underwear, knees snug around his hips, solid and warm and real.

Steve looks down.

Feels it hit him all at once.

He hasn’t done this in a while. Hasn’t had a real girlfriend in college, too busy chasing grades, covering rent, picking up shifts whenever he could. A few dates here and there—awkward dinners, polite kisses—nothing that ever stayed.

Nothing that felt like this.

Your hand comes up, soft and sure, brushing along his cheek.

“Hey,” you murmur. “You okay?”

He swallows.

Steve doesn’t know if there is a word for what he’s feeling. Okay feels laughably small for what’s sitting in his chest right now, this swelling mix of affection and disbelief and something like gratitude.

“Yeah,” he starts, instinctively reaching for easy words. Fine. Good. All good.

Then he stops, shakes his head. Why hold back? Why say anything less than the truth?   

“God, I just—” He exhales, voice thick, heart full, "I can’t believe I found you.”

Your expression softens, eyes shining as you lean down to kiss him again.

And that, more than words, feels like being found right back.

⚓︎

What happens next is a slow unlearning of loneliness.

A careful dismantling of habits built around absence, years of swallowed affection and muted instincts.

Steve Harrington has learned to hush the restless stirrings of his heart, to press down the parts that ache too loudly, that reach too far, that insist on wanting. He’s gotten good at filling his days with noise, instead. Convinced himself that wanting too much is the same as wanting wrong. That loneliness is a failing, something you earn by expecting more than you’re allowed to have.

He's blamed himself for it for as long as he can remember.

But being with you is like a light dropped straight into the darkest hollow of him, the deepest pit in the sand, a sudden clarity that leaves nowhere to hide. He realizes, with quiet devastation, just how far down the emptiness goes. How much he’s learned to live without.

And now, here, with you, he has to unlearn it.

It happens slowly. In inches. In pauses.

A quiet rediscovery of loving you in this new, intimate way.   

He wants to know everything.

He wants to know what makes your breath hitch. What makes your fingers curl into the sheets. What makes you go quiet in that way that tells him he’s doing something right.

He kisses you constantly. Your mouth, your jaw, the soft place beneath your ear, the hollow at your throat—familiar paths he remembers tracing once upon a time, and new ones he maps with reverent patience.

He slides down over your stomach, kissing his way lower, gaze fixed on the heavy flutter of your lashes, the swell of your ribs when you let out a pleasured sigh. He takes your hand and fists it into his hair, hoping you’ll guide him—let him learn you, let him get this right.

And when he buries his face between your thighs for the first time—nose pressing into your mound, breathing you in, tasting you—it feels like coming home.

He’s missed this, being on his knees, giving. It used to be his favorite thing, always loved the way it quieted his mind, narrowed the world down to a single purpose. It made him feel useful, wanted.

But with you, this ritual turns into something else entirely.

He tracks your reactions with obsessive devotion: the furrow of your brow, the slow roll of your hips. The way your mouth falls open when he does something just right, when you want him to stay still, right there, exactly where you need him.

When he kisses his way back up your body, when he lines himself up with shaking hands and presses inside you, it’s face to face.

There’s no other way he could do it. Mouth to mouth. Forehead to forehead. Kissing, kissing, never not kissing; he needs the contact, the anchor, the constant reassurance that this is real.

That you’re here.

He wants to swallow the sounds you’re making, the way you gasp his name, and lock it inside himself. Let it sink deep, press it into bone and marrow. Carry it into that hollow place in his chest and let it bloom, fill him up until there’s no room left for doubt.

He knows he’s not going to last very long. You’re so soft, so wet, so impossibly beautiful, he can already feel the tension gathering low in his gut.

He only fights it long enough to get the words out.

Words that have been there for years. Pressed down, swallowed, buried under caution and embarrassment and the certainty that he always feels too much, too fast. Nobody ever wanted that kind of intensity for very long.

But he’s tired of pretending.  

And with you, he doesn’t have to.

He holds your hand against the bed, brings his forehead to yours.

The words cling to his throat, years of longing coiled tight—but this time, he doesn’t force them down.

With his lips brushing yours, he finally lets them go.

“I love you.”

The fear is instinctive. Familiar. A split-second flinch where he waits for the recoil, the moment someone decides it’s too much after all.

But it melts clean away when you answer him without hesitation, arms tightening around his neck as you kiss him back.

“I love you, too.”

And the hollow place in his chest turns into the sun once more.

⚓︎

The rest of the night is spent talking.

Kissing, touching, holding, kissing some more, just because he can.

He starts with the easy things. The dumb things. Stories about bad roommates, the worst job he ever worked, the time he locked himself out of his car in the rain and had to wait two hours for a tow.

Eventually, the jokes thin out. The pauses stretch.

He shifts, breathes in, and starts talking about the things he doesn’t like to think about. The quiet fears he keeps folded away. The weight of expectations, some inherited, some entirely his own. How surreal it feels to wake up as someone his younger self could never have pictured. To realize that the future he imagined so clearly once—simple, linear, inevitable—never actually existed.

He admits, quietly, that sometimes he worries there’s something wrong with him.

That everyone else seems to know how to be casual about life in a way he never has. Like they can want things lightly, hold them loosely, walk away without it costing them anything.

He’s never been built that way.

He feels things fast and deep. And for a long time, he resented it. Resented how much it hurt, how impossible it felt to turn it off.

You don’t interrupt. You just listen, fingers laced through his, thumb brushing slow circles over his knuckles. Every so often, you squeeze his hand, and he squeezes back.

Once the hardest parts are out, his thoughts drift forward.

He talks about wanting a job that matters to people. That helps. Something that lets him look at himself at the end of the day and feel like he showed up right, even if he hasn’t figured out what that’s supposed to look like yet. He wants to believe there’s a place for him in this world where caring isn’t a weakness.

When the conversation lulls into silence, you tilt your head back to look up at him.

“Did you ever learn how to surf?” you ask.

“Hm?”

“Surf. I remember you always wanted to see what that was like. When we were kids.”

He lets out a small smile. “No. I mean, I thought about it, but... just never had the time. Or the balance.”  

You hum and settle comfortably against his chest. “Tomorrow.”

He blinks. “Tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow,” you repeat. “There’s a part of the beach I want to show you. You have to squeeze between some rocks to get there, but it opens up into this hidden alcove. Could be like our new secret spot.”

Steve smiles into your hair, already imaging it. Doing what he’s always done: throwing himself into the picture, letting it fill him up.

Tomorrow, you’ll take him to the beach.

Down between the rocks, your favorite spot.

You’ll show him where to step and where not to. You’ll rent two surfboards from that tiny shack down the road. You’ll laugh when he wipes out the second he hits the water, sputtering and embarrassed.

You’ll teach him how to stand. How to trust the water.

How to fly, just a little.

Tomorrow, he’ll show you the shoebox.

The one tucked into the bottom drawer of his dresser. The one that followed him through moving days and borrowed apartments. Filled with pieces of you he never let himself leave behind.

Tomorrow, he’ll give you what he couldn’t at the age of thirteen.

A stack of letters, one for every year since the summer he met you. ’72 all the way through ’79.

He always wrote them the night before he left for the Hamptons, lying awake with his heart pounding, thinking about the long stretch of coast waiting for him—and the best friend he’d get to share it with.  

He never found the courage to bring them with him when he was younger. But he kept writing anyway. Promising himself that, one day, he’d be brave enough to give them all to you.

He imagines sitting beside you while you read each one out loud. Smiling, shaking your head.  

Maybe you’ll tease him, call him cheesy, a hopeless romantic.

He doesn’t think you will, though. He thinks you’ll be gentle. He thinks you’ll love him more for it.

And once that thought takes hold, the future comes rushing in—faster, fuller, harder to stop.

He starts imagining days that stretch far beyond tomorrow, days where he wakes before you and watches the sunlight move across your face. Burnt toast and cheap coffee. Walking you home after class, fingers laced, listening to you talk about your day.

A shared place down by the water. Small, probably. Close enough to the beach that the sand never really leaves. Grocery lists on the fridge. Music playing while you cook together, bumping hips, stealing kisses.

He catches himself, shakes the thoughts loose with a soft, embarrassed breath.

Eight years is a long time to be apart. He knows there’s still so much about you he doesn’t know. True to form, he’s moving too fast, chasing desire before reason can catch up.

But eight years is also nothing.

Nothing measured against a lifetime. Nothing but a detour that still carried him back toward the main path. It only ever led to one place.

You stir softly in half-sleep, nestled beneath his arm, and Steve presses a little closer.

Sleep pulls at him too, heavy and kind.

He surrenders to it, lets it take him, because for now, it’s enough.

For now, he has tomorrow.

⚓︎

In dreams, he is thirteen again.

He is twelve, he is ten, he is six, and he is five.

He is walking down a wide, endless expanse of blue, waves whispering at his feet, the sky stretching forever overhead.

And beside him, hand in hand, is his best friend in the whole world.

June 24th, 1979

Hi!

I know I’m going to see you tomorow but I wanted to write this anyway. Sometimes when I try to say stuff out loud it doesn’t come out right. I know what I meen in my head but it gets all messed up or I forget what I was going to say. Writing it down makes it better.

I wrote you a letter every summer. One for every year. So you won’t forget me and all the fun things we did and the stuff we talked about. I keep all of them in a box, kind of like how you keep all your rocks and shells. Some of the older ones are really bad and there’s a lot of drawings and speling mistakes but maybe you’ll still like them.

I think about you a lot when we’re not together. Like when something funny happens or when I see something you like. Last week I saw a picture of a crab in my science book and I thought about what name you would give it.

I really really like you. You’re funny and nice and you understand me better than anyone else. You listen to me even when I talk too much or can’t say some words right. You make me feel special. I don’t have to pretend to be different or cooler or anything when I’m with you.

Sometimes I wish I lived in Californiya so we could see each other every day. I think about that a lot. Like we could just hang out whenever we wanted. Go to the beach and do surfing and stuff. Maybe one day I could come visit you or you could come visit me.

I’m really excited to see you tomorow. I hope you like this and I hope you don't think it’s dumb. I just want you to know how much you mean to me.

P.S. This is my adress so you can write me back if you want. 1590 willow creek lane, loch nora, hawkins, indiana 46001

P.P.S. I listened to that band you told me about. I really like the song You Make Loving Fun. It makes me think about you. Maybe we can listen to it together when I see you tomorrow?

Your best friend, Stevie

You should be reviewing your role in the plan, the position that keeps you beside Mike and Lucas as the assigned lookout for Hopper while he slips through the burn distraction and descends into the Upside Down. 

Hopper is risking everything by entering the perimeter alone, and you are supposed to be watching the dark behind him for the slightest sign of movement.

Those are the thoughts that should be filling your head. Serious thoughts. Necessary ones.

But they do not.

Your mind is not on the maps or the radios or the tight pull of tension running through the room. It is not on the creature hiding beneath the crawl’s design, or the danger waiting on the other side of the gate.

Instead, your attention keeps drifting to something far less important and somehow far more distracting.

The only movement you can focus on is your boyfriend standing a little too close to his ex.

Steve stands at one of the central tables, rolling his sleeves to his elbows while Nancy points out a small circled note on the map. 

The two of them speak quietly, too close, their heads bent over the same sheet of paper. There is space everywhere in this warehouse, yet they somehow occupy inches between them. Nancy gestures again, and Steve nods along, hair falling slightly over his forehead.

It should not bother you. It really should not.

Nancy is with Jonathan. Steve is with you. These are facts. Clear, simple facts that should repel every insecure thought pressing against your ribs.

But the truth is far more complicated.

Nancy Wheeler carries a presence that is difficult to ignore. She is intelligent, steady, and unflinching in moments when most people would fall apart. There is a quiet precision to the way she moves, as if her instincts have been trained by years of surviving things no teenager should survive. The light catches in her hair, and her expression stays calm even while the room pulses with nerves. She looks like she belongs here, in this place built on tension and fear, as though belonging is something she learned to master long ago.

And she and Steve share years you were never part of. Years shaped in the aftermath of breakups, reconciliations, monsters, and late-night plans that forged a bond no outsider can fully understand.

So when Steve leans over the map, jaw set, eyes bright with that familiar focus he gets before a fight, something shifts inside you. 

A small, unwelcome drop in your stomach. A reminder that no matter how firmly you hold someone’s hand, there are parts of their history you can never touch. Jealousy is a quiet creature;; It slips in without your permission.

You try to focus. You try to breathe. You try to tell yourself there are bigger things at stake tonight than the way Nancy leans in or the way Steve’s mouth curves when he agrees with her assessment.

But the thoughts creep in anyway.

Thoughts you cannot block out, no matter how hard you try.

Thoughts that whisper you are not enough and never will be.

Thoughts that ask why Steve looks so alive when talking to her.

You swallow hard, fingers curling around the strap of your bag. Voices blur around you as Dustin argues about radio channels with Robin and Jonathan sets down another crate of gear. Everything is moving, and yet you feel painfully still, like your insecurity has frozen you in place.

Nancy notices you before Steve does.

Her eyes lift, quick and precise, the way they do when she is already three steps ahead of the room. She gives a small nod in greeting and shifts the map closer to you.

“You made it,” Nancy says, her tone focused but not unkind. “We were just finishing up coverage. You’ll be with Mike and Lucas tonight. Hopper wants eyes on the east access hall while he goes in.”

You shake yourself out of your spiraling thoughts and bring your attention back to the map. “Yeah. I’m here,” you answer, steadying your voice. “Just tell me where you need me.”

Robin waves from the corner, leaning against the table stacked with radios. “Finally. We were just debating who should take the binoculars tonight.”

Mike groans. “It’s not a debate. Someone has to watch the corridor, and I can do it.”

Robin rolls her eyes. “Yeah, but you’re slow. Lucas sees better. He should have them.”

Lucas crosses his arms. “Hey, I’m not that much better—”

Robin spots you glancing up and tilts her head. “Actually, Y/N should take them. You’ve got the eyes for this, not Mike.”

You give a small smile. “Alright. I’ll take them.”

Then Steve finally turns.

It is almost comical how fast his expression changes. One moment he is squinting at the map. The next, it is like someone switched a light on inside him. His whole face softens, the kind of warmth that makes the edges of everything else blur.

“There you are!” he says, as if you’d been gone for hours instead of minutes.

He crosses the room in a few long strides, weaving around Dustin’s equipment pile without hesitation. When he reaches you, his hands settle gently on your waist, thumbs brushing lightly over the small of your back. He draws you close, and you feel the familiar press of his chest against yours, solid and steady, the kind of hug that grounds you without a word.

He leans down just enough to press a soft kiss to your hairline. “Hey. You okay?” His voice is low and careful, carrying the weight of concern in a way that makes your chest feel too full. “Rough day?”

You nod, even though that is not quite the truth. “I’m fine.”

Steve pulls back enough to meet your eyes. “Yeah? You sure?”

You push a small smile onto your face. “Yeah. I’m sure.”

He watches you for a second longer, like he knows something is off but will not push it here in front of everyone. His thumb brushes once against your hip before he steps back.

Behind him, Dustin clears his throat. “Uh, Harrington, six sharp. You and her better not show up late, man.”

Steve shoots him a look and bumps his shoulder up. “Relax, Henderson. We will be here.”

“Six exactly,” Nancy adds. She taps the map again. “We cannot afford timing mistakes tonight.”

“Got it,” Steve says. His hand finds yours without him even looking, like muscle memory, like instinct. “We’ll see you all then.”

Robin salutes with two fingers. “Do not die!”

Lucas mutters, “Seriously, please don’t.”

You squeeze Steve’s hand as he guides you toward the exit, everyone returning to their tasks behind you.

The cool air outside the Square hits your face the moment you step out, a soft bite of Hawkins wind that makes your lungs feel a little fuller. Steve’s hand is warm in yours, solid and steady, and he lifts his free arm to wave back at Robin through the doorway.

“See you later!” she calls, already ducking back into the chaos.

Steve squeezes your fingers once, gentle but certain. “Alright, sweetheart. Come on.”

You follow him toward his car, the familiar rattle of his keys and the soft thud of his sneakers grounding you more than you want to admit. He reaches the passenger door first and pulls it open for you like he always does, a habit that never faded from him no matter how much everything else in your lives changed.

You climb in, settling into the seat that smells faintly like pine-scent napkins and whatever cologne he pretends he does not use. He shuts the door carefully before jogging around the front, sliding into the driver’s side with a small exhale.

The engine hums to life, headlights cutting through the dull late-afternoon glow. As the car pulls away from tge curb, Steve’s hand drifts to the center console, fingers brushing your knee before settling there with casual familiarity.

“So,” he starts, glancing at you briefly before watching the road again. “You’re with Mike and Lucas tonight. Hopper wants you guys covering the rooftop near the military checkpoint.”

You nod. “Yeah. Nancy told me.”

“I know,” Steve says, and there’s a softness in his voice that he cannot hide, even when talking strategy. “But I want you to be careful up there.”

You smile a little. “Steve, I’ve done this almost a hundred times.”

“Still.” He gives a small laugh. “You know how it is. Every crawl gets worse, and Hopper’s plan tonight is insane. And that rooftop has, like, the worst visibility ever. Wind, dust, those busted spotlights. Anything can go wrong, and I can’t have you getting hurt.”

You huff a quiet laugh, because that part is true. “I’ll manage.”

“I know you will,” he says. Then, softer, “But I can’t turn this part of my brain off, alright? The worrying part. I see you out there with Mike and Lucas and my stomach does this… thing.” 

He gestures vaguely, shaking his head with a rueful smile. “I don’t love it. Not when it comes to you.”

Your chest warms, but only for a moment. The quiet returns, the heavy kind that feels like it’s pressing something down instead of letting something breathe.

Steve notices.

He glances at you again, longer this time. “Hey. You sure you’re okay?”

His voice is gentle, not probing, just concerned. It makes the ache in your chest twist tighter.

You swallow, fingers curling faintly against your thigh. “Steve… can I ask you something?”

He nods immediately. “Yeah. Anything.”

You hesitate, watching the blur of Hawkins pass outside the window, all cracked pavement and rusted street signs and the faint hum of a world still pretending it is normal.

Your voice comes out softer than you intend. “Do you… still have feelings for Nancy?”

Steve’s hands tighten on the steering wheel, not dramatically, just enough for you to notice. Just enough to show he heard you clearly, and just enough to make your heart thud against your ribs.

The silence stretches for a beat.

Then another.

And in that space, your thoughts start to spiral, tiny sparks igniting into a tangled web you can’t untangle.

Maybe he does. Maybe he still cares about her more than you think. Maybe all this time, you’ve been fooling yourself, reading warmth where there is habit, taking comfort where there is convenience. 

Maybe you are just the temporary girl, the placeholder he holds close until something—or someone—else feels like home. 

Maybe standing here, beside Nancy, you really do look smaller, like a shadow someone could step over without noticing. Maybe he doesn’t even see you the way you hope he does. Maybe—

Steve exhales, shaky and disbelieving, pulling his gaze from the road long enough to actually look at you.

“Sweetheart,” he murmurs, the word tender but heavy with something else. “Where did that come from?”

The question still hangs in the air when your voice breaks. You try to blink it back, try to breathe deeply, try to pretend the sting in your eyes is nothing, but your throat tightens and the first tear escapes before you can stop it.

Steve sees it instantly.

“Hey…hey, hey,” he murmurs, worry flooding his voice in an instant. He looks between you and the road, jaw tightening with decision. Then he eases the car toward the side of the street and pulls over.

The engine stays running, but the rest of the world seems to fall still.

He turns to you fully. His hands come up, palms open, ready to hold your face or your hands or whatever part of you you will allow him to touch.

“Sweetheart,” he says softly, “what’s wrong? Talk to me. Please talk to me.”

You shake your head, breath catching. “It’s nothing. I just— I’m being stupid.”

He leans closer, eyes earnest and steady. “You’re not stupid. Not even close. Tell me.”

It comes out all at once, messy and anxious, the way secrets sound when they’ve been sitting in the dark too long, refusing to stay hidden.

“I see the way you look at her,” you say, voice trembling, your hands gripping the edge of the table until your knuckles ache. “I see it every time she walks into the room. You light up in this… this way.” 

You take a sharp breath, trying to steady yourself, but it comes out jagged. “And I know she’s your ex. I know you both have history. I know she’s with Jonathan. I know all of that!  But it still feels like I’m… temporary. Like I’m just this placeholder, standing here while you figure out what you actually want —or like I’m someone you care about only in moments, and not the one you choose when it really matters.”

Your chest tightens and your throat burns as the words tumble out. You look down, fiddling with your sleeve, avoiding his eyes for the fraction of a second you dare. 

More tears fall, hot and clumsy, and you rub them away but they keep coming. “I mean, she’s Nancy Wheeler. She’s brilliant and confident and she knows exactly who she is and she’s everything I’m not. And I swear I’m not imagining it because even Jonathan notices too the way you look at her sometimes and—”

“Okay,” Steve says gently, cutting you off in the softest way imaginable.

He unclips his seatbelt. Then he reaches across you and unclips yours.

Before you can even question it, he has his hands around your waist, lifting you carefully and guiding you onto his lap. You settle sideways against him, his arms wrapping around you like he is afraid you might slip through his fingers.

His thumbs brush your cheeks, wiping each tear as it falls. His forehead rests lightly against yours.

“First of all,” he says, voice warm and serious, “I never want to see you cry like this. It makes me feel like some kind of terrible boyfriend. Like the worst one in Hawkins history. And trust me, that list is long.”

A tiny, startled breath leaves you that almost resembles a laugh.

Steve smiles at the sound. “There she is,” he whispers.

His fingers keep brushing your face, soft and steady, as he looks at you with a sincerity that pulls the air straight from your lungs.

He pulls you closer, just enough to feel the press of his chest against yours, hands settling gently on your arms. “I know it’s hard to trust me sometimes, especially with everything that’s happened, with history and past mistakes and people we care about. But none of that changes this. None of that changes how I feel about you.”

Steve leans in just slightly, thumb brushing softly along your jawline. “I care about you. I’ve always cared about you. You’re the one I want. You’re the one I choose. Always. And I’ll make sure you know it every single day, no matter what.”

“I don’t have feelings for Nancy. Not lingering ones, not secret ones, not hidden-in-the-back-of-my-stupid-brain ones. Nothing.” He shakes his head slowly. “I care about her, sure. She’s Nancy. She’s brave and determined and half the reason we’re alive. But I’m not in love with her. I haven’t been in love with her for a long time.”

Your breath trembles.

He continues, voice firm but full of affection. “And do you want to know why? Because I met you.”

Your heart stutters painfully.

“I am in love with you,” he says simply. “Head over heels. Completely gone. I think about you when I wake up. I think about you when I go to sleep. I think about you even when I’m supposed to be thinking about monsters and plans and crawl maps and all the other garbage that keeps trying to kill us.”

He tilts your face up gently, his hands cradling your cheeks. One soft kiss brushes your forehead, another grazes your temple, and then he nudges your nose against his lips in the gentlest way.

“And you want to talk about who has everything?” he says, voice low and teasing, hands sliding to your hips to hold you close. “Baby, you are the absolute hottest girl I have ever seen in my entire life. I mean it. And I’ve worked as a lifeguard, so that’s a statistically significant sample size.”

A small laugh escapes you, breathless and relieved. “Yeah, yeah. Good to hear that you think your girlfriend is hot, Harrington,” you murmur, smiling.

He grins, leaning down to press a soft kiss to the top of your hand, then another to your knuckles. “And you know what?” he says, eyes sparkling, playful and serious all at once. “You’re the only person on this planet who’s ever going to be the mom of my six nuggets.”

Your head jerks back. “Six nuggets?”

He nods very seriously, hands still resting on your hips. “Six. I already have names picked out. Nugget One through Nugget Six. Three boys, three girls—”

You laugh, cutting him off. “Wait, wait—you think I’m actually going to give birth six times?”

Steve shrugs, smug and playful. “Why not? You love me, don’t you?”

You swat his chest. “I love you, but not enough to give you six babies!”

Steve leans in, brushing a kiss to the corner of your mouth. “Well, if that’s the case,” he murmurs, smirk curling, “we could always practice making babies.”

It was a random Wednesday in mid-March. You and Eddie had spent the last couple of days building up excitement to spend an evening together without any interruptions. He didn’t have Hellfire or a performance at the Hideout; you didn’t have work. No expectations, just you two lying around in his bedroom and listening to random records.

You always grew up needing alone time. You vividly remember a time before Kacey was your best friend. You would tell your parents you did not have friends at school because you liked the silence when you were thinking. People too often spoke over you, disregarding your thoughts. Kacey was always good at speaking over you, too. You never felt heard or seen.

But with Eddie, you were all he saw. When you spoke up, he looked you dead in the eye and hung onto every word.

Hanging out with him never felt like a chore. It felt like a privilege, especially on the long days at work. You could knock on his door, covered in fry grease, and he would invite you in to hang out for 30 minutes. You would drone on about how much you didn’t make that night, and he would feed you ramen and listen intently.

You were lying flat on your back while he sat on his desk chair, picking away at his guitar strings. After a couple of hits from his joint, you were completely at ease. You had not made weed a regular thing whatsoever, but you did enjoy smoking with Eddie when the opportunity was presented.

His bed was never made, but you didn’t mind snuggling into his wrinkled sheets and throwing the light sheet over your lower half. His desk is scattered with notes about Dungeons and Dragons and random song lyrics he told himself he would eventually put together.

You drop the roach from between your fingers into an ashtray on his wooden side table, making sure the end is no longer burning.

Eddie strums his guitar, humming along to a song from the record of his choice. Metallica.

“I keep meaning to ask you,” He quips, shifting closer to poke you with his foot, “Did you want to come to the lake in a couple of weeks for Spring Break? It’s only three days.”

“Who’s all going?” You tilt your head to bring his wild hair into focus. Somehow, this guy was even hotter when you were high. His shirt is riding up a bit on his guitar, giving you a peek of his happy trail.

You lick your lips as he rattles his brain to think about the line-up of people.

“Gareth, Jeff, Grant, Grant’s cousin Tucker, and I think he’s bringing his girlfriend and her friend. Apparently,” He rolls his eyes just thinking about his next words. “The friend is into metalheads. She begged and pleaded to join the group.”

Your curiosity was piqued then. You sit up on your elbows, eyeing Eddie with careful precision. You knew you could always trust Eddie, but it seems as though he’s making this information very prominent. “So I have to go?”

He shakes his head, a hint of a smile playing on his lips. “I didn’t say that.”

You squint, “You are insinuating something.”

“I’m just saying if you don’t go, I will be a target for this random chick, and no matter how much I tell her I’m taken, she will be feral for me. Because,” He gestures to himself, “Look at me. I’m a hot commodity to weirdos like her.”

You sit up completely, crawling to the edge of the bed. This man could truly not be serious.

And by the look on his face, he’s absolutely reeling you in intentionally.

“I’ll go,” You bite, “Under one condition.”

He puts his guitar on the ground, his fingers sliding down the neck of the instrument with gentle ease. He treated that thing like it was a newborn baby. You teased him endlessly about it.

“What’s that?”

He’s leaning towards you now, his wheeled desk chair creaking as he does. Your proposition may be met with resistance from the other guys in the group, but not Eddie.

You grab the pilled collar of his Hellfire t-shirt, tempting him with a smirk. “I get to bring a friend, too.”

His eyebrows shoot up, knowing exactly where this is going. “You want to bring Robin?”

Robin and you had become close over the last month or so. You even spent time on the phone in your free time talking about school and your jobs. She worked with Steve Harrington so she always had plenty to talk about. The guy was a mess, and it brought some sick satisfaction to you knowing that the most popular guy in school last year was now fighting for his life working at a video store.

Nonetheless, she had become a pretty good friend, and you knew this would be a cool opportunity to hang out with her, too.

As you nod your response, you shift closer towards him. Your face is less than an inch from his when you inhale sharply and let out a long exhale. Eddie’s eyes light up a smidge, his lips curling upward. You smile back, knowing that he couldn't care less if you dragged someone else along, he just wanted you there.

“Fine with me,” He practically whispers, licking his lips. His hand ghosts over your hip on the edge of the bed, “I just want you there. Don’t need this random chick trying anything. God forbid she tries in front of my girl, ya’ know?”

My girl. Shit.

He had not said that word before. You were ‘baby’ or ‘sunshine’ to him most of the time. But he used that terminology before. It feels like needles are in your hands as your hands move closer to him.

You don’t say anything.

His vinyl skips as it feels like time starts moving in slow motion. The air thickens with that familiar tension that rises every time you are alone with Eddie like this. The shift makes your heart race and heat linger between your legs.

Your eyes trace between his lips and his eyes, a trick you learned in a teen magazine in middle school. An irresistible, enticing con that would win him over.

And of course it does. Because before you can respond with some sarcastic chirp, he’s pressing his newly wet lips to your somewhat dry mouth.

His hand tightens against your side. Your fingers flex on his collar and pull him closer, almost like he’s your next meal and you need a bite immediately. He’s practically falling out of the chair the moment you drag him on top of you, his knee falling between the spread of your legs. The chain from his belt weighs slaps down onto your thigh as his lips go from kissing your lips to eagerly peppering down your cheek, to your jawline.

You two have not gotten past this point. You were not entirely sure why you were so afraid of actually giving in, but you knew the moment he got too handsy, you would squeak and start giggling. And the second you do that, it’s almost like the moment is shattered, because he starts to giggle along with you.

His lips connect with your neck in that particular spot that sends shockwaves through every nerve ending in your body.

He groans into your skin, “Shit, you’re so beautiful.”

Instead of laughing, you sink yourself further into his bed. His navy blue linens always somehow smell like his citrus shampoo, which you don’t hate.

The moment you move against his leg, he pulls away from you, looking down at you like you just committed the most heinous crime ever.

Your eyes widen in response, afraid you did something wrong.

“Hmm?” You hum, almost too nervous to speak. Your mind races towards the worst-case scenario.

Did you touch him wrong? Should you move your hands from his shoulders? Was your lack of laughing off-putting for him?

“Did you wanna?” He clears his throat, his lips pursing as he moves his leg against your core, “I uh…”

You clear your throat, moving your hands down his biceps, “Eddie, I don’t know-”

He sits back on his knees, his thigh no longer making contact with your clothed pussy. It makes your mind go fuzzy, realizing how turned on you are in this moment.

Eddie begins frantically rubbing his hands over his face.

“No! Right, if you don’t wanna. Shit, I uh,” He rambles, looking around as if to choose an excuse to not push the subject. But his bloodshot eyes are blank, and there’s practically no thought behind them.

You grab his hand that moves up your thigh, halting it from going anywhere. While you are here, completely disregarding any sense in the situation, Eddie is overthinking every movement and breath. You two have completely switched attitudes, which makes you smirk a bit.

You pull it closer to your hip firmly, preventing him from shifting further, “Stop, I do. I wanna, I really do.”

His head snaps back to look at you, almost as if you were speaking another language. “You do… what exactly?”

That makes you giggle. You do want to do other things with Eddie. Your body has never felt more ready than in this moment.

Eddie’s touch radiates on your bare skin as you lick your lips. They taste like nicotine and the apple juice he drank when you two came home earlier.

“Wanna do other things.”

He smiles, his cheeks reddening with your words. It was always so sweet when you made Eddie all flustered and red. He was easy to rile up, and hinting at the fact that you actually did want to sleep with him only makes him more bemused.

“Shit, really?”

You reel him in closer, nodding your head at his dumbfounded response. You glance down his chest, seeing that you overextended the thread on his collar earlier, and now that it’s stretched, it reveals his collarbones. Your brain is just static as you listen to his shallow breathing.

Oh, to press your lips there.

Another nod. “Yeah, I just… haven’t done things… like that, in a while.”

He lingers closer to your face, tilting your face up towards his with a nudge of his nose, “That’s fine, yeah… Uh, me either.”

“We don’t have to right now,” You reply, ghosting your lips over his panting mouth that is glistening with your combined saliva. Those lips, so perfectly crafted by whatever God existed.

You wanted him. You did not know how this was even possible.

“I want to. I want to,” He confirms, dipping his head down to capture your lips. You expected an eager and hungry kiss, but instead you got a slightly timid and guarded peck, “I just wanna make sure you’re good.”

You lie back, pulling him back onto you. Lips colliding, tongues swirling. You assume that he wants you to show him how good you were. Your panties are wet, your mind is racing, and your mouth is just watering, looking at him on top of you. You are so, so good.

His lips don’t depart from yours immediately, only deepening as his knee kicks up closer to your covered core. When you continue grinding on him as he makes contact, he hums into your mouth before he retreats. “Maybe when we aren’t… high?”

You groan, discontent with the response he’s giving you. He’s being responsible, which, for Eddie, is rare. But it is frustrating to your hormonal brain. You knew that you wanted to be fully present for something this important, but you can only imagine how good it would feel to fuck him high.

For your own sober self’s sake, you nod in agreement, “Yeah, yeah, that makes total sense.”

His eyes flutter across to your slightly downturned lips, “I want it to be special for you, sweetheart. Our first time together should be… something notable.”

His husky voice is not helping, so you decide it’s best that you move away from pushing yourself down onto his leg. You are not doing yourself any favors.

You clear your throat, trying your best not to sound too disappointed. “That’s very kind of you, Eddie.”

Because he is thinking about your track record of overreacting and being melodramatic, which was very kind. But it’s still maddening the way his eyes are half-lidded and his lips are so tempting that you could scream.

“I’m a very kind guy.”

You cannot help yourself then, knowing that even if you don’t go all the way with him, you need a part of him to get by. “You’d be even kinder if you… moved your leg again.”

A playful glint passes over his deep brown eyes as he changes the load-bearing leg to rub against your inner thigh, “Yeah? You liked that?”

You lock your hands onto his shoulders, body melting back into a rhythm. “A lot. Yes.”

Every time you reflect on yourself from a year ago, you picture that girl grinding on any guy like this, and it’s borderline comical. You were not very interested in messing around then, let alone with your neighbor and resident weirdo, Eddie Munson.

But here you were, completely spent by the idea of him being between your legs.

“We can do that then,” He remarks, sounding like something is caught in his throat, “Just that.”

You tilt your head back, gasping like you are losing all the air in your lungs. The way your denim and his black jeans rub together is maddening to say the very least. You wrack your brain trying to think about a time your body was this reactive, and not one memory pops in your head.

Then again, you’re high. And the horniest you have ever felt. There’s something about the haze from the thin curtains hitting Eddie’s face makes him the prettiest he’s ever been, too.

“Mhm.. yeah, just that.”

He’s moving now. His body starts cowering down to mere centimeters above yours, and you cannot help but tug him closer. Before he can kiss you, you feel his bulge press against your pelvis. The touch is enough to send him into a moaning mess. His curls create a tunnel to your face as he lazily captures your lips. His mouth is completely open, his tongue awaiting your jaw to drop and allow him in again.

Your lips part, and he immediately pushes his wet tongue past your teeth. There’s no battle for dominance; you simply let him wander all around your mouth while you continue to rub yourself against him.

“God, yeah…”​

As your voice trails off, you hear a door slam right outside Eddie’s door. You both freeze, lips still partially connected. Your hips still flush with his.

He’s the first to move, scrambling up from the bed and stalking over to the door. You assumed that Wayne would be working late, but maybe you thought wrong. He grabs the knob, slowly turning it and peeking outside the room.

You both let out a sigh of relief when you hear Wayne clear his throat and the familiar jingle of his keys.

“Wayne?” Eddie calls out into the dark hallway.

“Yeah?"

You both thought wrong. He was home.

“What are you doing home?”

The floor creaks with every one of his footsteps. From your position, you cannot see down the hallway. You just watch as Eddie shifts on his feet. Wayne’s arms come into view, holding a Chinese food takeout bag. “Was gonna go over on hours, so they sent me home. Stopped and got some of that sweet and sour chicken you like.”

You move from your spot, which causes the bed to creak. You see his head peer past Eddie’s shoulder, and suddenly you realize how compromising this entire situation is.

He looks between you and Eddie, letting out a long sigh. “Did I catch you two at a bad time?”

Eddie wastes no time in interjecting, “No-”

“No, Mr. Munson. We were just-”

“I was having her help me with the new campaign I’m working on, ‘is all.”

You swallow, trying to play along with Eddie’s excuse, but you knew practically nothing about Dungeons and Dragons. You also realize he’s crossing his legs, probably to disguise the pressing situation under his jeans. So you just make something up quick, “Yeah! Eddie was telling me about the dragon creature he was creating.”

“Really needed her opinion on that one,” Eddie’s voice cracks, grabbing onto the door to slowly push it closed. Like that would help.

Wayne’s face gives away that he’s totally not buying the story, but he just shakes his head and whispers something under his breath as he walks away. You cannot hear what he says, but Eddie sure does. His face is bright red as he turns back to you.

“What did he say?” You whisper, hastily standing up. You knew it couldn’t be good.

His Adam’s apple bobs, “As long as we are using protection.”

You slap your hand over your mouth.

He chokes out a harbored laugh. Your heart is hammering in your chest as you storm towards him, slapping his chest lightly for chuckling at something so embarrassing.

“Eddie! It’s not funny!”

He grabs your arms, completely disabling you from continuing your playful assault. “It’s not funny, it’s just… yeah, it is funny, actually.”

“I am going to walk into traffic,” You say, leaning forward and placing your forehead on Eddie’s pectoral, “I won’t be able to face that man again.”

Eddie presses a kiss to the top of your head, “It could be worse. He could’ve just walked in when you were begging me-”

“I’ll kill you with my bare hands, Munson.”

Another chuckle, “Fine, I’ll shut up.”

-

“Thanks for picking me up, nerds!”

Robin throws her bag in the van before she crawls up, making a grossed-out expression at the state of the back of Eddie’s backseat. She leans forward between you and Eddie’s bucket seats, biting her lip like she’s holding back a mean comment. Robin had no filter, and neither did Eddie.

“I know what you’re gonna say,” Eddie gripes, revving the engine to hint at her to shut the door.

She rolls her eyes, throwing herself across the seat to slam the door. “I’m not saying a goddamn thing, Munson.”

You turn yourself around to face her, scanning her outfit. Robin always joked that she was poor, but she always had about 15 articles of clothing on. You wondered if she just stole as many items as she could by just putting them on under her oversized jackets.

She was not a terrible dresser by any means; she just layered her clothing like she needed to cover up something.

“You know it’s like 70 degrees, right?” You laugh, eyeing her t-shirt and cropped cardigan. The weather was calling for transitional spring temperatures, which, to you, was exciting. You loved the winter months, but you were craving t-shirt-and-jeans weather.  

She scrunches her nose at you while her hands make a frantic motion to find her seat belt, “I don’t like that tone, Brains.”

You giggle, pointing to the overextended strap near her arm.

“I don’t have a tone!” You defend, slapping the center console in defiance. Eddie pulls away from Robin’s house, turning his wheel sharply to make a U-turn in the middle of the street. His head snaps to make sure he’s clear both ways, and when his hair shifts on his shoulder, you catch the hickey you gave him the night before.

It makes your breath hitch, the bite mark too dark on his almost-pallid skin. Before you can move to hide it for him, he whips his head swivels to you, his curls becoming a curtain to shield it from prying eyes.

“You always have a tone, sweetheart,” He mumbles, shooting you a glaringly smug expression. Even when he was being a smartass, your urge to kiss him only grows stronger. You move your hand across to his face, playfully open hand slapping him in slow motion.

Robin clicks the seat belt at the same time you draw back a bit and aggressively pinch Eddie’s cheek. “Enough outta you.”

Robin fake gags, smacking your arm away from touching him any further. You do not remember when you became so touchy with him; it had to be within the last month or so. You did not care who was peering at you two; you would always grab him on his arm or leg. Or back. Or shoulder.

And he did the same. Maybe all of it was him rubbing off on you. Again.

Robin pulls you out of your blissful stare at Eddie’s side profile by asking you a question you had been hoping she would forget.

“Did you talk to your Mom about quitting the diner?”

It had been a conversation you and Robin had last week. She was telling you how desperate Family Video had been to find someone to work morning shifts on the weekends. When you had joked about quitting your job to help them out, she somehow excitedly transformed the conversation into convincing you to actually quit.

You weighed the pros and cons of the situation. Way more pros than cons, for sure. The pay was better. You would not work with your Mom. You would be able to work fewer nights.

The only real con was telling your Mom.

And a con it would be. When you brought it up after getting home from school yesterday, your Mom erupted into anger. She had been three beers deep since she did not have to work, and she did not need to take you.

It had been the first time in years that you stood up to her, really. When she told you that your paychecks would still be her’s, you told her you were not giving her every dime you made anymore. You were hardly home. Why were you having to pay the electric bill in full? When could she enjoy buying a pack of cigarettes a day? It was never an even trade off and you needed to save money to buy a car. Still.

That’s when it spiraled into her basically telling you to move out. Words were said that you could not take back. Things you had been aching to get off your chest since everything with your Dad. She had been using you just as much as he had been.

You were sick of it, and maybe it had been time for you to just leave.

You had nowhere to go besides Eddie’s house. You knew you were welcomed there.

So, you packed your bag. Both for the night, and for the long weekend trip to the lake. You headed over to his house, hearing your Mom loudly tell you how the locks would be changed when you got home from your ‘undeserved vacation’. You knew her slurred words would not be true. She could not afford a locksmith.

When you knocked on Eddie’s door, he and Wayne welcomed you in without hesitation. Wayne had made spaghetti and put on a stupid made-for-TV movie. When Eddie roped you into cuddling in his room, you spilled out everything. How Robin had convinced you to take a stand, how you actually did it, and it blew up in your face. How you were going to be homeless.

He didn’t say anything as you vented your fears. Your doubts. Your wild intrusive thoughts.

When you finally stopped rambling, he rubbed your shoulder and kissed your forehead.

“You can always stay here. I don’t mind taking the floor if it means you’re comfortable.”

Of course, you cried because you felt like a failure. You couldn’t even keep a roof over your head.

But somehow, Eddie was still there. Managing to always make you feel like it would be okay. He had your back. And you appreciated the comfort and reassurance he constantly brought you.

It scared you a bit, imagining living with him before you graduated high school. You felt more at home with him than your Mom’s house, sure, but usually guys and girls moved in with one another when they were expecting a baby or something. The rumors at school would fly if someone caught wind of it.

Would not be the first rumor of you two, you thought to yourself.

You fell asleep in his arms, not too long after you told him how grateful you were to have him.

Now here you sit in his van with your friend, hoping to God something good would come from agreeing to help her at her job.

You bite the inside of your cheek, nervous that somehow she would change her mind and not help you get the job. “Yeah, I quit the diner. Just let me know when I can come in for an interview.”

Robin excitedly squealed, slapping her thighs like it was a drum, “Keith will only ask you like three questions and give you a vest, I know it!"

Eddie shot you a look, his lips wiggling slightly into a smile. You breathe a sigh of relief, hearing her excitement.

It was like a silent confirmation. You were taking back a piece of yourself. Doing something for your benefit. No one else. And he would stick by you, no matter what.

-

The lake house is a large wooden cabin set right on the lake’s edge. It has four sprawling bedrooms and a huge central living space that could house at least three families. You and Robin marvel at the beauty together as the other guys unpack the cars. Coolers, duffle bags, and random instrument cases. You walk around the property with Robin, each of you ‘ooo-ing’ and ‘ahh-ing’ at every little detail.

They had a hot tub? Grant’s parents must be doctors or something because there is no way some normal family gets the privilege of having a hot tub at a lake house.

You two eventually make your way back inside, listening to the boys being rowdy in the living room. You all get introduced to Grant’s cousin and the girls he brought. Robin instantly locks up the moment the girl who you believed to be a friend of the girlfriend, extends her hand to her. It’s almost like she had never touched another person in her entire life. You try not to laugh as you all stand in a circle and Grant introduces everyone.

Tucker was a lot like Grant, which meant he was easy to talk to. His girlfriend, Olive, seemed quiet, unlike her friend.

The friend, Cara, was pretty and bubbly, to say the least. Long brown hair, freckles, and vibrant blue eyes. She looked like a brunette Malibu Barbie in all black. When you tell her your name, she repeats it and compliments you over and over again. Your hair. Your eyebrows. Your skin. Everything was ‘so beautiful’ to her. She had a deep, raspy voice, which was unexpected and only made her more attractive. It gave her words more gravity, somehow.

And the other guys noticed her. Gareth was practically tripping to help her get her bag from Tucker’s truck. Jeff just stared at her like she was some painting at the Louvre, precious and priceless.

You could tell Eddie was intentionally trying to dodge her, only introducing himself briefly. The moment she extended her hand to him, he turned away like he did not notice it and went to grab more stuff from the van.

As he does that, you learn that Cara, Robin, and you would be sharing a bunk room nearest to the bathroom, which was not the worst possible situation. You could at least grab first dibs on the shower in the morning.

Everyone dispersed to get settled. You throw the strap of your bag over your shoulder, but before you can take a step towards the open staircase, Eddie’s grabbing it and pulling you backward. He shimmies it off your arm and pulls you in with a quick grasp of your hip. Your back collides with his chest, and you let out an ‘oof’.

“You can always sneak off to my bed if you get lonely,” He murmurs, ghosting his mouth right above your ear. As he’s speaking, you see Robin and Cara pushing the bunk room’s door open and scrunching their noses.

“It smells weird in here!” Robin calls out, flicking the switch on the wall and stomping inside. You can hear her footfalls clear as day by the way the wooden floors crackle. There’s no sneaking around this place.

Cara tosses her head back to look down at you and Eddie, his arm locked possessively around you.

Much to your surprise, she smiles and winks at you. She walks in behind Robin, commenting about the smell, and you let out a long, dramatic sigh.

“Who are you rooming with?” You press, tucking your lip between your teeth. Were you seriously contemplating sleeping with Eddie? By the look on Cara and Robin’s faces, you were getting an unpleasant-smelling room, so what harm would it be if you slept next to your... other friend whose clothes lingered with the scent of fresh linen and cigarettes instead? Seems like a way better trade off.

“Gareth and I are rooming across the hall from you. Jeff and Grant are sharing, and Tucker gets a room with his girlfriend.”

You quirk an eyebrow, “Is yours a double or twin?”

“It’s a queen, baby.” You can hear his smile, and it sends your mind spinning. All the possibilities.

“Just keep your door unlocked,” You hum, rocking against his broad chest, “Maybe I’ll pop by.”

-

You did not expect it to be so warm in late March. It felt like late spring outside as the wind whipped through the slightly ajar window. Robin was pressed on ‘airing out the room’. The stench was there to stay; you knew that for sure.

After settling in the more-than-musty room, you and Robin change into your swimsuits to meet up with the guys by the pier. You throw on a random oversized t-shirt that has crackled writing across the chest and sandals. You never thought to buy a cover-up, so the three times too big t-shirt would do.

When you slip out of the room, Eddie and Gareth are already in the hallway in muscle tees and swim trunks.

They stop dead in their tracks, voices dampening the moment your eyes flicker down at their outfits.

Gareth’s swim trunks are light blue, which is a rare color for him to wear. Eddie’s wearing dark red swim trunks that hug his hips a little too tightly. You assume they must be an older pair, and he just never got around to buying anything that actually fits. The guy was not known for hanging by a pool in the summertime, anyway, so why would he need to invest in new shorts?

“What’s with that look?” Gareth immediately questions, putting his hands on his hips. Eddie’s eyes slowly trace your body down to your bare legs, which you try to ignore for the sake of your friends.

You shake your head reassuringly, knowing Gareth took your glance as a direct attack. You were just looking. You did not realize it came off pointed.

“Think she’s just surprised to see the two pastiest boys in Hawkins wearing swim trunks,” Robin comments, leaning her shoulder against the door frame. The girl never held back; you gave her that. Even if that was not the reason you were staring, it made you giggle.

In the seconds it takes for Gareth to take a breath and target his probably biting words towards her, everyone else comes pouring out of one room at the end of the hall.

They are all sporting their swim attire. The other guys wear multicolored swim trunks with button-ups that hang open, revealing their bare chests. Olive is wearing a cute white dress that only allows a peek at the purple one-piece underneath. Her long blonde hair is perfectly curled in place, and her blue eyeshadow is vibrant, almost like she walked out of a Seventeen magazine photoshoot.

Cara doesn’t have a cover-up on just some denim shorts and her black bikini top. Her tanned skin practically glistens due to the body glitter that she has rubbed all over her arms and chest.

They both looked like something out of every guy’s wet dream.

Then there’s you and Robin. Wearing baggy t-shirts and shorts with burn holes in them.

Cara catches Gareth’s eye, and he forgets what dimension he’s even in. Or that he was even in the midst of a conversation.

You smirk, shooting Robin a mutual eyeroll as the group moves towards the stairs. Gareth takes a spot next to Cara, making some random comment about looking like the princess from his D&D campaign. It was painfully awkward, so you chose to block it out and train your eyes on the wall next to Robin.

There are so many separate conversations bouncing off the walls that it’s overwhelming. You stay behind and watch as everyone excitedly moves through the house and out the front door to the waterfront. You don’t move from your spot quite yet, because there’s still one lingering presence nearby.

When you shoot a look at Eddie, he just smirks at your stationary position. Robin rolls off the door frame, taking the lead and moving towards the staircase like everyone else did. She probably assumed that Eddie’s eyes were just a bit too gooey for her liking, and some sort of mushy thing would happen between you two.

And she was right.

Because the moment he starts sauntering towards you with those big brown eyes, his head droops and his thumb skirts over your chin. No rings. No jewelry at all, you realize.

“I like this look, sweetheart.”

You look down at yourself as if you have forgotten what you put on. Your face heats up as Eddie’s thumb travels to your jawline.

“I don’t know if I like yours,” You admit, your voice hushed. Like it’s a secret you don’t want anyone else to hear.

His brows narrow, the creases in his forehead disappearing as he looks at you, “Why’s that? Not into my red swim trunks from 10th grade?”

You grab the hand he has resting on your chin, yanking it up and holding it centimeters from your face. You practically go completely cross-eyed looking at his bare fingers. “I miss your rings. And bracelets.”

When your eyes focus in on his face again, he has the softest smile displayed on his lips.

“Don’t wanna tarnish them, baby. ‘Specially not the matching ring.”

That makes total sense. You start to feel bad about wearing your necklace, but you do not anticipate on swimming, so it should be fine. Eddie's eyes flick down to it as his smirk grows across his face.

You hear Robin’s footsteps heavy on the steps as his words clip to silence. You seize the moment, pushing up on your feet and grabbing his neck, bringing him to your height. Your lips are on his in a second. You don’t know when you will get to do this again. You were not sure if you were ready to be this handsy in front of other people.

The lingering glance from him earlier made you practically feral, though. The feeling of his mouth on yours, his hands exploring your sides and waist, is intoxicating.

Kissing him now feels different after you both confirmed the desire for more. The passion is more rampant than it was before. His hands explore more, his lips move with more intent, and the sounds from his throat are louder.

It’s like a perfect harmony of a million love songs happening all at once when you kiss him.

He draws back first, and that’s when you realize Robin is shouting at you two from the bottom of the stairs.

“Stop sucking faces! I want to swim!”

The grin never leaves his face as his heavily lidded eyes scan you up and down, and his hands move up your back. “Let’s not keep Buckley waiting, hm?”

Your forehead falls against his shoulder so you can cover your huffing and puffing. You don’t want her to hear.

Eddie giggles before yelling, “Coming!”

-

“You and your boyfriend are quite cute.”

Her sultry voice in your ear catches you off guard. You practically jump off the edge of the dock in surprise before you realize what’s happening. Cara crawls beside you, matching your position and putting her feet in the water.

“What?” You mutter, your gaze snapping over to her as she leans back on her palms. She smirks as she lazily drifts her head back.

“You and Eddie. He’s your boyfriend, right?”

In unison with her words, you hear yelling and splashing nearby. The boys had already started playing chicken in the lake. Eddie has Gareth on his shoulders, but the wet mop that is his hair is completely throwing them off their game. He’s walking around aimlessly as his brown curls stick to his eyelids. Gareth won’t stop yelling at him for being too wobbly.

You cannot hide your smile at him.

“Ooo girl, you’re in love, too.” Her voice is mumbled, but you catch what she’s saying and immediately tense up.

Love. That word was more than intimidating when it came to defining anything in your life.

You wanted to love. You wanted to feel loved. But all your life, most of the people you knew did not express such things. No hugs goodbyes. No ‘I love you’s’ before bedtime. No ‘drive safe’ when you left the house.

The only time you felt truly seen was with Eddie. And sometimes it was like he saw right through you.

Maybe that was love, and you had never really experienced it before.

You finally look back at Cara, the girl you hardly knew, who sent your mind reeling. “Why do you say that?”

Her smile brightened at your question.

“That’s the kinda look you only really ever see in movies, darlin’. I have seen it up close maybe twice before,” She looks back out on the water, her eyes trailing across all the boys. You scan her up and down to spot an insincerity within her body language, but she’s so even and composed.

You don’t have the chance to say anything back because Robin comes back with the beers you told her to go grab. She stands over you and Cara, her eyes locked onto the brunette’s tanned arms.

“B-beer?” Robin manages, holding the glass bottle out to you. You grab it without saying anything, your mind spinning as your eyes pin down Eddie as he flips Gareth off his back. You can tell he’s a bit annoyed by the scrunch of his face.

You take a swig of the golden liquid as his eyes meet yours. His expression softens slightly before he begins the swim over to the dock you have been held up on since everyone got outside a couple of hours ago.

Cara playfully nudges you when Eddie’s about 20 feet away from your hanging legs, which causes you to look at her with a confused expression. “He’s got the same eyes for you, by the way.”

Eddie’s hand meets your thigh, splashing water onto you instantly. You flinch at how cold it feels and slosh your beer onto Robin’s shorts.

Eddie laughs at the mistake. Robin groans in annoyance at your clumsiness. Cara gets up straightaway to offer a helping hand to Robin, who stutters at her recommendation to throw the shorts in the washer. They get up together, walking down the dock with their bare feet slapping against the wood.

Cara rambling on as Robin gawks at her like a lost puppy. If you didn’t know any different, you would think Robin has a crush.

While the chaos surrounds you, you are biting the inside of your cheeks and actively avoiding Eddie’s gaze. He notes your dodging because he dramatically flings himself back in forth in front of you.

“Did I piss you off?” He inquires, his cold hand returning to the meat of your thigh.

You finally glimpse down at him. And you feel it.

It’s only ever happened with Eddie.

The trained gaze on his face is like he is trying to memorize every aspect of your face. The racing of your heart when he smiles at something you said. You sometimes feel tingling in your hands and feet or hear buzzing in your ears when he touches you a certain way.

It’s the same feeling every time. Like an adrenaline rush that feels like you are about to jump off a tall pier into frigid waters on a scorching hot day. Exciting and relieving, but also terrifying.

“No, baby, you didn’t.” You mumble, trying to reassure him. As much as you try, you are not good at being nonchalant.

He swims to the spot where Cara was just sitting and uses all his upper body strength to pull himself up onto the dock. The water rushes off his body as he plops down wetly onto the rotting wooden boards.

He’s dripping water all over you, but you don’t care that much. The only reason you flinched earlier was because he caught you by surprise when you were pondering if Cara was right, and you were in love with him.

“What did Cara say that’s got you all weird?"​

Your neck almost snaps with how quickly you peer over at him, “How do you know Cara said something?”

“'Cause she whispered in your ear when I was swimming over.”

Make up something. Quick.

“It was something about guys with tattoos,” You lie, not able to look at Eddie in the eyes as you say it. You train your gaze on his bat tattoo on his arm. To add to your statement and make it more believable, you press your pointer finger into the black ink, “I said I never really went for guys with them, but just ended up with a guy with a lot.”

His face contorts in confusion as you leave goosebumps on his arm with your touch, “Just ended up with a guy, huh?”

He can always see through you.

You flutter your lashes, trying to evade more of his questioning, “Yep, he kinda just fell into my lap.”

You don’t expect him to lean towards you, mere centimeters from your face, to simply respond.

“We talked about this, sweetness.”

“What?” You immediately respond.

“No lying.”

He’s got you pinned. The smile on his face does not let up as he purses his lips to kiss yours. It throws you off balance for a moment, feeling his cold lips against your beer-flavored ones.

You pull away, tucking your lip between your teeth, “What’s a little white lie, Eddie?”

His eyebrows shoot up, surprised that you are immediately admitting to your schtick.

“So you are lying.”

“I’m fabricating what she said for idiosyncratic reasons.”

You decide to frame it in a more complex way, so maybe he would get distracted by the complete fluff of words and move on from the subject. You did not need to admit to him that you were deconstructing the idea of being in love with him.

“Don’t use those big SAT words against me,” He retaliates, sitting back on his palms like Cara did before she escaped with Robin. His swim trunks are starting to hang lower as he shifts over the planks, and it promptly becomes the only thing your brain can think about for a minute.

You manage a smile, trying to look indifferent. “It was nothing. Promise.”

He tilts towards you, letting his curls dribble droplets onto your shoulder, “Was she objectifying me?”

Of course, he thought you were talking about him. And though he was right about the topic being him, it was not talking about how erotic he looked in the water as he gripped onto Gareth’s calves, showing off his muscles.

Cara was not objectifying him, but you surely were.

And that was not the topic of conversation, anyway.

“Jesus, Eddie, no.”

You can tell by the tick of his jaw that he’s growing impatient, and you have done nothing to curb his desire to know things. “Then what was it?”

You’re not ready for this conversation, as much as you would like to unpack it. What if he didn’t feel as strongly about you? What if what you’re experiencing isn’t love but just unadulterated lust that disguised itself as affection? There was too much stuff to weigh, and you did not want him to push it.

“Let it go.”

It comes out clipped and hasty as you just crave silence for a brief second. Between the splashing of water, the yelling, and the nagging, you become sorely overwhelmed.

But Eddie is unwavering with his mission to get something out of you, “Come on-”

“I said let it go!” You snap, putting your beer down beside you and using both of your free hands to push up and stand. Eddie watches you with an expression that is similar to a kicked and wounded puppy.

You sigh as you pick up your beer, tapping your nails against the neck of the bottle. Eddie does not look away from you, even when Grant and Jeff yell from the shore for him to come help grill the hot dogs.

“Look, it’s nothing you gotta worry about, okay? If it were that important, I would have told you. It was just…” You stop, carefully thinking of your next words, “Girl talk.”

You expect him to just nod and accept your words, but he flexes forward and stands up in front of you. His body language is guarded instead of accepting. The sun setting over the water still highlights his dark brown eyes as he peers down at you.

“If it wasn’t important, you wouldn’t have lied about it.”

The gust of wind he leaves behind as he brushes past you gives you chills. Maybe it was that and his words. Cold and unanticipated. You stand there with your back to the beach as Gareth remarks something about everyone being hungry to Eddie when he gets to the end of the dock.

You don’t move, you just stare out over the lake, swirling the beer you had left in the bottle. Silently wishing you had more so you could drink away the stabbing feeling in the pit of your stomach.

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