Mily

“Fe-feels too good,” you manage to say, one hand still wrapped around his tie while the other fists the front of his once neat shirt. “I’m gonna—”

The sound of the bathroom door opening reaches your ears, the voices of a few of your colleagues spilling in and Steve was quick to cup his hand over your mouth to stop those pretty whimpers falling from your lips.

But does he stop fucking you with those thick fingers of his? Absolutely not. He wouldn’t dream of it.

His hazel eyes were locked with yours, his palm covering your mouth as he watched the way your brows furrow, the way your face was twisting with pleasure.

Your heart was hammering in your chest, the coil in your lower stomach tightening and tightening with every pump of his fingers, every curl against that spongey soot inside of you that Steve always seemed to find with ease.

“—he’s taking me to that new restaurant that just opened up,” a voice you recognise to be of your co-workers, Lisa, coming from just outside of the stall you and Steve were crammed into. “So I hope this hearing doesn’t drag out so I can rush home and get changed. I’d rather not wear my work clothes out on a date.”

“You look great though,” another voice you don’t quite recognise due to your lust filled haze tells Lisa encouragingly.

“You’re just saying that, Ruth!” Lisa replies with a laugh before the sound of her heels clicking into the stall right next to yours causes Steve to press his palm more firmly over your mouth as he continues the steady, torturous pump of his fingers into your heat.

You shouldn’t be so turned on, you should be pushing him away and remind him you weren’t just in a public bathroom—you were in a bathroom in a damn courthouse. You should tell him it was inappropriate and reckless and stupid. That you both had a hearing to get to in ten minutes. But you don’t, instead you hold onto him tighter and grind yourself against his hand, a silent plea for him not to stop. To keep going as heat like molten lava surged to your core, the coil inside you tightening, threatening to snap.

Steve smiles, biting his wet and swollen bottom lip between his teeth before he leans in to whisper, his breath hot in your ear, “don’t make a sound, baby.”

And then he withdraws his fingers.

You had been so close, so fucking close that you can’t help the small, desperate that escapes you. Thankfully, it was muffled by Steve’s hand that was still covering your mouth.

He tuts quietly, smiling at you in a way that makes your pussy clench around nothing before bringing his fingers coated with your slick to his lips and licking them clean. You watch—utterly transfixed by the way lips wrap around the digits, the way his tongue swirls around them to lick away the wetness he had collected from you.

You felt so turned on that the sound of the toilet flushing from Lisa’s stall did nothing to deter you.

“What’d I say?” He whispers, the sound of your colleagues laughing together at the sinks masking the sound of Steve hastily unbuckling his belt, of you whimpering against his palm at the sight of his cock—thick, heavy, the ruddy tip already glistening with pre cum from fucking you with his fingers. “I said—don’t make a sound.”

But it was hard not to when your pussy was aching for him. Thankfully, Steve doesn’t let you wait long.

Steve tugs your skirt up over your hips, pulls your ruined panties to the side before he pushes himself in deep with one thrust that has your eyes rolling back. The stretch of his cock was delicious as always and you were grateful for the loud noise of the hand dryer to cover up your muffled moans.

“Look at you,” Steve husks in your ear, setting a torturous pace from the offset while still being conscious of the wet sounds coming from his cock bullying its way into your pussy. “Letting me fuck you in the fucking court bathroom. You like this, don’t you? Knowing we could get caught? Fuck, you love it. Don’t you, baby?”

Almost each word was punctuated with a deep thrust that caused the fat head of his cock to kiss your cervix and it took everything in you not to moan out.

The sound of your colleagues leaving the bathroom allows you some reprieve, Steve’s hand remains over your mouth but he no longer cares about the noises your bodies make. In fact, he seems to revel in it—the way your cunt was almost crying for him, the way his cock could slip in and out of you seamlessly, the wet noises of your mixed juices filling the stall. It lewd and obscene and it was enough that even he allowed himself some desperate groans to slip from his lips as he fucked you against the wall of the stall.

“Can’t get enough of this,” he grunts as he lifts one of your thighs over his hip to allow himself to fuck his cock into you deeper, causing you to mewl in response. Heat was surging through you, so intense that you felt tears welling up in your eyes. “Can’t get enough of this pussy. Of you. Shit—you’re squeezing me so tight. Like you don’t want me to leave. Are you going to—”

You had no way to warn him, no way to tell him you were seconds away from tipping over the edge but the slight tug at his tie, the wild look in your eyes was enough for him to take the hint.

“That’s it, baby. Come for me, pretty girl. Come all over my cock, that’s it.”

And you do—with an orgasm that hits you like a damn tidal wave. It was the sort of orgasm that you felt in every cell throughout your body, the sort of one you felt from head to toe. It was so intense that you may have collapsed from the intensity of it if Steve hadn’t had such a tight hold on you. Your pussy gushes around him, your release completely soaking his cock and it was that—your essence dripping down, right onto his balls—that made him tip over the edge right after you.

Steve came with a groan of your name that he muffled by him sucking at the skin of your neck. You feel his cock twitch inside of you before he paints your walls white with hot spurts of his come, his hips still thrusting as he fucked his release into your spent pussy.

“Take it,” he murmurs against your neck, his lips against your skin sending a jolt through you. “Take it all, baby. Stand in front of the judge while you’re full of my cum. Let the whole damn courtroom know how good of a girl you are for taking every last drop.”

He finally releases his hand from over your mouth so that he could swallow your whimpers with his lips in a searing kiss, his thrusts finally coming to a stop so that he could pull out his softening cock.

You can’t help but whimper at the loss but Steve doesn’t leave you empty for long, two fingers replacing his cock so that he could continue to fuck it into you, the sound so obsence that you were grateful for the empty bathroom.

“Good girl, baby,” he murmurs against your lips, a final pump of his fingers before he withdraws them completely, pulling your panties back in place with a loud snap.

You readjust your skirt back over your hips with hands that shook slightly, smoothed down your blouse and your hair before you looked back at Steve, who was tucking himself back into his boxers.

“I’ll see you later, yeah?” You say, still a little breathless as grab your blazer and workbag from the hook on the door of the stall. 

“Yeah,” Steve smiles back at you like he hadn’t just fucked your brains out. “Later.”

You smile back at him before you carefully and quietly leave the stall. You quickly check your reflection in the mirror before leaving the courthouse bathroom, hoping that no one had noticed your absence and praying Steve would be subtle when he left the bathroom. It wasn’t often that you and Steve were so reckless but since your little arrangement began over three months ago, you hadn’t been able to resist each other for more than a few days. And so—when you found out that you both had hearings in court today, you couldn’t resist.

You can still feel Steve’s cum, flooding from your cunt and into your panties as you make your way to courtroom five. The thought of his release remaining there throughout the course of the hearing made heat course through you. There was a part of you that wanted to head right back to that bathroom and beg him to fuck you again and again and again. But the sight of Lisa waiting for you outside the courtroom stopped you.

“Ready?” She asks, seemingly completely unaware of where you had been for the past fifteen minutes.

You nod, leaving any thought of Steve Harrington at the door as you head inside. Because nothing—absolutely nothing—could throw you off doing your job and doing it well.

The courtroom was quiet, the way it always was. You have grown accustomed to it over the years. You were used to being able to hear your client breathing heavily beside you, the scratch of the journalist’s pens, the defence shifting in their seats.

Today, you and Lisa were representing your client to discuss their bail conditions. In theory, it should be straightforward. You expected you’d be out of court within the next hour or so.

You glance towards the district attorney’s table but see it was empty.

“Reckon they’re having a late lunch?” You whisper to Lisa with a small smile.

“Probably,” she whispers back as you approach the defence table, greeting your client before taking a seat.

You pull out your notebook, taking the few minutes you had before the judge arrived to look over the bail conditions you had proposed. The sound of the courtroom door opening doesn’t even really register. Not until someone clears their throat right in front of you.

“Sorry,” you say, smoothing down your shirt before you look up. “I was just—”

But at the sight of the man in front of you—you freeze. For the first time in your professional career. You freeze.

Because the man standing in front of you was the same man whose cum was still inside of you. The same man who had fucked you stupid in the courthouse bathroom. The same man you had been secretly fucking for the past three months.

District attorney—Steve fucking Harrington.

As the bailiffs announced the arrival of the judge, you stood on shaking legs.

And as you felt a dribble of Steve’s cum leak out of you, you realise that you were fucked. You were completely and utterly fucked.

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You knew you shouldn’t help. 

You had chronic problem of always bending to people’s commands. 

But it was your best friend. 

And he was sitting there at your dining table with those big eyes, pleading. 

“I swear, it’s only for a few hours. And look, I know three of me can be a little much so if you get sick of us you can just…Eek.” He held his hand out, mimicking a car peeling away as he made the high pitched noise. Like every time you hung out with Teacake, you found yourself smiling way too hard at this man’s stupid jokes. You loved him, spent everyday with him, thought about messaging him at literally any minor inconvenience in your life, and he always found a way to cheer you up.If anything, he knew your chronic problem of helping too much all too well. That’s how he ended up in this situation. 

You owed him didn’t you? 

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At exactly 5pm the next day, a clean shaven Teacake arrived at your door, and you weren’t even ready. His parents’ house was an hour away and even though you only had to be there at 7, he was clearly anxious about the whole thing. 

Well, he had to be to ask you to pretend to be his girlfriend. Things with his parents were a little strained and this was the first time he was seeing them since his prison stint. He needed everything in his arsenal to impress them and apparently him dating “good people” was sure to help with that.

“Hiya.” He did his best to smile when you opened the door, but you could see he was practically shaking. 

Your eyes immediately blew wide as you observed his outfit.  “Tea, I love you, but that’s what you’re wearing?” He looked down to himself. He was dressed in a pair of jeans and a long sleeve under a tee. That was all fine. The problem was the jacket he was wearing on top — a black zip up with the little white logo to Atchison Storage on the front. 

“Well I thought…” He scratched his head. “Thought I could prove to ‘em I had a job.” 

You chuckled, pulling him inside. “Think they’ll believe you if you just tell them. C’mon.” 

You guided him to your bedroom, which looked like it had be ransacked with the amount of clothes everywhere. Teacake’s arrival had ironically interrupted your own crisis about what to wear tonight, knowing very little about the Meachams and what they cared about. “Woah.” Teacake chuckled, observing the mess as you headed straight for your closet. 

“Yeah, you’re not the only one having a hard time with what to wear.” You said, sorting through the section of your closet that you’d deemed ‘Teacake’s corner.’ Working night shifts left him constantly exhausted, and your house was so close to the storage facility that between work and hanging out with you, he tended to crash here a lot. Teacake being Teacake somehow managed to always leave some item of clothing behind, and every time you texted him he would say “Oh, I’ll get it next time I’m over.” Next time he was over, the two of you would be so caught up in your conversation that the thought would escape your minds. So slowly, a collection started gathering in your closet. You fished out one of the jackets he’d left at your house almost a year ago now and turned to where he was sitting on the bed, absentmindedly sorting through your clothes.

“Here.” You both said in unison, holding out a piece of clothing to the other. Both of you couldn’t help but laugh as you took what the other gave you. 

Teacake had handed you a dress that you hadn’t worn in so long, you honestly forgot you owned it. You really were going to have to do some spring cleaning, you thought. “Always like when you wear that.” Teacake pulled his jacket on, the awkward compliment hanging in the air. 

Ok, maybe you could keep this dress though. 

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“Do I look ok?” Teacake turned to you, bouncing on the balls of his feet as the two of you stood on his parents’ front porch. You did a once over of him and nodded. “Are ya sure? Maybe my hair’s-”

“Dude.” You grabbed his hands where he was trying to fix up his hair. “It’s gonna be just fine. Just breathe.” You gave his hands a small squeeze in reassurance and he stilled a little bit. 

“Just fine?” He muttered.

“Just fine.”

To that, he gave you a small smile, and turned to the door. “Ok.” And with a deep breath, he reached forward, knocking on the door. 

Inside, the living room went quiet. Then, there was the shuffling of bodies. Through the warped glass of the door, you saw two figures arrive. The whole process was making you just as nervous as Teacake. 

And yet, the moment the door opened, you were greeted with two of the biggest smiles ever. 

“Travis!” His mother greeted, arms around the boy, pulling him into a tight hug. “Oh honey, have you been eating enough? You need some meat on these bones.” Before he could even respond, she was moving onto hugging you. “Oh, you must be the girl he’s been telling us about.” She pulled back to take you in. “Just as pretty as he always said.”

“Oh! Thank-” Another pair of arms were around you before you could finish your sentence. Teacake’s father gave you a hug so familiar, you began to question if you had somehow met before and you just couldn’t remember. 

“What’s this?” He asked, pointing to the small gift bag in your hand as he pulled back. 

“Just a small somethin’.” You handed them the bag, containing the ice cream and biscuits you’d bought for them. Your own parents had taught you the life long rule of ‘Never go to someone’s house empty handed,’ and it always paid off. You watched as they smiled and thanked you with far too much gratefulness for something so small, ushering the two of you inside the house. As you stepped, Teacake reached for your hand again, giving it another squeeze. You immediately squeezed back. 

If you thought Teacake talked too much (you didn’t, you loved hearing him talk), then his parents were a whole other story.

From the moment, you entered they were rushing questions in your direction and responding to your answers with equally long tangents to the ones you were used to from the man sitting next to you. It was never rude, just excited. What was Teacake’s job like? What was yours? How on earth did you two find time to be together with your work schedules? When did you meet? How? And the list when on and on and on. You did your best to answer, and despite the fact that you were here based on a complete lie, never once did you have to lie when answering any of their questions. You and Teacake where in each other’s lives so much, you may as well have been dating. You dropped your fork the moment the thought struck you. 

“You ok?” Teacake immediately turned, eyebrows threading together in concern. You shook your head, ducking under the table to grab it. You paused, willing yourself to get your shit together and not think such stupid thoughts. Before you could get yourself up again, Teacake was ducking under the table after you. “You sure you’re good?” He whispered. 

“Yeah, yeah, just a little clumsy.” You chuckled.

Teacake didn’t seem to believe you but nodded anyway. “Remember…” He imitated the car peeling away again and you had to smile. “Love ya for helping me with this, by the way.” 

Your smile flickered onto your face. “Love you too.”  

The rest of the night went smoothly, if not for that thought popping up in your head every so often, but you shoved it down, instead watching as Teacake nervously explained how hard he was working to keep his new place and you nodded along proudly. Again, not a single bit of that was fake. As the plates began to empty, you felt relief washing over you, sure that you would soon be in the clear to forget this whole night, but that was not the case.

As Mrs Meacham talked about the first apartment she ever lived in, you couldn’t stop the yawn that slipped out. “Oh, sorry, we boring you, dear? Know we can talk a little too much.” Mrs Meacham chuckled awkwardly. 

“No! No, nothing like that.” You immediately jumped in your seat. “Just tired.” Pretending to be Teacake’s girlfriend was a lot more exhausting than you thought it would be and you weren’t quite sure why. 

“Well, why don’t you two stay over tonight?” Mr Meacham chimed in. You almost choked on your food. “You came all this way, it’s late. Travis’ room still has the bed.”

This time, Teacake choked. “No, Dad, we don’t wanna be a bother. If we stay then you got to clean the room, and we don’t even have clothes to change into.”

“Oh, it’s nothing!” Mrs Meacham was pushing out of her chair before you could protest. “Let me go check everything’s ready.” 

Your heart began to pound. Spending the night. In Teacake’s childhood room. Together. Yeah, he was your best friend but this seemed like a crossing a line you weren’t ready to cross. Well by the look on Teacake’s face, he certainly wasn’t. You ignored the way your face was warming up, turning to Mr Meacham. “Seriously, there’s no-”

“Honey, we’re not ignorant. It’s ok if you two share a bed. Just no funny business.” He winked with a small chuckle. 

“Ha-ha!” Teacake laughed, way too loud and way too awkward. You meekly joined though there was nothing funny about the situation. You wanted to die right then and there.  

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You and Teacake stared at the double bed in front of you, lost on your next move. 

Yeah, he had slept over at yours plenty of times, but that was on the couch or on your bed if you weren’t home. Sure, sometimes when you crawled into your sheets after he’d stayed over, you would smell his cheap cologne and imagine sleeping next to him but that was just your wild imagination. And maybe-

“I can take the floor. Not that different to a prison bed.” He was already lying down before you could protest. “Hey! Actually, this is comfier than the prison bunks.” He ran his hand down the plush carpet like he was in heaven. You hated remembering how rough he had it in there, all for something he didn’t even want to do. You remembered visiting him in that jail — the way his eyes were all sunken, and he didn’t speak nearly as much as your Teacake did. You looked at your friend now, lively energy back as he rambled about how he only knew what the bottom bunk felt like and maybe the top one was better and so on and so forth. He had his spark back. 

You stepped over to him, reaching out your arm. “You’re not sleeping on the floor. There’s plenty of space for both of us.” You saw his face melt a little, like he wasn’t used to being afforded little niceties like that. He reached out, taking hold of your arm. You felt your heart leap out of your chest when you saw the way his veins were defined along his snake tattoo as he gripped onto you. So distracted by the sight, you didn’t even realize that Teacake wasn’t trying to stand up until it was too late. 

He looked at you — a devious smirk on his face — and pulled. 

“Teacake!” You yelped as you fell forward, landing practically on top of him. Your nose bumped his chin as you tried to straighten yourself. And for a moment, you paused — your body hovering above his, face so close you could feel his breath. One tiny movement and you could k-

“Everything ok?” Mrs Meacham’s voice called from the living room, slicing through the tension. You slid off him but when you went to stand, his arm gripped tight to yours, keeping you on the ground.

“Yeah, Mom! All good!” He shouted back, acting like you weren’t basically cuddling on the floor of his childhood bedroom. 

He turned his attention back to you, in a look that almost said “Where were we?” But you had to be dreaming. You blinked your eyes, pushing the thought back. “Your parents are really nice, Teacake.” You observed, still confused as to why he’d even invited you here. The way he was nervous, you imagined that they were a couple of judgemental assholes. 

Teacake sighed. “Yeah. Sometimes I think they’re too nice.”

You noticed the way he ducked his head, the bleach blonde strands falling in front of his eyes so you couldn’t see them properly. “What do you mean?” 

“I just think about all the shit they did f’ me. Like, when I was little too, I’d get into so much trouble, and they would always tell me they just wanted me to do better and shit.” It sounded sweet, but his distant eyes told you otherwise. “And after all that, I still manage to end up in prison cause of fuckin’ Hazy Davy.”

“Hazy Davy’s an idiot.” You reminded him, anger bubbling in your veins at just the mention of the name that got him into this mess. 

“Yeah, well I’m the idiot for doing what he asked. I can do what everyone else in the world wants me to but not what my parents want.” You could see how much the guilt was eating him alive. It must’ve been for a long time. “I know they love me but they kind of have to right? Then I went and did that and they didn’t visit me in prison. I don’t blame them either. Who would want to see their disappointment of a son rottin’ in a jail cell?”  

“Travis…” Your heart broke hearing him talk about himself like that. Whenever you were in a bad mood, Teacake always noticed instantly and cheered you up like that. You couldn’t believe you had no idea he’d been thinking this way about himself for who knows how long and you had nothing. 

“Fuck, man. I just wanted to prove to them I had my shit together but, I’m not sure I'll ever be able to make up for that.” You chewed your lip, trying to find the right words to comfort him. But you had nothing. No words could express how sorry you were, or make him see how wrong he was about all of it. He made a mistake, but that didn’t define who he was. No, to you, Travis Meacham was anything but that night and that robbery. He was the long drives to nowhere in particular so you’d have an excuse to talk. The times you’d casually accompany each other to mundane chores for the sake of it. The night of your birthday, skipping work to bring you shitty takeout and do bad karaoke. That corner in your closet reserved just for him. That corner in your mind too. Travis Meacham was the greatest source of sunshine in your life, and nothing — not even the actual sun — could beat him. But you didn’t exactly know how to say at all that. 

So you kissed him. 

Teacake made a small noise of surprise against your lips, but just as quickly, melted. His hands came to your cheeks, lips moving against yours with a perfect familiarity as if you’d done this before. In your mind, you had. He held onto you with a firm grip, like this moment would vanish the second you moved. But you both knew this wasn’t something to forget. Finally, you broke away for air. 

Teacake blinked, in total shock. “Holy shit, dude- I mean, not dude. Uh, what do I- Wait, was that like some spur of the moment pity kiss or…”

“No, dude.”

You saw the tension in his body relax a little, his lopsided smile replacing the shock. He let out a disbelieving laugh. “I didn’t want to uh…ruin what we had.” He gently stroked his thumb where it was still on your cheek. “But shit, you have no idea how long I’ve been wanting you to do that.” 

“I think I have some idea.” You admitted, and his eyes blew wide. 

“Really? You were waiting…for me?”

You snorted. God, he really could be an idiot sometimes. “Yeah, for you!” You swatted lightly at his chest. He smiled again, a full one this time, and pulled your lips back to his. 

As they connected yet again, you felt a weight lift off your shoulders. No more skirting around feelings and keeping the things you most wanted to say at bay. You could actually show the boy you loved how much you loved him. Teacake was just as eager, the kiss quickly growing deeper as his fingers danced and along your body. The desperation in you was growing as he slid one hand along your thigh, under the hem of your dress. 

“Tea…” You breathed as his lips latched onto your neck. “Here?” 

“Wish I could be patient.” He pulled you into his lap so you were straddling him. “But I’ve waited so goddamn long for this.” He sighed, his fingers tracing up the sides of your dress. As his palm came to cup your breast, you let out an airy breath.

“What if your parents hear?”

“Don’t have to do everything.” He continued mouthing at your ear, one hand sliding down to your hip, which was already wriggling impatiently. “Just need a taste o’ ya.” He guided your movement, dragging you slowly against his growing bulge. “Like now.” You did too, so you purposely ground yourself down on him, the friction causing you to let out a soft moan. Teacake lightly slapped a palm over your mouth. “Know I’m the only that usually needs held staying quiet but-” You rolled your hips against him again and his own moan cut off his words. 

You slammed your lips into his, pulling him as close to you as possible as you set an intentional rhythm. It wasn’t slow or careful, just years of desperate buildup that had left you wanting as much as you could get tonight. You pulled away to kiss down his neck in soft little marks. “Why don’t we both agree to shut up?” You whispered into his skin. 

“Alright, yeah.” He sighed, rutting his hips up into you. The sudden movement made you gasp. “But when I get you in my own bed…” He palmed at your breast again, pressing kisses over the skin exposed by your dress. “We’re gonna be so fucking loud.” You shuddered at the thought of the two of you together, finally.

“Travis…” You whined, the pace of your hips getting faster, the feeling of the rough denim through the cotton all too good. But not enough. “Need you so fucking bad.”

“Me too, baby. Me…too.” He was becoming a total mess, and honestly so were you. You had to hold back tonight and it was making everything worse and better at the same time. “Swear you make me a fucking mess.” The words made your stomach coil tighter as you gripped onto him tighter. “Had so many dreams of us doing this. Well, not this but-”

“Tea, I’m gonna-”

“Yeah, come on. Come for me, baby.” He squeezed your hips, encouraging as you chased your high. 

It hit, and you buried your sounds of satisfaction into his neck as best as you could. Travis rutted his hips into you a few more times and then he was following right after, doing everything in his power not to be loud. You stayed there, his arms wrapped around your back, your head buried in his skin. Just breathing. The night had been one that was long overdue, and you were glad to confront the feelings that had been brewing in you for a long time.

“Travis…” You pulled back, so you could look him in the eye. “You know I love you right?”

He stared at you, confused why you were so seriously stating the thing you said to him almost everyday. “Yeah, ‘course I know-”

“No I don't mean ‘you’re my best friend, I love you,’ I mean I love love you.” 

Teacake’s smile grew slowly over his face, as he brushed his fingers gently over your lips. He leaned in, the kiss a sweet promise pecked onto your lips. 

“I love love you too.” 

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Steve had never imagined himself having to live with a roommate, especially a woman that wasn’t his significant other, but coaching and teaching sex-ed to a bunch of middle schoolers didn’t pay shit, and he couldn’t stand living with his parents anymore. So when one of the few people besides him out of the rag-tag group of people he called friends that had stayed in Hawkins mentions something about getting a place together he figures– why not? 

He’d known you for years, had experienced too many near death experiences with you, and he also knew you were looking for any excuse to get out of the damn near slum of an apartment you were living in then. So, on a bright sunny Saturday morning in April the two of you sign the lease for what has now been your home for a little over a year. 

Living with each other was a lot easier than either of you thought it was going to be. Shared chore lists, weekly movie nights, eating dinner together, learning each other’s little quirks– it was all very domestic.

So domestic that sometimes your lines of reality and fantasy blurred and sometimes you’d have to remind yourself that Steve was not your boyfriend and just your best friend. Which usually happened a couple times a month when he’d casually mention that he had a date and so you’d be the good roommate you are and let him have his alone time and then the following week you’d just so happen to have a date also. 

Which is how you’ve ended up with Eric breathing heavily into your ear as he pounds into you with such a hurry that you think maybe he wants this to be over with faster than you do. Your bedframe repeatedly hits the wall as you count the ceiling tiles above you and it’s not until you hear him groan something along the lines of i’m cumming that you let out a fake gasp and then he’s rolling off of you without as much as a second glance. 

He says he’ll call you tomorrow. 

You know he more than likely won’t and that’s more than fine with you. 

Steve strolls through the door near midnight, figuring thats plenty enough time for you two to do whatever, and for the guy to leave without there being any awkward introductions. Thankfully he’s right and he’s greeted with you sitting on the couch, freshly showered and in your pajamas, with what he can only assume is your leftovers from dinner in your lap. 

He plops down onto the couch beside you with a sigh and you immediately shove the styrofoam container of lasagna towards him. “Want some? It’s from Enzo’s.” 

“Enzo’s?” Steve questions, eyebrows raised in surprise. “He must have really wanted to impress you,” he states, grabbing the fork and shoving a piece in his mouth without a second thought. “Did it work?” 

“No,” you reply, taking the fork back from him and splitting what’s left down the middle for the two of you to share. “Should have ended the date after dinner was over.” 

Steve doesn’t say anything, but he knows what you’re alluding to, and he just nods understandingly at you as he takes his turn with the fork. The two of you didn’t necessarily talk about your sex lives, it was implied when either of you had mentioned going on a date and that you needed the apartment to yourself, but neither of you sat here and talked in detail about the latest orgasm you’d had, but if Steve had any inkling, he was pretty sure the guys you brought home weren’t giving you any. 

The thing about your unspoken agreement with Steve about dates and bringing people home was that it wasn’t fool proof. Sometimes the two of you would go out without any expectations of bringing someone home. Then one thing leads to another and suddenly there’s someone trailing in behind either of you and the sound of a bedroom door slamming. It didn’t happen often enough to where it would be an issue, but it happened enough that Steve, while he wasn’t trying to be a creep, was being observant and had seemed to notice the lack of noise from you. 

He’d quickly put on music when he’d hear the sound of your drunken giggles echoing down the hall and then a much deeper voice accompanying yours, but the times when you come home long after he’d gone to bed and you end up waking him up with your loud footsteps and hushes to the mystery man– those times he shamelessly listens.

It seems to be the same variation of sounds and actions every time– the guy trying to be all suave with you, your headboard hitting the wall in rapid succession for a short amount of time, some curses from the guy, and then the sound of the front door slamming shut. Not a single peep out of you the whole time and at first Steve thinks you’re just being considerate, that you’d made the decision to bring someone home while he was here so you’re just being extra quiet, but he also knows that sometimes no matter how hard you try, staying quiet during sex is sometimes impossible.

He figures you’re bound to slip up after a while and he’ll hear a moan or a little dirty talk bleed through the walls, but it never does, except for that one guy you brought home that would not stop with the dirty talk and kept asking you who’s pussy this was. Needless to say Steve ended up putting on music that night. 

And not to toot his own horn, but he knew what it sounded like when a woman was experiencing pleasure, and from what he could tell those guys weren’t getting you off. While he can’t account for the times he isn’t in the apartment, he can tell from your demeanor when he comes home that those times aren’t particularly stellar either. 

Your less than blissed out state as you sit next to him on the couch, sharing your leftover lasagna with him, it proves his point. 

But Steve doesn’t say anything about your lack of post sex glow and how these guys should make it their priority to make you feel good. He doesn’t want to overstep, doesn’t want to cross any lines and potentially make things weird between the two of you, even if he’s a little more concerned with how other guys are treating you in bed than he should be. 

Instead he takes the last bite of his portion of the lasagna and extends an olive branch, an out if you ever needed it, because again he cares about you more than he should. 

“You know if you’re on a date and he’s weird or making you uncomfortable or even if you just want to come home– you can call me. No questions asked, I'll come get you. I’m almost always at Eddie’s or at Slinky’s having a beer.” 

You give him a soft smile, trying to ignore the way his words make your heart do a traitorous thing, like the idea of him being willing to drive across town to come and take you home doesn’t make whatever you feel towards him that much more complicated. 

“Thanks Steve,” you reply, eyes focused on the little bit of lasagna left instead of him. 

“Of course,” he responds, slowly standing up from the couch. “Think I’m gonna go to bed,” his eyes traipse over you, waiting for you to look up at him, and when you finally do he smiles in that endearing way that makes your chest ache. “Goodnight.” 

“Night.” 

You hear his bedroom door close and you’re left sitting on the couch with the now empty takeout container in your lap wondering how much longer you can go on with this act. How much longer can you continue to bring home these guys that don’t know your clit from your nipple and act like the man you actually want isn’t thirty feet away. 

You always get in your head like this afterwards, especially when Steve comes home and you’re absolutely buzzing on the inside with want, but the one thing you want– you can’t have. 

The couch creaks under you as you get up and make the decision to leave the takeout container on the coffee table, claiming you’ll take care of it in the morning. As you pad down the hall and past Steve’s room you hear his muffled voice behind his door and you’re not meaning to eavesdrop, but the sickeningly sweet tone that bleeds out under the door has you frozen in place. 

“Yeah, yeah– I know it’s late and I’m sorry, but I just couldn’t get you out of my mind.” 

“Your number was burning a hole in my pocket from the moment you gave it to me tonight. I couldn't wait to hear your voice again.” 

“I had a really good time tonight and I’d like to see you again if you’re up for it?” 

“Yeah? Great. How about dinner next Friday?” 

“Can’t wait. I’ll call you later with the details.” 

That all too familiar sinking sensation settles deep in your gut and before Steve can figure out you were listening you dart across the hall and into your room. The door slams shut behind you with no regard for the pictures on your wall and before you know it you’re burying your face into your pillow. He’d met someone while he was out tonight and you know you have absolutely no room to talk, no leg to stand on when it came to however you were feeling, you’d been on a date tonight, brought a guy home and had sex, if you could call it that. 

Steve was allowed to do whatever he wanted to, and you knew that, it’s just that you don’t think you can handle another failed date on your end to fill that ache in your heart. 

The next morning you take the initiative to call Eric before he doesn’t and the second date is set for Saturday. 

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

A couple weeks later you manage to score a day off during the week, which meant you had the apartment to yourself.

Steve had thought it was weird how eager you were to send him off to work this morning, in fact majority of the time when you manage to get a day off during the week you’re begging him to play hooky and spend the day with you, but this morning you were nearly pushing him out the door.

He tried not to think too much of it, maybe you just wanted some alone time, or maybe you were inviting Eric over. He had spent the night the last time you went out, which Steve thought was strange, considering you never let guys sleep over, but the mid breakfast meeting between the two men had been interesting to say the least. 

As you walked into the kitchen that morning you found Steve sitting at the little table eating his food with your plate across from him– eggs made just how you like, orange juice in your favorite cup, and toast still hot to the touch. It wasn’t an unusual sight by any means, but what was unusual was you having company in the morning. So he doesn’t even think to make sure you’re alone when he hears you enter the kitchen, eyes not even looking up from his plate, before he blurts out – was he any better this time?

Eric awkwardly clears his throat from behind you and Steve looks up wide-eyed and slightly embarrassed. Before Steve can even begin to spit out an apology Eric mumbles I should get going and it’s an awkward thirty seconds as he gathers his jacket from your room and walks out the front door, because you don’t even try to get him to stay and Steve continues eating his eggs, now content with the departure of the man from your shared apartment. 

Steve figured after that debacle there was no way Eric would be back around, but if he knew Steve wasn’t going to be there today, well there was a chance, and it bothers Steve more than he’d like to admit. Either way though, Steve was going to find out what was going on back at home, because by the time second period rolled around he realized he’d forgotten his change of clothes for baseball practice tonight. There was no way he was going to be out there on that field in slacks and tie, especially when in true Indiana fashion, summer had arrived early and it was sweltering already in May. He’d just run home on his lunch break and grab some clothes and be right back– no big deal. 

He’d even called you before he left to give you a heads up that he was coming home soon, but there was no answer, and so he thinks that maybe his little spiral over Eric potentially being there was for nothing and you probably were out shopping. 

When his pickup truck pulls into his unofficially assigned parking spot at home and your black sedan is in its usual spot next to his– his mind conjures up a million different reasons as to why you hadn’t answered the phone earlier. None of them are good and frankly majority of them involve Eric and he chooses to ignore the alarms going off in his head about how he shouldn’t care this much about you fucking another guy. 

His eyes do a quick sweep of the parking lot, he doesn’t know what Eric drives, so he really doesn’t even know what he’s looking for, but Steve feels like he has crazy intuition and he’s expecting the vehicle to glow like a fucking beacon the second his eyes land on it. 

The search is of course futile. 

His wristwatch lets him know he only has twenty minutes left until he needs to be back at the school and with the hope of not walking through the front door to find Eric balls deep in you– Steve reluctantly gets out of the truck and walks towards apartment 4B. 

For the first time ever in his life– Steve knocks on his own front door. Not because he’s forgotten his key, but because he’s afraid of what might be going down on the other side of this couple inches of wood.. He gives it a minute and when there’s no response or the sound of two people scrambling to get dressed, he shoves his key in the lock and slowly opens the door. 

The living room comes into view as the door fully swings open and to Steve’s surprise it’s exactly as he remembers it when he left this morning– your favorite blanket draped over the back of the couch, his glasses that he claims he doesn’t need on the coffee table, and some of the various VHS tapes that Steve had nabbed back from his Family Video days in a pile on the side table. 

The apartment is eerily quiet save for the hum of the refrigerator and Steve comes to the conclusion that one of your friends has come and picked you up, because when you’re home it’s obvious. There’s always music playing or the TV is loudly playing some show you aren’t even watching– your presence is always known and right now all that lingers is reminders of you. 

He doesn’t think much more of it as he wanders down the hall and towards his room, but the sound that bounces off your four walls and through your door has Steve stunned and his feet cemented to the floor. 

“Oh my god!” 

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

From the moment you woke up this morning you’d been buzzing with anticipation, finally having the apartment to yourself in god knows how long, the new toy you’d picked up the other day burning a hole in your bedside drawer, and the fact that you haven’t had a good orgasm in ages– it had you wound tighter than a drum. 

It didn’t help that you’d slightly been edging yourself all morning, refusing to touch yourself, but constantly thinking about how good it was going to feel once you did. You could have jumped right into your bed and shoved your hand down your pants as soon as Steve left this morning, but this was more fun, and you knew the payoff for waiting would be worth it. 

It’s not until you find yourself squeezing your thighs together as you fold laundry that you finally cave. 

You grab your new vibrator from the drawer and get comfy on your bed as your heart nearly beats out of your chest from how worked up you are without even touching yourself yet. You’re still in your pajamas, a big t-shirt and shorts, but you keep them on to tease yourself just a little longer. The feeling of your fingertips tracing antagonizingly slow circles around your nipples through your thin t-shirt has a steady warmth spreading through your body and the ache between your plush thighs that much stronger. 

While your left hand still gives your nipples the attention they so desperately crave, your right travels down past your navel and in between your thighs. Your sleep shorts are thin and perhaps you hadn’t put any underwear on last night when you went to bed and maybe the ragged seam had been rubbing up against your clit all morning and maybe you did it on purpose so that when you finally caved just the slightest touch to yourself would have you gasping. 

Which is exactly what happens when your index and middle finger press down against your clothed core and the seam of your shorts rubs against that sensitive bundle of nerves. It feels so good and god you want nothing more than to just go crazy and bring yourself over the edge, but you’ve been so patient, and you’ve got all day to play with yourself. 

So why ruin the fun so prematurely? 

You start slow, the pads of your fingers rubbing small circles over the fabric while your other hand, that is now slipped under your shirt, pinches and gently tugs at your nipples, the both of them working in tandem. The warmth that radiates through you is intoxicating and it doesn’t shock you to feel the cotton of your shorts dampening in record time. You’d been working yourself up all morning and when your hand finally trails under the waistband of your shorts it’s a little obscene just how wet you are. 

Your shorts quickly get discarded, haphazardly thrown onto your floor, and then your shirt gets bunched up just enough to expose your tits to the cool air. The anticipation is burning through you like a wildfire and the only way to smother it is to make yourself come. 

Which is something you planned on doing– multiple times. 

Soft moans slip past your lips as your fingers rub tight little circles on your clit and as your eyes flutter closed your mind wanders to the one thing that you know will only amplify your pleasure.

Steve. 

You’d imagined one too many times, what it would be like to be the girl moaning underneath him, how it would feel to have his big warm hands caressing your body, to have him showering you in compliments and praises. 

Your fingers trail through your folds and down to your sopping wet cunt, circling the sensitive skin around your entrance with such a slow tortuous pace that it tears a whimper from you, hips bucking forward for something more. You know your fingers aren’t going to give you what you need, but you sink your index and middle finger in anyways, searching for that pleasure that you’ve never been able to give yourself. 

If only you had Steve’s long and thick fingers inside you right now, he’d surely have you grabbing at the sheets as he curled them just right, reaching that spot inside you that had you seeing stars. It wasn’t like you had much experience when it came to getting pleasure from your g-spot, considering the only person to ever find it was the girl you hooked up with last October, but you had confidence that Steve would have no issue. 

Just the idea of Steve pumping his fingers inside your tight cunt, stretching you out as he adds a third, it has you mewling. The squelching sounds of your own fingers pistoning into you fills the room and you could only imagine the dirty comment Steve would make about it. You knew he had a way with his words in the bedroom, you’d shamelessly listen through the walls on those nights when he’d bring home a girl on a whim, and you’d stored away those words for times like these. 

God, you’re so wet for me, aren’t you pretty girl?

You’re soaking my cock baby. 

Gonna make a mess all over my sheets aren’t you? 

But even with Steve’s dirty talk echoing around in your head, your fingers of course aren’t enough to bring you over the edge, and you’re hurriedly reaching for your vibrator, slick fingers fumbling with the button before it comes to life in your palm. 

The second you press it to your swollen clit it seems as if electricity shoots through you, pleasure coursing through every vein in your body, and you’ve never been more thankful to be home alone as you lose all composure. 

“Oh my god!” 

Your eyes are screwed shut, head thrown back against your pillow, and the prettiest sounds continue to slip past your lips as you increase the intensity level on the toy. 

It doesn’t take long at all for that all too familiar feeling to creep up on you, for the warmth that’s started low in your belly to spread throughout your body. When you take your vibrator off your clit and slowly trail it up your body all the way to your nipples and circle each of them with it you swear you lose all ability to breath for a second. 

Your chest heaves as you trail it back down your body and back to the sensitive pearl between your spread legs, increasing the intensity once again, which makes your chest heave even more. You’re teetering on the edge, the coil in your tummy on the verge of snapping, and all you can think about is Steve. 

How it sounded when he’d brought home Amanda a couple weeks ago– which is what had caused Eric to happen– how she’d moaned out his name laced with such pleasure that it made you squeeze your thighs together while you laid in bed. How she’d told him don’t stop and how she unapologetically let everyone know how good she was feeling. There was clearly no need for her to fake it. 

God you wanted to know what it was like to be pleased like that, to be taken care of in such a way by someone else that it had you practically incoherent. 

The bad thing was, you wanted that someone to be Steve, who was unfortunately your roommate and best friend. So, having unholy thoughts about him while you masturbated was just going to have to suffice. 

You click the intensity button once again and that is what finally brings you over the edge and turns you into a babbling mess, legs trembling, free hand clutching so tightly onto the sheets that your fingers cramp. 

“Oh my fucking god. Don’t stop, don’t stop,” you holler, pressing the toy harder against your clit as you ride out your orgasm, wishing it was Steve giving you it instead of this vibrator. “Please don’t stop, please, please.” 

Something mixed with greed and insanity takes over you and you press the intensity button again causing your leg to twitch and your hips to buck upwards, all while the vibrator is still glued to your clit. Your second orgasm crashes in fast, riding on the coattails of your first one, and it hits hard. 

“Oh fuck. Oh my god. Please Ste-”

You bite down on your fist, eyes rolling to the back of your head, all while muffled sobs fill your room. The vibrator gets tossed somewhere, on your bed or floor you aren’t sure, but your legs collapse out from under you and you lay flat on your bed, ears ringing with aftershocks coursing through you. 

On the other side of the door Steve is beside himself, his cheeks are flushed, and the semi he’s sporting is damn near a full erection at this point. He knew he should have swiftly turned around and left the second he realized what was happening, but he couldn’t, not when he’s imagined what you sounded like for some time now. What it sounded like when you were experiencing pleasure, what it sounded like when you came, and what it sounded like when you said his name. 

Alright so maybe he was getting ahead of himself, but Steve swears it sounded like you were about ready to moan his name, and you very well may have been getting ready to stay stop again, but he shamelessly hopes it was his name, because then he wouldn’t feel as dirty knowing you think about him when you touch yourself just like he does with you. 

God, you sounded so pretty though, and Steve can’t believe that those sounds came out of you. The girl who he wouldn’t even know was having sex unless he heard your headboard and the sound of the guy or you in a nonchalant way mentioning that the sex with whoever was shit. 

His heart is nearly beating out of his chest and his dick is achingly hard as he hears you coming down from what he could tell was two back to back orgasms. The way he can still hear little whimpers coming from you as you probably lay there spent, your inner thighs slick with your arousal, nipples still so sensitive and sore from you tugging on them. 

There were a million dirty thoughts swirling around in his head and he should feel ashamed, should feel like a creep for what he’s thinking, what he listened in on, but he doesn’t. He hasn’t for a long time when it came to you and he isn’t sure how he’s supposed to feel about that either. 

Steve’s startled out of his horny moral dilemma by the sound of your bed creaking and before he can get caught he’s swiftly darting into his room, grabbing what might be a dirty cut off t-shirt and shorts, and tip-toeing back down the hall and out the door. 

As soon as the driver’s side door of Steve’s truck slams shut (which is the only way to guarantee it’s actually shut after Dustin fucked around with it by swinging on it like he was five and now it’s never been the same since) he let’s out the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding in as his hands grip the steering wheel with such vigor that his knuckles are stark white. 

He quickly adjusts himself in his slacks, tucking his erection into the waistband of his boxers, and tries to think of anything other than the sound of your pretty little whimpers. His head smacks against the headrest as his cheeks puff up, blowing out yet another deep breath combined with an explicit of some sort. 

Steve takes one last look at the apartment, shoves the key in the ignition, and backs out of his parking space like his whole world hasn’t just flipped upside down. 

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───

It’s nearing seven-thirty by the time Steve trudges in through the front door in his cut off tee and shorts, sweaty and hot, and still thinking about what took place in this said apartment hours earlier. The remainder of the school day had been a slow type of torture he’d not wish upon his worst enemy and then he had to go coach baseball in the sweltering sun like his whole body wasn’t already on fire. 

You had occupied every square inch on his brain since he left the apartment earlier and at times it wasn’t even anything inherently sexual– it was just you. How he loved coming home everyday to you, how you knew what was wrong with him before he did sometimes, how you deserved to be with someone that could take care of you in a multitude of ways. 

And the sight that greets him as he enters your shared home does nothing to eradicate the overwhelming infiltration of you in his mind. You’re standing at the stove, comfy clothes already on, humming along to whatever Fleetwood Mac song is playing on the radio, and the unmistakable smell of his favorite meal wafts towards him. 

You turn around and the sight of Steve standing there startles you, causing you to jump slightly, then let out the prettiest laugh he thinks he’s ever heard, and it makes Steve’s heart do a traitorous thing.

He figured he’d make it all awkward seeing you for the first time after hearing and listening to what you were doing earlier, but it wasn’t the least bit awkward. It was like any other evening, except you were glowing more than usual, smiling at him like he’d personally given you those orgasms earlier and god as unhinged as it sounded he could only imagine what you looked like directly after sex. 

Which now has his dick doing a traitorous thing instead of his heart. 

“Hard practice?” you ask, eyeing how his biceps glisten with sweat and how he’s got his baseball cap on backwards to keep his hair out of his face. 

“Yeah, hot as hell out there today,” Steve replies, trying not to notice how you don’t have a bra on, how the window AC unit that you insist on running on full blast has your nipples poking through the thin cotton. 

“Well,” you start, before turning back to the stove to stir the boiling spaghetti noodles. “You’re in luck because dinner is almost ready and I’ve made your favorite. Should be done in a few, the chicken is broiling in the oven. I’m trying to get the cheese a little crispy just how you like.” 

“I’m gonna go take a shower real quick then.” 

You nod, not bothering to turn back to face him as you stir the sauce. “Alright, I’ll holler when it’s done.” 

Steve hurries down the hall towards the bathroom and quickly strips out of his sweaty practice clothes, making sure to put them in the hamper because he’s not a slob, and then gets in the shower before he loses his mind.

The cold water does nothing to smother the fire that’s ignited low in his gut and he can’t believe you making him god damn chicken parmesan has got his dick hard again. 

He really is a simple guy and the domesticality of it all does more for him than he’d like to admit. 

Steve knows he’s got to do something about his not so little problem and so he lets his mind focus solely on you as he wraps his hand around his aching cock. His fingers gently squeeze around his shaft and on the first upstroke his hips embarrassingly buck into his fist with no control as his head tips back against the shower wall. 

He fucks his fist with no abandon and when his thumb glides over his throbbing tip a broken moan slips out of him, bouncing off the tile and hopefully not out to the kitchen. His head is swarming with you and all he can think about is how pretty you sounded earlier, how he’d never expected you to be so loud, and it only makes him want to see how much louder you can get. 

He thinks about how he’d love nothing more than to thank you for making him his favorite dinner later by going down on you. To thank you for taking such good care of him, because you do without even realizing it, and as much as Steve is a provider, the kind of person that takes care of others because it’s who he is. Sometimes he needs to be taken care of too, and you do it so well that Steve doesn’t even realize he’s being taken care of, and to him that deserves a mind blowing orgasm or two. 

His chest heaves and he has to brace himself against the wall with his other hand as he continues to stroke himself, imagining it was your soft hands wrapped around him right now, and not his callused ones. 

You consume him entirely and he finds himself having to bite down on the bicep of his extended arm to muffle the moans and whimpers that want to come alive and live within the four walls of this tiny bathroom. 

He’s close, he can feel that sweet release sneaking up on him fast, and with one last stroke Steve comes so hard that he nearly draws blood from how hard he’s biting down on his arm, your name and profanities muffled against the tanned muscle. He paints the shower wall with his cum, stroking himself to damn near overstimulation, until he finally slumps against the wall behind him.

Exhaustion creeps in fast and he’s still trying to catch his breath when he hears a knock on the door. 

“Steve! Hurry up! Dinner is getting cold.” 

He swallows hard, heart nearly leaping out of his chest at the idea of you listening in on him like he had you, but he can’t let his mind go any further than that, can’t let you wait any longer. So, he rinses his cum off the tile wall and quickly finishes his shower. 

When he joins you a few minutes later at the tiny table in the kitchen, his hair still dripping wet onto the old Hawkins High Phys Ed shirt he threw on, and you immediately tease him about having to reheat his own food, but then grab the plate anyways and toss it into the microwave for thirty seconds. 

You blinked silently, but accepted with an absence of hesitation, the feeling of Steve's fingers flexing slightly from the contact before his hold embraced yours completely. The beginning notes of 'Heaven - Bryan Adams' began to play softly as he guided you toward an unoccupied space.

His large hand splayed over your hip, introducing a comfortable warmth to seep through your dress. It was a grounding touch, as much of an anchor as the way his fingers slid between yours before holding you with confidence. He wasn't in any way a professional, but Steve swayed you both gently in a small circle, his eyes absent-mindedly dropping to his feet to make sure he wouldn't step on you.

For the first time in a long time, you both felt content.

Steve's lips hovered by the shell of your ear, hilarity riding the tone of his voice, the rumbling from his chest close to pressing against your own, "I'm not much of a dancer, just thought I'd warn ya."

"Thought you were good at everything, Harrington?"

Steve laughed and chuckled, and the hand intertwined with yours offered you a slight squeeze. He had to hold himself back from pulling you completely flush against his front. "Yeah, well, fighting off interdimensional monsters really brings things into perspective."

Your bodies moved slowly, a union that harmonised easily with little thought. It allowed you to release a shaky breath, expelling fear as you instead chose to accept the safety of your new friendship with Steve. The hand that you had placed on his shoulder snuck around his neck, closely followed by the other one, until you were hugging him to you. Your cheek pressed carefully to his chest to revel in the steadiness of his heartbeat. The boy dropped his head, nose against your temple, hugging you back.

Your steps had slowed now as you settled into the feeling of Steve's embrace. He didn't want to scare you - to squeeze so hard that you'd crack, or to speak too loudly that the moment you found yourselves within shattered. He had developed a desperation to keep you protected, and right now, it was by holding you against his chest to shield the outside from invading your thoughts.

And it was as if you could sense it, "Thank you, Steve."

He didn't ask what for, but he had an idea. Your lives had now intersected in a cruel twist of fate, and the unknown hung dangerously over your heads every day. Finding people to band together with was crucial - and he had happened to now be your person, and you were his.

Steve's nose buried against your temple, breathing you in as he tried to slow his heart's pace.

"Anytime."

ⅱ. ʜᴏᴜꜱᴇ ᴘᴀʀᴛʏ; ▶︎•၊၊||၊|။|||||။၊|။• tainted love - soft cell

The strength of the bass made you flutter as it thumped, musical patterns reverberating up from the floor and settling in your chest. You weren't sure whose house Steve had dragged you to on this summery Friday night, but the place was crowded, and the beer was warm. The perfect concoction for letting loose.

He made sure not to stray too far - focus drawn to you and Robin as if second nature by now, whilst he mildly engaged in conversation with someone from your school days. Steve's head nodded in the right places, and his smile showed interest enough, but he still couldn't look away from you. Both of you. Unable to drop his protector status for even a mere moment.

Robin exuded confidence as she settled comfortably into your surroundings, using her energetic nature to ensure a full plastic solo cup always accompanied your palm. You both lost track of the drinks you had had, but Steve was counting them; not to be controlling, no, but because he has unconventionally learnt to be overly observant, to keep an eye out for danger, triggers, walking and talking caution signs.

You could've sworn the music got louder, or the bass had gotten deeper, feeling each note and tune so viscerally. Bone-deep, as if it were a part of you, etched deeply. Robin's mind was lost within a world of her own, quite like yourself, as her body swayed to a beat far from the song blaring across the living room, but her smile was still wide. Though maybe that was because of Vickie Dunne and her inability to look away from your joyous friend, and the longing looks Robin had been throwing back to her all night.

"You should go talk to her," you attempted to say, needing to repeat yourself as Robin peered at you with curiosity. When you spoke louder against the shell of her ear, you could feel the warmth flush her cheeks.

Robin stammered, "I-i mean, yeah, I.. but what about you?"

Although you'd love to think she was purely being caring, you knew your friend well enough to see the deflection, trying to conjure an excuse. Robin was one of the most assured people you know, but at this moment, she had never seemed shyer.

"I'll be fine, promise. better to try now before that liquid courage dries up." You cooed, eyes gesturing over your friend's shoulder. With a comically deep breath and a shake of her head, Robin hyped herself up before you sent her on her way. You watched as she stumbled briefly into a small console table, only to straighten up immediately, all without breaking eye contact with the redhead - and you stood back, thoroughly impressed, but now bored.

And that's when the thought of Steve popped into your head.

He always did, so easily these days. When you had a nonsensical thought, were unsure what to do next, unable to cure the monotony of your day, he would answer your beck and call. Steve was always the solution, and he never let you down.

You could feel his gaze watching over you across the density of the crowd. The room was thick with drunken bodies, much like the air, an almost suffocating atmosphere that you didn't realise until now. You found it difficult to see where Steve was as you stood tiptoed, examining your surroundings. It was as if he knew, however, already making his way to you. Like a magnet. An indescribable force. A taut invisible string.

The scent of his cologne wafted around you before steady hands were placed on your shoulders, a firm chest pressing to your back, a chuckling voice sounding by your ear, "You lookin' f'me?"

Steve could've sworn he stopped breathing as he watched you turn around and smile so wide at him. The excitement of your night mixed with relief to see him as it tugged between your cheeks, igniting a fire behind his ribs. He could stare at you all night if you kept looking at him like, probably even the rest of his life...

"Dance with me." Your declaration broke his thoughts, and Steve blinked back into reality before looking at your dainty hand held out to him. It brought back a memory from a year ago, where you attended somewhere as friends and left as something more intimate and trustworthy. Oh, how far you've both come since then.

"You know I'm not much of a dancer," he replied, his smirk deepening as he watched you prepare a comeback.

A scoff escaped between your lips, arms crossing over your chest. "Please, I've seen Steve 'the hair' Harrington dance at parties before." Your eyes squinted, nose crinkling in the way he loves. He rolled his eyes, pretending to think about it. Still, a crack formed in his teasing as he noticed you biting your lip, "C'mon Steve, I'm buzzed, and I wanna dance with you."

How could he say no when you were looking at him like that? As if he were the only one that mattered in this crowded, stale room. Steve sighed dramatically as his eyes rolled clockwise, fingers easily interlocking with your own as his palm slid against yours. He would be lying if he said that he didn't wish his hand could hold yours forever.

Nothing could wipe the slanted smirk off Steve's lips as he watched you situate yourselves closer to the music, your lips moving as you mouthed the words to the current song, head moving side-to-side rhythmically. You were completely unaware of how cute you looked, and Steve had to draw a deep breath before looking away so that these new thoughts didn't evolve into something else. Something deeper.

The music took control of your body for the umpteenth time that night, hips now swaying, and Steve's hand that you were still holding now lifted above you both as you tried to entice him to join. He rolled his tongue at the gesture before his head began to bob with an accompanying smile that he couldn't bite back. His fingers tightened around yours before tugging you closer, your frame twirling gently under your arms, until you landed in front of him with a palm pressed to his chest.

Steve's smile didn't falter, not in the slightest, but it did soften.

You let him go so that your hands could slide up to his shoulders, finding their home at the back of his neck. Your lip was bitten again, the spot swelling with pink plumpness from the constant harassment of your teeth - and Steve tried not to stare.

"You can put your hands on me. I won't bite." You said, noticing how they had fallen to his sides. It made you giggle, gentle and sweet, when he realised he was stuck in an entrancement. But you moved before he could, your fingers taking hold of his wrists and bringing them to your waist. They flexed against you, tightening, savouring the feeling of your body under his touch.

Your hips were near flush to his now as they kept their momentum. Being so close to Steve brought a different thickness to the air - one that allowed you to breathe more, but you were merely breathing in him. It was like a bubble made just for the two of you, everybody else fading.

The tempo changed as 'Tainted Love - Soft Cell' sang through the speakers nearby, so you turned around, Steve's grip still tight as you twisted until your back was against his chest. You could feel it thumping, fast, hard. His breath quickening. You're not sure if the drinks you had were finally settling, but your mind felt lighter, and you settled among the carefree.

Your body rocked in cadence, and although you couldn't see Steve, you could tell that his hips were following yours like a lost puppy - desperate and dependent on you. The people around you shifted, and he instinctively pulled you closer after his grip dragged to your hips, guiding your movements, controlling how you grazed him. The pace. The pressure.

You could feel a carnal fervour lulling down your neck as Steve breathed. It forced a jagged inhale to gather in your lungs, hitching abruptly, and you didn't expect the beautiful boy behind you to make you feel so stirred. A sudden heat made your skin pebble, and you retreated forward like his presence had burnt you, his hands dropping from your frame. It was as if your bubble had been popped, and you both remembered where you were and who you were with. What you were doing. How it made you feel.

Steve cleared his throat. You looked to your feet.

ⅲ. ʜᴀʀʀɪɴɢᴛᴏɴ ᴋɪᴛᴄʜᴇɴ; ▶︎•၊၊||၊|။|||||။၊|။• centerfold - the j. geils band

Steve couldn't sleep. More accurately, Steve didn't sleep. He was cursed with unforgettable scenes that haunted his mind whenever he closed his eyes. Which is why he preferred to sit within spaces bathed in light when he was alone; scared that the shadows would prey on him when he couldn't see, that they would sink in their claws and refuse to let go.

Three raps against the chipped-red wood of his front door made Steve jump, his mind broken from an exhausted trance. As one normally would, Steve didn't actually become concerned at a late visitor. In fact, he was used to it. He was used to you - and how you too suffered the inability to settle into a sweet slumber, how you would flinch at loud sounds and the creeping inch of darkness.

You didn't need to ask why he opened the door so quickly at one a.m, his living room bright with every globe aglow, your gaze drifting from the space behind him to the tired lines framing his eyes, "You too, huh?"

"Just the norm." He murmured back, a sympathetic smile shaping his lips and softening his eyes. Steve moved to the side so that you could walk inside, your shoes instantly kicked off by the door. He fell easily in step with you as he guided you both toward the kitchen, the room also lit up with nearly enough wattage to require UV-protected sunglasses. It made you squint, but you knew Steve needed it - the reassurance, the lack of shadows.

Steve's hands found solace around a half-drunken mug of tea, the aroma sweet and warm as it filled the space. It was complementary to the gentle hum of the radio on the island bench, and you could see where your friend had been propped up for most of the night as he leaned next to the askew bar stool with an upside down book nearby and a pair of discarded glasses. You didn't know that Steve had taken up reading, but you were sure it was out of boredom or avoidance that had prompted him to raid his father's forgotten stash.

"You want a mug? Kettle's still warm."

His voice drew your attention toward him, thoughts too loud and imposing to consider what he had said, and the furrowed brows you displayed were an indication enough to Steve. He easily recognised that expression of disorientation: astray from reality, stuck in a purgatory between fact and fiction. And it made his chest tighten.

The tender melody emanating from the speakers to his right filled the silence between you. It sounded comfortable - a tune that dared Steve to put down his mug and hold his hand out toward you. His eyes were tired, but they still managed to sparkle, "Dance with me."

It wasn't a question, yet it was neither a demand. It was more of a silent understanding between you both that always ended the same way - your hand slipping against his, and a large, warm hand splayed against your waist.

Steve guided you so that you were situated in front of him, your matching sock-clad feet opposite each other on the brown tiled floor. He desired your full attention, for you to tell him what was bothering you, because he could see that something was. He could tell easily, like a book he's re-read a hundred times. A movie he knows all the words to. A song that had embedded its melody so deeply in his mind.

After all, you were his person. And he was yours. It only made sense.

"Thought you weren't much of a dancer." You hummed, looking down at your socked feet.

His response was quiet as he spoke, scared to break the moment, "For you I am."

Steve slowly swayed as his fingers flexed around yours, the hand on your hip allowing his thumb to rub reassuring circles through your thin sweater. His eyes bored toward your crumbling facial expressions. "Tell me what's wrong." His voice was delicate, yet stern. Careful.

"I'm just tired, Steve - "

"C'mon. You don't need to bullshit with me. You never do."

You had told him that you had trouble sleeping, but you never properly explained why; the visions that controlled your nightmares were now seeping into the daylight and playing when you were awake, and you had been experiencing sporadic and painful headaches.

He would lose his mind if he knew, but he would lose it even more if he didn't.

You drew a deep breath, "The migraines are back, and they're always hurting."

Steve's steps faltered. He became uneasy too quickly. Knowing you were in pain and what it could mean was enough to turn his blood cold. He swallowed back the lump forming in his throat before absentmindedly pulling you closer, your arms instinctivly tangling around the back of his neck as his cheek pressed to your temple.

"You could've said something." He murmured, feeling you hum in agreement against his clavicle.

The song changed on the radio and the kitchen was soon filled with a soft ballad, a toned-down crescendo that bespoke mosaics bounced between four walls. It carried a melody you knew well, and Steve could feel your shoulders ease as you let it engulf you.

It was fitting for this moment - tender and delicate, like the way Steve was holding you, your bodies still swaying despite the minimal space that separated you both.

"This would be my song." Your words were spoken in a barely audible whisper, the confession licking at Steve's collarbone.

His brow quirked when confusion took over, "What do you mean?" Yet he had an idea, and he instantly wished he hadn't asked.

"If Vecna came for me."

"You know damn well I wouldn't let that happen-"

"But it could, Steve. And if it did, it would be this song." Your nose dragged gently by the base of his throat as you repositioned your head, shifting slightly, "I would think of now. This mere moment of peace. And it would bring me back."

Your admission hung like a safeguard, readiness for the unseeable. It made him think of Max, floating high above him, her mind lost. And how he would rather die than ever see you enter a similar fate.

Your fingers fidgeted with the hairs at the nape of his neck, nervous movements from such a serious revelation. The tension was thick but Steve knew that you trusted him with everything you embodied.

"Centerfold."

You pulled back at his word, only enough to see his face as he peered down at you, the corner of his mouth lifting into a smirk.

"By The J. Geils Band. That'd be mine." Steve confessed, his smile widening as you began to giggle, chest warming at the sight of you happy.

"Homeroom angel, that'd be your pick? Seriously?"

The boy scoffed before pulling your laughing form closer to him again, smooshing your face into his shirt as your jovality grew louder. There was no point in holding back the pleased grin he wore so well around you; pressing the smile against the crown of your head, the swaying movements you were making now became exaggerated, back and forth as he tossed you playfully.

"Not that we're gonna need 'em, okay? I got you, and I always will." Steve started, slowing once more, embracing you tightly, "And when this is all over, there will be time for us. Just you and me, if... ya know, you'd want something like that."

You didn't waste a second, "I would."

ⅳ. ʜᴏᴘᴘᴇʀ-ʙʏᴇʀꜱ ᴡᴇᴅᴅɪɴɢ; ▶︎•၊၊||၊|။|||||။၊|။• time after time - cyndi lauper

It was odd; standing in a room bathed in pastels and florals, no resemblance to the darkness of any kind, surrounded by the people that you had spent years running toward the light with. Being on high alert for so long still left your bodies trembling at unexpected moments, compelled to always look over your shoulders, to view the world a little differently.

And yet, the party that you eventually built your life around had finally found relative happiness.

They say that some families only come together during weddings or funerals, and thankfully, today was the former. The turnout was small yet familiar and intimate, a perfect setting for the matrimony of Joyce and Hopper. It felt like years in the making; finally expelling into a contented deep breath, an introduction to the rest of everyone's lives, the capability to move forward.

You stood back, listening to the melody of laughter around the room, noting the matching smiles that complemented the serenity. Even after all this time, your gaze still trailed over the kids like a protective caretaker, but you couldn't help the softened grin that pinched up your lips when you saw their eased shoulders and joviality. Finally.

"You're staring." Humour voiced by your ear, the familiar scent of oakmoss and leather notes filling your vicinity. Steve was instant warmth as he settled beside you, his arm now wrapped comfortably around your back as you leaned into his side.

"How can I not? Look at them, our babies are all grown up." You cooed like a reminiscing parent, prompting Steve to chuckle heartily in return. He was the other half of your babysitting madness, earning just as much of a right to gush about those kids as if they were his own. And he often did.

He gently nudged your hand with a cool glass of champagne as he took a sip of his own, eyes dragging back over to you after monitoring the younger party members. Cheeks grew pink when he noticed your bottom lip pinched between your teeth.

"Trying to get me drunk on the first date, Harrington?"

Steve scoffed, completely enamoured, "Maybe I just wanted to make sure my girl was well looked after."

My girl.

The words struck something within you. A chord played just right. It was the first time you heard the sentiment fall from his lips, and you were sure that the warmth travelling up your neck was giving away how taken you were.

The glasses were soon abandoned as guests started to gather around cleared floor space, gentle notes of Cyndi Lauper drifting around Hopper and Joyce as they took their first steps together as a married couple. It was awkward to watch, yet endearing, as Jim Hopper tried to do a bridal waltz before giving up and simply swaying Joyce with all the happiness in the world.

It was then that you felt Steve's hand nudge yours. A touch, a feeling that you could never forget. Calloused and scarred skin mingling with your own. His hold safe, and loving. The floor was declared open, and he wasted no time before standing in front of you, eyebrow cocked, famous smirk shaping his lips.

"Dance with me."

Nothing could ever feel more right in this world than being in Steve Harrington's arms. They fell effortlessly to your lower back before he pulled you close to his chest, your own tangling behind his neck where fingers could lightly play with long brown tufts. Steve's cheek pressed to your temple as you both swayed, the chorus of 'Time After Time' being hummed gently into your hair.

You couldn't help the smile that contorted your facial features - wide lips, a scrunched nose, crinkled eyes. The embodiment of contentedness. A place you never want to leave.

"You know..." Your voice started after a change in song, your nails scratching lightly at Steve's scalp to coax him out of his comfortable trance, "It's pretty ballsy taking a girl to a wedding for a first date."

Steve snorted. As if you weren't already invited. But there was a difference in his tone a few days ago when he brought it to your attention; and asking if you'd go with him, was entirely different to asking if you'd go with him.

"Yeah, well. I've been into taking risks as of late." He sounded in reply, thumbs absently rubbing your hips through your dress. It was then that he pulled back, hazel eyes lidded in what one could only describe as love. His large hands warmed your skin as they slid up your arms, hands capturing your own, and pulling them gently between you both.

Your swaying continued, feet moving around in small steps, before Steve pressed a kiss to each of your knuckles.

"And how is that working out for you?" You asked, eyes remaining on his. Your voice was gentle among the budding crowd, but in the moment, it was just the two of you. No distractions. No intercepts. Just you and Steve.

He had always been a smooth talker, so it took you by surprise when that charm exuded into his movements as Steve suddenly spun you away from him, never once breaking eye contact. A stunned exhale pushed through you after you were pulled back in, your back now pressed to his chest and arms tangled over yours.

He could sense your shock, so he laughed against the shell of your ear before lips trailed down to a spot that he knew would make you sigh, "You wanna know how it's working out?" He whispered into your skin.

You nodded, breathlessly.

Steve placed a kiss. "Unbelievably perfect."

ⅴ. ʟᴏʟʟᴀᴘᴀʟᴏᴏᴢᴀ '92; ▶︎•၊၊||၊|။|||||။၊|။• porch - pearl jam

You thought that Hawkins mid-Summer could be the hottest place on Earth, but nothing prepared you for Cincinnati. Maybe it was the intensity of the sun that cast its warmth ferociously over the festival, or perhaps it was the electrifying energy that surrounded you as you stood within a buzzing swarm of music-lovers.

Either way, it was far from a deterrent for Steve Harrington as he still found every opportunity to place his hands somewhere on your body. Or if his hands had already found refuge, his lips were quick to seek out the next best sliver of skin.

Spirits were high, as were many of the thriving patrons around you. The smile that tugged eagerly between your cheeks was reciprocated easily by your friends as your group stayed close to one another throughout each set. Vickie, at some point, climbed onto Robin's shoulders as their voices boomed with loud joviality to each song, whilst Jonathan captured every moment through his trusty lens, and Nancy moved so freely as she finally let loose.

And then, there was you and Steve. Your voice also carried alongside the crowd, but it began to falter the more you felt Steve's fingers absently fiddle with the shiny band and stone that now graced your left hand. It was an obsession he had - the inability to stop feeling for it, to remind himself of reality, to ground his thoughts and reassure his dreams that he proposed to you and you had said yes.

It had been three months since his knee found the plushy carpet of Enzos. Three months since the speech he had planned for weeks had dispersed because he couldn't stop smiling and crying. Three months since you dropped from your seat, dress crushed as you knelt in front of him, and fell happily into his arms. After all this time, he was still addicted to the thought of you as the future Mrs Harrington.

Hollers and cheers erupted as the large stage ahead sounded a new song; Pearl Jam setting the scene for another track from their new album, before Robin's excitement boomed in your ear when the opening notes of 'Porch' began to play.

The atmosphere was contagious like a fever that couldn't be held down. As one entity, the crowd was moving and singing - a unified moment between thousands of people. It was hard to feel out of place when you were in the middle of such cohesion.

The second you turned to your side, Steve was already looking down at you, the sun reflecting golden flecks from his hazel eyes in a mesmerising moment. It made him appear younger, as if the trouble you had all faced didn't exist within this brief instance of time.

"Dance with me." You said, your smile still worn well and wide.

He snickered, leaning in to peck your sun-kissed cheek before his nose grazed along the warmth. The man hummed in acceptance and smoothly wrapped his arms around your torso, tugging your body back until you felt the hard plane of his chest behind you. You were back in your favourite place, Steve Harrington's embrace, as your hands rubbed over his forearms before your head fell to his shoulder.

Steve guided your bodies from side-to-side. It was a momentum that you knew all too well, ignoring the heat and beading sweat that clung between you both so that you could immerse yourself in all things Steve. His cologne had yet to falter, adhering to his baggy tee and wafting further toward you the more his arms tightened.

You eventually grasped his wrists, wrapping around them with care before pulling them to your sides. It was always so invigorating whenever Steve's large hands splayed against your waist - their size making you feel safe and heated in a conflicted concoction. You craved for him to both protect and tear you apart at the same time. They slipped generously to your hips before his fingers tensed, blunt nails digging into you with calculated strength.

His lips fell next. They found their home below your ear, claiming the expanse of skin down to the base of your throat. Every drag of his tongue professed ownership, only justified by the control he now had as he moved you with his hands - your pace, your position, your pressure.

The festival had become background noise; all that you could focus on was your future husband and the significant devotion of love he had for you.

ⅵ. ʜᴀʀʀɪɴɢᴛᴏɴ ᴡᴇᴅᴅɪɴɢ; ▶︎•၊၊||၊|။|||||။၊|။• more than words - extreme

It had taken ten years in the making for this moment to happen. Bright flashes of light still trigger something within you, and pure darkness is more than enough to haunt - but standing, hand-in-hand, with what you could call your universe and more in a single person had easily rewritten the cruelty of the past. The suffering still existed; however, Steve Harrington's love made the fight and survival absolutely worthwhile.

You wore matching smiles with twin pinched lips, intertwined with devotion and warmth. They paired harmoniously with the two sets of eyes that were still slightly red-rimmed from the jovial tears that ran rapidly. And then, there were the words that were declared not too long ago that continued to sing sweetly in your mind - Husband and Wife. Steve and You. A pairing that outlived monsters and anguish, that sought each other through the dark with fumbling hands, that created their own light instead of waiting for it to come.

Steve's right hand was stubborn, refusing to let go of you. From the moment you two ventured back down the aisle, and through the audience of loving words delivered in toasts from your loved ones, he held you tight as a reminder that this was real. That you were now a constant in his life - like oxygen, and he was desperate to breathe you in and fill his lungs with this stunning promise of forever.

"I love you." His whispered words felt like a tattoo the more he whispered them against your throat, your pulse jumping and the proud turn of his lips grazed skin so stunningly before they pressed yet another kiss below your ear.

Your hand snaked up the side of his head as fingers carted through his hair, slight pressure forming as you made sure to keep his face in that position against you. Steve chuckled, the gentle huffs of breath tickling your skin. You could feel his glasses nudge the underside of your jaw before you turned slightly to smile at him. "I love you, too."

It was perfect. Even more so, when delicate sounds of music began to emit around the reception space.

'More than Words - Extreme' was a song that Steve picked. It was his only must-have requirement for the Wedding you two found yourselves the centre of. He proclaimed it a story that followed you closely, as if your journey together across all these terrifying and beautiful years had been summarised. As if the song itself were a neon arrow, pointing toward this moment of you both wearing matching rings.

He stood from his seat as if the notes were a trigger, hazel eyes widened with hope when he looked to you. You could read him like a book - the way his smirk cocked, how his gaze softened. He'd already encaptured your hand, but the invitation was still laid out. Steve didn't need to ask you aloud, not this time.

"I would love to dance with you. Always." You spoke gently, attempting to hold down the shake that followed your words and the happy tears that threatened to spill.

Steve guided you both to the dedicated space, family and friends watching on with endearment. He positioned his left hand on your hip, thumb already rubbing delicately into your side. His right still holding onto you, never planning on letting go. Your chests were close, and you cupped his cheek before Steve's lips pressed into your palm.

He took the lead.

It was more than a sway this time, more than intimate touches as two bodies moved clockwise. More than wandering hands that burnt with every drag of skin over skin. It was more than a distraction or a promise of safety, a budding romance from years of dancing around feelings rather than just dancing together.

The way he moved with you, and you with him, was a sentiment that vowed beyond longevity. Steve Harrington was holding you as if you were the most delicate thing he had ever touched, whilst also being the one thing that he craved more than life itself.

It was, simply, forever.

You could see the glassiness coat his eyes, contentedness settling so easily now within him. Carefully, your hand dragged up from his cheek to take hold of his glasses, removing them and placing them in his front jacket pocket before the lenses could fog up. He chuckled under his breath as a tear began to fall.

"You know, I'm still not much of a dancer."

You chuckled back, tears of your own falling once again, yet the smile between your cheeks had grown.

"Thought you were good at everything, Harrington?"

Fingers flexed against your hip before they trailed up your side, taking their time to map each curve. They eventually found solace on your back before splaying comfortably, and then he tipped you backwards.

The joyful laugh that pushed through you was Steve's version of angels singing. And he would do whatever, whenever, for the rest of your lives to always hear that noise. He didn't want to interrupt it, but the desperation to kiss you came first, his lips capturing yours as he swallowed your laughter, smiles pressing to one another.

When he pulled you upright, you laughed again, softer but passionate as your crinkled eyes and scrunched nose looked to him. Steve would never understand how you were both his oxygen and the reason for his breathlessness.

"I'm good at a lot of things..." He began, leaning down to brush his nose against yours. The two of you couldn't hear the cheers from the wedding guests; how they gushed and cooed, the way their applause echoed loudly throughout the room. Instead, you were focused on each other. More specifically, the way Steve's lips grazed yours, and the shudder that shook him,

He turns his head to the side, being sure to not disturb Dove while she’s curled against his chest.

1:02 AM. 

Steve lets out a gentle huff, trying to close his eyes again when he starts to feel an itch. He scratches his head, toward the crown but then he realizes it’s not going away. He scratches harder but nothing. He can’t reach the spot. Then his ear starts to ring a little. It’s nothing new, the ringing started after Billy smacked him on the head with a plate. He tries not to bring it up. But now it’s pushing against him. 

It’s weird, like something is trying to get past his brain. Like an unwelcome thought he’s trying to fight, pushing against his conscience. It wants in, and it’s pushing, and for a moment it starts to feel like a migraine but he knows this is different. He shakes his head slightly to make it go away but it doesn’t. 

Then Dove starts breathing faster. Heavier. She digs her nails into the skin of his side, gripping tightly. 

“No, no I don’t want to go, please don’t make me go Mama please,” Dove mumbles out, her lips tickling Steve’s chest as she sleep-talks. 

Steve’s arm, which was gently resting on her back before, curls around her shoulder. He pulls her closer to him, squeezing lightly to help coax her out of the bad dream. It’s second nature, instinctive, for him to protect her. After all the bad dreams and shit they’ve been through, he just does this. Even when she doesn’t know. But he can’t continue his routine of bringing her out of a bad dream when a sharp pain pulses through his head. 

“Ah,” he hisses, both hands going to his head. His brow twitches and eyes pulse. It hurts and he feels the pushing slip through.

“Dovey.” 

Steve’s head snaps over to where the sound came from, but then again he’s not really sure where it’s coming from. It’s more sinister than he thought the voice would be, echoing slightly against his own brain. He’s not sure how or why or what is going on but he doesn’t need to know that. 

He needs to wake Dove up. 

“Baby, baby, hey wake up, wake up,” Steve says, his arm coming up and wrapping around her shoulders, gently shaking her.

She doesn’t move.

“Dove, Dove, come on, wake up, please, please wake up, don’t listen to him.” Steve pleads now, moving her from his chest to lay her down flat on the bed. He’s hovering over her, kneeling awkwardly so he doesn’t crush her. His hands go to her face, squishing her cheeks as he repeats her name over and over and over, shaking her. But then he realizes…her breathings stopped. She’s completely limp, dead weight against the mattress. Dead weight. 

“Dove,” his face pales, a lump in his throat forming. Then he sees it, or rather feels it. His hands holding her face feel a trickle of warm blood coming out of her ears and then he sees it leave her nose. It’s an eerily familiar sight, and makes him want to vomit. 

“No, no, no, hey, no, DOVE!” 

He scoops up her body, pulling her against his chest. This can’t be happening, it can’t. He was right here, how did he not notice? When did she slip into the trance? There was no levitating, no bone snapping. How did he miss it?

His breathing picks up, tears stinging his eyes, as he pushes the hair away from her face. 

“No, baby, come on, you're okay, you’re okay, wake up, yeah? Just wake up!” 

Steve holds her tighter against him when he hears it. 

“She’ll always end up like this,” a voice says from behind him, that scratchy, low register.

Steve doesn’t turn, he doesn’t move from his position on his knees, hugging the only thing that has ever truly been kind to him.

“What did you do to her?” Steve seethes, his chest rising and falling heavily from the tears. 

“Nothing, yet…” the voice changes, one that seems more familiar to Steve, more human. “But this will happen if you don't let her do what she was destined to do.”

Steve still doesn’t turn, he only pulls Doves limp body to his chest more, watching red blood stain her skin. “She’s not destined for shit, you can’t make her do anything!”

“She was made for it, Steven, there is no stopping it, you tried before—“

“No, I won’t let you do this, you are not taking her or Max or anyone else, you asshole!” Steve erupts, head turning slightly so his voice is louder but he still doesn’t look over his shoulder. “You’re done, we’re going to stop you—”

“Let her go, let me in, she was made for this, Steven, you don’t know what you're messing with, let down the barrier—“

“No! Get out!”

Steve jolts awake. The sun is rising, peaking through the windows but enough to illuminate the room to see Dove sleeping peacefully next to him. Alive. Free of blood and that monster. 

6:32 AM. 

Steve’s chest caves in under the breath he lets out, his hand reaching up and wiping his eyes. The pushing against his brain is still there, or rather the trace of it is still there. He’s jumping between whether that was a dream or if he was in a trance like Dove had.

It seems like the latter of the two when the memory doesn’t fade like a dream would now that he’s awake. He remembers every detail and feeling.

Steve finds himself in the bathroom now, cupping cold water before letting it run over his face. 

“This will happen if you don't let her do what she was destined to do.”

What the hell does that mean?

Another splash of water.

“You tried before…”

When? When did he try before? How would he? How could he?

Steve moves back to sit on the edge of the bathtub, his head going into his hands. He wishes he was like Dustin and his brain could organize all these thoughts and theories but they’re a mess in his brain. If it were a library of all his thoughts, half the books would be on the floor, opened and scattered about.

“You’re such a disappointment, Steve.”

That’s a different voice, not the monster from the other dimension, but the one from his life. His father’s voice booms again in his head, repeating the phrase. It’s not an uncommon thing Steve heard from the man's mouth, but this one, this specific memory of him saying it feels different. 

Steve tries to find which book of memories in his brain it's coming from. Follow the sound, follow the memory. Why do you think I’m a disappointment? What does that have to do with what’s going on with Dove? Can this help save Max? Can this help save Dove?

“You can never do anything right, you just always have to be in control.”

When did he say that? Why would Danny Harrington say that?

“Steve.” 

Steve lifts his hands from his hands abruptly at the sound of Dove's voice. Her shirt rests with the edge of her sleep shorts, her hair down and messy. She does need a haircut. 

“What’s going on?” She yawns, stretching her arms above her head. 

Steve softens entirely, standing from the ledge of the bathtub and moving to the doorframe where Dove is. “Just a weird dream.”

Dove raises a brow at that, sleep still evident on her features as she wakes but she’s sharp regardless. “Weird how?”

Steve shrugs, “Normal weird, the stairs of the house kept going up and I couldn’t get to the room. I don’t really remember the rest.”

Dove’s brow stay raised. The sentence is a little rushed and a bit higher pitched then his usual tone and then he clears his throat. 

“You’re lying, what actually happened.”

“What? Babe, I’m not lying the stair case didn’t end it was freaky—”

“You cleared your throat at the end of your sentence, you always do that when you lie, and I hate lying, you know that.”

Steve opens his mouth but finds no words to combat her statement. Because it’s true, he’s a terrible liar. 

“He was in your dream wasn’t he?”

Steve leans against the counter, elbows locked and staring down at the white porcelain. His knuckles whiten as he grips the sides a little tighter when the memory of Dove’s lifeless body weighs in his mind again. 

“It was just a dream, Dove,” Steve says. 

Dove walks closer, invading Steve’s space entirely. “What did he say to you?”

Steve shakes his head, letting go of the sink and facing Dove. She’s close, they’re almost touching but he doesn’t move. 

“It doesn’t matter—”

Dove raises her hand, pointing her finger at him. “No, no Steve don’t do that, you want to be in this together then you have to tell me—”

“You were dead.”

Dove stops, her hand dropping and eyes widening at the bluntness of his words. She then takes in his glossy eyes, brimming with tears.

“You were dead and I couldn’t save you.”

There’s silence that stretches between them. Steve debates on telling her the rest but he’s honestly not sure what she’ll do if she knows what he told him. But Steve isn’t going to let her go, and she isn’t going to end up like that if he doesn’t. Cause he’s in control, not that freak.

“Well, um….that’s—that’s not gonna happen,” Dove stutters, her hands moving up to hold his face.

Steve hears the hesitation in her voice. And he knows she’s only saying it to ease his mind, because that’s what she does. She’ll do anything to make sure he’s okay first. But this isn’t about him, because a creepy monster doesn’t want him, it wants her. So why is this something she’s lying about? It’s almost like…like she wants to die. 

Steve nods, “You’re right it’s not…that’s why I need you to promise me—”

“Steve.”

“I need you to promise me to not do anything stupid, Dove, please.”

Dove sighs, a sound stuttering out of her mouth as she lets go of his face. “I’m not going to lie to you, Steve, and say I won’t—”

Steve shakes his head, “God, do you hear yourself?! How do you expect me to sit back and watch you try and do this on your own?! You can’t and I am tired of you thinking this is your fault and you have to deal with it alone! So please, I am telling you that you can’t do anything stupid.”

“You can’t expect me to do nothing when I can help stop it! You would do the same thing Steve! You—”

“I would let you help me, that’s the difference, and if you asked me not to do something stupid, I wouldn’t.” Steve throws his hands up in emphasis before taking a step back and running a hand over his face. “I get that I’m stubborn and try to take care of everyone and throw myself into things but this…this is a new level. I just—”

“If you knew how I was feeling, if you knew what I saw in there, you would feel the same way, Steve, so you can’t say that. If I can save Max, I’m going to do it, and so would you!”

“I just don’t understand why you want to die!”

“Because I don’t deserve to live!”

Steve feels the words punch him straight in the gut, knocking the air clean out of his lungs. For a second, he can’t even speak. It’s not like the thought of her feeling this way had never crossed his mind before. He remembers the time after her mom died and the months that followed. He remembers trying to help her fight whatever had a grip on her. Then she started getting better, or at least he thought she had.

Even with his parents forcing them to move out of the house. He had been struggling with working so much to save up. She had then turned into being the encouraging one, telling him it was going to be okay. Helping him, like she always did. And he let her. Because she had been laughing more again, smiling, and letting herself breathe. 

But now this confession hits him like a truck going ninety down the freeway.

Panic claws up Steve’s throat so fast it burns. Because he realizes she’s been distracting him, hiding what she had been truly feeling. And he let her. He let her care for him, let her hold him, when she had been struggling. And that fucking hurts him. He thought she knew. He thought she knew how much he cared for her and would carry for her. But she’s still doing it, being so selfless it’s selfish. She won’t let anyone care for her, not even him. And he thought he knew the most. 

And this, this is the most heart wrenching thing. You don’t stumble on the thought of not wanting to live. This has been stirring in her. And he didn’t see it. Not how he should’ve. That makes him want to wrap her in something and keep her from ever leaving the house. She’d fight him, yell at him, and beat down the door if he ever tried it he knows but… 

But Jesus Christ, he’d do it anyway if it meant keeping her alive. 

Dove looks away from him, wiping a tear from her cheek aggressively. “After my mom died, after I caused that, I have felt nothing but guilt and…I felt like I’ve had no purpose. And if…if it comes down between saving myself or the people I love, then my decision is clear. And then maybe I’d finally find out why I survived being in that Russian lab. I’d know why I’m here.”

“You don’t need to save anyone to prove why you’re here,” Steve says, desperation clinging to each word. “It’s not your fault your mom died, none of this is your fault—”

“Why does it feel like it is?”

Steve’s at a loss for words again. Suddenly feeling selfish for letting her take care of him when he promised to do that for her. 

“I don’t know, but you don’t need to prove anything. You are so loved, Dove, and we need you here. I need you here.” Steve jabs a finger into his bare chest. 

“Dove,” Max says, making Dove whip around to the red headed teen. “Sorry, I uh, was wondering if I could burrow a shirt or something, I forgot to grab one before leaving the trailer.”

Dove wipes her cheeks, sucking in all her tears before nodding. “Yeah, sure let’s go find one.”

They leave Steve standing in the bathroom, tears sliding silently down his cheeks as he stares at the spot Dove had been standing in just seconds ago. 

I don’t deserve to live. 

He shuts the bathroom door.

The shower handle squeaks when he twists it as far hot as it’ll go. Steam immediately begins curling through the room, thick and suffocating. Steve doesn’t wait before stepping under the water. It burns. He wants it to. Maybe if it burns enough, it’ll drown out the feeling clawing at his chest.

Water pounds against the back of his neck and shoulders, burning his skin red, but it still doesn’t come close to touching the ache sitting in his chest. The grime from his body swirls down the drain, but the sound of Dove’s voice won’t leave him.

I don’t deserve to live.

“Jesus Christ.” Steve squeezes his eyes shut hard enough to hurt.

How long has she felt like that? How long has she been carrying that around by herself while pretending she was okay enough for him not to notice? How did he not notice?

His stomach twists, churning with bile and threatening to come up.

He’s replaying everything she’s done since they’ve been together. Anything that would’ve shown a sign of her feeling this way. She had shown grief and sadness, of course she did, but this is something different entirely. The survivor's guilt he knew about but…how did he not notice it got this bad?  

He braces both hands against the shower wall, head hanging low as tears mix with the water streaming down his face. He feels sick, a shudder runs through him as the words she said and the memory of her in that dream mix together violently. 

He wishes he could rip the grief out of her with his bare hands. Tear out every ounce of guilt she’s been carrying since her mother died. Make her see herself the way everyone else sees her. The way he sees her.

He doesn’t know how to help her through this. He doesn’t know how to convince her that she has nothing to prove for being alive. But he knows with terrifying certainty that he will spend every second from now on trying. He knows that he has to do everything in his power to help stop these curses. 

---------------

The supply run to Eddie goes horribly. When they arrive (with the six-pack he requested), the boathouse is surrounded by cops and reporters. The news of Patrick McKinney’s death shakes the town, as now a third teen has been violently murdered, sending Eddie into a new hiding spot.

The radio crackles, and Eddie informs them where he’s hiding: deep in the woods at Skull Rock.

For once, Steve’s famed make-out spot had come into actual good use. Well, he would argue it’s had many good uses, like the time he took Dove there on Halloween to get away from the kids who had shown up at his house to make him chauffeur them to their first high school party, which ended with them being late to pick the kids up, with Steve’s shirt on backwards.

Dove can’t really think too much about that night with the sound of Dustin and Steve arguing in front of her. They lead the charge through the woods, with Dustin holding his map and compass and Steve arguing the whole time that he’s wrong.

“Dude, I’m telling you, you’re taking us the wrong way,” Steve says for at least the fifth time as he steps over a root.

“It’s north, I’m positive. I checked the map,” Dustin replies quickly.

“Yeah, well, you do know Skull Rock is a super popular make-out spot, right?”

Dustin rolls his eyes as he hums in response.

“Yeah, well, it wasn’t popular until I made it popular, alright? I practically invented it,” Steve says, leaning in a little closer to Dustin as he speaks.

“You hear that, Dove? Steve’s talking about all the girls he used to make out with!” Dustin calls back to Dove, who’s a couple paces behind them.

Dove gives Dustin an unimpressed look, flipping her long ponytail over her shoulder as she shakes her head.

“We’re heading the wrong direction,” Steve sighs after looking back at Dove for a second. They haven’t really spoken since the argument this morning.

“Steve,” Dustin protests as Steve moves off the path and down a small hill. “Where are you going?”

“Stop whining. Let’s go. Trust me.” Steve waves his hand for everyone to follow as he ducks under a low branch.

Dove chuckles lightly as Dustin continues to whine Steve’s name while they all follow. She continues along the path, looking over her shoulder and catching Max and Lucas stop, serious looks on both of their faces. Then Max softens as she sees the two of them fall into silence.

In front of her, Nancy and Robin walk in tandem. Nancy holds the bag of food for Eddie, walking carefully as Robin moves like she is balancing on a tightrope, bumping shoulders with her every so often.

Quietly, Robin leans into Nancy, whispering, “I’m worried about Dove.”

Nancy glances over at her. “Yeah, something is definitely happening that she is not telling us.”

“I mean, she’s always been a little closed off, but she had gotten better after she and Steve started dating, but…” Robin looks back again, watching as Dove looks down at the bottom of her overalls. “She’s been seeing things, and what happened in the bathroom the other day, and this whole ‘finding a tear in reality’ thing is starting to really freak me out.”

Nancy nods, pursing her lips as she thinks about all the things happening with Dove since this whole Vecna fiasco started. “Do we think she’s actually cursed too?”

Robin shrugs. “She says it’s not a curse, and Steve keeps talking about those visions she’s having of her memories or whatever, but…she’s my friend, and I want to make sure she’s okay. I mean, I want to make sure all my friends are okay and not cursed, because that would totally suck—”

“Robin.”

“Right, sorry. I think we need to probably talk to her, maybe figure out what’s going on.”

“Maybe you should just talk to her. I don’t know how much we’re going to get out of her if I’m there,” Nancy says honestly.

“Why can’t all my friends just get along, huh? I actually think you and Dove would make great friends,” Robin says, nudging her shoulder against Nancy’s.

“All your friends? So does this make us friends, officially?” Nancy asks, a playful smile on her lips.

Robin feels a blush rising to her cheeks that she hopes she can play off as the cold wind. “Well, uh—I mean, yeah, I hope we are since I, uh, have slept in your bed the last couple of nights.”

Nancy raises her eyebrows at her.

“Not—I mean, not like that. Well, no, not like that—”

“Oh—boom! Bada bing, bada boom, there she is, Henderson!” Steve exclaims, saving Robin from further embarrassment.

Steve pushes through some bushes, holding the branches back for Dustin to see before letting them snap back on him. “Skull Rock! In your face, man. In your stupid, cocky little face.”

Honestly, Steve needed this win, even if it was stupid.

Dove pushes past the bushes right behind Robin and Nancy, catching Dustin saying, “Doesn’t make sense.”

Steve makes a hand puppet mocking Dustin. “Yeah, yeah, even with it staring you in the face, you can’t admit it. You just can’t admit that you’re wrong, you little butthead.”

Feet thudding on the ground startles everyone.

“I concur,” Eddie announces himself. “You, Dustin Henderson, are a…total butthead.”

“Jesus, we thought you were a goner,” Dustin sighs in relief, moving to hug Eddie.

Steve nods to Eddie once, his face stoic as he watches Dove come up behind him. Eddie turns, letting go of Dustin, his face brightening into a signature Eddie smile when he sees her.

“Princess, you’re here! Thank God someone competent came along.”

Dove smiles tightly. “Hey, Eddie.”

“Eddie, you’ve been made a suspect now, in an official capacity,” Steve speaks up, moving next to Dove and crossing his arms.

Standing next to each other, Eddie notices how they match. Steve’s yellow Henley pairing with Dove’s pastel yellow shirt under her overalls. He also notices how they match in stance, arms crossed and the same hip popped.

“Do you know what happened with Patrick McKinney?” Lucas asks, walking around the couple.

Eddie nods and tells the story of how, last night, Jason and Patrick found him at the boathouse and chased him out into the water when he got in the boat. And then Patrick started floating high above the water just like Chrissy had, and he and Jason watched as his bones snapped and he fell back into the water.

“When I got to the shore, I tried to call you guys, but my walkie was busted, drenched. So I, uh, do the thing I do now apparently, I, uh, ran!” Eddie chuckles, setting down the water canteen after taking a sip. He had already downed the rest of the Pringles can Dustin and Steve had started eating in the car this morning and the pack of Reese’s Cups.

“Do you know what time this was? The attack?” Nancy asks.

“Yeah, no, I—I know exactly what time it was—” Eddie begins to take off his watch. “My walkie wasn’t the only thing that got soaked.”

Eddie tosses the watch to Dove, who reaches a hand out and snags it with one hand, turning it over and reading the time. “9:27.”

“Same time our flashlights went kablooey,” Robin says.

“Which means what, exactly?” Steve asks, looking over to Dove and Robin next to him.

“That surge of energy was Vecna attacking Patrick,” Nancy answers.

“And that energy surge opens up that tear that I saw,” Dove says, staring just past the watch at the ground, the connection finally coming together.

There’s a moment where everyone looks at her after she says it before Robin speaks.

“Well, we’re one step closer,” she sighs. “We know how Vecna attacks.”

“And where he attacks from,” Lucas adds.

“So now we just need to sneak into his lair in the Upside Down and drive a stake through his heart,” Max says.

“If he even has a heart,” Robin counters.

“A stake? Is he like a vamp?” Steve asks before seriously considering it. He didn’t see what Vecna looked like in his dream last night, and his voice did change. “Is he a vampire?”

“It was a metaphor,” Max shoots back.

“A bullet should work on him, right?” Eddie jumps in, looking around from his position squatting on the ground.

“I say we chop his head off,” Lucas states dryly.

“I’ll gladly go in there and stab him myself,” Dove says flatly.

Silence.

When she finally glances up, everyone’s staring at her with either concern or confusion.

“What?” she asks.

“All of the above, I’d say,” Nancy says carefully, slowly pulling her eyes away from Dove. Maybe Robin was right. They should be a little more worried about her. “But we can’t do any of that ’til we find a way into the Upside Down.”

“We need El to get her power back,” Max complains.

“Yeah, everything was, like, waaayyy easier,” Steve drawls, his tone way too casual for what had happened this morning, but he is trying not to think too much about it. “We had this girl. She had superpowers.”

“Superpowers, yeah, you mentioned her,” Eddie cuts Steve off, eyes darting to Dove, who is just on the other side of him, gnawing at her bottom lip.

He notices the way her eyes keep darting around, avoiding everyone’s gaze and especially Steve’s. She looks tired, the concealer under her eyes not even hiding the dark circles. While he hasn’t been hanging out with Dove as much the past couple years, he remembers how Dove gets when she’s upset. Which she clearly is. He also isn’t missing how Steve keeps glancing at her every few seconds with that sad “someone kicked my puppy” look. Then he looks past them to Dustin, who has been walking the same path over and over during the whole conversation.

“Hey, uh, Princess,” Eddie calls out, drawing Dove’s attention to him. “Henderson’s not…cursed, is he?”

Dove’s face pales a bit before she shakes her head, her expression becoming unreadable. Eddie pockets that for later as Steve responds.

“Cursed? No, no, he’s fine,” Steve assures the metalhead. “Mental? Absolutely.”

“BOOM!” Dustin’s voice echoes loudly through the forest, making Dove jump specifically.

Dustin turns to look at the group, extending his hand out and pointing at Steve specifically. “Bada…bada…boom. I was right.”

Steve’s head lolls back, rolling his eyes heavily.

“Skull Rock was north!”

“Seriously? You’re serious?” Steve deadpans.

“Mm-hmm,” Dustin hums happily.

Steve’s had enough from him this morning. “This is Skull Rock! Okay?”

“Mm-hmm,” Dustin continues to hum happily, a grin stretching across his face.

“You’re totally, absolutely, 100% wrong right now!”

“Yes and no,” Dustin says dramatically, making everyone roll their eyes.

“Oh my God,” Steve says, shaking his head and face-palming.

“As much as I love it when you two argue, Dustin, what are you going on about?” Dove interrupts, stepping forward in front of Dustin.

“This compass worked correctly when we left the Wheelers’—” Dustin holds up his compass and rattles it. “It was correct when we got in the car on Kerley, but it started to slip the further east we went. Now it’s way off. When I was leading us here, I wasn’t wrong. The compass was.”

“So you’re using faulty equipment. You’re still wrong,” Steve groans. 

“Except it isn’t faulty,” Dustin points out dramatically once again.

“Oh my God, Dustin, get to the point!” Dove huffs, fed up with his dramatics.

“Right,” Dustin says, looking over to Lucas. “Lucas, do you remember what can affect a compass?”

“An electromagnetic field,” Lucas answers, remembering all the way back to when they were in seventh grade and walking the train tracks with Eleven trying to find Will.

“Yep,” Dustin beams. “In the presence of a stronger electromagnetic field, the needle will deflect toward that power. So either there’s some super big magnet around here, or…”

“There’s a gate,” Lucas realizes.

“But we’re nowhere near the lab,” Nancy reasons.

“But what if there’s another gate?” Dustin asks, then looks at Dove. “Dove’s been seeing these gates in the mind world, and they’re small, but they happen only when Vecna is attacking. What if those gates come into reality after he kills them? They’d have to be small and less powerful.”

“Snack-sized gate,” Robin adds.

“What? How? Why?” Steve rattles off, shaking his head.

“No idea.” Dustin shakes his head. “All I know is that something is causing a disturbance, and the last time we saw anything like it, it was a gate. And I hope it is, ’cause then we’d have a way to Vecna. An actual, tangible way.”

Dustin looks at Dove again when he says the last sentence.

“We’d actually have a chance of freeing Max from this curse,” Dove says, looking past Dustin to Max and then over to Steve, who looks both relieved and terrified.

Dustin then looks back to Dove and nods before he starts walking, which Dove quickly follows.

“Whoa, where are you guys going?” Steve speaks up, making Dove turn around. “Hey, hey, hey!”

Dustin finally stops a few paces ahead of Dove and looks back to Steve.

“Eddie’s still a wanted man. We can’t just go for a hike in the woods!” Steve feels like he shouldn’t be the only one who remembers that not only are they fighting against supernatural forces, but also the actual law.

Dustin holds up the compass again. “This little steel capsule might be the key to saving Max, Eddie, and Dove.”

Steve can’t argue with that.

“What say you, Eddie the Banished?” Dustin asks, looking at Eddie, who is still crouching on the ground.

“I say you’re asking me to follow you into Mordor,” Eddie says, his voice gravelly with exhaustion. “Which, if I’m being totally straight with you, I think is a really bad idea.”

Eddie lifts his eyes, flicking them between Dustin, Dove, and Steve. Dove looks less exhausted now, less weighed down by whatever’s been haunting her, and more determined—like maybe she actually has a fighting chance, cursed or not. Steve, meanwhile, has traded in the kicked-puppy expression for something quieter but possibly worse: subtle terror tucked just beneath the surface. And Dustin looks pleased as punch, thrilled that he figured it out and that he might finally have a way to save them.

“But, uh, the Shire…the Shire is burning,” Eddie finally finishes.

Dustin begins bouncing excitedly, his backpack rattling as he does so. Dove reaches over and puts a hand on his shoulder to stop him.

“So, Eddie,” Dove says, looking over to the curly-haired man. “Mordor?”

“Mordor it is, Princess Dove,” he replies with a curt nod.

Then they take off, moving deeper into the woods as Steve mumbles, “What is Mordor?”

-----------------

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The first time you met Steve, you almost slapped him.

His reputation preceded him. Even your freshman year at Ohio State University, fresh out of rush week, you’d heard plenty about Sigma Chi pledge Steve Harrington. They were singing his praises from day one—he was handsome, a baseball genius, the life of any party. He commanded the attention of any room he stepped into. You were a little sick of him to begin with from how your Delta Gamma sisters wouldn’t shut up about him for two seconds even before that first party.

And when you walked into the Sigma Chi house for the first time, you didn’t even need to be told which one was the Harrington. The world gravitated around him like he was the sun itself, and he seemed to glow like it, too. He was handsome, devastatingly so. His smile was blinding. He had a stupidly good head of hair, gorgeous sun-kissed skin dotted with moles like constellations, and big hazel eyes that made him look deceptively sweet.

You’d met eyes from across the room, and at the time, it had felt like something clicking into place. Two puzzle pieces who had finally found where they belonged. Your breath hitched as he left the group he was talking to and sauntered over, that brilliant smile now directed specifically at you and you alone. Your heart had felt like it might burst from your chest.

“Oh my god,” one of your sisters, Margot, had said, grabbing onto your arm. “He’s coming over here.”

He didn’t even glance at her. He only looked at you. He wore a polo with jeans that fit him just right, a red plastic cup clutched in his large hand. When he reached you, you could smell his cologne, something intoxicating that made your head spin. He really was everything everyone had promised.

And then he opened his mouth.

“Hi,” he’d said, extending a hand towards you. “I’m Steve. And you are fucking beautiful.”

Embarrassingly, you’d giggled like a total fool, given him your hand, and introduced yourself. “Nice to meet you, Steve.”

He’d actually taken your hand and kissed your knuckles, like the prince he absolutely saw himself as. And then, that suave grin turned into something more like a cocky smirk, a look you’d grow to know and loathe. “You know, you look like a girl who deserves the very best,” he’d said. “And, wouldn’t you know it—by sheer coincidence, you’re looking at the best this frat has to offer.”

Okay, a little eye roll worthy, but that wasn’t abnormal for these frat guys. You’d raised an eyebrow. “Oh yeah? And what could you possibly offer me?”

His smirk had widened, and he moved in, grabbing you by the hip and pulling you against him. “Oh, things beyond your wildest dreams, baby,” he’d murmured, even as you gasped at the sheer audacity of this guy. “Why don’t we go up to my room and I can show you?”

You’d shoved him back by his chest, making him stumble, the beer in his cup sloshing over the sides and onto his light blue shirt. “You’re a fucking perv.”

Steve’s expression had immediately transformed into something harder, all traces of the charming smile from moments ago completely erased. “What the fuck?”

“You don’t get to just walk up and touch me. I don’t even know you.” You’d scoffed, crossing your arms in front of your chest. “Does that actually work for you?”

“Yeah, actually,” he’d said, looking at you with pure distaste now. “With girls who aren’t an uptight cocktease.”

You’d laughed, but only in an attempt to keep yourself from punching this guy square in the jaw. “Oh, wow. Fuck you.”

“Fuck me, huh?” he’d said, that stupid smirk back in place. “You know, that’s a good idea, maybe it would help if I got that stick out of your ass and gave you something else—“

“Oh-kay, let’s go get a drink!” Margot had said, dragging you away before you could land the slap you were winding up. You heard him laughing behind you, the sound loud and infuriating.

“See you around, baby!” he’d called after you. Margot just dug her fingers into your arm, pulling you to a completely different part of the house as fast as she could.

Things with Steve did not improve after that. And, unfortunately for you, you couldn’t escape him. He was everywhere you turned. Not only the golden boy on campus—his photo was used on any and all promotions for the championship winning baseball team—but, soon, also the president of Sigma Chi. And your houses went hand in hand.

Every party you went to, Steve was there, holding court among his adoring subjects. The guys on campus thought he was the coolest guy who ever lived, and the girls were practically stepping over each other for a chance with him. You attempted to keep your distance, but Steve loved annoying you more than he loved the girls begging to go up to his bedroom.

Delta Gamma also partnered with Sigma Chi for just about everything. As the top houses, it was just a given. Every event, every fundraiser, every charity event and mixer and rager. As much as you adored everything about your sorority and had never felt like you’d made the wrong choice, Steve was the one thing that made you question it.

It was no secret, either. Everyone knew you and Steve hated each other. Steve’s frat brothers found it hilarious, while your sisters tried their best to keep you away from each other. You just couldn’t get along—being in each other’s space for too long always ended in disaster. A loud argument, heated insults, or sometimes even a thrown drink, if Steve was feeling extra mouthy that night. You were best kept far away from one another.

You’d grown close with another girl who’d pledged Delta Gamma, Nancy. Nancy was sweet and smart and although you loved all your sisters, you’d clicked with her immediately. Nancy also happened to know Steve well. They’d grown up together, even dated briefly in high school.

“Steve is an asshole,” Nancy had told you, confirming everything you already thought. “Seriously, don’t let him try to charm you. He’s full of it.”

It kind of seemed like you and Nancy were the only ones who saw it, though. Of course there were the girls he’d already scorned, but the vast majority of the Ohio State female student population were head over heels for Steve Harrington. You couldn’t help but roll your eyes every time you saw it.

That would never be you.

Your junior year had just begun, and by the end of September, homecoming season was well underway. Sigma Chi had already partnered with Delta Gamma, a surprise to no one.

What was a surprise was that you had a chance at being crowned queen this year. Homecoming court was something you’d never given much thought to. Your attention was already divided in so many directions—between your classes and honor society, track, event planning and sorority obligations with being Social Chair, and being a TA for the first time this year, you were booked and busy. The crown was the least of your concern. Even now, you didn’t stress about it. Everyone knew your chapter president, Lindsey, would be taking the crown anyway.

The week of homecoming itself was always busy and filled with excitement—stuffed full of events and activities, a good chunk of which you had a hand in planning. But still, courting had begun, and Tommy Hagan had been going all out to catch your attention.

It started with a bouquet of flowers so huge you had to divide them up into three different vases just to display them in a way that didn’t look ridiculous. Then, it was the food. Fruit baskets, a mini cake, so much of your favorite candy and chocolate you had to beg your sisters to eat some of it. The day you walked out of the house to the entire OSU choir serenading you on the front lawn, you’d been utterly speechless.

Tommy was nice enough, you guessed. If you had to partner with someone, he wasn’t the worst choice. That would be Steve Harrington, who, by expectations alone—because Steve didn’t put much effort into anything that wasn’t baseball or getting his dick wet—was courting Lindsey. He didn’t even have to try and he knew it.

There was a new gift or grand gesture from Tommy daily, while Steve had sent a single box of milk chocolates, a half dozen and definitely the cheapest on the shelf even though everyone knew the Harringtons were absolutely loaded—and Lindsey was allergic to dairy. You could tell she was annoyed about it, but she was going to partner with Steve regardless. Every time you brought another elaborate gift into the house, the look she gave you was cold and cutting. It was…awkward.

At least for now, you could push thoughts of homecoming from your brain. It was Saturday night, and you were ready to have some fun. Or at least try to, because you were about to walk right into King Steve’s kingdom.

You’d think you would have gotten used to his presence by now, but he never got any less annoying. It’s not like you could just skip every party. Everyone knew Sigma Chi threw the best parties of any frat on campus. Were you just not supposed to go because the president was a total pain in the ass? You could kiss your social status goodbye real fast.

Sometimes you’d get lucky and wouldn’t see him at all the whole night. Maybe just a flash of his stupid hair, or the sound of his laugh from another room. A glimpse at his cocky smirk as he led some poor girl up to his room. And other nights, he seemed hell bent on annoying you as much as possible.

You really, really hoped for the former tonight. You walked into the house with Nancy and Margot, the bass already thumping, the place overrun with college students in various states of intoxication. You looked good, you knew you did. Tiny skirt that showed off your legs, a top that displayed just enough chest to have guys staring every time they walked past. Not that that was hard.

“Do you want me to get us drinks?” Nancy asked, leaning over to yell over the music right in your ear. You nodded, and she gave you a soft smile before pushing her way through to the kitchen.

There was no sign of Steve so far, which you hoped was a good omen. Your eyes scanned the room, mostly familiar faces, but a decent amount of freshmen you hadn’t gotten to know well yet were there, too.

Nancy was back quickly, walking through the crowd holding the two red cups up high in an attempt to not spill them or get anything on her white blouse. She let out a sigh of relief when she finally reached you, handing you a drink.

“It’s a total madhouse in there,” she said. “Like, more than usual.”

“How many new pledges are there this year?” you asked, taking a sip of your beer. You linked hands with Nancy and began pushing through to the living room. You eventually found a place to stand against the wall, surveying the rest of the party.

“I have no idea,” she said. Her curls were pulled back on top with a bow, and she held her drink between both delicate hands. “It’s gotta be more than last year, right?”

It certainly seemed like it. The Sigma Chi parties were always intense, but it felt like you could barely move. “With Harrington in charge this year, who knows.”

Nancy rolled her eyes. “God, I know. When I heard he was president, I almost thought about dropping out.”

You laughed, shaking your head and taking another sip of your beer. “At least in two more years, I’ll never have to see him again.”

“Lucky you,” Nancy grumbled. “I’m sure I’ll always be seeing him at some point when I’m back in Hawkins for holidays. It’s like I can’t escape him.”

The sound of your name being called caught your attention. You looked around, looking for the source—and saw Tommy Hagan on his way over, hand held up in a wave and a bright smile on his freckled face.

“Here comes your loverboy,” Nancy mumbled into her cup, looking away like she was minding her own business.

“Hey,” Tommy said as he reached you. He wasn’t as bad as Steve, but they were best friends and looked like they could have shared a wardrobe. He wore a dark red polo and jeans, one hand now in his pocket and the other holding his own drink. “Wow, you look beautiful.”

“Thanks,” you smiled politely. “Um, thanks for the flowers this morning. Blue this time, huh?”

“Yeah,” he said, his smile somewhat sheepish as he ran a hand through his short hair. “I was thinking, like, a different bouquet for every color of the rainbow, or something.”

You nodded, eyebrows raised. “Ooh, yeah. I see the vision.”

A soft blush colored the pale skin on his cheeks. “Did you like them?”

He was being so sweet, you couldn’t help but soften. You weren’t interested in Tommy romantically, but you were happy to partner with him if that’s what he wanted. “They were beautiful. Seriously.” His eyes lit up, and at the fear of yet another bouquet to make your bedroom look even more like a greenhouse, you added, “But I am starting to run out of room to put vases.”

Tommy laughed softly, looking down at the floor. “Yeah. Maybe I should try to get creative.”

A shout came from the sliding glass back door, drawing all of your attention behind him. “Hagan! Come out here and show the new brothers how a keg stand is done!”

Tommy turned back to you. “Sorry. Duty calls, I guess,” he said, although he didn’t look all that sorry. Sigma Chi took their keg stands very seriously. “I’ll catch you around later though, yeah? You’re not planning to turn in early or anything?”

“I’ll be here,” you confirmed, drinking from your cup again. “Go show ‘em, Hagan.”

His grin only widened. “See you later, beautiful.”

You watched him go, laughing softly as he immediately switched gears from gentleman to frat bro the second he reached the back door.

“Please let him be done with the bouquets,” Nancy said as soon as he was gone, done acting like she hadn’t been paying attention the whole time. “I’ve already got half of the flowers in my room.”

The party went on, and eventually you lost Nancy to the crowd. She’d started seeing this guy a few weeks ago, Vance, a transfer student who had her totally smitten like you’d never seen before. While Nancy had always been your partner at these parties—more like your shield from Steve Harrington—she’d started wanting to spend more time with Vance, and who were you to stop her?

It wasn’t until later in the night, when you were leaning against the wall with yet another drink, that you finally saw him. Or heard him, rather, because his obnoxious loud voice and laugh usually entered a room before he did. At least he had a warning bell, you thought.

When Steve entered the living room with his friends, telling some story that was definitely not funny enough to warrant how hard they were laughing, you thought about making a run for it. But then his eyes locked with yours from across the room, and he shot you that stupid fucking smirk that made you irritated immediately. And he knew it.

He stared at you even while he kept talking to his friends, and you stared back. He liked to do these little power plays. Even the women around him weren’t drawing his attention away. And finally, much to your disappointment, he turned away long enough to excuse himself before walking straight for you.

You really regretted not making your escape while you had the chance.

Steve greeted you by your last name, something none of the other guys did, since they cared about actually impressing you. “How sweet of you to grace my house with your presence. I almost didn’t expect you to show.”

You scoffed. “Just because you’re president this year doesn’t mean you’re special—“

“Actually, it does,” he smirked. “This is my kingdom, baby.” He held his arms out, as if the opulent house crammed full of sweaty, drunk college students was supposed to impress you. “And you’re talking to the king.”

You couldn’t have rolled your eyes harder if you tried. “Do you even hear yourself when you talk? It’s like everything you say comes from the official douchebag handbook.”

His smirk only widened. “Maybe it does. Maybe I even wrote it.”

“Steve, I’m not even sure you can read.” You shook your head, looking off to the side, searching for any lifeline out of this conversation with your least favorite person on earth. “Why are you over here bothering me, anyway? Don’t you have some poor girl to flatter long enough to get in her pants?”

“I’d much rather get under that skirt,” he quipped. When your head snapped back in his direction, eyes practically glowing with the fire behind them and the promise of pouring your drink all over his dark blue shirt and stupid khakis, he held his hands up in mock surrender. “Okay, okay,” he laughed. “I came over because you looked fucking miserable. Why do you always look so bored? You’re at a party.”

“I’m not bored,” you retorted simply.

“Could’ve fooled me,” he said, leaning a hand against the wall next to you. “You look pissed off to even be here.”

“That’s because you’re talking to me.”

Steve laughed, which was maybe your least favorite sound in the world. “Every time I see you here, you look bored. Like you think you’re too good to even be here.”

“Well, unfortunately, Sigma Chi has the most annoying guy possible as their president, so…” you trailed off, a hand on your hip. You took a sip from your beer again, but you would need a lot more alcohol to make Steve’s presence bearable.

He hummed, as if he were considering it. “I don’t know. I think you feel like you’re above all this.” He gestured around the room. “Why would you join a sorority if you hate parties so bad?”

“I don’t hate parties,” you argued. And it was true—you didn’t. You could have plenty of fun at a party. You were Social Chair.

“Well, whatever it is, you’re bringing down the mood,” he said. He downed the rest of his own drink, sitting the empty plastic cup on the mantel, where it would surely sit until some poor pledges were tasked with cleaning the whole place tomorrow.

“I don’t think anyone cares what I’m doing,” you muttered. “Other than you, for some fucking reason.”

Steve grinned again. “I know what you need.”

“Yeah?” You raised your eyebrows. “Is it for you to leave me alone and never speak to me again? Because I could agree with that.”

“You need to get high.”

That made you pause. “What?”

His smile grew. “I think you need to loosen up. Like, a lot.” He pointed a thumb over his shoulder, back towards the staircase. “I could roll us a joint. I wanted to go smoke anyway.”

You just blinked at him. “You’re—“ You were genuinely stunned. “You’re inviting me to go up to your room and smoke? This isn’t, like, some weird attempt to have sex, right? Because that is never gonna happen—“

“No, Jesus,” he laughed. “I just think you need to stop being so damn uptight for once. It would help, believe me.”

“I’ve smoked before, I’m not some prude,” you mumbled, because you knew that’s exactly what Steve saw you as. “If you’re offering, why can’t you just, like…roll me one and bring it back down here?”

“I keep the good shit hidden in my room,” he shrugged. “Otherwise, these assholes would steal it all. They don’t need to know about it.”

You hesitated, because no matter how badly you wanted to accept the invitation for some free weed, it came with a cost—spending time one on one with Steve Harrington. He looked at you expectantly while you looked around the room, biting the inside of your cheek as you fought with yourself over it.

“Fine,” you said finally. “But we smoke, and then I’m coming right back down here and finding Nancy.”

“Deal,” he smirked. “At least you’ll be more fun. We have a reputation here, you know.”

You rolled your eyes yet again as he turned, leading the way back to the staircase. The crowd always seemed to part for Steve like he was true royalty, a deep seated respect that you personally would never understand. Your eyes darted around to every face you passed, absolutely mortified at the idea of someone seeing you following him upstairs, but no one seemed to notice.

The polished wood of the banister was smooth beneath your palm as you followed. You’d never even been up these stairs at all, the second floor a total mystery you had never been too eager to uncover. Steve’s shoes thudded against the shining hardwood floors, passing room after room occupied with couples, some of them not even bothering to close the door all the way. You scrunched your face up in disgust at one particularly shameless makeout session with the bedroom door wide open.

Steve reached a room at the end of the hall, turning to look at you over his shoulder before turning the doorknob, as if it were some grand reveal. You had to admit—only to yourself—but you were a little curious about what waited on the other side.

You trailed into the room behind him, closing the door behind you. You looked around as Steve kneeled by his bed, pulling out a shoebox. The bedroom was neat, bed made, clothes put away besides the ones piled in the laundry hamper. There was a desk with a lamp, soft light shining over a mess of papers and textbooks. His dresser was cluttered with hair products and a few bottles of expensive cologne. There were a few posters tacked to the walls, mostly sports related, a few of scantily clad women, and the year’s OSU baseball schedule. He had a bookshelf against one wall, holding his textbooks and a staggering amount of baseball trophies. A framed team photo sat on one shelf, along with one of all the Sigs taken at the beginning of the semester.

“Having fun?” Steve asked, making you jump slightly as you turned to look at him. He was sitting on his bed now, the shoebox open next to him. He was smiling at you as his fingers worked dexterously to roll the joint. “Didn’t know you could be so nosy.”

You scoffed, but your cheeks felt a little hot. “Shouldn’t have stuff sitting out if you don’t want people to look at it.”

He laughed. “You can look at whatever you want.” He licked along the seam of the joint, perfectly rolled. “Go ahead and search the whole room, if you want. The porn mags are in that drawer.” He nodded towards his nightstand.

You scrunched your face up. “Ew. You’re so gross.”

Steve laughed again as he put his baggie of weed and papers back in the box, pushing it beneath his bed again. You took a seat on the plush carpet, back leaning against his dresser. He placed a muscular arm on the end of the bed frame and lowered himself to the floor to sit across from you.

“You can do the honors if you want,” he offered, holding the joint out towards you.

There was a moment of hesitation before you reached forward, taking it from his fingers. “I don’t understand why you’re being nice to me,” you said, brows furrowed even as you placed the joint between your lips, flicking the lighter and holding the flame to the end.

“I’m not being nice to you,” he said. He still had that same look he always had when he looked at you, like it was one of his life’s greatest joys to piss you off, to get you worked up and upset. “Like I said, you’re ruining my party. Can’t have word spreading around campus that people are here looking bored. Sigs are the party kings of campus, and that’s not changing, especially not with me in charge.”

“Oh, right,” you said, exhaling that first cloud of smoke. “The new ruler can’t appear weak, and all that.”

“Exactly,” he smirked. He watched you take another hit, then leaned forward, accepting the joint back from you and taking a long pull himself.

“I don’t think anyone pays as much attention to me as you do, Steve,” you said. That warm feeling was starting to settle over you, and he was right—you were relaxing already. It was the first time you’d been in a room with him and didn’t want to scream or punch him.

His gaze was heavy on you as he hit the joint, looking at you with that intensity he always seemed to hold when you were in a room together. But now it was making you fidget, the room suddenly feeling hot.

“Who says I pay attention to you?” he finally asked. His voice was lower now, and when he leaned forward to pass the joint back to you, your fingers brushed together. It sent a jolt through your body, and you jerked your hand back quickly, bringing it to your lips to give yourself time to think before you spoke again.

“It’s kind of obvious.” Smoke billowed from your lips as you responded. The room was growing thick with it, a haze surrounding you both in and outside of your head. “Always staring at me, coming over just to annoy me…”

“It’s fun,” he admitted, laughing softly. He ran a hand through his hair, starting to lose its shape and flop into his wide hazel eyes. “Every time you get mad, you get that cute little furrow between your eyebrows, your lips get all pouty, and you roll your eyes about a million times.”

You paused—and then giggled, leaning forward to pass the joint back. “Seriously? I told you, you pay attention to me.”

Your laughter was starting to get Steve going too. He took another pull. “I mean, I notice things that are nice to look at. I’m only a man, after all.”

The laughter felt like something you could no longer control, bubbling up in your chest and filling Steve’s bedroom much like the smoke in the air. It was contagious, the two of you laughing together as you finished off the joint.

“You know you always say the cheesiest stuff possible,” you giggled, your body fully relaxed into the floor at this point. Your limbs felt heavy in the best way, like every bit of tension in your muscles had faded. “It’s kind of amazing how everyone thinks you’re so cool, because you’re kind of a total dork.”

Steve laughed hard, his head tilting back. You couldn’t help but notice the strong column of his throat, the way the muscles flexed in his neck and chest. “I have to get creative,” he said, fixing his eyes back on yours once again. “I aim to keep you entertained, after all.”

“I guess you do,” you smiled. “Annoyed, yes. Bored? Never.”

He watched you for a minute, something thoughtful seeming to cross his face. Your eyes locked in that way they often did, just staring. Seeing each other. Steve always had a way of making you feel like he could see right through you, and it made you wonder if he felt the same about you, too.

The fact that you were enjoying Steve’s company seemed to strike you all at once. It was confusing—maybe concerning—but for now, you were too high to care. He’d been right. This was what you needed.

Steve nudged your foot with his own. “I’ve never seen you look so peaceful,” he grinned. “Who knew there was more to you than being stuck up and…snobby.”

You snorted a laugh. “Fuck you, Harrington.”

The grin on his face grew. “Oh, would that help you relax some more?” he said, looking a little too proud of himself. “Because I’d be happy to help you with that, too.”

Your eyes widened, and Steve was pretty sure you were about to tell him off again—but then you tossed your head back, laughing harder than he’d ever heard from you. “Oh my god. In your dreams.”

Steve smirked, that same look you’d grown to know as cocky and insufferable, but right now, you didn’t seem to mind it. It was endearing, almost. Handsome, maybe. “Baby, you let me fuck you, and you’ll be dreaming about it for months.”

It’s like everything he said, every stupid, corny line that would usually have you irritated, was suddenly the funniest thing you’d ever heard. “You really think you’re god’s gift to women, huh?”

“I know I am.” He tilted his head to the side, body relaxed as he leaned back against his bed frame. “Never heard a single complaint.”

“That’s because girls know how to fake it,” you mumbled. “Guys can never tell.”

“Oh, I can tell.” His hands flexed where they rested on his thighs, the veins beneath his skin suddenly extremely distracting. “Some guys can’t, sure. But I know the difference between some fake pornstar moans to boost some pathetic dude’s ego, and how it really feels to make a girl fall apart.”

Your cheeks felt hot now. Your whole body did, even though your outfit didn’t cover much skin. “You’re not that good in bed.”

“How would you know?” he asked, looking at you with genuine curiosity and something like delight.

“I can just tell,” you answered quickly, looking down at the soft beige carpet beneath your bare thighs. “Guys never care about making girls feel good. Just themselves.” That’s how it had been with every guy you’d ever slept with. Not a single one had been different.

“I’m not other guys,” Steve said, voice lower now. It made your breath hitch in your throat, slowly raising your head to look at him. He was still smiling at you, but there was something different behind his eyes now, something heavy and burning.

You returned his smile, laughing softly even as you felt your heart speed up in your chest. “Yeah, well. I don’t think any guy is different in that department.”

“You wanna bet?”

That almost earned him another eye roll (playful this time, but still)—until he shifted, moving over to sit next to you. You tensed as you felt his shoulder brush against yours, feeling both electricity and heat even through the fabric of your clothes.

“Steve…”

His large hand came up slowly. Now he was looking at you in a way you’d never seen from him before. The familiar cocky smirk was gone, his soft lips parted slightly as his eyes raked over every part of you like he wanted to memorize the way you looked right now. Your chest rose and fell with your heavy breaths, watching his intense gaze travel slowly, taking his time. From your eyes, to your lips, down your throat. Lower, to your chest, but not in the pervy way he’d done in the past. No, it wasn’t that—it was…reverent. Like he was seeing something holy.

His hand finally moved, brushing your hair back softly. It made you draw in a sharp breath, chills spreading across the skin of your neck where he’d made contact.

“I like you like this,” he said, voice low and quiet. His eyes were locked on the side of your neck, where he’d just touched.

It took you a second to find your voice, although it came out more like a whisper. “Like…what?”

“Happy,” he said. His gaze finally moved to your eyes. “Comfortable. Real.” His eyes dropped to your lips. “You know, you’re really pretty when you smile like that.”

You were pretty sure you had to be dreaming, because in no world were you sitting in Steve’s bedroom while he looked at you like that. Like he wanted to kiss you. Like he was actually moving in, leaning in slowly to close the distance as if giving you all the chance in the world to run away—

You didn’t. Your eyes fell closed and then, with the force of a meteor crashing into the earth despite how soft and gentle it was, his lips met yours. His hand rested against the side of your neck while yours moved up to grip onto his bicep. He tilted his head slightly and your lips slotted together perfectly, moving together with a practiced kind of confidence and a sense of rightness you never should have felt with Steve Harrington ever.

There was no time to think with the way he was kissing you, slow and deep but utterly consuming. It was careful at first, exploratory. It felt so good, your lips moving with his like it was second nature. Steve was a good kisser. You knew he had plenty of experience, and it’s not like you didn’t, but he was taking the lead and you were happy to let him.

His tongue traced along your bottom lip, and you parted your lips on instinct. His tongue met yours with a soft groan that had you digging your nails into his arm through the sleeve of his shirt, pulling him closer.

Steve laid you back on the soft carpet with way more care than you’d ever seen him show anything. He braced himself on a strong arm planted next to your head, never breaking the kiss for a single second. His body hovered over yours, one knee moving between your thighs where your skirt had fallen up around your waist, pressing against you through your panties. His free hand rested on your hip now, holding onto you. You let out a soft moan against his lips, delirious from every point of contact, rocking your hips down against his leg to feel that friction you craved so desperately.

He groaned, moving from your mouth to kiss across your jaw, down to your neck, his lips brushing over the sensitive skin, giving you chills. Your breaths were coming in hard and heavy now, holding onto his broad shoulders like a lifeline, eyes closed as you felt every sensation he provided.

“So pretty,” he murmured against your neck, grinding his knee against you to meet every needy movement. He nipped lightly at the sensitive spot below your ear. You could feel his smirk against your skin when you gasped, hips bucking against him in response. It made no sense how he knew exactly what to do, like he somehow knew your body better than you did.

“Steve…” you whimpered, the only word your brain could conjure.

“That’s it, baby,” he said. His breath was hot against your skin, sucking at your neck, biting then soothing the sting with his tongue. “Let me hear you. Gonna make you feel so good.” 

The hand on your hip slowly slid up the smooth skin of your side, rucking your shirt up. You sat up long enough to help him pull it off completely, leaving you in the lacy bra you wore beneath. He wasted no time lowering his head to mouth at the top of your breasts, practically burying his face in them, kissing and sucking and biting at the exposed skin.

“Always had the best fucking tits,” he moaned, losing himself in a way you could only describe as worshipful. He reached behind you to unhook your bra easily, pulling it away and tossing it to the side. He pulled back to look down at your body, the look in his eyes one of pure hunger. “Actually insane fuckin’ pair, Jesus Christ.”

You laughed, because yeah, there was the Steve you knew. That laugh turned into a gasp, then a moan, when he leaned down and wrapped his lips around one of your nipples.

“Fuck,” you gasped, hands shooting up to tangle in his hair. “Oh my god—“

He swirled his tongue around the stiff peak, groaning as he sucked on it. He grabbed the other, massaging your breast in his large hand, slightly calloused from years of pitching. The friction on your sensitive, hardened nipple was maddening, back arching and pushing your tits further into his face.

He never let up with the movements against your soaked cunt, either, even as he switched back and forth between your tits. Your clit was swollen and throbbing and begging for more, and you were pretty sure your panties were utterly ruined. You could feel the pleasure building in your core with an intensity that felt like it would completely take your breath away.

You’d never had a guy make you cum in your life, and now Steve Harrington was about to do it in five minutes, fully clothed, with his fucking thigh?

Steve could sense the tension coiling in your body—and he pulled away, taking away every delicious ounce of pleasure he’d been building.

Your eyes opened, still heavy lidded and hazy. “What—?”

“My bed,” he said, and you noticed he was breathing hard, too. “Not gonna fuck you for the first time on the floor.”

You didn’t give yourself time to think about his words. He helped you up, then pulled you into another frantic kiss as you both shed clothes as fast as you could with your lips still attached, utterly desperate for each other.

Steve’s mattress creaked softly as you fell back onto it, now in nothing but your panties. You moved back towards his pillows, leaning up on your elbows as you watched him.

God, he looked good with his shirt off, you absolutely hated to admit. He had thick hair covering his chest, which was muscular and strong, but his stomach was still a little soft. His skin was sun-kissed, those moles dotting his body all over. The desire to kiss every single one of them surged suddenly within you, but you pushed the thought away. That was…intimate.

His gaze remained heavy on you as he worked his belt open without drawing away his attention once. The way he looked at you was like a starving man preparing for a feast. Your thighs were slightly parted, and he didn’t miss how damp your panties were. For him.

Finally down to his boxer briefs alone, you could see more of him than you ever had before. He was fully hard, the outline of his dick visible as it strained against the thin, snug material.

And the rumors were true.

“Jesus,” you breathed. That cocky smirk returned to his face as he watched your wide-eyed stare. Truthfully, he was used to that reaction. “You’re…”

“I know, baby,” he purred, crawling onto the bed over you. He leaned down, peppering kisses along your legs as he moved higher along your body. “It’ll fit. I’ll be careful. ‘m gonna take care of you like you deserve.”

It felt like you were melting into the soft sheets and comforter surrounding you. Steve was taking his time, placing hot, open mouthed kisses against your calf, his hand roaming up the other leg in time with his mouth. He rose higher, over your knee, up the inside of your thigh.

He laid on his stomach between your legs, kissing and nipping all along the sensitive skin of both inner thighs. Your legs trembled. The sight of him there, with his mouth all over you, was almost too overwhelming to even take in. Your head dropped against his pillows, just giving in to his every desire, your body coming alive with every touch. Trusting him.

“You’re so wet for me,” he breathed in pure admiration. His nose nuzzled against your core through the thin material, and you drew in a sharp gasp. He looked up at you from between your legs, fingers moving to dip beneath the waistband of your panties. “Has anyone ever tasted you before?”

You froze as you realized what he was asking you, what he was planning to do. By the time you found your words, he’d already slipped the delicate material down and off your body. You shuddered as you felt his breath against your pussy, cool against the wetness there, for him.

“I—“ You jolted when you felt him rub his nose against your folds, breathing in the intoxicating scent of you. Your whole body was flushed and hot. “…No.”

Steve groaned. The idea of being the first to pleasure you like this had his cock throbbing between his body and the mattress. “Fuckin’ idiots,” he grumbled, drinking in the sight of you for a little longer before he finally moved in, dragging his tongue against your cunt, moaning like he’d never tasted anything better. “You have the perfect fuckin’ pussy. Tastes so sweet.”

Your hips jerked against his mouth, crying out at that first unfamiliar contact. You heard his low chuckle, but there was no humor behind it, just pure want. He dove in, devouring you properly.

The feeling of his tongue against you was more intense than you’d anticipated. Your fingers tangled in his perfect hair, making a mess of it, pulling just hard enough to earn a groan from his chest that vibrated against your clit. You were nearly seeing stars already, hips rocking up against his mouth as he flicked his tongue against the swollen nub, sucking gently before moving down to your hole. He knew exactly what he was doing, and he was pulling you apart piece by piece until you could hardly stand it.

You’d heard of this before, of course you had. Your sorority sisters had mentioned it a few times, and you’d seen it in that trashy porno you, Nancy, and Carol had spent the night giggling at after sharing a joint and some vodka crans. But you always thought of it as a myth. No man you’d ever been with had even offered, even if you’d gone down on him first. You figured it was something guys just didn’t do, or at least something they didn’t want to do.

Not Steve, apparently, because he was worshipping you like he could have spent hours with his face buried between your legs. His skilled tongue worked against you in all the right ways, moaning against you and grinding his hips against the bed, even harder if you tugged on his hair, which you were quickly learning he liked.

“Steve—“ you gasped, body writhing and arching beneath him. “Oh my god, I—-“

“That’s it,” he praised, pulling away from you just long enough to speak, eyes glazed and lips and chin shining with your wetness, before diving in again. “Doing so good for me, sweetheart. You’re so fucking hot.”

You whimpered when you felt his thick finger pressing against your entrance, moaning as he pushed inside while his mouth focused on your clit again. With how wet you were, he slid inside easily, fucking you before quickly adding a second finger. He curled them deep inside, pressing against something that nearly had you screaming his name loud enough for the whole party to hear.

“Steve!” you gasped, one hand still tangled in his hair while the other gripped onto the pillow, feeling like you would actually float away if you didn’t hold on. The pleasure he was giving you was nearly overwhelming, your body beginning to tremble harder as that coil tightened again, faster and more intense this time. He slipped in a third, fucking you deep, stretching you around his thick fingers.

“Gotta get you ready for me,” he panted, dragging his tongue through your folds one more time just to taste you. “Fuck. You’re so good, gonna take me so well, every fuckin’ inch, I know you will. Gonna stretch so perfectly around my cock.”

A whine crawled its way from your throat, hips rocking against his fingers as he fucked you deep with them, pressing against that bundle of nerves that had you losing your mind. “Steve…Steve…oh fuck, I’m—“

He didn’t let up with his fingers for a single second. But it was when he wrapped his lips around your clit, sucking, while his fingers thrusted in hard and deep, that made it finally snap.

Your vision went white, your body tensing and mouth dropping open in a scream that was silent at first, before you let out what were probably the most pornstar-worthy sounds you’d ever made in your life. “Steve! Oh, fuck!”

Steve groaned at the sound, lapping up every bit of you, letting you grind your pussy against his tongue and working you through every shuddering aftershock until your body went limp beneath him. When he finally pulled back, you fully expected him to look up at you with that look he almost always wore, the one that made him look so proud of himself, so punchable. But instead he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand before sucking his fingers clean greedily, looking down at your body with that same heated, wanting expression.

He sat up on his knees. You didn’t think it was possible before but he was even harder now, a wet spot on his boxers at the tip of his cock where he’d been absolutely dripping for you. His thumbs hooked into the waistband, pushing down just enough for you to get a glimpse of the hair that disappeared below.

“You ready for me?” he asked, voice a low rumble.

You let out a shaky breath, looking up at him with wide eyes. “…Yeah.”

Steve smirked down at you and pushed the material down in one go. His cock sprung free—and it was even more impressive than it looked before. He was thick and long, a slight right curve, vein prominent along the underside. His tip was flushed red like he was real desperate, and glistening from the precum he’d been leaking the whole time he was taking care of you. Another drop was beading at his slit. You’d never had a man look like he wanted you this bad.

You knew you were staring, and Steve certainly saw it, too. “See something you like, baby?”

You let out a breathless laugh, but truthfully, you were in no position to crack a joke or even deny it. You simply watched as he shed the last bit of clothing completely, leaving you both completely bare in his bed.

He leaned over you and reached to open the bedside drawer. There really were porn mags in there, which might have made you laugh if you couldn’t feel that thick length twitching against your thigh. He grabbed a condom and shoved the drawer closed, sitting back up on his knees. He ripped the foil packet open with his teeth and rolled it onto his cock.

When he leaned over your body again, one arm braced near your shoulder and the other stroking his cock slowly, your heart began to pound fast. There was that brief moment of I’m really doing this, right now, with him, but you’d never wanted anything more in your life.

Steve lined the head of his cock up with your entrance. You were still soaked, so he wasn’t worried, but you were. You’d heard rumors of how some girls couldn’t even take him, only getting him halfway in before giving up and jerking him off instead. You hadn’t believed them, because starting a rumor about the size of his dick was absolutely something you could see Steve doing. But now you were here in his bed, seeing firsthand that it was very true.

He traced his cock up and down through your folds, coating himself in that slick wetness, showing a surprising amount of care. He placed hot, gentle kisses along your jaw as he did, voice a soft, low rumble in your ear.

“I’ll go slow,” he promised, lips brushing against your skin. “You don’t like it, we don’t have to. But I’ve got you, baby. You’re so good, I think you can take it.”

You could hear the need in his voice, how badly he needed you to let him fuck you. But you also knew he was true to his word.

But, god, you wanted to take all of him. To show him you could, to feel him buried deep. To make him fall apart.

Steve kissed his way back to your lips, kissing you slow and deep, tongue massaging against yours. You felt the sting of the thick head of his cock pushing inside you, and you let out a soft whimper into the kiss. He moaned against you and pushed in just a little deeper.

“That’s it,” he whispered between kisses. He grabbed your thigh with his left hand now, spreading you wide for him. “Doin’ so good, baby, letting me in.” He rolled his hips in shallow thrusts, just that little bit inside of you, sinking in another inch with every slow, deliberate thrust, working you open.

Your nails dug into his shoulders, but he kept your attention on him, entirely on the way he was kissing you. You weren’t sure why or how but it was working, his slow, languid kiss distracting you from the sharp sting where he was stretching you around the girth of him, coaxing your body to relax.

The feeling of being filled was like nothing else. Sure, you’d had plenty of sex, but Steve made you feel absolutely stuffed full before he was even completely inside. He held your thigh up, keeping you open for him, your flexibility not lost on him. He rolled his hips in a few more slow thrusts—and then you felt his hips pressed flush against you.

“Christ,” he breathed, pulling back just enough to lean his forehead against yours. “So perfect, baby, you fuckin’—took it all, Jesus—“

You’d never heard Steve sound so utterly wrecked. He rolled his hips against you a few times, just enjoying the feeling of being completely sheathed inside your tight heat. And fuck, you were stretched around him perfectly, tight and hot. You felt like absolute heaven around his cock.

His cock throbbed inside you, so hard you could feel it. Your arms wrapped around his shoulders, palms rubbing over his hot skin, a thin sheen of sweat coating it from the sheer effort of holding back from pounding into you.

“Steve,” you whimpered. Your cunt fluttered around him, and he dropped his head to your shoulder with a broken moan.

“Yeah?” he rasped. His hips rocked lightly against you, betraying his desperation.

“You can…” You gasped as the coarse hair at his base rubbed against your clit, still so sensitive but aching for him again. “…You can move.”

Steve moaned again, placing a few hot kisses against your neck as if thanking you. Finally he pulled his hips back, slowly withdrawing almost fully. Only his tip remained, and you could have cried at the loss of that perfect full feeling. But then he sank back in—slow at first, filling you to the brim again. Your desperate sounds of pleasure mixed together in the hot, charged air of his bedroom, a symphony intertwined much like your bodies.

“Shit,” he cursed. He set a careful rhythm, every thrust measured and slow and deep. “You’re taking me so fucking good. Fuuuuck. That pussy is fucking unreal.”

You could barely think straight. Your entire world narrowed down to the feeling of Steve inside of you, stretching you open perfectly. The sting was still there, but it was quickly fading into pure ecstasy with every movement of his hips. Your body was adapting to him like it was made for it.

Hands tangled in his hair again, you pulled him down into another messy kiss, all tongue and desperation, sloppy and hungry and hot. He groaned loudly into it, hips rutting into you faster.

Whines and whimpers and keening moans were spilling from your lips with little control. Your hips moved in time with his thrusts, meeting him every time. His cock was deeper than you thought possible, brushing against that spot that quickly had you gasping and babbling complete nonsense.

“Feels so good Steve, oh fuck, oh god, please don’t stop, don’t fucking stop I’m gonna cum again, Steve please, oh god—!”

Every word that tumbled from your lips was like fuel to the fire of his intense need. He couldn’t hold back anymore, couldn’t worry about if he might hurt you, too lost in the feeling of your body wrapped around him. His hips rocked against yours in a frantic pace now, his breaths coming in ragged pants, eyes locked on the way your tits bounced with the force of his thrusts. You arched your back and he leaned down to wrap his lips around a nipple again, moaning as he laved his tongue over it, eyes closed and completely pussydrunk, all because of you.

He sucked hard on your nipple one more time before letting go with a wet pop and sitting up on his knees. He held onto your waist and used your body, pulling you down onto his cock with every rough snap of his hips. His eyes were locked on the sight, watching himself disappear into your perfect cunt, seeing you stretch around him, take him whole.

“Holy fuck,” he panted. The sight of the muscles in his arms and chest flexing as he took what he needed from you, watching you with such heat, made you feel utterly delirious. He looked powerful and strong, like an absolute god. “Jesus. Look how you take me, baby, fuck. Knew you’d be good, but—“ His hips stuttered, eyes rolling back for a second. “—shit, holy fuck—“

“Baby,” you gasped, grabbing onto the pillow above your head. Your cunt was tightening, throbbing around him, soaking his cock. The sound of him driving into you was loud and obscene—the slick, wet sounds, the sound of his skin slapping against yours. You might have felt a little self conscious if you could think about anything other than his cock coaxing that second orgasm from your trembling body. “I can’t—oh god, Steve, please…”

“You can do it,” he was nearly begging now, his cock beginning to twitch within your tight walls, so close to his own end but determined to get you there first. “Come on, baby, give it to me. Let me feel it. Cum all over my cock, show me how good it feels, how much you like getting fucked by me.”

You turned your head, biting down on a pillow you held to your face in an effort to muffle the scream that ripped from your lungs. Your body arched, cunt clenching around him as wave after wave of overwhelming, perfect pleasure washed over you. Your ears were ringing, moaning and gasping and babbling his name again and again.

“Shit!” Steve cursed, hips pounding into you reckless and fast. “That’s it, god yeah, let me feel it—oh fuck—you’re so good, so fucking good baby, letting me fuck you like this, squeezing around me—shit—oh baby, gonna make me—gonna make me fuckin’ cum—“

His body pitched forward over yours, bracing himself on an arm and burying his face in your neck. His cock buried deep in you, hips snapping in a few more frantic, shallow thrusts before he tensed, his groan muffled against your skin as he spilled into the condom, repeating your name over and over, body shaking with the intensity.

Your head was spinning. You could hear your heart beating in your ears. Steve’s body was heavy on top of you, your sweat-slicked skin pressed together, as he tried to catch his breath. It was a minute of heavy silence before he finally slid his softening cock out of you, collapsing onto his back.

The loss of that glorious full feeling was disappointing, to say the least. But as Steve removed the condom from his spent cock, tying it off and tossing it into his trash can, the moment finally, properly, broke.

And you realized you were naked in Steve Harrington’s bed. That you had fucked him.

The effects of the weed seemed to have worn off, leaving you feeling suddenly cold and exposed and panicked. Even as you began to freak out more and more, Steve looked totally fine, laying back against the headboard with an arm behind his head. His chest still rose and fell with heavy breaths, skin still shining with sweat, but he looked satisfied. Proud of himself in that way that always pissed you off, but especially now.

“So,” he said, and like so many times before, he’d ruined it all the moment he opened his mouth. “You let me fuck you after all, huh?”

“Jesus Christ,” you muttered, sitting up and reaching for your clothes. You felt like you couldn’t stand to be exposed like this to him for another second, holding every article of clothing you grabbed to your chest until you found it all.

Steve laughed, running a hand through his disheveled hair. He didn’t seem to have any qualms about being totally naked in front of you, comfortable in his own skin the way he always was. “Those panties might be ruined. They were pretty soaked. You can leave them here with me, if you want.” He grinned wider. “I’ll keep them safe. Won’t even wash ‘em.”

“You’re a pig,” you spat back at him. He wasn’t exactly wrong, though. You didn’t want to put them back on, but you weren’t about to walk out of this room wearing that tiny skirt with nothing underneath.

“But was I right?”

“About what?” you asked as you hooked your bra, roughly pulling your shirt back on. The scowl on your face was a permanent fixture at this point, which was amusing to him.

“That I’m good?” he raised his eyebrows, and the grin on his face told you he knew the real answer no matter what you said in response.

“You weren’t that good,” you mumbled. You pulled your skirt back onto your hips, grabbing your shoes.

Steve laughed. “Oh, come on. That’s not what you were saying when you were practically riding my face, or when you were cumming on my dick, begging me not to stop.” His words made your face burn, unable to even say something smart in return. “You don’t have to lie to me, baby. I was there.”

Fully dressed now, you moved to his dresser mirror, trying to fix your appearance. “Don’t call me baby.”

He crossed his ankles, just watching you with that infuriating grin. He made no move to cover any part of his body, his cock laying against his thigh. It was huge even when he was soft, which you hated that you even noticed. 

“Aw, why’re you so mad now?” The condescending tone in his voice made you shiver with the effort of not losing your absolute shit. “Personally, I had fun. And I just gave you your first orgasm ever—“

“Not my first orgasm.”

“Sorry, your first orgasm that you didn’t give yourself.” He tilted his head, smirking. You could feel his eyes all over your body, shameless. “Two of them, actually. So really, you should probably be thanking me.”

You barked out a laugh as you wiped a lipstick smudge from the corner of your mouth. You turned around, noticing for the first time that some of it had transferred to his face. “I’m not thanking you for shit. This never should’ve happened.”

Steve watched you head for the door. He had no intention of stopping you. He’d never let a girl stay in his bed after sex, and he wasn’t about to start now. He moved lazily even as he sat up and began to grab his own clothes.

“You can pretend you didn’t like it all you want, baby,” he said, not even looking at you anymore as he pulled his boxer briefs back onto his legs. “But you and I both know what happened in here tonight, and I don’t think you’ll be forgetting it any time soon.”

You held back a frustrated scream as you walked out of his bedroom, slamming the door behind you. Thankfully the music was loud enough that it didn’t draw any attention. You stomped down the hallway and down the stairs, back into the chaos that now felt suffocating and overwhelming in a way it never had before.

You found Nancy in the kitchen, laughing with some of the other sisters. When she spotted you her expression turned serious, saying something to the girls before walking straight to you. 

“Where did you go?” she asked, reaching for your arm. Her hand was a little cold and every touch to your skin right now felt like a scalding burn, but you didn’t pull away. “I’ve been looking for you for ages.”

“Just got wrapped up talking to some people,” you mumbled, unable to make eye contact with her. “I’m gonna head home, though.”

Nancy’s brows furrowed. “Now? Already? It’s still pretty early.”

“I just don’t feel good,” you said. All you really wanted was to get back to the safety of your own bedroom and freak out about this in private. “You don’t have to leave.”

“No, don’t be silly. I’m going with you.” She drained the last of the contents of her cup and tossed it into the nearby trash can, intertwining her fingers with yours. “This party kinda sucked tonight, anyway.”

You smiled at her, genuinely grateful. Nancy was your best friend for a reason, and you loved her. But you could never tell her what happened tonight.

As you walked hand in hand to the front door, you felt a creeping feeling up your spine. Just as Nancy turned the doorknob, opening the door and letting the cool September air inside, you looked back over your shoulder.

Steve leaned against the railing upstairs, watching you. When you locked eyes, he lifted a hand in a wave, smiling down at you.

You left the house, letting the door close hard behind you.

Steve was haunting you.

Not even in the way he always had, constantly in the same places, an unavoidable physical presence. No, this was worse. He was in your head now. And for the first time ever, you felt you had actually been lucky before.

The night after that first fateful mistake, you’d gotten back to the house, told Nancy you didn’t feel good, and went straight to bed. You removed your clothes from the party, shoved that pair of panties straight in the trash. You didn’t think you could ever look at them again.

Sleep didn’t come easily. You laid in bed, thinking about Steve and what you’d done without a moment’s reprieve. It was miserable, but you figured it was normal. Something terrible had just happened after all; a horrible mistake had been made, so of course you were going to think about it. It would fade. You would feel better tomorrow.

The problem was that it never stopped.

You woke up thinking about Steve. Went to class thinking about him. Every time you saw him on campus—and he always saw you first, smirking at you and giving you that douchebag nod, or a casual wave that he knew was anything but—you averted your eyes and headed quickly in the other direction.

If the fact that you’d done it at all didn’t disgust you enough, it was nothing compared to the horrible truth. That you’d liked it. Loved it. Wanted more. He really was the best you’d ever had, and you didn’t think he’d ever done a single thing that had pissed you off more than that.

Of all the guys you’d been with, guys who were plenty hot and popular and well liked, not a single one of them had ever cared about your pleasure in any way. They were only interested in getting themselves off. You were pretty sure they wouldn’t have been able to find the clit if they’d even bothered to try.

But Steve? He had absolutely rocked your world exactly like he promised. The only orgasms you’d ever experienced had been by your own hands, and you figured no one ever would or could know your body better than you did. How did he know the exact right places to touch, the right things to do? Every girl was different, right? Did he have some kind of stupid fucking superpower?

He had you completely spiraling. You felt like you were losing your mind. Even Nancy and Carol and the other girls noticed there was something up with you. Nancy was the only one who asked, but you quickly made up some excuse about being stressed over classes and homecoming. Tommy was still doing everything in his power to win you over, but there was only one Sigma Chi member on your mind at all hours, day and night.

You laid in bed at night with the memory haunting you. His mouth, his tongue, his fingers, his stupidly huge dick that he knew exactly how to use, that he’d taken so much care with so he wouldn’t hurt you. How hard you’d cum when he went down on you, the way he made you cum again with nothing but his cock. The memories replayed through your mind nonstop until the ache between your thighs became unbearable and you couldn’t help it anymore, your hand slipping beneath your shorts and panties and burying your moans in your fist until you came moaning his name, picturing his face the way he looked staring up at you from between your legs.

That was the worst of it, the guilt and confusion and disappointment you felt when it was over. When you were laying there in the quiet dark of your bedroom, realizing that you were really, truly fucked.

You wanted Steve. You wanted him bad. And you didn’t think you could keep lying to yourself.

By the time the next party came around, you were done even trying to pretend.

You spent a little extra time getting ready in your bedroom, picking out a cute little dress after trying on nearly everything in your closet. It was form fitting, short, and a bit revealing. You knew it would catch his attention. You honestly weren’t sure why you were even trying, since you’d never had to try to get him to notice you before, even when you desperately didn’t want him to.

When you met Nancy and Carol in the front room, their eyes widened at the sight of you. “Woah. That’s the slut dress,” Carol remarked right away.

It made you laugh even as your skin flushed with embarrassment. It was true. This dress rarely ever came out, and when it did it was because you were going on a date you really wanted to end happily—hence the nickname your friends had dubbed it with.

“Is there something you wanna tell us?” Nancy asked, her brows raised. “I mean, you look great, but…who’s it for?”

The question made you freeze for a moment, even though you should’ve known they’d ask. Of course they would. But you recovered quickly, making up a lie on the spot that you prayed sounded believable. “No one in particular. Just…hoping to catch the attention of someone interesting, at least.”

That seemed good enough for Carol, who turned away and started digging through her purse to make sure she’d packed her lipstick, but Nancy watched you a little longer. She was always so analytical with everything, and as your best friend, she knew you too well for you to get away with lying to her about much. And you hated lying to Nancy, you really did, but how would you explain this?

The three of you left Delta Gamma as a unit, arms linked together. The walk to the Sigma Chi house wasn’t far, and it was a chilly evening, but nothing too bad. The bare skin of your thighs felt the sting of the cold the most, but before you knew it you were walking in the front door, the packed frat house instantly hot enough to make you grateful for the amount of skin you had showing.

For the first time, you were grateful to be separated from your girls so quickly. And, equally as unusual in this alternate dimension you’d somehow stepped into—you wanted to find Steve. Your eyes scanned each room for him, ears focused on listening for his voice. Something you couldn’t explain led you to the backyard, a place you didn’t often venture here.

The hot tub was on, and overcrowded. Some of the guys were in with a handful of girls, most sitting in someone’s lap. A larger crowd just hung out on the back deck, some even into the yard beneath the lights. You heard the sound of his laughter quickly, turning your head to the left at the exact time he looked in your direction.

And god, you hated to admit it, but he looked good. His hair was once again perfectly styled, and he wore a long sleeve dark green shirt with a pair of jeans that he wore…really, really well. They were tight, perfectly fitted, and you didn’t know how you’d never known about his size when he wore pants like that. His ass looked great, too.

Fuck.

You locked eyes with him. He held your gaze for a minute, smirk on his face even as he kept talking to his friends. Then, for the first time ever—he turned away. Going right back to his conversation as if you’d never even been there at all.

You were stunned.

Never in the history of your time at OSU had Steve seen you and not immediately approached to piss you off. He had never dismissed you like that. If the rage hadn’t already been boiling in your blood, it certainly was now.

You scoffed, turning around and walking back into the house. If he was expecting you to come to him, it wasn’t gonna happen. It had never happened that way before and wasn’t going to start now. Instead you pushed your way to the kitchen, heading straight to pour yourself a drink.

Just as you were reaching for one of the red plastic cups, another hand came around your shoulder and grabbed it before you could. You turned around, more confused than angry, to see Tommy Hagan standing right behind you, a warm smile on his freckled face.

“Sorry,” he said sheepishly, looking like he just realized how awkward of a move it was. “I just—can I get you a drink?”

You paused for a second. “Um…yeah, sure. Thanks.”

“No problem,” he said, his expression becoming a little more comfortable at your acceptance. He moved around to the counter that held a keg and multiple bottles of liquor. It was surrounded by people, as it always was, but they moved for Tommy out of respect in the same way they did for Steve. “What’re you drinking?”

You scanned the selection—there was a bit of everything. Sigma Chi took pride in keeping the alcohol flowing at every party. “Tequila?”

“You got it.” Tommy grinned. He filled the red cup from the keg and passed it back to you, then reached for the bottle of tequila, pouring two shots. He handed one to you and held the other out in a toast.

You smiled softly as you gently tapped your cup against his, then brought it to your lips, downing the burning liquid with ease. Tommy laughed when you scrunched your face up in disgust for a second.

“You’d think Harrington would splurge for the good shit,” Tommy said, leaning back against the counter as he looked at you. “I guess I can’t complain about free alcohol, though.”

“True,” you smiled, even though you really didn’t want to talk or think about Steve anymore, especially right now. “Thanks. Again. For the drinks.” You held your beer up towards him before taking a sip.

“No problem,” he said, a soft blush touching his pale skin. “Pretty girls shouldn’t have to pour their own drinks.”

Even though you didn’t like Tommy as more than a friend, he really was sweet, and his attention made you feel good. Special. “What would I ever do without you, Tommy?”

He laughed, looking down at his shoes for a moment. “Hey,” he said, meeting your eyes again. “I was just thinking…if you’d maybe want to go out? Maybe…Monday?”

Your eyes widened. You hadn’t actually expected him to ask you on a date. Your lips parted, closed, then opened again, but you couldn’t figure out the right words to say.

“Nothing serious,” Tommy said quickly, noticing your hesitation. “It doesn’t have to be…y’know. I just thought we could maybe get some food, talk about homecoming…” His soft smile returned. “…and, you know, I’d really like to take you out.”

It was hard not to soften around him, especially with the way he spoke to you. Every Sig was great at turning on the charm, but there was something about Tommy that felt so genuine. And would it really be so bad to go out with him? “Sure. That sounds good. My last class ends at 4?”

“Great,” he said, the words leaving him in a breath of relief. “Yeah, awesome. I can pick you up from DG? Like…6?”

“That’s perfect,” you nodded. You drank from your beer again just as another Sig walked up to Tommy—Billy Hargrove. You hadn’t spoken to him much yourself, but he was nice to look at for sure. You knew a few of your sorority sisters had been out with him, and he had a bit of a reputation for being a ladies man. He had a gorgeous smile, tan skin, blue eyes, and dirty blonde hair that hung to his shoulders in soft, beautiful curls.

“Hagan,” Billy said, clapping a hand on the other boy’s shoulder. He looked like he was about to say something else, but then his eyes landed on you. “Well. You didn’t tell me you were busy entertaining DG’s most beautiful.”

Even though all these frat guys pulled the same cheesy lines, you still felt the heat rise to your skin. “Hi, Billy.”

“Hi, gorgeous.” He smiled down at you, showing off the dimple in his cheek. Something about it brought out the ‘smiling shyly, twirling your hair around your finger’, teenage girl-type feeling buried deep within you. Tommy’s confident smile had dropped, now shifting awkwardly on his feet.

“Uh, what’s up, Hargrove?” Tommy asked, trying his best to look unbothered.

Billy glanced at him for just a second before those clear blue eyes found you again. “No rush, Hagan. What, don’t wanna share her attention?” His smile was bright and friendly, the kind that would have any girl’s heart beating fast.

“It’s not—“ Tommy sighed, leaning back against the counter.

“We were just talking,” you said, glancing between the two boys. There was an unspoken tension there, but you didn’t dwell on it. “How’s basketball?”

Billy’s smile grew. “It’s great. We’ve started conditioning. Right, Tommy?” he asked, turning around to look at his friend for only a moment, a weak attempt at acting like he had any intent to bring him into the conversation. “You should come to some of our games this season. I think I play better when there’s a pretty girl cheering for me.”

You laughed, the sound light and airy and genuine. “Is that right?”

Billy shrugged. “Could be just a theory, but why take the risk? Wouldn’t be very good for school spirit if we didn’t do everything possible to make sure we take home that championship, right?”

You rolled your eyes lightly as you laughed again, but it was more amusement than irritation—not like with certain people. “I guess that’s true. We should all do our part.”

“Exactly.” He smirked. “And maybe I can come watch you run some time. See that record-breaking sprinter I’ve heard so much about in action.”

You weren’t sure why exactly, but it surprised you that he knew anything about your athletic achievements. It was talked about on campus—the school loved to celebrate their top athletes—but it’s not like most of the school cared about track and field the way they did about other sports. You were no Steve Harrington, star pitcher. “Yeah, that would be cool. I’d like that.”

“I’ve heard you’re good. Like, insanely fast.” He leaned against the counter next to Tommy with an instinctual swagger, exuding the confidence that came so naturally to him. “And, uh…long jump?”

“High jump,” you corrected, hiding your shy smile behind your cup as you sipped your beer again. “But, yeah. I’d love for you to come watch.”

“Maybe I’ll call you sometime.” Billy winked at you before finally acknowledging Tommy again. “Hagan. We’re waiting for you out back.” He looked back at you. “Sorry, came over here to grab him and didn’t expect to get…distracted.”

“Go do your thing,” you said, waving your hand in some kind of vague gesture. You were starting to feel a slight buzz, at least. “Have fun. Don’t let me hold you up.”

“I’ll see you around,” Billy said with one last flash of that charming smile. When he looked back at Tommy, his expression was more serious, nodding his head towards the back in a silent command that didn’t seem to have any other option.

Tommy smiled at you, but it was more forced, the comfort from before long gone. “I’ll see you Monday,” he said. “It was…good to talk to you. I hope you have fun the rest of the night.”

“Bye,” you said softly, but he was already gone. You watched him trailing after Billy towards the back door, where Steve and some of the other guys waited, a cheer erupting as soon as they walked out the door. Frat boys.

Left on your own again, you tried to enjoy yourself. Bouncing around the house, talking with people you knew from around campus, from sports, from Greek life. Still, you couldn’t shake the thought of Steve from your head. You knew what you’d come here to do, and even though you hated yourself for it, you hadn’t changed your mind. You didn’t think you could.

You saw him again a few times. Through the back door, in the living room, passing him in the hallway on the way to the bathroom, where he bumped into your shoulder and turned around long enough to smirk at you before walking on like it was nothing. Every time you saw him he saw you too, but he didn’t approach you once. It had you fuming.

A few hours into the party, unfortunately, you were getting desperate.

When you walked into the kitchen for another refill, you saw him again. He was leaning against the wall, arms crossed over his chest with one hand holding his cup, talking to some girl you couldn’t name. You weren’t jealous—you were not jealous—but it just made you even angrier. Especially when he glanced at you for just a moment before turning back to her.

This was humiliating. It was demeaning. You hated it. You hated him. But you swallowed your pride, took a deep breath, and walked over to them anyway.

Steve looked at you again, and grinned wide, his eyes lighting up with an infuriating delight as he realized you were coming over. The girl by his side gave you a dirty look as soon as she noticed, but Steve’s attention was now entirely on you.

He said your name, a simple acknowledgement. “How are you enjoying the party?” He tilted his head to the side, his expression smug. He knew exactly what game he’d been playing all night, and he also knew he’d just won.

“It’s great,” you said, your deadpan voice doing nothing to hide your irritation.

“Good. I pride myself on my hospitality.” You didn’t think you’d ever seen Steve not looking proud of himself, but he certainly did right now. “Did you need something?”

You glared at him, biting the inside of your cheek as you refused to back down from the eye contact he was holding. The girl next to him looked between you. “I was…wondering if you had any more of that…weed.”

The grin that spread across his face was nothing short of euphoric. His hazel eyes seemed to shine with it. The girl next to him might as well have no longer existed. “Actually, you know, I might have a little more. I’d have to check.”

Your jaw clenched, looking off to the side before meeting his eyes again. Your whole body buzzed like a live wire. When he didn’t make a move, just kept looking at you, you raised your eyebrows at him expectantly. “Well?”

Steve laughed. “Now, huh?” He downed the rest of his beer and turned to the side, dropping the cup in the trash. You were momentarily stunned when he grabbed yours from your hand, too, doing the same. “Well, if it’s that urgent. Come on, we’ll go look.”

He pushed off the wall, walking in the direction of the staircase. He didn’t give the girl he’d been talking to another word or look, but she was certainly glowering at you when you glanced one last time before following after him. You felt ashamed, trailing behind exactly like he wanted you to. But worse than that was the relief.

Still, as you walked up the stairs behind Steve, you looked around to make sure no one was watching. You’d survived the first hookup without rumors starting, but you knew you had to be careful. If there was one student on this campus everyone paid attention to, it was Steve Harrington.

Even worse than some random students seeing and whispering would be Nancy or Carol. You didn’t want to have to even begin to figure out how to explain this to them. It was humiliating enough doing it, confusing even trying to justify it to yourself.

Steve led the way into his bedroom, although you’d dreamed about the same path so many times over the past week, you could have walked yourself there with your eyes closed. His room was still tidy, and the scent of the cologne he was wearing now permeated the air. All his usual hair products sat out on his dresser, and you could practically see the ghost of him there getting ready before leaving for the party downstairs, not putting it away.

He closed the door behind you, the sound of the lock clicking into place like a bomb in the silence. You turned around to face him. You hadn’t really thought this far ahead.

“So…” Steve began, walking over to you slowly. You felt like a rabbit that had run right into his trap—willingly. “Did you really want that weed? Or did you come back for something else?”

You gritted your teeth, fists clenching and unclenching at your side. Drawing in a deep breath, you tried to relax your muscles, your entire body tense. “I…”

Steve was still smiling at you as he approached. He knew you weren’t going to say it, but he had already won. You’d come. His hand came up to rest on your cheek, and you found yourself relishing in the warmth of his palm rather than flinching away.

“You don’t have to say it if you don’t want to,” he murmured, his voice low. No bravado, soft, meant only for you. His eyes were locked on yours. “I know what you need, baby.” His thumb stroked your cheek, then moved to rub slowly over your bottom lip. Your breath hitched, but you couldn’t break the intense eye contact if you tried. “Have you been dreaming about it?”

You didn’t know what to say. Your brain was short circuiting. Your hands hung loosely by your side, eyes wide, as he looked at you with pure heat. Goosebumps covered your skin, breath coming in strained.

“I already know,” he continued when you said nothing. His words were a low purr, a sound that had you hypnotized. You didn’t even react when he pulled down slightly on your bottom lip and slipped his thumb inside, pressing down against your tongue. “You’d never been fucked like that in your life. You’ve been thinking about it. Trying to recreate it with your own hand, getting off to the memory.”

Body on autopilot, you closed your lips around his thumb. Your eyes never left each others’ as you ran your tongue over the calloused pad of his finger, sucking on it. For all he tried to act unaffected and in control, you saw the shudder that wracked through him. You didn’t have to look to know he was hard already.

When he pulled his hand away, the trance was broken. But still, you both stood there, just looking at each other. The whole room felt charged with electricity, the air around you heavy enough to feel like a physical, oppressive weight.

Your lips crashed together in a kiss both hungry and frantic. It wasn’t slow and romantic, not this time. Steve’s hands dug into your waist, pulling you close, the kiss all tongue and teeth and messy desperation. He groaned into your mouth, and when he pulled your hips into his, you could feel the hard proof of what you’d already known.

He pulled back to pull his shirt over his head, your eyes drinking in the exposed skin shamelessly. He was breathing hard, eyes glazed over with unfiltered want. Shoes were kicked off, Steve’s jeans hit the floor, and he wrapped his arms around your waist, lifting you with ease and laying you on his bed.

“You wore this little thing for me?” Steve whispered in your ear as he settled over you. His lips attacked your neck, sucking at that spot he remembered was so sensitive. You wouldn’t be surprised if he left marks, but you couldn’t think straight long enough to care.

“No.” The denial was weak, even you knew that. You had watched him all night, approached him yourself after sucking up your pride, and now you were beneath him on his bed. But, fuck, hadn’t you given him enough satisfaction tonight?

“No?” He chuckled darkly against the hot skin of your neck. He didn’t believe you for a second. He was rolling his hips against you, the straining in his boxer briefs rock hard where it pressed against your dripping core. “That’s a shame, baby. It looks so good on you.”

The little whimper that escaped when he bit down on the skin beneath your ear would have been embarrassing if you were able to even process it. You arched your back beneath him, pressing your tits against his chest. Your nipples were hard through the thin material of your dress—a bra didn’t work with it, so you’d gone without—and the feeling of friction against them had a breathy noise falling from your lips.

Steve moved down your body, pushing your dress up roughly until it was up around your waist. He lowered himself between your thighs, pressing his nose against your already soaked panties, letting out a low, primal groan. “God, you’re so fucking sweet,” he growled. Unable to wait any longer, he hooked his fingers into the waist of your panties and pulled them off.

“Steve—“ you said in a voice that sounded more like a squeak than anything, spreading your legs for him, breathing hard. His big hands slid up your smooth thighs, opening them wider for him. His nose brushed lightly against your folds, making you draw in a sharp breath.

“Yeah, baby?” he murmured. He was looking at your cunt like he wanted this as badly as you did—maybe more. “What do you want?”

“Just do it,” you whined, your body writhing against his sheets with the overwhelming need. “Please, just…”

“What do you want me to do?” He was looking up at you now, smirking, even as his mouth was hovering an inch from where you needed him more than anything. “You’ve gotta tell me, sweetheart. I can’t read your mind.”

You groaned, eyes opening as you looked down at him. “You are such a fucking asshole.”

His big eyes widened with feigned innocence. “What?” You could feel his breath ghosting over your pussy, so wet for him, and it had you trembling. You couldn’t take much more of this and he knew it.

“Stop trying to make me say it,” you grumbled. You pressed the heels of your hands to your eyes.

“Not trying to make you do anything,” he hummed. He moved his head, nose brushing against your clit and making your breath catch. “I just don’t know how I’m supposed to know what you want me to do if you don’t tell me, and, y’know, I’d never want to do anything you didn’t want—“

“Oh my god, Steve,” you huffed, hands running through your hair where you laid against his mattress. “Are you gonna keep running your mouth all night or put it to good use again?”

Steve laughed genuinely, eyes sparkling with amusement. “You’re so feisty. I always liked that about you.”

Before you could complain anymore, he buried his face against your pussy, diving in like it had been killing him to hold himself back, too. You cried out, loud, a hand moving to slap over your mouth a second too late. You could feel his lips curling in a smile against you.

He was good, so good, you didn’t have to have any prior experience to know that. It was no wonder he had girls lining up to get in his bed. You couldn’t keep yourself quiet, his tongue fucking inside of you, drinking in all the sweetness you dripped for him, rolling his tongue over your clit. It felt like he was everywhere at once.

“Steve, fuck!” you cried, gasping and clutching onto the pillows behind your head. “Oh my god, fuck, how are you—oh fuck—“

He groaned against your cunt, the vibrations going straight through your clit and to every nerve ending in your body. He flicked his tongue over the swollen bud, wrapping his lips around it and sucking as he sunk two fingers into your fluttering hole.

“God!” you choked. Your thighs were trembling around his head already. Your hand moved down to card through his hair before gripping onto the soft strands for dear life, pulling another moan from him when your fingers tightened in them.

Steve’s fingers fucked into you, nice and slow at first, slipping in a third finger before curling deep to hit that perfect spot. He was getting you ready for his cock again, your heart beating out of your chest at the thought alone. You could see it when you closed your eyes, just as you had for the past week, and it had you growing even wetter for him.

“Steve…” you whined, your hips starting to grind against his face. He let you, moaning and working you even harder, begging for it without any words. “I’m gonna…”

“Give it to me,” he rasped, pulling away just long enough to say the words before his mouth was right back against you, delving his tongue between your folds and focusing on your clit while his fingers worked you open.

Stars exploded behind your vision. Unable to hold it back, you cried out, mindlessly babbling combinations of his name and curses and desperate pleas of don’t stop don’t stop oh please fuck god don’t stop—

Steve worked you through every last aftershock, playing your body like an instrument he knew wholly, intimately. Your body was still shaking when he pulled away. The sight of him looking down at you like that, with his lips and chin glistening with your release, made you whimper. God, why did he have to look like that?

“So fucking good,” he said, eyes dark and awed. His cock strained hard against his boxers. You could see it twitching through the material, throbbing visibly.

His hands slid up your body, looking at you with a deep reverence as he slid the dress up until it was over your head, tossing it to his floor. His eyes raked over your naked body, every inch of it, the smooth skin and the way your chest rose and fell, how wide your eyes were looking up at him, your pretty lips parted.

“I thought about you, too,” he whispered, lips ghosting over your cheek, back to your ear. “Thought about how you tasted. How tight you felt around me. The way you said my name. The noises you made…god, I came so fucking hard playing those noises over and over in my head.”

You gasped, the throbbing between your legs starting up again at his words. You’d had no idea. Why would he be thinking of you when he could have any girl at this whole school? He wasn’t just saying it. The unfiltered heat in his voice made that clear.

Steve lifted off of you slowly, eyes staying on you until he turned away to open his bedside drawer and grab one of those foil packets he seemed to have an endless supply of. He pushed his boxers down, flushed cock springing free, and kicked the last bit of clothing off the bed with the rest.

You watched him rip the foil open and roll it onto his (impressive, huge, perfect, achingly hard) cock, your pussy clenching around nothing, your body itself begging for him. He settled between your legs, wrapping his big hands around your thighs, opening you wide.

“Dreamed about this pussy,” he mumbled, wrapping a hand around his shaft and dragging his tip through your soaked folds. He pressed the thick head against your hole, pressing forward just slightly, just feeling you. You whined, rocking your hips down, begging for him inside. He smirked as he noticed, but didn’t push in yet. His expression was almost dreamy, pupils blown. “Best pussy I ever had. Fuck. Never came so fucking hard as I did inside you.”

“Steve…” you breathed, the word itself a plea.

“Tell me,” he breathed. It wasn’t a tease anymore. The need in his voice was staggering. He was begging. “Please, baby. Need to hear you say it.”

The sight of Steve, utterly wrecked like this, was almost too much to bear. You didn’t have it in you to refuse, not anymore. “Please,” you keened. “God, Steve, please fuck me.”

His eyes fluttered closed and he let out a ragged groan, even before he finally rolled his hips forward, piercing you with that perfect, thick cock. You nearly sobbed in pleasure as you felt it, that overwhelming fullness as he sank into you inch by inch. It was easier this time but still a stretch, still that distant sting until his hips pressed flush against you.

“Christ—“ Steve choked, falling forward on his hands, planting them on either side of your shoulders. “Oh, fuck.”

You rocked your hips up against him, telling him it was okay to move. Begging him to move. “Oh my god,” you moaned. Your walls throbbed around him, which was undoing him way faster than he’d care to admit.

He pulled his hips back before sinking back in. Starting slow, as if he were still trying to be careful with his last shred of restraint. It didn’t last long. The perfect clench of your heat around him was driving him mad, his thrusts quickly working up into a punishing rhythm.

Your name left his lips in a shuddering breath, his forehead dropping to rest against your shoulder. The sound of his skin meeting yours filled the room, your cunt so slick and wet around him you could hear it every time he drove in. He fucked you harder than he had last time, something you didn’t even know you’d craved until you had it.

“So fucking—god—you feel so fucking good,” he grunted, his body slick with sweat where it was pressed against yours. You hooked a leg around his waist as he reached down with one hand to grab your thigh and press it up against your chest.

The angle was devastating, his cock hitting deeper inside of you than you thought possible. Your eyes rolled back as he punched soft, mindless little “ah ah ah”s from your lungs with every thrust.

“You’re so fucking tight,” he gritted out through clenched teeth. His eyes squeezed shut, sweat beading on his forehead with the effort of how hard he fucked you. The headboard knocked against the wall, chipping the paint from the force of it, the sound unmistakable for anyone who happened to walk by. “Gonna make me cum so fucking hard again. Fuck. Oh, fuck, baby, you’re so perfect, so goddamn—oh shit—“

You tangled your fingers in his hair, pulling on it the way you now knew he liked. The desperate groan he let out was muffled as you pulled him down to your lips, his tongue immediately licking into your mouth. The kiss was utterly filthy, saliva dripping down the side of your mouth—yours, his, both.

The whines he was letting out were growing higher, needier. All signs of that cocky, insufferable personality were gone, nothing but pleasure and desire coursing through him. His fingers dug bruises into your thigh as he snapped his hips forward harder, and oh fuck, he was hitting that spot again—

“Steve!” you gasped, head tossing back against the pillows. Steve’s lips moved down the exposed column of your throat, placing hot, wet kisses everywhere he could reach. “Oh, fuck, Steve, I’m gonna fucking cum—“

“Please,” he begged, his voice a ragged growl against your throat. “Let me feel you. Squeeze my cock, milk me fuckin’ dry, please.”

That coil snapped again, hard, the moan it forced from you more like a scream. It was loud, you knew it was loud, but you couldn’t help it, completely delirious with the intensity of the pleasure. Your back arched beneath him, moaning and crying out and calling his name again and again.

Steve let out a choked noise at the feeling of you tightening around him, clenching and throbbing hard. His hips rutted into you with a desperate, frantic intensity, rhythm completely gone as he chased his own orgasm. He was right behind you, only a couple more shallow thrusts until he was stilling as deep inside you as possible. He groaned roughly, his head dropping to bury his face right between your tits as his body shuddered with release. You could feel him pulsing inside you even through the condom.

The room calmed, your heavy breathing the only sounds remaining. His weight was heavy over you, but you didn’t mind. You didn’t exactly want him to move, at least not yet. In the quiet aftermath, you relished in the feeling of him, his cock still throbbing inside as he slowly softened.

When he finally mustered up the energy to move he lifted off of you, pulling out and removing the condom, tossing it in the trash. You couldn’t bring yourself to look and see if there was proof of him having any other girls in here since you’d been with him. You didn’t know why you cared.

Steve sat on the edge of the bed, his arms resting on his knees. He was still catching his breath as you sat up, reality beginning to creep back in like unforgiving daylight after the safety of the night.

He turned his head to look at you, lips curling into a smile again. His skin still glistened with sweat. “Was it as good as the first time?” He asked, once again breaking the spell with his big mouth. “What you were hoping for when you showed up here tonight, dressed like that?”

You scoffed, sliding off the bed to collect your clothes again. Now that you’d gotten what you’d been craving, the desperation that had been clouding your brain was gone. That familiar shame was crawling over you again.

“What?” he laughed. “You can say it, y’know. Doesn’t mean you have to like me just because you like fucking me.”

You hesitated for a moment, then moved again, pulling your panties back over your legs. “Don’t.”

“Come on, baby,” he goaded, leaning back on the bed. He watched you, propped up on one arm, once again unbothered by being completely exposed to you. “Would it really be so bad to admit it?”

You didn’t look at him, but you could feel his eyes staring at your ass as you pulled your panties back on. “Fine,” you finally huffed, turning around. You clutched your dress in your hands, nearly throwing it at him when he didn’t even try to hide the way his gaze dropped down to your tits. “You’re good. It was amazing. Is that what you want to hear?”

He grinned. “I just wanted to hear the truth.” He shrugged playfully. “I mean, I already knew, just wanted to hear you admit it. Not for me, but for yourself.”

“Aren’t you altruistic,” you muttered, pulling the dress back over your head. The way his brow furrowed for a moment showed he didn’t know what the word meant, but he didn’t press.

Finally he sat up, beginning to replace his own clothes. “It’s okay that you can’t stay away. I get it. It’s good sex.”

“I can stay away—“

“Sure,” he interrupted, lifting his hips to get his boxers back on. “But you don’t want to, right?”

You paused. You hadn’t let yourself think about that. If it was okay to let yourself want this. Just because you hated Steve so bad, because you didn’t want anyone to know this was happening. But did that make it bad? Did it make you wrong? Weak, like you’d felt all week, and especially tonight?

Maybe he was right. It was good sex.

After buttoning his jeans, Steve stood to face you. He ran a hand through his hair, looking in the mirror behind you for just a second before focusing back on you. “Look,” he started, but it was hard to pay attention when he was standing there shirtless like that. “I think we could help each other.”

You forced your eyes back up to his face, the smirk sitting there evidence that he’d seen you staring. “Help each other?”

He walked over to you, hands resting on your hips again. You didn’t push him away, holding his gaze. “Yeah. Help each other. I told you I liked it too, didn’t I?”

You weren’t sure what to say. You’d heard him say it, when he was buried inside you, moaning your name, but you figured it was just…talk. Heat of the moment. Nothing real. Nothing you said or felt when you were fucking was real.

Your lack of a response didn’t deter him. His fingers flexed on your hips, but he didn’t pull you closer. “We could make this a casual thing,” he offered, finally putting the words out there. “You like it, I like it. Why not keep having fun together?”

You turned his words over and over in your head. It felt like far more than the seconds it actually took as you thought over his proposition. What it meant, what it changed, how it felt.

But the memory of the past week played through your mind on repeat. How miserable you’d been, the way you couldn’t get him out of your head. That he was right, the sex had been so good you’d craved it day and night, and the second time had been just as good, if not better.

Steve waited patiently, but he knew your answer before you finally forced it out. “…Okay. Yeah. I guess.”

He grinned, squeezing your hips one more time before moving back. “Okay then. Good.”

“But we keep this between us,” you added quickly. “I’m serious. Just us. You don’t tell your friends and I won’t tell mine.”

He looked amused, but he didn’t argue. “What kind of guy do you think I am?”

You stared at him. “Steve.”

“Okay,” he laughed, pulling his shirt back on. “I won’t tell a soul. You have my word.”

You let out a sigh, both relief and anxiety at once. Turning to his mirror, you fixed your hair, cleaning up your smudged makeup. “It means nothing, and no one knows.”

The heat of his body suddenly behind you made you jump. But he just stood next to you, fixing his own appearance.

“It means nothing,” he repeated. “And no one knows.”

part two soooooon

as always, comments and reblogs are so appreciated!

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When you arrive at the house, he's already out of his work uniform and in a pair of sweats he's had for years. There's a tear in the fabric at his wrist from when you'd gotten a little too excited trying to pull it from his body last winter, but he won't let you fix it. He's hovering between the edge of the living room and the hallway leading to the front door, a beer sweating in his hand and his eyes on the TV. His body is turned towards you, which counts as a greeting during game season. 

"Hey, kid," he calls out as you drop your bag on the table with your keys, then shouts, "FOUL!" at the game blasting from the entertainment system.  

Basketball season, maybe. Or football. It doesn't even matter because half the time it's not even his team playing. 

He tries to kiss you as you walk past, his free hand finding your hip and dragging you close, but his lips barely brush over yours before his attention is pulled away and he starts yelling at the TV again. You roll your eyes, squeeze his bicep, and keep moving towards the kitchen. There's a fresh bottle of red on the counter, the cork already popped and a single glass next to it, waiting for you.  

The pour is probably a little too heavy-handed, as the liquid sloshes over the rim when you kick your shoes off, your heels flying somewhere underneath the dining table, but you'll clean it up later. In the bedroom, the sheets are rumpled, most likely from Gator's nap earlier—the one he swears he never takes—and his work clothes are thrown somewhat near the hamper, but never quite make it inside.  

You've barely unbuttoned your blouse when two hands grab your face, making you squeak. Gator crushes his mouth against yours and tastes like Coors and spicy jerky. He pulls back just long enough to steal another kiss from your mouth before dropping one against your neck, pushing your hair over your shoulder.  

"Hi," he whispers, his thumb tracing your bottom lip.  

"You're missing the game," you smile.  

"Halftime," he grins, all teeth and roguish charm.  

"Stupid," you mutter, shoving him back lightly.  

Gator drops himself at the end of the bed, leaning back on his elbows and appreciating the view in front of him as you drag off your work clothes. They're not particularly sexy—a long wool skirt because the office is always freezing and a white button-up that gives you little to no shape—but you could be wearing a garbage bag, and he'd still stare openly at you like this. His eyes drag across every new inch of skin exposed, his tongue darting out to wet his lips and his breath hitching quietly when the straps of your bra fall down your arms.  

He looks like a predator. Like he can't decide between eating you alive or keeping you forever.  

When you're totally bare in front of him, you take another long sip from your glass and let him make the choice.  

~ ~ ~ 

Gator barely catches the last few minutes of play by the time you leave the bedroom. He grabs another beer from the fridge and the bottle of wine from the counter, pouring you another glass. He twists the cap off his bottle, tossing it towards the garbage can in the kitchen without looking.  

"Go, baby, go!" he shouts, pacing behind the couch shirtless because you're wearing his sweater now, torn cuff and all.  

He lets out a loud "Fuck!" when the final whistle blows, and you figure the team he's picked for the night has lost. He leaps over the back of the couch, dropping beside you and throwing an arm over your lap, squeezing at your thigh that's still warm from the shower. You've looked forward to this moment all day, being next to him and letting the day fade away as you fade into him instead. 

He watches you for a second, his thumb moving absently across your skin. 

"How was work?" He gulps back another mouthful, wiping at the beer that escaped his lips and is headed towards his chin.  

"Oh?" You mock gasp. "You're paying attention to me now?"  

"I think I paid you plenty of attention back there." He jerks his head towards the bedroom with that stupid grin of his—the one that can get you to do anything and always lands you in trouble. 

He keeps looking though at you, waiting for an answer. 

A heavy sigh slips out of you. 

"Work was..." It takes too long to gather the right words.  

"I should've bought you a second bottle," he snorts.  

"This is the only one?" You frown, looking at the side table and eyeballing what must be maybe half a glass left inside it. His head falls back against the couch cushion as he barks out a loud laugh.  

"Don't worry, there's a case in the back of the truck." He pointedly ignores your excited expression. "Couldn't be fucked luggin' it in."  

You throw your arms around his shoulders and press a few smacking kisses against his cheek. He shoves the remote into your lap.  

"Yeah, yeah, I'm the best, I know." He's being sarcastic, but he isn't leaning away from you either. "Pick a damn movie while I get us some dinner." 

~ ~ ~ 

The heels of your feet bounce off the cabinets as you sit on the counter and tell him about your day. He's stirring pasta in the pot on the stove, and there's a jar of home-brand sauce open beside you, waiting to be added.  

He nods at the right moments and laughs as you recall how one of the new temps jammed the copier, even though the story isn't actually funny. 

"I just like the way you tell it." He shrugs. "And I like the ugly little vein that pops out on your forehead when you think someone is stupid and you're trying to be nice about it."  

Your jaw drops open, and your heels stop bouncing. Bursting out laughing, he doubles over so hard that it makes you smile too. 

"Gator!" You pout. "It's not ugly." 

"Aw." He mocks, slipping between your knees and pressing his lips against yours before you can stop him. "It's a little ugly, but it's okay."  

"You're ugly." You kiss him again.  

"Ooft." He slaps a hand against his chest, stepping away from you to stir the pasta again. "You got me, kid."  

You smack him with the tea towel, and he flicks a wet noodle back in return. 

~ ~ ~ 

Some shitty horror movie plays on the television, but you're not really paying attention. You're tired now, the clock pushing past midnight, stomach full and the second bottle of red wine making everything hazy. There's an old scratchy blanket thrown over your tangled legs, and you're practically melting into Gator, your head against his collarbone and arms wrapped around his waist. His fingers have been tangled in the back of your hair since the film started, and it's lulling you to sleep.  

"She ran up the stairs instead of out the front door. Point to me," he mutters against your temple, his lips brushing your skin softly.  

You have this game that you play together. You try to predict what's going to happen in every single one of these B-grade movies.  

A point for when the character goes down into whatever creepy-ass basement they very obviously shouldn't be going down into. A point for guessing which two characters will have sex and inevitably die. A point for guessing the murderer.  

And yes, a point for when the characters run up the stairs instead of out the front door.  

Gator claims he's the reigning champion, but you never keep track of the score anyway. You still let him have the win.  

The October chill has started to creep its way inside the house. Snow hasn't hit the ground yet, but it feels like it's only days away now. The rain has been heavy, pouring consistently over the plains and drenching everything in its path. There's a mop bucket in the hallway catching drops of water from the leak in the roof that Gator can't seem to find.  

"I thought you were getting a guy to come out and fix that?"  

He turns his head to look down the hallway for a moment, watching the drops fall before turning back to you.  

"Forgot about it. I'll call someone tomorrow."  

"Uh huh."  

"I will."  

A scream erupts from the sound system as the characters on the screen meet their untimely demise, and you both jump.  

"I picked the virgins. Two points to me," you mumble.  

"Only one of them was a virgin. One point."  

You huff, and he pulls gently on your hair to tilt your head back, slanting his lips over yours.  

"Wanna go to bed?"  

"No. Wanna stay here with you."  

"Okay."  

He presses his lips against yours again, and you close your eyes. 

~ ~ ~ 

Saturday morning light breaks through the threadbare curtains in the bedroom as you wake up alone. Gator’s side of the bed is cool, but the laundry thrown around the room from the night before is gone, along with the hamper that sat in the corner. Your work heels are placed neatly beside his boots by the wardrobe, and there’s Tylenol and a glass of water on the bedside table for you. 

His sleep is always a bit screwed up on the weeks he works nights. He gets exhausted but struggles to keep his eyes closed, too restless to settle, too anxious to do anything except think. He doesn’t often talk about what happens during his shifts—sometimes a story about drunk arrests or spoiled brats speeding around in daddy’s Mercedes. 

But then there are the weeks when asking about work shuts him down immediately. Not subtly. He goes still in a way that feels wrong, like a caged animal, feral and sharp. So, you stop asking and start reading the signs instead. 

When it's been harder than usual, he keeps himself busy. You hadn't noticed it last night, too wine drunk and too Gator drunk to realize, but assessing the house now, you can see it. He cooked dinner, did all the dishes, and didn't let you lift a finger. You thought it was romantic how he wanted to take care of you after your shitty day. 

Something heavy settles in your stomach. 

Your bare feet hit the floorboards, and his sweater drops to the middle of your thighs as you stand. There's coffee in the pot on the kitchen counter, and the TV is muted with sports highlights rolling across the screen. The case of wine he promised sits on the dining table, but Gator isn't anywhere to be found. 

The backdoor is slightly open; a frigid breeze rolls through the house and curls its way around your bare ankles. He sits on the old picnic bench on the porch—the one that’s been there longer than they’ve probably been alive—vape in one hand, phone in the other. His empty coffee mug sits on the railing, and the door clicks behind you as you step out. 

He turns toward you, already halfway into whatever version of himself he uses when nothing is wrong. His face changes—subtle, practiced, wrong in a way you can always tell now. 

"Don't." 

You don't exactly know what it is that you're telling him to stop doing, but he seems to understand anyway because his face drops, and he looks over the plains again. It's raining in the fields a few miles away. Theres a shimmer in the air and the white noise of the rumbling water hitting the ground. It'll probably be pouring over them within the hour, creeping its way across the land until it swallows them whole. 

You still drop next to Gator anyway, pulling your knees up to your chest and curling into his side. You take his hand, dropping a kiss to the back of it before holding onto it with both of yours. Neither of you move until the rain washes you inside. 

~ ~ ~ 

You indulge him and get in the shower together when he asks. The cubicle is too small for two people, and the taps dig into your back, and Gator never has the water hot enough, but seeing you naked in front of him makes him act like a teenager again. So, you can ignore the quiet, unnecessary fear that he might drop you mid-thrust if it means you can make him forget about everything for a while. 

(And really, sex with Gator has never been a chore.) 

He steps out, wrapping a towel around his waist and you can finally turn the cold tap off and hot tap up. Steam billows through the bathroom enough that Gator mumbles about it "being hotter than Satan's asshole in here" before disappearing into the bedroom. 

You make grilled cheese for lunch using the good cheddar that he claims he can't taste the difference between but always reaches for at the supermarket now. After pouring yourself a cup, you also tip what's in the coffee pot down the sink and replace it with the decaf blend that you keep hidden in the back of the pantry. 

Gator's on the couch, staring at nothing with one arm folded behind his head and the other thrown over his stomach, fingers digging into the scar that sits above his hip. It's still pink, new, and you're not sure how he got it, but you know it's tender sometimes, especially when it's cold. 

You balance his coffee mug on his plate and do the same for yours, walking slowly across the living room to not spill anything. He sits up as you step closer, reaching up and grabbing both plates from your hands so you can sit down next to him. 

"Thanks, kid," he offers quietly, as he passes your plate back. 

He takes a sip from his mug and a wrinkle forms between his eyes as the bitter taste hits his tongue. 

"Fucking decaf," he grumbles, not looking at you and placing it on the side table. 

He complains, but he’ll be asleep on the couch before his plate is empty. You’ll put on some stupid reality show he pretends to hate, and he won’t move. Not to the bedroom. Not anywhere. His hand will stay on your thigh, and he’ll snore into the cushions like he hasn’t slept all week. He probably hasn’t. 

~ ~ ~ 

You open another bottle of red wine while you make dinner. The TV is finally off and the radio hums in the corner. Gator still has bedhead; the strands flattened on one side and puffy on the other, but he doesn't care. He's too busy laughing at you singing a terrible version of a Britney Spears classic with a southern accent. 

“She’s from Louisiana!” you laugh. “She’d sound like that!” 

He fiddles with the dial and changes the station to something more country. Old school. 

"Now, this is music!" He boasts as something that's older than either of you plays softly. 

You point the wooden spoon in your hand at him. "What happened to the guy who used to drive me around, blasting Limp Bizkit?!" 

He huffs a laugh at the memory of being sixteen, just getting his license, thinking he owned the world in his first car. 

"We grew up, kid." 

"OK, old timer." 

You dip the spoon back into the pot, stirring the stew quietly, when Gator's arms wrap around your middle. His lips press against your neck, once, twice, a third time, before his teeth nip at your jaw. 

"Dance with me." 

He's not asking. 

You turn around and wrap your arms around his neck, fingers scratching through the short hairs there. He sways you back and forth to the John Denver track playing before he lifts one of your hands and spins you around. It's hard to wipe the smile off your face when the same one is reflected in his. The song comes to an end, and he dips you back low. 

"Don't you dare drop me!" You warn through your grin. 

"What? Like this?" 

He pretends to let go, dropping you even further towards the kitchen floor and laughter spills out of you. 

~ ~ ~ 

The lights are off, and the television throws shifting shadows across the walls. 

Your clothes, and Gator's, are gone, thrown around the room in your shared haste to have nothing between you. Your hands press against the back of the couch as your hips do all the work, rolling against him and pulling tiny moans from the back of his throat as you work him over. Two fingers swirl around one nipple while his teeth bite and suck sweetly on the other. You run a hand over the sweat curling at his hairline, and he snaps his hips to meet yours, making the air leave your lungs. 

"Like that?" he gasps, doing it again. 

Your eyes roll back into your head, and you move one of your hands between your legs. He bats it away before you can get there, though, pressing his thumb onto the bundle of nerves. The cry that rips out of you is loud, and the proud smirk that covers his face makes you want to smack him, but then he pushes his hips up again and you swear you'll never think again because he's fucking you stupid. 

"So perfect for me," he breathes, his eyes blown so dark that you can barely see the color in them anymore. 

He pulls out suddenly, and your back hits the sofa. Gator pushes your thighs apart, hitches one leg over his arm, and thrusts back inside you. There's no time for adjustment. You grab his shoulders, and your back arches, your jaw dropping in a silent scream as he moves his hips fast and hard against you. The pace is relentless, and everything outside of him starts to disappear. His tongue is in your mouth, his fingers are working over your clit, his cock is hitting every spot that makes you see stars, and he's everywhere. 

You're not even sure what you're saying anymore, but you can't stop. 

"Gator! Need you! Don't stop! Right there—God!" 

A high-pitched whine sneaks its way out of your throat, and everything crescendos. You're feverish and electrified, your skin ablaze. Hot white pleasure strikes the deepest parts of you, and he grunts as you impossibly tighten around him. Gator follows quickly after, thrusting until his own release takes over, spilling inside you with a groan. 

He collapses on top of your body, his cock still lingering inside you, and you close your eyes as you both try to catch your breath. You can feel his cum leaking out of you and the sweat that's pooled at the bottom of his back, but you don't mind. 

The movie is still playing. The ragtag crew on the screen makes it out of the forest alive. 

Except one. 

"I picked the murderer. One point to me," you breathe out. 

Gator laughs exhaustedly into your neck. 

~ ~ ~ 

Sunday morning rolls in slowly, like fog. There's a heavy arm around your waist, a stubbly jaw against the back of your shoulder, and warmth around your body that makes sleep hard to break out of. His discarded T-shirt is hanging off the footboard, and there's an ache between your legs and a soreness in your stomach from how much laughter you've shared since the weekend began. 

Gator's still asleep when you turn over, looking younger than he is with no worry lines carved into his face. You brush the hair that's fallen across his face away and trace your fingers over his features: his nose, the arches of his brows, the sharpness of his jaw. When your thumb traces over his bottom lip, his mouth parts, and even with his eyes closed, he tries to bite it. 

"God, I love waking up to you." His voice is hoarse, and his hand travels up your torso, brushing over your nipples and squeezing gently. He sighs like all he's ever needed in life is a handful of tit and he could die happy. 

"What time is it?" 

"Early, I think?" You lean back to grab your phone from the charger, and he groans as you move away. 

He squints one eye open, and you show him the time. 

"You got a lotta messages," he mumbles, pulling you back to his side tightly. 

"Nothing important," you promise, pressing your lips against the bottom of his jaw. 

He settles back against the pillow, eyes already drifting shut again. You feel a twitch underneath your thigh and grin. 

"That all it takes?" 

"Don't start nothin' you ain't gonna finish," he warns softly, his eyes still closed. 

"You're practically asleep still!" 

"Wake me up then." 

~ ~ ~ 

Sundays always feel off. The wind-down from the weekend, the preparations to go back to work. Gator puts the wine you didn't drink into the rack in the corner of the kitchen and tosses the empties into the garbage can outside. All the dishes from the last few days have been loaded into the dishwasher, and the bathroom gets deep-cleaned. The bed sheets are in the washer, and all the windows are open, ridding the furniture of the smell of sex and leftover beef stew. 

You sit on the porch bench with the last of the coffee still warm in your hands and Gator's head in your lap. 

"Are you on lates or earlies this week?" you ask quietly, your fingers dragging through the two clean lines shaved into the side of his head by his temples. He must have had it cut again in the last few days. 

"Lates," he mumbles, and you sigh, trying hard not to be annoyed. 

Overnight shifts mean you'll barely hear from him, or if you do, you'll already be asleep. Conversations will be dragged out across days. He'll be exhausted, and you'll miss him more than you already do when he's not around. 

Water drips into the bucket in the hallway, and before you can even say anything about it, Gator beats you to it. 

"I'm gonna call the guy," he insists. His hand reaches up to yours, still twisting through his hair, and pulls it to his mouth. "Stop worrying. Just be here with me." 

"I am here with you," you frown. 

He hums, closing his eyes for a moment before opening them again. "You're thinking too much." 

"You don't think enough," you huff. 

"I think I love you." 

Crimson blooms in your chest, crawling up your neck towards your face. It feels like the first time, every time he says it. 

"I love you too." 

There's a TV show the guys at the station keep talking about that he wants to start. You mention a movie you've been seeing clips of all week. 

A shopping list goes onto the fridge. Leftovers go into the freezer. 

The sheets are finally dry, and Gator helps you fold them back into neat squares, kissing you every time the corners meet. The mattress is bare, and the bedroom is freezing, but you both still pull your clothes off anyway, delaying the inevitable and pushing your time together as far as you can. 

Because once you're dressed and your bags are packed, thrown into the trunks of your cars, you only have a few moments left to kiss each other goodbye properly. His tongue slips over yours, and your hands tuck under his shirt, feeling the muscles of his stomach contract and the ridges of the scar by his hip. It's indulgent because this part never gets easier. 

"Drive safe," he whispers, ignoring the tears welling at the bottom of your lashes. "I'll see you soon, okay?" 

You nod silently, your forehead pressed against him, because he will. One weekend a month, for the last however many years. But until then, you'll go home to your husband, and he'll go back to his wife.

…

It turns out that the home studio Keys invited you to is a spare bedroom in his apartment. The walls are padded with charcoal gray soundproofing. A simple keyboard is positioned under the window; an acoustic guitar is propped up on one side of the keyboard, a navy blue electric guitar on the other. His desk looks more like a gamer’s setup than a musician’s, complete with a high-powered computer and ergonomic chair in a similar shade of blue to his guitar.

“My friend Millie used to live with me,” Keys explains. “I made it into my office when she moved out.”

He pulls out the seat in front of the keyboard for you. The view from the window is a plain brick wall with a faded advertisement for a bread company that you’re almost certain went out of business years ago. 

“It’s not much to look at but it helps me think,” He sits down in his desk chair, spinning it around to face you.

You raise an eyebrow, “Seriously?” Your eyes move between the window and Keys.

“I like to be alone with my thoughts,” Keys smiles bashfully. “We can swap spots if you don’t like it.”

“No. This whole thing is about trying something new. Sitting in your slightly depressing workspace is new.”

Keys chuckles, “Glad I could help,” He pauses, turning around to open software that looks more experimental than anything you’ve seen your usual producers use. You don’t know what you expected, the article mentioned that he created his own producing platform using his tech background. 

“Now tell me what the song is about.”

“A lot of things, my ex–”

“Not the tabloid answer. Go deeper,” Keys urges, he adjusts his glasses. “I can’t make something based on your ex. I mean, I could, but it wouldn’t be right.”

“The song is about… you know when you want something so badly that you’re willing to ignore all of your instincts? Like it’s actively causing you pain, but it’s somehow part of you… It’s inescapable.”

Something you can’t quite read flickers in his expression, “Yeah. I get that.”

Voicing your thoughts makes what you’ve been chasing clear. The reaction you got from Keys is exactly what you want. Your first album connected with people. You could see it on tour every night as fans screamed their hearts out to your lyrics. But you want to pull emotion out of them, something deeper than ‘I’m sad because I got dumped.’

“Do you want me to play it for you?”

“Well, I can’t really produce a song I’ve never heard. Actually–”

You interrupt him, “You can because you can produce anything but ‘it wouldn’t be right.’”

Keys flushes, “Play the song, please.”

You turn to the keyboard, ignoring the expanse of brick in your eyeline. What if he hates it? Worse, what if he hates it and doesn’t say anything? The team around you has fallen into that habit. It’s almost impossible to get genuine feedback on your new work.

Keys is quiet as you sing, only humming along to the melody as he gets the hang of it. The fear washes away, the song is good, you’ve known it since you read over it with a sober mind this morning.

When you’re done, Keys claps. You wonder if he’s one of those people who claps when the airplane lands. Your eyes drift down to his hands. Slender fingers, precisely clipped nails, smooth skin unmarred by scars or callouses. You force yourself to look back at his face. His expression is purely analytical, already building a sound around your rough draft. 

Keys gets up, moving to sit beside you on the seat. His thigh brushes against yours. Hands ghosting the keyboard over your own. Up close, Keys smells clean, like laundry detergent and 2-in-1.

“Build,” he adjusts a setting and plays a string of notes, fiddling with things until it sounds the way he wants it to. “The listener should feel the pressure you're describing. If the song builds as you sing, then drops off just before the end,” Keys demonstrates, guiding your hands to copy the rhythm. “It'll be like you’re weighing them down, not letting up until it’s too late. By then, the song is done and they’re chasing relief. The next track on the album can give them that… this is for an album, right?”

“It is. I was thinking this would be the lead single. I still have to talk it over with my team but it’s what I want.”

“Yes! Okay, that’s perfect,” Keys runs a hand through his hair, pushing loose strands out of his face just for them to fall back down. “Lead single. Lead single. I don’t know what the rest of the record is like, but this needs to be the lead. It’s strong, which is what you need for your big follow up.”

You grin, “I was thinking the same thing.”

“Great minds think alike,” Keys jokes before refocusing on the task at hand. 

“We need to include that pressure in the mix,” he hops up and returns to his desk, leaving a void beside you. The distance is unnatural, every fiber of your being wants to be close to him again. That’s where you were supposed to be. Jesus, you just met the guy. 

“Lower vocals, slight delay,” he muses. “Can you sing into the mic attached to the board? I need to test the levels first.”

You sing the ABCs as Keys clicks away on his desktop, back slouched forward.

“Your posture is awful,” you laugh.

Keys attempts to straighten his back but goes back to position almost immediately, “So I’ve been told.”

You sit in a slightly uncomfortable silence while Keys messes with his software. Finally, you decide to get up and stand by his chair. His body tenses as you lean into his shoulder.

“Is something wrong?”

He shakes his head, “There’s a glitch in the software. Shouldn’t take too long to fix.”

“I can record vocals while you work on that. Maybe try to refine the melody, too. I was drunk when I wrote all of it.”

Keys stares at you, “That’s what you come up with when you’re drunk?”

“It’s my preferred creative state.”

“Guess I should get drunk more often,” His eyes flicker down to your lips for a split second. Keys coughs. “The software is almost ready, you should start on vocals. Warm up, drink from a flask, whatever helps.”

“Very funny.”

…

The rest of your session goes well after the software hiccup. Once Keys is done, the song sounds exactly how you imagined it. The growth from your past work is evident. It feels right, just like Keys said.

He disappears into another room and comes back with a bottle of wine and two glasses. You’re lying on the floor now, exhaustion threatening to overtake your body. Keys sits down next to you, legs criss-crossed.

“Thought we could use some creative inspiration after the work we did today.”

You snort, watching Keys carefully pour wine into both glasses before handing one to you.

“But seriously, today was incredible. That song, your voice, I mean, this is a hit. No wonder you’re so successful.”

“It wouldn’t be the same without your production. You just… understood everything I was thinking and feeling, then put it into the music.”

Keys shrugs, “Just doing my job.”

“You’re great at it.”

He avoids your gaze, heat rising to his cheeks at your praise. Keys takes a long sip of his wine.

You continue, because he deserves it and to see how flustered he’ll get, “I’ve worked with a lot of producers, but you’re unique. They don’t see things the way you do. Working with you—

“Stop,” his face is bright red now. “You don’t have to compliment me.”

“I mean it, Keys. You’re amazing. I don’t understand all the technical shit you do, you’re like a wizard with it. And you’re a spectacular musician,” you drink out of your glass, watching him over the brim.

Keys gulps down more wine, “I was scared to meet you, you know? Like, actually terrified.”

“Why?” You don’t think that you’re a particularly scary person, yet your fame and stage presence can unnerve people in a way that you don’t fully get.

“You’re a global sensation. Everyone loves you and your music. I thought I was going to mess it up or make things awkward. You’re talented and effortless and beautiful,” Keys freezes, still sober enough to realize what he let slip. “I mean, objectively, you’re all those things. I’m not trying to make a move.”

“I wouldn’t mind if you were.”

Keys sputters, eyes widening behind his glasses. When he regains some sort of composure, he slides closer to you. His large hand cradles your cheek, tilting your head to look directly at him.

“Kiss me,” you murmur.

“Getting involved with a collaborator is a bad idea. It never ends well, trust me,” yet, Keys leans in, nose brushing against your skin. 

“We’re not officially collaborators."

“We will be,” Keys whispers. “I like working with you.”

“I like it too. One kiss won’t ruin it.”

The wheels in his brain turn, deciding between his options. It doesn’t take long from his lips to make contact. Keys is hesitant, analyzing the situation, eyes finally fluttering closed as he gives himself over to you. His hand lingering on your cheek. Warmth runs through your body, you deepen the kiss, pushing yourself as close to him as you can. Your hand finds the hair at the nape of his neck, you comb through the silky strands, gently tugging on them when Keys tries to pull away. The fresh smell from earlier has been replaced by the wine you’ve both been nursing.

His lips are softer than any man’s should be, they move with a level of experience you didn’t expect from him. Your heart skips a beat when Keys pushes you down to the carpet, steadying himself on top of you. His weight envelopes you.

“This is the dumbest thing I’ve ever done,” he mutters against your lips.

Deep breaths fill your nose with the smell of mountain thyme and the beginnings of petrichor, blowing in from the thick storm clouds on the horizon. They were still a ways away, allowing you a little more time to sit out with the sheep. You're stooped on a wooden crate, scratching tenderly at the chin and head of a sweet lamb, only a week old—born the day after your night with Sir Steven. She stands next to you on uncertain legs, tilting her head here and there to get the most satisfaction from your touch.

"Such a pretty girl," you coo at her softly, the smile on your face evident in your voice. Her head nudges your knee, and she bleats a little response. You like to imagine she's thanking you.

"A girl so sweet needs a name," you insist, looking out on the horizon as you ponder. The world she came into was one of possibility. You always had the belief that you could make something of yourself if you were only allowed, the encouragement from Sir Steven finally made this belief accessible. The final push needed to close the distance between yourself and a real future.

"Sigrid, maybe?" you suggest. "It means beautiful victory. I've had one of those of my own recently, I'd be rude not to share the wealth."

She bleats again.

"I like it, too," you giggle. The fast-moving clouds above you both let in occasional bursts of sunlight, glowing through her pink ears. As you start to gently brush the sides of her neck, once distant footsteps draw closer to you, combining with the subtle clink of a sheathed sword against a thin, steel leg brace. Steven. Your Steven, as he signs every note to you. Yours, he whispers against your neck every chance he gets lately. The afterglow of the days that followed your union has been blissful, and thrilling. You both sneak away at any chance you can to meet in secret corners. What were once shared glances across great rooms during obligations have turned into longing stares. He kisses you like a man starved. When you tell him this, he says it's because he is.

"New friend of yours?" he asks as he approaches, his hands landing on your shoulders. A kiss is pressed to the side of your head.

"Mhm," you reply, turning to look up at him. "I finally had enough time to meet her. This is Sigrid."

"I like it," he says, kneeling next to your crate. You catch a sharp inhale as his knees meet the ground, and you turn back to see a tense furrow in his brow.

"What's wrong?" You ask, your eyes going a little wide.

"It's really nothing," he insists. "One of the squires, Lucas, he's close to finishing training, and he got a little too into it when we were sparring yesterday. I'm alright."

You tilt your head as your eyes narrow slightly. Steven sighs before he pulls up the side of his shirt, revealing a large bruise on his ribs. It's big—about the size of your hand, and deep purple, with jagged edges that were just starting to turn bluish-green. It's clearly painful, given away by the stiffness and wincing any time he moves. Your hand reaches out to lift the shirt for him, hoping to alleviate any pain.

"A little too into it?" you repeat in disbelief. "Were you wearing armor?"

He pulls his lips into his mouth.

"Steven," you scold.

"No, but I never do when it's just training," he says dismissively. "I've been teaching them how to fight since they were 10, I forget how strong they are now. Guess I did my job a little too well."

"This looks painful," you say, frowning a little. "Please tell me you aren't training again today."

"No, I finished training an hour ago," he says, oblivious to what you're actually asking of him.

Your shoulders drop.

"You mean you got up and fought with that on your body?" You tenderly press your palm to the side of the bruise.

"The oldest ones are so close to finishing their training, I can't let them down," his voice is gentle. You know how deeply he cares for his initiates, how proud he feels watching them grow into real knights.

You remember watching the grass in front of the squires' quarters when you were 16, and Steven was 17. He was newly knighted, having sworn his loyalty to the keeping and protection of your family—you, in particular. He was the only one of the initiated knights who paid the squires any mind, running with them and offering chances to spar. Now that Steven was officially training them as a captain, he worked himself ragged to form them into chivalrous, talented fighters. Your face softens as you think of this, the low heat of frustration melting into admiration for his commitment to being a good example.

"They won't have a captain to train them if you keep fighting without armor," you say, moving your hand from his ribs to his cheek. "You're a good teacher, Steven, but they need you healthy. So do I." He smiles a little, his face relaxing.

"Wise girl," he mutters lovingly, placing his palm over yours, pressing your hand even closer to his face. You lean down to kiss the tip of his nose, his lips, his forehead, coaxing him to understand.

"I'll be good," he finally says after a face full of kisses.

"Thank you," you beam. "I'm your princess after all, it would be so unchivalrous of you to refuse." Steven lets out a warm laugh, laying his head on your clothed thigh. He sighs as his cheek makes contact with the velvet of your dress. Your fingers brush through his hair, gently scratching at his scalp and the back of his neck. You lean down to his ear.

"Come to my room tonight," you whisper.

"Don't I do that every night?" He teases, his voice muffled by the material of your skirt.

"I'll have something special," you hint. "It'll help with your war wound, too."

"Deal," he sighs, sitting up. "I'll see if I can get out of patrol a little early." As Steven starts to stand, the droplets of rain that were once halted in anticipation start to fall, making gentle pattering sounds against the roof of the sheep pen. Sigrid trots away, seeking the refuge of the roof and the warmth of her mother and siblings.

"I'll bring you back home," Steven says, grunting softly as he stands, and he offers a hand to you. You take it, trying to still carry the majority of your weight to avoid straining his injured side. Through the translucence of his linen shirt, you can still see the harsh purple starkly contrasted against his otherwise pale torso. It's clear that it hurts, and you hate that, but you can't help but love what it represents. Steven was many things. Cocky at times, stubborn as a mule, and impulsive, but loyal, shamelessly affectionate, and unfailingly generous.

"Are you taking the back or going in front?" His voice snaps you out of your thoughts, and your head follows it up to where Sir Steven sits atop his horse, Nora. You give her a long stroke down her neck, her dark brown mane almost presenting maroon under the darkness of the storm clouds.

"I'll sit behind you," you say, grabbing the edge of the saddle to hoist yourself up before he can offer to lift you. After situating yourself, your arms wind around his middle, doing your best to avoid his bruise. You smile to yourself as you feel the soft curve of his stomach through his shirt. With a sigh, you press your cheek to his shoulder.

"I thought you liked sitting in front," he recalls, turning his head slightly to speak to you.

"I do," you say, briefly pressing your lips to his clothed shoulder blade. "But it's the middle of the day, and I would rather not give my mother more excuses to scold me for being unbecoming."

He makes a little hum of agreement as he gently tugs the reins toward the path back to the castle.

"Have you given any more thought to our idea?" Steve asks, and you swallow a little nervously. The idea of running away from home still intimidated you slightly. Although it was your best, and likely only chance at a life of your own, you would still be leaving everything you had ever known behind you, except Sir Steven. The thought of having to start again was frightening, eased only by the notion that you would finally have freedom. Still, the sadness about leaving your family, your beautiful home, having to start all over again with little awareness of the real world settled low in your heart, still dwarfed by the sadness that you felt at the idea of being sent off to marry and have babies with a stranger.

"It'll be easier after the feast for the winter solstice," you explain, recalling that you came to this conclusion on an especially restless night a few days ago. "Preparations happen for all of November, and Mother and Father will be breathing down my neck constantly that whole time."

"I was thinking the same, actually," he agrees. "Inn prices are usually lower in winter; we would have an easier time traveling." When he mentions this, your mind drifts dreamily to a soft, candlelit fantasy—you and Steven, cramped into a little bed in a tiny inn room. Maybe a little floaty from the mead you drank with dinner. He'd have his big arms wrapped around you, lazily exploring your body with his lips and his hands, pulling the softest, sweetest sounds from you as he guides your hips to-

"We're here." His voice pulls you back to the real world, and you shudder, suddenly aware again of how the chilly rain has soaked through your hair and dress sleeves. He's brought you to one of the more discreet entrances to your home, hidden in the garden where a small doorway lies unassumingly behind a trellis. Steven dismounts and offers a hand to help you down, and your shoes land with a soft 'squish' on the now damp grass. As his hand brushes away the damp strands that stick to your forehead, you feel yourself unconsciously lean into his touch.

"I'd steal you away right here and now if I could," he says in a low voice, a soft smile on his face.

"I'd let you," you sigh. "I'll see you tonight?"

"I wouldn't miss it for the world," he replies, glancing around for any unwelcome eyes that could be on you both before he takes your waist into his hands and kisses you. "I'll see you soon, angel." He lifts the trellis back, and you slip behind it, tiptoeing down the short hallway to the kitchen door. You push it open with an effortful huff, the hinges squeaking far louder than you would prefer and certainly announcing your arrival to whoever is inside. As you gingerly close the door and prepare to dash through the kitchen, someone emerges from the pantry.

"I don't know where you're actually supposed to be, but it's not here," the voice is snarky, with no actual meanness behind it, belonging to Dustin. You had known Dustin since he was an infant. Your mother and father enjoyed offering greetings to new families that settled in the village surrounding the castle. At five years old, you begged to join the steward who would be welcoming the most recent family. When you were finally given permission, you went to the village and entered the tiny house, surprised to see only a kind-faced woman with a tiny baby instead of a father and mother with a whole clan of children. You would come to learn that the woman, Claudia, was entirely wonderful. Devoted to raising a respectful young man, and talented with food and herbal medicine. When Dustin was 10, the captain at the time offered him a position in squire training. He was lovingly dismissed to kitchen work after spending most of his training time searching for insects and demonstrating his lack of collarbones to anyone who would watch. Dustin was smart, frighteningly so, and you were glad to call him a friend.

"This was the quickest way in from the rain," you quickly spit out the excuse, wringing out your sleeve onto the floor in a desperate attempt to qualify your excuse.

"Uh-huh," he muses, setting the crate of potatoes he was carrying onto the large wooden counter. "I've been looking to talk with you, actually. There's this opportunity that's sort of come my way, and I need a favor."

Your eyebrows furrow in curiosity, and you stride to stand across from him, on the other side of the counter.

"A favor?"

"Yes," he starts, taking a deep breath. "I've been exchanging letters with this cartographer a few towns over. I told him I was interested in maybe trying my hand at cartography and mapping smaller territories, and he told me he would be interested in taking on an apprentice. Only problem is, I need a written letter from someone in your family recommending me for it."

Your eyes widen, excited at the news that Dustin may finally have a challenge worthy of his intellect.

"What do you think?" he asks nervously. "Would you write the letter for me?" Dustin's hands nervously dig into the wood grain of the countertop. You don't need to think twice.

"I would be thrilled to recommend you, Dustin," you answer sincerely. His face breaks into a smile, and he doesn't waste a second before rounding the counter, wrapping you in a hug.

"Thank you, thank you, thank you," he says over and over, squeezing you tight around the shoulders. You hug him back.

"You're so welcome," you reply, giving him a final pat on the back before releasing him. "Everyone knows your talent is wasted down here anyways. What does your mother think?"

"When I told her it was a day away on horseback, she sobbed so hard I thought she was going to fall over," he answers, wiping a little at his eyes with the backs of his hands. "But she knows I want more than being in a kitchen the rest of my life. I just wish I could take her with me."

"Maybe one day you will," you say, your voice wavering a little with emotion. "I'm happy to write your letter, just let me know when you need it, alright?"

"I will," Dustin says. You give him a final smile before you turn toward the door that leads upstairs.

"And I'll make sure you get extra dessert tonight! You've earned it!" He calls.

On your way to your room to change out of your still-soaked dress, a voice calls out from a laundry room in the hall.

"Your mother's been looking for you," a chambermaid warns as she wrings out a sheet into a washing pot.

"When is she not?" you sigh. You notice her struggle slightly as she hauls the heavy length of cloth over to a drying line, and you step onto the room, lifting up the sheet to help her smooth it.

"Thank you for the warning," you say, peering from the side of the sheet. "I'll be a little prepared now." She smiles before she returns to another round of washing, and you return to your room, eager to be in a clean dress. A deep green one speaks to you tonight, fitting for the rain that has developed into a raucous thunderstorm. After you change, you brush your hair, trying your best to sort out the tangles and unruliness that the rainwater had caused. You steel yourself for what was almost certainly going to be a long, unhappy conversation with your parents. The exhaustion of being stalled, underestimated, belittled, and dismissed for years had been bearing on your mind stronger than usual. Now that you had some idea of a future away from it all, your longing only strengthened. You thought about Dustin, too, how thrilled he seemed at the prospect of a life devoted to making something, helping people, and doing it on his terms. You were very pleased that one of your last acts as princess would be helping a young man with enormous potential achieve a dream.

You walk stiffly to the library in your parents' personal wing—shoulders back, head high, hands clasped one over the other in front of your body. As your hand grasps the door handle, you take a deep breath.

"Very kind of you to show," your father says from the land table, eyes not leaving the map in front of him. Your mother rests on a settee with a tense hand wrapped around a teacup.

"I was told you were looking for me," you say, prompting them to get to what it is they actually want to talk about.

"Would you like to tell us where you were?" your mother asks, punctuating the question by setting her cup back on the saucer. The clanging porcelain grates against your ears. You consider lying for a moment, claim that you were reading in the gallery, or you felt unwell and decided to lie in bed until you were summoned for something. Usually you would, an excuse would roll off of your tongue as easily as the truth from the years and years of having to hide your true feelings or whereabouts. But today, a combination of your own will growing, Steven's affections, and Dustin's commitment to his own dreams has pushed you to try being truthful.

"I was out in the pastures," you say, the nervousness in your voice betraying you. "I finally had enough free time to walk over there, and I wanted to meet the new lamb." Your father scoffs, and you can see him roll his eyes when you glance his way. Your mother's posture stiffens, her lips pursing disapprovingly.

"You were unchaperoned, I assume?" She sounds more frustrated than disappointed.

"When I was walking there, yes," you explain. "But I'm 22, I don't need to be minded like a child everywhere I go."

"You are a child," your father reminds you, managing to sound bored and harsh simultaneously. You roll your shoulders again, trying to regain your footing in the argument.

"I was within the patrol boundaries, and Steven brought me back home," you justify, feeling your hands start to sweat a little.

"Sir Steven is a guard's captain, he has better things to do than rescue you from your own foolishness," your mother refutes.

"He's perfectly capable of doing his job and attending to my safety," your voice wavers again, and you inwardly cringe.

"You have a wedding to plan, which means you have far more important responsibilities," your father asserts from across the room. "I do not want to hear anymore about you running off through the woods to make friends with the sheep." Your jaw clenches unpleasantly.

"Yes, sir." The words taste ugly in your mouth as you say them.

"If we're finished discussing this frivolity, we have an obligation for you," your mother explains. "Lady Jane Ives of the southeast territory has recently come of age, and she is soon to become queen. You will represent the family at the coronation."

Your face softens at the mention of Lady Jane. Fond images of her shy smile and pretty, wavy brown hair drift into your mind. You would undoubtedly be happy to see her again, but your heart lurches a little at the thought of how young she is. The same age as Dustin, now expected to lead an entire territory. Regardless, you were relieved that this was why your mother and father were so insistent on seeing you today.

"When will this be?" you ask, hearing a lightness in your voice that wasn't there before.

"A month from tomorrow," your mother says. "You'll leave on the fifth of November, allowing you and Sir Steven at least two days to travel. You will be accommodated in the Ives Estate."

Two whole days alone with Steven, with no prying eyes to catch the gentle kisses he loves to press to the side of your face, the interlacing of your fingers. You feel a rush of warmth to your cheeks, thinking of how shamelessly you'll be allowed to love him for that brief little window.

"I'm looking forward to it," you express earnestly.

"You are?" Your father's voice is a little startled, and your mother looks equally confused as to why you don't appear dreadful about being sent away on official business.

"Lady Jane is a wonderful girl," you say, the circumstances actually allowing you to be honest. "I'm happy to be the one congratulating her on such an occasion."

Your parents look at each other, blinking a little in disbelief.

"We're glad to hear this." Your mother's tone has adjusted, almost entirely unaffected by the shock of your enthusiasm.

"You're dismissed," your father announces.

You smile big to yourself as you turn away from them, unable to contain your excitement.

In preparation for Sir Steven's arrival later in the evening, you ask for an especially hot bath to be prepared. After your bathwater is hauled, you go over to your little herbal cabinet, reaching for things that will help soothe the pain in his side. Grapefruit peels for relaxing him, mugwort for helping the bruise heal, a little rosemary to ease the muscles.

The knock on your door that comes a little before midnight has become the happiest sound of your life, and you nearly knock yourself off of your feet every time you hear it. You fling the door open and pull Steven inside, not even allowing yourself a chance to look at him before you throw your arms around his neck.

"My angel," he sighs, his arms wrapping around your back with equal emotion. Steven is always warm to the touch, and you smile as you feel his large hands roam your sides. As he cranes his head upward to look at your face, he gets a glimpse of the steaming washing basin, which fills the air with a pleasant aroma.

"Is that for me?" His voice is soft and a little surprised. Steven can't recall the last time he washed somewhere other than the river, let alone a hot bath filled with healing herbs. He had never truly been taken care of at all, now he was standing in the room of a beautiful girl who loved him, really loved him. Steven's hands cradle your waist and the back of your head, sealing you in an embrace that says more than any words he could try to form.

"Thank you," he breathes. "This bruise has been killing me all day."

"I wanted to help you if I could," you assure him, even giving a little shrug to seem casual. "And I have another surprise." You pad over to the cabinet again, pulling out a leather canteen.

"Dustin was nice enough to slip this to me after dinner," you explain. "He's been secretly making wine from every fruit we grow, this is blackberries."

"Kitchen Dustin? Dustin that I used to train?"

You nod.

"I miss him," Steven muses, giving the liquid a sniff. "Strange kid, but he was fun to teach. This smells pretty good, actually." He gives it a quick swig and grimaces slightly.

"Good and strong, I'd pour lightly," he says, passing the canteen. As you pour the wine into chalices, Steven opens the doors of your balcony to let in the sounds of the rain and gentle thunder. When he meets you at the washing basin, he kisses you, hands reaching for the ties of your dress without breaking contact with your lips. He tugs and the garment pools around your feet, goosebumps breaking out on your arms and legs at the coolness of the air. Steven's fingers skim up your sides, bracing the sides of your neck. A final kiss brushes your lips. He steps away for you to undress him, and you happily oblige. As you pull up his shirt, you're especially mindful of his left side. Your eyes land hungrily on his chest as he begins to step out of his trousers, gaze dipping lower as more of him is exposed to you.

"I know, take it in," he teases, softly kicking his clothes aside. You smile as you roll your eyes, feeling his hands on your upper arms.

"You're absurd," you insist, tilting your head as you look up at him. He kisses the tip of your nose.

"Absurdly in love," he croons, smiling.

You pull away to step into the bath first, lying back against the edge of it to leave Steven plenty of room. His fingers gently nudge your shoulder, cuing you to move forward so he can slide in behind you. You stay put.

"Let me hold you," you insist. Steven's face tightens a little, confused at the thought of being held in the way he typically holds you.

"You're hurt, Steven. Please."

The concerned ridge between your eyebrows and the sweetness of your voice make it impossible for him to refuse you—something he did not excel at already. His shoulders drop a little, signaling that you've won him over, and he steps into the basin in front of you, bracing the sides as he lowers his body into the water. You feel Steven shudder slightly at the warmth as he leans to lie back against your chest. His head lands against your shoulder, and you kiss his temple.

"Not so bad?" you mutter close to his ear, gently scratching the top of his shoulder.

"I'll survive," he sighs, snickering a little as he reaches for one of the chalices, set atop a table near the bath. He hands one to you before taking a cup for himself, and you take a tentative sip, wincing slightly at the flavor that floods your senses. It's sweet at first, then quickly becomes bitter and harsh as it hits the back of your tongue.

"This is certainly a Dustin experiment," you say, bringing the cup to your lips, chasing for another hit of its initial sweetness.

"He's nothing if not resourceful," Steven says after a tense swallow. After nursing the cups for a little while, listening idly to the soft rustle of the rain outside, they both empty, and you set them aside once more. You brush the hair off of his forehead, the strands going wavy from the water. His face nestles into the space between your neck and shoulder, where he begins to lazily kiss the damp skin. Your head tilts back, sighing as the feeling of wine in your veins makes itself known to you.

"I have some good news," you say, giggling at the feeling of his lips on your neck.

"Mm?" The vibration of the sound against you pulls another fit of quiet laughter from you, and he kisses a little harder in the hopes of pulling even more.

"A month from now, I'm going to a coronation in the southeast territory," you explain.

"The Ives land?"

"Mhmm," you reply, nodding a little. "My parents are sending me in their place to keep up the relationship with their traders. They want you to be my escort."

You feel him smile against your neck, his own soft giggling resonating against your collarbone. The wine must be hitting him, too.

"The southeast territory, that's at least a two-day ride," Steven ponders aloud. "I'll have you all to myself that long?"

"All yours," you reply, resting a hand against his chest.

"You were right when you said you had good news," he mumbles, resting a hand on top of yours. "It's perfect, like a trial for our big plan." You hadn't really thought of it this way, but he was right. Your mother and father would be deep in the planning of solstice festivities, and you would get a glimpse of the long days of traveling that would be constant until the day you and Steven settle somewhere permanently.

"I'm excited to get a little fresh air," you muse, your voice a little airy from the tipsiness.

"It's only done me good," Steven replies, scratching tenderly at the back of your hand. You look down at him and smile, suddenly filled with the urge to kiss the twin moles on his cheek. You kiss there, gradually moving your lips to the corner of his mouth, and finally to his lips, as he had done when he first kissed you. He accepts your kiss happily, reaching for your hip under the water. Your tongue presses against the seam of his lips, and he parts them, encouraging you to lick into his mouth. He nips slightly at your bottom lip, coaxing a whimper from you. When his own tongue begins to slide against yours, you dip your hand lower, grasping gently at the softness of his tummy before lowering further, cupping your hand around his half-hard cock.

"Fuck, honey," he moans against your lips, pressing his hips up, eager for more friction against his length. "You don't have to if you don't want to, I'm happy just to be here with you."

"I want to," you insist. "Please, you're so good to me. Let me make you feel good, let me show you how much I love you." Steven laughs a little as his face tucks against your neck, reveling in the taste of your skin, subtly salty from sweat.

"You're too sweet to me," he mutters into your neck. "I love you more than anything, angel." Your hand wraps around his cock, fully erect and flushed a deep pink you can see, even through the water. You squeeze a little around the base, and his hips twitch obediently.

"I love you," you say, lips brushing against his—a mere tease of a kiss. His mouth chases after yours as you give the first real stroke, hand moving up and down his cock from base to tip.

"Cruel woman," he whines. "You know what you do to me, this is just mean." You giggle a little. Still, sympathetic to his desperation, you begin to pump your hand again, fucking his cock slowly with your fist. The continued motion develops a rhythm that Steven begins to match with his hips, grinding up as your hand strokes down. His little whimpers break into full moans, and he presses his face against your shoulder harder to stifle them. You don't have the advantage of your bed canopy to muffle the noise.

"God, I adore you," he moans, pressing his lips to the skin beneath your ear.

"So big in my hand, Steven," you say, practically a moan, considering how all of his noises and the fullness of him in your hand were causing your core to stir wildly. He thrusts into your hand harder.

"Perfect fuckin' hand," he groans. "Most perfect girl in the world and you want me, fuck." You can feel him getting closer to the edge, his hips starting to lose rhythm. You focus your movements on his pretty tip, working and stroking.

"I-fuck, angel, you're so beautiful, mm-you have me, in any way you could have me, I'm yours. All I've wanted is to be close to you, I begged the stars for you, God I-"

Steven's hand grasps at your thigh, aching for anything to hold onto as a big rope of cum lands on his tummy, accompanied by angelic pants and moans falling from his mouth. Smaller spurts follow as you slow your hand, helping him through the last swells of pleasure. You kiss his sweaty temple, then reach for a drying cloth on the table. You swipe it firmly against his stomach, wiping away the largest strokes of cum as it rises and lowers with his labored breaths. You set the cloth aside and rest your hand against his chest again.

"I asked the stars for you, too," you admit, your thumb stroking back and forth against his chest hair. Steven's eyes soften as they look up and into yours, his pupils almost swallowing the hazel around them entirely.

"Do you remember when that awful duke from the mountains kept pestering me during the Midsummer feast?" you recall. "You were only 12, you weren't even a knight yet. This duke was twice your size, he could have gotten you put away with the snap of his fingers, but you put yourself between us anyway. Told him to step away from me, that what he was doing was wrong. That night, after the party, I stood on that balcony and asked the stars to keep you in my life forever."

Steven smiles as he listens, proud to have softened such a harsh memory for you.

"What about you?"

"The first time I asked?"

You nod.

"Well, I've loved you for as long as I can remember," he confesses, uncharacteristically shy. "But I asked for the first time a week before I was knighted. Everyone in the castle went down to the village for the King's Parade, and you were sitting on this big, fancy wagon with your mother and father. You caught this boy smacking a doll out of his sister's hand, and without thinking, you leapt out of your seat, away from your parents, and you picked up this little girl's doll and handed it back to her, You were in this frilly dress, and the bottom of it got dirty when you were kneeling down talking to her, and you didn't care less. She was so happy to meet you, so excited to have this beautiful, smart girl to look up to. When everything was over that day, I snuck out to look at the sky. I asked for you to choose me to knight when my training was over. That you would want me by your side."

"They granted your wish, huh?" you say softly, stroking tenderly at his cheek with your fingertips.

"Yours, too," he counters, his voice sincere. "Unless you say the word, I'm not going anywhere."

You smile sleepily, gazing into his pretty eyes. The future was so wide, just out of reach, but still ensnared by heavy tangles of uncertainty. Despite this, Sir Steven lies against you unapologetic in the certainty of his love for you. You kiss his lips gently before you speak again.

"I like you right here."

Footsteps sound behind you.

Faint, wary…

You don’t turn right away to confirm whether or not it’s him. But something in your chest seizes anyway. Because you know. You know who it is before he even says anything.

There’s a pause.

And then?

“…hey.”

It’s quiet. Almost too quiet. Like the word itself didn’t want to be spoken too loudly in case it scared you off.

You turn.

Your eyes go a little wide without meaning to.

Because there he is.

Standing a few feet back, half in shadow, half caught in the spill of rooftop light. Different now than he was earlier. Stripped down to something simpler. That white t-shirt. Lounge pants. Bare feet like he didn’t bother with anything unnecessary before coming up here.

Steve looks… younger.

And more tired.

But still the boy you’ve loved nearly all your life.

Your mouth opens just slightly before you find your voice.

“Hey.”

It comes out softer than you expected.

But it’s enough.

Something in Steve’s expression shifts — just barely — like the word hit him somewhere he wasn’t braced for.

He nods once.

Stiff.

Wary.

Careful.

Then he moves.

Slowly.

Like approaching a wild animal he doesn’t want to startle.

He comes over and settles across from you along the ledge, leaving a few stretches of space between you that feels much bigger than it actually is. He leans back against the wall, one knee drawn up, forearm resting over it, gaze turning outward toward the city like yours had been.

For a while, neither of you says anything.

And while the silence isn’t empty, it’s… loaded. Heavy in a way that presses against your ribs and makes your breathing feel louder than it is.

You’re aware of him.

Every second of it.

The way he shifts slightly beside you.

The way his puppy brown eyes flick once toward you… then away again, like he caught himself.

The way he exhales through his nose — slow, controlled, like he’s trying not to feel something too loudly.

You don’t know what to say.

You’re almost afraid to speak at all.

Because the last time you spoke freely, you changed everything.

And the last time he spoke, he—

You swallow.

Don’t go there, you tell yourself. Not yet.

Steve finally clears his throat. It’s quiet, but it breaks the tension just enough. “You should be asleep,” he says, snot looking at you.

It’s not sharp.

It’s not accusing.

It’s just… there.

You glance at him, then back out at the city.

“So should you.”

“Yeah,” he mutters.

Another beat.

The music below swells. Someone screams in delight. Fireworks — of all the fucking things — flare briefly in the distance, bright colors blooming against the dark like it’s a holiday instead of a countdown to slaughter.

You hate it.

You hug your knees tighter.

“Do you think any of them are?” he asks suddenly.

You blink. “Any of who?”

“The tributes,” he clarifies simply, eyes on the skyscrapers. “Sleeping.”

Your stomach twists.

You shake your head slightly. “No.”

“Yeah,” he says, like he already knew. His jaw tightens a little as he stares down at the city. “Kids definitely aren’t.”

You nod silently, heart bruising all over again as the names run through your head like lost boys and lost girls on the night…

Hannah.

Jack.

Ro.

Too small. Too young. Too terrified.

You can see their faces if you let yourself think about it too hard.

So you don’t.

“Careers probably aren’t either,” he adds after a moment, voice going a little flatter. “Doesn’t matter how cocky they are. No one sleeps the night before they might die.”

You hum faintly in agreement.

There’s nothing else to say to that.

The truth of it just sits there.

Between you.

Below you.

Everywhere.

Steve glances at you again.

You don’t notice.

You’re still looking out at all the chaos below, eyes distant, expression softer now… but more closed off than it used to be.

There’s a difference.

He sees it.

Feels it.

It makes something in his chest pull tight.

Distance.

There’s distance now.

Not just the few feet between you on the ledge.

Something else.

Something he put there.

Distance he’s instilled, even though you acted in it first thing morning.

Now he’s solidified it.

And he hates it.

Doesn’t know how to fix it.

Doesn’t know if he’s allowed to.

Doesn’t know why he wants to…

“Are they… in costume or something?” he asks, now nodding faintly toward the crowds below, eyes narrowed at the scene.

You follow his gaze.

Tilt your head slightly.

A sad little almost-smile touches your mouth.

“Who knows,” you say softly. “How can you tell?”

He huffs under his breath.

“Fair.”

You watch a group of Capitol citizens spinning in circles below, painted and jeweled and glowing under artificial light like they’re all part of some twisted parade.

“Everything here looks like a costume,” you add.

He nods slowly.

Yeah.

It does.

Everything except you, Steve thinks to himself absently.

He squints at it a second longer. Then looks away because he can’t stomach it anymore. Can’t stand the sight of glorified manslaughter below, like it’s The Purge Act all over again… just with rules still in place for those “fortunate” to stick around and live by them, here inside the elite walls of Panem.

Steve’s head tips back against the wall. Eyes closing briefly. Breathing in… breathing out… breathing in… out…

He knows what he has to do.

He knows it.

He just…

Doesn’t want to say it wrong.

Doesn’t want to make it worse.

Doesn’t want to look at you and see fear again.

He exhales slowly, then lifts his head and looks at you. 

“Ren?”

You turn again, your eyes still a little wide. A little cautious.

It guts him.

“I…” He scrubs a hand over the back of his neck. “About earlier—” He stops, starts again. “That—what I said. The way I said it.”

Your gaze softens.

You don’t dare interrupt.

You just listen.

Patient.

God, you’re so fucking patient.

“I shouldn’t have… snapped like that,” he says, voice tighter now. “I shouldn’t have yelled at you. That’s—” He shakes his head. “That’s not… me. Or least, it’s not—” His jaw flexes. “Who I used to be.”

There’s so much unspoken shame behind that sentence, it kills you softly.

You almost smile at him through the ache you feel in your soul.

“It’s alright—”

“No.” He cuts in immediately.

Not harsh.

Just… firm.

Your mouth closes.

Steve shakes his head again, more frustrated now — but this time, it’s not at you. It’s at himself.

“It’s not,” he repeats. “Don’t—don’t do that.”

You blink. “Do what?”

“Make it okay when it’s not.”

Your brows draw together just slightly. “I just—”

“I was an asshole,” he says flatly.

You inhale softly. “That doesn’t make it—”

“It does.”

A beat lands before Steve looks at you. Really looks, like he’s staring straight into your soul. Trying to read your mind, to make sure you’re hearing him.

“I don’t get to talk to you like that and then have you tell me it’s fine.”

Your lips part, hesitating before speaking again.

“I mean… you were blindsided.”

“I don’t care.”

“It’s still—”

“I don’t care,” he repeats, quieter now, but no less intense. “I don’t get a free pass for that. And no one should. Ever.”

Your chest tightens.

You study him for a long second.

Then you nod, subtle… almost small.

“Okay.”

That quiet response seems to throw him off more than if you’d argued.

Steve blinks. “Okay?”

“You’re right,” you say simply.

That… lands.

Different than he expected.

He looks at you like he’s trying to recalibrate something.

“…okay,” Steve finally echoes.

There’s a flicker of something like relief.

And something else.

Something softer.

Vulnerable.

You give him the faintest smile. It doesn’t reach your eyes completely, but it’s there. Gentle as ever. Warm, even though it's melancholy. Across from you, Steve notices that too. And it makes him feel like shit.

Silence settles between the two of you again.

It’s not as tense as before.

But still heavy.

Still loaded.

When Steve glances at you again, he finds that you’re watching him now… not looking away.

That’s new.

Or maybe it’s just unsettling.

Either way, it makes something in his chest twist.

He holds your gaze for a second longer than he means to. Then, words slip out before he can overthink them or shut himself up while he’s ahead.

“Your stepmom and your brother didn’t come to tell you goodbye.”

You go still, just a little, as he lets the statement hang before asking…

“…real or not real?”

Your angel eyes soften instantly. Something warm flickers there — surprise, maybe, or perhaps it’s just recognition. Because you remember… 

The kitchen.

The desserts.

The stupid game.

The hours spent together.

You nod. “Real.”

Steve watches you intensely, his cynical eyes searching… 

Searching for anything.

A crack.

A tell.

A lie.

He doesn’t find one.

His jaw tightens.

“…you told Caesar your brother isn’t heartless,” Steve says after a long beat. “That you forgive him.”

Your throat moves when you swallow.

He still asks. “Real or not real?”

Your kind eyes go a little glassy, but you don’t look away while answering.

“Real.”

Steve’s cynical gaze sharpens. “And your stepmother?”

That question…

You inhale slowly. Exhale just as slowly. You look down, then back out at the city. At the crowd, the noise, the bloodlust and exuberant joy of elites…

“Some days it feels real,” you confess quietly. “Some days it doesn’t.” A loud burst of fireworks pop off while you take a beat, eyes on the sky now. “Some days, I think that I truly forgive her.” The crowd roars. “Other days, I’m not… sure if she wants me to.”

That answer?

It hits him hard.

Because it’s not perfect. It’s not clean. It’s not what he expected. It’s honest. It’s brutally honest without overstating.

And for some reason that pisses him off a little.

Not at you.

At the fact that it keeps being real.

He stares at you for another long moment before speaking more carefully — the game still going, the search still on...

“You’ve been in love with me since grade school.”

A beat.

“…real or not real?”

You don’t hesitate. “Real.”

And you don’t even look at him when you say it. You just… know.

Steve watches you like he’s trying to break the word apart. As though maybe he can dismantle it if he stares hard enough.

He can’t.

“Why.”

The question comes out sharper than he means it to.

But not cruelly.

Just demanding.

Seeking.

Needing.

You blink at the city, then finally look at him. And for a second, you truly don’t know what to say. Because where do you even start? There are too many reasons. There always have been. It’s never just been one thing. It’s been a thousand small, quiet things that never stopped adding up.

Moments.

Looks.

Actions.

Ways he existed when he didn’t think anyone was paying attention.

You’ve never had to say them out loud before.

You’ve just always known, since the day he raised his hand in the classroom whenever the teacher asked everyone who knew the Star-Spangled Banner, and none other than Steve Harrington had proudly declared that they did — and then he’d stood up, hand over his heart as he sang it sweetly. In front of the entire classroom, while you watched with starry eyes that shone brighter than fireworks on Fourth of July. All for him.

Your gaze drops to your knees as the memory consumes you… 

You exhale softly. “I don’t even know where I’d start.”

“Start anywhere,” he says immediately.

Your brows pinch.

That didn’t help.

“Name one thing,” he adds.

It’s quick.

Too quick.

It puts you on the spot in a way that makes your chest tighten. But you don’t look away. You think. You search. You dive into every single crevice of your mind that drowns in every single core memory of him you’ve locked away — replaying them on a loop, scribbling them into the margins of your notebook while in class, daydreaming about while twirling in your room…

…and then you find something.

Small.

Specific.

But real.

You glance up at him through your lashes, your voice quiet.

“You always stayed.”

He blinks.

“…what?”

You shrug a little, almost imperceptibly. “With them,” you say. “With the kids. Even when things got bad. Or when everyone else was panicking or running or… too busy falling apart. Even when you did...” Your fingers tighten slightly around your knees. “You stayed.”

That’s it.

That’s the thing.

Not flashy.

Not grand.

Just… that.

That.

And it hits him. Not the way you expect, but it does all the same.

Steve’s expression shifts, something flickers behind his eyes. He looks away, shakes his head once. “You can’t love me.”

Your brows knit. “What?”

“I’m not—” He exhales sharply. “I’m not what you think I am.”

“I never said—”

“You didn’t have to.”

You stare at him, brows furrowing with gentle puzzlement.

“You don’t know me,” he goes on. “Not really. You know—pieces. Versions. Whatever the hell I was before all this.”

“That’s not true—”

“It is.”

“It’s not.”

He looks at you again, something more heated in his eyes now. “You don’t know what I am now. You love someone you think you know. Someone that’s capable of living up to your expectations.”

You stare, shaking your head. “That’s not real.”

“Your idea of me isn’t real.”

“I don’t love ideas of you.”

…that stops him.

Just for a second.

He blinks, actually caught off guard. Not only by your words, but your tone — which has sharpened, despite not raising your voice. And you hold his gaze, steady as ever, not cowering.

“I’m not in love with a fantasy,” you say quietly. “I’m in love with you.”

The real you.

You don’t have to say it.

It’s there anyway.

You’re in love with the real him.

He stares at you like he doesn’t know what to do with that, his jaw tightening. “You can’t be.”

You stare back. “Well I am.”

“You don’t—”

“I do.”

Steve’s frustration spikes now. Not loud, but sharp.

“You don’t know what you’re saying.”

“Yes, I do.”

“No, you don’t,” he fires back, a little harsher now. “You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

Your expression doesn’t harden.

That almost makes it worse.

“You help people,” he says, gesturing vaguely. “You—you see the version of me that matches that. The version of me that—hunts, feeds people, keeps them alive. You see me with all those kids and think that makes me—what? Good?”

You don’t answer.

He laughs once, humorless. “That doesn’t make me a good person.”

You open your mouth.

But he cuts you off. “It doesn’t make me worth it.”

You close it again.

He keeps going.

Because now he can’t stop.

“Just because I let Dustin and his mom and Eddie all live at my place doesn’t make me a fucking saint. Just because I make sure my people don’t starve doesn’t mean I’m—” He shakes his head. “It doesn’t mean anything.”

“It means—”

“It doesn’t,” he repeats, sharper.

And then, he goes too far.

“I’m not someone who was made to be loved by one woman.”

The words land heavy.

Final.

You freeze.

He keeps going anyway. Because once it’s out, he can’t pull it back.

“I know I said that to the press, and they spun it like—” Steve mutters, halting the sentence to cut to the chase. “But not like that. Not—” Then he exhales harshly. “I’m not meant to be… that. For anyone.”

Your eyes are glossy now.

Wide.

Watching him.

“I’m not—someone you come home to,” he says. “I’m not someone you build something with. I’m not—” He gestures vaguely. “Dinner on the table. Good day, bad day, all that bullshit.”

His voice roughens.

“I can’t even get out of bed some days.”

That hits you square in the chest.

Hard, anguished, devastating…

You don’t move.

Don’t speak.

He keeps going.

Because now it’s spilling.

“I have Eddie dragging me out half the time,” he says. “Or I just… don’t talk. For days. I’m pissed off all the time, I’m grieving all the time, I’m—” He stops, jaw clenching. “There’s nothing light in my head anymore.”

Your chest aches.

God, it aches.

“I’m not letting anyone into that,” he finishes, quieter now. “I’m not doing that to anyone.” He holds your gaze with his own quiet agony. “Never will.”

Silence.

You’re still staring at him.

And your heart?

It’s breaking.

But it’s not breaking for you.

It’s breaking for him.

Because you can see it. All of it. You see the pain, the trauma, the unspoken horrors that plague his mind day into night, night into day. It’s all in his eyes. In the way he holds himself like he’s already bracing for impact, like he’s still backed into a corner with no other way to survive it then to lash out or cower in fear and beg for mercy.

You swallow carefully, keeping yourself together as best you can. Then softly tell him, or try to rather, “you don’t have to—”

“I do,” he interjects immediately.

Your lips press together.

You inhale slowly.

Exhale slowly.

And then something shifts as you look at him again, more carefully this time.

“There’s… Nancy,” you say.

It’s hesitant.

A little unsure.

His expression flickers, newly thrown. “What?”

You fumble slightly. “I mean—I know she helps you. At your house. And that she—she matters to you, and I just—” You shake your head. “I didn’t mean to—overstep. If there’s something there, I—”

“There’s nothing there.”

Steve cuts you off.

Instant.

Absolute.

You blink. “Oh.”

“She’s—” He exhales stiffly. “She’s my best friend.”

You nod slowly, still a little uncertain. “I just didn’t want to—”

“You didn’t.”

“I—”

“She loves me,” he admits bluntly. “Because she has to.”

You go painfully still.

That’s… not what you expected.

“She’s known me forever,” he goes on to say, just as blunt. “Yeah, we dated. Yeah, we—whatever. But that’s not—” He shakes his head hard. “That’s not something I can be anymore.”

You watch him quietly, still listening…

“Whatever part of me could’ve been that guy,” he mutters, “he’s gone.”

Your chest tightens.

“She knows that,” he adds. “She deals with it.” He stares at his hands now, at the callousness that never seems to go away. “I don’t ask her to stay, but she does. And I let her in the only way I know how.”

A beat falls.

Because he stops, realizing something dreadful…

He’s talking too much.

Saying too much.

Oversharing.

He exhales sharply. “Why the fuck am I telling you this?”

You don’t answer.

You just look at him… soft, open. 

Open.

And yet somewhere between maintaining this new distance between the two of you, while looking at him as though you’ve nothing to hide from him.

It makes him more frustrated.

“It doesn’t matter,” he mumbles, shaking his head. “None of this matters.” He looks at you, brown eyes burning. “You can’t love me.”

And then, as if things weren’t awful enough…

You smile.

Not brightly.

Not happily.

Something quieter.

Something that aches.

Something that yearns.

You hold his gaze. And then you tell him, soft enough it almost disappears into the wind, “You don’t get to decide that for me.”

Silence.

Heavy.

Absolute.

And all the while, Steve just… stares. Like your words knocked the air out of him. But all you do is turn your gaze back out to the city.

The countdown continues.

The music swells.

And somewhere between the noise and the quiet, everything changes again as the city below keeps celebrating like it isn’t counting down to a massacre. From up here, the Capitol looks almost… strangely beautiful, if you let your eyes blur long enough. Lights in long jeweled strings. Towers plated in gold and glass and untouchable monochrome. Streets pulsing with color. Massive projected numbers ticking down across the skyline in bright white digits, each second disappearing with a cruel kind of elegance:

09:13:42

09:13:41

09:13:40

It would almost be easy to pretend it’s a New Year’s Eve countdown. Some giant, drunken festival. A country making a large spectacle of itself the way that countries always do whenever they’ve convinced themselves that blood is tradition and cruelty is structure and children are acceptable collateral so long as the cameras stay polished.

Steve glares down at it all from beneath his lowered lashes and feels his stomach coil.

Music rises up in warped bursts from somewhere down in the streets. Horns. Drums. Laughter. The shriek of women dressed in sequins and feathers and body paint, hanging off balconies with drinks in their hands like tomorrow’s blood won’t be their entertainment. Men in expensive suits leaning against lit railings, gesturing up at the giant screens as though debating the odds at a horse track. Somewhere down there, inside the sealed and glittering walls of Panem, children are fast asleep in warm beds with full stomachs and parents who believe the world is still mostly safe.

And the sickest part?

Steve’s relieved for them.

Not for any of the adults. Fuck them. But the kids? Yeah. Those kids deserve soft sheets and locked doors and ignorance. They deserve to not know what demodogs look like when they tear through a town at dusk. They deserve to never hear the sound a demobat makes right before it dives. They deserve to never see what happens when people get cornered long enough that the monsters stop being supernatural and start being human.

Steve knows better than anyone… that walls don’t mean a goddamn thing in the end.

He was born behind them.

Born into gates and codes and private security and cameras set at every angle. Born into money that built fences so high, they looked like promises. His parents had made fortunes helping engineer systems like those: high- end private security, gated community defense networks, panic installations, reinforced estate perimeters. The whole pitch had always been simple: keep danger out. Keep the right people safe. Keep order where other people only had hope.

They were good at it, too.

Good enough to get rich. Good enough to get envied. Good enough to make sure that when the Purge Act hit and everyone with a brain and a wallet scrambled for some semblance of protection, the Harrington house became a fortress and a refuge. Families Steve had grown up around got welcomed inside those walls because his parents still had and exercised enough real decency to understand that survival without community was just expensive loneliness with surveillance.

And still, in the end, none of it mattered.

Because the things that got in that night didn’t come crawling through from another dimension with petals of teeth and claws and wet black skin.

They came in human form.

Human hands. Human mouths. Human rage.

Human resentment sharpened by class and humiliation and years of being told they’d never have what families like the Harringtons had. Human beings who looked at Steve’s parents and saw not people but symbols. Saw money. Saw power. Saw all the reasons their own lives had turned out hard and ugly and starved and praise-less. And they butchered them for it.

Not quickly enough to be merciful. Not sloppily enough to be random. It was deliberately. Viciously. Like they’d been imagining it for years.

And then they left Steve alive.

Which had always felt, in some ways, like the cruelest part.

Because if they had killed him, too? Maybe at least his story would’ve ended there. Maybe he would’ve gone with whatever dignity he still had left. Maybe he wouldn’t have had to spend the last year and some change carrying around a body that feels less like his than ever.

Instead they’d ruined him.

Ruined things no one could see at first glance. Things that lived under skin. Things that woke with him and slept with him and never, ever shut the fuck up. They’d taken his parents’ life and his house and his certainty and his manhood and left him with a pulse and a smile people still sometimes found charming, as if charm had anything to do with survival.

The memory doesn’t come at him all at once. It never does. It’s fragments. Heat. A hand. His father’s blood. A voice too close to his ear. Laughter in the wrong room. The sensation of being pinned by more than weight. Of being looked at like a prize, an object and a punishment all at once. Of someone saying sell him like it was a joke. Like a game. Like he wasn’t even there to hear it.

Sell.

That word still lives under his skin like rot.

It’s why Hopper’s voice downstairs earlier hit him the way it did. Why the sponsor talk always makes him want to peel his own skin off. Why the Capitol’s hunger felt so familiar when they chanted for him to take it off.

Sell.

He can still hear it. Still feel the burn of it in his wrists and pelvis and gut, like his body still keeps score even when his mind would rather jump off a bridge than remember the math.

He blinks hard and drags a hand down his face, palm rough over the line of his jaw. The wind touches the damp corners of his eyes and he hates himself for it immediately.

Next to him, you’re quiet.

Not distant in the cold sense. Just soft. Still. Wrapped around yourself at the edge of the rooftop in that pale sleep set that looks like something out of a painting no one in this city deserves to own. Your hair moves in the breeze, copper catching the moonlight. Your cheek is pressed lightly to your knees. The skyline glows in your eyes when you stare out at it, bare skin glowing like milky porcelain.

He shouldn’t be looking at you.

He looks anyway.

And because he’s a coward in all the ways that matter most, because it’s easier to talk while staring at the ugliness below than it is to look directly at the person breaking him open, the first thing out of his mouth comes half-flat and half-tight.

“Thought you said your grandfather ruined you for all other men.”

The second the words leave him, the air changes.

You don’t answer.

Steve frowns and glances down at you.

His stomach drops.

Your eyes are bright. Not full-on crying. Not openly. But shining in that awful way that means you’ve been fighting it for a while and you’re starting to lose. You thumb just beneath one eye when a tear catches there, blinking it back before it can fully fall, and then you curl tighter around yourself and keep staring out at the city.

After a beat, you nod.

Just once.

That’s somehow worse than if you’d snapped at him.

Because suddenly the meaning behind what he said… blooms in full. Your grandfather is sick as hell. Probably in a recliner somewhere right now with a blanket over his knees and the television too loud because everyone back home is losing their goddamn minds over what happened tonight, and he’s watching his favorite girl get dressed up and marched towards a slaughter he’s too powerless to stop.

Steve feels it then like something physical. A sharp, ugly stab right through the center of his chest.

“Shit,” he mutters, already shaking his head at himself. “No, I didn’t mean—”

But you cut him off before he can butcher the apology worse, lost in thought.

“I just…” Your voice is soft. Not shaky enough to break, but close to it. “I just keep praying he’s alright.”

That shuts him up instantly.

For a second all he can do is look at you. Really look. At the way you keep your face turned toward the city because maybe it’s easier than letting him see too much. At the wet shine still trapped in your lashes. At the way your fingers dig into your own sleeve to steady yourself.

He shouldn’t ask. He does anyway.

“Has he got someone with him?”

The question comes out stiffer than he means it to. A little too blunt. Like he doesn’t know how to ask gently anymore, only directly, as if kindness always has to be smuggled in under rougher language so no one sees him trying.

Thankfully, you don’t seem bothered by it.

You nod against your knees, a little sniffle escaping before you press a small, tired smile into the fabric. When you finally turn your face enough to look at him through your lashes, your eyes are still glossy.

“The Byers.”

Steve stiffly nods.

Right, he thinks to himself.

Jonathan Byers.

Which, for some reason, opens a whole other mess in his head.

Because yeah, obviously — of course the Byers are with him. Joyce would sooner fistfight God than let an elderly man sit alone and sick while his granddaughter waits for the arena. Jonathan’s your best friend. Has been forever. Steve knows that. Or knew it, anyway. It’s not new information, not really, but somehow it lands differently now.

He finds himself replaying middle school hallways. Elementary pickup lines. You and Jonathan perched on playground swings talking like the rest of the world didn’t exist. You by his side, at the Fall Festival one year, both of you carrying paper cups of steaming cider and laughing at something private. Not a romantic memory. Not remotely. Just… old. Established. Rooted.

Why the hell had he stopped thinking about that?

Maybe because Jonathan Byers, in Steve’s head, has spent so many years existing in relation to Nancy Wheeler. Quietly in love with her in that unflashy, puppy-eyed way that Steve has always hated recognizing because it makes him feel like an accidental villain no matter what he does. Maybe because Steve had gotten so used to clocking Jonathan’s feelings for Nancy that the rest of Jonathan blurred out around the edges.

But still...

A question presses forward before Steve can stop it. He doesn’t even know why he needs the answer. He just knows he does.

He clears his throat. “He, uh…”

You look over again.

Steve immediately regrets opening his mouth.

But he’s already in it, so he just keeps going, awkward and tight. “Jonathan. He—how’s he… holding up?”

It’s a stupid question. Too broad. Too personal… yet not personal enough. It makes him want to slam his own head against the wall because how in the fuck would you know? You’re stuck here, just as unaware as he is.

But you don’t laugh at him. Don’t look confused. You just blink once, then consider it for a second like you’re finding the answer in real time.

“Like Jonathan,” you say at last.

Steve almost huffs. “That clears everything up.”

That gets the faintest little smile out of you.

“He’s quiet when he’s worried,” you explain. “Quieter than usual, I mean... Which is saying something.” You tilt your head a fraction, eyes drifting back to the city. “He’ll make sure my grandfather’s got his medicine. He’ll keep the TV low if it gets to be too much. He’ll probably sit up all night, pretending he isn’t.”

Steve listens harder than he means to.

You shrug one shoulder. “He’s good in a crisis.”

“Yeah,” Steve murmurs before he can stop himself. “He is.”

Something about the answer settles weirdly in his chest. Not bad. Just… strange. Because it confirms exactly what he’d expect from Jonathan and somehow still makes him feel like he’s on the outside of a story everyone else already understood.

It also makes him wonder how in the hell Jonathan has never pursued you.

I thought suddenly searches through his mind, racking his brain, perplexing him even further. Because how in the hell is Jonathan Byers best friends with someone like you — someone angelic and ethereal and naturally beautiful in ways that puts the girl-next-door type to shame — and not head over heels in love with you?

…has that ever been the case?

…have the two of you ever talked about it?

…have you and Jonathan ever been more than friends?

Steve suddenly feels all these new uninvited questions pressing in. However, he doesn’t ask anything else. He forces himself not to.

Then you say, quietly, “Will worships you, y’know.”

That one does catch him off guard.

His head snaps toward you. “What?”

Your mouth softens at one corner. “He does.”

Steve ducks his gaze almost instantly, fondly embarrassed in a way that feels stupid and juvenile and painfully real all at once. His hand flexes where it rests over his knee. He can feel a little heat starting to work its way up his neck and hates that too.

“Kid’s got bad taste,” he mutters.

You smile properly this time. Small, but real. “No,” you murmur. “He doesn’t.”

Steve can’t help it. Something at the corner of his mouth twitches.

“Will’s probably the most well-behaved rascal out of the bunch,” he says.

Your nose scrunches fondly and it’s such an absurdly gentle expression that it almost physically hurts to look at.

“Yeah,” you whisper. “He is.”

Then the smile fades from both of you, because the city below swells again — horns blaring, voices rising, some new eruption of delight from whatever fresh coverage the giant screens have just started playing. The countdown clocks roll over to another hour marker and the whole Capitol seems to scream in approval.

Nine hours.

Nine fucking hours until the games begin.

Steve stares at you while you look away, and suddenly the reality of tomorrow settles over him with fresh teeth.

You’re going in there.

Into that arena.

With him.

With twenty-two other tributes and whatever horrors the Capitol’s engineered for spectacle and whatever human horrors get there first all on their own.

And he can’t protect you.

He shouldn’t want to.

But he does.

And the wanting of it — strong, instinctive, immediate — makes something vicious flare in him because Dustin is home. Dustin is his reason. Dustin is twelve and safe only because Steve stepped in. Steve gets one job: survive and get back to Hawkins. Back to the kids. Back to the house. Back to the world where grief is at least familiar.

…and yet all he can think right now is that you’re going in there too… and he doesn’t know how to live with the math of that.

You speak again before he can.

This time, you sound farther away. Like you’re following your own thoughts as they happen.

“When I go in there tomorrow…” You pause, eyes on the skyline. “I don’t… want it to change me.”

Steve goes very still at your words… …but then his eyes catch something.

You keep absently rubbing your right wrist with your other hand as you speak, thumb dragging up and down from wrist to forearm. He notices that before he notices the words. The faint discoloration there. Not a full bruise. Not yet. But a mark. A whisper of one. And for one sick second he can’t tell if it’s from earlier. From his hand on your arm in that hallway. From the way rage had made him careless.

The guilt hits so hard he blurts before he can think.

“Fuck, I’m sorry.”

You blink, startled out of your own thoughts. “What?”

“Your arm,” he says, staring at the place you’re touching. “Earlier. I grabbed you.” His voice roughens. “I shouldn’t have done that either.”

You follow his gaze down, as if only just now realizing what he means.

“It’s alright,” you say automatically.

Steve’s jaw tightens. “Stop saying that.”

He nearly begs you this time.

For once, you almost look like you might argue. But the feeling disappears as quickly as it came, and instead you turn back outward again and continue more softly, “I just don’t want to die unlike myself.”

That lands strangely enough that Steve actually has to blink.

“What do you mean?”

You take a slow breath. “I don’t want to disgrace myself.”

He stares at you. “By what. Not killing anyone?”

That makes your brow furrow pensively. “No.” You shake your head. “I mean—I’m not stupid. If it came down to defending myself, or protecting one of those kids…” You swallow. “I know what that means.”

The honesty in that answer makes something in him flinch.

“But I don’t want to come out of this as something I’m not,” you say. “Or die as something I never was.” Your hands tighten around your own wrist. “I don’t want them turning me into a monster and calling it survival.”

And there it is.

The thing he’s been choking on for months in one form or another, spoken back to him in your voice.

He should meet it with truth.

Instead he does what he does best.

“It doesn’t matter,” he says flatly. “That’s what we are to them. Pieces. All of us. Pieces in their games, paws they can maneuver whatever way they see fit.”

You turn and look at him fully now.

The challenge in your expression is quiet, but unmistakable.

“Maybe to them,” you say. “But I’m still me. And you’re still you.”

Steve gives a humorless little laugh. “Sure.”

“You are.”

“Why does it matter?”

Your eyes don’t leave his. “Because I care.”

He looks away first.

“Hate to break it to you,” he says flatly, voice grim. “You don’t get to care about that.”

And that, more than anything else tonight — seems to strike something raw in you.

You go so still he can almost hear it.

Then your voice comes out gentler than anger and sadder than pleading and somehow sharper than either.

“Aren’t I allowed to care about my own dignity?”

The word hits him like a body blow.

Dignity.

For a second the whole world narrows down to that one word and the sound of blood in his ears.

Dignity.

The thing stripped from him piece by piece under Purge Act laughter and masked faces and hands that treated his body like public property. Dignity torn loose with buttons and fabric and breath and every futile attempt he’d made to keep any part of himself untouched. Dignity left in tatters on a floor he still sees every time he closes his eyes too fast.

And here you are, saying it like it still belongs to you. Like it still could.

Steve’s stomach twists so violently he almost feels sick.

He wants to tell you yes. Wants to say yes, of course you are, yes, hold onto it with both hands, and yes, don’t let these bastards touch one inch of what makes you you.

Instead he says the ugliest thing available.

“I care about going home.”

The words come out cold. Blunt, deliberately stripped of feeling.

You blink.

“I care about getting the fuck back to Hawkins and getting this over with,” Steve adds, his tone clipped.

You don’t argue him further. Hell, you don’t even look offended.

That somehow makes it worse.

You just slowly pull back, leaning against the wall again, putting that distance between you one more time, and turn your face toward the city with a little nod that could mean anything.

Steve feels the flare in his chest immediately. That familiar helpless anger, sparked by the exact kind of quiet he never knows how to survive. So he goes on the attack again, but quieter this time. Meaner for how measured it sounds.

“Look,” he clips. “If this is how you wanna spend your last peaceful hours before tomorrow, fine. Who’m I to stop you. But I’m gonna spend whatever’s left of mine getting whatever sleep I can manage, so that I can lift my head another day back in my godforsaken hometown.”

He expects you to flinch.

You don’t.

You just… smile to yourself. Small, sad… real.

“I’m sure you will.”

It takes him half a second for that response to register. Then the meaning of it lands and something incandescent flashes under his skin.

He turns on you fully. “Don’t.”

You look over, startled by the force in his tone. “Don’t what?”

“Talk like that.” His voice drops lower, rougher. “Like you’re already dead.”

Your mouth parts, then closes again.

“I didn’t—”

“You did.”

He’s breathing harder now. He can hear it and hates that too.

“You keep doing that,” he goes on. “You keep talking like I’m the one going home and you’re—what? Not even in the running?”

You give the smallest laugh, almost self-conscious. “Steve—”

“No.” He leans forward off the wall, eyes hot. “No, answer me. Why the hell do you do that?”

There’s real confusion in your face now. “Do what?”

“Say it like it’s a given.” He gestures angrily out at the city, then back at you. “Like I’m supposed to just—accept that there can only be one winner and it sure as hell won’t be you.”

That startles you.

Steve can see it. The shift. The way your whole expression opens for one exposed second before you school it again. And because he’s too far in it now to stop — because the truth has started leaking out under all the anger and he can’t seem to seal it back up, he keeps going.

“I already know there can only be one fucking victor,” he states. “You don’t need to keep reminding me.”

Your eyes go wider.

Oh.

That’s what this is.

And the realization moves through you so quickly it almost feels like light.

Steve sees something change in your face and hates himself for wanting to know what it is. He’s still talking, too worked up to notice the damage he’s done — or the confession buried in it.

“I don’t wanna hear you talk like that,” he admits, quieter now, but no less fierce. “Like I’m supposed to just be fine with making it back into Hawkins alone.”

The second it’s out, the air goes electric.

You just look at him.

And for one impossible, aching moment, Steve realizes what he’s said.

Not fully. Not in a polished, pretty way. But enough.

Enough that you heard it.

Enough that he heard it.

Enough that there’s no taking it back.

The elitist city below keeps screaming and the countdown keeps ticking and somewhere music swells again, but up here everything goes still.

Your bruised heart feels so full it almost hurts.

Because there it is.

Not required love. 

But want.

Need.

The terrified, angry truth that Steve Harrington does not want to survive this without you.

You don’t smile right away. That would ruin it — break the fragile, blistered honesty of the moment. Instead you just keep looking at him, eyes bright and soft and astonished all at once, as if he’s placed something precious in your hands without understanding what he’s done.

Across from you, Steve looks like he wants to crawl out of his own skin.

Then, because the feeling inside you is too big to hold and too warm to hide, the smallest smile ghosts at your mouth.

You rise to your feet.

Slowly… carefully…

Steve stays seated and just watches you, blue-screening in real time. You in that pale silk sleep set with your robe hanging loose from your shoulders is the cause of it. You barefoot on the rooftop. You with the moonlight in your halo of hope and a look on your face he cannot decode for the life of him.

You look almost peaceful.

That makes no goddamn sense to him whatsoever.

“I’ll see you in the morning,” you say.

That’s it.

Just that.

And yet it leaves him staring like a complete fucking idiot, because how do you keep doing this? How do you keep taking the ugliest, sharpest things he gives you and somehow turning them all into something steadier, gentler, survivable? How do you keep walking away from all of these conversations looking more certain — while he’s left feeling like his own insides have been rearranged with a crowbar?

He doesn’t know.

What he does know — though he barely dares name it — is that you never make him feel small in it. Never stupid. Never condescended to. You leave him confused, yeah. Wrecked, absolutely. But not lesser. It’s almost worse, in a way. Because it means whatever this is, it isn’t power. It isn’t manipulation. It isn’t a game.

It’s just you.

You hold out your hand to him.

Simple as anything.

Like you’re offering help, not asking for it.

Steve swallows thickly. Then he reaches up with his left hand before he can think himself out of it. His calloused palm fits into yours and the contact is immediate and alive and a little too much in the secrecy of the dark. And like always, your hand is softer than his — warmer than the night air. The robin tattoo seems to twitch beneath his skin like it has its own pulse, as though the ghost of his best friend is getting a kick outta this. 

As if Robin Buckley herself is bugging him from the other side of the veil, the inside of his veins… calling him Dingus, telling him to say something.

Goddammit I’m working on it, he shouts at her in his mind.

You brace and help him up.

He could’ve stood on his own. Easily. You both know that.

Neither of you says it.

He rises and ends up standing too close for his own good, looking down at you while you look up at him… and for one charged second neither of you moves. The wind lifts a strand of your hair. The city glows below. Somewhere in the far back of his mind, Robin Buckley’s loud ghost is absolutely losing her goddamn mind.

Dingus, say something.

So he does.

“…see you in the morning.”

It comes out lower than he means it to. Almost shy.

Your angel eyes soften.

Then you give his hand the gentlest squeeze.

“Goodnight, Steve.”

The words hit him square in the chest.

Because of this morning. Because of the kitchen. Because he’d hated how much it bothered him when you didn’t say it the night before. Because it had become a thing between you before he even understood it had. A rhythm. A ritual. A stupid little thread of normalcy in a place designed to erase every trace of it.

And now you’re giving it back to him like you know.

Like you know exactly what it means.

He doesn’t scoff. Doesn’t deflect. Doesn’t even have enough pride left in him to pretend it doesn’t matter.

He just answers, quiet and sincere and wrecked by how much he means it.

“Goodnight, Ren.”

Your smile changes. Not bigger. Just deeper somehow. Then you let go of his hand and take a few steps backward, still looking at him, before turning toward the rooftop door.

Steve watches you go.

He watches the pale line of your silk robe disappear into the interior glow of the penthouse. He watches the door shut softly behind you.

And then he’s alone.

Again.

Only now it feels worse.

He stands there on the roof with his hand still half-curled from where it held yours and realizes with a sharp, sinking kind of horror that there is no chance in hell he’s sleeping tonight.

Because all at once he wants impossible things.

He wants another night in the kitchen with you stealing dessert off silver trays and talking about fake-sounding pastries until one of you laughs too loudly. He wants another old Disney movie with your shoulder near his on the couch… and the smell of something warm in the oven and no countdown clocks anywhere in sight. He wants to hear you say goodnight like it isn’t the night before the Hunger Games.

He wants you.

Not in the crude way the Capitol wanted him. Not in the way people take and strip and sell. Not ownership. Not spectacle.

Just you there.

Alive.

And the knowledge of that — the raw, helpless, completely unworkable need of it — makes the air leave his lungs.

Because it is not going to happen.

That’s what the rules say.

That’s what the odds say.

That’s what every giant bright number in this monstrous city says every hour, every minute, every second it keeps ticking down.

And yet every instinct in him is beginning to revolt against the math.

He doesn’t want to be the victor without you.

He doesn’t even know why that truth feels so old inside him. Like it’s been waiting there much longer than a week, longer than the train ride, longer than the Capitol, longer than the reaping itself. Like maybe some part of him knew before he ever did.

Below, the countdown rolls mercilessly onward.

08:57:03

08:57:02

08:57:01

Steve stares at it until his vision blurs.

And somewhere between one second and the next, between the noise below and the silence you left behind, between grief and dread and want and fury, he realizes the most devastating thing of all:

He is not afraid of dying nearly as much as he is afraid of surviving without you.

END OF CHAPTER 

It’s why you shouldn’t be surprised by the situation you’ve just caught your son in, but you’re still completely thrown off - frozen in his doorway with a stunned expression on your face.

“Mom!” He yells at you, panic lacing his voice.

In your defense, you had knocked on the half open door before coming in to ask him if he could move his load of laundry in order to start yours.

And because he was supposed to be studying, you definitely didn’t expect to find him kissing his girlfriend on his bed.

He scrambles away from her, running his hands through his hair - a nervous tick he’s picked up from Steve, and he refuses to look at you.

“Uh, hi Mrs. Harrington,” his girlfriend says, looking down at her hands bashfully.

She’s curled in on herself a bit, clearly flustered at the interruption.

“Hi, sweetheart. Are you, um, staying for dinner?” You try to play it cool, not wanting to make her feel worse.

She picks at the fabric of her sleeve, “If you’ll still have me, I’d love to stay for dinner.”

You smile when she finally works up the courage to look at you, “Of course, you’re always welcome here.”

You can visibly see the tension release from her, but your boy isn’t off the hook so easily.

“Let’s keep the door fully open,” you quip, staring pointedly at him, “and move your laundry, please.”

“On it, Mom,” he replies, instantly grabbing the basket and booking it out of his room without so much as a backwards glance.

“Steve,” you whisper, grabbing at his elbow and gesturing for him to follow you into the downstairs bathroom.

He slips inside the tiny space with you, shutting the door firmly behind him.

“Hate to break it to you honey, but we’ve got hungry kids in the dining room ready to eat. We don’t exactly have time for you to feel me up in here,” he grins teasingly, hands coming down to rest on your hips.

You roll your eyes, pushing lovingly at his shoulder, “I didn’t drag you in here to get into your pants, Steve.”

You’d been waiting for a chance to talk to him without tiny ears eavesdropping, which was quite the feat when everyone was home.

He notices your expression shift, and he furrows his eyebrows, “What’s wrong, honey?”

You explain how you found your boy with his girlfriend, and Steve nods along - listening carefully to the concerns you have over it.

“It’s just, this is his first girlfriend, and I’m pretty sure he’s starting to feel more for her,” you say, fiddling with the collar of his shirt.

“And?” He prompts, knowing there’s more - hands sliding to cup your lower back.

“And, I'm worried about him being sexually active at his age,” you admit anxiously.

“We've talked about this with him before, honey. And don't forget he had to sit through a whole sex education class with me in seventh and eighth grade. Poor kid couldn’t look me in the eye the whole time,” Steve reminds you.

“Maybe I’m overthinking it. It’s stupid,” you bring a thumb to your lips, biting the skin there tensely.

Steve pulls your hand away, “Hey, none of that. Don’t want you hurting yourself, honey”

He presses a kiss to the tender skin you were prodding at, “And it’s not stupid. We can talk to him again if that’ll ease your worries, baby.”

“It would,” you reply, sighing in relief at the fact that he’s on the same page as you.

“Then we’ll talk to him after dinner,” he presses a kiss to the crown of your head, tugging you tighter to his chest, “I mean, we are experts after all.”

His teasing works, pulls a laugh out of you that encourages him to capture your lips with his - nose nudging yours, silently promising that the two of you will always be a team.

“Oh my god, are you seriously about to give me the talk? We’ve gone through this before, multiple times,” your boy emphasizes, wincing at the memories.

“Not necessarily the talk. We know you already know how it, uh, works,” Steve clears his throat.

“We just want you to be careful, hun,” you chime in, and you swear if your boy flushed anymore he’d be on fire.

“Mom, please stop,” he begs.

Steve cuts in, “You know we encourage waiting until you’re an adult. But we also know there’s going to be times where you have to make decisions on your own without our input."

Your son looks like he’s about ready to pass out from embarrassment, and you’d feel sorry for him if you hadn’t been the one that walked in on him, which is why you’re much more blunt about it than Steve’s being.

“What your father is trying to say is that, if you are having sex, which we don’t approve of you doing until you’re at least eighteen and as your parents, preferably even older than that. But if for some reason you are, you need to be using protection," you conclude.

His mouth flounders, jaw opening and closing - almost the spitting image of your husband when he does that.

“We aren’t,” he trials off, flailing his hands wildly like it’s supposed to fill in the blanks for you.

“You aren’t using protection?” Steve asks sternly.

“No! I mean, yes, if we were having sex. But I’m not,” he’s positively mortified now at the way you and Steve look at him in confusion.

“Not having sex, or not using protection?” Steve questions, wanting a clear answer.

“God, Dad, why do you have to keep saying it?” He groans, shutting his eyes.

“What? Sex? You know that’s in my job description, right?” Steve teases, trying to get him to lighten up.

He falls flat on his back on the bed and throws his hands over his face, “Believe me, I know.”

“Hun, I know this is an embarrassing conversation. Trust me, we don’t want to be having it either. But we love you, and it's because we love you that we want you to be making smart decisions,” you try to reassure him.

“I’m not having sex. I actually don’t think I’m ready yet,” he grows a little shy at the confession.

You feel yourself relax at the admission, “Oh. Well, okay then. It’s a good thing you recognize that, hun.”

“Mom, can you seriously not? I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” he grits out, less self consciousness and more attitude seeping into his tone.

“Hey,” Steve says firmly, “Mom’s just doing her job, bud. It’s our job to help guide you with these things.”

He sits back up at that, “I’m sorry.”

You smile at him, patting his knee, “It’s okay, hun. I know it’s not a fun thing to talk about with your parents.”

“And, uhm, not that I’m trying to get out of this conversation, but do you hear that?” He points to the wall that borders your eldest girl's room.

The three of you fall quiet, ears straining to listen, and the tell tale sign of a window sliding open makes Steve jump out of his seat.

“If she thinks she’s sneaking out,” he grumbles, fleeing the room - stumbling down the stairs and through the front door.

Your boy looks at you in bewilderment, “How did he know that?”

“Maybe one day Dad will tell you about his ninja skills as he likes to call them, but today is not that day,” you grin.

“Not sure if I need to know why he refers to himself as a ninja,” he replies.

“Probably not,” you agree, “I’m gonna go check on them.”

You make your way downstairs and lean against the threshold of the door - peering out to look over at your girl’s bedroom window.

There’s a trellis that sits below it as it wraps over the first floor window. It allows her to swing her legs out and onto it - wobbling a little to right herself as she gently slides the window closed.

Steve’s planted himself under her window, hands on his hips - silently waiting for her to realize he’s there. You bite your lip in amusement at the sight, curious to see how he’s going to approach this.

When your girl turns around to start the climb down, she freezes at the sight of him.

They have a silent stare off before she gives him a sickly sweet smile - already trying to worm her way into the soft spot of his heart to let her off easy.

“Going somewhere?” Steve remarks.

“Nope, just uh, checking to make sure if there was an emergency I could get out,” she shrugs sheepishly, already knowing the excuse is weak.

“Uh uh, sure. Turn around,” Steve replies, standing his ground - making a circling motion with his hand.

“I’m sorry?” She tries, but it sounds more like a question than a statement.

“Appreciate that, sweetheart. But you’re still grounded,” he raises his eyebrows at her.

She sighs, “For how long?”

“How long would I have been sick to my stomach, worrying about where you were?” He inquires, folding his arms.

She closes her eyes in defeat, “Two hours. So, two weeks?”

“Sounds fair,” Steve nods.

She picks up on his cues that he has more that he wants to say to her, and she waits patiently for him to gather his thoughts.

“Please don’t ever try this again. Just ask Mom and I if you can go next time,” he pleads, frustration and fear lingering behind the words.

“You would’ve said no,” she grumbles.

“Maybe, maybe not. Guess you won’t know because you’re grounded and not going tonight,” he sasses her back.

“I really am sorry, Dad,” she says, eyes that look just like his begging him to forgive her.

“I love you. If anything had happened to you,” he trails off, not wanting to finish the statement.

She looks guilty at that, because she knows she put you and Steve through misery during her rebellious phase, “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking about that.”

“That's all I can think of when you leave this home, that you return safely to Mom and I. And we can’t keep you safe if we don’t know where you are,” Steve clarifies, wanting her to understand the significance of why he’s upset.

She nods solemnly, “Okay, I understand.”

“Don’t think you’ll fully understand until you have kids of your own, sweetheart, but I appreciate you trying to,” Steve gives her a warm smile, communicating that she’s forgiven for scaring him.

“And I’m removing that damn trellis, by the way,” he calls out while she hauls herself back up into her room.

She narrows her eyes at him, “Why doesn’t that surprise me?”

You have to put a hand over your mouth to stop a giggle from slipping out at her quip - she always makes it glaringly obvious that she got her attitude from him.

“What the hell has gotten into our kids?” Steve asks you later that evening as the two of you relax on the couch, hand covering his face in disbelief.

Your legs were thrown over one of his parted thighs, and you were cuddled up under his arm - hand lazily tracing circles on the soft cotton of his sleep shirt.

Your younger babes were sleeping, and your oldest two probably weren’t, but at least they were safely tucked into their rooms. Steve was still jittery about your eldest girl, worried she was going to try to sneak out again - eyes flitting continuously to the front window.

“They’re teenagers, babe,” you remind him.

“Exactly, though. They’re teenagers, not adults. Why are they trying to do adult things?” He throws his hands up, raking them through his hair, before letting them fall back to rest on your legs.

“Steve, do you remember what you were like in high school?” You ask playfully, running your free hand through his soft locks that curl around his ear.

“Unfortunately, yes,” he sighs heavily.

“Then why are you surprised that your children are literally just like you?” You smile, bringing your hand down over his thigh that’s not tucked under you.

He laughs under his breath, “Yeah, guess that’s biting me in the ass.”

“They’re not purposefully trying to stress you out, baby. They’re just growing up,” you trace your hand up and down his thigh, trying to soothe the built up tension in him.

He’s quiet for a moment, before he sucks in a sharp breath, eyes starting to rim red from holding back tears.

“Where did our babies go?” He asks, tone laced with distraught.

You press a kiss to his shoulder, “They’re still our babies, honey, just older.”

“You know, I look at them and think about how there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for them. I’d do anything to protect them from making the wrong choices,” he reflects, eyes flicking back up the stairs to where his children rest.

“That’s because you were meant to be a dad, Steve,” you press a kiss to his jaw, hand curling around his bicep as you snuggle closer.

“Meanwhile, my parents didn’t give a shit about what I was doing with how often they were gone,” he scoffs, fingers running up the calf of your leg absentmindedly.

You frown, not liking where his thoughts seem to be heading as he stares straight ahead - face twisting in unease.

“What’s wrong with me?” He asks thickly.

“What?” You ask incredulously, not quite sure if you can believe the words that just came out of his mouth.

Steve’s parents had left Hawkins a long time ago, though they kept in touch here and there. You knew they loved their grandchildren to some extent through the gifts and money they sent. But you also knew they thought your family was much too big, too loud, and too messy - not living up to their own standards.

“How can I feel this all consuming, unconditional love for my children, but my parents clearly never felt the same thing for me,” he remarks, lost in the ugly thoughts his mind is throwing at him.

You feel like the wind is knocked out of you from the harsh words leaving his lips, “Steve, there’s nothing wrong with you.”

“There’s gotta be. Must’ve been some reason they couldn’t love me,” he replies dejectedly, still zoning out.

“Hey, that’s my husband you’re talking about,” you chide softly, reaching out to grasp tenderly at his jaw - trying to get him to look at you.

“I’m being serious,” he says, voice starting to wobble.

“So am I,” you shift, settling yourself fully in his lap, cupping his face tenderly.

A muscle ticks in his jaw, and you can tell he’s trying not to cry.

“Look at me,” you whisper, stroking at his cheekbones - ducking your head to meet his eyes.

“There is not a single part of you that’s unloveable, Steve Harrington,” you say it firmly, with a tone of finality - leaving no room for argument.

“But-,” he starts, and you cut him off - refusing to allow him to continue to think about himself in such a negative way.

“No. No buts. You were not hard to love then, and you are not hard to love now. You wanna know how I know?” You smile, starting to think of the mile long list of ways that makes loving him as easy as breathing.

He clenches his teeth together as the first drops of tears spill, “How?”

You lean your forehead against his, “When something goes wrong, do you know who every single person in this family turns to?”

He lets the words settle over him, trying to rub at his eyes. You stop him, replacing his hands with yours - fondly wiping the tears that trail his cheeks.

“You. Because we all know that you’re going to do whatever you can to make it better,” you tell him, and he sinks into your touch - head coming to a rest against your collarbones.

You can feel his intake of breaths becoming ragged, can feel the shake of his shoulders against you.

“And what about when you go watch their softball or baseball games? They run straight to you afterwards - no matter the outcome, because they know you’re going to be proud of them either way,” you add on.

Steve makes a pitiful sniffling sound, and it just about breaks your heart clean in half at having to hear those noises coming from him.

“Guess how many times they come home from school and ask me when you’ll be back from work because they’re desperate to tell you something about their day,” you wrap an arm around his back to hold him closer - free hand slipping into his hair to caress the back of his head.

He can’t answer with the way his throat has become tight, raw emotion bleeding from every part of him - breaking open at the unresolved pain that his parents caused.

“I honestly think you’re the most loved person in this house, baby,” you confide - nails running down the length of his back, trying your best to provide the dependable comfort he always shows you.

He makes a sound of protest, but you refute it, “You are, Steve. I’m so sorry your parents didn’t show you love the way they should have, baby. But that’s on them. Not you.”

You think about your next words carefully, trying to formulate what to say to ease his mind - aching at seeing him in distress.

“You know who does love you? Those teenagers - trying to act like adults because they know you’re gonna love them despite the choices they make. And don’t even get me started on the rest of them. God, they adore you, Steve,” your voice cracks, and your own eyes get glassy at the overwhelming gratitude that kicks up in your chest for him.

He breaks from your hold, leaning back against the couch to gaze at you adoringly.

You stare back, hand slipping to rest against the place where that radiant heart of his lies - feeling the steady rhythm it makes, “I fall in love with you more every day because I get to watch you be the best dad in the world.”

“Thought you loved me for my looks,” he mumbles jokingly.

“Oh well, that’s a given. You’re so hot, baby,” laughter bubbles up inside of you at his ability to lift the atmosphere.

He bites his lip, before gesturing to himself, “Even though I’m getting older?”

You smirk, “That just makes you more attractive, honey.”

His hands cradle your waist, thumbs slipping under your top - sweeping over the warm skin there as a serious expression takes over his features.

“Thank you for not letting me get lost in my head,” he says quietly.

“Would never let you, I love you,” you emphasize, reminding him once again because he deserves to be told so - deserves to know he’s worthy of every ounce of love that you could possibly give to him.

“Love you, gorgeous,” his lips curl up delicately, “c’mere.”

He tugs you to lay down against him, and the two of you listen to the sounds of your home - the hum of the refrigerator littered with drawings from your babes, muffled noise from the television that casts a soft glow across the living room, the creek of the stairs as little feet pad down them.

“Daddy?” The voice of your ten year old girl floats across the room.

“Yeah, babe?” Steve replies, turning his head to look at her.

“I can’t sleep,” she yawns tiredly, “can you read me a story?”

“Of course, sweetheart. I’ll be right up,” he answers, watches as she clambers back up to her room to wait for him.

“Told you,” you smile affectionately.

You force yourself to move off of him, so he can go follow his girl - sinking into the cushions of the couch.

“You wanna come with me?” He asks.

You shake your head, “She wants you. Go take care of your baby. I’ll be waiting here for you.”

He leans over to kiss you slowly - plush lips working against yours measuredly, trying to communicate his love for you.

“I’ll be right back,” he whispers when he pulls away, pecking your lips once more.

You nestle deeper into the couch, watching him as he moves up the stairs, eyes trailing the muscles moving in his back - wishing that he could see himself the way you did.

He may not have been shown love the way he deserved as a child, but he certainly worked his ass off to make sure each and every one of his children never felt that way; and in return, he had a home full of these perfect little humans whose whole world revolved around him - orbiting their dad because they knew his heart belonged to them completely.

Divider credits to @pixopix

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