⭑ star ✰

But the only time it seemed he’d ever take you out was when you asked. Every time you made plans, he was there ten minutes early; a bright smile on his face, and some type of gift in his fist. Seemingly, he was ready to take you wherever. He gave you a somewhat false sense of pride. At so young you had someone who was more than happy to do so much for you. Someone for your family to gush over at Christmas, and for your friends to tease. Someone you’d eventually marry and have kids, grandkids, and great-grandkids with.

Your white picket fence future, if you will.

It was dates like those that made you consider he actually loved you. That you were just as important to him as he was to you. It made you think that he was more than willing to put in the effort; that he was even excited about doing so.

Except for tonight.

Tonight was one of those times when you weren’t so sure.

You weren’t shocked that he stood you up, which in hindsight, should’ve been your first red flag. You were just disappointed.

Though, you were never disappointed with him. Just yourself.

You were disappointed that you still tried. That you still planned your outfit that day during biology, and still told your friends, regardless of their pitying looks. It hurt that you still cared. You still thought tonight would be different and that he would show up. The story of a blonde, blue-eyed white knight saving the day in his dad's beat-up trans am.

You were disappointed that even after being stood up for the second time that week, it wasn’t enough to drive you away. Wasn’t enough to make you pick up the phone and end it right there.

And surely wasn’t enough for you to consider your tears as real.

Even though it should’ve been.

The sound of tires rolling on the tarmac pulls you out of your fog, and in the direction of the big house beside you. Your poorly lit street was pitch black, except for the bright headlights that shone on the garage door until they turned off.

You grimace as you recognize the car, yet turn away and wipe at your nose when the door pops open.

The last thing you needed was for your shitty neighbour to see you crying.

Steve was…a dick, to put it lightly. You weren’t friends, but aside from living right beside him, your circles crossed enough that you knew you didn’t like him.

The King of Hawkins High was an asshole who didn’t care about anything other than ruining young girls and bullying the quiet kids with Tommy and Carol. The only people he was remotely nice to were his teammates, Brand and you.

Though, you’re positive if he saw you crying on the curb outside of your house you’d be the laughing stock on Monday morning. Steve Harrington was cruel, but his friends were crueller. And no amount of status that came from being the captain of the swim team's girlfriend would save you from that.

“Hey!” Your spine straightens, freezing under the sound of his voice. “Are you okay?”

Wiping at your eyes, you inhale deeply, trying to tame the shakiness of your breath. Jesus Christ, you just want him to leave you alone. “Yeah. Yeah, I’m—I’m good.”

You don’t look back at him, keeping your gaze forward. If you don’t pay him attention, he could just walk away. Brush you off and retreat to that big empty house of his. And then everything would just go back to normal.

To how it’s supposed to be.

But you know you didn’t sound convincing at all. And the sound of feet padding toward you indicates that fact.

“You don’t look okay, —.”

“Well, then you need to get your eyes checked, Harrington.” You snarl. Tucking your knees under your chin, you grip your calves, hands bruising the skin there as you hold your breath.

He stands a couple inches from you, car keys jingling in his pocket as he stuffs his hands in his coat. “Did—did something happen—“

“Why do you care?” Your brutal eyes find his dopey ones. “Just leave me alone. Just…go back home and pretend this didn’t happen, okay? Spare me the fucking shit-show.”

He’s quiet for a few moments. And if you closed your eyes long enough, you might even think he left. But then he clears his throat and hops down to the ground beside you.

“Did…did you and Brand get in an argument?”

You laugh, and the sound is painful and sharp. “He would have to be here for us to do that.”

“Oh…” is his only reply. He pauses. “You didn’t go with him to the party?”

His words hit you hard, like the slamming of a freight train against your ribs. Sitting there in disbelief, your lip wobbles.

A party. He stood you up for a party.

Steve doesn’t follow up with anything else, and you know he knows he doesn’t have to. Not with the way, your shoulders begin to shake and a sob rips through your throat.

If you were determined not to show him any weakness earlier, you didn’t care now. He could go to Main Street with a megaphone and blurt it to the whole town that your stupid fucking boyfriend left you for a stupid fucking party, and you wouldn’t care.

Not anymore.

A huff escapes the boy beside you. “What a dick.”

A murmur of astonishment sneaks up on you. Anger gave way to utter confusion. “…what?” You sniffle.

“I said your boyfriend's a dick. Only dicks leave their girlfriend on the side of the road crying.” He nods at nothing, as though he impressed himself. He lights a cigarette, shaking away at the lighter before stuffing it back in his pocket. He then starts grumbling to himself, leaving you in shock as you just stare at him.

There’s no way this is happening.

“He’s—he’s not a dick,” you mutter. “He just…sometimes he forgets our dates, that’s all. Just cause I’m crying doesn’t make him a dick.”

Steve shakes his head and runs a hand through his hair, the front curl flopping in front of his eyes almost effortlessly. “Only dicks make their girlfriends cry, —. And believe me when I say I hate seeing a woman cry.”

You feel a pout deepen on your face, lip still trembling in distress. There’s a chill in the air, one that wafts over your partially bare legs, forcing goosebumps to creep from your elbows to your neck. It’s painfully obvious how awkward this situation is; how strange it feels to be crying to Steve ‘The Hair’ Harrington. Much less crying to him in the middle of the night at the end of your driveway.

You’re incredibly uncomfortable, your body shivering at the cold and your hunger from a missed out dinner date. You don’t even notice your stomach growling until Steve stands up, far too distracted to hear it.

But then again, you’re far too distracted to feel embarrassed that he noticed first.

“You hungry?”

“Hungry?”

Steve crosses his arms, tilting his head down to you in the way a mischievous child would. “Yeah. You know, for food? I don’t think there's any burger joints open but Benny’s makes some pretty mean pancakes.”

Rubbing at your face, you allow your tired hands to fall into your lap. For a moment, a strange, slightly distorted moment, you actually entertain him. You aren’t too sure what makes you consider it; can’t quite pinpoint where along the line you had a sudden change of heart. Because you didn’t like Steve. You hated Steve. You hated his dumb friends and his stuck-up parents and his lack of respect for anyone. You hated his stupid Ray-Bans that he wore all the time and his loud-ass speakers that never stopped playing Corey Hart. You hated that he was always on top of the world, on the highest point of the highest building with a lopsided crown and a shit-eating grin.

But most of all, you hated how in a matter of minutes, he had shown you a completely different person.

You hated that you could even possibly fall for it.

You hated that you did.

There was something there, living in the space between the two of you, that you’d never seen before. Something boyish and sincere. Endearingly cute, and annoyingly sweet; a complete one-eighty to his typical brattiness.

As he stands a few feet away—half-facing his car and half-facing you—he swirls his keys on his finger in a constant rotating circle. He’s patiently waiting for you; gives you all the room in the world to either decline or accept.

“So?”

You chew on your lip, rubbing at your raw nose and the hardened salty stains on your cheeks. The sad part of you tells you to just go to bed. Sleep it off and ignore him for the rest of your life. But the hungry part of you—the part that also aches to be in the company of someone else—growls at the thought of warm pancakes and greasy hash browns. Exhaling deeply, you give him a hint of a smile.

“As long as you’re willing to pay for the extra syrup.”

October 31, 1984.

“And then, and then she just went on and on about…about everything. How—how, fuck, how everything’s bullshit. How we were bullshit. How I’m…how I’m bullshit.” Slamming into the headrest, he squints, lips tightly pulling together as tears begin to form at the corners of his eyes. He lets out a choked sob. “I’m fucking bullshit.”

“No.”

“No?”

You shake your head. “No.” Sighing, you put down your fork, still with a ketchup-covered piece of egg on it. “Steve, you—you are not bullshit, okay? You are like…like the furthest thing from that.”

Your eyes travel down his side profile. His face, though turned upward, droops all the same. The frown that grows is unnerving, grim and angry as he stares off into the distance. His breathing has come to a slow beneath the broken neon light of the building ahead of you. He’s usually so full of life; so bright and breathtaking, that seeing him like this…seeing him in so much pain, breaks your heart.

It mercilessly slaughters you in half right where you stand.

It's nearly comparable to the way your stomach lurched when Nancy spilled her punch. The air had immediately shifted; so much so, that everyone in the room had stopped dead in their tracks. Almost like the party itself had a pause button and that someone had kept their hand on it. The crowd was reduced to lifeless bodies that watched on in horror as Hawkins it-couple had it out. But as invested as everyone was, it was still all superficial. Because the second Steve and Nancy ran off to the bathroom everything went back to normal.

The second someone had lifted their finger off the button, the mood switched back around. People took off their masks and got rid of the caring front.

For a bit, it was easy to ignore. Steve and Nancy had their fair share of arguments, so you weren’t particularly worried. But then you saw Steve storm out of the house, and you knew something was wrong. Without much thought—and a little presumptuous on your part—you left the party and the raunchy booze behind before following him outside.

The way you had grown to care for Steve was both mindless and instinctual. Two opposing forces drove you to chase after your friend; pleading for you to catch him. To make sure he wouldn’t accidentally get himself killed on an empty strip of backroad.

Which led to this moment.

With your usual breakfast order in a bag by your feet, you had found a little patchy spot of grass in the furthest corner of the parking lot. You stayed quiet. Not once pressuring him to talk until he was ready. Because you knew he’d let you know when that was. All you had to do was wait.

So as you began to eat away at your buttered toast, that’s when he chose to cave. To splinter, and present the broken pieces of him to you on a styrofoam plate. He was full of cracking pressure that was bubbling and boiling and threatening to burst. He was a mess of tousled hair and white knuckles, covered in his dad's old wool blazer.

He was an eyesore, you had to admit. But the prettiest one at that.

It was the one unfair trait he possessed. The Harrington signature.

Sighing, you move your box to the dashboard. Unbuckling your seatbelt, you then shift in your seat, adjusting yourself until you’re facing him completely. “Look, she, Nancy was drunk. Okay, you can’t—I know what she said hurt you, and you have every right to feel that way, but…” crossing your arms, you fold in on yourself. “But you two love each other. I mean, you two love each other, Steve.”

“She’s not in love with me.”

Your mouth falls open at the admission, gaping like a fish out of water. You want to protest him; to tell Steve that there’s no way she doesn’t love him, that there’s no way anyone could not love him. You love him. Somehow, someway, you went from despising him entirely, to being so incredibly fond of him. He’s your best friend; the first person you go to when life turns for the better, and when shit hits the fan. The first person you think of in the morning, and the last thing you dream of at night. You care for Steve Harrington.

You love him.

How could you not?

He lets out a whimper; a gruelling noise mixed with a scratchy throat and a stuffy nose. The sound is awful. “I mean I…I feel kinda stupid. Cause like…that’s what I did. Nancy, she…she loves me but she’s not in love with me. And maybe—maybe that’s karma, or whatever the fuck it’s called, ya know? …I mean I did that too, to Stacey, and Angie, and Brenda. And now…” his head falls into the palms of his hands, collapsing against the steering wheel. “Now I guess it was my turn.”

You stay still then, cuddled into the seat as you fiddle with the broken zipper to your jacket.

“And, Jesus, everyone fucking knew this was coming. Right? I mean, no one seemed that shocked at the party. Not even—fuck, —, not even you! Did you…” he turns sharply to you, eyes watery and glossed over. He looks terrified; the shattered psyche of a man teetering on the edge of hysteria. You nearly cry at the sight of him. “Did you know?”

Blinking back the sting of tears, you shake your head, the involuntary action occurring before you can even think it. You’re in treacherous territory; swimming against dangerous waters and ruthless currents that would throw you from Steve in an instant. The boat, or more accurately the car, rocks beneath the weight of your conversation. It anxiously tips and shakes, back and forth until you stop it. “Steve…if I knew, I would’ve said something. You know that.”

He looks disoriented, and anxious for a moment as he stares through you like a piece of glass. But eventually, he drops the topic and turns to pick at his meal, though you can’t say how much of an appetite he has left. Biting your lip, you tighten your grip on your torso, squeezing away the remnants of your partial white lie.

Because you weren’t entirely dishonest with him. Nancy never said anything to you. She never called you, never came to an unspoken agreement, and never cornered you. She never told you she had fallen out of love with him.

But in reality, she didn’t need to.

Because Steve wasn’t wrong. Everyone could see it. It was a sick prediction; a predilection spelled out on a tossed-around piece of paper. Something to waste time as everyone waited for the shoe to drop; as they waited for the breakup.

You never took part in the rumours, but you weren’t blind. You noticed the longing stares met with empty eyes; the excited hands pressed against disinterested ones; forgotten conversations and missed calls.

You noticed all of it. But you pretended you didn’t.

Because Steve didn’t need someone to tell him he was irrational and naive and too hopeful for his own good. He just needed someone to be there for him. For once. Over the past year and a half, he had grown up. Which meant that he was even lonelier than ever.

He just needed a friend. A true friend that ate cold bacon with him when he was sad and got him coffee in the mornings before school. Someone who encouraged him in everything. Someone who gave him the same support he gave everyone else.

And ever since you realized that, ever since you started the tradition of eating breakfast late at night in his car, you were that person. You had him, that random night in June, and now—on Halloween of all days—he has you.

And there wasn’t a chance in hell you were going to rob him of that.

“I just…” he cries. He won’t look at you again, and you wonder if it’s because he’s afraid to truly show you all of him. If he’s afraid to show you the fall of the King. Or perhaps, he’s just too preoccupied with the sunglasses in his hand and the mess in his head. “I just loved her so much, —.”

Offering him a gentle smile, silently assuring him that he doesn’t need to hide with you, you lean over and take hold of his hand. Your fingers wrap around his, hooking between each one until you both are interlocked. Together.

“I know.”

He stills, and part of you thinks that maybe this bothers him. That holding his hand; that physical touch of any kind was simply not meant for two friends like you. Yet, as you start to pull away his other hand comes up and cups yours. Grasps it with the same kind of urgency and tenderness you showed him. The two of you stay like that for a bit: caught up in the warmth of each other against the bitter early November air, food long forgotten on the dashboard.

July 4, 1985.

“So…that happened.”

“Yeah,” Steve whispers.

“Yeah.”

Crossing your arms, you lean back further into the hood of your car. With a sigh—a long, strangled breath you didn’t know you were holding in—you close your eyes. Flash images of the mall, of the Russians, of that…thing blink in and out of focus. It’s as rapid as the fireworks that had been set off; loud and explosive, reaching every corner of your mind.

You were scared.

Steve, not so much.

He ended up telling you everything. From the biggest monster to the most minute detail. Everything. He told you about what happened to that girl Barb, Will’s disappearance, about who Hopper's adopted daughter really was. Anything odd that happened within the past three years, he managed to sum up in half an hour. You had questions. Lots of them. But right now didn’t seem like the right time to ask. So the questions you harboured would have to wait just a little longer. They’d have to wait for a day where you and your friends hadn’t nearly died five times over.

You didn’t give it much thought; the fear of watching Steve yell at you to go with Dustin failing to settle in. Except, even if you had the time, you know it still wouldn’t take. Because one minute Steve was in front of you, holding your hand and pushing you through the doorway, and the next, you were alone, forced to take care of yourself and two frightened children.

The possibility that Steve might die was never as prevalent as at that moment. And the possibility that he would drag your heart along with him was just as scary.

It didn’t matter how many times Dustin assured you; how many times he told you that this wasn’t ‘Steve’s first rodeo’. It didn’t matter that for the most part he and Robin were okay by the time you got to them.

The only thing you could process was the fact that something was going on in Hawkins. Something had been going on for a while, and Steve was very much involved in it.

He just never told you.

Even after all those times, he showed up on your doorstep, when you mended his wounds and let him sleep in your bed because of his sudden tendency for nightmares, he never told you.

Why didn’t he tell you?

“I’m really sorry, —.” Neither of you moves, permanently frozen beside each other as you look up at the technicolour sky.

People were still celebrating in the park; screams and music and the sounds of carnival rides accompanied the excruciating cracks and whistles set off in the sky. You grimace at the noise.

It’s funny how unaware people could really be. How people could force themselves to be blind when in the face of fucked up shit.

It’s self-preservation, you suppose.

Steve sighs then, and although you can’t see him you can tell he’s staring at the same thing. Turning to the side, careful not to knock over your container of now soggy pancakes, you look at him.

Actually, look at him.

Ever since you had seen him tied to that chair you weren’t able to look at him. Not really. You told yourself you didn’t want to see the evidence of his torture.

But really, it was because you couldn’t.

You were ripping apart at the seams; the guilt from leaving him already became a cauterized injury. You were helpless, with not much left in you. And so the last thing you wanted was to reopen that wound.

But now, in the safety of the secluded restaurant, with the gentle sounds of the Smiths filtering through your radio, you could finally see him.

He was horribly beaten up, with bloody stains on his shirt and dirt on his hands. His cheeks were swollen, alongside a busted lip and a black eye the size of a planet.

He looked horrible.

But he didn’t act like it.

After what seems like forever, you finally gather the courage to respond to him. “Sorry about what?”

He pauses, and you think that maybe he forgot what he had said. But then he’s wiping at his lip, flinching from the probable burn on his finger. You’re not too sure what they did to him, and you know you won’t ask.

“I just…I didn’t want you to get involved in…this. I mean that was, that was my number one thing.”

You frown. “…Because you don’t trust me?”

“What?” Steve sits up quickly, disregarding the way his body screams at him not to. He turns to face you better, disbelief spreading all over his battered face. “That’s no—that’s not it.”

“Steve,” you mumble, mirroring his actions. You lean backward, the anger and frustration from earlier finally coming to a head. “This has been going on for years. Years and you never fucking told me.”

“What was I supposed to say? ‘Hey, —, just so you know there’s a whole other inter-dimensional world beneath our feet that wants to kill us every couple of months'? Is that what you want?”

Shaking your head, you stomp off your car. Your hands clench at your sides, shoulders squaring up to Steve’s figure as you pace in circles. “I want you to talk to me! Dammit, Steve, I deserve to know these things too.”

“Why? Why do you care?”

“Because you’re my friend! …We’re friends, Steve.”

He grows quiet then. There’s a sense of bewilderment on his face, a realization of sorts you can’t quite pinpoint. Something indiscernible.

Leaning back onto your car, he looks down at his lap. “Yeah, yeah no, you’re uh…you’re right. We, we’re friends. I’m sorry I shouldn’t have acted like that.”

You shake your head, walking over until you’re crouched down in front of him. “Stop apologizing.”

“Sorry—“ he groans and looks away in a huff, only to look back at you when you laugh in response. It’s lighthearted and gentle, a reaction he somehow constantly gets out of you no matter the context.

Though, it’s not surprising. You could never truly be mad at Steve.

And part of you knows he knows this.

Standing back up, you gather up the partially empty boxes of food and throw them out in the garbage can closest to you.

“So…” spinning on your heel, you allow yourself to give him a good once over. “My house or yours?”

He sighs again, except this time it’s a lot lighter. A lot freer. “Why?”

“Someone has to clean up that pretty face of yours, Harrington.”

He smiles then. “Yours. I like your house.”

Nodding, you toss him your keys and climb into the passenger seat. Even though it’s your car, you like when Steve drives. It calms you in a way, being able to watch him from the sidelines; to observe and monitor in his most natural state.

“Are you coming?” You call out, focusing on buckling yourself in. The car shifts lightly as he gets up off the hood and opens the door. While you mess around with your radio, flicking through the stations and playing with the volume, you completely miss the way Steve looks at you.

March 25, 1986.

The lights are dimmer than you remember.

Although the night sky hasn’t fully settled yet, it’s still fairly dark; the only source of light being from the burning out street lamps.

Even in the dark, the drive is familiar. Lucy’s diner became yours and Steve’s spot after Benny died; Halloween night was the first time the two of you had ever gone.

Typically, the sight of the long stretch in the road and the neon lights would have you relaxed, calm and at peace. It was your tradition after all. The aftermath of a stressful week, when all you needed was each other.

But tonight, you were anxious. Your nerves felt as though they were on fire. Uneasiness spreads in your gut as the car rolls over the first bump in the road.

“You don’t think Nance is gonna be bothered, do you? I mean, we kinda just left her and Robin with the kids.”

Steve shrugs, with one hand on the wheel and the other on the console separating you. “I told them you just needed a bite to eat and that we wouldn’t be long. They don’t mind. Relax.”

Slumping back in your seat, you watch as he spins the tires and pulls into the partially deserted lot. He then puts the car in park, the low hum of the heater echoing in the otherwise quiet space.

At least until Steve opens his mouth.

“But, honestly, what’s really wrong. Why are we here?”

You feel your eyes widen, shock bristling at the top of your spine. “Nothings wrong, I’m fine.” You argue.

Steve doesn’t say anything. Simply, he just continues to stare at you in a way that tells you he’s going to get what he wants. And you reason that yeah that just might be the case. But you also can’t tell where these accusations come from, so you might have a fighting chance after all.

“Nothings wrong!”

Raising his hands in mock defence, he lifts his leg up to the seat and leans on his bent knee. “Look, it’s—I’m not berating you. If anything I understand. Trust me, I do, it’s been a crazy week. But like…seriously, —, why are we here? We only ever come here when like…shits going down. So…” his eyebrows quirked up. “I think shits been goin’ down with you.”

“Wow. Didn’t realize I was in the presence of Albert Einstein.”

Rolling his eyes, Steve flips you off. “Ha ha ha.” With a groan, he rolls the tension out of his shoulders, keeping eye contact with you the entire time.

He waits for you to respond for what feels like hours—a type of patience he normally doesn’t have. The two of you partake in a staring contest, sizing the other up, refusing to back down while the other prepares.

It’s a playful rivalry; a dance the two of you are constantly finding yourselves in. Except his newfound ability to wait baffles you until you lose all of your concentration.

Huffing through your teeth, you cross your arms over your chest and kick yourself.

Of course, he was going to get his way.

“Look, Steve…” your voice is smaller than you expected it to be. Lower and softer as you try to find the words. It proves to be hard though when you don’t even know what’s wrong. “Maybe I just wanted to come here. I mean, why does it seem like we only hang out when ya know, the world's about to end or some shit?”

Steve laughs. It’s hearty and fresh and rattles your bones. “That’s because the world is almost always about to end, —.”

“You know what I mean.”

“No,” he says. Shaking his head, he leans over into you. “No, I don’t.”

You’re silent, every thought evading your mind as soon as it appears. “I just…I don’t know. Aren’t I allowed to miss my friend? It seems like I haven’t seen you in weeks.”

“We see each other at work. You come in all the time.” Steve muses.

Running a hand down your face, you turn to the windshield. “I mean us hanging out, going out for breakfast. It’s kinda hard to do that when you’re constantly on dates.”

The words are out in the open before you can even consider their implications. But even out of your peripheral, you can see the way Steve’s face softens. “Are you—are you jealous?”

“What? No.” Your head snaps in his direction, fear tickling at your lungs, forcing rushed air in and rushed words out. “What was in that water, Mrs. Wheeler gave you?”

“Nothing. Just water.” He says, a devilish grin stretching across the lower half of his face. He’s amused, and you can’t understand why. “You are so jealous.”

“I’m not jealous,” you mumble. “I just miss us. I miss getting shitty breakfast at midnight. I miss when the only problems we had was your break up with Nance and my issues with Brand. I miss when this was just our spot.”

Steve frowns, running a hand through his hair and pushing it out of his face. “This is our spot, —.”

“No, this is your spot. I’m sure you take all your girls out here.” Batting your eyelashes, you feign innocence, blatantly ignoring how annoyed the thought of those girls makes you. Steve laughs again, a mockery of your musings.

Except, the sound dies down fairly quickly. Within seconds, the air in the car turns serious, sobering you both up in the process. “No I…it’s just you.”

“Just me, huh?” You giggle nervously.

Steve’s face doesn’t change. “Only you.”

Those two words glue you to the leather; cement you there as your focus on Steve tunnels. For a brief time, he doesn’t move either. Something between you two changed, has somersaulted at top speed into uncharted boundaries. The edge of something life-changing. Distinctive, yet…expected.

As though this was bound to happen; an event that was written in the stars, long before you could see them shine.

Soon he’s leaning over, carefully, steadily. Like he could scare you off with one wrong move. His fingers inch over the console until they find yours, absentmindedly stroking your thumb, as he wraps himself around you. And then, just as slow, he kisses you.

It’s a gentle press of his lips; soft and warm and breathy. Your body, unfortunately, reacts to it; fails you entirely, as your heartbeat stops altogether.

But the moment is cut short; immediately ruined as your mind catches up with the fuzzy feeling burning in your chest. As fear twists in your belly.

You lean back, putting a hand on his chest and pushing him away. Your lungs expand, taking in as much air as possible while your heart shrinks.

Steve’s face falls almost instantly.

“I—shit, —, I’m…I’m so sorry.” He retreats back, clambers into his seat and places a shaky hand on the door handle. “I’m sorry, I…I thought…I’m gonna go get us some food.”

And like that’s he’s gone.

You watch him shove his hands in his pockets and walk briskly into the diner, not once looking back at you. He doesn’t offer a goofy face, a salute or even the finger.

He detaches himself from you in seconds, and it’s that realization that takes your breath away yet again.

Then the panic sets in.

Because Steve, one of the people you cared for most, just kissed you.

The idiot kissed you.

Why the fuck would he kiss you?

You and Steve were friends. Best friends at that. Not once did you see each other as anything else. Steve dated around, but he wasn’t stupid. He would never pull a stunt like this, and there was no way you would tolerate it. You loved Steve. More than anything. But that didn’t mean you were in love with him.

There was no way you were in love with him.

Just because he was always there for you didn’t mean you were in love with him. You were there for him just as much, always picking him up when he needed it. You were his lifeline because he was yours. Just because some nights you thought he looked like magic didn’t mean you were in love with him. It’s just what it was. Like how the sky is blue and the grass is green. It was a fact. Steve was magic. But you didn’t need to be in love with him to know that.

Except, the reality of it was, that once you knew Steve was magic, it was hard not to be in love with him.

Like a car driving down a dead-end street, you feel the brakes slam down. All at once everything halts, a screeching stutter of awareness that sets your heart aflame.

Nearly four years ago, you hated Steve Harrington. You hated everything he was, everything he stood for, and everyone who stood by him.

But now, as you sit in the passenger seat of his car waiting for him, as you subconsciously cradle the hand he just held, as your mouth tingles with the slight taste of him—with finally knowing what he feels like—you realize you love him.

Wholeheartedly love him.

And you’ve loved him for a long time. You loved him since his breakup with Nancy. Since the two of you sat and watched the fireworks; since you wiped away at his wounds and watched Sixteen Candles until you finally fell asleep.

But you understand now, that the entire time you loved him, you’ve been in love with him for even longer. From the night he saw you cry, to when he kissed you only moments ago…

You were in love with Steve Harrington.

But he didn’t know that. If anything, he thought the exact opposite.

And you couldn’t handle that.

He soon walks out of the diner with a large paper brown bag in his arms and a souring look on his face as he slowly trudges to the car.

Throwing open the door, you fall out of your seat, tripping over your shoes as you make your way over to him.

His shoulders slump forward when he sees you, feet nearly coming to a complete stop. “—, shit, I am so, so sor—“

Taking two fistfuls of his jacket, you pull him into you, kissing him with every ounce of energy you have. The force behind it is wall-crushing; unwavering in its determination as your lips slot together.

You stay there for a bit, embracing Steve while he takes a moment to catch up with the rest of the world. But when he does, when his brain finally seems to restart, he’s placing the bag on the hood of the car, and pushing you down with it.

Instead of a stagnant kiss, he’s moving against you; swooping down to meet your mouth and kissing you deeply. Large hands encase either side of your head as he tugs on your bottom lip, begging for you to allow access to his tongue.

“Steve,” you mumble, reaching up to his mouth again for another devouring kiss. “Steve, we should get in the car.” You drag your fingernails along his abdomen beneath his shirt, eliciting a low hum that shoots right down to your pussy.

Without warning, and with his mouth still on yours, Steve pulls you back up to him, manoeuvring you both to the backseat.

Moving back onto the car, you lie flat on your back, giving him enough space to climb on top of you and close the door.

At this angle, his hips rest flush against yours; body beginning to entangle itself with the other. You sigh as he grinds ever-so-gently into you, beginning his mouth's descent down your throat.

But then suddenly he stops, and it’s your turn to try and figure out what’s making his head spin; what’s turning the cogs and tightening the wheels as he beams at you. Lifting the upper part of his body, he kneels before you, head directly over top of yours; eyes—hopeful and soft—piercing the space between.

“I love you,” he whispers.

The sudden sentiment chokes you. It holds you hostage, stunned beyond words as Steve kisses you again. This time, his actions are less frenzied and more passionate. A slow burn; a gradual growth. The stoking of a bonfire; gentle and utterly scorching. “I love you.” Another kiss, this time to your cheek. “I love you.” A peck right beneath your ear. “I. Love. You.” He sucks on your collarbone, mouthing at the flesh soothingly as he mumbles those three little words over and over again.

Trailing his fingers down your sides, he taps on your hips before untucking your shirt from your belt.

The air is cool, but Steve’s hands are warm. Ridiculously so. Laying a palm flat on the base of your stomach, you shudder, the juxtaposition of temperature making goosebumps rise along your arms.

He catches you off guard, and so then takes the opportunity to increase the pressure of his groin pressing into yours. Rocking into you, he increases the friction, not once lifting himself from you. “God, Steve…just…” you groan. “Just fucking move.”

He laughs into your chest, and you can feel his grin grow against your skin. You can feel it brand you; a permanent mark; a golden tattoo for everyone to see.

“Someone’s a little impatient.” He tsks at you, moving back up your body to suck a bruise into your jaw.

“Or,” you growl, leaning away so you can look him in the eye. “Someone’s a little shit.”

Shrugging, he licks your cheek playfully, a permanent smile etched into his face. “I’m always a little shit. It’s just that…” his hand slides further up your body until he reaches the fabric of your bra. “You don’t know just how much of a little shit I can be.” He gropes the cup, squeezing gently. “But you will. Fuck, I promise you will.”

While he slips his tongue into your mouth, he pulls at the edge of your bra until his hand comes into contact with your bare breast. You moan then, a little louder than you’d care to admit. But you reason, that as his hips drag against yours, he doesn’t mind. He doesn’t mind at all.

If anything, your sounds only seem to spur him on more, forcing him to touch you everywhere and anywhere.

And fuck, you couldn’t be happier.

Your senses are rendered to a jumbled mess; discombobulated as he works your body in every which way. With his tongue halfway down your throat, he starts to undulate with you, grinding up into your clothed core, all while rolling your nipple in between his thumb and index finger.

“…Next up, a lil’ lovin’ from Journey…”

The voice of the radio announcer surprises you, having forgotten about the car even being on.

But then the first new notes of the bass drum hit, and Steve begins humming along into the expanse of your throat. You feel the vibrations deep in the pit of your abdomen from both his voice and the speaker that your head rests on. It swirls and contorts and manifests into your own rhythmic rocking.

“You make me weep, and wanna die…just when, you said we’d try lovin’, touchin’, squeezin’…each other…”

Stroking your breast, he takes his free hand and tickles at the skin right above your pants. Giggling, you jolt your knee up, casually resting it on his hip as he shifts in the new position.

“You gonna’ sing to me the whole night, Harrington? Or are you gonna fuck me?”

It’s Steve’s turn to laugh at your quip. In desperate need for air, he sits back up on his knees, fingers trailing dangerously close to the button on your jeans.

“I’m just gettin’ you warmed up, pretty girl. We’re in no rush…” he picks up your hand and presses a chaste kiss to your knuckles. It’s an action that makes your heart flutter until he’s quirking his eyebrows together in confusion.

You frown at his sudden change in manner. The nervous, self-conscious part of you thinks the worst immediately. That either something's really wrong or he may have changed his mind. “What? …Steve, honey, what is it?”

“…Do you think the radio guy knew we were gonna do it?”

Your jaw falls open slightly, until amusement bubbles out of you. “…Oh my god.” You rub at your eyes in disbelief, all severity bleeding out of you from every crevice.

“What? C’mon, babe, I’m serious. I mean that’s some pretty convenient timing if you ask me.”

You sigh, and lean up on your elbows. “Yes. Because the radio guy a hundred miles away knows who’s gonna have sex right this second.”

Steve snaps at you. “Hey. He could be psychic. We’ve seen weirder.”

“Cause the psychic is gonna play Journey—” you groan.

“Woah, woah, woah! Don’t knock Journey, okay? Who says Journey doesn’t make people horny? I mean some of their shit is like…super sexually charged.”

Sitting up, you rest on your elbows, offering a light smile in return. “Does Journey make you horny?”

He leans down until his face is only inches away from yours and his breath mixed with yours. “If it involves you? Anything makes me horny.”

Your hand glides up his chest and grabs him by the chin until his mouth meets yours in another bruising kiss. “Well, then why don’t you shut up, and show me just how horny I make you, yeah?”

Whimpering, Steve sucks on your top lip. “Don’t need to ask me twice.”

You pull him back down onto you, nails digging into the flesh of his cheek as the other dips beneath the waistband of his pants, running along the base of his spine.

He bucks up into you then, hands holding your hips still as he stiffens against you. “You’re fucking sexy, ya know that?” Another slow, hard roll of his pelvis. “So. Fucking. Sexy.”

It’s at that moment when you can no longer hear the music over the sounds of your combined pants, that Steve decides to take charge. Letting go of you, he lifts the hem of your shirt, raising it off your torso and over your head.

Although the entire thing happens within seconds, it feels like it takes decades as Steve travels down the valley of your breasts, down your stomach and to your hips.

You can imagine how uncomfortable he must be. Stuck to the far corner of his rather small car, only supported by his hand and his leg that hangs onto the floor. Though you want to pity him, you simply don’t have it in you. Especially when he looks like that.

He takes a minute to get situated; to become eye-level with your cunt, while maintaining a cozy sort of closeness. Once again, he goes to the button on your pants, and, with expert fingers—ones that have probably done this a million times—he flicks it open, slowly unzipping them until the baby blue colour of your underwear peaks through.

“Jesus Christ,” he moans into your thigh with squinted eyes. “You’re so fucking beautiful.” He bites the flesh of your hip. “Prettiest fucking thing I’ve ever seen.” Your heart thuds at an irregular pace against your chest as you watch him. Slow, then fast, hard and then non-existent, all at once. It’s overpowering, mind-numbing and scary. But in the most exhilarating way possible.

Your mind preens at the thought of what you think is going to happen. Of what him looking at you like that might entail. Of what hooking his thumbs into the belt loops of the fabric and pulling them down your legs will leave for your future.

But you suppose if this is at all a sign of anything, it’s a sign that from here on out your futures will be together. In one way or another.

Together.

In the way, it’s always been.

His nose is but millimetres from your damp core as he surveys the situation. His fingers—full of energy and electricity—move to the music along your waist, while his eyes dip over your stomach until they meet yours. His iris’, usually a lovely, warm pool of bronze honey, is blown black. Wide and large and, what you can only describe as starving.

You shiver at the sight, only for a soft hand to clasp around yours. “—, if you don’t want to do this we don’t have to.”

“No,” you practically shout. Swallowing the lump in your throat, you let out a shaky breath. “No, I—I want to. I just…no one’s ever…ya know…”

“Gone down on you?”

You nod hesitantly. Steve’s face is pensive; quiet as he reads your expression and studies the desperation within your grip on his body. “Well…if you’re sure about this—if you want this, just know…I’m so fucking glad to be your first.”

Rolling your eyes at his coyness, you punch him in the arm. “I’m not a virgin, Steve.”

Without any doubt, he speaks. “I meant the first person to make you cum with just their tongue.”

Your eyes widen at his matter-of-fact response, and in a swift flash, Steve is pulling your underwear to your ankles and moving your legs to rest on top of his shoulders.

His hands rest on your thighs, tugging your hips to meet his mouth. And when they do; when you feel him kiss you on the space right above your slit, you can’t help but gasp.

“Steve—“

“Shhh. Just…for once, just let me do the work, yeah?” Eventually, you nod and allow yourself to lean back into the seat again. He blows hot air on you then, testing the waters with your sensitivity and how he’s going to proceed.

And you realize this is the most focused you’ve ever seen him.

“Now,” he starts, pressing another kiss into your skin, this time even lower. “Since you’ve never done this before, I just want to let you know…” he tuts your hips up just a bit higher, so that way they’re level with his nose; eyes just barely peeking over your mound. He inhales sharply. “You can be as loud as you want. Just please, fuck, please don’t hold back on me.”

And with that, he’s diving in. You feel his tongue poke out, softly licking at your already swollen clit, and you realize the feeling is unlike anything. Strange and foreign, but heavenly, too. Your chest falls hard with every aggressive rise, and the more it obscures your view of Steve, the more you adjust yourself so that way it doesn’t. You want to see him. Want to watch him.

Because it’s…unexplainable…

He just looks so very pretty going down on you.

His mouth wraps around the hooded bead and gently sucks at it; chin grazing your hole as he explores every inch of you.

He continues with his ministrations, pulling soft moans out of you. It’s an easy medley. A symphony of low groans and raw sighs and reverberated humming. Each and every noise; every perfectly composed addition gives way to how your stomach flutters with excitement and dips with anticipation. “Fu—oh, my god, Steve.”

He’s hardly touched you. Hasn’t even quite moved on from your clit, and yet? You’re a fucking mess. The blood in your veins runs hot; makes you sweat and lose your breath. It’s a dizzying experience as he changes his pressure. Alternating every five or ten or sixty seconds, either tightening the control on his lips or flattening his tongue. He has such an effect on your body already; with the reigns in one hand and your heart in the other. It’s an impossible thought. One that is full of both annoyance and extreme pride that Steve—your Steve—can get you this worked up in a matter of minutes.

Your legs feel heavy against his shoulders, knees buckling even though there’s hardly any weight there. The noises that come from him are pornographic, to say the least. Obscene and dirty; muffled by your puffy lips and full of your slick.

“You’re doing great, pretty girl. So, so, fucking good.” He growls into your folds, lapping at your drenched apex. “…Taste better than I ever fucking imagined.” You can feel him move against you; further down until his broad nose hits your clit and his tongue teases the outside of your entrance.

Regardless of the buzz floating in the air, he keeps at a leisurely pace. Concentrated on his intentions, and drowsy during his execution. It’s as though he’s dreaming; on the verge of rem sleep as he takes the time to enjoy you. All of you. From the way your eyes glaze over to the way you taste. You.

It’s all-encompassing. And it’s all he’s ever wanted.

Then suddenly he’s mouthing at your cunt; tongue dipping into your aching hole with fervour. He’s investigating, examining and memorizing every possible thing about you. About your reactions. About your ethereal sounds. As much as his brain can take, he’s soaking it all up. He’s edging you, fucking you on his tongue as you become more and more pliable in his grasp.

An unexpected high-pitched moan escapes you, robbing you of any other breath. “Holy fuck, Steve. You—fuck, you’re…right there.” Your hands flail, itching to hold onto something as familiar warmth pools in your belly. Your fingers card through his hair in response, scratching at his scalp and pulling at the root in a harsh tug.

It’s that motion that has him faltering for the first time tonight. His hips, which have been subconsciously grinding into the leather bench seat, stutter to a stop. His fingers tense up on you, causing the veins in his arms to strain. It’s a tantalizing sight. One that makes you even hotter and bothered, and you can tell from the way his body heaves that he feels the same way.

You can tell he really liked that.

You yank on his hair again, and with a loud groan he jerks up into you. A dangerous gaze shoots up to yours as he lifts himself off of you. “You’re playing a dangerous game, babe.”

“And what’re you gonna do about it, stud?”

He crawls up your body, dragging his wet mouth over every crevice and dip. He leaves a thick trail of your arousal in his wake, something similar to a map. Coordinates to the destination in which you need him most, with pit stops along the way that tell a story of your love. It’s manifested into specific places where he knows you best. Along your ribs, the place where you’re most ticklish; a spot that reveals his favourite sound in the world: your laugh. Over the far curve of your breast—a spot covered with bruises—physical proof that he finally got to touch you; to be with you. And then finally your heart. The place in which he lives; in which he loves and can be loved. His shelter.

His home.

He sucks a mark into your chest—right above where the organ resides—until moving onto your face. “What am I gonna do about it?”

You offer a barely-there nod as he runs a finger along your cheekbone, and lays a ghost of a kiss on the top of your nose. “I’m going to love you. All of you. Properly… If you’ll have me.”

There’s a fulfilling sensation that creeps up slowly from your toes to the top of your head. A sensation that forces you to nibble at his jaw in response. His lips, now covered in you, glide across your cheek; a silent sigh of relief at your confirmed desire for him.

And then he breaches you. His fingers enter you slowly, sliding in until his first knuckle hits the inner part of your walls.

Your jaw falls slack, choking on the air and his unexpected actions. His one arm has snaked around your torso, holding your upper body to his chest with his head tucked into the crook of your neck. He stays in you for a few moments, fingers remaining completely still until you ease on his hand. He takes that as his chance to start moving.

You feel as though you’re already there. You were nearly on the step to sweet release from just his mouth alone. But now, as he stretches you out with two more fingers, you feel as though you’re knocking on the door.

Much like earlier, he keeps his pace.

A steady-going progression of pulling completely out, and going completely in. You feel his fingertips graze that sweet spot that makes your toes curl. It sends your eyes rolling into the back of your head and leads your hand to come up to his bicep.

Every limb that wraps around him holds him like a vice. A deadly, beautiful vice to help coax you through your nearing orgasm. “Steve…” you warn. “Honey, I—Steve, I’m gonna—“

“It’s alright,” he mumbles into your shoulder. He then curls his fingers, your trembling body sucking him further until all he can do is provide you shallow thrusts. “Let go, —.”

“I’m gonna—fuck, I love you. I love you.”

You gasp as he slides into you once again, and without warning you cum. It isn’t violent; doesn’t happen in such a way that has you both clawing at each other until the rope snaps in you. It isn’t aggressive, but it’s strong nonetheless. A smooth ebb and flow; smooth tidal waves that wash over you with every pump of a finger.

Panting, you feel yourself squeeze Steve’s fingers as your high slowly dissipates. Pressing his forehead to yours, Steve kisses you again, swallowing your pants as your breathing calms down.

Even after you regain all of your senses; after your body lowers from floating in what felt like midair, Steve stays stuffed in you, every once in a while fucking your cum back into your spent hole. You kiss the side of his head, shifting your hips to keep him there inside of you.

“Oh, yeah…” Steve whispers. “Yeah, Nance is gonna be so fucking pissed at us.”

•••

Steve Harrington Taglist (+18)

You get into your car, slamming the door behind you a little too quickly. In the rearview mirror, you watch your home begin to fade. Your home. The one you spent months saving for, elated when you finally had the deposit, then the keys—late shifts and turned-down dinners transformed into freedom. It felt safe in the beginning. A front door you could lock and windows you could curtain. But three years ago, it all came crashing down.

It barely felt like home after everything that happened inside it, not after nights spent washing away blood in the kitchen sink, watching the water turn pink and then clear. Any sense of security vanished after you heard chimes in the hallway, learning just how thin the distance between one world and another could be.

Your hands are damp against the steering wheel, squeaking against the leather as you tighten them, knuckles paling. The road ahead is almost empty, a narrow strip of grey unspooling beneath headlights, bordered on either side by trees that seem to crowd closer whenever you look away.

You drag in a breath through your nose, letting it out as it catches against your chest.

Fuck.

You try again, forcing the air down until your lungs ache with it. Your stomach continues to churn, a relentless turning that makes you feel hollow and sick.

It never really stops anymore, but you tell yourself the driving helps. Not enough, but more than other things might. The road allows you to focus on something simple. It forces you to steady your hands and keep your feet in place as you press the pedals. Anything to just keep moving forward.

The others had moved forward, each in their own way. Nancy and Jonathan went first. Robin followed. Then the kids, one after the other, though none of them were really kids by then. Dustin. Will. Even Hopper and Joyce, who had once seemed as much a part of Hawkins as the cracked roads and the water tower. You understood their choices, you'd be stupid not to, but it didn't make it hurt any less.

Then there was Eddie. Sometimes, beneath all the hurt, you found yourself jealous of him. At least he would never have to live with the pain of his absence every day.

Max and Lucas are still close enough to visit, but they have each other. Somehow, against all reason, they managed to take the wreckage and build something from it. They had been broken open and come through holding tighter. Perhaps not stronger, but certainly less alone than you were.

You turn the radio up a notch. The song distorts through the old speakers, the bass rattling as it smothers the edge of a memory before it can properly form.

You cannot let yourself think about any of it tonight. Not when every road leads back to the same place, and every place still carries some trace of him.

The road widens as you turn onto the highway, tyres drifting over the change in tarmac, and Hawkins begins to fade until there is nothing left of it but a low orange haze against the sky.

You should feel better at the distance. Out here, there are no triggers for you to dwell on. Only open land, black beneath the night, the fields spreading on either side of you until they seem to have no end at all.

The grip you have on the wheel eases slightly as the song on the radio reaches its chorus, loud enough to fill the car, and you almost manage to disappear into it. The rhythmic beating of some old Talking Heads song, uplifting as the keyboard goes faster and—

The music begins to break.

It is so slight at first that you wonder whether you imagined it. A faint crackle of Byrne's voice as a thread of interference scratches through the familiar melody. Your fingers tighten as the sound comes again.

The song wavers, dragged thin by static, before returning for half a breath. Then it vanishes entirely beneath a rush of white noise.

Cold passes through you.

No.

You risk a glance down at the green numbers that remain lit on the dash, dial exactly where it is supposed to be. Your hand leaves the wheel long enough to just strike one of the buttons, another station spitting the same static back at you.

You press another. And then another. All yielding the same nothing.

No, no, no.

Your fingertips slip against the dial as you turn it too quickly, sweeping through frequencies, but every station is gone.

You cannot do this in silence. Music was the one thing—it was what—it was the only thing—you had to—

You need to calm down.

It had been years. It had been years. But the thought has no weight. Years mean nothing. Years did not scrub the past clean. Years were not forever.

The static sharpens again as you try to keep the car steady. You take a glance over at the fields beyond the windscreen, only to discover that they are no longer fields.

They are grey and rotting beneath a sky that flickers red. Ash drifts through the air and vines writhe over the road, and somewhere beyond the reach of your headlights, something opens its mouth.

You blink as your eyes begin to fill.

Not now.

The road returns, barely, but your lungs refuse to follow. A shape moves at the edge of your vision. It is small and low to the ground, its boned body darting from the darkness beside the road, too fast for you to understand.

Not again.

Please, not again.

You swear you hear a screech, something wet with teeth. There is the smell of rot and blood so thick that it coats the back of your throat.

You can't do this again, not while you're all alone. There is nothing left in you that could survive it. Whatever part of you had kept moving felt insufficient, used up in tunnels and left in scraps in the forest.

The shape reaches the road as headlights flare in your rearview mirror. The car behind you appears all at once, too close and violently bright. White light floods the glass, swallowing your reflection, and for an instant you cannot see anything except the glare.

The static screams as you lurch forward, wrenching the wheel. Tyres shriek across the road. Your shoulder slams against the door as the car swerves, the beam of your headlights tearing across the field. The shape that leaps has legs that flash in front of the bonnet, forcing you to slam on the breaks.

Your car leaves the road with a violent jolt, gravel hammering the underside. Your seatbelt locks across your chest and throws you back, then forward, your hands losing the wheel as the car lurches into the lay-by. Something moves beyond the glass and you recoil on instict, pressing yourself against the seat.

A young deer scrambles up the bank, its legs thin. It pauses at the edge of the field, one white tail flicking through the darkness as it disappears between the hedges on the other side of the road.

It was a deer. It was only a deer.

It's gone now.

The radio clears with a soft snap as the song returns halfway through a verse, as though nothing has happened. All you can do is stare at the road.

Your hands are raised in front of you, shaking so badly you cannot make them close. You can't move them at all. Your arms begin to tremble next, then your shoulders, the fear moving through you, wave upon punishing wave.

You fucking idiot.

Frustrated air claws at your throat as you try to swallow. The car seems too small, the roof pressing lower and lower with every breath. Heat gathers beneath your back as your skin remains cold. Your stomach twists so sharply you think you might be sick.

Please let it be over.

You can't do it again.

The pressure builds behind your eyes until the road blurs. You squeeze them shut, but that is worse. The darkness fills at once with red lightning and snapping jaws, with hands slipping from yours, with his face streaked in blood as he tells you to run.

Your eyes fly open. A sound tears out of you.

It's not quite a sob. It's too strangled for that, caught between your clenched teeth, raw with the effort of having held it there for months. It hurts as it leaves you, folding forward over the wheel, one hand pressed hard against your mouth as though you might force the rest of it back inside.

How on earth did you let it get this bad?

How many nights will it take to just stop? The mornings when you cannot even look in the mirror, scared to see what might be facing you. How long have you been telling yourself that this is temporary, that tomorrow will surely be easier, that one day you will wake without needing to remind yourself you don't have to run anymore?

Your chest heaves as you struggle to undo the seatbelt, desperate for some kind of respite.

You do not know. You do not know when it will stop. You do not know if it ever will. You don't know if you can take it.

A car pulls in behind you, but you barely hear it over the blood rushing in your ears. There is only the vague wash of tyres, another engine idling somewhere beyond your own, but the sound does not mean anything. It belongs to the world outside, and you have slipped too far from it to care. A door opens and footsteps move somewhere in the distance. You keep your forehead pressed against the steering wheel.

Perhaps you should be afraid. A woman alone on an empty road in the middle of the night, too shaken to even lift her head. There was a time when the thought would have sent your hand beneath the seat, fingers searching for the knife you still keep there. There was a time when you knew how to be afraid usefully, but it was pointless now.

The stranger could take whatever they wanted, for there was nothing left. All survival instincts annihilated under your breathing and the tears slipping hot between your hand and your mouth.

You were pathetic.

The footsteps stop beside you as the shadow falls over the glass. There is a small tap on the window, but you do not have it in yourself to look up.

Please. Just leave.

Another tap follows, a little louder this time, though still not enough to startle you. Whoever it is says something, their voice blurred by the window and the thud of your pulse. You cannot make out the words.

The voice comes again. This time, it says your name. You force your head to rise.

No.

You recognise the figure on the other side of the glass.

Not again.

Five months. Five whole months have passed since you last saw him properly. Five months since you stood in the foyer of his house, one hand wrapped around his front door, a letter left on his hall table for him to discover when the sun would rise.

He looks almost exactly as you remember him. His hair is slightly longer than it had been, the brown falling loose at his forehead, disturbed by the wind. His jacket hangs over a faded polo shirt. One of his palms is against the roof of your car as he bends towards the window. His eyes find yours, and whatever he had expected to see disappears from his expression.

His face twists, his mouth parting. His gaze moves over you quickly, taking in the tears, your shaking hands, the terror on your face. It is the same expression you have seen many times. It is the one he wore when he was scared, when he wasn't sure how to fix it; to make it better.

“Hey—” You can barely hear him through the glass. He leans closer, trying to see you properly. “Hey, can you—”

His eyes drop towards the door lock. He is trying to keep his voice calm; you can see the effort of it in the tension of his jaw.

“Can—can you open the door?” he asks. “Can you do that for me?”

All you can do is stare at him numbly through the thin layer of glass separating you both. He is the last person you want to see.

You have spent months arranging your life around his absence. Avoiding the roads near his house, letting the telephone ring until it stopped. Never walking the main road when the sky was light.

You could not see him, for seeing him meant remembering. His clothes covered in blood that was not always his, or his body curled around yours while the world shook. His mouth against your temple in the dark, promising that tomorrow would come when neither of you knew it would.

Seeing him meant remembering the nights you had gone to him because sleep was impossible. The way he always opened the door before you could even attempt to knock twice. The way neither of you called it love because there was no room for love at the end of the world. Only urgency and warmth, the desperate relief of finding each other alive again.

You turn your face away. You can't' do this here. You can't have whatever conversation has been waiting between you while your car sits half-buried in gravel. You cannot let him see you like this.

“Shit.” The word reaches you faintly.

Steve pulls at the handle. It gives beneath his hand but catches against the lock, and the failure seems to frighten him more. He knocks again.

“I’m—” He glances behind him, towards the empty road, then back. “I’m gonna need you to open the door, okay?” His voice carries an attempt at steadiness. “Please—just open the door.”

It takes more effort than it should. Your fingers feel distant, clumsy as they move. Steve watches every inch through the glass, barely blinking.

You could still drive away, pull back onto the road, leave him standing in the dirt and preserve whatever small part of yourself he has not already seen. But your thumb follows his instructions as it presses down, the lock giving with a click.

Steve has the door open before you can reconsider, cold air enters the car. His hands catch the metal and guide it carefully outward, stopping it before it can swing back. He is immediately crouching beside you.

His eyes sweep over your face, your throat, your arms, down towards your legs, searching for some visible wound he can understand.

Steve has always known what to do with injuries. He knew which cuts needed stitches and which only looked worse than they were. How to distract you while he cleaned blood from your skin, and how to press his palm against a wound and keep his voice level even when his own hands were shaking.

Pain was easier when it could be located, and this leaves him helpless.

His hands hover near you. One lifts towards your shoulder, falters and drops. Those hands had once known every part of you without asking. The roughness of his palms, the precise pressure of every finger.

“What happened?” He asks, eyes still assessing. “Are—are you hurt?”

You shake your head, but it is too small a movement. He does not seem convinced.

“Did you hit something?” His eyes move across the windscreen, searching for cracks. “Are you bleeding?”

“No.” The word scrapes its way out of you.

"Then what—" His face tightens at the sound of your voice. “What are you doing out here?”

You look past him. The road stretches in your mirror, empty except for his poorly angled car, headlights still burning. He must have stopped quickly. One wheel sits partly on the road, and the driver’s door has been left open.

Steve, who lectures everyone else about road safety. Who once spent twenty minutes explaining to Dustin why hazard lights existed.

“I thought—” Your voice fails. "I thought I saw—”

The words snag. You turn towards him, body twisting sideways in the seat. You cannot finish. The grief comes suddenly, ripping through the last weak seam holding you together. You raise both hands as if you can cover it, pressing them over your mouth, over your eyes, but the sob breaks loose anyway.

Your body pitches forward and Steve catches you.

He has no choice. One moment he is crouched beside the car, and the next you are falling into him, your forehead striking his shoulder, your hands caught uselessly between you. You feel the shock move through him as he goes rigid. After weeks of silence, and this is how you touch him again.

He wastes no time as instinct overtakes him. One arm closes around your back, the other comes up behind your head, his hand settling carefully against your hair as he draws you into him. He lets you bury your face against his neck.

The sobs turn ugly there. They shake through your entire body, dragging breath and sound from places you thought had gone numb. You clutch at the front of his jacket because there is nothing else to hold. The fabric gathers in your fists. Beneath it, his chest rises too stiffly.

He is frightened. You can feel it in the hard beat of his heart.

“Hey,” he murmurs, the way he used to in the minutes after terror, when the danger had passed but neither of you believed it yet. “It’s all right, okay? You're alright.”

You shake your head against him. It is not. You want to tell him that. You want to tell him that nothing is all right. Nothing's alright, and you don't know how to fix it.

“It’s all right,” he says again as he tightens his arms. “I got you.” His hand moves slowly over your hair. “You’re alright. I got you, angel.”

Damn him.

It's surely a slip of the tongue, but it hurts all the same. It was something he used to call you in the dark, half-teasing at first, the name softened by sleep or pressed into your skin between kisses. It became something else as time went on. Something he said when he was scared, when your hands were unsteady, when he needed you to look at him and believe, or try to, that he could get you out of this.

You needed to leave before it could get any worse.

You force yourself upright, and Steve loosens his hold immediately, though his hands remain close as you draw away. You wipe at your face with the heel of your hand, not that it makes a difference. Your cheeks are still wet, your skin still raw beneath your fingers. You can feel him watching you, but you cannot make yourself meet his eyes.

“I’m sorry, I—” You swallow. “I’m sorry. I—I have to get home.”

You scrub at the tears beneath your eyes as if they are the only evidence that needs removing. Perhaps you can still close this door, start the car and fold this night away somewhere you will never have to examine it.

“Hey, no. It’s—uh—it's all right.” Steve's voice is careful again, each word laid down gently between you. “We’ll get you home.”

You nod without looking at him and reach for the seatbelt. Your fingers slide over the material, trying to clip it back into place.

“Whoa, whoa, hey—” His hand lifts. “What—what are you doing?”

“I’m sorry.” You turn towards the wheel, reaching for the keys. “I just saw a deer. That’s all—it was nothing. I’m—I'm sorry you had to see this,” you say. “I should get home.”

Steve stiffens. “There's no way I’m letting you drive like this.”

“Steve, I’m fine.” You grit out as you try to regain some semblance of composure. “I—I just need to get back.”

Just need to get out of here.

“You cannot seriously think I'm gonna let you get behind the wheel right now.”

Steve Harrington, still appointed caretaker of everyone left breathing. Still arriving after the disaster with an earnest crease between his brows.

You look at him. Gravel presses into the knees of his jeans as the wind moves through his hair, lifting it from his forehead, and for a second he looks so painfully familiar that the last few months collapse.

You wonder what he sees when he looks at you. He must see something.

“Please,” he says as you hold his gaze. “Let me help. I won’t be able to sleep unless I know you’re home safe.” His mouth twists faintly, not quite a smile. “I mean... it's not like I can call and check, anyway.”

He looks away when he says it. He has never been very good at cruelty, not since high school—or so you have been told. He looks down at the floor, jaw working as though he regrets saying even that much.

Shame rises beneath your skin, and you are too exhausted to fight it. The fear has hollowed you out, and the expression on his face takes what remains. You glance down at the keys hanging from the ignition. Steve follows your hand as it closes around them, switching off the engine and pulling them free.

He does not speak, stepping back just enough to give you some room, happy that you are not going to bolt. You turn in the seat and place one foot out on the gravel, but your legs feel unreliable beneath you. His hands are there before you can fall, one closing around your forearm. He steadies you as he has done before, drawing you upright without pulling you too close, retreating once he is sure you won't fall.

The night settles properly over you now, working its way through your thin clothes and catching the dampness that remains at the nape of your neck. You instinctively fold your arms around yourself as you begin to walk. You only make it a few paces before something warm drops over your shoulders, Steve's jacket settling around you, heavy with the heat of his body, stopping you in your tracks.

"Steve," you begin. “You don’t—”

“I know.” He adjusts the collar around your neck before you can shrug it off. Then your hand rises towards it in protest, his palm comes down gently on your shoulder, keeping it firmly in place. “Leave it,” he murmurs, leading you away from your car.

The material smells like him. Clean soap, the faint trace of cologne he never uses sparingly. Your fingers curl into the front of it before you can stop them.

He moves as you do, matching your steps with his own. His body stays between you and the road, steering you towards the passenger side of his car. He moves ahead to open it for you. One hand above your head so you do not strike it against the door frame and keeps the other near your elbow as you lower yourself into the seat.

He waits until both your feet are inside before drawing the door. He pauses with one hand still resting along the top of it, looking down at you through the open space.

There is so much in the unspoken space, the place both of you are too scared to touch. You don't speak, choosing to pull his jacket closer around yourself. He tries not to notice it as he closes the door softly, jogging to the opposite side of the car, one hand running through his hair as he slides in, glancing at you before continuing.

“All right?” He tries softly.

It is such a ridiculous question that the answer could take hours, but you know what he means for now. He is asking if you can breathe, if you are here with him, if he can start driving, if you are comfortable enough to let him do this.

You offer him a weak nod, which will have to be enough of an answer. His gaze lingers as though he does not fully believe you.

He waits while you adjust yourself in the seat, until your hands have stopped searching for somewhere to rest and settle instead inside the sleeves. Only then does he put the car into gear, checking the road twice before pulling away. The headlights sweep across your abandoned car as he spins his around, illuminating it briefly before it disappears behind you.

He drives carefully. Both hands remain fixed at ten and two, his eyes trained on the dark road. His shoulders are stiff beneath his shirt as you try not to stare. It takes force to draw your eyes away, opting to look at the fields that slide past the passenger window beyond the glass.

You can feel he wants to say something, he draws in breath too large, then decides not to use it. Twice, his mouth opens as if he has chosen where he might begin before he changes his mind.

You do nothing to help him, wanting this journey to pass in complete silence. For him to take you back to your house, watch you walk through the door and drive away believing he has done his duty. You can worry about how to pick up your car tomorrow. You just want to return to what you have both been doing for the past few months. Steve can go back to whatever life he has made without you, and you can place one more day between you and the past.

He glances at you. The movement is brief, but you catch it in the window’s reflection.

“So, uh," he begins. "What were you doing out here so late?”

His voice is too gentle and you feel irritation stir beneath your exhaustion. You do not want to be handled by him.

"I went for a drive.” The answer is partly true.

“No, I—” he shifts one hand against the wheel. “I got that. I meant what were you doing on the side of the road?”

“I saw a deer.”

“A deer?"

“Yes, Steve.” He waits and you can feel the next question sitting in the silence. You press your cheek against the cool glass, not letting him ask. “It came out of the field. I swerved. That’s all.”

Steve makes a quiet sound in the back of his throat.

You turn your head slightly. “What?”

“Nothing.”

It most certainly is not nothing. You study his profile. His brow is furrowed, the muscles in his jaw moving as he stares at the road. He has always been terrible at concealing what he feels. Steve may lie with his mouth when he thinks it will protect someone, but the rest of him refuses to participate.

“Steve, I’m fine,” you say before he can try. “Honestly. Stop worrying.”

“Yeah,” he answers. “No. All right. You're 'fine.'”

The false agreement is almost insulting.

“What is that supposed to mean?” You ask as you turn towards him.

He exhales through his nose. “That doesn’t explain why you were driving around in the middle of the night.”

You do not have the energy to answer all of his questions right now.

“What if I wanted to?”

“That’s not what I—”

“What if I just wanted to enjoy a drive at night?” You pull his jacket tighter around you, more armour now than comfort. “Is that illegal?”

“No?” His voice rises slightly before he reins it back in. “No, I’m just saying—”

“You’re always just saying.” You turn back towards the window, pulse beginning to climb again. “You don’t have to worry about what I’m doing, okay? The deer just scared me. I would have been fine in a few minutes.”

“Right.” He says plainly, not helping with the dull ache that was beginning to form between your temples. "Sure, you would be."

“You can stop doing that.” You tell him sharply.

“Doing what?”

“Repeating everything I say like I’m stupid.” You huff.

“I don’t think you’re stupid.”

“Then stop talking to me like you do.”

He laughs. “Believe me, that’s not what I’m doing.”

“Then what are you doing?”

Steve’s eyes remain on the road, but the careful restraint is slipping. You see it in the colour rising along his neck.

“I’m just trying to understand what happened.”

“I told you what happened.”

“I know what you told me.” You can see him losing his patience. You almost want him too. At least if you fight, it can end here. “If that’s what you say happened,” he continues, each word clipped now, “then that’s what we’ll go with.”

Your teeth grit together. “Are you calling me a liar?”

Steve looks back at the road. At first, you think he will retreat.

“Yeah,” he says as his grip tightens around the wheel. “Actually, yeah. I am.”

The bluntness of it empties the air from the car. You turn away with a scoff, pressing yourself deeper into the seat. “Whatever. Believe what you want.”

“I will.”

“Good.”

“You forget,” a small smile plays at his lips, though there is no pleasure in it. “I’ve spent enough time with you to know when you’re lying.”

How dare—

The statement drips with the presumed intimacy you have spent months trying to erase. Who was he to say what you feel now? How can he say that with such certainty?

“Well, you don’t know me as well as you think.”

Steve’s expression flickers. The hurt is there and gone so quickly that you might have missed it if you had not once made a study of his face.

“No,” he says quietly. “I guess I don’t.”

The anger drains from his voice, leaving something worse behind. You decide to stare ahead, allowing the country to give way to the edges of town, scattered houses that sit dark and sleeping as you get closer to home. The knowledge brings relief. Just a few more minutes until you can be out of his car, til you can leave him, shut the door and put the past back where it belongs.

You decide to steer this pointless conversation away from you, anything to get his attention elsewhere.

“What were you doing out so late, then, Harrington?” You make the surname sound accusing, as though he is the one who has been caught somewhere he should not be.

“I was visiting Henderson," he answers calmly.

“At college?”

“Yeah.”

“He’s doing okay?” You cannot help but ask. You have not seen the boy in far too long, even longer than Steve. You can only hope he is doing better than you are, whatever that might mean.

“He’s doing good.” Steve’s voice softens despite himself. “Annoying as ever. Thinks because he’s taken half a semester of engineering classes, he can explain my own car to me. I left late. Thought I’d make it back tonight.”

You nod. The town gathers around you, houses becoming more frequent, the orange wash of streetlamps replacing the emptiness of the fields. Steve turns onto a road you both know.

“That’s nice,” you say. “At least you weren’t following me or something.”

You intend it as a joke. Perhaps a poor one, but a joke nonetheless.

“Don’t worry,” he says, sadness creeping through his tone. “You made sure I couldn’t do that.”

Steve turns onto your familiar road. You recognise the shape of your house before it emerges fully from the darkness. The porch light is still burning. You left it that way when you fled, though you cannot remember deciding to. He pulls into the drive and the engine idles for a moment, filling the car with a low vibration. Steve switches it off, though you can tell it is reluctant. The silence becomes immediate, so you reach for the door handle.

“Hey—”

You pretend not to hear him. Your fingers close around the latch.

“Wait.”

The plea in his voice catches you, but press on. You push the door open as Steve turns in his seat.

“Can you just—”

“What do you want?” You ask, frustrated.

His expression falls at the harshness of your voice. He looks at you, the dim light from the dashboard catches the tiredness beneath his eyes.

“What do I want?” he repeats, shaking his head in disbelief. "I mean—are we seriously not even going to talk?"

“We've been talking.” You tell him plainly, ready to be done with it.

“You know that’s not what I mean.”

Your hand remains on the open door. "There is nothing to talk about, Steve."

There is no need to add words to the months of silence. No need to explain the final night you shared a bed. The morning after, when Steve reached for your hand beneath the covers and found nothing but empty sheets in your place.

"I have a few things I want to say," he quips, hurt.

“Then say it to someone else.” You shut him down. "I'm tired, I've had a long night. I just want to go to bed. I don't need you turning this into a thing. I mean—It’s not like we were in a relationship or anything.”

You know it is a low blow before the sentence is even finished. You know because Steve stops moving entirely, as though the words have knocked the air from his lungs. His lips part, but nothing comes out. He just stares at you, completely stunned.

His eyes search your face, looking for anything that might undo what you have just said. A crack in your expression or some kind of falter. Any sign that you did not mean it. That you will take it back before it has the chance to settle between you.

He should have just kept driving.

You immediately get out of the car, unable to stay any longer. His jacket is still on your shoulders, but you don't stop to remove it. You shove the door shut as you hurry toward the house.

Please. Just go home.

He doesn't grant you that mercy. You hear the open and slam of the door as you force yourself to walk faster. The keys you fish out of your pocket shake in your hands as you miss the lock, metal scraping against the plate.

Shit.

“Wait!”

You find the lock again. The key finally turns.

“Please, just wait—”

You shove the door open and step inside, one hand already reaching to pull it closed behind you. But he is faster, catching it before it can shut, fingers curling around the edge. The door stops inches from the frame.

He pushes it open just far enough as you stand on one side of the threshold. The porch light falls across his face, and you see the full extent of what you have done. The anger is still there, but beneath it is something so wounded that you have to fight the instinct to reach for him.

“You can't—” he tries, but the words break as they exit. “You can't, just—” He drags a hand over his face. “I know you don’t want to talk to me. I know that. You made it pretty clear. You left—and—and I tried to understand, but you gave me nothing. You gave me nothing.”

“Steve, I can’t—”

“No.” His head lifts sharply. “No—I can’t.” He pushes the door wider and steps across the threshold. “I can’t do this anymore,” he says, anger and humiliation pulling him apart. “I can’t keep sitting there trying to figure out what I did. Because I had to have done something, right? There has to be something. People don’t just—”

He stops, presses his lips together.

“We couldn’t have gone through that—though everything—and then you couldn’t have spent all those nights with me, and then just—” His breath catches. “I couldn’t have imagined all of it.”

You stare at him. There is no answer you can give that will not require an excavation. No explanation that does not ask you to kneel in the dirt and begin pulling up every ugly thing you buried there. You had been a coward. You know that now, perhaps knew it even then, standing with a letter trembling between your fingers.

But you had also been trying to survive.

You had believed distance could cauterise what tenderness kept reopening. You had believed that if you stopped waking beside him, stopped feeling his sleeping breath against the back of your neck, stopped watching the morning gather slowly over his face, then the past might loosen its grip on you. That there would be no blood beneath his fingernails in the half-light. No bruises blooming over his ribs. No seconds upon waking when his body beside yours felt dead before it moved.

“Maybe it wasn’t real for you,” Steve says as he looks down at the floor between you. “And I get that. I mean, we weren’t exactly friends before everything happened. We barely spoke until you and Eddie got involved—”

“Steve, stop it. Right now.”

You cannot hear Eddie’s name in this house. You cannot have him summoned into the hallway casually, not when you have spent years trying to keep him confined to the places where only you can touch. He remains in the photographs hidden at the back of your drawer, in the cemetery across town, in the darkness at night in which he is always almost within reach.

“I’m sorry,” He always says it like that, as though the apology has been waiting for years. "I’m sorry, and I know I should’ve done more.”

You close your eyes.

Please don't.

“I should’ve stayed with them. I should’ve known it wasn’t safe leaving just him and Dustin there. I told him not to be a hero, I told him, but I should’ve—” His voice roughens. “I should’ve made him come with us. I should’ve been there.”

You have heard this speech before. In fragments at first, when neither of you could sleep and the night made confession seem less dangerous. Then in full, one winter morning when you found him sitting on the kitchen counter with his back against the cabinets, staring at nothing.

He should have been faster. Smarter. He should have understood what your best friend intended. He should have been in two places at once. He should never have allowed anyone beyond the reach of his already battered hands.

“Steve, it isn’t because of Eddie.”

His face twists. “How can it not be?” The question comes out through his teeth. “How can it not be when you loved him? When he was your friend and I couldn’t help him? When Dustin came back alone?”

“There was nothing you could have done.”

“There’s always something.”

“No, there isn’t.” Your voice cracks with the effort of keeping it low. “Sometimes there is nothing. Sometimes something terrible happens and there is no decision you could have made that would turn it into something else.”

His eyes shine beneath the porch light. “You don’t believe that.”

“I do.”

“No, you don’t.”

“I don’t blame you.”

“But you do.” He takes another step into the hallway. “You have to.”

“I don’t!”

“I know you see him.”

The words stop you. He looks frightened by what he has said, but he has begun now and cannot seem to stop.

“Every time we were together,” he continues. “I—I know you see him. Every time you looked at me after. Every time I touched you and—and you went quiet. Every time you woke up and couldn't even look at me. I knew—” You shake your head, but the movement lacks conviction. “You hated that I was there... and he wasn't.”

You can feel all of the emotions you worked so hard to bury begin their ugly crawl. You didn't want to have this conversation here—you didn't want to have it anywhere—but it is too late to turn back now.

“I do. I do hate it,” you say, the admission hanging heavy. “I hate that he doesn’t get any of this. That he didn’t get to leave Hawkins. That he never got to become anything except the worst thing this town decided he was and the way he died trying to prove them wrong.” Steve’s face begins to fall, words he knew were true but tried so hard to ignore. “But that isn’t why I left you.”

“Then why?”

You look away.

The hallway appears painfully ordinary. A glass sits on the small table beside the telephone and there is dust on the skirting board. All these minute domestic failures seem obscene when measured against the question he is asking you.

“I can’t give you what you want,” you say.

“And what do you think I want?”

“I don’t know. Something better than this.”

He lets out a disbelieving breath.

He doesn't get it. How could he?

“I can barely function, Steve. I can hardly make it through a day without feeling like something is waiting for me to let my guard down. I don’t sleep. I can’t sit in silence. Half the time I don’t know whether what I’m seeing is real until it’s already over.” You wipe at your face, furious to discover more tears there. “I can’t be whatever you need me to be. I can’t even be what I need me to be.”

“And you think I can?” The laugh that leaves him is startlingly empty. “You think this was easy for me?”

You look at him. Because yes, some shameful part of you had believed it was easier for him.

Steve had always known how to continue. He counted heads. Checked doors. Drove everyone home. He learned who needed to be distracted and who needed to be left alone.

He had suffered. You had never doubted that. But suffering seemed to sit differently on him. It did not immobilise him as it did with you. He carried it as he carried everything else, awkwardly perhaps, with more determination than grace, but without ever setting it down where someone else might trip over it.

You had envied him for that.

“You seemed like you were coping,” you offer.

“Coping,” he repeats. He gives another laugh and shakes his head. “Yeah. That’s one way to put it.”

He releases the door at last. It remains open behind him, the night visible in the narrow space between wood and frame.

“I got up because people needed me to get up,” he says. “That’s all. Dustin needed rides. Robin needed somebody to call when she couldn’t sleep. Max had appointments. Lucas needed someone to tell him he was allowed to leave the hospital for an hour without the world ending.” His eyes fall briefly to the jacket around your shoulders. “I had people around me. I had things I could do for them. That's what got me out of bed.”

“I—” You try again, swallowing hard. Now it was your turn to be speechless.

Steve looks at you with an unbearably tender expression. He comes closer, and you do not retreat, though every instinct you have cultivated over the past five months demands it.

“When everyone left,” he says, “all I had was you.” The words land without accusation. “I needed—I needed to know you were okay. I needed to see you eat something. I needed to know you'd made it home. And it—it wasn't just when everything was bad. It wasn't just when you couldn't sleep.” His voice lowers. “You were... you were who I woke up with.”

Steve’s gaze moves over your face as though there are years written there and he is trying to read every one of them.

“You were there in the morning,” he continues. “After all of it. When the sun came up and nothing had happened for eight whole hours... you were still there. You made coffee in that awful machine my parents bought and—and complained that I never had any real food. You left your books all over my room. You stole my shirts and acted like you didn't. I just—I kept thinking that, maybe... we were going to be okay.”

He lifts one shoulder helplessly.

“I thought... if you could keep doing it, then maybe I could too, y'know? I thought I could get better because you were getting better. Or... or I thought you were.” His voice falters. “And if I woke up and you were on the other side of the bed, then maybe... maybe the world hadn’t ended after all.”

The tears come too quickly for you to hide them.

You think of Steve’s house after you left. The vast, immaculate rooms on the edge of town. The swimming pool shining beneath the moon. His parents’ bedroom kept clean for people who were never there to disturb it. The telephone ringing into empty space.

You imagine him finding the letter on the hall table.

You had placed it there because you could not bear to leave it beside him in bed, could not bear the thought of waking him or seeing his face alter as he read it. So you had dressed quietly in the dark, collected only what you could carry and abandoned everything else in his drawers.

You had believed you were leaving before you could become another weight he had to drag behind him.

“I—I didn’t know,” you say. It sounds useless now, a child’s defence. A hand held over a wound too deep to cover. “I didn’t know, Steve.”

He says nothing.

“I thought—I thought I was doing us both a favour. Every time I looked at you, I remembered. Every time I woke up beside you, I had to check... I had to check that you were still breathing.” Your voice breaks entirely. “I thought I was making it worse. I thought I was just making it worse for both of us.” You swallow, but it does nothing to stop the words from falling apart. “I thought... I thought all we were doing was keeping each other there. Keeping each other trapped—”

“And leaving helped?” Steve closes the remaining space between you. “Is it helping you? Is it gone now?”

He asks desperately, needing to know the answer. All you can do is look up at him and allow the tears to stream freely down your face, slipping along your jaw and gathering beneath your chin. You slowly shake your head, finally ready to admit something true tonight.

No. They are not gone.

The memories of everything have grown in the dark, lost all proportion. They come whenever they please. They slip beneath doors, climb through the radio, wait in the reflection of dark windows.

“No,” you breathe.

His face changes, frustration going first. Then the last of the pride that brought him through your doorway. What remains is the same aching concern he wore beside your car, stripped now of uncertainty.

He raises a hand slowly. You could move away; he gives you more than enough time to do it. His palm settles against your cheek. The contact is so familiar that your eyes close at once. His thumb moves beneath your eye, catching a tear before it can fall.

“I just want them to stop...” you say, the words barely making it out.

“I know.”

“I’m so tired.”

“I know, angel.”

His other hand comes to your face. He holds you as though you are something fragile and frightened, his fingers resting lightly behind your ears. You breathe the same narrow pocket of air. His nose brushes yours. You feel the tremor he tries to contain when your hands rise and close around his wrists, not wanting your touch to disappear again.

“I can’t fix it,” he whispers, the same apologetic tone creeping into his voice. “I know... I know I can’t. But I can make it quiet.” His eyes search yours. “Just for a little while—I can make it go away. Just for a little while.”

There is desperation in him now, but not carelessness. His body has drawn close to yours, every breath pressing him nearer, yet he waits. Even now, with the months of hurt between you and your face cradled in his hands, he is trying to be good.

“You don’t have to say yes,” he says quickly. “You don’t owe me anything. I just—” His voice falters. “I want to make it better.”

Of course he does.

Because that is what Steve Harrington has always done. He takes every terrible thing that cannot be repaired and offers his hands to it anyway.

You are tired. So fucking tired.

You can blame this on delirium, on the desperate wish to lose yourself in something, or someone, other than your own mind. Steve is safe. He has seen you at your worst, and he can give you this, if only for a moment, if only for tonight. You want him to make you forget, to keep the darkness at bay until the morning sun can do the rest.

You turn your face slightly and press your mouth to the centre of his palm and Steve stops breathing. The gesture is so small, but it seems to travel through him. His fingers curl carefully along your jaw. When he looks at you again, he appears almost afraid to hope.

“Tell me to stop,” he murmurs.

You shake your head.

“Say it.”

“Don’t stop.”

Steve kisses you.

His mouth touches yours with such softness. It is tentative, the kiss of someone returning to a place he no longer believes he is permitted to enter. His lips move once against yours, waiting for you to decide whether this is memory or choice.

You lean into him, and the sound he makes is completely ruined.

His hands slip from your face to the sides of your neck, holding you there as he kisses you again. This time you feel the ache inside it. You open your mouth beneath his, and he shudders.

He draws you closer with an arm around your waist, cautious only for it to disintegrate, before restraint begins to fail him. His hand spreads over your back, gathering the jacket and the clothes beneath it as though he cannot quite believe there is a body inside them as you clutch at his shirt.

The kiss deepens, grief turning slowly into hunger. It is not clean, for nothing between you has ever been. His mouth tastes faintly of coffee and something sweet, painfully familiar after so long. You remember kissing him in his kitchen while water boiled dry on the stove. In the back seat of his car, after the funeral none of you thought was fair. Against the wall of his bedroom because sleep had become impossible and wanting him was easier than being afraid and alone.

Steve’s hand moves into your hair, then your back, drawing you against him until there is no space left for memory to stand between you. He breaks away only when neither of you can breathe.

“Do you want—”

“Yes.”

“You’re sure?” he asks against your mouth.

You answer by kissing him again, all composure leaving him as he becomes frantic. He backs you further into the hallway, kicking the door shut behind him without looking. The latch catches, sealing out the night.

His hands move over you with desperation, pulling his jacket from your shoulders, letting it fall to the floor. You reach for him, fingers slipping beneath the hem of his shirt, finding the warm skin of his stomach. He folds around you at the touch.

“I’m sorry,” you begin to whisper.

Steve kisses the apology from your mouth before you can finish it. His forehead presses briefly against yours, his breathing uneven.

“Not tonight,” he murmurs. “You can tell me tomorrow, alright?”

You nod against him, his hand closing around your own.

He walks you backwards, deeper into the house, refusing to surrender an inch of space between your bodies. You follow without looking, guided by the familiar shape of him. You turn instinctively towards the living room, but he gently coaxes you back.

His head shakes. “Nuh-uh.”

You blink up at him. “What?”

“Not here.”

You glance past him towards the sofa, its cushions still bearing the impression of all the nights you have spent folded into one corner.

“I thought—”

“I know.” He whispers. “I don’t want you here.” His thumb moves, barely touching skin. You look up at him in confusion. “I want you upstairs,” he says. His eyes hold yours, nervous despite the certainty in his voice. “Where I had you first.”

Where he can take care of you properly.

You remember another night, years ago. You had sat on the edge of your bed while he cleaned a cut along your shoulder, both of you pretending not to notice how his hands trembled whenever they touched you. Later, when the lights went out and the house began to groan around you, he had climbed beneath the covers without being asked.

You nod, allowing him to turn you toward the stairs. He goes ahead, climbing backwards for the first few steps before straightening. His hand remains locked around yours, arm reaching behind. At the landing, he looks back, and you barely make it across the threshold of your bedroom before he turns and reaches for you.

The kiss lands against the corner of your mouth, then your cheek, your jaw. His hands move over your shoulders and down your arms, only to return immediately to your face. He kisses you again before you can breathe, his teeth catching gently at your lower lip. He touches you as though trying to memorise what he once believed he knew. The shape of your waist beneath his palms. The slope of your neck. The place beneath your ear that makes your breath catch. Every few seconds, his eyes open, checking that you remain in front of him.

He is frightened you will slip through his hands again.

“Steve—” you whisper.

“I know.”

He does not know what you were going to say. Neither do you.

“I missed you,” he says against your jaw. “I missed you.”

He presses his face into the side of your neck as though ashamed of it, arms closing around you as you curl your fingers into his hair. The room seems to sway around you. He catches your face between his hands before you can turn away, kissing you with more urgency. You stumble backwards together until the edge of the bed strikes behind your knees.

Only then does he seem to notice the room. The bed is unmade, sheets still twisted. Clothes lie across the floor with books stacked beside the mattress, a plate sits on the desk opposite, beside a cup ring darkening the wood.

“Sorry,” you begin as humiliation begins to rise. “I haven’t really—It’s a mess, I should’ve—”

“I don’t care," he says it without even looking around. “I’ll take care of it.”

He'll take care of you.

You catch at the front of his shirt, pulling him close before the grief can become speech, and he lets you. He lowers you carefully onto the bed, the mattress gives beneath your weight. He follows only far enough to remain above you, one knee pressed into the sheets, his arms braced on either side of your body.

His fingers find the hem of your shirt. He draws the fabric upwards slowly, giving you time to change your mind at every inch. When your arms rise, he guides them through, careful of your wrists, careful of your hair. The shirt falls somewhere beside the bed, but he does not watch it go. The rest soon follows as his knuckles skim your skin. He bends to press his mouth against the newly uncovered part of you.

His attention returns to you immediately.

He kisses down your body with the same patience he once used. Mouth warm against the slope of your collarbone, trailing to the soft give of your breast. He lingers there, tongue tracing a lazy circle around one nipple until it tightens, then the other, as if he has all the time in the world. Heat rises under every place he touches. You feel it climb in waves, skin flushing darker the lower he goes.

His hands slide along your ribs, over the dip of your waist, settling at your hips to hold you steady while his mouth continues its unhurried path. He knows every inch of you. The place just above your navel that makes your stomach jump and the sensitive skin along the crease of your thigh. He takes his time with all of it, drawing out the journey until the wait itself becomes its own kind of ache. The only trouble is that he is waiting too. You can feel the tension in the way he breathes against you, the faint tremor in the hands that keep you open for him.

When he finally settles between your legs, he does not rush. He lowers himself, close enough that the soft fan of his breath ghosts over your cunt. Goosebumps rise immediately, which his eyes follow with reverence, dark and intent as he leans in.

The first touch of his tongue is almost nothing—barely there, a slow drag that makes your hips twitch. He does it again, gentler still, as if he is relearning the shape of you by taste alone. Light, careful strokes that never quite give you enough pressure.

He wants you to feel every second of it. Wants the sensation to build so slowly that your thoughts have nowhere to go except here, to the wet heat of his mouth and the hold of his steady hands.

He is gentle the entire time, never greedy. He draws it out on purpose, getting lost in the slow work of you, in the way your breathing changes and your thighs begin to tremble around his shoulders. It is torturous in the sweetest way. Every time the pleasure starts to sharpen, he eases off, returning to those light, almost teasing licks that keep you right on the edge of needing more.

He brings you close once, tongue circling your clit with just enough pressure to make your back arch, pulling away the moment your thighs tighten. You make a broken sound, one he wants to hear again. He continues, even slower, until the heat pools and your mind starts to fuzz at the edges.

He's going to kill you softly.

This is his plan. Emptying your head on purpose, erasing every memory until there is nothing left but him.

When you reach down and twist your fingers into his hair, trying to pull him back against, he groans so happily it vibrates straight through you. The sound is pure pleasure. He hisses against your cunt when you tug harder, hips shifting restlessly against the sheets.

“Steve—” The name leaves you as a groan, every nerve lit.

“I know, baby—” His voice is low and unsteady. “I know—I got you.”

And you believe him.

He pulls you to the edge a third time, tongue working as he makes your vision blur, then eases off again just before you can fall. Frustration sparks and you want to kick out, to force him closer, but his hands hold you firmly in place—thumbs stroking the soft insides of your thighs, keeping you exactly where he wants you.

He knows what he is doing. He has always been good at this—at giving, at offering you exactly what you need, even when you can't ask for it yourself.

“Please, Steve—I can’t—”

“Yes you can.” He looks up at you, mouth wet, eyes soft. “Just a little longer for me, yeah? You can take a little more.”

He knows you can.

Your eyes meet his. The tears on your lashes are no longer from sadness. They are from the overwhelming pleasure, by someone who knows your body better than you do. He looks satisfied by the sight. He lowers his head again.

This time, there is purpose in it. Every flick of his tongue is aimed exactly where he knows you need it most. He works you in relentless strokes that build and build until the pleasure turns almost unbearable. You grip his hair harder, but the tug only spurs him on. A hungry groan vibrates against your clit and the sensation tips you over completely.

You come with a broken cry, thighs shaking around his head, body arching hard off the mattress. He stays with you through every pulse of it, gentling the pressure just enough to keep the pleasure rolling. He doesn't stop, leaving open-mouthed kisses against your core until the last aftershock fades and you are left boneless.

You need him. You need him immediately.

You are pawing at him the moment he begins to slide up your body, hands clumsy and desperate after the teasing of not just you, but himself. Every nerve still sparks. You catch the hem of his shirt and tug hard, needing the barrier gone, needing his skin against your own.

“Easy, angel—easy—” The soft coo lands against your temple as he helps you strip the fabric over his head. “You’ve got me, alright? I’m here.”

He shrugs the rest of the way free, then works open his jeans and underwear before crawling back over you, warm and solid.

“Steve—” The name leaves you broken. You are overwhelmed, eyes stinging again already. “I’m sorry. I never should have—”

“Shhh.” He settles his weight carefully, one hand slipping between your bodies to stroke through the slick heat of you. Your hips twitch helplessly into the touch. “I know. I told you—you can tell me tomorrow. Or the day after that. Whenever you want. I’m not going anywhere.”

The words almost undo you as tears press hot behind your eyes. He takes himself in hand then, the thick head of his cock dragging slowly through your folds, coating himself in how ready you already are. Your legs come up around his waist on instinct, heels pressing into the backs of his thighs, trying to pull him closer. He catches your shaking hands before they can dig too hard into his shoulders. One he pins gently beside your head, fingers interlacing with yours, while the other stays braced by your hip. Then he kisses you, bringing you back to the moment, back to him.

He pushes into you with aching care, and both of you hiss at the first thick stretch. The sound is almost pained. His forehead drops hard to your shoulder, breath coming in uneven pulls as he fights the tremor running through his arms. Everything is too much, all the months collapsing into this moment. He holds still, buried deep, shaking with the effort of not moving.

It is you who breaks first.

“Steve—please. I need you to move.”

He nods shakily against your skin and begins to rock into you. Soft as he always is. Every thrust gentle, eyes now locked on your face. He watches for every flicker of expression, every shift of breath, terrified of getting it wrong, of not being good enough, of watching you leave him again the moment this is over.

The fear sits right alongside the love in his gaze—raw, open, and almost unbearable to look at.

Steve has always been a talker. In bed it only gets worse. The words spill out of him like he cannot keep them inside any longer.

“Missed you,” he rambles, voice rough. “Fuck—I missed you, so much—”

His hips roll a little harder, a little deeper, and the new angle steals whatever reply you might have managed. You want to tell him you missed him too, that leaving was the worst mistake you ever made, that you should have asked, should have spoken, should have stayed. All of it dies on your tongue when his free hand slips between your bodies and finds your clit, stroking in tight circles timed with every gentle thrust.

“Never leaving you again, angel.” The words come out almost like a whine. “Can’t do it again. Won’t—” His rhythm falters for a second, then steadies. “Shit—can’t let you go. Gonna be here when you wake up—gonna be here all the time—”

He keeps talking, voice urgent against your cheek, against your mouth. The promises pour out of him, every one of them an act of service, every one of them the only way he knows how.

“Gonna make you better, alright? Gonna—gonna treat you good. Have you like this all the time. No thoughts. None of it. Just—fuck, just let me make it alright—please. I swear. I swear I’m gonna make it alright.”

Tears gather and spill. The pressure builds too fast, every nerve still raw from earlier. You feel the crest rising and so does he.

“Steve—I’m gonna—”

“I know, angel.” His voice cracks. “I can feel it. Give it to me. I can take it—give it to me, I got you—”

You break with a soft, wrecked cry, body tightening hard around him as the orgasm rolls through you in long, shuddering waves. Tears slip freely down your temples. Steve follows almost immediately, a broken sound punched out of him as he buries himself deep and comes, hips stuttering, forehead pressed to yours while the last of the pleasure drains out of both of you.

He remains above you, breath still mingling with your own, hands still interlocked. The room slowly begins to take form around you both, softer than before, distant with far less edges than it had when you first woke up.

You know you need to talk to him, to tell him that you heard everything, that it was not just the heat of the moment. That you want this too, whatever it may look like. You want to wake and find him breathing beside you, even if you still have to check. Leaving him was never proof that he wasn't enough, it only proved that you were too frightened to stay.

“Steve,” you manage. He lifts his head at once. His eyes search yours, still glassy and uncertain, as though he expects the name to become an apology or a goodbye.

“I—”

You don't know how to begin. You are tired, exhausted, every strained muscle and sleepless night weighing down on you. You want to be determined, to form a coherent sentence and give him something in return after everything you have taken, but his expression softens before you can attempt the words again.

“You don’t have to—”

“I want to tell you.” Your voice has gone thick. “I want—”

“I know, ” he brushes the damp hair from your temple, though something frightened still flickers behind his tenderness. “You can tell me tomorrow, you can tell me everything.”

You know what he is doing: preparing for you to stop, to put an end to all of this. He is nervous; you can see it in his eyes. You want to speak to him, to tell him that tomorrow is what you want—that you want every ordinary and difficult thing waiting beyond this bed.

“I’m not going anywhere, angel.” He lowers himself beside you and draws you carefully against his chest, pulling the covers over both of you. “Go to sleep. I got you.”

He doesn't want to take any chances. Not for tonight. Not when he has you like this.

You fight it for another few seconds, cheek resting over the steady beat of his heart. There is so much you owe him, so much that cannot remain unsaid. But his hand moves slowly along your back, the same path over and over, and for the first time in months the silence does not contain teeth.

Your last conscious thought is that he is warm. The next is not a thought at all, only warm arms tightening when your body finally goes loose against him, holding you the moment exhaustion takes you completely.

When morning does finally come, it comes carefully. It gathers along the edges of the curtains, light reaching the foot of the bed and climbing up, heating the bare skin of your ankle.

You wake without knowing you have fully woken, surrounded only by warmth and the softness of the mattress beneath you. Your eyes open slowly.

The ceiling comes gradually into focus, you blink at it, waiting for the usual violence of consciousness to take hold, but nothing comes. Your heart does not wake before the rest of you, already racing from something your mind has not yet remembered. There is no cry trapped behind your teeth, no sweat cooling beneath your clothes.

You are simply awake.

The realisation is so unfamiliar that you remain still, breathing slowly. Last night returns in pieces, but gently. Steve crouched beside your car, his jacket settling over your shoulders. His hands around your face, mouth against yours. The weight of him above you, then beside you. You remember falling asleep to the sound of his heart.

Your hand moves across the mattress before you think to stop it, only finding the opposite side of the bed cold. The pillow is empty, the indentation left by him already beginning to lift, the sheet has been drawn back carefully.

You sit up, allowing the covers to fall from your shoulder and gather around your waist. You look towards the bathroom, but the door stands open and the room is dark.

“Steve?”

Your voice is so rough with sleep, it barely crosses the room.

No answer.

Surely he wouldn't...

No, no, he wouldn't. Steve would never leave without saying something, especially not after what transpired the night before, not after he promised he would be there when you woke.

Your feet hit the floor a little too quickly, still filled with sleep. The room tilts faintly as you stand too fast, nearly catching yourself against the mattress as you drag your eyes across the floor. An abandoned T-shirt lies half beneath the chair. You snatch it up and pull it over your head, barely checking which way it faces. A pair of shorts, you step into them awkwardly, hopping once as the fabric catches around your ankle.

Your face feels swollen from crying and sleep, your body carrying the tender evidence of the night before. You did not want to wake alone.

You told him that. You had told him you did not want to be alone anymore.

The bedroom door strikes the wall when you push it open. You cross the landing quickly, one hand skimming the bannister as you take the stairs too fast. Your bare feet slap against the wood. On the last step, your heel slips and you catch the rail with a sharp breath, shoulder jolting, but you keep moving.

The hallway is empty, and—shit—so is the living room.

You pass the kitchen in a hurry, all adrenaline falling out of your body as you see him, standing at the counter with his back half-turned towards you.

Morning light pours through the window above the sink, laying itself over his skin. He is wearing only his underwear from last night. His hair is flattened on one side from sleep and pushed away from his face on the other, likely by impatient fingers. Two mugs wait beside one another beneath the coffee machine. It sputters noisily between them, struggling awake.

He turns at the commotion behind him. His gaze moves over your face, then down your body.

“Hey,” he says, the word is careful.

You grip the edge of the doorframe. Your heart is still beating too quickly, but it has begun to understand what your eyes already know.

“Hey,” you manage.

Neither of you moves. There is still so much between you that the morning has made visible. Last night allowed you to speak in fragments, in touch and apology, in promises that could be blamed on exhaustion. Daylight offers no such mercy as it illuminates you both fully. He glances towards the coffee machine.

“I was gonna bring it up,” he says. “To you—in bed, I mean.” He clears his throat and adjusts one of the mugs despite it already sitting perfectly straight. “I didn’t want to wake you. You were—” His eyes return to you. “You were sleeping.”

You release the doorframe. “Uh, thank you.”

A tentative smile pulls at one corner of his mouth. “Yeah. Of course.”

You cross the kitchen slowly, and he turns back towards the machine, giving you room rather than reaching for you. He does not seem to know what he is permitted to do now. Last night, he touched you as though his hands had been made for the purpose, but now he is unsure.

You come to stand beside him. His bare torso reveals the broad plane of his stomach and the pale, uneven scar crossing it. It curves viciously over his side, disappearing beneath the waistband of his underwear, the skin raised in places where something had once torn through him. You had watched the wound close slowly, watched him pretend the bandages did not hurt when they were changed. But last night had been darkness and urgency, your eyes too full of tears to study anything for long.

You cannot understand how he carries it so casually. How he can stand barefoot in your kitchen, waiting for a temperamental coffee machine, with the evidence of another world written permanently across his body.

Your gaze lingers. His hand stills on the coffee pot. When you look up, his expression has changed, guarded in the way people become when they are waiting for pity.

“Sorry,” you say quickly.

“For what?”

“I was staring.”

He glances down at the scar as though he has forgotten it is there.

“Oh.” He gives a small shrug, but his shoulders remain tense. “Don’t worry about it.”

Your fingers curl against the edge of the counter. “Does it still hurt?”

“No,” he says. “Not anymore.”

“It doesn’t?” You can barely believe it.

“No.” He draws the word out slightly, considering. “I mean, sometimes when it gets cold. Or if I move weird. But no, not really.”

You nod. Not anymore.

There are things that stop hurting. Not because they disappear, but because the body learns where to place them. Scar tissue forms, then the nerves quieten. The wound becomes something that can be touched without reopening. You wonder whether that will ever be true of you.

Steve’s eyes remain on your face, but he does not ask what you are thinking. The coffee machine clicks, startlingly loud in the still kitchen. He turns towards it with gratitude.

“So,” he says, reaching for the pot, “we should probably get your car today.”

The words are casual, but you hear the question hidden beneath them. Whether there will be a today, whether last night will allow it.

“Oh.” You glance towards the window. “Um. Yeah. Sure.”

“We don’t have to,” he adds immediately. “I mean, if you don’t feel up to it. It’s not going anywhere.” He begins filling the first mug. “Well, hopefully it’s not going anywhere. That would be—yeah, no it's not going anywhere.”

Despite yourself, your mouth softens. “No, I probably should.”

“Right. Yeah.” He nods too quickly. “Okay. We can do that.”

He pours the second cup. You watch him add a little milk to yours without asking. He stirs it and passes the mug to you, careful that your fingers do not have to touch his unless you choose it. You let them brush deliberately against his.

“Thanks,” you say. You lift the mug towards your mouth. It is too hot to drink, but you hold it there anyway, allowing the steam to warm your face.

The kitchen looks different. The plate that had been left on the desk upstairs now sits washed in the drying rack. The glass beside the telephone is gone and the counters have been wiped, the crumbs and unopened letters gathered into neater piles. A bin bag rests by the back door, tied at the top. Hell, even the old towel hanging from the oven has been folded evenly over the handle.

There he goes again. Useful to a fault.

He is trying not to frighten you. Worse, he is trying not to give you a reason to send him away.

You did this. You taught him this. That your tenderness could vanish between one night and the next. That he could fall asleep with you in his arms and wake with nothing. He looks towards you, then away when he realises you are watching.

“I can take a look at your car when we get there,” he says. “Make sure you didn’t mess up the alignment or anything. Not that you did. I mean, the road looked pretty rough, so—”

“Steve.”

He stops as his fingers tighten slightly around his mug. You could apologise again. There are hundreds of apologies waiting, each one inadequate in a slightly different way. But apologies belong to what has already happened. What he needs from you is something that reaches forward.

“We can get my car today,” you say.

“Yeah?” His brow furrows faintly. “Alright.”

“And then—” You look into your coffee, watching the surface tremble with your unsteady hands. “Is your house still empty?”

His expression goes blank with surprise.

“Uh. Yeah.” He shifts his weight. “Should be. My parents are still in Chicago. Or Dallas. They might be in Dallas now, actually. My mom left a message, but she talked for, like, ten minutes without saying where they were.” A nervous breath becomes a laugh. “Why?”

You run your thumb around the rim of the mug.

“I don’t know.” The words feel too large to look at him while you say them. “I don’t really feel like staying here tonight. I think I want to get out of here for a little while,” you continue. “Just for a few days. Maybe longer. I don’t know yet.”

You finally raise your eyes. Hope appears on his face so quickly that he cannot conceal it. It is immediately followed by caution, as though he is afraid any visible happiness might frighten you into taking the offer back.

“You can stay at mine,” he says. “I mean, if that’s what you want. You can take the guest room, or my room, and I can sleep somewhere else. The couch is fine. I’ve slept on it before. It’s not—well, it’s terrible, actually, but I can handle it.” He sets his mug down, words beginning to tumble as they always do when he is nervous. “You don’t have to decide how long. We can just get your car and pack some stuff, and then if you want to come back here tomorrow, I’ll bring you back. Or if you want to stay—”

“Steve.”

He falls quiet again. You have never known anyone who could make devotion look so much like nervousness.

He swallows. “You can stay as long as you need.”

There is more he does not say. Stay until you can sleep, until the silence is ordinary again. Stay after that, too.

You look down at the coffee warming your hands. Ready to give in.

“I don’t want to live alone anymore,” you say.

The words are quieter than you intended. They do not contain everything, but you hope he understands what you are trying to give him. That you want to continue beyond last night. That you are still afraid, perhaps, but no longer afraid of him.

“You don’t have to,” he tells you gently. “You’ll always have me. You know that.”

And you do. You know it in the way he stands barefoot in your kitchen, waiting for permission to remain. In every frightened, earnest promise he has ever offered you.

The distance between you becomes unbearable. You set your mug down and reach for him.

He barely has time to turn before you kiss him. Your hands rise to his face, drawing him close as you pour every sweetness you cannot yet name into his mouth. Every apology. Every morning you want to share. Every promise that this time, when fear comes, you will not disappear before he wakes. He makes a startled sound against your lips, as his arms close around you.

The kiss is gentle, softened by morning. There is no desperation in it now, nothing to outrun. His thumb brushes along your cheek, wide awake. When you draw back, you keep your forehead against his.

“I want to be better,” you whisper. “I want to be better for you.”

Steve’s arms tighten. He pulls back just enough to look at you properly. “You don’t have to do that for me.”

“I want to.”

His eyes move over your face, warm and tender.

“I got time,” he says. “As much as you need.”

You laugh softly, the sound disappearing against his chest as you let him hold you.

Outside, the morning continues without asking anything of either of you. The coffee cools on the counter, and your car remains abandoned miles away. There are still rooms to clean and words to say and wounds that will not vanish simply because the sun has risen.

But Steve is smiling into your hair.

He asks whether you want pancakes before you leave, and you tell him yes. You sit on the counter while he makes them, your legs swinging, occasionally brushing against his hip as you let yourself laugh for the first time in months. His eyes shine with something hopeful, and little by little, the tension leaves his shoulders. He can see that you are trying, that you are no longer quite so afraid.

The bag you pack is far too full for only a few days, but he doesn't mention it. He simply carries it to the car for you, and later, he will carry it upstairs as well.

He will carry whatever he can, because now he knows you are willing to carry something for him, too.

a/n: first fic lets goo!!!

this has been sat in my google docs for weeks, idk if i am happy with the final result but i wanted to clear it out.

i plan to be writing more, when time permits. please let me know what you all think and if you want to req something, i am more than happy to give it a go if i think i can do it justice!

i plan to write for other characters, not just st, so keep your eyes open for me (but ofc steve will be here in the future). this is the first of hopefully many more.

in the creel house, the spider that had bitten him was nothing special except whatever what was going on inside him must've exacerbated his systems. after the world split in half, he was bedridden for another two weeks.

he should've gone to the hospital; the amount of migraines he suffers through, not to mention the body aches and the hypersensitivity to sight and hearing, shouldn't be normal. but after the unprecedented earthquake and the hospitals filled to the brim with injuries far worse than his, he decided to put his own issues on the shelf.

he'll revisit it later, after everything's died down, he promised himself.

but then time goes by and henry's done and put away, normalcy wasn't a faraway dream and the kids managed to graduate with little drama. and maybe he should've been more embarrassed by waiting for his little buddy to grow up but steve's no longer too prideful to show off dustin as his best friend.

so they manage to find a shitty shoebox apartment in new york city where dustin attends nyu and steve attends the community college nearby. life seems too good to be true.

and with his migraines ramping up again, steve figures he may be well and truly cursed. the month of bedridden headaches and hypersensitivity comes and goes and he walks out like a brand new man.

literally.

flash forward to a few months later and steve's gone from super nanny to superhero.

—

"steve—!" dustin's voice is practically shrill in steve's ear as he swings through skyscrapers. "you gotta get home right now, she's on her way back—"

his voice sounds muffled through his mask as he takes a breather on one of the rooftops, his walkie tucked between his ear and shoulder. "i'm on my way, jesus christ. stall her!" he shoves the walkie back into his backpack before pitching himself off the edge of the building. he freefalls for a few seconds before his hand shoots out, a web catching onto the edge of a gargoyle as momentum carries him forward.

he lands nimbly upon his fire escape and tosses his backpack in first through the window. a clatter is heard a few feet away; it sounds like dustin stumbling his way through his own room to get to steve's. in fact, his door opens just as steve is fully through the window, already wrestling his mask off.

"dude!" dustin hisses as he crashes in, his curls askew and his hands gesturing wildly. "she's coming, i had to buzz her in before— are those new bruises?!"

he waves dustin away as he peels off his suit to tug on an old hawkins crew neck and sweats to conceal most of the damage from the fight this morning. he might've sustained a limp but he figures that's easily disguised if he stays sitting. "shut up, just be cool—!" he stumbles into their living space, quaint and cozy but too goddamn small for him, dustin, and you with all the spider-man shit littering their floors. fortunately, you know the secret.

or rather— you had found out on your own. you've always been too smart for your own good.

you're a storm—no, a hurricane— when dustin lets you in, eyes ablaze until they land on him. he lets you scan his body, disguised in worn out cotton and frayed threads, and he can see the way your muscles decompress. that, and the way he can hear your heart finally slows.

"i'm fine, see? promise," he grins as he taps the spot beside him. "you're gonna work yourself into a heart attack."

your eyes roll and collapse onto the middle seat of the couch, throwing your body into his side with a sigh. he wouldn't have hesitated to throw his arm around you, hold you closer than a platonic friend should, but he has an ugly scrape where he was dragged by the giant human-lizard hybrid atop the tarmac. so he winces and of course— you freeze.

"steve harrington." your voice is deceptively calm and in the corner of his eye, he hears dustin retreat into his bedroom. "are you injured right now?"

"… no." you hold his gaze for a beat before— "ow! hey, sweetheart— you're gonna—!"

you wrestle the sweater off him, revealing his broad frame, the burly hair upon his chest which you insist on ignoring, and the nasty scrape of broken skin and … "jesus christ, is that rubble?! "

steve's fought a handful of villains in his short career as spider-man. green goblin's a nasty fellow, especially with his pumpkin bombs. venom's relentless and brutal.

but none compare to your wrath whenever he accidentally overextends himself during crime fighting. he's grateful that you didn't know him back in hawkins — you might've grounded him every time he tossed himself into danger to keep the kids safe.

"it's fine," he insists but he's weak at the face of your rage, sheepish and fidgety. fortunately, you turn your attention to dustin peeking through the cracked space of his door and you get to your feet.

"dustin henderson, you're not safe from this either. come out here." your voice is like a whip and dutifully, dustin steps out with his head slightly bowed. "you can't keep enabling him, he's already got the biggest hero complex there is!"

dustin opens his mouth but the firmness in your gaze silences him, gives you a quiet nod. you're scarier than nancy wheeler with a shotgun.

"dustin. come on, man," steve exhales with quiet disappointment at how quickly he was thrown under the bus. but when his friend refuses to meet his gaze, he sighs and looks up at you with a little apologetic smile.

despite your fierce protective streak over your two lovely idiots, it conceals the fear that sits beneath your skin, striking sharp whenever steve steps out in that suit. it makes your strong front crumble as you settle back down beside steve and takes his hand to hold on your lap.

"i don't want you to think i'm controlling you, stevie," you sigh quietly and lean back in to curl up in his side. his arm winds around you without question, pressing his lips onto the crown of your head. "i'm just worried."

"i get it," he murmurs. "but i can't just sit around… not when i can do what i do."

a mournful smile curls upon your lips, turning your head to kiss his cheek. "i know. it's one of the many things i like about you." you rise up to your feet to rummage through the plastic bags you had left behind on his kitchen counter. "now go wash up. i promised dustin i was gonna make his favorite for dinner tonight."

"mac and cheese?"

"mac and cheese."

—

the moonlight illuminates your room as the clock strikes past midnight. your paper's finished but your mind is too wired to fall asleep now. you've made the wrong decision to turn on the tv in hopes to lull your mind; all it did was keep you up as the news channel reports spider-man's latest adventure of chasing after doc ock near the piers.

it makes your stomach twist uncomfortably so you opt to turn the tv off and immerse yourself in yet another reread of the hobbit. the words swim across the page as you stare at the phone on your bedside, willing it to ring.

dustin had promised to call you for an update — whether the bad guys were caught or if steve made it home — but it's almost 1 am and there's still no call. your nerves are ablaze now and you toss the book aside, crawling over to the other end of your bed. you pick up the phone, slamming down the number you've memorized, before a thud from your window calls for your attention.

steve sits on the precarious edge of your fire escape, his mask still on as he knocks on the glass pane with his head. you gasp and scramble off the bed to unlatch your window, shoving it up with a huff before steve slams his hand up, the easy strength he exudes leaving you speechless.

but as he tosses his backpack in first, he reaches behind to pull off his mask before he all but falls into your bedroom. a few books clatter from his disgraceful descent and you hold back your concerns in favor of helping him sit in your reading chair.

he winces as he basically collapses into the lumpy cushion, his breath uneven. you peek out the window to make sure he wasn't followed before locking it firmly and drawing the curtains. the sight that greets you when you turn makes your stomach turn.

his suit is in tatters, three long gashes bisecting his abdomen from his left pec down to his right hip bone. it seems as though his body's attempting to heal, the edges of the wound scabbing over.

"steve…" you whisper as you lean against the armrest of the chair, your hands hovering above his injury. "wait— don't move."

you swallow down your nausea to rush to your tiny bathroom down the hall, retrieving your first aid kit beneath the sink. it feels like you can't get there fast enough, your heart pounding as your mind keeps recalling the horrific gashes on steve's chest.

"gonna fix me up, nurse?"

steve still manages to muster his half grin, his stupidly cute hair still defying gravity even after wearing his mask all day. you roll your eyes, if only to just disguise the way your nerves have been shot the moment he landed on your fire escape.

"i'm majoring in engineering, harringon, not pre-med." you quip but you settle back down on the armrest, the first aid kit on your lap. "can you… can you take off the suit?"

"if you wanted me naked, you could've just said so—"

a laugh spills from you unbidden and the triumphant smile that curls upon steve's lips nearly has you shoving his face away; you can't focus when he looks at you like that.

but as he sits up to try and peel the spandex off, the pain that screws up his features has your hand settling on his. "wait— no, it's fine… you heal fast, right? i'll just clean you off, disinfect what i can," you mutter mainly to yourself and begin to wipe off his cuts as gently as you can.

steve's a trooper, barely winces and whines as the towel snags on some scabbing. you didn't realize how close you've leaned in until his gloved hand is settled on your waist and you've shifted close enough to sit on his lap. "oh shit, i'm sorry—"

"no, it's fine… s'easier this way, right? besides, you're not hurting me."

you bite your lip and resettle on his lap, your legs tossed along the armrest and your hand resting on the back of the chair as he basically cradles you. "i'm sorry." despite his apology taking you aback, you don't look away as you move onto the second gash to carefully clean.

"for what, stevie?"

his gaze upon you feels like a heavy weight — not like a burden but a warm, thick coat. you don't dare look up. "for worrying you. for giving you more gray hairs—"

your hand comes up to your head with a dramatic gasp. "i do not have gray hairs!"

he chuckles as his touch travels up to stroke your head alongside your hand, tucking back a few strands behind your ear. even with his gloved suit in the way, you can still feel the warmth of his touch and it has you leaning in, nuzzling into his palm.

"i forgive you, by the way." you toss the pinkened towel aside, feeling a bit better to at least having cleaned off the blood. it's still nasty but you're confident that the chances of steve contracting an infection from your shoddy patching up has lessened immensely. his hands are still on your waist, refusing to shift you off.

"good, i'm glad— i hate it when you're mad at me." he sighs as he grazes the exposed skin beneath your sleep shirt, his smile boyish and lazy. "feels like the world's rocking under my feet. i hate it."

you chuckle and let yourself get comfortable, the late hour emboldening you to indulge in your quiet fantasies of being with your best friend. "maybe that's enough to make you think twice before throwing yourself into danger, spider-man."

"yes, ma'am," he grins as he rests his brow against yours. this close, you can see every detail — his beauty marks, his growing stubble. your fingertips skim along the raised lines of his suit on his shoulders, past the scarring around his neck, to his jawline. "might make it easier if i know i get to come home to you."

your breath catches at the intimacy interwoven within each syllable and you wonder if your feelings aren't as unrequited as you believe them to be.

"if you're asking me to move in with you, you're skipping a few steps there, harrington."

his eyes light up as he tugs you as close as he can without disrupting his healing wounds. "you're right, you're right… let me start over." your heart is pounding and you're sure he can hear it, his stupid grin says it all as his lips hover above yours.

"will you go on a date with me?"

your eyes roll but your smile is undeniable, leaning in to close the distance. you can feel his hand travel up to cradle the back of your head, tilting your head slightly to slot your lips together. "gonna need to hear an answer here, sweetheart…" he mumbles against your mouth.

"don't be dense, harrington. you think i'd kiss you like this if i said no?" you tease with a gentle nip to his lower lip.

his laugh is fond, his eyes gentle as he gently pinches your chin to pull you back in for a stolen kiss. "smartass," he chuckles but with the way he deepens the kiss, something tells you he doesn't mind it at all.

—

two weeks later.

"you two are disgusting, you know that?"

dustin's voice makes you jump slightly from where you're seated on steve's lap, his arms around your waist and your hands in his hair. despite the flush on your cheeks and your lips looking absolutely kiss-swollen, steve looks downright pleased with himself as you crawl off his lap.

"weren't you just nagging last month that i should get it together and ask her out?"

the younger man rolls his eyes and throws a pillow at steve's head. "i regret giving you that advice if all you do is suck face in a common area."

you giggle and rise up from the seats, pinching dustin's cheeks. "i'll make you mac and cheese later if you stop whining."

"deal."

steve cackles as you start to gather your notes and pencils, placing them back in your bag. but as you start getting ready to go, steve strips out of his outerwear to reveal his suit underneath, his mask clamped between his teeth.

"where are you two going—?! i just got home," dustin whines. steve lifts you with ease into his arms, your legs and arms hooking around his frame like a backpack.

"i have work," you say with a sheepish shrug. "steve's dropping me off at the diner but i'll come by to make dinner! i'll see you later, dusty!"

dustin watches steve tug his mask on before shoving the window open, his hand raised up to release a web before tugging lightly to test its hold. he gives him a tiny salute before he catapults out the window, you firmly on his back.

it isn't your first time swinging with steve — he's swung you around even before the two of you got together — but you'll never get over the initial swoop of your stomach at the first free fall. your muscles clench as your face is shoved into the crook of steve's neck, eyes screwed shut as you feel him swing like a pendulum through the city traffic.

soon enough, you feel his momentum slow until he's dropping down gently into the secluded alley a few paces away from your diner job. it takes you a second to unclench and robotically detach from your boyfriend; even with a mask on, you can tell he's fighting back his laughter.

"i'll come pick you up later," he promises and throws up a web and nearly swings off before you stare up at him expectantly. it clicks a second later and he flips, lowering himself upside down until he's at eye-level with you.

"thought you forgot," you tease before carefully unrolling his mask down, revealing his lips which you kiss tenderly. "i'll see you later tonight, spider-man."

"see you, gorgeous."

—

"he's running late."

you look up from where your feet's been scuffing against one another to see dustin giving you an apologetic smile as he tips his head back to gesture over his shoulder. you stand from where you've been leaning against the wall of the diner to fall in step with him.

"i figured. thanks for coming to get me, though."

he chuckles and gently bumps your elbow with his. "i plan on guilt-tripping him 'til he agrees to swing me to class next week. there's a girl i want to impress in there."

conversation flows easy between you and dustin as the two of you take the subway back to the apartment, cracking jokes and making more promises of mac and cheese dinners. it's nearly dark by the time you two have arrived and it's an easy routine to fall back into. even though your own apartment is a few blocks away, you'd rather wait for steve at his place with dustin.

you've got the pasta noodles boiling when your hear the window in the living room slide open. you don't bother turning around, tamping down your smile when you feel his strong arms wind around your waist. when you glance down, he still got his spidey suit on.

"i'm sorry." he mumbles as he burrows his face into your neck, his hair tickling your cheek and his lips brushing along your neck. you let out a noncommittal hum before slowly turning in his arms to face him. his hands drop from your waist to settle on the counter behind you, pinning you in his arms as his brow drops to rest on yours.

"spidey business again?" you ask quietly but there's no anger that can be found, just quiet acceptance. he nods and you press a kiss to his lips, wordlessly assuring him that all is well.

"hold on— i got you something."

you lean back against the counter as he reaches behind to move his backpack to his front retrieving a—

"you didn't have to get me roses, stevie," you say, holding back a smile at the sad, limp bouquet in his hands. the roses are wilting, it's petals hanging on for dear life and its stems crooked as if he forgot his own strength again.

his cheeks burn bright red but his smile is infectious as he hides behind the flowers. "you hate them."

"no, no! i love them," you insist with a laugh, taking the bundle before tugging him down by the collar of his suit to press a deep kiss to his lips. he melts instantly and he has to lower himself slightly just to keep your lips locked and his hands find your waist once more.

"i'll get you roses every day, promise."

"just come back home to me, spider-man."

"always."

“And if you use the red one instead,” she declares to no one in particular, “the dragon’s fire comes out wrong. It has to be blue or it doesn’t count.”

Keys appears in the doorway of the kitchen like he has always belonged there. He sets two paper cups of coffee on the counter without a word. Yours is exactly the way you take it: too much cream, one sugar, still hot enough that the steam curls toward the ceiling.

“Long day?” he asks, voice low so it won’t interrupt Lily’s monologue.

You make a sound that is half laugh, half exhaustion. “The parent-teacher conference ran over. Mrs. Patel wanted to talk about Lily’s ‘creative spelling’ again. Then the grocery store was out of the only yogurt she’ll eat. Then the washing machine decided it wanted to eat a sock again.”

Keys’s mouth quirks. He is already rolling up his sleeves. “I’ll look at the machine after she goes down. Did Mrs. Patel at least admit the stories are good?”

“She said they’re ‘imaginative.’ Which is teacher-speak for ‘please stop writing about dragons eating the principal.’”

From the living room Lily calls, “The principal deserved it! He took away recess that one time!”

Keys leans against the counter, soft laugh under his breath. “She’s not wrong.” He glances at you, eyes warm. “You okay? For real?”

You shrug, stirring the macaroni. “I’m fine. Just… tired of the dating thing. Another one last week who asked if Lily was ‘still in the picture’ like she was a temporary inconvenience. I’m starting to think decent men just don’t exist anymore.”

Something shifts in his face, but he only nods and turns to the fridge. “Blue plate?”

“Always.”

Lily pads in a moment later, still talking. Keys crouches without being asked, listens with the seriousness of someone receiving classified information, and then lifts her onto the counter so she can “supervise” the macaroni.

“Uncle Keys,” she says, swinging her legs, “can you do the dragon voice for the story later? The real one, not the quiet one.”

“The real one,” he promises solemnly. “Even if it wakes the neighbors.”

You watch them, the easy way he steadies her with one hand while stirring with the other, and feel that familiar warm, dangerous pull in your chest. You label it best-friend stuff the way you always do.

Later, after the blue plate has been used, after teeth have been brushed twice because Lily insisted the first time “didn’t count,” after the night-light is on and the door is left open the precise width Keys always measures with two fingers, the two of you end up at the kitchen table. The apartment is quiet except for the soft hum of the refrigerator and the distant traffic.

You wrap both hands around your mug. “I’m serious, though. The last three dates have been disasters. One guy spent forty minutes explaining why he doesn’t tip. Another ghosted the second I mentioned I had a kid. I’m starting to believe the good ones went extinct.”

Keys is very still. His jaw is tight. He sets his mug down with deliberate care.

“Why not me?”

The words are low and raw. You freeze. For a heartbeat the kitchen feels too small. Then he is moving, closing the space between the chairs, one hand coming up to cup the side of your face. His thumb brushes the edge of your jaw.

“Keys—”

He kisses you like someone who has been holding his breath for years. It is desperate and frustrated and full of every late-night tea, every school-run, every time he fixed the broken hinge on Lily’s door without being asked. It lasts only seconds. When he pulls back, his eyes are wide with something close to horror.

“Shit,” he whispers. “I’m— God, I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have done that. I crossed a line. I know I did.”

He stands too fast. The chair scrapes. He is already reaching for his jacket.

“Keys, wait—”

“I’ll still pick her up tomorrow,” he says, voice carefully even now. “And the bedtime thing on Thursday. I’m not disappearing on her. Just… I need to go.”

“We should talk about this.”

He shakes his head once, almost gently. “Not tonight. Please.”

The door closes softer than it needs to.

You sit at the table for a long time after he leaves, fingers pressed to your mouth, heart slamming against your ribs. The denial you have worn like armor for years cracks clean down the middle in the silence he left behind.

The next three weeks are an exercise in careful absence.

Keys still texts. The messages are polite, almost formal.

Picking Lily up at 3:15. Need anything from the store?

Homework folder is in her backpack. Math sheet is finished. She says the blue crayon is still the most important.

She’s asking for the blue plate again. I’ll grab one if you’re out.

He never stays for tea anymore. When he drops Lily off, the conversations are short and logistical.

One afternoon you open the door to find him crouched in the hallway, tying Lily’s shoe while she talks a mile a minute.

“—and then Max said dragons aren’t real, but I told him Uncle Keys said the server ones are, so he’s wrong.”

Keys smiles at her, soft and real. “Server dragons are very real. Just mostly invisible.” He stands, meets your eyes for half a second, then looks away. “She did the reading worksheet. Math is in the folder. I’ll see you Thursday.”

“Keys—”

“Have a good night.” He is already turning toward the stairs.

Lily watches him go, then looks up at you. “Uncle Keys is being weird. He doesn’t laugh as much. And he looks at you like he has a tummy ache.”

You kneel to help her with the other shoe. “He’s just busy, baby.”

“No,” she says with six-year-old certainty. “He’s sad. And you’re sad. And it’s dumb. You should tell him to stop being weird.”

You don’t have an answer for that.

It is during this careful distance that Daniel appears.

He works in the building across from yours. You meet him in the lobby one rainy afternoon when Lily’s school bag splits open and crayons scatter across the tile.

“Need a hand?” he asks, already crouching to gather the blue ones first. He holds one up. “This the important one?”

Lily nods solemnly. “The most important.”

Daniel grins. “Got it.” He helps gather the rest, then offers to carry the bag upstairs. On the way he asks about her day, listens when she explains the dragon rules, and does not flinch when you mention being a single mom.

Two days later he is waiting in the lobby with coffee, exactly the way you take it and a gentle invitation. “Dinner this weekend? When she’s with her grandmother. No pressure.”

You say yes because the quiet ache Keys left behind is still raw.

The first date is easy. He listens. He asks about your work, about Lily’s obsession with dragons, about the washing machine that still eats socks.

“I can take a look at it sometime,” he offers. “I’m decent with appliances.”

You smile. “That’s… really nice of you.”

He walks you to your door and does not try to kiss you. “I’d like to see you again,” he says. “And maybe meet Lily properly, if you’re okay with that.”

You tell yourself this is what you wanted.

Keys finds out the way he finds out most things: by noticing.

He is dropping Lily off after school when Daniel is already there, leaning against the kitchen counter like he belongs, talking about a puzzle he brought.

“Hey,” Daniel says easily when Keys steps inside. “You must be the famous Uncle Keys. Lily talks about you nonstop.”

Keys’s smile for Lily is the same warm, patient but when he looks at Daniel it is polite and distant. “Keys.” He crouches to help Lily with her backpack. “How was the spelling test, kiddo?”

“I got the dragon words right,” she announces. “Daniel brought a puzzle with a castle. Want to help?”

Keys glances at you, then at Daniel. “I should get going. Early night.”

“Stay,” you say before you can stop yourself. “There’s coffee.”

He hesitates. “Another time.” He ruffles Lily’s hair. “Thursday for stories, okay? Dragon voice and everything.”

“Okay,” she says, already distracted by the puzzle box Daniel is opening.

After Keys leaves, Daniel looks at you with mild curiosity. “He seems… intense.”

“He’s just quiet,” you say. “He’s been around since she was little.”

Daniel nods, easy. “Lucky kid.”

That night you lie awake longer than usual, replaying the way Keys’s shoulders had tensed when Daniel laughed at something Lily said.

One Thursday Keys arrives for bedtime stories while Daniel is still there, finishing the castle puzzle with Lily on the living-room floor.

“Uncle Keys!” Lily scrambles up. “Daniel’s almost done the tower. But you have to do the story. He doesn’t know the dragon voice.”

Daniel stands, brushing off his jeans, smiling. “I can take a turn if you want a night off,” he offers Keys. “Give you a break.”

Keys’s expression softens only for Lily. “I’ve got it.” He sits on the edge of her bed when she pulls him down the hall. You and Daniel stay in the living room, the puzzle half-finished between you.

From the bedroom you hear Lily’s voice: “Do the part where the dragon is sad because nobody believes him.”

Keys’s reply is low and steady. “Once upon a time there was a dragon who lived inside the servers…”

Daniel glances toward the hallway. “She’s really attached to him.”

“She is,” you say quietly.

When Keys comes back out after Lily is asleep, Daniel is packing up the puzzle pieces.

“She’s out,” Keys tells you, voice careful. “Asked for water twice. Temp’s fine.”

Daniel straightens. “Thanks for handling bedtime. I can stick around if you need anything else.”

Keys meets his eyes for a moment. “I’ve got it. Been doing this a while.”

The air feels thick. You walk Daniel to the door. He kisses your cheek lightly. “Call you tomorrow?”

“Yeah.”

When you turn back, Keys is still in the kitchen, hands braced on the counter.

“He seems solid,” he says eventually, voice carefully neutral.

“He is.”

“Good with her.”

“Yes.”

Silence stretches.

“I should go,” he says.

“Keys—”

He turns. The intensity is back, banked low and painful. “I’m glad you’re not alone. That’s all I ever wanted.”

Then he is gone again.

-

It breaks on a Friday night three weeks after the kiss, and two weeks into Daniel’s careful presence.

Lily has a fever. Nothing dangerous, but she is miserable and clingy. You have been up since before dawn, singing the same three songs on loop. When Keys texts, you answer without thinking.

She’s sick. You don’t have to.

On my way.

Daniel texts too: Want me to bring soup or anything? but when Keys arrives twenty minutes later with a small pharmacy bag, you do not answer right away.

Keys takes one look at Lily curled on the couch and softens completely.

“Hey, kiddo,” he murmurs, sitting on the floor beside her. “Heard the dragons are being mean today.”

Lily crawls into his lap without hesitation. “They’re too loud. And my head hurts.”

“I know.” He opens the children’s acetaminophen, measures the dose with the same careful precision he uses for everything, and helps her drink it. “Want the dragon book? Quiet version?”

She nods against his chest. He reads in the softest voice you have ever heard from him. When she finally falls asleep, he carries her to bed, tucks the blankets the way she likes, and stands in the hallway for a long moment.

You are in the kitchen when he comes back. Rain taps against the windows.

“She’s okay,” he says. “Temp’s down a little. I left the medicine on the counter with the next dose time.”

“Keys.”

He shakes his head. “I should go.”

“No.” Your voice is steadier than you expected. “You don’t get to keep doing this. You don’t get to show up for her and disappear on me and pretend nothing happened.”

He freezes. For a long moment the only sound is the rain.

Then he turns. The careful politeness is gone.

“I kissed you,” he says, voice low. “I kissed you after years of telling myself I never would. I risked the only good thing in my life because I couldn’t stand hearing you talk about how no decent men exist when I’ve been right here the whole time. And the second I did it I realized I might have just made everything harder for you. For her. I don’t get to do that.”

You feel the words land like bruises.

“Daniel is… good,” you say quietly. “He’s kind. He’s steady. He doesn’t make everything feel like it’s about to tip over. He brought her a puzzle. He asks about her day. He’s trying.”

Keys’s jaw tightens, but he nods once. “Then you should be with him.”

“I don’t want to be with him.” The admission leaves you almost breathless. “I’ve been trying to want that. I’ve been trying to tell myself this ache is just leftover friendship and loneliness. But every time he brings coffee it isn’t the same. Every time he sits on the floor with her it isn’t the same. Every time the door opens and it isn’t you, something in me still reaches for the person who already knows the blue plate is non-negotiable and the exact width the door needs to stay open at night.”

Keys’s breath catches.

“I fell first,” he says, almost to himself. “A long time ago. I never said anything because you had enough to carry. I never wanted to be another thing you had to manage. And then he showed up looking like everything you said you wanted, and I thought… maybe that was the answer. Maybe I was supposed to step back so you could have the uncomplicated version.”

“You’re not a thing I manage.” You take one step closer. Then another. “You’re the person who shows up with coffee. Who knows the blue plate is non-negotiable. Who does the dragon voice without being asked. Who sat on the floor tonight and made her feel safe when she felt awful. You’re already in this, Keys. You have been for years. The only thing that changed is that I finally stopped lying to myself about what it means. And Daniel… Daniel is a good man. But he isn’t the one who makes the quiet feel safe.”

He looks at you for a long time. The careful wall is cracking.

“I don’t know how to do this without messing it up,” he admits, soft and awkward and completely honest. “I don’t know how to be more than her uncle Keys without risking the part of me she already trusts. And I don’t know how to watch someone else try to take the place I’ve been quietly holding for so long.”

“Then we figure it out slowly,” you say. “We keep the bedtime stories and the school runs and the blue plate. We keep the tea at the kitchen table after she’s asleep. We just… stop pretending the rest of it isn’t there. And tomorrow I’ll talk to Daniel. Honestly. Gently. He deserves that.”

Keys is quiet for another long moment. Then he moves, closing the last of the distance, slower this time. Careful. His hand comes up to your face again, thumb brushing the edge of your jaw.

“I’ve wanted this for so long,” he whispers.

“I know,” you answer. “Me too. Watching someone else try to stand where you already were only made it clearer.”

When he kisses you this time it is softer. Still full of years of unspoken things, but no longer desperate. When he pulls back, his forehead rests against yours.

“Stay,” you say quietly. “Just for a little while. The tea’s still warm.”

He nods once. The smile that ghosts across his mouth is small and real and a little shaky around the edges.

Later, after the rain has softened to a mist, the two of you sit at the kitchen table the way you always have. Two mugs. The soft clink of a spoon against ceramic. Keys’s knee brushes yours under the table and this time neither of you moves away.

“She’s going to ask a hundred questions,” he says eventually, voice low.

You smile into your tea. “She already thinks we’re both being dumb. She’ll probably just say ‘finally.’”

He huffs a quiet laugh. “Yeah. That sounds like her.”

Outside, the city keeps moving. Inside, something long and careful and quietly intense has finally been allowed to exist in the open.

In the morning you will text Daniel and end things gently, honestly, thanking him for the kindness, for the puzzle, for trying. Lily will ask for the blue plate and demand the real dragon voice. Keys will stay for breakfast, still a little awkward, still watching you like he can’t quite believe he’s allowed to. You will still be exhausted and independent and a little guarded. But when the door opens tomorrow, you will not have to pretend the way your chest lifts is only friendship.

And for the first time in a long time, that feels like enough.

-

The morning after feels quieter than it should.

You wake to the soft sound of Keys moving in the kitchen, careful, deliberate, the same way he has always moved through your apartment so he wouldn’t wake Lily. For a second the old instinct rises: he’s just being the good friend again. Then the memory of the night before settles in, warm and still a little unbelievable. The kiss that wasn’t frantic this time. The way his forehead rested against yours. The tea that went cold while you talked until the rain stopped.

You find him at the counter in yesterday’s hoodie, sleeves pushed up, two mugs already poured. He looks up when you appear, and the small, almost shy smile he gives you is new.

“Morning,” he says, voice low. “She’s still out. Temp was normal when I checked an hour ago.”

You take the mug he offers. Your fingers brush. Neither of you pulls away immediately.

“You stayed.”

“You asked me to.” He glances toward the hallway. “Didn’t want to leave if she needed anything. And… I didn’t want to leave you either.”

The honesty sits between you, soft and a little raw. You lean against the counter beside him, shoulder almost touching his.

“I need to talk to Daniel today,” you say. “Properly. Not just a text.”

Keys nods. “Yeah. He deserves that.” A pause. “Do you want me to… not be here when you do?”

“No. Stay. Just—maybe in the other room. I don’t want him to feel ambushed, but I also don’t want to do this alone.”

He reaches over, tentative, and tucks a strand of hair behind your ear. The gesture is careful, like he’s still learning he’s allowed.

“Okay.”

Lily appears twenty minutes later in mismatched socks, hair sticking up on one side. She stops in the doorway, takes in the two of you standing close at the counter, and tilts her head.

“Are you done being weird now?”

Keys huffs a quiet laugh. You feel heat rise in your face.

“We’re working on it,” you tell her.

She climbs onto her usual chair. “Good. Uncle Keys, can you make the toast the way I like? The not-burnt way.”

“The not-burnt way,” he agrees, already reaching for the bread. His eyes meet yours over her head, warm and a little stunned, like he still can’t quite believe the morning is real.

-

You meet Daniel in the lobby that afternoon while Keys stays upstairs with Lily and a board game. He looks hopeful when he sees you, coffee in hand again.

“Hey. How’s she feeling?”

“Better. Fever’s gone.” You take a breath. “Daniel… can we talk for a minute?”

His expression shifts, reading something in your face. He sets the coffee down on the little table near the mailboxes.

“Yeah. Of course.”

You keep it honest and kind. You tell him the truth without making it cruel: that someone has been part of your life for a long time, that the feelings you thought were only friendship turned out to be more, that you didn’t realize how deeply until recently, and that it wouldn’t be fair to keep seeing him when your heart was already spoken for.

Daniel is quiet for a long moment. Then he nods, once.

“I kind of wondered,” he says. “The way she talks about him. The way you both go quiet when he’s around. I liked you. I liked her. But I don’t want to be the guy who’s just… filling a space that was already taken.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” He offers a small, rueful smile. “Take care of yourself, okay? And her.”

When you walk back upstairs, Keys is on the living-room floor with Lily, both of them focused on a game of cards. He looks up the second the door opens, searching your face.

“It’s done,” you say softly.

He stands, leaves Lily with the cards, and crosses to you. His hand finds yours, fingers curling carefully.

“You okay?”

“Yeah. He was… decent about it.”

Keys’s thumb brushes over your knuckles. “Good.”

Lily glances between you. “Is Daniel not coming over anymore?”

You sit on the edge of the couch so you’re at her level. “Daniel’s a nice person, but he isn’t going to be around the same way. Uncle Keys and I… we’re figuring some things out. Things that are more than just friends.”

She considers this with the seriousness of a six-year-old who has already decided the world should make sense.

“So he’s staying for dinner more?”

Keys’s quiet laugh is soft against your shoulder. “If that’s okay with you.”

“As long as the toast isn’t burnt,” she says, and goes back to her cards.

-

The first week is a careful unfolding.

Keys still picks Lily up from school, still helps with homework at the kitchen table, still does the bedtime routine but now he stays afterward. Some nights he sleeps on the couch. Some nights, after Lily is long asleep, he follows you to your room and the two of you lie facing each other in the dark, talking in low voices about nothing and everything.

“I keep waiting for you to change your mind,” he admits one night, fingers tracing idle patterns on the back of your hand. “Like I’m going to wake up and you’ll realize this complicates everything too much.”

You shift closer. “I’ve spent years telling myself it was simpler to keep you at a safe distance. It wasn’t. It just hurt quieter.”

His breath catches. He leans in and kisses you slow, unhurried, the kind of kiss that feels like a promise instead of a confession.

During the day the domestic rhythms shift in small ways. He starts leaving a second toothbrush in the bathroom without commenting on it. You catch him restocking the coffee the way you both like it. One afternoon he is on the phone with the landlord about the washing machine while you sit on the counter, feet swinging, listening to him negotiate with the same quiet patience he uses with Lily.

“They’re sending someone Thursday,” he tells you when he hangs up. “I told them if it isn’t fixed by then I’m buying a new one and sending them the bill.”

You smile. “Look at you, being intimidating.”

He flushes faintly. “I’m not intimidating.”

“You are when you want to be.”

Lily runs in then, holding up a drawing. “I made us at the park. See? You’re holding hands.”

Keys takes the paper carefully. In the picture the three of you are stick figures under a lopsided sun, his figure and yours connected by a single careful line.

“It’s perfect,” he says, and means it.

Not everything is effortless.

One evening you come home late from a work thing to find Keys at the table with Lily, helping her with a reading worksheet. The apartment smells like the pasta he made. Everything looks warm and lived-in and right until you catch the way he still hesitates before kissing your cheek in front of her, like he’s checking permission every time.

Later, after she’s asleep, you find him standing at the sink, hands braced on the edge.

“Talk to me,” you say.

He is quiet for a moment. “I keep thinking about how long I waited. How many times I almost said something and didn’t. And then Daniel showed up and it felt like proof that I should have stayed quiet. That you could have had someone easier.”

You step closer, resting your forehead against his shoulder blade.

“Easier isn’t the same as right. You showed up for every fever and every late-night rant and every broken appliance. You already chose us, over and over, without asking for anything back. That’s not complicated. That’s the opposite.”

He turns, arms coming around you carefully. “I’m still learning how to stop being careful with you.”

“We’ll learn together.”

He kisses the top of your head, then your temple, then the corner of your mouth, each one softer than the last.

Two weeks in, the three of you spend a rainy Sunday at home. Lily is sprawled on the living-room floor with a new puzzle. Keys is on the couch with a book he isn’t really reading. You are tucked against his side, half-asleep, listening to the rain and the quiet click of puzzle pieces.

Lily looks up. “Can we have pancakes for dinner?”

Keys glances at you. “Your call.”

“Pancakes sound perfect.”

He stands, squeezes your hand once, and heads to the kitchen. You hear him opening cabinets, the familiar rhythm of him moving through the space like he belongs there. Lily abandons the puzzle to “help,” which mostly means standing on a chair and supervising the batter.

You stay on the couch for a minute longer, listening to their voices: her bright questions, his low answers, the occasional soft laugh, and feel the last of the old denial settle into something quieter and truer.

When you join them, Keys hands you a spatula without looking, already knowing you’ll want to flip the first one. His hip bumps yours. Lily leans between you both, flour on her cheek, completely at ease.

Later, after the pancakes and the bath and the bedtime story (a new book about a girl who builds rocket ships, no dragons required), the apartment settles into its nighttime quiet. Keys locks the door, turns off the last light in the kitchen, and finds you in the hallway.

“Stay,” you say, the same word from the night everything changed, but lighter now.

He smiles, small and real. “I’m not going anywhere.”

You reach for his hand. He takes it. Together you walk down the short hallway, past Lily’s open door, into the room that is starting to feel like it belongs to both of you. The door clicks shut behind you with a soft finality. For a moment you both just stand there in the low light from the streetlamp outside, looking at each other like the air between you has changed.

Keys reaches up, slow, and brushes his thumb along your cheekbone. “You sure?” His voice is low, rough around the edges. “We can just sleep. I don’t want to rush anything you aren’t ready for.”

“I’m sure.” You lean into his touch. “I’ve been ready longer than I let myself admit. I just… want it to be you.”

Something in his expression fractures open, soft, intense, almost reverent. He steps closer until your chests brush. His hands settle at your waist, thumbs tracing small circles through the thin fabric of your shirt.

“Tell me if anything feels like too much,” he murmurs. “Or not enough. I’ll listen.”

“I will.”

He kisses you then, slow at first, testing, then deeper when you make a quiet sound against his mouth. One of his hands slides up your back, under the hem of your shirt, warm palm against bare skin. You feel him tremble slightly, like the contact is overwhelming him.

You break the kiss just long enough to pull his hoodie up and over his head. He helps, then does the same with your shirt, tossing both aside. His eyes travel over you in the dim light, dark and hungry and careful all at once.

“You’re beautiful,” he says, almost under his breath. “I’ve thought about this so many times. Never thought I’d actually get to—”

You cut him off with another kiss, backing toward the bed. The backs of your knees hit the mattress and you sit, then lie back, pulling him with you. He braces himself above you on his forearms, careful not to put his full weight on you yet. His mouth finds the hinge of your jaw, then the side of your neck, open-mouthed and slow.

“Keys—”

“I’ve got you.” His voice is muffled against your skin. “Just let me take care of you.”

His hands map you carefully, palms sliding up your ribs, thumbs brushing the undersides of your breasts through your bra. When you arch into the touch he makes a low, rough sound and reaches beneath you to unclasp it. The fabric loosens; he draws it away and looks at you for a long moment like he’s memorizing.

“Can I?” he asks, already leaning down.

“Yes. Please.”

His mouth closes over one nipple, warm and wet, tongue circling slowly while his hand cups the other breast, thumb stroking. You thread your fingers into his hair and hold on as heat pools low in your belly. He switches sides, sucking gently, then a little harder when you gasp, learning what makes your breath hitch.

“Feels good?” he asks against your skin.

“So good. Don’t stop.”

He doesn’t. He spends long minutes there, licking, kissing, occasionally scraping his teeth just enough to make you shiver. One of his thighs slots between yours and you rock against it instinctively. He groans and presses closer.

Eventually his mouth trails lower, sternum, stomach, the soft skin just above the waistband of your leggings. He hooks his fingers in the fabric and looks up at you for permission. You nod, lifting your hips so he can peel them down along with your underwear. He tosses them aside and settles between your thighs, hands warm on your hips.

For a second he just looks, breathing unevenly. “Fuck. You’re— I’ve wanted this for so long.”

“Keys, please.”

He leans in and presses an open-mouthed kiss to the inside of one thigh, then the other, working closer with maddening patience. When his tongue finally drags over you, slow and deliberate, your head tips back against the pillow with a quiet, broken sound.

He starts soft, long, flat strokes, learning the shape of you. When he finds the spot that makes your hips twitch he focuses there, circling, then sucking gently. One of his hands slides up to lace his fingers with yours; the other stays on your hip, steadying you.

“That’s it,” he murmurs against you when you whimper. “Just like that. Let me hear you.”

You try to keep quiet for Lily’s sake, biting your lip, but soft, breathless sounds still escape. He works you with focused patience, tongue and lips until your thighs start to tremble. When he slides one finger inside, then a second, curling them just right while his mouth stays on you, the dual sensation makes your back arch.

“Keys— I’m close—”

“I’ve got you. Come for me. Want to feel it.”

The orgasm rolls through you in slow, deep waves. You clutch his hand and the sheets, trying not to cry out too loudly. He stays with you through it, gentling his touch but not stopping until you tug lightly at his hair, oversensitive.

He crawls back up your body, kissing your stomach, your sternum, your mouth. You can taste yourself on his tongue. His cock is hard against your hip, still trapped in his jeans.

You reach between you and palm him through the denim. He shudders hard.

“Off,” you whisper. “I want to feel you.”

He sits back on his heels and shoves his jeans and boxers down in one motion, kicking them away. His cock is thick, flushed, already leaking at the tip. You wrap your hand around him and stroke once, slow. His head drops forward with a rough exhale.

“Been a while,” he admits, voice strained. “I’m not— I might not last long the first time.”

“That’s okay. We have time.”

You guide him back down between your legs. He reaches for his discarded jeans, pulls a condom from his wallet with slightly shaking hands, and rolls it on. Then he settles over you again, the head of his cock sliding against your wetness.

“Ready?” he asks, forehead against yours.

“Yes. Want you inside me.”

He pushes in slowly, inch by careful inch, giving you time to adjust. The stretch is perfect, full, deep. When he’s all the way in he goes still, breathing hard, eyes locked on yours.

“You feel— God. Perfect. So warm.”

“Move,” you whisper. “Please.”

He starts with long, slow thrusts, pulling almost all the way out before sliding back in. Every stroke is deliberate, controlled, like he’s cataloguing every reaction. His hand finds yours again, pinning it gently to the pillow above your head. The other braces beside you so he can keep looking at your face.

“Like this?” he asks, voice rough.

“Harder. You don’t have to be so careful.”

Something in him loosens. He picks up the pace, hips snapping a little sharper, the wet sound of it filling the quiet room. You wrap your legs around his waist and meet every thrust. The new angle makes him hit deeper; a soft, punched-out moan escapes you.

“There— right there—”

“I feel it.” He shifts, grinding in on every stroke so the base of his cock rubs your clit. “Want you to come again. Can you?”

“I— yes. Don’t stop.”

He keeps the rhythm steady and deep, free hand sliding between you to rub tight circles over your clit. The dual sensation builds fast. You come a second time with his name on your lips, clenching around him. The way you pulse around his cock pulls a low, broken sound from his chest.

“Fuck— I’m gonna—”

“Come,” you tell him, still trembling. “Want to feel you.”

He thrusts twice more, then buries himself deep and comes with a quiet, wrecked groan against your neck, hips stuttering. You hold him through it, hands stroking down his back, feeling every tremor.

For a long minute neither of you moves. His weight is warm and solid on top of you; his breath is hot against your throat. Eventually he presses a soft kiss there and carefully pulls out, tying off the condom and discarding it before collapsing beside you.

He immediately reaches for you, drawing you against his chest. One hand cards gently through your hair; the other rubs slow circles on your back.

“You okay?” he asks, voice still rough. “Was that— too much? Not enough? Talk to me.”

“I’m perfect.” You press a kiss to his collarbone. “That was… everything I didn’t know I needed.”

He lets out a shaky breath that sounds almost like a laugh. “I’ve wanted to take care of you like that for so long. Still feels a little unreal.”

“It’s real.” You tilt your head up so you can see his face in the dim light. “You’re here. You’re staying.”

“I’m staying.” His arms tighten around you. “As long as you’ll have me.”

You lie there tangled together, skin cooling, hearts slowing. Keys keeps touching you, soft strokes along your spine, fingers tracing the curve of your shoulder, occasional gentle kisses to your hairline like he can’t quite stop reassuring himself you’re both still here.

After a while he gets up just long enough to find a clean washcloth, warms it under the faucet, and comes back to clean you up with careful, almost shy thoroughness. When he’s done he tosses the cloth toward the laundry basket and climbs back into bed, pulling the blanket over both of you.

You settle against his side, head on his chest, leg hooked over his. His heartbeat is steady under your ear.

“I love you,” he says quietly into the dark, like the words have been waiting years to be spoken. “You don’t have to say it back tonight. I just… needed you to know.”

You lift your head and kiss him, soft and lingering. “I love you too. I think I have for a long time. I was just too scared to name it.”

His arms tighten. You feel him press a smile against your hair.

Outside, the rain has finally stopped. Inside, the quiet feels different now, full instead of empty, shared instead of solitary. Keys’s hand keeps moving in slow, soothing passes over your back until your breathing evens out.

“Sleep,” he murmurs. “I’ve got you. I’ll still be here in the morning.”

And for the first time in a long time, you believe it completely.

-

You wake to the soft creak of the bedroom door and the unmistakable patter of small bare feet on the floorboards.

For one blissful half-second your body is still warm and heavy with sleep, Keys’s arm draped solidly across your waist, his chest pressed to your back, both of you completely bare under the tangled sheet. Then reality arrives in the form of a six-year-old voice.

“Mama? Uncle Keys? Can I come in? I had a dream about the rocket ship and it was really cool and also I’m hungry.”

Keys goes rigid behind you. You feel the exact moment he registers the same problem you do: neither of you is wearing a single stitch of clothing. His hand tightens on your hip in pure panic.

“Just a second, baby,” you call, voice carefully even while your free hand scrambles under the sheet for anything wearable. Your shirt is nowhere in reach. Keys’s hoodie is on the floor on his side. The sheet is the only cover you have.

Lily does not wait. She never does. The door pushes open wider and she climbs onto the foot of the bed with the determined energy of someone who has decided the morning has officially started.

Keys makes a strangled sound and yanks the sheet higher, practically cocooning both of you from the waist down. You sit up as much as the fabric allows, clutching it to your chest.

Lily freezes halfway up the mattress, eyes going wide. She looks at the two of you: Keys’s bare shoulder, your bare arms, the very obvious fact that you are sharing the bed in a way that is new, and then she tilts her head.

“Are you both naked?”

Keys’s face turns the approximate color of a tomato. “Uh—”

“We were… sleeping,” you manage, trying not to laugh at the sheer horror on his face. “Sometimes grown-ups sleep without clothes when it’s hot. It’s a… temperature thing.”

Lily considers this with deep seriousness. “The radiator isn’t even on.”

“It was warmer last night,” Keys offers weakly. He has managed to fish his boxers from somewhere under the covers and is attempting to pull them on under the sheet without flashing anyone. The attempt is not graceful.

Lily crawls the rest of the way up and plops herself between you, completely unbothered. “Okay. Can we have pancakes again? And can Uncle Keys stay forever now? Because if you’re both naked in the same bed that means he’s basically my other parent, right? Max at school said that’s how it works.”

You and Keys exchange a long look over her head. His expression is equal parts mortified and soft.

“We’re still figuring out the details,” you tell her, brushing her sleep-tangled hair back. “But yes. He’s staying. A lot more.”

Keys clears his throat. “Pancakes sound good. But maybe you go brush your teeth and pick out clothes while Mama and I… put clothes on too?”

Lily sighs the long-suffering sigh of a child who has decided adults are unnecessarily complicated. “Fine. But don’t take forever. I’m starving.”

She slides off the bed and pads out, leaving the door wide open behind her.

The second she disappears down the hall, Keys drops his forehead against your shoulder and lets out a helpless, muffled laugh.

“I think I just died,” he mutters. “Actual death. Right here.”

You are laughing too, quiet and a little hysterical, the sheet still clutched to your chest. “Welcome to single-parent mornings. They are rarely dignified.”

He lifts his head. His hair is a mess, his mouth still curved in that soft, stunned smile. “She’s not wrong, though. About me staying.”

“I know.”

He leans in and kisses you once, quick and warm, before the practical reality of the morning reasserts itself. The two of you scramble for discarded clothes in a clumsy, whispered rush, Keys tossing you your shirt, you throwing his jeans at his chest, both of you half-dressed and grinning like idiots by the time Lily’s voice floats back from the bathroom demanding to know if the toothpaste is the “sparkly kind.”

By the time the three of you make it to the kitchen, the worst of the awkwardness has settled into something almost normal. Keys is in jeans and the gray hoodie again. You are in leggings and one of his older T-shirts. Lily sits at the table swinging her legs, narrating the rocket-ship dream in great detail while Keys mixes pancake batter with the same quiet focus he brings to everything.

You lean against the counter beside him, close enough that your arms brush every time he reaches for the whisk.

“You okay?” you ask under your breath.

He glances at you, eyes warm. “Still slightly traumatized. But yeah. More than okay.” A small pause. “She took it better than I expected.”

“Kids are resilient. And she’s been waiting for us to stop being ‘weird’ for weeks.”

He huffs a quiet laugh and pours the first circle of batter into the pan. “True.”

Breakfast is messy and loud and perfect. Lily gets syrup on her chin and insists Keys cut her pancakes into “rocket shapes.” He does his best. You catch him watching the two of you when he thinks you aren’t looking, that same soft, intense expression from last night still lingering around the edges.

After the plates are cleared and Lily is occupied with her puzzle on the living-room floor, Keys finds you at the sink. He steps up behind you, arms sliding around your waist, chin resting on your shoulder.

“Last night was…” He trails off, searching for the right word.

“Yeah,” you say, leaning back into him. “It was.”

“I meant what I said. About loving you. About staying.” His voice is low, meant only for you. “I know this is going to be complicated sometimes. School runs and fevers and her climbing into bed at the worst possible moments. But I want all of it. With you.”

You turn in his arms so you can see his face. “I want all of it too. Even the undignified parts.”

He smiles, small and real, and kisses you soft and slow until Lily’s voice interrupts from the other room.

“Are you guys kissing again? Because if you are, can you hurry up so we can go to the park? The big swings are better on Sundays.”

Keys rests his forehead against yours, laughing quietly. “Park it is.”

The rest of the day unfolds in the easy, ordinary way the best days do. The three of you walk to the neighborhood park under a sky still soft from yesterday’s rain. Lily claims the swings and demands Keys push her “as high as the rocket ships.” He does, steady and patient, while you sit on the bench nearby and watch them: the way he listens to every word she says, the way she trusts him completely.

At one point she jumps off the swing and runs to you, breathless. “Mama, can Uncle Keys come to parents’ night at school next month? Max’s dad always comes and it’s not fair.”

You look at Keys. He is watching you carefully, waiting for your lead.

“If he wants to,” you say.

“I want to,” he answers without hesitation.

Lily beams like she has just won something important and races back to the swings.

Later, after the park and grilled cheese for lunch and a quiet afternoon of laundry and reading on the couch, the day winds down the same way so many others have, except everything feels different now. Keys helps with bath time. He does the bedtime story (the rocket-ship book again, because Lily is currently devoted). When she is finally asleep, the two of you end up back at the kitchen table with tea, knees touching underneath.

“She’s going to tell everyone at school,” you say, smiling into your mug. “You realize that, right? By Monday the entire first grade will know that Uncle Keys lives here now.”

“I can live with that.” He reaches across the table and takes your hand, thumb brushing over your knuckles. “As long as you can.”

“I can.”

The quiet stretches, comfortable. Outside, the city keeps moving. Inside, the apartment feels fuller than it has in a long time, shoes by the door that belong to him, a second coffee mug already claimed as his, the faint scent of his shampoo on your pillow.

Keys stands, tugs you gently to your feet, and pulls you into a slow hug in the middle of the kitchen. You rest your head against his chest and listen to the steady beat of his heart.

“Thank you for choosing me,” he murmurs into your hair.

“Thank you for waiting,” you answer.

He kisses the top of your head, then your temple, then the corner of your mouth, soft, unhurried, full of everything still ahead of you.

Tomorrow there will be school runs and work emails and the washing machine that still needs fixing. There will be more mornings where Lily climbs into bed at the worst possible moment, more nights of quiet tea after she is asleep, more ordinary, imperfect, perfect days.

But tonight, Keys is staying.

And for the first time, neither of you has to pretend that is anything less than exactly what you both want.

. ܁₊ ⊹ . ܁ ⟡ ܁ . ⊹ ₊ ܁. . ܁₊ ⊹ . ܁ ⟡ ܁ . ⊹ ₊ ܁. . ܁₊ ⊹ . ܁ ⟡ ܁ . ⊹ ₊ ܁. . ܁₊ ⊹ . ܁

Cold at the front, stale near the horror aisle, warm and dusty by the back room where the employees pretended not to nap on slow days. You'd learned it well. The carpet had been vacuumed badly enough that one popcorn kernel still sat near the base of the New Releases shelf, and the whole place smelled of plastic cases, old cardboard, butter flavoring, and Steve’s cologne whenever he passed close enough.

You had bought the Cosmopolitan at Bradley’s Big Buy ten minutes earlier because Steve’s shift still had twenty minutes left and you had already spent enough of your life pretending to be fascinated by the same movie boxes. The magazine was glossy and ridiculous and slightly bent from being shoved into the paper bag with your gum and cherry ChapStick. Its cover promised impossible hair, dangerous romance, and a quiz that claimed it could tell you whether your boyfriend was “summer fling material or forever trouble.”

You had bought it mostly because the cashier had taken one look at the cover, looked at you, and smirked. You felt the need to spite whatever assumption they'd made.

Now, standing in Family Video with the magazine tucked under your arm, you could hear Robin before you saw her.

“No, sir,” she was saying from behind the counter, her voice flat with the kind of patience that had already been used up twice that day. “Late fees do not disappear just because you personally disagree with the passage of time.”

A man in a tucked-in polo stood on the other side of the counter, holding a tape case in both hands. “I’m saying I returned it.”

“And I’m saying I was here when you did not.”

Steve was beside her, rewinding a tape with the solemn concentration of someone performing surgery. He had one elbow propped on the counter, his Family Video vest hanging open over a striped polo, name tag slightly crooked. His hair looked good in the unfair way it always did, even after a full shift under fluorescent lights. A pencil was tucked behind his ear. You'd learned that he only did that when he was pretending to be busier than he was.

He noticed you almost immediately.

He always did, even when he tried to play it cool. His eyes lifted from the rewinder, found you near the candy display, and softened before the rest of his face caught up. For a second, his posture changed. Not much. One shoulder dropped. His mouth tilted. The pencil behind his ear slipped slightly.

“Hey, babe,” he smiled gently in his usual greeting. His gaze flicked over you quickly, not dismissive, just practiced. “You look nice.”

Then the rewinder clicked, and he looked back down.

Nice.

You stopped with one hand on the edge of the counter.

It was not the worst thing he could have said. It was not bad at all, technically. Nice was safe. Nice was warm enough to count. Nice was the kind of thing you said to someone you loved when you were also trying to remember whether The Man with One Red Shoe belonged under comedy or suspense.

But you’d spent longer than usual getting ready today.

You had changed twice before leaving, had stood in front of your mirror with one earring in and one earring out, and tried to decide whether the pink skirt was too much for a Friday night at Family Video. You had redone the front of your hair because the first attempt had gone strange in the humidity. You had put on the good perfume, the one you used sparingly because the bottle was small and because Steve always noticed when you wore it.

Or he used to.

Nice sat there now, plain and harmless, while Steve returned to his tape and Robin told the polo-shirted man she could absolutely call Keith if he wanted to experience the same answer with less eye contact.

You slid yourself onto the stool at the end of the counter and sat the magazine down.

The cover girl smiled up at you in all her glossy confidence, her lips bright, her shoulders bare, and her hair reaching heights that probably required a prayer. You flipped through pages of perfume ads, diet soda blurbs, lipstick spreads, and letters from readers who apparently, lived lives full of beach parties and emotional ultimatums.

Then, you found the article.

The “Too-Perfect” Romance: 7 Flirty Signs He’s Getting a Little Too Comfortable!

You read the title once. Then again.

A laugh pressed against your throat, but you held it in.

Steve looked up quickly anyway. “What?”

“Nothing.”

His eyes narrowed at your quick response. “That wasn’t a nothing sound.”

You smiled with a shake of your head. “I didn’t make a sound.”

“You made a face.”

Robin’s customer finally huffed his way out of the store, muttering about principles. The bell above the door jingled after him. Robin watched him go with a dead-eyed expression, then turned toward you.

“What did you find?”

Your eyes flitted across the words of the page. “An article.”

“That’s never good.” Steve leaned over the counter, trying to see. You tilted the page away from him just as he came near.

His voice came low with curiosity.  “Why can’t I read it?”

You hummed lightly, “because you’re the subject.”

He blinked down at you, his eyes turning owl-ish at the vagueness of your words. “The subject of what?”

Robin’s mouth opened into a grin. “Oh, this is promising.”

You smoothed the magazine page with your palm and began reading silently.

You’ve made it past the two-year mark without a single major blowout, and your Friday nights are a perfectly oiled machine of movie rentals and shared pizza toppings.

You glanced up.

Steve was watching you now, tape forgotten, eyebrows drawn together. He had the expression he got when Dustin explained something too quickly and Steve was trying to decide whether he had missed an insult.

You looked back down.

Don’t get too cozy just yet! In our fast-paced eighties, there is a very fine line between a secure romance and a total relationship snooze-fest! Sometimes, when a guy knows he’s finally "won" your heart, he quietly hits the cruise control button. He might love you to pieces, but is he still trying to wow you?

Grab that gloss, lounge back on your bed, and take this quick checklist to see if your dream boy is secretly sliding into the "Comfort Trap"—and exactly how to tease him right out of it!

It was stupid. Completely stupid. Written in the breathless, bossy voice of someone who had never met Steve Harrington after midnight in a hospital waiting room, or seen him go quiet when one of the kids flinched at a loud noise, or watched him check the rearview mirror three times on the way home because caution had become part of him.

Still.

You had twenty minutes to kill.

Steve had said nice without really looking. And the article had numbered instructions. You folded the magazine back just enough to hide the page title and smiled to yourself.

Robin, who had the instincts of a person raised on chaos, took one step away from Steve.

He noticed and immediately frowned in questioning. “Why are you moving?”

Robin shrugged, her shoulders reaching the ends of her hair in doing so. “No reason.”

“That is also not a no-reason face.”

You tapped the first numbered section with your fingernail.

Steve looked between you and Robin, suddenly alert. “What’s happening?”

You kept smiling.

“Education,” you had to bite the i side of your cheek to stop from laughing outright.

───

The “Automatic” Compliment

When you spend forty-five minutes crimping your hair or putting on your absolute best pleated miniskirt, does he give you a real, jaw-dropping reaction? Or does he just look up from his car radio, smile, and say, "You look nice, babe," out of total reflex? If his praise feels like an automated recording, his eyes might be getting a little lazy.

The Solution:  Next time he says it without looking, step right into his line of sight, block his view, and playfully demand he give you three specific reasons why!

The article accused him of having lazy eyes.

You found that unfair, mostly because Steve’s eyes were not lazy. They were restless if anything. Always tracking movement. Always catching on exits and windows and whoever had just walked into a room. Even when he seemed relaxed, some part of him stayed awake, cataloging changes, and always listening for small changes.

But the article was not interested in nuance, the article clearly wanted drama. The article wanted you to step right into his line of sight and demand three specific reasons.

So, you did.

Steve had just gone back to sorting returns into piles with the kind of vague competence that would probably make Keith complain later. He held Teen Wolf in one hand and Out of Africa in the other, staring at them with open uncertainty.

“Comedy?” he muttered, his lips were pulled into a small frown as he wracked his brain for the possible answer.

“Drama,” Robin said without looking.

Steve wasn't entirely convinced, his voice turning questioning. “There’s a wolf.”

“It has feelings.”

He scoffed that, “all movies have feelings.”

Robin quickly shot back her response. “Not the ones you recommend.”

You took that moment to slip off the stool and come around the counter besides your boyfriend.

Steve saw you move, but he didn't seem to understand the danger quickly enough. He looked at you, then at the magazine on the counter, then back at you right as you stepped in front of him and blocked the shelf.

He stopped, not with suspicion, but with clear unsureness.

“Hi,” he said with a softness that made you grin on instinct. 

Steve mirrored your expression by impact and pure reflex. “Hi.”

His eyes dropped to your mouth for the briefest second. “Do you need something?”

You nodded with severe certainty “Yes.”

“Okay,” Steve looked up into your eyes and his head tilted, he seemed to wait for the further set of instructions he was clearly waiting for.

You specified soon after that, each word clearly enunciated, and your fingers held up in pairing. “Three specific reasons.”

He waited for more clarification with a gentle handed posture. His soft smile hadn't disappeared, but it became mixed in with something else now. “For…?”

“Why I look nice.”

The silence after that was truly beautiful.

Robin slowly lowered the inventory sheet she had been pretending to read and you swore her hard blinks could be heard across the air.

Steve stared at you with the VHS tapes still in his hands, and his mouth parted slightly. He looked, for one unguarded moment, completely removed from every version of himself he had ever practiced in a mirror or labeled to be. Instead, he just was your boyfriend in a dumb vest, ambushed by a request he should probably have been prepared for.

“Three,” you repeated with the underlying giddy feeling in your body simmering.

He stammered a bit at the blunt reminder. “Right now?”

“You already had time when I came in.”

“I was working.”

Your eyes narrowed slightly in clear disbelief. “You were rewinding Short Circuit?”

“It requires attention.”

Robin made a small noise from where she watched, mirroring your disbelieving look. “Does it?”

Steve shot her a look, then returned his attention to you. His gaze moved over your face properly this time, slower than before, and the amusement in you shifted into something quieter. You had meant to tease him, you hadn't expected the teasing to make him actually look.

He noticed your earrings first. You could tell because his eyes caught on the little flash near your jaw when you turned your head.

“Your earrings,” he cleared his throat with a particularly strong bobble of his head. Your brows quirked up on instinct. 

“That’s one?”

Steve shook his head quickly, then continued. “No, that’s the category. I’m building.”

Robin whispered to you with a clearly mocking tone that had you biting back a wider smile, “He’s building.”

Steve ignored her with effort, you could tell by the lack of bite back. “They’re the ones you wore to the Fourth of July thing, right? Before—” He stopped, jaw shifting around the rest of the sentence. You could tell he was trying to reference a memory that didn't come clearly to him, so you let him go on without issue. “Anyway. They look good. They do that little shiny thing when you move.”

You felt yourself soften, then immediately fought it because you were supposed to be conducting an experiment. A terribly stupid experiment, but an experiment you decided was going to be fun entertainment nonetheless. 

“One,” you allowed with your index finger tilting to the side in counting.

He adjusted the tapes in his hands, more comfortable now that he had survived the first answer. “Your skirt. The buttons on the side.”

The sentence wasn't what you were expecting it to be, your voice turned questioning before it evened back out. “You noticed the buttons?”

He gave you a look that was clear betrayal, his hand went up to stretch across the back of his neck. “I’m trying to be respectful in front of Buckley.”

Robin lifted both hands as if offended by being compared to something akin to an obstacle, “Im not even here. I am basically a chair.”

“You’re a very loud chair,” Steve huffed back to her. Then, to you, “Yes, I noticed the buttons. I noticed the whole skirt. It’s pink and it makes your legs look—” He stopped again and your eyebrows lifted along with your smile.

His ears went red, he gave a weak cough as his eyes looked at the ceiling than back to you. “Long.”

“Two,” you then counted with another finger, deeply pleased now.

Steve looked relieved to be nearing the end, then immediately concerned because the third reason required more care. He looked at your hair, your lips, the way you were standing there with one hip angled against the counter, pretending you had not started this solely just to watch him squirm.

“Your hair,” he said with finality. “You did something different.”

You touched it without meaning to. “Different bad?”

“No—Different good. It’s softer here.” He gestured near his own temple, not quite touching you like you'd have preferred. “And it keeps falling forward, so you keep pushing it back, and you only do that when you’re trying not to mess with it because you spent time on it.”

You went still at the explanation. 

Steve seemed to realize he had said something too observant for the tone of the game. He looked down at the tapes, then back up, shrugging one shoulder with a forced casualness that didn't suit him.

“So,” he licked his lips as his eyes lifted to meet yours with a hopeful expression. “Three.”

Robin broke the silence first, which you'd been grateful for because you were all too aware of the warmth seeping into your chest. “I hate to say it, but that was kind of good.”

Steve pointed Teen Wolf at her, “don’t sound so surprised.”

You took the tapes from his hands and set them on the counter, and you looked at him through a slight tilt of your head. “Better.”

His words came back questioning again. “Better than what?”

“The automated recording,” that was all you said with a light breeze in your tone.

“The what?” He asked but you had already gone back to the stool, pulling the magazine into your lap.

Steve watched you sit down. He felt a strange mixture of pride and suspicion, which was not an emotion he enjoyed. Pride, because you were smiling at the page now in a way that meant he had done something right. Suspicion, because he had no idea what the page had made you do in the first place.

Robin leaned close to him and murmured, “If she asks you to describe her personality next, fake your death.”

Steve whispered back, “What magazine is that?”

Robin looked at the glossy cover and grinned at Steve’s distress. “The kind that destroys men who say nice.”

Steve looked at you again.

You only turned the page.

He swallowed more visibly distressed now as you remained quiet.

───

He Swaps the Leather Jacket for the Lounge Sweatshirt

Remember those first six months when he wouldn't dare meet you without a splash of premium cologne and a perfectly pressed jacket? If he now regularly shows up to your dates wearing his old high school gym fleece with a mystery stain on the sleeve, the mystery is officially fading.

The Solution:  Snatch his favorite oversized sweatshirt right off his back and wear it yourself with nothing but your favorite perfume. Remind him who really looks best in his clothes!

Steve’s shift ended late because nothing in Hawkins could ever end at the time printed on a schedule.

A kid knocked over half the horror display and immediately blamed the “wind,” despite the fact that the air inside Family Video had not moved with any conviction since June. Keith called from the back office to complain that someone had stacked the returned tapes “emotionally wrong,” which made Robin press both palms flat on the counter and whisper, “I am not going to jail for him.” Then, a mother came in looking for a cartoon whose title she didn't know, only that it involved “a little man, maybe a duck, and possibly space.”

By the time Steve was finally allowed to clock out, his patience had frayed around the edges.

You could see it in the way he pulled off his vest, too fast, and missed the hook when he tried to hang it in the back. You could hear him mutter something at the locker that sounded less like English and more like a private feud. When he came out again, he had changed into the old Hawkins High gym sweatshirt he kept there for cold nights, rainy closings, and days when he claimed the uniform made him feel “itchy in a spiritual way.”

The sweatshirt was gray in theory. In practice, it had been washed into a soft, faded color that belonged to old socks and cloudy dishwater. The cuffs were stretched. The collar sat loose at the base of his throat. One sleeve had a faint stain near the elbow that neither of you had ever successfully identified, though Steve had once insisted it was “probably nacho cheese” with a confidence that made you less comfortable.

He looked tired in it.

He also, looked painfully familiar.

Your eyes dropped to the open magazine in your lap.

He Swaps the Leather Jacket for the Lounge Sweatshirt.

The article spoke of fading mystery and premium cologne with the urgency of a national crisis. You read the solution once and felt your grin arrive before you could stop it.

The words repeated in your brain: snatch his favorite oversized sweatshirt right off his back.

Steve came around the counter while digging in his pocket for his keys. “You ready?”

You stood and he glanced up, saw your expression, and stopped walking with clear intent.

“No,” he said with an immediate shake of his head

You hadn't even moved yet, your hands came up to your sides on instinct. “No what?”

Steve groaned in a way that didn't quite feel frustrated, but was knowing. “No whatever that face is.”

“I don’t have a face.” You did.

“You have the face you had before the whole three reasons thing.”

Robin, clocked out but still lingering because apparently this was better than whatever she had waiting at home, grabbed her bag from behind the counter. “For the record, I support her.”

“You don’t even know what she’s doing,” Steve immediately sighed in defeat.

Robin didn't seem bothered by the lack of information. “I know enough.”

You stepped closer and caught the hem of his sweatshirt. Steve’s hands immediately closed around your wrists, not tight, just startled. His expressive eyes instantly fell to your with faint concern and mostly curiosity.  “Whoa. Hi. What are we doing?”

You shrugged your shoulders, lips finding the familiar grin that had him faltering. “Testing a theory.”

Steve pouted in a way that you knew he'd deny if questioned later on. “Why do your theories involve grabbing me at work?”

“Because you just happen to be here.”

“That can't possibly be a complete answer.”

“It’s a location, though.”

Robin leaned on the counter, delighted as she sang over to you. “He’s panicking.”

“I am not panicking,” Steve scoffed with dismissal, but regardless of his claim, his voice was panicking enough.

You tugged the sweatshirt upward, with a plea on your lips and a look in your eyes. “Arms up.”

He sputtered at your request, his brows shooting upwards in clear refusal. “Absolutely not.”

“Steve…”

“No, this is a public establishment.”

You gave him a sidelong glance, looking over at his stance. “Keith is in the back alphabetizing gum wrappers or something.”

“Buckley is right there.”

Robin waved over at herself with the familiar grin you loved, humming a tune. “Chair.”

Steve looked at you, then at Robin, then toward the front windows where the parking lot sat mostly empty except for his car. His resistance lasted three more seconds. You could see the exact moment he gave up, because his jaw worked to hide a smile and his eyes dropped to the floor.

“Fine,” he muttered, but he didn't make a show of sighing this time. “But if you stretch the collar, I’m suing.”

There was no containing the laugh that left you. “You don’t even know how to sue.”

“I’ll learn.”

He ducked his head and lifted his arms, letting you pull the sweatshirt up over his torso. His white T-shirt rode up for half a second, revealing a narrow strip of skin above his jeans before he yanked it down with one hand before you could reach for it. He promptly ignored your dramatized look of resignation at being denied. His hair emerged from the collar in static-disrupted disarray, several pieces standing up at angles he would have considered unforgivable under normal circumstances.

You put the sweatshirt on before he could take it back. Although, you doubted he would ever actually do that. For all his whining, your boyfriend rarely said anything beyond a few complaints.

It swallowed you in the familiar fabric.

The sleeves fell past your hands, the hem dropped low over your skirt, and the collar slipped a little too wide on one side. Warmth held inside the fabric from his body. So did the smell of him: laundry detergent on the old cotton, the faded spice of his cologne, and something skin-warm and harder to name. The perfume you had put on earlier rose beneath it, mixing with him until the whole thing felt private despite the fluorescent lights and Robin’s shameless staring.

Steve went quiet in the moments still. You pushed your hair free from the collar and lifted your chin. Your hands were now taking residence upon the sides of your hips. “Well?”

He had seen you in his clothes before. A borrowed jacket during a rainstorm. A T-shirt after a late night when you spilled soda on yourself at his house. Socks frequently, because your feet had gone cold and he had acted annoyed while digging through a drawer with unnecessary urgency.

But there was a difference between necessity and choice.

This, was choice. This was you standing in the middle of Family Video wearing his old sweatshirt over your skirt, perfume clinging to the collar, and looking at him with bright, ridiculous expectation.

Steve’s brain provided several responses and rejected all of them for being either too honest or too stupid.

“That’s mine,” he managed with a breathlessness that immediately made him wince when heard.

You corrected him, clearly pleased. “Was.”

“You’re swimming in it.”

“I'm aware.”

“You look—” He stopped because your eyes sharpened in a way that told him his next adjective needed to mean something.

Robin clapped once from where she was, and you refrained from sighing at the girl's clear joy at her friend's inner struggle. “Careful, Harrington.”

Steve dragged a hand over his mouth, buying time. He had just been trained, apparently. Nice was no longer safe. Nice had been retired from service.

“You look good,” he decided to settle for, then saw your mouth twitch and hurried on. “You look really good. In my sweatshirt. Which is confusing because it looks better on you, but it is still, legally mine.”

“‘Legally’?”

Steve quickly corrected himself again. “Emotionally.”

You stepped closer and lifted one sleeve-covered hand to poke his chest. The movement had him squirming a bit because you knew where to poke to get a reaction. As such were the benefits of being with someone for so long. “I think I’ll keep it.”

Steve looked down at your covered hand, then at the place where the collar had slipped, then back to your face. He tried for annoyance and missed by several miles. He was never good at that.

His words didn't match his tone nor face. “You’re lucky I’m generous.”

“You’re lucky I look better in your clothes.”

Robin made a noise of approval that had you slightly leaning on the heels of your shoes. “She does.”

“Why are you still here?” Steve asked with such restraint that you let one palm rub against his forearm. He welcomed the familiar touch by leaning into it.

“I live here now.”

Keith appeared in the back doorway at exactly the wrong time, holding a clipboard and a soda. He took in the scene: Steve in his T-shirt, you in Steve’s sweatshirt, Robin grinning beside the register. His expression flattened.

“Is this happening on the clock?”

Steve grabbed his keys and reached up for your palm to pull you besides him. “Nope. Leaving. Bye.”

Outside, the evening heat pressed immediately. The air smelled of asphalt, cut grass from somewhere beyond the plaza, and the warm metallic scent of Steve’s car after a day in the sun. He unlocked the passenger side first out of habit, then paused when you walked past it.

His head shot up. “Where are you going?”

You looked over your shoulder with a smile that had him already weary. “You’ll see.”

Steve felt the first prickle of fresh suspicion. You still had the magazine tucked under your arm. He knew then that he really should have hidden it when he had the chance.

───

The Dreaded “I Don’t Care, What Do You Want to Do?”

Flexibility is cute, but romantic laziness is not!  If every single date night starts with him shrugging his shoulders and leaving the heavy lifting of choosing the restaurant or the movie up to you, he’s retired from being the captain of the ship.

The Solution: Take total control. Steal his car keys out of his pocket, slide into the driver's seat yourself, and drive him to a secret destination without telling him where you’re going!

The BMW had been baking all afternoon, and climbing into it felt briefly like entering a punishment designed by someone who hated vinyl. You pushed through either ways.

Steve opened both doors first to let the heat roll out. He complained under his breath when you leaned against the driver’s side, because he was already beginning to understand what you wanted and did not know how to prevent it without sounding insane.

His words sounded strained in their attempt not to seem sure. “You’re not driving.”

“I haven’t exactly asked.”

Steve's hands came out to gesture wildly at you. “You’re standing by the driver’s door wearing my sweatshirt and holding an evil magazine.”

Your frowned, lips pulled to the side as you argued against the idea. “Evil is strong, don't you think?”

“I think it's accurate.” You huffed out a sigh and merely held out your hand to him He stared at it blankly, big hazel eyes flicking to your face then your outstretched palm.

“Keys,” you all but sang in glee.

Steve laughed once, not because it was funny, but because his body needed somewhere to put the clear alarm. “No way.”

“The article says I’m supposed to take total control.”

Steve's voice now was a delightful mix of clear distress and restrained panic. “Babe, articles have never seen you parallel park.”

“I don't even parallel park.”

“Exactly.” You only wiggled your fingers in response, paired along with a particularly determined look up at him.

Steve looked toward the empty storefront beside Family Video, then back at you. His keys sat in his palm, heavy with all the trust and terror he attached to that car. He loved the Beamer in a way he would not have admitted under oath. Actually, scratch that—Steve would gladly declare his love for his car anytime, but now? It felt oddly like a trap. It had been freedom when his house felt too quiet. It had been status when he had been shallow enough to need it. And later one, it had gone on to become transportation for the kids with their walkie-talkies, frantic errands, and the late-night drives where neither of you said much but the silence was nice anyways.

Letting someone else drive it was not nothing to Steve.

Letting you drive it while grinning like you had a plan was something else entirely.

“You know,” he said carefully, his muscles pulled at where they crossed against his chest, “a healthy relationship includes respecting boundaries.”

Your question came instantly. “Is your boundary the driver’s seat?”

“My boundary is not dying.”

“I’m a good driver!”

“You once hit a curb and blamed the curb!”

“It came out of nowhere.” The Defense felt weak now on your lips, and you barely held in the wince that tried to escape you.

But Steve only closed his eyes and you waited.

The thing was, you knew he would give them to you. Not because he was helpless, he certainly wasn't. Not because you could push him anywhere you wanted, both him and you weren't like that. Steve could be stubborn when something mattered. He could dig his heels in so hard it made everyone around him want to throw things. But this was not about the car, not really. It was about you asking him to let go of control for twenty minutes, and Steve had been trying, in small uneven ways, to learn how to do that.

He dropped the keys into your hand with such anguish you saved the date so you could make fun of him later on. But for now, the keys in your palm were a big enough win.

“If you grind the gears,” Steve exhaled with more defeat than irritation, “I’m breaking up with you until Monday.”

The threat was as fake as his excitement. “It’s Friday though?”

“I'll need the recovery time.” You slid into the driver’s seat before he could change his mind at your delighted grin.

Steve walked around the front of the car slowly, one hand trailing over the hood in a gesture so mournful you laughed before he even got in. He lowered himself into the passenger seat with stiff dignity and immediately reached for the dashboard by pure instinct.

You looked at his hand and he quickly moved it to his knee with a faint twitch of his fingers.

Your voice came passive in its gratitude. “Thank you for bracing, real show of trust.”

His defense came hot and rapid. “I wasn’t bracing!”

Yours came cooler and breezily. “You were absolutely bracing.”

Steve decided then to correct his stance into something more softly shaped. “I was settling…”

“You were preparing for impact—”

Steve pointed at the windshield with a regained passion that had you rolling your eyes. “Eyes on the road.”

“We’re parked?”

“Consider it practice.”

You adjusted the seat, which made him wince because you moved it forward. He quickly turned silent when you glared at him through your side profile. Then, you adjusted the mirror, the hanging air freshener swayed gently at the movement. Steve watched every change with increasing distress, mouth pressed into a line, fingers tapping once against his thigh before he made them stop.

You started the car a moment after leaning in to give him what you'd call, and you were sure he'd also deny, a much needed kiss near the corner of his mouth for his tension.

The engine rumbled to life beneath you, familiar but different from this side. Steve’s car always sounded more dramatic than necessary, and now that sound moved up through the soles of your shoes, into your knees, into the base of your ribs. You pulled out of the parking space carefully. 

Too carefully, apparently, because Steve inhaled and did not exhale until you straightened.

“See?” you made a point to extend your hand in a show of gesturing. 

He finally exhaled, his head whirling around the perimeter. “Great. We’ve traveled twelve feet.”

“Progress.”

You drove past the pizza place first.

Steve twisted in his seat, his face losing some of that tension when confusion took its place. “Wait. I thought we were eating.”

“We are.”

“Pizza is back there.”

You adjusted your grip on the wheel,  and inhaled sharply when Steve seemed like he wanted to comment on that too. Thankfully, he refrained. “Maybe we’re not getting pizza.”

He looked genuinely unsettled now, looking something akin to a puppy set free in a foreign meadow. “But it’s Friday.”

“Exactly.” Your words did little to ease him in the slightest.

“What does exactly mean?”

Your right hand came up to emphasize your next words. “It means you say ‘I don’t care, what do you want to do?’ too much.”

His expression shifted, defensive at first, then confused. “I say that because I don’t want to make you do stuff you don’t want to do.”

You nodded to his words because they were true, and because you loved him more for it. “I know.”

Steve was sure he was feeling unrecorded levels of distress currently. “So why is that bad?”

You glanced at him, then back at the road. The light had gone soft and low, catching in the dust along the windshield. “It’s not bad! It’s just sometimes I want you to want something out loud.”

Steve leaned back, the argument leaving him in stages.

He had not thought of it that way. To him, letting you pick felt considerate. It felt safe because if he chose wrong, if you got quiet, if the night bent into disappointment, then it would be his fault in a way he could not fix by rewinding a tape or buying another soda. It seemed better to let you choose. Better to be the guy who went along with what you wanted and did not become another person demanding things from you. Steve was many things, considerate high on that list.

But you were looking at the road with both hands on his steering wheel, wearing his sweatshirt, saying you wanted him to want things.

That sat somewhere tender.

“Okay,” he spoke softner after a minute had passed in the lull.

You felt the agreement settle without the usual push and pull. “Okay?”

Steve let one roughened palm drag over his eyes as he cleared his throat. “Okay. I can want things out loud.”

You smiled, but kept your eyes on the road. Your nails tapped against the wheel again now. “Good.”

“Right now, I want to know where we’re going.”

The attempt had you smiling and not bothering to hide the exasperation on your face. “Nope, not that kind of want.”

He groaned against his hand, “that’s cruel.”

“It’s mysterious.” you preferred the term over his.

“It’s kidnapping with lip gloss.” You laughed at his response, and Steve’s shoulders eased by pure bodily instinct. 

You drove beyond the familiar restaurants, beyond the streets where the houses sat close together with bikes in driveways and porch lights beginning to flick on. The town thinned into trees and long grass. The car moved through pockets of cooling air, windows down, and the radio catching half of one station and then another until Steve gave up and turned the volume low.

When you finally turned onto the road near an old quarry, he sat up.

“Oh,” his brows twisted as he took in the dim, but no less deliberate view..

You parked near the overlook where the trees opened just enough to show the water below, darkening under the evening sky. Nobody else was there. The place had an abandoned feeling now, less romantic than it probably used to be, because Hawkins had taught everyone to distrust woods after sunset. Still, the view was good. Ot was pretty in an intimate way. The water held the last orange light in broken pieces. Cicadas screamed from the trees, and somewhere far off, a dog barked and stopped.

You turned the engine off then, the keys rustling softly against the opening. For a few seconds, the car ticked quietly as it cooled.

Steve looked at the overlook, then at you. His voice came out different when he spoke, less teasing. You liked the shift. “You planned this?”

You nodded with an unnecessary addition of solemnity. “I had a magazine and a lot of confidence.”

“That’s a dangerous combination.”

“Apparently.”

He smiled, but his eyes moved back to the view. You could tell he liked it because he didn't immediately make another attempt at a joke. He just sat there with his elbow near the open window, hair slightly ruffled by the drive, looking out over the quarry while the last of his workday drained out of him.

Steve had spent a lot of time in cars with people he loved and feared losing. He had driven toward danger, away from danger, around town at three in the morning because somebody needed a ride or a distraction or a place to talk where no parents could hear. Sitting still in the passenger seat while you turned off the engine was strangely difficult. It left his hands empty. It left the evening open.

Then you held out his keys, the abrupt movement had him looking down at them quickly.

“You survived,” your voice came out lighter than intended. 

He took them and let his fingers brush yours deliberately. Steve's posture wasn't as tense as it had been prior, and you took it as a tactical win. “Barely.”

You didn't let him off so easily. “You liked it.”

“I liked the destination.” His words had truth to them, but certainly not the full truth.

“You didn’t like my driving?” He hesitated one second too long.

You gasped and Steve immediately turned to you, one hand reaching out to rub your forearm. “No, no, your driving was fine.”

“Fine?”

He quickly corrected himself. “Good. Great. Beautifully legal even.”

You rolled your eyes and got out before he could continue and somehow dig himself deeper.

Steve followed, still smiling. That was your favorite part. He went to the trunk and pulled out the old blanket he kept there. You caught sight of a flashlight, jumper cables, an empty fast-food cup, and the stupid nail-studded bat partially hidden beneath a towel. He noticed your exasperated gaze land on it and shut the trunk a little too fast.

“Emergency stuff,” he cleared his throat too fast.

You looked at him and he suddenly found the grass beneath him interesting. “What?”

“Nothing.”

Steve murmured into the open air. “Not a nothing face.”

The decision to ignore the words came easy. You reached for the blanket instead of asking. He handed it over with a small nod, grateful and embarrassed at once.

The two of you spread the blanket over the hood of the car after he made you promise not to scratch the paint. It was still warm from the engine beneath, and when you climbed up beside him, the metal gave a faint settling sound. Steve passed you a bag of pretzels from the trunk, opened badly down the side, and you ate them while the sky turned deeper and the heat softened around you.

For a while, there was nothing else.

There was just Steve telling you about a customer who asked whether Pretty in Pink was part of a series because “there had to be other colors,” and you telling him about the woman at Bradley’s who squeezed every peach in the bin with the intensity of a medical exam. He laughed with his head tilted back, throat exposed to the evening, and you felt the ordinary pleasure of having made him laugh settle into you.

Then the windshield caught his reflection.

Steve glanced at it and you saw the words actively flash in front of your eyes.

───

His Mirror Time Outpaces Your Eye-Contact Time 

An eighties boy who spends an hour fixing his legendary hair or splashing on his favorite cologne is great to look at — but if he spends more time checking his reflection in the diner window than he does looking deeply into your eyes across the table, his vanity might be serving his own ego rather than trying to impress you!

The Solution: Mess up his hair! Messing up a vain boy's hair is a high-risk, high-reward move that instantly forces his full attention away from the mirror and entirely onto you.

The first time, you let it pass.

Steve had always had an intimate relationship with reflective surfaces. Car windows, store glass, dark television screens, spoons if he was desperate. It would have been annoying if it were not so earnest. He checked his hair with the focus of a man maintaining an ecosystem. He denied it every time, but the evidence was constant.

The second time, he turned his head slightly, pretending to watch a bird move through the trees while his eyes flicked toward the windshield.

You lowered your half bitten pretzel into your lap, waiting for the moment to prove itself.

The third time, he smoothed one hand near his temple.

You reached for the magazine, which sat on the hood beside your thigh, and tapped the fourth section.

Steve noticed the movement.

“What number are we on?” he asked with the faint resignment of a man knowing he's in too deep to argue anymore.

You held your fingers up at his face. “Four.”

His face fell and his exhale came steady.  “Oh, God.”

“You don’t even know what four is!”

“I know I won’t like it.”

You smiled at the truth of the statement and even more at his expression.

He put both hands up in a time out position, his grin was weak in its pleading. “Can I opt out?”

Your answer came sharply ennunciated. “Nope.”

“Is this democracy?”

“Why would I possibly have this be a democracy?”

He looked toward the empty road, and his exaggerated sigh didn't fool you enough to ignore his bitten back smile. “Is there a witness?”

“Nope.”

“This can't possibly be just—”

You moved before he could get any farther and he immediately tried to escape. But he was too late, because your hands went straight into his hair by then.

Steve made a sound of pure betrayal. The sound erupted a warmth in your chest as you grinned hearing his own struggle with maintaining betrayl. “Hey! No—no, watch the hair!”

You laughed so hard your first attempt barely did any damage, which gave him hope for half a second. Then you got both hands properly into it, pushing the front back, raking your fingers through the carefully maintained height, mussing the sides until his entire head looked softer, younger, more touchable and less arranged.

He caught your wrists and his eyes twinkled near yours. Small pieves of now unkempt hair fell over his brows and he had to blow them away. “We have rules.”

“We do not have rules,” you argued, struggling against his grip.

His hands were still wrapped around your wrists, they weren't restraining as much as they were holding in pleading hope. His grip was gentle, pulling you into him. “My hair has rules!”

The correction came quick on your tongue.“Your hair is vain.”

Steve gasped in blatant pffense which only served to make you laugh harder. “I'll have you know, my hair is a public service.”

You couldn't be comvinced. “You looked at yourself in the windshield three times.”

“I was checking for danger.” he tried to firmly combat your argument with his own.

“Was the danger split ends?”

Steve stared at you, scandalized. There was no hiding the wide smile that crawled its way onto your face now at his whine. “Sweetheart, that was really mean.”

“It was accurate.”

“It was both.”

You tried to continue ruining him, but he held your wrists away now, laughing despite himself. The sound exhoed against your ear drums. His grip was warm. His thumbs landed near your pulse points. The evening had cooled enough that the warmth of him felt more noticeable, especially with the blanket beneath your legs and his sweatshirt still hanging loose over your body.

His hair had slowly become a disaster.

Not terrible, it could never be terrible. Steve Harrington’s hair seemed incapable of true failure, which was deeply unfair to you. Or anyone else, really. But the shape was gone from it. One piece fell over his forehead, another stuck up near the back, and the sides had lost their polished swoop. He looked less like the version of himself he presented to the world and more like the one who woke up late and padded barefoot into the kitchen, squinting at the coffee maker.

Your laughter thinned into a smaller version of a smile. Steve saw the change and stopped pulling your hands away.

“What?” he mirrored your expression, as if your joy could be naturally echoed into his just as easily.

“Nothing.”

He narrowed his eyes at the softness of your voice. “You don’t get to use my line.”

You just shook your head at him, eyes softening gently. “You look different.”

“Worse?” The question left him in natural humor.

“No.”

He looked at you, and beneath the joking offense there was something cautious. Steve was used to being looked at. He had been looked at for years by people who wanted something from the surface. He knew how to stand under that kind of attention. He knew what to do with it.

But with you, it was always different. 

You were looking at him with his hair messed up and his guard lowered, your sleeves falling over your hands, your knee pressed against his thigh on the warm hood of his car. You were not laughing at him now, not exactly. You were seeing him in a way that made him want to joke and stay quiet at the same time.

He released one of your wrists, and you used your free hand to push the fallen piece of hair back more gently than before.

“There,” you breathed softer into the chilling air. “Improved.”

He huffed with a glint in his eye as he tilted his head looking to you. “Ruined.”

You remained steadfast in your description. “Improved.”

“Sabotaged.” a sigh escaped you before you decided to settle on the middle ground.

“Humanized.”

“That’s worse.”

You laughed again, and he grabbed you around the waist before you could dodge. It was not a dramatic move. It was entirely clumsy, half seated on the hood, one knee sliding on the blanket, and had pretzels nearly tipping over. You yelped, caught his shoulder, and he pulled you closer with a grin he wouldn't ever bother hiding.

“Retaliation,” he hummed against you.

Your eyes narrowed to glare up against him. “No.”

“Yes.”

“Steve.”

“You attacked a national treasure.”

The laugh left you all sputtered and incredulous. “You are not a national treasure.”

“My hair is.”

He tried to tickle your side through the sweatshirt, but the fabric was too thick and his angle was bad. You squirmed anyway because the attempt was enough, laughing into his shoulder while he complained about unfair defenses and oversized sleeves. The blanket bunched beneath you. Your knee knocked the pretzel bag. Steve caught it with one hand at the last second and looked so proud of himself that you shoved his shoulder.

“My hero,” you sighed dreamily as you exaggerated fanning yourself.

“Always.”

It was a joke, but it landed in the quiet between you with more weight than either of you meant. His smile flickered for half a second. Not gone, just altered instead.

You knew better than to poke directly at that. There were words that made Steve stiffen because they came with too many memories: hero, brave, fine. Compliments could hurt when they touched old bruises.

So you stole a pretzel from the bag he had saved and held it up against his lips. “Your reward.”

He accepted it solemnly, head tilting down to nibble against your fingers rather than the pretzel. That had you shoving at him all the same. “I deserve more.”

“You deserve a comb.”

“That too.”

The transition back into ease happened slowly but naturally, without announcement. Steve leaned back on his hands, letting his ruined hair stay ruined. You sat beside him, head against his shoulder, watching the quarry disappear into blue shadow. The air cooled enough that you finally felt grateful for his sweatshirt. He did not ask for it back again.

Later, when he drove you home, he checked his reflection in the rearview mirror only once. That once was entirely enough for you anyway. 

You reached over and tilted the mirror away.

He groaned your name and you smiled all the way to your driveway.

───

He Treats Your Presence Like a Given

Does he toss you his car keys, expect you to carry the snacks, and assume you’ll just automatically follow him wherever his friends are hanging out? When a guy stops asking you out on real, proper dates and just expects you to "be around," he’s treating you less like a girlfriend and more like his favorite security blanket.

The Solution:  Create a little mystery. Next time he assumes you're free, tell him you have "secret plans" for the afternoon. A tiny bit of healthy distance will make him realize just how much he misses his favorite view!

The next morning, Steve called before noon.

You were still sitting on your bedroom floor with your back against the bed, legs stretched out, the Cosmopolitan magazine open beside a half-eaten bowl of cereal. The window was cracked, but the air coming through was already warm. Somewhere outside, a lawn mower started, stopped, then started again with the stubborn cough of old machinery from your neighbors. 

Your room smelled faintly of hairspray, clean laundry, and the perfume still clinging to Steve’s sweatshirt, which you had absolutely not returned.

The phone rang twice before you picked it up.

“Hello?”

“Hey,” Steve greeted immediately. His voice had that slightly distracted quality that meant he was at work and probably doing three things badly. You could hear the store behind him: Robin talking too loudly, the dull clack of tape cases, the faint buzz of fluorescent lights even through the line. “Movie tonight?”

No lead-in. No question about your morning. No attempt at charm.

Just movie tonight, offered with the easy assumption that of course you would be there, because usually you were. Usually you liked being there. Usually Steve called and you fit yourself into the shape of his evening without minding much at all.

You looked down.

Number five sat open on the magazine page.

He Treats Your Presence Like a Given.

The article accused him of turning you into his favorite security blanket.

That was unfair too, but not entirely untrue in the way the most irritating things sometimes were. Steve did not take you for granted, and certainly not on purpose. He was too careful for that in the places where it counted. He noticed when you were cold. He remembered which pizza toppings you hated. He opened doors because he had been raised with manners and then kept doing it because he liked the brief second where his hand landed near your back.

But he did assume you would be around.

Sometimes, because he wanted you there.

Sometimes, because he needed you there and had not learned how to say need without dressing it up as a casual plan.

You let the silence stretch as your fingers came up to your lips in pondering. 

On the other end, Steve paused. “Hello?”

“I have secret plans.”

The line went quiet after your words.

You could picture his face too clearly: eyebrows lifting, mouth tightening a little, free hand landing on his hip. Steve did not like mysteries unless he was solving them, and even then he preferred them to arrive with flashlights, maps, and Dustin explaining too much.

“Secret plans,” he repeated, and you could practically see the way his face had been scrunching up.

“Yup.”

“With who?” The question came out too quickly.

You smiled into the receiver and you were sure he could practically hear it.

Steve regretted it immediately. You could hear it in the way he inhaled and then exhaled through his nose, probably turning away from Robin so she could not see his face.

“I didn’t mean that in a weird way,” he added. You knew that, of course. But would that stop you from poking fun at your boyfriend? Absolutely not.

You forced a flat hum to even your voice. “And what way did you mean it?”

Steve’s defense came strong, but no less real. “A normal boyfriend curiosity way.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Not jealousy. I’m not jealous.”

“I didn’t say you were.”

“I’m clarifying.”

Your fingers looped around the phone cord as your eyes flickered down to the magazine sprawled in your lap. “Sounds suspicious.”

At Family Video, Steve leaned against the wall near the phone and closed his eyes. Robin, sitting on the floor with a stack of returns around her, looked up with predatory interest.

“Are you being dumped?” she whispered, her blue eyes wide at his bodily reaction.

Steve covered the receiver and promptly ignored her, though not before throwing Robin a glare. “No.”

“Are you sure?”

He turned his back to her. And into the phone, he cleared his throat and said, “Are your secret plans dangerous?”

You only hummed in response. “Maybe.”

“That’s not comforting.”

“They’re secret.”

The faint spund of rustling hit your ear, and you could picture the scene everytime you blinked. With Steve running his hand through his hair because he'd become fidgety all of a sudden. “You keep saying that like it explains anything.”

You tried not to feel cruel at how the mental image made you grin and feel warmth crawl up your body. “It does.”

“It explains nothing.”

You pulled the sweatshirt sleeve over your hand and toyed with the phone cord wrapped around your ankle. “You can survive one afternoon without me.”

“I know that.”

Judging by his voice now, you weren't entirely convinced. “Do you?”

He stopped.

That was the trouble with joking. Sometimes it opened a door you had not meant to touch.

Steve knew he could survive without you for an afternoon. He had survived worse things than an empty passenger seat. He had survived silence in his parents’ house, survived losing versions of himself he had once thought were permanent, survived monsters with too many teeth and nights where sleep arrived late and left early.

But his day had begun to arrange itself around you without asking permission. He knew when you usually came by. He knew which stool you liked. He knew the face you made when Robin got into a fight with a customer and the face you made when Steve pretended he was above gossip and then leaned in anyway. He knew the small relief of looking up and finding you there.

He knew familiarity for certainty.

The realization made him pick at the peeling edge of a sticker on the phone.

“You’re really busy?” he asked, quieter.

You softened, because you hadn't really meant to hurt him. “For a little while.”

“Okay.”

Your tried not to falter, but your voice didn't heed your wishes. “You sound disappointed.”

Steve denied it quickly. “I’m not.”

“You are.”

“I’m handsome and disappointed.” That got you. You laughed, and the line loosened again.

Your secret plans were not glamorous. They involved going to the mall with a friend, buying a lemonade too sour to fully finish, and letting yourself try on clothes you couldn't afford in a department store dressing room with bad lighting. You walked past the arcade and heard machines chiming through the open entrance. You lingered in the music store longer than necessary, flipping through records with one hand while the other kept finding the soft cuff of one of Steve’s other jackets you held onto and never gave back.

You did miss him.

That was the annoying part. Or, rather, not.

The magazine had intended mystery to make him miss you, but nobody had warned you that absence worked both ways. By mid-afternoon, you caught yourself wondering whether he had eaten lunch or just stolen Red Vines from the candy display. You wondered whether Robin had teased him into a worse mood or a better one. You wondered if he had fidgeted with his hair because he'd become restless.

At four, you found a pay phone near the arcade.

The metal was hot against your fingers. A kid with sticky blue lips waited nearby, bouncing on his heels, probably impatient to call his mother for another ride he had already missed. You fed coins into the slot and dialed Family Video from memory.

Steve picked up on the second ring.

“Family Video, where late fees are real and the employees have no mercy.”

You snorted at the welcome. “Nice greeting.”

There was a pause, and then his voice changed. “Hey.”

One word, and it was warmer than it had any right to be.

You leaned against the phone, voice softening after hearing his. “My secret plans are over.”

“Oh, thank God.” You tried to not laugh at the sincerity of his wreckage. 

“You survived?”

“Barely. A woman asked for a movie with ‘the guy from that thing,’ and Robin threatened to eat the return log.”

You clicked your tongue in sympathy. “Sounds traumatic.”

“I’ve seen war.” His tone had you picturing the bobble of his head clearly.

You leaned your shoulder against the side of the pay phone. “Did you miss me?”

Steve looked toward the front of the store, where Robin was helping a teenager pick between two horror movies and making both sound morally inferior. He turned slightly toward the wall.

“Yeah, always,” he said.

No joke.

No handsome and disappointed.

Just yeah, always

Your fingers tightened around the phone cord.

The mall noise continued around you: sneakers squeaking, teenagers laughing too loudly, and the arcade machines spilling synthetic music into the corridor. But the line between you and Steve felt briefly separate from all of it, thin and private and warm.

“I’ll come by,” you hummed into the receiver.

“I’ll act surprised.”

“You better.”

When you walked into Family Video an hour later, Steve looked up from the counter and caught himself before saying the first easy thing.

You saw the effort.

His gaze moved over you properly, taking in the mall bag at your side, his jacket on your body, your hair slightly wind-tangled from the drive.

Then he smiled.

“There you are,” he greeted.  It was not a compliment, exactly.

It worked better than one, though.

Robin glanced between you both and rolled her eyes so hard it was nearly athletic.

“Disgusting,” she scoffed at Steve,  before smiling secretly when she saw the affect it had on you. “Do it again.”

Steve threw a wadded receipt at her and missed. And you sat on your stool, pretending you were not pleased.

He noticed anyway.

───

The Future is a Forbidden Zone 

Pay close attention to how he acts when you bring up anything happening more than two weeks from now. If he cracks a defensive joke, blushes, or immediately changes the subject to sports or cars, he might be totally terrified of growing up. He might love you today, but is he brave enough to dream about tomorrow?

The Solution:  Don't nag him! Instead, paint a fun, wildly dramatic picture of what you two will look like in the upcoming decade. Turning the future into a playful joke takes the pressure off and lets him see that growing up doesn't have to be boring.

Closing dragged that night.

Not in a bad way. Just in the way ordinary time dragged when nothing terrible happened and everyone was tired enough to notice the minute hand moving. A storm threatened for an hour without arriving. The air outside thickened, pressing against the windows, and the neon sign gave the front glass a red-blue glow that made the aisles look emptier than they were.

Keith left early because of “stomach problems,” which Robin translated as “he found something better to do.” She stayed until her ride came, drumming her fingers against the counter and telling Steve that if he forgot to lock the back door again, she would personally spread rumors about his favorite movie being The Care Bears Movie.

“It was one time,” Steve had defended himself vehemently. 

“One time is enough when crime exists.”

“No criminal wants our instructional workout tapes.”

“You don’t know their lives!”

After she left, the store settled even more.

You sat cross-legged on the counter while Steve counted the register. He had let you stay because he always let you stay, even though he complained that Keith would blame him if you scuffed the laminate. The Cosmopolitan lay open beside you, pages softened from a day of folding and handling. A half-empty soda sweated onto a napkin near your thigh. 

Steve counted bills under his breath.

You watched his hands.

He had nice hands, though he would have made a face if you said it too seriously. They were steady with money, restless when he talked, amd gentle when he touched you in public because he was more careful now than he used to be. There was a faint scar near one knuckle. Another near his wrist. Small reminders that did not announce themselves unless you already knew where to look.

You glanced down at the sixth section.

The Future is a Forbidden Zone.

The article described boys who blushed, joked, or changed the subject when anything more than two weeks away came up. It sounded exaggerated. It also sounded enough like Steve to make you bite the inside of your cheek.

Steve could talk about tomorrow. He could talk about next Friday, the next shift, the next movie, the next time Dustin needed a ride and pretended it was not a favor. But farther out than that, his voice shifted. He did not shut down exactly. He just moved sideways. A joke, a complaint, a sudden question about whether you wanted fries.

The future made him slippery.

You understood why.

The future had not been a reliable place for anyone in Hawkins. Plans got interrupted here. People disappeared. Malls burned. Girls moved away. Boys woke up different than they used to be and had to keep living in the same houses, driving the same roads, and pretending the town had not opened its mouth beneath them.

Still, the magazine said not to nag.

It said to paint a fun, wildly dramatic picture.

So you leaned back on your hands and said, “What do you think we’ll be doing in the nineties?”

Steve lost count instantly.

You knew because his lips stopped moving and his thumb froze on a five-dollar bill.

He looked up, expressive eyes on yours. “The nineties?”

You nodded. “Mhm.”

“The decade?”

The scoff left you before you could help it, and so did the sarcasm. “No, Steve. The sandwich.”

He stared at you with his scrunched up face, and you only smiled innocently.

He looked back down at the money, too focused now. “I don’t know. Hopefully not this.”

You tilted your head down at him, one leg dangled of the edge of the counter now, swinging casually. “You don’t see yourself managing Family Video for the rest of your life?”

Steve’s sigh came almost endearing in how displeased it was. “Please don’t say something that depressing while I’m holding cash.”

You continued brighter now that his face seemed determined to keep its sour state. “You could have a little office.”

“No.”

“A nameplate?”

“No.”

“Keith could work under you.”

Steve looked up at you horrified now. “Why would you say that?”

You laughed, then swung one foot lightly against the cabinet beneath the counter again. “Fine. Not Family Video. Something else. Something with ties.”

“Ties?”

The words came assured. “You’ll own at least three.”

“I already own ties.”

“Not funeral or wedding ties. Work ties.”

He made that familiar face that had you wanting to kiss it back to normal. “I don’t trust jobs where your neck has to be trapped.”

You continued on, you weren't quite sure he was a engaged as you,  but you went on anyways. “You’ll complain every morning and wear them anyway.”

“Sounds right.”

“And you’ll drive something practical.”

Steve's refusal came instantaneously. “No way.”

You only have a hum in response. “Uh-huh.”

“No.”

The words continued to flow. “A station wagon.”

Steve put the money down, hands resting on the area above where your thighs rested. “We’re breaking up.”

You didn't bother rolling your eyes at his words; instead, you let your smile stick and your tongue continue. “With wood paneling.”

“We’re broken up and I want my closet back.”

You crossed your arms in his jacket and continued to ignore him. “You’ll have little sunglasses in the glove compartment.”

“I already have sunglasses in the glove compartment. That part is cool.”

“And tissues.”

Steve nodded alongside you at that. “For allergies.”

“And snacks.”

“For emergencies.”

You leaned into him then,  the smile still easily in place. “And you’ll yell at kids for putting their feet on the seats.”

“They should not put their feet on the seats.”

You pointed at him for proving your point. “See? Dad car.”

He opened his mouth, then closed it. The word dad seemed to have landed differently than the rest.

You saw it happen. He tried to keep the joke moving, but his fingers shifted against the counter, pressing lightly into the laminate. His gaze dropped to the register. Not scared, exactly. Just weary at it being verbalized.

Steve had a complicated relationship with the idea of becoming anything permanent. He wanted it more than he trusted it. You knew that. You had learned it in pieces. In the way he got quiet around families at diners, watching fathers who remembered their kids’ orders. In the way he talked about his own parents with a shrug too practiced to be casual. In the way he could handle six teenagers in danger better than one sincere conversation about what he might want when danger was not the center of the room.

So, you kept the tone light.

“You’ll be the kind of dad who says he’s not mad, just disappointed, and then immediately gets mad.”

Steve rubbed the back of his neck, almost embarrassed at the accuracy. “I don’t say that.”

“You would.”

He tried to disagree stronger. “I’d be cool!”

You nodded at that. “You’d try.”

“I would succeed.”

Your grin came unabashed as your imagined ymthe picture you were painting. “You’d wear tube socks with sneakers.”

“That, is a personal attack.”

“You’d stand at the grill holding tongs and click them twice before using them.” Everyone clicked tongs twice. You were fairly certain it was law. But Steve looked down, smiling despite himself.

“Okay,” he sighed at final, with an amount of pleased resignation that you hadn't fully been ready to receive. “What about you?”

You blinked before you could help it. “What about me?”

Steve smiled at you, and your brain did a weird stutter. “In our tragic station wagon future.”

You had not expected him to ask it so seriously.

You had been building the future out of jokes so it would not collapse under its own weight. Suddenly, he was looking at you through the fluorescent quiet of Family Video, his hair still a little imperfect from running through it before, and his tired eyes steady on your face.

You swallowed quickly after realizing you fell quiet.

“I’ll be there,” you settled for, then made yourself smile before it became too much. “Obviously. Someone has to pick the radio station.”

Steve held your gaze.

His face did not do anything dramatic. There was no sudden confession. No grand realization. He just breathed in, small and careful, then nodded once.

“Obviously,” he repeated.

He looked back down at the register after that, but he had lost count beyond saving.

You didn't tease him immediately like you'd normally do.

You let him start over with the bills while you reached for the soda and took a sip that had gone mostly watery. The silence between you stayed easy enough, though changed at the edges. Steve counted more slowly this time. Every so often, his eyes flicked up to you, then away.

He was thinking.

Not running, not joking his way fully out of it.

Thinking.

When he finally finished the register and locked it, he leaned both hands on the counter and looked at the magazine.

“So,” he exhaled deeply into the open air, “is there a number about girlfriends who use journalism for psychological warfare?”

You closed the magazine with a strange lightness. “Probably in next month’s issue.”

He nodded. “Great. Can’t wait.”

You slipped off the counter, landing close enough that he had to look down at you. The store was dim except for the front lights and the glow from the sign. Steve smelled faintly of work and cologne and the peppermint gum he had chewed earlier.

“You’re doing okay,” you said at last because you couldn't help yourself. 

He lifted an eyebrow at that.  “Am I being graded?”

“Constantly.”

“What’s my grade?”

“it's pending.”

Steve snorted. “That’s worse than failing.”

“You can improve with extra credit.”

His expression warmed and he let his hands fall to your waist. “Oh, yeah?”

You took one step back and pointed toward the door. The smile on your face mirrored his before it fell. “Lock up.”

He groaned, but still went.

You watched him move through the store, checking the back, flipping switches, rattling the front door after locking it because Robin had trained him with fear. He looked young in the empty store and not young at all. He looked tired and solid and a little ridiculous with his key ring in his mouth while he adjusted the alarm panel.

When he came back to you, he held out his hand without making a production of it.

You took it.

Neither of you said anything about the nineties again that night, but Steve held your hand all the way to the car and didn't let go until he had to open your door.

───

The Spark Has Moved from the Bedroom to the Sofa

If your primary shared activity has slowly shifted from breathless, passionate sessions to falling asleep halfway through a rented thriller tape on the couch, your chemistry is taking a backseat to comfort. Snuggling is wonderful, but it should never entirely replace the fire!

The Solution:  Turn off the TV right in the middle of the movie's climax. When he complains, look him dead in the eye and tell him you have a much better way to keep both of you entertained!

Steve’s house was too clean when his parents were gone.

It always unsettled you a little, though you had learned not to say that. The Harrington house had the polished stillness of a place maintained for people who were rarely there long enough to leave evidence behind. The lamps worked. The counters shone. The couch pillows were arranged with decorative precision until Steve got home and ruined them by existing.

You liked it better after he ruined them.

You liked the shoes near the door, the jacket over the banister, and the half-empty glass of water beside the sink. You liked when he left a tape on the coffee table and a blanket half-folded over the arm of the couch. Those small messes made the house less showroom and more shelter.

After closing, he drove you there with the windows down and the radio low. The storm still had not arrived, but the air had changed. It smelled damp now, heavy with the promise of rain. Steve kept one hand on the wheel and the other near your knee, not quite touching until the roads emptied and his fingers finally settled there.

At his house, he insisted he was making popcorn because “date night requires snacks.” You followed him into the kitchen, still wearing his jacket because it was warmed than any blanket he could give, and watched him tear open the plastic wrapper with more confidence than the task required.

“You burned it last time,” you frowned at his work.

He was quick to correct you. “I did not burn it. I gave it character.”

“You set off the smoke detector.”

He paused before murmuring. “Briefly.”

“You waved a dish towel at it and yelled, ‘Don’t start.’”

Steve only shrugged. “That was a negotiation.”

You leaned against the counter while he put the bag in the microwave. He pressed the buttons, then turned around and caught you looking at him.

“What?”

The words came naturally. “Nothing.”

They also did little to please Steve. “Nope. We retired nothing. Be specific.”

You smiled and simply just shook your head. “You look nice, babe. ‘That's all.”

His eyes narrowed. “That’s my trauma now.”

Your voice came light and teasing now. “Three reasons?”

“I’m not falling for that.”

“You sure?”

The microwave started popping. Steve tried not to smile and failed by inches. “One, I’m making popcorn. Two, I drove. Three, my hair recovered from your previous assault.”

You didn't bother to hide the roll of your eyes. “You call those reasons?”

He simply shrugged with his grin. “I call them evidence.”

The popcorn began popping faster. Steve glanced back, then leaned beside you against the counter. His shoulder brushed yours. For a few moments, neither of you moved. The kitchen light was warmer than at his job, softer on his face, catching the tiredness under his eyes without making him look worn down. He had taken off his work polo and changed into a plain T-shirt, and the simplicity of it made you aware of how long the day had been.

He looked at you then, properly.

Not because a magazine told him to. Not because you demanded reasons. Just because you were there in his kitchen, sleeves over your hands, perfume faded, and hair imperfect from heat and wind and the day’s nonsense.

His hand found the hem of the jacket. “Still mine.”

“Still not.”

He pulled you into him by the grip he had on the hem of the fabric. “I’m going to start charging rent.”

You tilted your head up at him because the angle needed you to. “I’ll pay in compliments.”

“Specific ones?”

You huffed and leaned up to plant a chaste kiss on his lower jawline. “Don’t get greedy.”

The microwave beeped before he could answer.

The first bag came out mostly edible, only slightly scorched at one corner, which Steve declared a triumph. He poured it into a large bowl, added too much salt, then carried it into the living room with the dignity of a man presenting a feast.

The movie was a thriller neither of you had strong feelings about. Steve had picked it because the cover looked “medium scary,” which apparently meant scary enough to justify sitting close but not scary enough to ruin the evening. You took your usual side of the couch. He took his. Within five minutes, your legs were over his lap and his hand rested on your shin, his thumb moving absently over the ribbed cuff of your sock.

The television threw blue-white light across the room.

A woman on screen walked through a dark hallway with a candle despite every instinct and all available electricity. Steve, who had survived things that made movie monsters look lazy, immediately became furious.

“Don’t go in there,” he groaned at the television with his hands gesturing wildly.

Your reminder came gentle and blank. “She can’t hear you.”

“She should!”

“She’s fictional, babe.”

“She’s stupid.”

You took a handful of popcorn and shrugged. “Maybe she’s brave.”

“Brave people can turn on lamps.”

You laughed, and his hand tightened briefly around your ankle, pleased with himself for the achievement. 

This, apparently, was the comfort the article had warned you about.

The couch. The shared popcorn. The old rhythm of your legs across him, his fingers warm through your sock, the easy commentary over a bad movie. The way you both knew without discussing it who would get up for drinks, who would complain about the blanket being too far away, who would pretend not to be sleepy first.

It did not feel like the absence of romance.

It felt lived in.

You thought about the word comfortable and how the magazine had treated it like something dangerous, a warning sign in glossy print. Maybe sometimes it was. Maybe people did stop trying. Maybe affection could become furniture if no one touched it on purpose. But you had seen Steve try in ways that did not look glamorous enough for an article. He tried by checking your tires when he noticed one looked low. He tried by buying the cereal you liked and pretending it was for him even when he hated it. He tried by standing between you and things he had every right to run from.

Still, the final instruction was sitting there in your head, bright and absurd.

Turn off the TV right in the middle of the movie’s climax.

So, you waited.

The movie dragged itself toward chaos. Rain lashed the windows on screen. Someone found a bloody key. The heroine finally realized the killer was in the house roughly forty minutes after Steve had announced it.

He leaned forward despite himself.

“Okay, now run,” he instructed, his voice antsy now. “No, not upstairs. Why is it always upstairs? There’s nowhere to go upstairs!”

You reached for the remote, and you had to bite back a grin at how ridiculous this all seemed in reality.

He did not seem to notice, he was too entranced by the stupidity of the characters through the screen. 

The music rose. The heroine hid behind a door. A shadow moved across the wall.

And you clicked the television off.

The room fell silent so abruptly that the house seemed to inhale.

Steve froze promptly. 

His face, lit now only by the lamp, stayed aimed at the blank screen. His mouth was slightly open. One hand hovered above the popcorn bowl.

For three seconds, he did nothing. Then he turned to you, mouth agaped.

“You did not.”

You set the remote on the coffee table and nodded with a premium amount of sympathy. “I did.”

“That was the climax!”

You hummed, “I’m aware.”

Steve’s face was shoved into his hands now, his whine xould practically be heard for miles. “We watched the whole movie to get there.”

“Technically, you yelled at the whole movie to get there.”

“The killer was behind her!”

“I’m sure he’ll wait.”

Steve stared at you with deep, personal betrayal. “You’re sick.”

You tried to look serious and failed when you broke into a smile.

His eyes moved from you to the magazine lying on the coffee table, where you had dropped it earlier without thinking. The cover caught the lamp light. The headline peeked up from beneath the fold.

You watched understanding hit him.

Slowly, then all at once.

“Oh my God,” he said.

You pressed your lips together, which did nothing to hide the small giggles that left you as his voice turned blatantly aggrieved. 

“This whole time!”

Yoy played dumb. “What whole time?”

“This whole time was that—that thing.” He pointed at the magazine with such venom in his voice it was even barder to take him seriously now. “You’ve been Cosmo-ing me!”

You shook your head but couldn't stop your amusement. “I have not been Cosmo-ing you.”

Steve started to list his recount of the events. “You stole my sweatshirt.”

You shot back quickly. “You gave it up willingly.”

“You hijacked my car.” His voice became more breathless with each passing second with every realization. 

“You handed me the keys!”

This time, his tone of betrayal made you roll your eyes. “You attacked my hair.”

“It was deserved—”

“You had secret plans.”

You grinned at his expression. “They were secret.”

“You made me talk about the nineties!”

You shrugged and picked at the invisible lint of your bottoms. “The article made a few points.”

Steve sat back against the couch, processing betrayal with one hand over his mouth. He was quiet long enough that you wondered if the joke had gone too far. Then his shoulders started shaking.

He laughed.

Not loudly at first, just a helpless, disbelieving sound behind his hand. Then he dropped his hand and looked at you with his hair slightly messy again from the couch, eyes bright, mouth pulling open into the kind of laugh that made him look younger than he let himself be most days.

“You are unbelievable,” he breathed out, almost disbelieving. 

Your voice came out just as quiet as it was incredulous. “You’re not mad?”

“I don’t know. I might be. I can’t tell because it’s stupid.”

You tried for your favor. “It was educational.”

“It was psychological warfare with perfume.”

You smiled before you could control it. “You passed some of it.”

“Some?”

The words came instinctively. “You need room to grow.”

He pointed at you with a new sense of knowledge. “That is exactly what a magazine cult leader would say.”

You laughed, then reached for the popcorn bowl before it tipped. The room had changed without the TV. Not into something staged, but something quieter. More aware of itself. You could hear the refrigerator hum in his kitchen, the faint rush of air through the vents, and the distant roll of thunder finally approaching after hours of threats.

Steve’s laughter softened.

He looked at you, and this time there was no audience, no fluorescent light, no Robin waiting to make things worse. Just the couch, the cooling bowl of popcorn, the blank television, the old sweatshirt, and the magazine that had started as a joke and somehow exposed all these small places where comfort and effort touched.

“So,” he tilted his head upwards to the ceiling, “what’s the final diagnosis?”

You picked up the magazine and flipped it closed. The cover girl disappeared under your hand.

“You’re comfortable,” you decided to say at last.

Steve watched you carefully.

You could feel how much hung on the word now, though neither of you had meant for the night to become serious. His hand still rested near your ankle, but his thumb had stopped moving. He was waiting with the particular stillness he got when he was trying not to brace for bad news.

You nudged his thigh gently with your foot.

“But not lazy.”

His shoulders loosened and you wanted to melt into them. “You sure?”

You nodded against the cushion beneath your head. “Yeah.”

He looked down, smiling faintly. And you appreciated the sight on reflex. “Because I said nice?”

There was a faint silence before you took a deep breath and exhaled with a smile yourself. “You recovered from that mishap.”

Steve nodded to himself at your words. “I gave three reasons.”

“You did.”

“Good ones.”

“Mostly good ones.”

He made an offended sound, but it did not land. His hand resumed its slow movement over your sock. “For the record, I’m not trying to stop trying.”

You looked at him, because you weren't sure where else to look at.

He didn't look away, but he did look a little uncomfortable with his own sincerity. His jaw shifted, and his free hand picked at a loose thread on the couch cushion.

“I know sometimes I do the easy thing,” he said before you could jump in to stop him. “The restaurant thing. Or the movie thing. Or I just assume you’re coming over because you usually do, and I like when you do, so I don’t. . . think about how it sounds.” He paused, eyes flicking briefly toward the blank TV. “And future stuff is… I don’t know. Weird.”

You let him find the words without helping too much. You knew it was important to him.

Steve was not always graceful with this. If you rushed him, he might joke his way out. If you stared too hard, he might shut the sentence down and pretend it had never started. So you kept your body relaxed against the couch and waited. 

You would wait for him forever if need be, Steve was worth that and more.

He exhaled, “I want things. I just don’t always say them because saying them makes them real, and real things can get messed up.”

The words sat between you.

You looked down at the sweatshirt sleeves over your hands, then back at him. “I don’t need you to be perfect.”

“I know.”

You made a face. “Do you?”

He gave you the small, crooked smile that you loved. “I’m learning.”

There it was again: the same answer from the night before, but quieter now. Less joke, more promise.

Rain finally began against the windows, soft at first, then steadier. It tapped along the glass and filled the room with a low, gentle sound. Steve glanced toward it, then back to you.

“You also don’t have to use a magazine to tell me stuff,” he cleared his throat.

“I know.” And you did, that was something you were entirely sure of when it came to Steve. 

“Do you?”

You smiled because you deserved that. “Maybe I’m learning too.”

He nodded, satisfied. “Good. Because if next month’s issue tells you to fake your own disappearance to test my devotion, I’m calling Hopper.”

“He’d be very annoyed, I'm sure.”

“He’d arrest the magazine.”

“You think he has that authority?”

“For you? Probably.”

The seriousness eased. Not vanished, exactly, but folded into the warmth already there. Steve reached over and took the magazine from your lap, holding it up between two fingers.

“This,” Steve declared with a fevered passion, “is going in a drawer.”

Your words came out song-like and taunting. “You’re scared.”

“I prefer the term cautious.”

“You literally fight monsters.”

Steve gave you a pointed look. “Monsters don’t give you numbered relationship advice.”

You grabbed for the magazine, and he lifted it out of reach, which made you lean across him. The popcorn bowl wobbled dangerously. He caught it again with one hand and laughed under his breath.

“Careful.”

“You started it.”

“You started it at approximately five-ten yesterday after noon.”

“You kept failing tests.”

Steve defended himself fiercely. “I didn’t know there were tests!”

“That’s how tests work.”

“No, that’s how traps work.”

You got the magazine back only because he let you, though he pretended otherwise. When you tossed it onto the far end of the coffee table, he looked at you with narrowed, wide eyes.

“You’re done?”

“With the article?”

“Yes.”

You nodded solemnly, but your eyes gave you away to joy. “Done.”

“No more solutions?”

“No more solutions.” you promised. 

“Good.”

A beat passed.

Then you looked him dead in the eye, deciding to follow the last stupid line of advice you were given. “I do have a much better way to keep us entertained, though.”

Steve’s eyebrows lifted.

The line was ridiculous. You knew it. It belonged to the glossy page and the bossy article and the version of romance that thought every moment needed a dramatic instruction. But in the quiet living room, with rain beginning properly outside and the movie forgotten, it made Steve’s mouth curve.

“Oh, yeah?” he hummed with a tilt of of head. 

“Maybe.”

His hand slid from your ankle to your calf, still slow, still asking. “Does this better way involve stealing any more of my clothes?”

“You’re not wearing a sweatshirt anymore.”

“Thank God for that,” his words came out dry and low, sending goosebumps against where his fingers touched.

“Could steal your shirt though.”

His laugh came out all startled. “Okay, trouble.”

You grinned, but when he leaned closer, he didn't rush. That was one of the things you trusted about him. For all his teasing, for all the old reputation that still followed him around town in pieces, Steve had become careful with closeness. His hand came to your jaw, thumb resting near the corner of your mouth. His eyes searched your face with enough patience to make your chest ache.

“You sure the movie can stay off?” he asked against you. 

Your brow quirked up.  “You were yelling at it.”

“I was invested!”

“You’ll survive.”

“Barely,” he murmured and before you could argue, Steve kissed you.

The first kiss was smiling and badly aimed because you laughed right before it landed. His nose bumped yours. Your hand went into his hair by instinct, and he made a muffled sound of protest against your mouth.

“Hair,” he murmured with his lips putting against yours, the reaction only spurring you on more. 

“National treasure,” you whispered back.

“Exactly.”

You kissed him again, better this time.

The rain thickened against the windows. The lamp beside the couch hummed softly. Steve’s hand moved to your waist, fingers pressing into the thick fabric of his sweatshirt, and you shifted closer until your knees fit awkwardly against his thigh and the popcorn bowl had to be relocated to the coffee table for everyone’s comfort.

It was certainly not graceful. Your elbow hit the cushion, and he laughed into your mouth. You told him to stop laughing, which made him laugh more. He called you bossy. You called him dramatic. He tried to defend himself and lost the thread of the argument when you kissed the corner of his mouth.

This, too, felt comfortable.

But it was not dull.

It was the kind of comfort that knew where to put its hands and still paid attention. The kind that could laugh without breaking the mood. The kind that did not need to perform mystery to feel wanted, but could still play at it for fun. Steve touched you with familiarity, yes, but not carelessness. You could feel the difference in every pause, every small adjustment, and every time he pulled back just enough to look at you before leaning in again.

Your fingers fisted in the cotton of his shirt as the second kiss deepened, slower at first, then messier. Steve’s mouth opened wider under yours, his tongue slid hot and slick against your own, with spit gathering at the corners of your lips. Every breath you took was shared; the air between you grew thick and humid. He tasted of some sort of your faint chapstick taste, and tilted your head so your nose brushed and your teeth clicked again.

One of his hands then slide up your back, his palm broad and warm, until it cuped the nape of your neck and held you exactly where he wanted you. The other hand stayed low, fingers splayed across the curve of your lower back, squeezing once, then again, guiding the subtle roll of your hips that neither of you planned.

“Thought you weren't a fan of this,” you murmured against his lips when given the chance to break free for a moment. The moment didn't last long because his hand on your head pulled you in once again, a pout on his lips at your escape.

“Correction, I'm not a fan of the magazine,” you huffed a laugh at the intensity of his correction, and he used the opening to pull you in for another kiss. Though, this one was softer in a way that had your breath hitching on contact. “I'd like the record to show—I'm pretty encouraging of this.

Against his lips, you scoffed because he didn't let you break apart again. You could feel his smile against yours as you shoved at him for his distinction as his hands fell to your hips once more. 

Pressing closer to him, you felt him hardening beneath you, thick and insistent through the soft cotton of his sweats. The friction was barely there; just the slow, unconscious grind of you against the ridge of him, but it’s enough to make your breath hitch every time the head of him caught against you through your bottoms more insistantly now. You rock forward again, slower this time, as if trying to test something. 

Apparently, it's successful since Steve groans into your mouth, and the sound vibrates against your tongue, and his hips lift in a tiny, helpless thrust that drags another wet slide of fabric on fabric.

“Okay, so that's really not fair.” He breaks the kiss with a wet sound, lips parting from yours by inches. A thin strand of spit stretches, then snaps. His warm eyes are now turned glassy, his pupils blown wide, and his mouth red and shiny. “You know, you're the one that was excited for this movie for like—I don't know, a week?” he managed finally through pants, with his voice hoarse, and chest heaving under your palm.

“Ever think I was just trying to seduce you?” The ridiculous words did little to wipe away your smile, or his, for that matter.

Steve quirked his eyebrow up at you, “with begging and whining?” 

The look you shot at him must've been a good one, because he grinned down at you and pulled you in closer. “I'm kidding.”

“Mhm.” You weren't convinced, but it did little to deter him. Steve pressed his lips against the column of your neck in a makeshift trying apology. 

Instead of replying, your mouth found his again; slower this time, deeper, and your mouth curling together in a hazy slide. Steve’s hand at your neck tightened on reflex and the action had you pulled in closer, his thumb stroking the soft skin behind your ear. The other hand sliped lower now, taking up residence on your upper thigh. His fingers dug in just enough to guide another slow, deliberate grind of your hips. 

The ridge of his length dragged alongside you through two layers of cotton. The pressure was entirely maddening, it wasn't enough and too much at once. You felt yourself getting tenser, the crotch of your leggings clinging and every tiny movement he took made the fabric pull and drag.

Steve’s breathing grew more ragged against you. He sucked your bottom lip between his teeth then nibbled, then soothing with his tongue after you made a winced noise before diving back in for another open-mouthed kiss that left the both of you gasping. 

His hand that was placed below your ear roamed now. Up your side and over your ribs, with  the heel of his palm brushing the underside of your breast through your top. He doesn’t cup or squeeze like you'd prefer, he just let the weight of his hand rest there, thumb stroking slow circles that makes your body push up towards the friction. 

His hips lift again, meeting your slow grind with a shallow thrust that presses him harder against you, leaving you to curse against his lips. The friction sparked through you, sharp and sweet, and you moan into his mouth, though the sound swallowed by another kiss.

“You're such a weirdo.” The exhale that the words left you from was more breathless than you'd intended.  His hand on your breast finally moved when you spoke, a rough palm covering the soft swell, thumb flicking once over a stiff peak more incessantly this time. The touch is still half-hidden under your shirt and still restrained, but the heat of it burns through the fabric all the same. 

Steve would've sputtered at your words if he didn't know you better. And fortunately for him, he did. “Just say you missed me, honey. It'll make it easier for the both of us.”

“Can't say it if I don't mean it.” Your response had him strained against your throat, and the vibrations of his laughter sent shivers up your spine. You arch into his grip, pressing down against him harder with every slow roll of your hips. Steve’s abdomen flexed beneath you, the spasms eased through shaky exhales, and the tiny, helpless thrust of his hips tells you he’s just as affected.

“Come on, just say it.” His words were pressed into you now. You could hear the room becoming actively smaller between the two of you. Steve’s fingertips slid underneath the rising hem of your top, gripping at your sides directly now, leaving you to feel the warmth of his skin more clearly.

You could feel your head distantly shaking side to side, more so with just the need to push at him further than any real argument against his statement. His groan was propelled into your skin at that, his head tilting into you as if it was bodily necessity. 

Steve’s laugh rumbled low in his chest, the sound vibrating straight into you again. “You’re so damn stubborn,” he muttered, and his lips dragged higher over your pulse. His fingers slipped higher beneath your top until the fabric bunched under your arms, baring your stomach and the lower curve of your breasts. He didn’t bother pulling your top or bra off, he just shoved it up and out of the way so his palm could close over one bare breast, hus thumb circling the stiff nipple before he pinched it between his fingers.

You gasped instantly, hips jerking forward on instinct. The bulge of his cock dragged harder against you, the head catching right where you needed it. Steve groaned at the sudden pressure alongside you, his free hand sliding down to grip your ass and pull you inhumanly closer.

“Fuck, you’re already so wet,” he breathed, his voice turning rough. “I can feel it even through your clothes.” His hips rolled up to meet your grind in another slow and deliberate movement, letting you feel every inch of him. The cotton of his sweats was damp where you’d been rubbing against him, clinging to the shape of him.

You rocked harder, chasing the friction he slowly gave you. Steve’s thumb flicked over your nipple again, then he ducked his head and sucked it into his mouth through the bunched fabric of your top, his teeth scraping lightly before his tongue soothed the sting. The wet heat of his mouth made your back arch, pushing your breast deeper against his lips.

“Steve,” His name came out shaky. Your fingers threaded into his hair by the pure need to hold onto something, then holding him there as he sucked harder, the pull sending sparks straight between your legs. He switched to the other nipple, giving it the same treatment while his hand worked the first, rolling and tugging until both peaks were tight and aching.

His other hand stayed on your ass then the flesh of your thigh, his fingers digging into your skin as he guided your hips in a slower, filthier grind. Each roll dragged your swollen clit against the head of his cock through the layers of fabric, the pressure building until your thighs started to shake. Steve’s breathing grew ragged against your chest, hot puffs of air cooling the wet and reddening spots he’d left on your top.

“Still not gonna say it?” he asked, though his voice was muffled against your breast. He looked up at you through his long lashes, eyes dark and glassy, and his lips were pink as they coated themselves in saliva everytime his tongue poked out to wet them. His hips lifted again, thrusting up to meet your familiar movements, the motion making his cock catch and drag right over your clit in a way that had you moaning.

"I'm good, thanks." You shook your head, but the motion was weak and entirely distracted by the way his hand was sliding lower, how his fingers were slipping between your thighs to your front. He pressed two fingers against the soaked fabric covering you, rubbing slow circles that made your hips stutter.

“God, you’re dripping,” he breathed out, almost wonderingly. His fingers pressed harder, pushing the fabric against your entrance, the pressure just shy of pushing inside. You shot him a glare at his teasing. “I can feel how hot you are. How bad you want it.”

You rocked back against his hand, chasing more. He wouldn't fully give it to you, though. Steve’s mouth found yours again, the kiss messy and filled with wanting, it had your tongues sliding together in tandem as his fingers kept working between your legs. The heel of his palm ground against your clit while his fingers continued to tease your entrance through the thin fabric, the material growing wetter with every pass.

His cock twitched beneath you, thick and insistent, and you had to bite back the noises that wanted to leave you. Steve’s free hand slid up your back, having his fingers splaying wide between your shoulder blades as he held you close, chest to chest, with the heat of his skin burning through both your shirts.

“Say it,” he pleaded against your lips, the words barely audible over the wet sounds of your mouths moving together. His fingers pressed harder, the tips just barely pushing the fabric inside you, the stretch barely there but enough to make you clench around nothing but the want of him. “Just say you missed me and I’ll give you what you want.”

Steve’s fingers kept working between your legs. His mouth stayed on yours, swallowing every shaky breath you let out while his other hand stayed busy under your top, thumb and forefinger rolling your nipple in slow, deliberate tugs whenever his hand moved.

“Still so stubborn,” he chuckled against your lips, voice low and warm with the click of his tongue. “You’re twitching in my lap and you still won’t say it?” 

“Stop being smug,” was the only response you could get out. You rocked down harder then, chasing that pressure, and Steve groaned into your mouth. You had to bite back your smile against his lips at the reaction. His hand slipped out from between your legs only to grip the waistband of your bottoms, his fingers hooking under the elastic at your hips. He tugged once, slow, testing, then looked up at you with that half-smile that always made your stomach flip.

“Lift up for me?” he murmured the leading question softly. You braced your hands on his shoulders and raised your hips just enough for him to peel the pants down your thighs, dragging your panties halfway with them. The cool air hit your skin and you shivered on contact, but Steve’s hands were already back in their place, and his warm palms slid up the backs of your thighs until his thumbs hooked into the waistband of your panties too.

He paused there, looking up at you with his painfully mesmerizing big and soft eyes. “Still not gonna say it?” His voice stayed gentle, almost coaxing. He only grinned wide when you glared back up at him.

“That’s alright. I’ll get it out of you eventually.” He pulled your panties down the rest of the way, leaving them tangled around one ankle as he settled you back down on his lap. The cotton of his sweats was entirely damp where you’d been grinding, and now there was nothing between you and that thick, prominent feeling  of him except the thin fabric of his bottoms.

Steve’s hands settled on your hips again, guiding you into another slow roll. This time the friction was hotter, wetter, the head of his cock dragging right through your folds and catching on your clit with every pass. You gasped, fingers tightening on his shoulders, and he made a low approving sound in his throat.

“There you go,” he cooed, his voice soft and a little condescending, like he was praising a pet that finally learned the trick. You didn't have it in you to bite back at the moment. “That’s better, isn’t it? All that attitude and you’re still soaking my sweats.” His hands squeezed your hips, encouraging another grind. “Look at you, dripping all over me and still pretending you didn’t miss me.”

“Shut up, Steve.” The words weren't fruitful or honest. You rocked harder quickly after that, chasing the feeling even though your legs shook at the movement, and Steve’s breath hitched. That noise made the slight sting all the more worth it. One hand slid between your bodies again, fingers spreading your folds so the head of his cock could press more directly against your clit. The pressure was perfect, just enough to make your hips stutter and he held you there, letting you grind against his fingers and the thick length trapped in his pants.

“Fuck, you’re so wet,” he repeated again in that same breathless way. “I can feel how swollen you are. How bad you need it.” His thumb found your clit and rubbed slow circles while his fingers teased your entrance, not pushing inside yet, just pressing and circling until your thighs started to shake. The taunting had your head bowed low and a whiny plea in your throat. “You're killing me here.”

He shifted you higher on his lap, one hand sliding down to grip the back of your thigh and lay you on your back as he spread you open. Then he leaned in, his mouth finding the soft skin just above your hip, kissing and nipping his way lower until his breath ghosted over your bare skin. His eyes flicked up to meet yours, dark and warm, and that same soft, iritatingly condescending tone crept back into his voice that made your stomach flex.

“Poor thing,” he murmured, having his lips brushing your inner thigh now in soft kisses. “So worked up and still being so mean to me.” His tongue dragged a slow stripe up your slit, tasting you, and he hummed like he’d just found something sweet. “Sweetheart, you taste so fucking good when you’re not being mean.”

“I wasn't—fuck, I wasn't mean.” Your words fell on deaf ears when his hands held your thighs apart as he licked again, slower this time, with his tongue flat and broad as he dragged it from your entrance up to your clit. He circled the swollen bud once, twice, then sucked it gently between his lips, the wet heat of his mouth making your back arch against where you were laid out. One hand stayed on your thigh, thumb stroking soothing circles, while the other slid up to press two fingers against your entrance, rubbing but not pushing even though your hips lifted up to meet them.

“Say it,” he whispered against your clit, the words vibrating through you. “Just say you missed me and I’ll give you my fingers. I’ll give you my tongue. I’ll give you whatever you could want.” His tongue flicked over your clit again, faster now, while his fingers pressed harder, the tips just barely stretching you. His words seemed to leave you as if they were a carousel, only reaching you when your head stopped spinning. “Or you can keep being stubborn. Either way, I’m not stopping until you’re shaking and begging.”

“Fuck. Please, Steve—don't, don’t tease.” Your words came desperate in their pleas as you rocked against his mouth, chasing more. Steve groaned into you at that, the sound muffled but hungry. His fingers finally pushed inside then, slow and deliberate, curling just right as his tongue kept working your clit. The wet sounds of his mouth and your slick filled the space between you, mixing with the low, coaxing praise he kept murmuring against your skin.

“That’s it,” he cooed, voice soft and warm even as his fingers thrust deeper. Your forearm came up to your face now, sprawled across your face to muffle your sounds. “Good girl. Just like that. Keep grinding on my tongue. I’ve got you.” His free hand slid up your body again, finding your breast and rolling your nipple between his fingers while his mouth stayed busy between your legs. The action had you gasping out his name and biting the sleeve of the jacket underneath you. “You’re so fucking pretty like this, honey. All spread out and dripping for me.”

Your hips rolled in tiny, shaky circles over Steve’s mouth, thighs trembling around his head as his tongue kept flicking quick and firm over your clit. Every pass made your stomach clench and your breath hitch, and the fingers he’d finally pushed inside you curled just right, dragging over that spot that made your walls flutter around him.

“F-fuck—Steve—oh god,” you gasped, voice cracking. Your hands clutched at his shoulders, nails digging in as your whole body twitched. “Please—please, fuck, I missed you, won’t ignore you again, I missed—ah!”

He hummed against you, clearly pleased, the vibration shooting straight through your clit, and you felt him smile against you. His fingers thrust deeper now, more slow and steady, while his tongue circled and sucked, never letting up. Your hips jerked on pure reflex now, chasing every bit of pressure, and you could feel how soaked you were, seeing through half-lidded eyes the slick dripping down his fingers, and coating his chin, making every wet sound louder.

“That’s it,” he murmured with his voice low and warm against you. “Good girl. Say it again, tell me how much you missed me again?”

“I missed you,” you sighed, and the words tumbled out broken and breathless. “Missed your mouth, missed your stupid attitude, missed—fuck, Steve, please don’t stop—”

He didn’t. His tongue pressed flat and hard, licking languidly from your entrance up to clit, then sucking the swollen bud between his lips again after forcing your hips flat with his other hand wrapped against your waist. His fingers kept working inside you, curling and thrusting, and stretching you open while his thumb rubbed tight circles. Your thighs shook harder, your breath coming in short, desperate pants.

“Close,” you whimpered with a voice thin and shaky, you were borderline wordless now. “Steve, fuck—I’m gonna—please, I’m so close—”

He pulled back just enough to speak, lips brushing your slick folds. “Not yet,” he breathed heavy and his voice rasped. “You’re not coming until I say so. You can hold it for me, can’t you?”

You whined with your hips stuttering, trying to chase his mouth again, but he held you steady with a hand on your thigh. His fingers slowed inside you, just barely moving now, forcefully keeping you right on the edge without letting you tip over. Your walls clenched around him, desperate, and you felt yourself dripping even more, the wet sounds filthy and loud in the quiet room.

“Steve, please—fuck, I need it, I need to come, please let me just—” He licked you again, his movements slow and deliberate, and his tongue continuously dragging over your clit until your whole body jerked. 

“Not yet,” he repeated with a gentle voice but still firmly, his grasp on you turning slightly tighter in a soft warning. “You’re so pretty like this. You can wait a little longer, yeah?”

Your head fell forward, forehead pressing against his as your breath came in shaky gasps. Every nerve in your body felt on the frustrating edge without being allowed to be tipped over completely. Your head lifted weakly as your proped yourself on your elbows to look at him. “Please—come on, please? I’ll do anything. Fuck, Steve, I’m so close right now—”

He kissed your inner thigh in what felt like an apology, then your clit, soft and teasing. The action had your breath shake and your groan turn entirely frustrated. “I know, baby. I know. Just a little more.” His fingers curled inside you, pressing right against that spot, and you felt your orgasm building again, hotter and tighter, but he pulled back just before you could tip over once more.

Your words came out a mixed sobbed with your thighs shaking, and hips twitching against nothing anymore. “Fuck—fuck, Steve, don't do that! Come on—”

He shifted you down his body, hands guiding your hips until your legs were straddling his lap again and you're no longer lying down. His cock was rock hard under his sweats, the fabric soaked where you’d been grinding. He hooked his thumbs into the waistband and shoved them down just enough to free himself, the thick length springing up between you, all flushed and leaking.

“Ride me,” he murmured this time and his voice low and coaxing. “Take what you need. You’ve earned it, honey.”

You didn’t hesitate, the restlessness in your body didn't let you. You reached down and wrapped your hand around his cock, not before and lined him up, the head pressing against your entrance. You sank down slow, feeling every inch stretch you open, your walls fluttering and clenching around him as he filled you. The stretch was perfect, deep and thick, and you moaned loud and broken as you bottomed out, hips flush against his.

Steve groaned alongside you with his head tipping back, and hands gripping your hips harder now. “Fuck—there you go. So fucking tight. So wet for me.”

You started to move, slow at first, rolling your hips in languid circles, feeling him drag against every sensitive spot inside you. Your hands braced on his chest, nails digging in as you rode him, each roll of your hips sending sparks through your whole body. Steve's broken gasps sounds filled the room, mixing with your broken moans and his low, practically mindless praise.

“That’s it,” he breathed, and you could clearly hear how his voice shook. His head tipped back with every movement. “Good girl. Fuck, you feel so good. Missed this so much. Missed how you squeeze me, how you drip all over me.”

You couldn’t form words anymore. Your head lolled forward, forehead pressed to his, breath coming in short, desperate pants. Your hips moved on their own with his strained help, chasing every bit of friction he gave while inside you. The pleasure built fast, hot and tight, and you felt yourself tipping over the edge again, walls clenching hard around him.

Your hand came up to smack agakn his bicep helplessly. “Steve, fuck—”

He thrust up to meet you messily now, rough palms guiding your hips with his voice low and urgent. “Close? Let me feel it, yeah?”

You shattered with a broken cry, your whole body shaking as your orgasm continued to build and crashed through you. Your walls pulsed around him,  and you kept moving through it, riding out every wave with shaky and unstable footing. Steve groaned loud against his mindless bubbles against your shoulder, his hips jerking up in a stutter and you felt him throb inside you as he came down with you.

You stayed there for what seemed like a lifetime, bodies pressed limblessly together, breathing hard, and your hips still twitching with the remaining aftershocks. Steve’s hands stroked your back, then your hips, soothing and warm, while you melted against him, forehead pressed to his shoulder, breath coming in shaky wordless sounds.

“Fuck,” he whispered, and he almost sounded reverent. Steve's knuckles went to drag against the line of your spine, the touch barely registering with how light it was. “You’re so fucking perfect.”

You just hummed, too far gone to speak with your body still twitching and clenching around him as the pleasure slowly ebbed, leaving you warm and languid and utterly spent.

Steve’s hair was a mess now. Yours couldn't have been much better now either. The collar of your shirt had slipped off one shoulder, and he kept tugging it back up absently, not because he was concerned about modesty so much as because taking care of you in small ways was one of his habits. Your breath was still easing down when you felt the pressure of a kiss just below your eye, then one followed up to your temple. 

You were ready to let all the leftover tension in your body release when he spoke.

“Tomorrow,” Steve started quietly, and he took the moment for him to hook his chin over your head, pulling you into him even more.“I’m picking the date.”

You opened one eye to scan him when your vision returned to you. “Are you?”

“Mhm.”

“What are we doing?”

Steve used your words against you with a clear hum of delight. “Secret plans.”

You smiled against his chest, your own knuckles across him, mirroring his own actions on you. “With who?”

He pinched your side gently through the shirt that covered you once more, the action pulled a squirm from you. “Funny.”

“You walked into that!”

“I did and I regret it.”

The rain tapped steadily and the the microwave clock glowed green. Steve’s arm rested around your shoulders, heavy and warm.

“I’ll pick something,” he said. “A real thing. Not just pizza because it’s Friday.”

“I like pizza because it’s Friday.”

“I know. But I’ll pick.”

You lifted your head enough to look at him. He was staring at the blank television, but not really seeing it. His face had gone thoughtful in the dim light, mouth relaxed, and his eyes were tired but not drained. 

“And,” Steve added, “I’ll ask first. If you want to come.”

Your throat tightened unexpectedly.

You kept your voice light because otherwise the moment might become too delicate to touch. “That sounds very advanced.”

“I’m an advanced boyfriend.” You weren't entirely convinced. 

“You’re a boyfriend with homework.”

“I did great on the first quiz!”

“You got a B-minus.”

His head snapped toward you. “B-minus?”

You conceded. “Maybe B.”

“I gave three reasons and let you drive my car?”

“B-plus.”

“And discussed the nineties.”

You considered that, “A-minus.”

He relaxed back into the couch. “Thank you.”

“Don’t get too comfortable just yet.”

Steve looked down at you with his mouth tilting. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

You settled against him again, listening to the rain and the steady beat of his heart. The house around you felt less empty than it had when you arrived. The couch pillows were crushed. The popcorn bowl sat abandoned on the table. The magazine lay face down near the remote, defeated for now. Steve’s shoes were kicked halfway beneath the coffee table, and your mall bag had tipped over near the armchair, one receipt peeking out.

It was ordinary evidence, proof of a night spent badly and well.

After a while, Steve kissed the top of your head. He probably thought you were too sleepy to call him on it when he murmured, “You looked really pretty today.”

You smiled without opening your eyes quickly. “Three reasons?”

His sigh moved beneath your cheek when he pressed another kiss there. “I created a monster.”

You could only shrug. “You encouraged her.”

“I did.” His hand moved once over your shoulder. Steve’s fingers gently rubbed small circles into your shoulder blades, and you could only lean onto his touch. “Okay. The jeans. The ribbons. Your hair. The way you stole my clothes again and acted like I was lucky to witness it.”

“That’s four.” Your voice came pleased against him.

“I’m overachieving then. ”

“Good.”

“And,” Steve said quieter, “the way you came back.”

You opened your eyes and he was looking at the ceiling now, not at you, because that last one had slipped out seemed more vulnerable than he intended. His throat moved. His fingers kept tracing a small, absent path over your sleeve.

You didn't tease him for it this time, something told you that'd be too cruel; Instead, you reached for his hand and threaded your fingers through his as if it was always meant there 

“I'm always going to come back,” you decided to settle for saying, your voice soft.

Steve looked down at you then.

For a second, the room held still and quiet around you: rain at the windows, lamp light on his tired face, qnd your hand in his. He didn't say anything grand, really. He didn't need to. Steve just squeezed your fingers once and rested his cheek against your hair.

“Good,” Steve murmured against the crown of your hair.

It was not magazine-perfect, it was even better.

So when his short sentence was served – and after Roy managed to get himself killed in prison over a pack of cigarettes – Gator left.

The asphalt he walked on everyday now, from his modest apartment to work, started to feel more and more like he could get used to living here. The lingering anxiety of moving away, of adapting to his new condition, of wondering who he is now, was slowly ebbing away with each step he took on the hot pavement.

Gator became a creature of habit along the way. He follows the same route to and from work, goes to the same shop to get his disgustingly sweet vape juice, and orders from the same delivery service for his usual takeout dinners. He keeps to himself most of the time, only interacting with people at work when he absolutely must, which is entirely way more then what he’d prefer.

It’s not that he doesn’t like people. He’s never really been shy, that was beaten out of him early. No, it’s more like he doesn’t know how to interact now. Sure, he can usually sense when someone’s there, but how do you even approach someone without sight? And by the time he realizes that it’s Cheryl, the fifty-something-year-old receptionist that finds him quite handsome but is also extremely intrusive, he loses all good intentions he might have had. Because of this, his new coworkers find him quite cold and distant. But hey, what do they expect from the blind ex-cop with indicators of a troubled past in the form of scars on his lip and wrist? They know better than to ask details about all that. Well, most of them. Not Cheryl.

“Say, how did you… you know?” She asks one afternoon after she monopolized his break talking about her grandchild.

Gator’s jaw clenches a bit, trying to stay polite as the lady pulls at a rope he does not want to untangle. “How did I what?”

Cheryl squirms a bit, not knowing how to breach that subject, but she still goes for it anyway. “You know, the… blindness,” she almost whispers, like it’s something taboo even though she’s the one bringing it up. “How did it happen?”

The breath that leaves Gator is slow and full of his new-found ability to hold back. “Accident,” he says simply, almost harshly, before standing up, scrambling for his cane and walking back to his office. Maybe, if he wasn’t trying to change, he would have blown up in her face and put her back in her place for even asking about it.  Something Tillman-esque to relieve himself of the pent-up frustration that comes with not seeing a damn thing.

But he tries though. God, he tries. To be a better man than his father. To be a better man than himself and how he was raised. He just doesn’t always know how, like asking a fish to paint or a lamp to cast a shadow. Sure, maybe it can be done, but it’ll take time. Rearranging. Good thing he has that, now.

The smell of coffee and maple assault your senses as you enter The Overflow, the shop you work at that. A few patrons are scattered across tables and love seats – students preparing for a test, businessmen on zoom calls talking way too loudly, and a young couple entirely too busy looking at each other with hearts in their eyes to be bothered by it.

You reach for your apron as you slip behind the counter, waving off your coworker Sam who is eager to finally go home. The soap bubbles nicely as you wash your hands – Jenny finally got the good kind again, nice.

You like working the afternoon shifts into the night until the coffee shop closes at 9. It’s less busy, allowing you to catch up on some reading. Plus, the owner, Jenny, lets you put your playlist on the shop’s speakers. It’s gonna be a good day, you tell yourself, getting on with prepping your workplace as you like it, humming under your breath.

Gator doesn’t know what makes him swerve to the left instead of the right when he exits the building at 4PM. Was it the strong coffee smell he could always pick up when the wind blew the right way? Was it the fact that Gary, his coworker that wears too much aftershave, mentioned getting his tea there in passing one morning? Or was it the fact he had a long night of work ahead of him, needing to redo an assignment he realized he had misinterpreted? Probably all of those.

The bell above the door rings faintly, not that it needs to, the clear lack of lubrification on the hinges enough to alert to any new client. You look up from your book and are surprised to see a new face. His sunglasses are dark, completely hiding his eyes. His hair is slicked back, sharp-looking. He’s wearing a black button down and dark jeans, his cane tapping lightly against a chair as he takes a tentative step inside, mapping the place.

Noticing the cane and sunglasses, and how you’ve never seen the man before, you stand up and offer a bit of help in localizing himself in the form of a greeting. “Hi! Welcome to The Overflow.”

Gator turns his head in your direction and offers a polite smile, making his way to the counter now that he had a voice to follow and the confirmation he was in the right place. “Um, hi.” His hand taps the counter a few times as he reaches it. “Could I get a large drip coffee to go, please?”

Up close, you can see him better. The moles adorning his jawline and his neck. You smile and turn around swiftly, grabbing a large paper cup. “Sure thing. What name should I write down?” You ask over your shoulder.

He scoffs a bit and shrugs. “Doesn’t matter,” he mutters as his shoulders roll in on themselves a bit.

You pause and look back at him, feeling a little sheepish. “Oh, it’s just so I know who to call forward if another customer gets in,” you try to explain, the uncomfortable feeling of maybe having said something you shouldn’t have gnawing at you.

Perhaps he would have reacted another way in another life, like getting defensive and not giving you the light of day. But he doesn’t. Instead, he realizes his mistake of thinking the name baristas write down on the cup was more for the customer than for them. “Right. Um, sorry. It’s Gator,” he says calmly, scratching the back of his neck.

You tilt your head at the name. “That’s an original name. Like alligator, but hold the ‘alli’?” You ask, trying to make the moment a little lighter, not wanting to scare away a potential new customer.

The corner of his mouth turns up, but it’s not really a laugh. He’s heard that before. But the way you sound like you’re not afraid of him… that’s new. “Yeah, like that.” His fingers tap lightly against the counter.

You turn to the coffee machine and start the process of scooping ground beans in it, pressing the button that makes it rumble to life. You lean a hip against the counter and study him a bit as the liquid energy starts to drip. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you around here before.” It’s an innocent enough statement. An observation. An opening.

He shifts his weight and clears his throat, not expecting you to keep talking to him. “I work down the street, but yeah, first time.”

You hum and nod, taking the now filled cup. “Well, hopefully it’ll be good enough for a second time. What should I put in your coffee, sir?”

“Nothing. Black is fine,” he says, fishing for his wallet in his pocket. He takes out his card as you close the plastic lid of the cup and slide it to him.

The terminal beeps softly as you enter the total in it. “It’ll be 3,50,” you say with a smile, even though he can’t see it.

He looks hesitant, realizing he doesn’t know where the terminal is. “Um…”

You gently reach for his card with a polite “Here, let me. Did you want to put a tip?”

Gator freezes for a second as you took his card, the tips of his ears turning pink from embarrassment. “Yeah, 15%,” he forces himself to say.

You press the card to the terminal, and it beeps as you hand it back to him. You take the cup of freshly made coffee and carefully place it in his waiting hand, your fingers brushing with his in their helpful endeavour. “There you go.”

He nods politely, mutters a “thank you” and turns around to leave from where he came from.

“Have a good rest of your day!” you exclaim as he leaves, watching him go as you lean over the counter. You find yourself hoping he’ll come in again.

He doesn’t. At least not for a few days. The problem isn’t the coffee. No, it was decent and not too overpriced. He just didn’t like that he had needed help. And that it hadn’t bothered you. Or at least, it seemed like you weren’t bothered by it. For some reason, that stuck in Gator’s brain. Your kindness.

It’s a few days later when he dares to go back to The Overflow again, this time before going to work. As he walks in, the shop seems way busier than last time. He stops behind an older lady in line, her strong eau de parfum signaling her presence. He waits his turn, trying to hear the steps of the people in front of him so he knows when to come forward. He feels out of place, like maybe this was a bad idea.

But that’s when he catches it again. Your voice, laughing with your coworker, someone called Jenny, as you steam some milk. His shoulders instantly relax a little bit, feeling like maybe this won’t go too bad after all.

When it’s his turn to reach the counter, you notice him. Of course you’d remembered him. It’s not everyday you see a handsome blind man at work. Your words let him hear the way you smile. “Good morning… Gator, Right? I take it that first coffee was pretty good, huh?”

He gives you a slight smile at that and nods a bit. “Hi – uh, good morning. Yeah, t’was pretty good. Can I get a large black coffee to go again, please?”

“Sure thing,” you reply and quickly get to work, the line of people still extending after Gator.

When you finish his coffee, he holds out his card for you, silently asking for you to make the payment for him again.

“Here. So sorry this dang terminal doesn’t allow me to move it,” you say as you take his card, and tap it against the terminal.

He pockets it back. “Don’t worry about it. Thanks, for your help.” The warmth of the coffee seeps through his hand as you safely hand it to him.

“You’re most welcome. Have a good day.” Your soft voice triggers a smile to spread on his face.

Wait... she didn’t ask for a tip. He fishes out a dollar from his leather jacket, places it on the counter and leaves, mirroring your words. Before he can exit though, he hears your coworker shout your name as she seems to be struggling with something. Oh. It almost sounds as good as your laugh that follows it as you answer her.

It becomes routine, well every other day. He comes in before work, or after, orders the same thing, and leaves after letting you take his card. For some reason, he looks forward to it. Maybe it’s the way it simply makes him feel normal to get coffee at the local coffee shop, like everyone else. But also, maybe it’s how he knows just by the faint smell of coconut when he enters the shop that it will be you there.

One afternoon, he comes in after work to get his liquid courage for the night ahead of him, but he immediately pauses in the doorway. The overall smell of The Overflow is exactly the same – freshly ground coffee beans and maple. But the undertones are off. He walks a bit further inside and doesn’t hear your familiar greeting when he usually comes in when it’s less busy. He reaches the counter, now more accustomed to the layout of the place.

You were in the back, struggling with a big pouch of creamer when you heard the door. It took a minute to get everything settled before you walked back out to the front of the shop, wiping your hands on your apron. “So sorry, what can I – Oh!” You pause when you see it’s him and smile. “Hi Gator.” You enjoyed saying his name. So what.

He instantly relaxes and smiles at you, flashing a toothy grin that you rarely pulled out of him, but made your own wider when you did. “Hi. I uh… didn’t think you’d be here today when I came in.”

Your brows furrow and you cross your arms as you reach the register. “Huh? Why not?” The confusion in your tone is evident. You don’t know that Gator learned your schedule through trial and error, and now only comes to the shop when you’re working, a lingering side-effect of his past life. You also don’t know that abruptly changing the body mist you use every morning would throw him way off.

“I just…” He thinks for a second, and yeah no. He can’t say the smell thing. Sounds way too creepy. “Um… I don’t know. Guess I’m used to hearing you greet me earlier.” The teasing joke lands a little flat, but you chuckle anyway. He leans in slightly, not realizing that you can see him trying to get a better sample of the new scent.

You notice. Of course you do. But you don’t say anything.

And next time he comes in, you’re back to the regular body mist. Warm coconut. Just so he knows a few seconds earlier that it is you working that day. That’s just being friendly, right?

The sun is warm on your skin as you walk through the city, about to reach The Overflow a bit earlier than what your shift demanded. The music in your earbuds makes your steps lighter, drowning out the town’s usual soundtrack.

That’s when you see him – Gator – leaning against a building not far down the street, pulling from a clunky vape. Charming. His hair is not in his usual gelled back style, a few strands falling on his forehead.

You approach him and before you can say a word, his head perks up with a slight smile. “Hey.” Your name falls from his lips smoothly, assured, more confident now after getting to talk to you a few times when he had spontaneously decided to drink his coffee at a table on slow nights. You’d gotten to know more about him and him about you.

You giggle and step a bit closer. “How did you know it was me?” You ask, amused, because you know it’s from the perfume.

“Lucky guess.” He says with a smirk, blowing the vapor away from you, but not well enough that you don’t catch the sweet strawberry scent of it.

You hum. “So, is this where you work then?”

He gestures vaguely and nods. “Yeah. Smart girl.”

Something flips a bit in your stomach as he addresses you like that. There’s a beat of awkward silence, the kind that comes when you start to know someone, but then you break it. “Well, I gotta get to work too, so…”

He nods and bows his head forward a bit. “Yeah, of course. Don’t let me hold you.”

You don’t know what compels you to do it. It’s too forward. Hell, he’ll probably take it badly, knowing better now how he doesn’t like to ask for help. But, whatever. He told you that he didn’t really know anyone around town last time he was at the shop, and it made your chest ache for him. “Hey, Gator. Before I go, I was thinking that I could like, give you my number, if you wanted? Just so you have a friend you can call if you need something, you know?” You wince silently but force yourself to stick with it.

Gator goes stiff. He wants your number, that’s for sure. But you’re offering it to him as a friend? Because you pity him and think he’s alone and needs help? It leaves a bitter taste on his tongue, makes him feel like a shadow of a man. He wants to scoff and tell you he doesn’t need help. But then that would definitely ruin his chances. And he keeps telling himself he’s changed, that he’s a better man now. Is he really if he brushes you off out of fear of being a burden?

He lets out a long breath through his nose, his jaw clenching in a way that tells you this is taking an effort. His phone slips out of his pocket as he hands it to you. “Yeah, okay.”

You quickly put in your contact info in it, sending yourself a quick text so you have his number as well. “Cool. Don’t, huh… don’t be afraid to call, yeah? For anything.” You say as you hand it back, your fingers brushing his. The pavement crunches slightly as you take a step back. “I like your hair like that, by the way.”

The tip of his ears flush pink and he instinctively reaches for it at the compliment, his hand burying in his hair. A compliment. He doesn’t think he’s gotten one in years. “Huh, thanks.”

The taste of something faintly metallic seeps on your tongue as you worry at your bottom lip. “Anyway, see you later!” You say in an overly chirpy voice. You turn around and walk toward the coffee shop like you’ve been burned, cringing at your use of “see you later” for a blind man.

Gator his left there, still reeling from the whole I like your hair thing and the fact that he has your number now. The heat from the blush that’s going down his neck starts to thaw the frost that had taken over his limbs, and he lets himself smile.

The next time he comes in the shop in the afternoon, about a week later, you decide to try out something. It takes you longer to complete his usual order, but he doesn’t complain, chatting with you about work and how warm it is in this town. Before making him pay this time, you hand him the cup. “Here.”

His brows furrow and disappear under his sunglasses as he picks up the cup, a different shape he is used to. “What is this? Think you got it wrong, sweetheart.”

Oh, yeah. He had started calling you that and it did things to you. “Just try it, Gator.” There’s an amused lilt to your voice. He can practically hear how your hands are propped up on the counter, eyes trained on him for his reaction.

A short puff of air escapes his lips, and he brings the cup to his mouth, taking a small sip so as not to burn himself. The taste of coffee, obviously, but also of sweet maple and milk wash over his tongue and he almost buckles at the knees. Roy had always made him take it black, saying it was the only manly way to do so.

You smile at the obvious enjoyment of the maple latte you just made him. “So? You like it?”

“It’s… different,” he simply speaks, trying to hide how much he seems to be appreciating what he considers to be something that only girls order.

The giggle that leaves your lips is like music to his ears. “Thought you’d like something sweet, especially after I saw you inhaling that awful strawberry vape.”

You’re teasing him, he knows, but also, you pay attention. You did something that you thought he’d like. That felt special. He laughs and nods, taking another more confident sip. Fuck, it is good. “So you just decided to change my usual?”

You know Gator means it like a joke, but it still makes you a bit nervous that maybe you did something wrong. You shrug and lean your hips forward against the counter. “Don’t worry. That drink’s on me. And if you really don’t like it, I can make you your usual.”

He shakes his head decisively. “Nah, don’t bother. It’s good. Thanks.” He gives you that gorgeous smile you like so much and you stare at it. The anxious knot in your stomach unfolds and it feels like every moth on earth has finally found, buried deep inside your guts, the prodigal moon they were searching for and are now dancing all around it.

After that, the maple latte becomes his usual.

He had asked you for “whatever you made yesterday” when he went back to the shop the next day. That made you smile bright, and he was devastated he could never see it.

You had called him at some point too, under the guise of needing help picking the right kind of door chain for your front door. You remembered Gator told you he was a security consultant and he used to be a cop before he went blind, so you figured it was related enough to not seem too out of pocket. You had described the types of locks at the hardware store you were at, and he patiently guided you to the safest option. “You should get a deadbolt too, if you don’t have one. Gotta be safe, sweetheart.” He didn’t tell you, but it eased him that the first time you guys called each other was because you had needed help, not him.

After that first one, the calls became more of a regular thing. He called you about asking you what new takeout he should get because he was feeling adventurous. You called him for his opinion on types of chairs when you were slightly drunk after going out with your friends, because that had been the heated debate of the night. “You don’t get it, Gates. Rocking chairs are the obvious choice.”

You didn’t really notice how the calls became longer, how you’d stay on the phone with him for hours sometimes. Half the time you were just cooking or reading, no one saying a word, but still on the line. You told yourself it was just for company. For Gator, it was reassuring. Proof that he could get to know someone and not scare them off. Proof that he could be close to someone without feeling like they’re just afraid of his name.

You had told him one night you used to watch hockey with your dad when you were younger, and it opened the door. Sports was the one thing he preferred to listen to on TV, because the built-in narration of the commentators didn’t make him feel like he was different, unlike other shows where he had to activate the audio description. “Would you wanna come over and watch a game sometime?”

The question had made you pause. Would you go over to his place? Would it be a date? Surely he wasn’t dangerous, knowing him for a few months already. He’d have done something by now if he was. That made you relax and accept the offer. “Huh, yeah. I don’t really watch it anymore so I might be rusty, but it would be fun.”

The three knocks reverberate in the hallway of his apartment building as you hope you wrote down the correct address. You hear shuffling from inside, but not his cane. Damn it, is it the wrong door? You take a step backward, clutching the wine bottle in your hand tighter. Before you could completely panic though, the door opens and he smiles, saying your name in a question. Not that he needs to, that warm coconut doing all the work.

His hair is free of gel, his sunglasses on his face, and he’s wearing a tight black t-shirt that stretches deliciously over his chest and shoulders. The loose denim cladding his legs is more relaxed than the pairs he usually wears to work. He doesn’t have his cane, and you realize that he likely doesn’t need it in this space anymore. He probably knows the layout of his apartment like the back of his hand now.

Your mouth takes the shape of a smile as you answer him. “Yeah, it’s me. Hi, Gator.”

He moves to the side and opens the door wider for you to come in. You brush past him and toe off your shoes. The smell of lingering cleaning supplies and takeout make the space inviting as you step further inside, following him. You reach the kitchen and living room where the apartment develops in an open area, a hallway to the side leading to the bathroom and his bedroom. He clears his throat and speaks before the silence gets awkward. “Want something to drink?”

“I brought some wine if you have glasses,” you answer, shaking off your nerves and placing the bottle on the kitchen island.

He nods and grabs the counter of the island, walking around it as he touches it to know where he is going. He stops in front of a cupboard and opens it, carefully pulling out two wine glasses. For some reason, it surprises you that he has those.

“I hope you like red,” you say softly.

He smiles and searches for the handle of a drawer with a few taps of his hand, opening it and retrieving a bottle opener. “Yeah, I like red wine. Pass me the bottle.”

You slide the bottle in his reach and lean your hip against the counter, watching him. His hands – his big hands – wrap around it and go up the neck to the cork. He takes his time, aligning the bottle opener and twisting it enough, the muscles in his forearms flexing with each movement. To say you are mesmerized is an understatement.

Gator grunts softly as he pulls on the cork and the bottle opens. The butterflies, or more realistically the light-hungry moths, came back to life in your belly. He looks in your general vicinity and pushes the bottle toward you. “If you don’t mind, I’ll let you pour it out. Usually just put my finger in there to know when to stop, but that don’t seem appropriate for a d- … for this.” He chuckles, tips of his ears turning pink.

Was he about to say “date”? God, you hoped. “No problem,” you say with a giggle as you take the bottle and pour out the two wine glasses. You hand him one, just like you would usually do with the countless coffees you’ve made for him before, and brush his fingers a bit more intentionally this time. “There you go.”

You notice that the TV is already on and playing the pre-game commentary when he leads you to the living room area, his free hand brushing the wall until it reaches the couch. He sits down in his usual spot and gestures for you to sit next to him. You do so, noticing how he doesn’t have any type of decoration anywhere. Even though you understand why, it still feels a bit strange. There’s not even a blanket, which yes can be pretty, but they also hold a function. You keep those thoughts for yourself.

The conversation picks back up as if you were just talking on the phone. The wine loosens your lips a bit – the both of you – and it’s easier to talk about your past and his. He doesn’t tell you everything, but it’s enough to know he had a rough childhood. A rough young adulthood too. It makes your heart ache for him. But then the conversation becomes more playful, talking about hockey and your hobbies. You keep looking at him because you don’t have to worry that he’ll catch you, and he’s also turned toward you.

He says something at some point, he forgets what it was, but it makes you laugh and he feels your warm and soft hand steadying yourself on his arm. Heat blooms from the place of contact up to his shoulder and neck. He wishes so hard that he could see you. He knows you’re beautiful, but the small touch you just granted him makes it not enough. He needs to feel it. Feel you. But he holds back.

The evening goes on, the game finishes and the commentators start their whole analysis of it, but you’re not paying attention. The conversation had died down a bit after the second glass of wine, and your head was now resting on Gator’s shoulder. You’re not asleep, he knows that, but he’s staying so still just so you won’t realize and move away. Your gaze is locked on his hand on his thigh, his fingers flexing slightly, making his veins bulge. Without really thinking it through, you reach out and lace your fingers over top of his.

His breathing hitches. His heart stops for a second. But then, instinct takes over and he turns his hand to properly lace his fingers through yours. It makes you smile and shift a bit closer, getting even more comfortable. “Is this okay?” your voice is soft, testing.

His comes out rough, affected. “Y-yeah, it is.” He turns his head toward you and his nose brushes the slightest bit in your hair. The smell of you, the one he knows so well now, hits him harder than it ever has. He relaxes further into it and hums, his thumb rubbing a small circle on the back of your hand.

You stay like that a few minutes, basking in the feeling of it. You have to go home though – you’re working the early shift in the morning. Reluctantly, you pull away and sigh. “I don’t really want to, but I gotta head back home.”

His lips part to protest the distance, but he understands. And he won’t push for more. Not with you. Maybe if you had met him in another life, another town, he would have. But not now. “That’s… yeah. I get it. No worries.”

You stand up and grab the glasses to put them in the sink, before going to the front door. You put on your shoes as he reaches you and waits for you to speak. “I had a great time, Gator. Maybe we could do it again sometime?”

He smiles and nods, a weight leaving his shoulders at your admission of wanting to hang out with him again. “Yeah, I-I’d like that. Had a really good time, too.”

You stand on your tiptoes and put a hand on his shoulder to balance yourself. You reach a bit and place a soft kiss on his cheek, feeling the barely there stubble. Big mistake. You won’t stop thinking about that now. “I’ll catch you later, then.”

Once again, he’s frozen in place. He hums as he hears the door to his apartment open and then click shut. Fuck, he thinks. How did I manage that?

The next time you’re over at his place to “watch” the game, it doesn’t take you long to be in the same position as last time. You want to soak into his warmth more, have more time to smell him properly. The kind of shower gel he uses. The cologne he wears gingerly. His sweat from being this close to you. It all cumulates in a symphony that his distinctively Gator.

He doesn’t protest, of course. The heat of your hand in his. The way your hair tickles his jaw and neck. The smell of summer on you. It makes him feel dizzy in the best way.

You both laugh at something the commentators say, and you turn your head, pressing the bridge of your nose against his neck. You breathe in.

Gator’s hold on your hand tightens. You notice and pick up your head to look at him, eyes half-lidded and mouth slightly parted. When he loses the weight of you on his shoulder, he turns his own attention toward you. You don’t want to take him by surprise. “Can I… kiss you?”

He swallows thickly and gives you a small nod, not trusting his voice to sound remotely confident enough if he speaks. You lean in and gently press your lips to his. It’s more of a question than a kiss, really. You pull back, breath uneven. A pause.

Then his lips are back on yours without you having to move. His free hand cups your neck and his fingers tangle with the hair at the base of your skull. You move with him, your own free hand coming up to rest on his chest. Thump. Thump. Thump.

The kiss quickly turns into something natural – your preference for the lower lip complementing his own for the top one. Hums of approval harmonize between the two of you and you quickly lose yourself in the feeling of him so close. His hand on your neck pulls you in even more, and the way the kiss deepens as you part your lips makes your nose bump his glasses a few times. You pull back with a giggle and reach for them to take them off. As soon as he feels them come off the bridge of his nose, he quickly reaches for your wrist and stops you.

You gasp a bit. His hold is firm, not painful, but clearly meaningful. “Don’t.” he says, his voice shaking.

“Gator.” You say softly, placing back the glasses from the half inch they had moved up. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to-“

He cuts you off. “It’s okay. S’just… probably not pretty under there.” He lets go of your wrist and his hand falls limply to the couch beside him. He feels inadequate. He knows it’s probably wishful thinking if he’s to be close to you like this that you’ll never see him without his glasses. He doesn’t even know what his eyes look like. Nadine had told him once when she visited him in jail that it just looked like his eyes were closed, but he didn’t really believe her. He thought she was trying to spare his feelings.

You cup his face and rub his cheek with your thumb. “You don’t know?”

He shrugs, but his face tilts ever so slightly into your warm palm. “Someone told me it’s like they’re closed, but… I don’t know.”

“I can tell you, if you want. Won’t change anything, I promise.” You offer truthfully, wanting to be the person he feels the most comfortable with.

He thinks about it. His first instinct is to push you away and roll into a ball to protect his soft underbelly from getting hurt. But then something deeper, stronger maybe, wants to unfurl and roll onto his back, to offer it to you to either rub soothingly or stab. He follows that voice. “I-… yeah, okay.”

You nod and slowly reach for his glasses again, half-expecting him to stop you once more. He doesn’t. You carefully remove the dark sunglasses from his eyes and set them on the coffee table. Your hand is back to cupping his face as soon as you can, grounding him.

There are faint scars around his eyes, but nothing that disrupts the shape of his eyelids. It does just look like his eyes are closed, with a thin white line that peaks out where the lids don’t fully meet, surrounded by long and dark lashes. If you had to guess, it looks like whatever happened to him was really focussed on just getting the eyeballs.

He’s not off-putting in the slightest, not that you think he could have been even if it was different. You don’t even think to describe what you’re saying, the only word that leaves your mouth, before it’s on his again, is a whispered and ragged “handsome”.

The kiss picks up again and Gator’s shaking. Here he was, baring the softest part of him that even he had never seen. And there you were, kissing it better like it was something worthy of love. His hand hesitantly comes back up, cupping your face in its trembling state. She’s still there.

In that moment, Gator feels like he would do anything you’d want him to do. Anything. Not because he needed to prove his worth to you, like how he’d feel doing all those things for his dad. No. He’d do anything you’d ask of him because you had earned it. You had seen him, trusted him, gained his thrust, and cared for him. That warrants devotion, he believes.

The confidence starts to make its way back through him, his hand cupping your neck again. It’s as if that confidence can seep right through your skin when you untangle your hands that we’re still clasped together to straddle his lap. He lets out a surprised little noise against your lips, his hands immediately dropping to your thighs to steady you. Your own fingers tangle in his hair to hold him where you want, deepening the kiss.

The weight of you on him is intoxicating. The heat of it. The way all he can feel and hear is you. It’s the first time he’s ever kissed someone since he went blind. He thought it wasn’t for him anymore. That his time had passed. But there you were, and he wanted more.

His hands slid up from your jean-clad thighs to your hips, bringing you a bit closer. The ample give of them felt perfect in his large hands. Your back bows in response, pressing your chest to his more firmly.

You pull back and start peppering kisses toward the side of his face and his jaw, going down to his neck where he has the most kissable moles you’ve ever seen.  His lips wrap around your name like caramel, and it spurs you on. “Gates…”

He can’t think. Not when all he can focus on is your lips on him. “huh?”

You let out a soft huff and smile against his neck, before pulling back and pressing your forehead to his. “I want you.”

He almost moans just at that. But there’s a little thorn inside him that keeps digging in the wrong place, chafing against his self-worth, like maybe this is all a sick joke. “You sure?” His voice is uncertain, shaky. His hands tighten on your hips before they loosen again. How can someone so pure want me?

Your thumb traces his pulse point, feeling it stutter a bit. “Yeah. If you want me, too.” Your response comes so quick, so assured, that he can’t help but believe you.

His lips are back on yours as his hands slip under your shirt to grab at your waist. You hum in approval, your hips rolling in a tentative first grind against him. It punches out a moan from him, his own hips instinctively pushing up into yours.

You bite his lower lip and let it go, before soothing over it with your tongue. Your hips start a pace of their own, addicted to feeling his reactions. You pull on his hair to bare his throat to you more and you resume the kisses and licks to his skin. You can feel him wriggling under you, his now obvious arousal pressing against the crease of your thigh.

“You feel… so good.” He says breathlessly, his hands starting to wander a bit more under your shirt. He’s touching everywhere – your back, your hips, your stomach. He’s trying to map you out and learn you, like he did his apartment.

You pull back and sit up more firmly on him, taking the hem of your shirt and removing it from your body. For some reason, the fact that he can’t see you makes you feel less shy. More confident. Like maybe touch is a better way to learn someone than sight, after all, because less assumptions can be made. You toss your shirt on the floor and unclip your bra, letting it follow.

“Do you want to touch me?” You ask, always asking for consent before making him do something.

He nods and swallows thickly. “Yeah. Please.” Oh, he begs.

You take his large hands and guide them to your chest. His palms and fingertips are warm and slightly calloused. He’s hesitant at first, not knowing how to enjoy such a thing when he can’t see you or how you react. The slight furrow in his brows and the way he seems to be angling his face toward where he thinks yours is gives him away.

You let out soft noises, whimpers of enjoyment so he knows he’s doing good. He grows more confident and cups your breasts fully. His thumbs find your hardening peaks and he flicks them gently. You moan louder in response, grinding your hips again. Well, that makes him smirk. “You like that, sweet thing?”

“Mhmm….”

He leans forward and starts planting kisses where he can reach your skin. His mouth clumsily goes down to where his thumb is, replacing it and taking your nipple in his mouth. Your hands, that were feeling up his arms and shoulders, shoot through his hair and tug. You arch into his touch, letting out a moan of pleasure.

He lavishes attention to your breasts, and it feels like being worshipped.

You pull at his shirt. “Gator? Can I take off your shirt?”

“Yeah, God, yeah. You can do whatever you want to me.” He says with a breath, his hands leaving you to raise his arms.

You take the invitation and reach for the hem of his shirt, taking it off him. Your eyes widen as you discover the patch of hair on his chest – how it gets scarcer and then thickens a bit more to form a happy trail that disappears beneath his jeans. The sight makes your mouth water. “Fuck.”

He chuckles and rests his hands on your hips again, his thumbs dipping under the waistband of your jeans slightly. “Mmm… Don’t think I’ve heard you curse before. You like what you see, sweetheart?” He may have changed, but he can still be cocky.

“You have no idea.” The giggle that comes out of you makes him grin before he feels your lips against his. Not long enough though, before you’re standing up. His lips chase after yours, his chest heaving as he loses all sense of where you are. “Mind if we move it elsewhere?”

He shakes his head and stands up. “Lead the way.” His voice is steady, but he feels like he’s about to fall apart on the inside. Finally, he feels your soft hand in his, pulling him toward his bedroom.

It doesn’t take long for you to take off your jeans once you reach it. He hears the zipper, and he instinctively takes his own pants off. It’s a little awkward, but God you don’t care. Giggles and puffs of air escape your mouths as you both strip.

A minute later, the comforter feels soft and plush under your knees as you take position between his legs. He’s bare in front of you now, laying on his back. You take your time. You’re not even touching him, just letting your gaze roam over his broad chest, the way it tapers into his hips, leading to his strong thighs. His cock – impressively big – rests pretty against his stomach, flushed and hard.

You’re so mesmerized that you don’t notice it. The way his breathing shakes, his hands clutching the comforter. He swallows hard. “Sweetheart? You there?” His voice sounds broken.

He’s in the dark. He knows you’re close, but he can’t feel you. He can’t reach out because he’s scared he’ll bump into you and make it awkward. He just needs to feel. Your skin, your weight, your affection. Being without it, even for those dreadful seconds, is making his pulse skyrocket with anxiety.

You realize and immediately place your hands on his thighs. “I’m right here, baby.”

The sound that leaves him is one of strained relief. His hands slide down to yours and covers them, wrapping around your wrists. “I need to feel you. I can’t…. please, don’t stop touching me.”

It breaks your heart, the desperation in his voice. “I won’t, I’m sorry. You just look too g-”

He cuts off your apology by shaking his head, his thumbs tracing circles on your wrists. “Don’t apologize, I just… S’the first time I’ve ever, um… you know, had this happen since going blind. It’s… weird.”

You squeeze his thighs softly. “We can always stop if you want. I don’t want to make you uncomfortable. We can go slow.”

He lets out a chuckle that’s more of a pleading breath. “I don’t wanna stop.” His hands are starting to pull you forward. “Wanna feel you.”

You grin and hum, leaning over him to kiss him again, your arms now on either side of his head as you press your front to him. His legs spread to accommodate you as you kiss the side of his face toward his ear. His hands go up and down your sides, stopping to squeeze your soft curves at the sound of your whispered voice. “Will you let me make you feel good, baby?”

He shudders at your words, nodding desperately. “P-please.” It’s been too long, and he’s desperate. But also, it’s you. You’re making him like this. Soft and pliant and yours.

You start making your way down his neck and his chest, leaving a trail of sloppy, open-mouth kisses down his abdomen. When you reach the hair just under his bellybutton, you lick a stripe through it, making his hips buck up uncontrollably. His hands are now resting on your shoulders, needing the contact. “God…”

As you reach your destination, you sit back on your heels and keep one hand on his thigh to ground him. Your free one finally wraps around his impressive cock, already leaking with precum. It’s warm and impossibly soft in your palm. “Fuck, you’re so pretty, Gator.” The praise leaves your lips as you start stroking his length slowly, looking up at his face for any sign of distress.

All you find his relief. A gorgeous whimper snakes out of him, his hand tangling with yours that is still on his thigh. “You’re… fuck.” He speaks your name like it’s the answer to everything.

When your thumb swipes through the bead of precum coming out of his flushed tip, it looks too inviting. You bend over and lick it before wrapping your lips around it, needing to taste him, to feel the weight of him in your mouth. It’s salty, heady, and warm. An absolutely dizzying combination that makes you moan and immediately take him deeper, coating him with your saliva.

His back arches off the bed with a desperate moan, his free hand coming up to cup the back of your head. He doesn’t force you, he just needs to hold you. “Fuuuuck, sweetheart… oh my god.”

You hum approvingly in response, starting to bob your head, stroking what you can’t make fit in your mouth with your hand.

Gator is blind, but he swears he sees stars in that moment. It’s probably a neurological reaction to the pleasure you’re bringing him, but it still feels like a miracle. His hips rock up softly, not enough to really make you take him deeper, but enough that you know he’s chasing the feeling. “You’re so good. Feels so good, holy sh-“

You can feel your arousal start to drip down the inside of your thigh, but you focus on him.

After one particularly well-placed twirl of your tongue around his tip, he gently pulls you off him with a shattered moan. “God, sweetheart. I’m sorry, s’just I’ll come if you keep going, and I need to feel you.”

You wipe the dribble of spit that was going down your chin with the back of your hand. You let your hands go up his thighs, past his hips, and then over his stomach and chest. You straddle him, the mattress digging on either side of him as you settle your weight on top of him. “Need to feel you too.”

Your core, so warm and wet with your desire for him, presses against the underside of his aching cock. He lets out a hiss and grabs your hips to hold you against him. The way his cock glides through your folds as he bucks his hips up gently makes him throw his head back against the pillow. He must feel it.

His hand clumsily goes from your hip to your stomach and then to your mound, stroking the soft hairs he finds there. “Can I touch you?”

“Yes.” It comes out like a plea as you raise your hips slightly to give him space.

His fingers dip down through your folds, their accuracy in finding your clit disarming. He doesn’t need sight for that. He feels the slick gathering on his middle and ring fingers as he circles your clit, the most beautiful sounds he’s ever heard leaving your lips. “Fuck, you’re so wet, sweetheart. S’this all for me?”

You practically whimper, hips rolling against his fingers as you feel yourself getting even wetter. “Just for you, Gates. You have no idea what you do to me.”

He grins at that, his fingers trailing lower and circling your entrance. You press down a bit, and he answers by pushing them inside you, punching out a moan from your lungs. The tightness and liquid heat have his mouth parting in a moan. “Can’t believe I get to do this… So perfect for me.”

Your head falls back as you start grinding against his hand, his thumb finding your clit and rubbing it in tight circles. “Oh god, baby… don’t stop.” The way he’s making you feel is like a drug. It’s simultaneously the best thing you’ve ever felt while it’s just simply not enough. It’s hard to tell if you’ve ever truly felt like this with your past partners – the primal need to be filled. It makes you ride his hand even harder.

Your walls start to clench around his fingers, and he lets out a strangled breath, his free hand grabbing your hip and helping your grinding movements against his other one. “That’s it, sweet thing… come for me, let me feel it.”

It doesn’t take long before you are, moaning his name as your hands dig into his chest for support. “Gator! I’m coming! Oh fuck!” Your hips stutter, trying to ride it out as much as you can on top of him. His mouth is open, breathing heavily, rutting his hips up as you come. God, he wishes he could see you fall apart for him.

You feel yourself gush around his fingers, your body falling forward on top of him. His fingers still and he gently pulls them out of you while his arm wraps around your waist to hold you against him. He kisses your temple as you come down, panting into his chest. “So good.” “You’re perfect, baby.” “Thank you.” He whispers sweet nothings against the side of your head.

You come back to your senses and press a kiss to his chest, and then his neck where those damn moles are. “I need to feel you inside, Gator. Please.”

And who is he to deny you anything? Not after you just gave him everything. He nods and rolls you both so that you’re on your back and he’s hovering on top of you. He plants one hand next to your head, while the other one, the one that was inside you, comes up between you to his lips. He sucks on the fingers coated with your slick, moaning around them as he tastes you. “Y’taste like heaven.” Even just the sight of it makes you moan.

His hips press down on yours and he grinds them gently, his cock aligning through your folds after a few slow thrusts. Your hands go down his chest to his sides and stomach, stroking his soft skin. Your legs spread even more to give him space. “Are you sure about this?” He asks one last time.

“Never been more sure of anything.”

He shudders, his fingers now coated in saliva and your arousal go to rub at his tip as his hips lift slightly. He grabs his cock, and he carefully tries to align it with your entrance. He feels your wetness at first, your still swollen clit, and then the way your flesh parts and becomes even softer as his tip goes down to your entrance.

His breathing is ragged, like he can’t comprehend that this is happening and he’s not imagining it. He pushes his hips forward, the tip of him barely breaching your entrance. It’s already overwhelming, the tightness and warmth. “F-fuck. Tell me if it’s too much, or-“

Your hands snake around to his lower back and pull, making him penetrate you more. “Please, Gator.” It comes out desperate, pleading, like you’ll die if you don’t feel him fully inside you right now. “Please, deeper.”

He bottoms out as soon as the words leave your lips, punching out matching moans from the both of you. “God, you feel incredible.” His forehead presses against your own, before his lips try to find yours again. You meet him halfway, hands coming back up to cup his face.

He starts pulling his hips back and letting them fall, making you whimper against his mouth. He seizes the opportunity, his tongue delving past your lips in greedy exploration. He finds a pace with his thrusts that’s slow enough that he can keep kissing you, while still fast enough to work up a delicious friction.

Your hips move to meet his thrusts, your arousal dripping down and definitely staining his bedsheet, though neither one of you cares. You break apart to gasp for air, your moans spilling free as he changes the angle and hits that special spot inside you relentlessly. “Ohhh fuck. Right there, Gator. Oh my god.”

“Yeah, baby? Feels good, huh? Fuck, you feel so perfect.” He’s clearly gaining more confidence as he feels you getting even more slippery and clenching around him every time he speaks.

You let out a louder moan at his praise and your eyes roll back in pleasure. “You feel so good inside me. I’m- holy… fuck, I’m close again.”

His cock twitches inside you at your admission, his face ducking down and pressing against your neck. He inhales deeply, catching all those sweet undertones of coconut, sweat, sex, and you. “Touch yourself, sweetheart. Wanna feel you come on my cock.”

His groans resonate in your ears, sending little shocks of lust and pleasure down to your pulsing core. Your fingers reach your clit, the bundle of nerves slotting between your middle and ring finger as you start drawing circles. The dual stimulation of his perfect cock hitting all the right spots, combined with your fingers, make your whines and moans louder and filthier. The knot in your stomach tightens, your pussy clenching around him like a vice as you focus on the sensation. “Gator… Gator….”

Your sweet voice, now dripping with sin and pleasure, propels him dangerously close to his own end. His hand traces down your side until it reaches your hip, holding you steady as he fucks you like it’s the last thing he’ll ever do. “I’ve got you. Let go, baby. Give it to me.”

You shatter at his words, back arching off the bed to feel him even closer. The knot in your stomach unfurls and spreads through your whole body in lazy and heated waves, the pleasure feeling like warmed honey spilling freely. The moan that leaves you is utterly broken and raw, a testimony to the depth of your orgasm.

It’s too good. He can’t help it as your walls clench around him and milk him for all he’s worth. His arms wrap under you as he cradles you closer, his hips giving a few more thrusts in your fluttering core. His mouth opens in a wrecked cry against your neck, maybe a twisted version of your name, as he spills deep inside you.

The warmth of his spend seeps through your walls and into your belly, filling a hole you never knew was there. Your arms are still wrapped around his shoulders, your legs falling limply to the mattress as you come down from your high.

His weight settles over you, the bridge of his nose tracing a line on the side of your neck, nuzzling closer. His hair feels damp from sweat but still incredibly soft as you bury one hand in it, holding him close. Your lips press on his forehead.

He sighs, his cock softening inside you. He gives one slow, lazy roll of his hips before lifting them and slipping out of you. He rolls onto his side, never letting go of you, pulling you into his chest. “That was…” He lets out an incredulous breath.

A giggle bubbles out of your chest. “Yeah, it was.”

You both stay there, breathing together for a little while. The mess between your legs is getting sticky and itchy, but you don’t care. The way your legs are tangled together, your head fitting perfectly in that nook between his shoulder and chest… it’s like a puzzle finally clicking in place.

Your fingers play with the hair on his pecs, while his brush against your scalp. “Gates?”

He hums. “Yeah?”

“Thank you for trusting me.”

It makes him pause. “Thank you for letting me.”

You don’t belong in his world.

Half the night had been spent listening to Carol Perkins and Tommy Hagan gleefully dismantle half the student body, laughing themselves breathless as they picked classmates apart one by one.

And every time another name came up, your eyes had drifted to Steve.

Watching.

Waiting.

Trying to understand which version of him was real.

Because the boy sitting beside you—smirking into the neck of his beer while Tommy launched into another cruel impression of Betty Callahan's lisp—couldn't possibly be the same boy who waited outside your English classroom every Tuesday.

Leaning against the lockers with his hands tucked into his jacket pockets, smiling the moment he spotted you.

The Steve who kisses you on the cheek before walking you over to Chemistry.

The Steve who always peels the foil off your pudding cup without asking so you won’t get chocolate under your nails.

The Steve who drops to one knee in the middle of a crowded hallway to retie your shoelace, completely unfazed by the stares while your face burns hot enough to melt through the floor.

The Steve who insists on driving you home every afternoon, even though your neighborhood is twenty minutes in the opposite direction from Loch Nora.

Your Steve.

It makes your heart squeeze, watching it happen.

Watching him slip so effortlessly between the version of him that belonged to you, and the one that belonged to everyone else.

Always something a little distant, though, in those eyes, when the laughter fades and his gaze inevitably wanders back to find yours.

A flicker of something tired.  

Maybe you were imagining it.

Maybe wanting someone to be better than they were had a way of filling in all the empty spaces.

Or maybe...

Maybe being Steve Harrington was lonelier than it looked.

Maybe the boy who waited outside English every Tuesday was still in there somewhere, buried under the weight of being King.

Your worry the tab of your beer can with your thumb, spinning the little strip of metal around and around.

Beside you, Steve stretches out in the lounge chair with a quiet groan, long legs crossing at the ankles.

Against your better judgment, your eyes drift to him.

They always seem to.

It's infuriating, how inevitable it feels to be near Steve Harrington. 

You'd spent half the evening questioning whether you even liked him anymore, and the other half unable to stop looking.

From the corner of your eye, you catch him reaching into the back pocket of his jeans, fishing out a familiar red-and-white pack. He thumbs it open with practiced ease, taps the bottom against his palm until a cigarette slides neatly into waiting fingers.

The filter disappears between his plush lips, and your nose wrinkles before you can stop it.

"What?"

The word comes out muffled around the cigarette, low and amused.

You jerk your gaze upward, heat flooding your face.

Had he been watching you this whole time, too? 

He's smiling.

Not quite the easy, self-satisfied grin he'd worn all evening for the rest of his friends—this one’s a little softer, loosened by one too many beers and, maybe, just maybe, you think it’s the familiar comfort of finally being alone with you.  

Pool lights ripples across his face in shifting ribbons of blue and green. His hair’s still damp from earlier, when he’d cannonballed into the deep end without warning, resurfacing only to reach for your ankles while you squealed and scrambled away, laughing so hard you could barely keep your balance.

His lashes look darker when they're wet, clumping together at the tips, casting delicate shadows against his cheeks every time he blinks.

And those warm hazel eyes—they always lose a little of their swagger whenever they settle on you.

It's profoundly unfair that someone can be this beautiful.

Even now. Even with a cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth, the lazy curve of his smile stretching his cupid's bow in a way that makes your stomach flutter.

It isn’t fair.

None of it is fair.

You lift a hand, gesturing vaguely toward his face. “Those.”

“Hm?”

“The cigarettes.”

He arches a brow. “What about ‘em?”

“You know those’ll kill you, right?”

Steve lets out the longest, most theatric groan you'd heard in your life, rolling his eyes toward the stars and letting his head thunk against the plastic lounge chair.

“God,” he sighs. “You are such a goody two-shoes.”

Your brows knit together as you sit up straighter, instinctively tugging your cardigan tighter around yourself against the chill of the night air—which, okay, maybe only proved his point a little.

“I am not.”

“Uh-huh,” he mumbles around the cigarette, patting at his pockets for a lighter.

“Seriously.”

“Mhm.”

He isn't even looking at you anymore.

Just turning his lighter over in his hands, fighting another smile around that stupid cigarette.

“I'm not!”

That finally earns you his attention.

His head rolls lazily toward you, cheek still resting against the back of the lounge chair. 

The silver Zippo spins effortlessly between his fingers, his thumb flicking the lid open and shut, open and shut.

Click. Click.

His eyes glitter with quiet amusement, warm enough to make your stomach flutter again.  

“You’re not?” he asks, almost gently.

“No,” you huff, though the conviction you'd started with has somewhat evaporated.

His smile grows wider. “Could've fooled me.”

Click. Click.

He never lights the cigarette.

He's too busy looking at you.

Gaze slowly dipping from your eyes down to your mouth, lingering there for the briefest heartbeat before drifting lower.

Over the neckline of your dress peeking out beneath your cardigan, one shoulder slipping free of the knit.

Down the curve of your waist, where the fabric cinches before flaring into the plaid skirt that fans over your thighs.

Lower still.

To where your hands rest, folded carefully in your lap.

Your cream knee-high socks.

The freshly polished black Mary Janes you'd changed into three different times before finally deciding they looked nicest.

Because, despite everything, some foolish, embarrassingly hopeful part of you had stood in front of your bedroom mirror wondering whether Steve Harrington would notice.

And when his gaze makes the slow climb back to your face, you don't miss the way it pauses at your mouth—the way his tongue darts out to catch the corner of his bottom lip, wetting it absently before the cigarette settles back into place.

“Prove it, then.”

Your breath catches.

“What?”

“Prove you're not a goody two-shoes.”

“I...”

It's difficult to string together a coherent thought when he's looking at you like that.

Most people look at you.

Steve looks into you.

He doesn't glance away the moment you catch him staring, doesn't flush or pretend he'd been looking somewhere else. 

Something so openly and unapologetically wanting in the way he looks at you, like he's forgotten that staring any longer ought to make him self-conscious.

Heat settles low in your stomach, climbing up your neck and spilling across your cheeks until you're certain he can feel it too. The condensation from your beer slicks your fingertips where they tighten around the aluminum can.

And you really don't know what it is that possesses you.

Maybe it's the warmth burning beneath your skin. Or maybe the sudden, irrational urge to wipe that smug look off his ridiculously handsome face.

“Fine,” you murmur.

Before common sense has the chance to intervene, you're leaning across the patio table, plucking a fresh beer from the cooler.

Your hand hesitates over the silver Swiss Army knife Tommy had abandoned after opening the last six-pack.

Steve watches the whole thing unfold, a smile tugging at his lips. 

“What’re you doing?” he asks.

You ignore him, turning the knife over in your hand, trying to remember exactly what he had done earlier.

It looked easy enough, one quick jab and a twist of the wrist.

Where had he stabbed it?

Near the rim?

No....

Lower?

“You okay, baby?”

The nickname lands with infuriating precision, exactly where he intends it to.

You pretend it doesn't.

“Need some help?” he teases, cigarette still balanced between his lips.

“No,” you mumble, brows furrowed in stubborn concentration, bracing yourself as you angle the blade against the side of the can.

One quick jab, and the aluminum gives with a satisfying pop.

Triumph flashes through you for exactly half a second, immediately replaced by regret. 

The knife slips. 

It's hardly more than a sting, more surprising than painful.

You hiss through your teeth, blinking down just as a bright bead of crimson wells against the pad of your thumb.

Steve's lounge chair screeches across the concrete so violently it almost tips backward. 

“Jesus—”

Cigarette abandoned without so much as a glance, tossed onto the damp patio where it rolls forgotten toward the pool.

He's in front of you in an instant, dropped to one knee, already reaching for your wrist before the beer has even started hissing.

“You okay?”

The teasing has vanished from his voice, the change so complete and sudden it’s like he’s transformed into another person.

“Shit, gimme that...” he mutters, taking the beer from you and setting it on the ground, cradling your hand in both of his. “C’mere, lemme see.”

His brows knit together as he carefully turns your palm over.

The injury is laughably small—just a paper-thin slice across the pad of your thumb, one bead of blood slowly gathering along the edge.

Judging by the deep furrow between Steve's brows, though, you'd think you'd severed the whole thing.

“Steve,” you laugh softly. “I'm fine. It's just a little cut.”

It's like he doesn't even hear you.

His entire world has narrowed to your hand.

Hazel eyes fixed on your thumb beneath the wavering blue glow of the pool lights, lips pinched in concentration as he tilts it this way and that, checking how deep the cut is.

It’s so... endearing.

So unmistakably Steve.

Your Steve.

The same boy who insists you wear his jacket if it’s the tiniest bit windy outside. Who carries Band-Aids in his glove compartment because you were forever nicking yourself on notebook paper. 

A little bossy when he’s worried, his stubborn streak a mile long when it comes to the people he cares about.

“Steve,” you murmur again, softer this time. “Really, I'm oka—”

The rest of the sentence catches in your throat.

It's so quick.

So instinctive, you don't think he even realizes he's doing it. 

One moment he's studying the tiny cut.

The next, your thumb is cradled between his lips.

Your entire body goes rigid.

You can't do anything except stare.

At the top of his head, where he’s bent over your hand.

The ring of warmth where his mouth seals around your thumb, swallowing the sting whole.

His lips are soft against your skin, his breath warm, and then comes the gentle, rhythmic pressure as he instinctively sucks away the tiny bead of blood welling from the cut.

Your mind goes frighteningly blank.

All you can feel is the way he’s cradling your hand in his palm, the delicate pull against your thumb and the soft cushion of his lips. The subtle shifts in pressure every time he breathes. 

Then comes the faintest brush.

The barest sweep of his tongue against the pad of your thumb—a thoughtless instinct, nothing more than an unconscious attempt to clean away the blood—but it sends goosebumps ripping through your skin, a shiver so violent it turns the glittering pool into liquid stars, turquoise shimmer blurring into streaks of fractured light.

You don't think you've taken a breath since the moment he touched you.

What can't be more than a second or two stretches impossibly thin, every heartbeat unfolding into its own lifetime. The chirping cicadas dissolve into silence until all that's left is the impossible awareness of where his mouth is.

Of where he's licking you.  

Then, just as suddenly as it began, it's over.

His lips part, breaking the seal with a faint pop.                     

Cool air kisses the damp warmth he'd left behind, the cut glistening faintly beneath the patio lights, a thin sheen of saliva that’s slowly soaking into your skin.

Steve sits back on his heels, absently dragging his tongue across his lower lip before pressing his lips together in a quiet, unconscious smack.

Something strikes you, then, with mortifying clarity:

He’s tasting something.

Smacking his lips, savoring the flavor, chasing it off his skin—

And it’s you.

Your blood.   

You aren't sure you're capable of movement, anymore.

Or speech.

Or breathing.

You simply sit there, staring at him with burning lungs and a heart that seems to have forgotten any rhythm beyond him.

You’re still gaping when he lets go of your hand with a sheepish laugh, gently setting it back in your lap. 

“Sorry,” he mumbles, rubbing the back of his neck. “Bad habit.”

A faint flush dusts his cheeks as he clears his throat, suddenly fascinated by the sliding glass door.

“Uh... I'm gonna go grab a first aid kit, okay? Just stay here.”

As he pushes himself to his feet, his thumb brushes lightly across your knee—another fleeting, absent touch, so automatic you doubt he’s even noticed it.

Then he's gone.

And only after the door slides behind him do you finally remember to breathe.

· · ·

Aside from the whole sucking-on-an-open-wound thing, Steve Harrington is surprisingly good at first aid.

The kit itself seems ancient—white plastic scuffed and yellowed with age, stocked with mismatched supplies accumulated over the years. Steve doesn't have to search for any of it. His hands move with certainty, flipping open bottles, tearing foil packets, finding exactly what he needs with the ease of someone who's done this dozens of times before.

You watch the practiced way he twists open the little bottle of antiseptic one-handed, balancing the cap against his knee while soaking a cotton pad, and curiosity gets the better of you.

“How are you so good at that?”

Steve glances up, lifting his shoulder in a shrug.

“Practice, I guess,” he says, wetting the cotton until it’s damp but not dripping. “Been playing baseball since I was a kid. Lots of sliding. Tore up my knees all the time. Hands, too.”

You don't ask why a little boy who scraped himself often had learned to clean and bandage his own cuts so well.

He couldn't have been older than six or seven, back then.

You press your lips together, bracing against the sting of the antiseptic as he brings the pad up to your skin.

Steve winces at the exact same moment you do, his own face pinching like he can somehow feel it too. He mumbles an apology, his free thumb rubbing absent circles against the side of your hand while he waits for the sting to ease.

“Almost done. Promise.”

He’s impossibly gentle, smoothing a thin layer of antibiotic ointment over the cut with the tip of his finger.

Then he reaches into the kit.

Comes back with a strip of pastel blue.

And you realize, with no small amount of disbelief, that it’s a Care Bear Band-Aid—Bedtime Bear smiles up at you beneath a crescent moon, tiny silver sparkles scattered across the backing paper.

You bite the inside of your cheek to keep from smiling.

You don't ask about that one, either.

He’s patient and careful, smoothing the edges of the Band-Aid down so it won't peel away. Satisfied, he turns your hand over in his own, inspecting his work.

Then, before you can ask what he's doing, he brings your thumb to his lips once more.

Only this time, it's just a kiss, light as a whisper, pressed directly over the little blue bear.

“There. All better.”

And it's in that moment the blurry outline you've carried of him suddenly comes into perfect focus.

Certainty in the endless contradiction that is the boy sitting in front of you.

Steve finally lets your hand slip from his, settling back into the faded lounge chair across from  yours. He reaches for his beer, takes a grimace-worthy sip of what has to be warm and flat by now, and exhales like he's just completed a twelve-hour operation instead of patching up a small cut.

You stay exactly where you are, hands in your lap, tracing the tiny blue bear wrapped around your thumb.

And you watch him.

You watch the boy who keeps children's Band-Aids in his first-aid kit.

The boy whose face crumbles like your smallest hurts belongs to him, too.

The boy who spent the whole evening pretending to be King, only to become your Steve the second you needed him.

The boy whose first instinct is always gentleness, no matter how hard he buries it beneath easy smiles and careless laughter.

Maybe the rest of it is just armor, then.

“You’re so weird, Steve Harrington.”

The words slip free before you can stop them, quiet with wonder.

He blinks at that. 

Those wide hazel eyes lift to yours, catching the pool lights until little flecks of amber and green shimmer beneath his lashes. You don't think you've ever seen anything prettier.

A crooked smile tugs at one corner of his mouth.

He lets out a small, breathy huff of laughter, his head tipping to the side in that hopelessly puppy-like way he has whenever he's confused.

“I'm weird?”

“Yeah.” You can't help smiling back, something warm and impossibly fond blooming beneath your ribs.

His smile softens, gaze flicking down between the two of you.

“You know...” he murmurs, rubbing the label on his beer bottle with his thumb. “You don't have to sit so far away from me.”

He nods toward the gap between your chairs, eyeing the empty stretch of patio separating the two of you.

Three feet of sun-faded concrete, and he looks at it like it's an ocean.

Then his gaze slowly drifts lower, to the space between his spread knees.

Dark denim stretched over strong thighs, his hand lands there with two lazy pats—an unmistakable invitation, casual as anything—and suddenly your entire neck feels like it's on fire.

“C’mere.”

You blink hard, dragging your attention back to his face before it can linger anywhere entirely inappropriate.

Folding your arms across your chest with all the dignity you can still muster, you narrow your eyes at him, lips pursed in suspicion, determined not to fall for whatever unfairly charming stunt Steve Harrington thinks he's pulling.

“Why?”

Steve answers with another theatrical sigh and a fond little roll of his eyes.

“Because—”

He cuts himself off.

Having decided, apparently, that explaining is too much work.

Instead, he leans forward.

Wraps one hand around the leg of your lounge chair.

“...Steve.”

He gives you a completely innocent look.

“What?”

Before you can answer, he drags it forward, the chair letting out a horrible screech as it scrapes across the wet concrete.

“Wha—Steve!”

Another yank, and your chair slides straight into his with a hollow clack.

Satisfied, he dusts his hands together.

“See?” He sits back, completely pleased with himself. “Better.”

You stare at him, too flustered to actually be upset.

“I can’t believe you.”

“What?” he shrugs, a small frown tugging at his brows. “You were too far away.”

Then he smiles.

You swear Steve Harrington could talk himself out of murder with that goddamn smile.

Nothing but boyish charm and that unique brand of hopeless, lovesick devotion, so obvious you wonder how he can be so unaware of it.

And before you can come up with a clever enough response, he reaches for you. His hand gently closing around your wrist, thumb brushing over your pulse before his fingers slip lower, pushing into the spaces between yours until your hands are laced together.

“Didn't get to kiss you all night,” he murmurs, voice gone quiet.

And it's so easy, then, to remember why you fell for this stupid boy.

The way he looks at you and just says things sometimes—things so completely unexpected they make your heart stutter, your stomach twist, your face feel like it’s been set on fire.

You let out a quiet breath through your nose, fighting your own smile.

You don’t pull away, but you don’t lean in either.

Instead, you straighten just enough to make him close the distance himself, letting your eyes flutter shut.

Make him come to you.

You feel his smile before you feel the kiss.

The familiar curve of his lips, then the soft nudge of his nose against your cheek. The way his hand comes up to your jaw, gentle fingers pushing into your hair, pulling you closer.

He kisses you until you feel dizzy with it, light with air and heavy with him, until you’re gasping against his mouth and pressing lightly against his shoulders to pull back.

When he blinks his eyes open again, his pupils are dazed, dark and blown wide. He swipes his tongue over his swollen lips, chest heaving as he tries to catch his breath.

“You, uh...” His voice comes out noticeably rougher, a couple pitches lower than usual. “You still think I’m weird?”

You can’t help the smile that tugs at your mouth as you lean in, pressing a quick kiss to his cheek. Another threatens to break through when you immediately feel the warmth there, the faint flush beneath your lips that betrays him completely, no matter how hard he tries to keep up the act.

Before he can recover, you’re standing up.

“C’mon,” you say, holding out your hand. Then, with the most innocent expression you can manage: “Let’s go wash off the chlorine.”

Steve pauses.

He cocks his head at you in confusion, eyes narrowing as he studies the smile you’re very obviously trying to hide.

“...What?”

“You know. Like Carol and Tommy are doing?”

It takes him a second, but then you see it click.

And for once, Steve Harrington—king of effortless charm and perfectly timed one-liners—doesn’t have a single thing to say.

They stand tall with their arms crossed over their vests, their heavy boots making them look entirely out of place against the pale floor. They glance at you as you walk up, their eyes tracking your movement, but they don’t stop you. 

They already know who you are. After all, the preacher’s daughter doesn’t go unnoticed in town.

When you push the heavy door open and see him sitting there on the narrow hospital bed, you can’t deny that your heart squeezes tight in your chest. 

He looks so different, yet so painfully familiar. 

His upper lip has a nasty, swollen split with a dark red line of dried blood, looking as if he took a direct hit straight to the mouth. A heavy, purplish bruise covers his cheekbone, already deep and dark, looking like it will only get worse and turn yellow-green over the next few days.

But what hits you the hardest aren’t the bruises or the cuts. It’s his eyes — or rather, the thick white gauze wrapped firmly around his head, covering the place where they used to be.

The nurse who called you earlier had already warned you about it over the phone, but seeing him like this in person is entirely different. Hearing a description over a static-filled phone line doesn’t prepare you for the reality of seeing a man who usually moves with so much confident energy sitting completely helpless in a sterile white room.

“Oh, hello,” the nurse says, turning around as the door clicks shut behind you.

She uses your name, and the moment the word leaves her lips, Gator’s entire body stiffens. He straightens up in the bed, his shoulders locking. His head tilts and turns toward the sound of your voice, moving instinctively as if his eyes could somehow pierce right through the thick layers of cotton and tape.

The nurse quickly walks over to you. She takes you gently by the arm, guiding you toward the far corner of the room, away from the bed. She leans in close, keeping her voice down to a low whisper.

“Thank you so much for coming,” she says, her eyes filled with quiet stress. “I know all of this is very sudden and confusing, but we had to call you because—”

You gently shake your head, cutting her off before she can apologize any further.

“It’s okay. Really,” you say softly. You nod your head over toward the bed, looking at him. “So… how is he?”

The nurse sighs, turning her head to look at Gator. There is a deep, genuine pity in her eyes as she watches him sitting there in the quiet.

“He’s gonna need a lot of care,” she admits in a low whisper. “The wounds on his face and body are deep, but physically, he’ll heal up fairly quickly. The issue isn’t just his recovery.” She turns back to face you, her expression grave. “The real problem is who is going to take care of him when he leaves. His father is already in prison, and when we tried contacting his other folks, none of them were willing or able to step up and—”

“I’m blind, not deaf,” Gator’s rough, raspy voice cuts through the quiet room.

Both you and the nurse freeze, turning your heads to look at him. His voice sounds dry, like sandpaper rubbing together, but the defensive bite in his tone is unmistakable.

You let out a long, slow breath. 

“Let me talk with him a second,” you tell the nurse.

She looks at you for a moment, then nods in understanding. She steps toward the door, giving a small signal to the police officers outside to give the two of you a moment of privacy. As the door quietly clicks shut behind her, the room suddenly feels much larger and far too quiet.

You take a step forward, your boots squeaking faintly against the clean floor. You walk slowly, carefully, as if any loud noise might startle him. You stop right in front of the bed, looking down at his face. 

The idea that he can’t see you — that he can’t look up and catch your eye like he always does — still doesn’t quite make sense in your mind.

“Hey…” you say softly, your voice tender.

Gator lowers his head a little bit. 

You can tell he feels embarrassed, maybe even ashamed to be seen like this — broken, bruised, and stuck in a hospital gown. But underneath that shame, you can see a tiny shift in his posture. He settles down just a bit. You know him well enough to recognize that, deep down, he’s deeply relieved to hear a voice he actually knows.

“You didn’t need to come,” he mutters, his voice low and flat. He keeps his head down, staring blankly at the blanket covering his lap.

“Yeah, well,” you reply, trying to keep your tone light to hide how hard your heart is pounding. “Seen as I’m apparently listed as your emergency contact on your phone, it felt a little rude not to show up.”

He lets out a harsh, dry breath through his nose, shaking his head.

“About that…” he starts, his fingers twitching against the thin hospital blanket.

“It’s fine, Gator.”

“No, I just… I put your name down a long time ago without really thinking about it,” he says quickly, his words tumbling out as if he’s trying to defend himself. “It’s not like I sat down and thought, ‘Oh yah, I definitely want her to be the one to get called if everything goes south.’ You know? It was just a random night, I needed to put someone down, and—”

“Oh,” you interrupt, stepping back half an inch and turning your shoulders away from him. “Well, in that case, I guess it doesn’t matter if I just leave then.”

“No!”

The word rips out of his throat before he can stop it. His arm shoots out blindly, his hand moving fast through the empty air. His fingers catch the side of your hip first, gripping the fabric of your jeans, and then quickly slides to your arm until his rough palm clasps tightly around your forearm.

He freezes, breathing heavily through his mouth. 

“I’m sorry,” he stammers, his fingers digging into your arm just enough for you to feel his tension. “I can’t… I can’t see where—”

“I know…,” you whisper gently.

You move your arm, sliding your hand down into his. You slip your fingers between his, entangling them completely. His grip on you is tight, almost desperate, his knuckles pale under the dim hospital light.

You pull a small plastic chair closer to the edge of the bed and sit down beside him. You don’t let go of his hand.

He lets out another long, shaky breath, his head dropping back. He shakes his head slowly, the bandage around his eyes moving against his hair.

“Who survives in prison being blind?” he asks, his voice barely louder than a whisper. The anger is gone now, replaced by a cold, terrible reality.

“They don’t even know if you’re going to prison yet,” you tell him softly, trying to sound far more confident than you actually feel.

Gator lets out a short, bitter laugh. He shakes his head again.

“Course I’m going,” he says quietly. He pauses, his thumb rubbing uselessly against the side of your hand. Then, under his breath, so softly you almost miss it, he murmurs, “And I got it comin.”

The words hit you right in the chest. You press your lips tightly together, feeling a hot, painful knot forming in the back of your throat. 

You look away from him for a second, staring at the gray window where the frost is thick on the glass, trying desperately to keep the tears in your eyes from falling. You refuse to break down in front of him right now. He needs you to be steady.

The quiet in the room is broken a moment later by a soft knock on the door. The nurse opens it slowly, stepping inside. Right behind her, the two police officers follow, their heavy belts clanking as they walk. They look at you, offering a small, polite nod of acknowledgment.

You start to stand up from the small plastic chair, but you don’t let go of Gator’s hand. His grip tightens slightly the second he hears the heavy footfalls of the officers entering the room.

“We gonna need you to sign a few papers before we move forward,” one of the officers says, pulling a clipboard out from under his arm. His tone isn’t mean, but it’s dry and mechanical — just another part of his daily job. “We’ve already tried reaching out to every single one of his listed relatives and contacts. None of them are willing to take responsibility for him, which means house arrest is completely off the table. Because of that, we’re preparing to transfer him to the medical ward at the detention facility later this afternoon—”

“What if he comes with me?”

The words fly out of your mouth before you even have time to fully think them through. Your sudden, hasty offer cuts the officer off mid-sentence. 

It’is completely out of character for you — you are usually careful, cautious, and deliberate about every choice you make. But this didn’t come from a place of logic or careful planning. It came straight from the deepest, most raw part of your heart.

Beside you, Gator’s hand instantly squeezes yours so hard it almost hurts. His brow furrows deeply. He opens his mouth as if to say something, but no sound comes out. He remains completely frozen, listening intently.

“I mean…” you press on, taking a small step forward while keeping your grip firm on Gator’s fingers. “Is that an option? Is it possible?”

The officer stops, looking down at his clipboard, then glances up at his partner. The two men exchange a brief, silent look.

“Well… yeah,” the officer says slowly, scratching the back of his neck. “Technically, yes. A judge will have to review the paperwork and make the final decision on his custody, but if an individual with a clean record agrees to act as a primary caregiver and host, it can be filed. It’s definitely something that can be done.”

Gator leans closer to you, his head tilting toward your shoulder. His voice is very low, frantic, and laced with a sudden, sharp panic.

“What about your dad?” he whispers tightly. “What’s he gonna say?”

You look at Gator’s battered face — at the stitches on his lip, the deep bruises on his cheek, and the thick bandages hiding his wounded eyes. You think about the cold, lonely prison cell they’re ready to drag him to before his wounds even have a chance to close.

“That’s a problem for later,” you answer him quietly, your voice steady and unshakable.

You turn your attention back to the officer, meeting his gaze with total determination. You tighten your grip on Gator’s cold hand, feeling the warm pulse beneath his skin.

“Come on,” you say softly, leaning down close to Gator’s ear so only he can hear you. “Let’s get you home.”

—

Gator is not a light man. Even beaten down, bruised, and drained of his usual restless energy, he is tall and heavy and built. His heavy leather jacket drags against your shoulder, his dead weight leaning hard into your side as his boots scrape uselessly against the concrete steps.

“Watch the step,” you whisper tightly, adjusting your grip around his waist. Your fingers dig into the thick fabric of his jacket. “Two more steps, Gator. Just lift your feet.”

“I’m liftin’ ’em,” he mutters, his voice raspy and dry. He tries to pull himself up using the handrail, but his balance is completely shot without his sight. His shoulder slams heavily into the wall with a dull thud. He curses under his breath, a sharp, bitter string of words, his jaw clenching hard.

You finally reach the top step. 

Your small apartment sits right at the end of the narrow hallway. It took you months of quiet fighting, endless arguments, and tears to get your father to agree to let you get this place. 

In your father’s eyes, a young woman living on her own was a tragedy waiting to happen. “Living alone just increases the temptation to sin,” he would tell you every single Sunday over dinner, his voice stern and cold as he stared at you across the table. “A woman needs a household to keep her mind pure.”

It had worn you down to the bone, but you had stayed patient. You nodded, you smiled, you kept your head down, and bit by bit, you persuaded him to let you take this tiny one-bedroom unit above the old repair shop. 

It wasn’t much — just a cramped living room, a tiny kitchen, and a bedroom that barely fit a full-sized mattress — but it was yours.

And now, here you were, bringing the most notorious deputy in the county through the door in the middle of the day.

You fumble with the ring of keys in your pocket, your fingers numb from the cold. The metal keys clink together loudly in the quiet hallway.

“You could put a little effort into this too, ya know?” you sigh, finally getting the key into the deadbolt and turning it with a heavy click.

The door swings open into the dark, quiet apartment. The air inside is warm, smelling faintly of your cologne, dry heat from the clinking radiator, and old coffee.

Gator stumbles over the wooden threshold, his heavy boot catching on the edge of the small welcome mat. He sways instantly, his hands shooting out into the empty air, reaching wildly for something to hold onto until his fingers catch the frame of the door.

“I could handle myself a whole lot better if I knew the layout,” he snaps, his tone sharp, though the wobble in his knees completely ruins the bravado. “But seeing as you never let me come in through the front door, then it’s not really my fault.”

You catch him by the arm before he can trip over his own feet, taking his full weight back onto your shoulders. You can’t help but shake your head, a soft, weary breath escaping your lips.

Well, he has a point there.

That was the one secret your father never found out about. Ever since you moved into this place a few months back, Gator Tillman had a habit of showing up. 

He’d park his county patrol car down the block, out of sight beneath the bare oak trees, and sneak up the metal fire escape in the dead of night. He’d tap on your bedroom window with his knuckles, wearing that heavy sheriff’s vest, his uniform hat cocked slightly to the side, smelling of tobacco smoke, cold winter air, and cheap cologne.

He never came through the front door. You would never allow it. 

If the elderly neighbors down the hall saw the Sheriff’s son walking out of the preacher’s daughter’s place at three in the morning, your father would have had you moved back home before sunrise.

“Well, it’s not my fault you’ve got such a bad reputation, Tillman,” you murmur, bracing your legs as you drag him past the tiny kitchen counter toward the small living room.

With a heavy grunt, you guide him down until his knees hit the edge of the worn cushion, letting him sink onto the sofa.

Gator drops heavily onto the cushions. The old thing squeaks in protest under his weight. He leans his head back against the wall, breathing heavily through his mouth, his chest rising and falling beneath his coat.

“Like that isn’t the main thing that drew you to me anyway,” he says, his voice falling right back into that familiar, arrogant drawl. A faint, crooked smile tries to form on his face, but it cuts off immediately as his split upper lip stretches too far, making him wince and pull back with a sharp hiss.

You roll your eyes, leaning your hands on your hips as you stand over him in the dim light.

Still, despite the sharp ache in your chest as you look at his face, a tiny part of you feels relieved. It’s good to see a little bit of his old, insufferable self shining through the wreckage, even if it’s just a front.

For a minute or two, neither of you says anything. The only sound in the small room is the clinking of the old water pipes in the corner and the heavy, uneven sound of Gator’s breathing.

You stand there in the center of the room, looking down at him.

It feels completely surreal to have him here like this. On those old nights — the nights when he used to climb through your window — he would practically take over the whole room the second his boots touched the floorboards. He’d throw his heavy gun belt onto your desk with a loud metal clatter, kick off his boots, and stretch out across your small bed like he owned the entire building. 

He was loud, he was cocky, and he was always talking about what he and his dad were building out on the ranch. 

He moved with a restless, arrogant energy, like a man who believed nothing in this world could ever touch him because his last name was Tillman.

Now, he sits hunched over on your secondhand couch, his broad shoulders pulled inward as if he’s trying to make himself as small as possible.

His uniform jacket is gone. His dark hair is messy. And worst of all, the upper half of his face is dominated by thick, white layers of surgical gauze and medical tape, wrapped tightly around his head to cover the deep wounds where his eyes used to be.

You swallow down the knot in your throat, trying to keep your hands from shaking.

“Let’s get that jacket off you,” you say quietly, stepping closer to the couch.

As soon as you move over him, Gator flinches. His body goes rigid, his hands snapping up defensively in front of his chest.

“It’s just me, Gator,” you say softly, keeping your voice calm and steady. “It’s just me. Relax.”

He pauses, his fingers twitching in the air before he slowly lowers his hands back to his lap. He lets out a harsh, dry breath through his nose, turning his face slightly toward the floor.

“Yah,” he mutters, his voice dropping into a low, embarrassed murmur. “Right.”

You reach down and gently grab the sleeves of his jacket, pulling the fabric off his shoulders. He sits there quietly, letting you pull his arms out of the sleeves, completely obedient in a way that feels utterly wrong for him. You fold it and lay it across the arm of the chair nearby, then reach down to unlace his muddy boots.

When you touch his ankle, he stiffens again, but he doesn't pull away this time. 

Your eyes focus on the ankle monitor for a second, but you quickly clear your throat. You slip the boots off his feet, setting them neatly by the front door.

“I’m gonna go grab some water and some clean towels from the bathroom,” you tell him, standing up. “I need to clean up around those bandages. The nurse said we have to keep the edges dry and clean so it doesn’t get infected.”

As you turn to step toward the bathroom, Gator’s hand suddenly shoots out blindly into the empty space between you. His broad palm sweeps through the air until his fingers collide with the fabric of your jeans. His grip is tight and frantic.

“Don’t—don't be long, alright?” he says, the cocky drawl completely vanishing from his tone, replaced by a raw, desperate edge that makes your heart ache. He sounds like a child trapped in the dark. “Just... hurry up, would ya?”

You stop, looking down at his large, bruised hand wrapped around your leg.

“I’m just going to the sink, Gator,” you whisper softly, reaching down to place your hand over his cold knuckles. “It’s three feet away. I’m not going anywhere.”

He holds on for a second longer, his thumb pressing into your denim, before he slowly relaxes his grip and lets his hand drop back to his knee.

“Yah,” he clears his throat, trying quickly to put his tough mask back on, though his voice cracks slightly. “Yah, fine. Take your time, then.”

You walk into the small bathroom, clicking the light switch on. The bright, yellow glare of the bulb reflects off the small mirror above the sink.

You lean over the porcelain basin, resting your hands on the cold edges, and take three long, slow breaths. 

You look at yourself in the mirror. 

Your eyes are tired, dark smudges hanging beneath them from the sheer stress of the last six hours. You had gone from sitting quietly in your apartment reading a book to standing in a cold hospital hallway listening to police officers debate whether to throw a blind man into a county jail cell.

You turn on the hot tap, letting the water run until it steams. You fill a plastic basin with warm water, grab a small bottle of mild antiseptic liquid from the medicine cabinet, and pull two clean washcloths and a fresh roll of white gauze from the drawer.

When you walk back out into the living room, Gator hasn’t moved an inch. He’s sitting dead still on the sofa, his head tilted slightly toward the hallway, listening intently for the sound of your footsteps.

You set the plastic basin down on the small coffee table in front of him. You kneel down so you are eye-level with his face.

“Alright,” you say quietly. “This might be a little bit uncomfortable at first.”

You dip one of the soft washcloths into the warm water. You gently reach out, resting your left hand on the back of his neck to steady him, while your right hand brings the damp cloth up to his face.

The second the warm cloth touches the deep purple bruise spreading across his cheekbone, Gator flinches sharply, pulling his head back.

“Jeez,” he grunts, his brow furrowing beneath the thick bandages. “Watch it, will ya?”

“I’m being as gentle as I can, Gator,” you say softly, not pulling your hand away from the back of his neck. Your thumb slowly rubs the tense muscle right at the base of his skull, feeling the tight knots of stress locked in his shoulders.

He lets out a low, grumbling breath, but he stops pulling away.

You move the cloth carefully, cleaning around the dark, angry split on his upper lip. The skin is swollen and raw, stitched up with black thread near the corner. You wipe away the crusty, dark blood that had dried against it.

Every time he winces, his hand twitches against his thigh, his fingers gripping his pant leg so hard his knuckles turn white.

“How bad does it look?” he asks quietly after a long silence.

You pause for a second, your fingers hovering over his temple.

“You’ve looked better,” you admit softly, trying to sound lighthearted. “The lip’s pretty swollen. Cheek’s black and blue.”

A tiny, bitter huff of air escapes his nose — not quite a laugh, but close enough.

“Yah, well,” he mutters. “You should see the other guy.”

The joke hangs in the air for a second, heavy and awkward, before it completely falls apart.

You both know there wasn’t a "guy" he beat up. 

You both know what happened out on those snowy roads, even if neither of you wants to say the names out loud. 

You know about the strange, terrifying man who had come for him — the man who had left Gator broken and sightless as retribution for the things Gator had done for his father.

You move the washcloth up toward his forehead, carefully cleaning the skin right along the top edge of the thick white bandages.

The hospital staff had done their work well enough, wrapping his head securely to protect the raw, hollow wounds underneath. You don’t dare touch the heavy inner padding — the thought of what lies beneath those layers makes your stomach turn with a deep, nauseating sorrow — but you carefully replace the outer strip of gauze that had gotten frayed and dirty during the ride over.

As you wind the fresh white cloth around his head, your fingers brush through his dark, messy hair. It’s softer than it looks, free of the heavy grease and hair product he used to pile into it when he was playing the big-shot deputy.

Gator stays completely still while you wrap the tape, his eyes hidden, his chest rising and falling in deep, quiet rhythms.

For a few minutes, sitting there in the dim yellow light of your apartment with the snow beating against the window pane, it almost feels peaceful. It feels like the old days — just the two of you tucked away from the rest of the world, hidden far away from your father’s watchful eyes and his father’s dark, oppressive shadow.

But the peace doesn’t last long. It can’t. Not with everything that happened.

You finish taping the edge of the bandage, letting your hands drop into your lap. You pick up the dirty washcloth, rinsing it out in the basin of water. The water turns a light, pale shade of pink as you wring the cloth out.

You look at him sitting there, his hands resting on his knees, his face clean now, though still terribly bruised.

The quiet in the room suddenly feels far too heavy. The questions that have been burning in the back of your mind ever since the news broke across the county start pushing their way to the surface. 

You had spent weeks listening to rumors at the grocery store, watching the local news reports about the missing women, the armed standoffs, the federal agents filling up the county diner, and the terrible things that had taken place out at the Tillman ranch.

You set the washcloth down on the wooden edge of the stool.

“Gator?” you ask softly.

He doesn’t move, but his shoulders tense up instantly. He can hear the change in your tone — the sudden lightness leaving your voice.

“Yah?”

You hesitate, pressing your lips together. You look down at your hands, then back up at his bandaged face.

“Why did you do it?”

The question falls softly between you, but it hits the room like a heavy weight.

Gator’s head tilts back slightly. His jaw tightens, the muscles along his cheeks twitching.

“Do what?” he asks, his tone turning flat and defensive, instantly building up that familiar, prickling wall he always uses when he feels cornered.

“You know exactly what I’m talking about, Gator,” you tell him, your voice steady, though your heart begins to beat faster in your chest. “The farm. The house. Dot…. all those people your dad had you hunting down.”

Gator lets out a loud, harsh laugh through his nose, turning his head away toward the far wall.

“I was a deputy,” he says sharply, his voice rising, trying to regain that old, authoritative bark he used when he wore his badge. “I was executing lawful orders for the Sheriff’s department. Taking care of business for the family. Protecting our land. That’s what a deputy does. That’s what a son does.”

“That wasn’t deputy work, Gator!” you say, stepping closer, your voice trembling with a mixture of frustration and deep sadness. “You kidnaped people! You helped him lock people away! You helped him turn that entire ranch into an armed fortress! You killed people, Gator!”

“We were protecting what’s ours!” Gator snaps, his hands slamming down onto his knees as he tries to stand up.

He rises quickly, but without his sight, his balance immediately betrays him. He sways dangerously to the left, his leg crashing right into the edge of the coffee table. The plastic basin rattles loudly, warm water sloshing over the side and spilling onto the floorboards.

Gator curses loudly, reaching out wildly to steady himself against the wall. He stands there, breathing heavily, his chest heaving, his dark hair falling over his forehead, looking completely lost and furious.

“You don’t know anything about it,” he spits out, his raspy voice shaking. “You don’t know what it’s like out there! You sit up here in your neat little apartment thinkin’ everything is real simple — thinkin’ there’s good guys and bad guys! My old man... he built everything we had! Everything!”

“He’s a monster, Gator!” you shout back, the words tearing out of your throat before you can stop them.

The room drops into a sudden, terrifying silence.

The clinking radiator seems to freeze. The wind outside rattles the window glass.

Gator stands frozen against the wall, his mouth slightly open, his bandaged head turned toward you as if you had just struck him right across the face.

You swallow hard, feeling tears burning behind your eyes. You take a step toward him, but you keep your hands down.

“He is, Gator,” you say softly, your voice breaking down into a quiet, painful whisper. “Look at what he did to this county. Look at what he did to those families. Look at what he’s doing to you right now. Where is he, Gator? Where is your dad while you’re sitting here blind on my couch waiting for a judge to send you to prison? Is he coming to help you? Is he calling the lawyers?”

Gator doesn’t answer. He turns his head away, his breathing ragged and sharp.

“He’s in a federal holding cell,” you continue quietly, step by step walking closer to him until you’re standing right in front of his shaking frame. “He abandoned you the second things went south out on that road. The nurse told me... she said when they tried to reach out to his legal team, they didn’t even ask how you were doing. They didn’t care.”

“Shut up,” Gator mutters under his breath. It’s not the angry shout from a minute ago. It’s a small, weak plea. “Just... shut up.”

“Why did you follow him so blindly?” you ask, reaching out gently to touch his jaw. “You knew what he was doing was wrong. I know you, Gator. I know you’re cocky, and I know you act like a jerk half the time, but you aren’t evil. You aren’t like him. So why? Why did you do all of it?”

Gator stands there for a long time, his body trembling beneath your hand.

He tries to speak. He opens his mouth, his chest expanding as if he’s about to launch into another loud, arrogant speech about duty, about the Tillman name, about being a real man out on the range.

“He... he needed me to—” Gator starts, his voice loud, but the sentence immediately dies in his throat.

He stops. He shakes his head, trying again.

“If I didn’t... if we didn’t hold the line, then—” He cuts off again. His hands fly up to his face, his fingers clutching at the air near his ears, pulling at his hair in absolute frustration.

He tries so hard to find the words — to pull out the rehearsed excuses his father had drilled into his head for years. 

He wants so badly to say the words that will make him sound like the brave, tough deputy he always pretended to be. He wants to explain that he was just being loyal, that he was being strong, that he was being the son Roy Tillman always demanded he be.

But the words won’t come.

Every single excuse he tries to form turns to dust in his mouth the second it hits the cold reality of the room. 

He can’t say he was protecting the ranch, because the ranch is destroyed. He can’t say he was serving the law, because he broke every law in the book. He can’t say his father loved him, because his father isn’t here.

“I just...” Gator stammers, his voice dropping an octave, cracking down the middle. “He said... he said if I couldn’t handle it... if I couldn’t do the job...”

He stops again. His broad shoulders suddenly slump downward, all the fake posture and manufactured bravado draining out of him like water running down a drain.

“He called me soft,” Gator whispers, his raspy voice trembling so violently it’s hard to hear him over the wind outside. “Every time I hesitated... every time I asked a question... he’d look at me like I was nothing. Like I was just some useless kid he was stuck with. He’d tell me my mother made me weak. He’d tell me if I couldn't take care of business, he’d find someone who could.”

Gator’s hand reaches out blindly, grabbing the front of your sweater, clutching the fabric tightly in his fist as if he’s drowning.

“I just wanted him to look at me and say I did good,” Gator chokes out, his head dropping until his forehead presses hard against your shoulder. His entire body shakes with heavy, silent sobs. “That’s all. I just wanted him to think I was a real man. I did everything he asked me to do. Everything. Even when my stomach felt like it was turnin’ upside down... even when I couldn’t sleep at night... I just did it. And he still... he still didn’t give a damn about me.”

You close your eyes as tears finally slip down your cheeks. You wrap your arms around his broad, shaking back, pulling him close against you.

You hold him tight as he breaks down in your small living room. The grand, terrifying legacy of the Tillman family — the fear that had held the entire county in a chokehold for years — collapses right here into the arms of a terrified, broken boy who just wanted his father to love him.

You stand there together in the middle of the room for a long time, holding onto each other while the cold wind batters the building outside.

You know that pain. You know it in a completely different way, but you know the terrifying weight of living beneath the thumb of a father who demands absolute control over your soul. 

Your father used the Bible, Sunday sermons, and cold, suffocating guilt to keep you quiet and obedient, making you feel like every independent thought you had was a sin that would drag you straight to hell. 

Gator’s father used violence, guns, and the toxic myth of family legacy to turn his son into a weapon.

Both of you had been built by men who viewed their children as property rather than people.

Slowly, Gator’s heavy shaking begins to subside. His breathing slows down, turning into long, shuddering gasps. He stays leaning against you, his forehead resting heavily on your shoulder, his hand still loosely gripping the front of your sweater.

“I’m sorry,” he mutters into your shoulder, his voice completely raw, stripped of every ounce of pride he ever possessed. “I’m real sorry.”

“I know,” you whisper, resting your cheek against his dark, messy hair. “I know you are, Gator.”

“I ruined everything,” he says quietly, shaking his head against you. “I’m gonna go to prison. I’m never gonna see anything again. I’m useless.”

“You’re not useless,” you tell him firmly, pulling back just enough to hold his face between your hands. Your palms rest against his warm, bruised cheeks. “You made terrible choices, Gator. You listened to a man who didn’t deserve your loyalty, and you’re gonna have to face the consequences of what you did. But you are not useless. And you aren’t going to face it alone.”

He stays silent for a second, his head tilting toward the touch of your hands, as if absorbing the warmth from your skin.

“Why are you doing this?” he asks softly, his voice full of genuine confusion. “After everything I did... after never even lettin’ me come through your front door... why did you bring me here?”

You offer a small, sad smile, even though he can’t see it.

“Because somebody has to show you what real care looks like,” you tell him gently. “And seeing as I’m your emergency contact, I guess I’m stuck with you for now.”

A faint, trembling breath escapes his lips — the closest thing to a real smile he’s had all night.

“Yah,” he whispers, his thumb brushing lightly against your wrist. “I guess you are, then.”

You slowly guide him back down onto the couch, making sure he sits down safely without bumping into the spilled water on the floorboards.

You fetch a fresh towel from the bathroom, wiping up the small puddle near the coffee table, then grab a heavy, knitted blanket from the foot of your bed. You spread the warm blanket over his lap and legs, tucking the edges around his feet.

Gator doesn’t fight you on any of it now. The exhaustion has finally caught up with him, pulling his broad frame down into the soft cushions. 

The sheer physical and emotional drain of the day has left him heavy-lidded and quiet.

“You need anything else?” you ask softly, sitting down on the edge of the couch beside his hip. “Some water? A painkiller?”

“No,” he mutters, his head leaning back against the wall. “I’m alright. Just... stay here a second?”

“I’m right here,” you say.

You slide your fingers into his hand, entangling them completely. His grip on your fingers is gentle now, no longer frantic or tight, just a warm, steady pressure holding you in place.

Outside, the storm continues to blow across the frozen streets, driving heavy white snow against the trees. The world outside is cold, harsh, and waiting for the morning light to bring the police, the legal papers, and the uncertain future that Gator will eventually have to face.

But inside the small, warm apartment, sitting together in the quiet space beneath the yellow lamp, the room is quiet.

“You know what the worst part of all this is?” he asked softly, his voice barely louder than the hum of the radiator.

You look at him

“What is it, Gator?”

He swallows hard, his throat moving with a tight, painful gulp.

“It ain’t even the thought of prison,” he whispers, turning his head slightly away, as if embarrassed to admit it. “And it ain’t even bein’ stuck in this damn dark all the rest of my life, neither.”

He stops, his jaw clenching tightly. He takes another shaky breath before continuing, his words tumbling out low and raw.

“It’s thinkin’... I’m never gonna see your face again.”

The words hung in the warm air of the small room, hitting you straight in the chest with a sudden, sharp ache.

“Gator...” you begin, but he shakes his head, cutting you off.

“No, listen to me,” he insists, his voice trembling slightly. “All those nights... when I used to climb up that fire escape and tap on your window... I’d stand out there in the freezing cold just waitin’ for you to pull back the curtain. And when you did, you’d give me that little annoyed look, like you were mad at me for showin’ up, but then you’d smile. Just a little bit.”

A small, bitter huff of air escapes his nose.

“I took it for granted,” he admits quietly, staring blankly straight ahead into the blackness behind his bandages. “I thought I’d always just be able to look at ya. I thought I’d always have my eyes, and I’d always be able to see you standin’ there. But now... it’s just black. And I’m scared, okay? I’m scared that as the months go on, as the years go on... I’m gonna start forgettin’ what you look like. I’m gonna forget the shape of your eyes. I’m gonna forget your face.”

You sit there watching him, feeling a warm tear slip down your cheek. You don’t wipe it away. You just look at this arrogant, foolish, broken boy who has lost everything, sitting in your living room grieving the one thing he had loved quietly in the dark.

You take a slow, deep breath, wiping your cheek with the back of your hand.

“No, you’re not,” you said softly, your voice clear and steady.

Gator’s head lifted a fraction, his bandaged face turning toward the sound of your voice. 

“What?”

“You’re not gonna forget my face, Gator,” you tell him gently. You reach out, placing your hands over his large, trembling wrists. “You’re just gonna have to learn to see me a different way, then.”

He frowns, his brow furrowing beneath the white gauze. 

“What’re you talkin’ about? I can’t see nothin’.”

“You’ve got hands, Tillman. You’re just gonna have to learn to recognize me with ‘em.”

Gator stiffens, pulling his hands back a couple of inches, looking suddenly flustered and uncomfortable.

“I don’t... I don’t wanna look like an idiot,” he stammers, his raspy voice rising slightly in panic. 

“You’re not gonna look like one,” you murmur, taking both of his large, calloused hands in yours. “Come here.”

You bring his hands up through the quiet space between you, guiding his broad palms until they are hovering just inches from your face.

“Go on,” you whisper softly, resting your left hand against his wrist to steady him. “Take your time.”

Gator hesitates for a second, his chest rising and falling heavily. He swallows hard, his fingers twitching in the air. Slowly, cautiously, as if he is touching something delicate made of thin glass, he lets his broad fingertips settle against your skin.

His fingertips touch your chin first. They are cold from the room, rough and hardened from years of manual work, but his touch is impossibly light.

“Start right here,” you whisper, keeping your voice barely above a breath so he can focus.

Gator’s hands tremble slightly, but as his skin makes contact with yours, he settles down. His long fingers begin to move slowly, tracing the line of your jaw. He feels the soft curve of your chin, moving his thumbs up to trace the sides of your jawline heading up toward your ears.

“You got a small jaw,” he murmurs under his breath, his tone dropping into a focused, quiet whisper. “Feels... real soft.”

“Yah,” you murmur softly, smiling just a bit. “Keep goin’.”

His thumbs slide inward, gently tracing the shape of your lips. He feels the bow of your upper lip, the softness of your lower lip, tracing the outline over and over until he knows the exact width of your mouth.

As his thumb brushes over the corner of your mouth, he pauses.

“You’re smilin’,” he says quietly, his tone a mix of surprise and wonder.

“A little bit, yah,” you admit. “How’d you know?”

“I can feel the skin pull right here,” he mutters, his thumb gently pressing against the small dimple near your cheek. “I remember that.”

A tiny, genuine breath of relief escapes your chest as you watch his face. The tense, worried lines on his forehead are starting to smooth out. He is concentrating so hard, his bandaged head tilts slightly, mapping every millimeter of your face in his mind.

He moves his hands higher, his broad palms resting gently against your cheeks. His thumbs met in the middle, tracing the bridge of your nose, feeling the slight slope of the bone, sliding down to the soft tip.

Then, his fingertips move up to your eyes.

He hesitates for a second, his fingers hovering over your eyelids.

“Close 'em,” he whispers softly.

You close your eyes, letting out a quiet breath.

Gator gently lays his fingertips over your closed eyelids. He feels the soft, delicate flutter of your long eyelashes brushing against his calloused skin as you blink softly beneath his touch. He traces the shape of your eye sockets, the gentle curve of your eyebrows, feeling the fine hairs beneath his thumb.

“Your eyes are closed now,” he mutters softly, his fingers lingering over your brow.

“Yah,” you whisper into the quiet room. “So we’re both in the dark right now.”

A faint, soft breath escapes his lips at that. He doesn’t say anything, but his hands move higher, sliding up past your forehead and into your hair. His long fingers comb through the strands, feeling the length and texture, letting the soft hair slide through his rough knuckles.

“Your hair’s softer than mine,” he observes quietly. “Smells like that citrus soap you keep in the dish.”

“It’s lemon,” you tell him gently.

He slides his hands back down, letting his palms cup the sides of your neck. His thumbs rest lightly over your pulse point, right beneath your jawline. He stays still like that for a long moment, feeling the steady heartbeat beneath his hands.

“You’re real warm,” he says softly, his voice sounding deeper now, calm and steady.

You take his right hand, guiding it down from your neck to your collarbone. He traces the sharp, delicate line of the bone beneath your sweater.

“You took your rosary off..." he points out. You just hum, offering no explanation as to when or why.

He moves his hand over the curve of your shoulder, feeling the width of it, then slides his broad palm down the side of your arm, tracing the shape of your elbow, your forearm, down to your wrist, feeling how small your arm feels compared to his heavy grip.

He moves his hands to your waist, his palms resting against the sides of your ribs over your sweater. He feels the narrow shape of your waist, the gentle flare of your hips, learning the exact proportions of your body through the slow, steady movement of his hands.

Every touch is tender, careful, and deeply respectful. There is no rush in his movements, no arrogant posturing, no slick confidence. It’s just Gator, quiet and attentive, memorizing every line, every curve, and every soft inch of you with his hands.

Finally, his hands come to a rest around your waist again, his thumbs tucked lightly into the fabric of your sweater.

He sits there for a moment, breathing deeply through his nose, his bandaged face turned toward yours, just inches away.

You slowly move closer, leaving a soft kiss right in the corner of his mouth.

“Got it memorized yet, Tillman?” you ask softly, reaching up to lay your hands over his wrists.

Gator lets out a slow, contented breath.

“Close,” he whispers, a tiny, faint trace of his old smile touching the corners of his mouth. “Might need to check again tomorrow just to be sure.”

You let out a soft laugh, shaking your head. 

“Yah, well. I suppose we can do that.”

The heavy wall between you is completely gone now. The fear, the anger, and the dark shadows of the past feel far away, pushed back by the warmth of the small room and the quiet comfort of being together.

You rest your shoulder against his chest, tucking your head comfortably in the notch beneath his chin.

Gator pauses for a second, adjusting to your weight against him. Then, slowly, he wraps his long, heavy arm around your shoulders, pulling you in close against his side. His broad hand rests flat over your hip, holding you secure and steady against him.

He rests his chin lightly against the top of your head, his dark hair brushing against your forehead.

Underneath your cheek, you could hear the strong, steady beat of his heart. It’s slow and calm now, free of the frantic panic from earlier.

“You okay like that?” you ask softly, pulling the thick blanket up over both of your shoulders.

“Yah,” Gator whispers into your hair, his voice heavy with deep, peaceful exhaustion. “I’m good. Real good.”

Gator tightens his arm around you just a fraction, tucking you closer to his chest. He lets out a long, quiet sigh, his body finally relaxing completely as deep sleep pulls him under. You close your eyes, resting your hand over his arm, listening to the steady rhythm of his breathing as the night rolls quietly on.

⋆⭒˚.⋆ likes, reblogs and comments are appreciated !! thank you for reading. ⋆⭒˚.⋆

He existed naturally in the way he had become a part of the house itself like the way the kitchen light flickered above the stove your mother always nagged at your father to fix or that one warped floorboard outside your bedroom that always creaked.

Steve was just there. Mostly because of his emotionally negligent home life. He would always be draped over the couch with your brother with his stupid spiderman printed socked feet he'd get embarrassed about, kicked onto the coffee table. He would rummage through the cabinets for snacks he didn't ask for permission to eat or laugh way too loudly at midnight while your mother had yelled from upstairs for the boys to keep it down.

You grew up around the sound of his voice and the smell of his cologne that trailed through hallways after basketball games. Around the low rumble of his prized BMW pulling into the driveway to pick up your brother. His stupidly bright smile and the way he effortlessly moved through rooms had always irked you the most.

When you were little, Steve treated you in that affectionately dismissive way most young boys do with their best friend's siblings.

"Move, airhead," "Quit following us," "Tell your brother he still owes me five bucks!"

There had never been cruelty in his voice or irritation enough to hurt you. Sometimes when your brother got irritated with you or ignored you, Steve didn’t and instead gave you a sense of understanding.

At ten years old, you were sitting cross legged in the living room, watching the two of them play video games on your brother's Atari for hours. When Steve handed you a third controller after your brother complained you were annoying, you pretended your heart didn't skip a beat. Despite being terrible at every game, Steve let you play anyway.

At twelve years old, you had scraped your knee badly against asphalt when trying to skateboard down the Harrington's driveway after overhearing Steve mention he thought girls who skate were 'cool.' You remember sitting on the pavement blinking back tears while your brother had cackled and Steve crouched down in front of you with a sigh.

"Why are you always getting yourself hurt." He'd said, his hands gently pushing your sock down to your ankle. "Were you trying to kill yourself?"

You had only shrugged out of embarrassment.

Even then, he had disappeared into his house before coming back with bandages and peroxide. The smell had been medicinal in the hot summer air and he'd sat cleaning the blood from your knee.

At fifteen years old, your crush had become something incurable. The year Steve had started driving. The year he started showing up on the driveway in his burgundy BMW with one hand lazily hooked over the steering wheel and his sunglasses hiding half his face while girls from school had prayed to get his attention. It'd also been the age silly jealousy had warped your heart.

You knew Steve Harrington was someone you'd never get close to touching. He belonged to everybody and that was the problem.

At sixteen years old, every girl in town had a story about him, but also forgave him too easily when he had reached that stage in his life where he'd been known as the charming, wealthy, party boy who knew his way around. Eventually, he'd calmed down despite having the certain cockiness to him you'd always known.

But there were fragile moments where the performance would slip.

Late nights when your brother had gone upstairs to watch TV, Steve would sink further into the couch with an exhausted look on his face. Sometimes your mother would hand him leftovers wrapped in foiled. He would just smile with gratitude and pull her in for a hug.

The nights he stayed over were your favorite.

One time you woke up at two in the morning for water. When you walked downstairs, you would find him knocked out on the couch with one arm thrown his face. He'd always been such a restless sleeper.

Looking back, maybe you had started loving him in those moments, not just a silly crush.

Deep down, you knew it was because you knew a version of him nobody else knew, a version that was just him and not King Steve.

You knew the way he got quieter when something bothered him, the way he tapped his fingers when anxious, and the way he hated going home more than he would ever admit out loud.

By your junior year of college, at twenty years old, you had gotten good at convincing yourself you were over Steve Harrington. Distance helped, especially when Purdue University was four hours from Hawkins.

Classes, new friends, late night walks across campus with music playing in your headphones, and boys who flirted with you had given you experiences that you almost forgot about a version of yourself that doodled in her notebook over a boy with big brown eyes.

Steve had become someone easier to manage when he had only existed mostly through rushed stories from your brother on phone calls.

Steve got promoted. Steve got into some fight at a bar and lost. Steve was seeing some girl. Steve bought a new car.

He couldn't touch your life anymore.

Until May.

Finals week had exhausted everyone by the time summer break finally arrived. Outside your dorm window, students drag bags down sidewalks, the sky gray and threatening rain. You can only hope the weather doesn't worsen.

The telephone begins to ring on your nightstand. Walking over and removing it from the hook, you wedge it between your shoulder.

"Hello?" You answer distracted, struggling to zip your duffel bag.

"Your brother's an asshole."

You freeze, stomach fluttering. His voice was still able to do that to you. "Well, hello to you to. You sound so surprised." You managed.

"I am," Steve replied. "He told me he forgot he promised to pick you up and he already made plans, which is now my problem somehow."

"Sooo, you're coming instead?"

"Yeah, unfortunately."

"You're such a gentleman," You croon, tossing your duffel bag aside. "Will you help me with my bags too?'

"You know I will." "I'm calling from this diners telephone box, had to take a bathroom break because the drive is so damn long."

"Tell me about it. Why do you think I wanted someone else to do the driving for me in the first place?"

"You sneaky little witch. Just using people aren’t you?" He comments, making you laugh. "Anyways, I'm like twenty minutes away. Try not to bring your whole dorm with you."

The line clicks dead before you can answer and place the phone back into it's rightful place.

Immediately, you hate yourself for checking your reflection in the mirror to check your hair. On instinct, you reach for your lip gloss and swipe it against your lips.

This was so ridiculous. You were twenty, not fourteen anymore, yet you were hyperaware of everything about you all because Steve Harrington was about to drive four hours alone with you.

By the time you have your bags ready and make your way outside after checking out your dorm, you spot the BMW parked against the pavement. Girls passing turned to look as Steve stepped out from the driver's seat as rain began to fall. Some things never changed did they?

Your stomach drops at the sight of him. He looked different, less boyishly pretty and now more manly. His shoulders broader beneath his dark blue crewneck and fitting his arms just right.

Steve uses one hand to push back his damp hair from his forehead and his eyes land on you, making you freeze. He smirks, calling out, "Hey! You coming?"

You roll your eyes, walking over. "You were supposed to be here ten minutes ago."

"Sorry, traffic backed up from the rain." He frowns and takes a quick glance at his watch. "If we go now we should be fine though."

He takes the largest bag from you, tossing it over his shoulder, before you can argue. Steve opens the trunk, tucking in the bag and reaching a hand out in gesture for you to hand him the rest.

"Your roommates going to miss you at all?" He asks, shutting the trunk and locking it with the keys.

"Mmm, yeah I think so. One of them cried."

He lets out a low whistle, "Damn. You breaking hearts at Purdue now? I thought you were sweet?"

"Shut up." You snort. "I doubt she'll send a postcard anyways. She only used me for homework answers in statistics."

"No worries, we'll have a better summer without people like that. Like old times." He grins in the familiar way you knew.

Steve opens the passenger door and flashes you a wink. "After you."

You just smile, sitting down and adjusting the seat to your height as he shuts the door behind you, jogging around the hood of the car before the rain could get you both anymore wet.

Steve slides into the driver's seat, starting the heater to warm up. He inserts the keys into the ignition, giving it a couple turns, and sighs. "You hungry?"

"Ummm, a little." You confess.

"There's leftover fries in the bag from the diner if you want some" He turns over the seat as he backs the car out of is spot, managing to grab the paper bag sitting behind. "They got kinda wet though."

You eye the soaking wet paper bag and scrunch your nose, "What the hell, Steven. You're disgusting."

"What! They're still good!"

"Soggy fries are good? Would you eat those?" You deadpan, raising a brow.

There's a pause of silence until, "...Nah. Maybe you're right." He coughs and clears his throat. "We'll grab some dinner in a couple hours in the next town. Promise."

You laugh despite yourself and turn your head to look outside the window, watching as the campus begins to empty out, students hugging goodbye and loading up cars.

Steve glances at your direction briefly as you begins to make a turn out of the campus, "You going to miss it?"

"Huh? Purdue?"

"Mhm."

You hum, pondering for a moment. Sure, you'd been homesick when you'd started, but overtime you'd found another place and friends to call home. Out the window, you watch the buildings blur past as you drive farther. Finally, you admit, "Yeah, more than I thought I would. I'll probably try and make plans for my friend Beth to come down to Hawkins."

"Do you like being away?" He asks, one hand resting loosely on the steering wheel while the other tapped against his thigh. "From Hawkins, I mean."

Truthfully, no. You liked being able to ignore your feelings, but you didn't like not being able to communicate with loved ones mostly through mail and telephone.

"I like..." You stop to carefully consider your words. "being somewhere where nobody knows every single thing about me. So, no and yes."

"Yeah, that sounds nice. I don't blame you." Steve gives a faint smile.

The roads begin to stretch longer as buildings become fields then empty highways, Steve cautiously keeping distance from other cars.

You blow a puff of air, bored, reaching into the dashboard to search through Steve's collection of cassette tapes. Steve catches you from the corner of his eyes. He clicks his tongue, "Hey, you thief. What do you think you're doing?"

"Playing music?" You snip as if it's obvious. "It's too quiet in here that it's going to drive me insane."

"Is my own voice not enough for you?" He mockingly pouts but snatches the cassette of your choice out of your hand, inserting it into the player of the radio.

"You'll never be Bruce Springsteen, sorry to tell you."

"Are you still seeing that girl?" You ask, trying to sound casual.

Steve looked confused, "What girl?"

"The one Anthony mentioned. Blonde, brown eyes, in STEM..." You explain, listing of the traits your older brother had mentioned over the phone last Winter. You remember hooking up with some guy afterwards.

He huffs a laugh, "Oh. No."

"What do you mean no?" You press.

"That lasted like two months. It's been long done." He says casually as if it had been nothing. You truly thought he'd liked her, even if she'd been one of many girlfriends that wouldn't work out.

"What happened? I thought you liked her?"

He pursed his lips, "I mean, yeah she was nice."

Steve seemed almost reluctant, like there was more to the story than he wanted to give.

"Anddd?"

"And that's it." He sighs. "Look, I could give a thousand of excuses of why it didn't work but I can't besides saying I just wasn't feeling anything. Nice isn't enough and I didn't want to waste her time."

"Oh..." You say.

You'd be lying if you said you were disappointed at the fact his love life had once again failed. You're a horrible and selfish person, you think.

"Plus, I think I've made too much mistakes doing that in the past. It wouldn't be fair, y'know?"

"Growing up, Harrington?"

"Watch it," He scolds.

You stick your tongue out playfully before resuming your session of staring out the window in distraction of your nerve wracking thoughts and the fact Steve was sitting a foot away.

Shivering, the feel goosebumps rise on your arms and you rub your hands against them in hope to ease.

Steve seems notice and frowns, glimpsing at you before turning back to the road. "Are you still cold?"

"Nope."

"Liar," He chuckles. Turning the heater on with the dial, he reaches his arm behind his seat afterwards, grabbing hold of a folded up blanket and tosses it to you.

"Oh, no, no, Steve. You don't have--" You reassure, holding your hands up.

"I know, it's okay." He cuts you off. "Just give it back when you're done. We both know you're a thief."

"Yeah, yeah."

The droplets of ran pounds against the windshield, the dark clouds swirling in the sky as thunder erupts threateningly. It stirs fear in your chest, heart picking up its pace.

"Shit, it's getting bad." Steve points out. Trying to ease the mood, he jokes. "Think some force of nature is trying to kill us?"

"I don't know about me, but maybe just you. I hope the lightning picks you over me once we get out." You sass.

His mouth is gaped in shock. Finally, he says under his breath, "Psycho."

You try to focus on the music the next couple of minutes, but you can’t stand the silence between the two of you.

After years, you always want to know every single detail about him, to hear him talk about the special things his life and what he has going for him.

Every time you hope it’s something good. It’s all he’s ever deserved.

"How's work? Aren't you doing this whole coaching gig?"

"Don't forget sex ed teacher on the side. But, yeah, it's great so far." He seems to light up, happy you asked. "Really great."

He switches lanes before he continued, "For so long I was so confused and didn't know what I wanted, but now? I don't think I've been happier. Sure, my dad thinks the pay is shit, but at least I'm doing something with my life now."

“I think it’s good, Steve. You’re starting somewhere and I think it fits you perfectly.”

He’s shy then and goes quiet. You think the conversation is done with until:

"I- I really want to try college again. Get a degree in physical education. I know, it probably sounds stupid. I slacked so much in High School. I cared too much about the wrong things, now I'm paying for it."

Your heart breaks at his self deprecation. He’s always struggled with his self esteem underneath all that confidence he paraded around with. Deep down, he just wanted to be worth something in anothers eyes.

"It's not silly, not at all." You study him, staring at the slope of his nose down to the shadow of stubble along his jaw. "A lot of people lose their way too like you did, and you found your way back. You're trying and I think that's enough to be proud of, Stevie."

Steve gives you a quick look of shock, blood rushing to his cheeks.

"Thanks." He coughs before the corner of his mouth quirks up. "You're still holding on to that nickname? Jeez, you don't change."

"It reminds me of Fleetwood, it's cute!" You protest.

"Okay, then." He simply laughs.

"The more you hate it, the more I'm going to keep using it."

"Uh huh,"

Rain slammed against the windshield so violently that Steve had to lean forward, squinting his eyes to get a good look at the road. The wipers moved back and forth as the highway stretched ahead, the only thing visible being the headlights illuminating the road and the flashes of lightning in the sky.

Suddenly, the car swerves slightly, making you gasp. Before your brain can process, Steve's arm is bracing against your chest and pushing you back against the seat.