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Jenn's MasterList

Sometimes silly, sometimes smutty, sometimes just ideas I can't get out of my silly little head. All stories are 100% mine and are 18+ unless otherwise specified.

Call On Me (One Shot)

Blue Christmas (series) Chris as a father to twin boys (request) Scare Tactics (Halloween One shot) Hard To Get (one shot) Cheers (one shot) Breathe (one shot) Every Move You Make (mini) part one part two part three

A Little Tied Up (one shot)

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writingforuandme

This World Needs You

Synopsis: Joe has a hard time controlling his jealousy and it only hits harder when he misses you.

Warnings: Singer f!reader, smut, jealous joe, no protection p n v, famous reader, cussing, kissing

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The last month you had been busy with award show to award show. Always on the red carpet for pictures and interviews while Joe was away on tour. It hurt when he left but you knew you couldn’t go with him because of your insane press tour for your latest album.

“I miss you.” Joe says smiling face on the phone.

He was on a car ride back to the hotel after the 3rd show of the tour.

“I miss you too.”

A brief silence falls over the line.

littlepinkglitterbunny

Everyone knows but me | Steve Harrington

Chapter ten: Pretending Costs Nothing Until Morning

Warnings: angst!!!one bad decision leading to a worse one,references to being hurt. pining, secret keeping, lovers-to-exes-to-something-else. sloooow burn.

Description: He climbs through her window like it’s still two years ago. She lets him. Neither of them mentions that this is exactly the thing they swore, an hour earlier, they were done doing. Some people are easy to walk away from. He was never that

word count: 14.5k

Steve Harrington x fem!reader

Authors note: ok so i cried so what. I just love a man that cries. PLEASE PLS PLS lmk what ya think and if you would like to be on the tag list lmk! From the bottom of my heart thank you all so much for the support it means so much to me and I love seeing y’all’s reactions (also gator fic potentially coming soon:))

Series masterlist | previous chapter

Your back hit the seat of the car hard enough to rattle the frame, Steve's mouth already on yours, rough and consuming, one hand fisted in your hair while the other gripped your hip like he couldn't decide where he wanted to touch you first. You kissed him back with equal intensity, fingers digging into the front of his shirt, some reckless, unthinking hunger driving every single second of it, neither of you paying the slightest attention to anything beyond the frantic, tangled space between your two bodies in the cramped back seat.

You didn't hear footsteps crossing the grass outside. You didn't hear anyone approach at all until a sharp knock rapped against the fogged-up window, close enough to make you both jump.

"Oh my God!"

You wrenched apart, breathless, disheveled, twisting around to find Lucy peering through the glass, one hand flying up to shield her eyes a half-second too late, Robin and Nancy crowding in just behind her, both of them going instantly, comically still at the sight in front of them.

"I'm so sorry, I did not need to see that," Lucy said, still not lowering her hand, though her voice had already tipped over into something closer to delighted horror than actual apology. "Oh my God. Oh my God, you two."

"This is not—" You scrambled to tug your dress back into place, face burning, heart still hammering from an entirely different reason a moment ago. "This isn't what it looks like."

"It's extremely what it looks like," Robin said flatly through the glass, arms crossed, though the corner of her mouth was already twitching. "You were basically eating each other alive in the back of Steve's car."

Steve, jaw tight, said absolutely nothing, dragging a hand back through his hair, looking anywhere except at any of the three women currently staring through the window with matching expressions of stunned disbelief.

"How long has this been happening?" Nancy asked, arms crossed, though her tone carried more exasperation than actual shock.

Nobody answered right away, and the silence alone seemed to tell her everything she needed to know.

"Unbelievable," Nancy muttered, shaking her head, though something almost fond flickered underneath the exasperation. "You two are actually unbelievable."

"Okay, can we maybe not do this through a car window?" Robin said, glancing around at the mostly empty street, a few stray party goers still stumbling toward their own cars in the distance. "Get out. Both of you. We need actual words, not fogged glass and vague noises."

You scrambled for the door handle, mortification burning fresh and hot with every second that passed, and climbed out on unsteady legs, tugging your dress down as far as it would go, entirely unable to meet anyone's eyes. Steve followed a moment later, considerably less flustered on the surface, though the tight set of his jaw gave away exactly how uncomfortable he actually was.

"So," Lucy said, arms crossed now, studying the two of you with an expression that had fully tipped over from horror into gleeful, merciless curiosity. "How long, exactly, has 'we hate each other and it's never gonna work' actually meant this?"

"This is literally the first time," you said quickly, cheeks burning. "I swear. It just happened. Tonight. After everything."

"So there's been nothing before tonight?" Nancy asked, studying you both carefully, not entirely convinced.

"Nothing," Steve confirmed, voice flat, though something in his tone suggested even he wasn't sure whether that made it better or worse.

"Huh." Robin glanced between the two of you, some of her earlier teasing giving way to genuine surprise. "Okay, that's actually kind of worse, in a way. One giant unplanned collision instead of a slow, at least somewhat-considered decision."

"Thanks, Robin, very comforting," you muttered.

"I'm just saying, this feels like the two of you finally exploding after days of pretending you weren't gonna, and honestly, that tracks completely with everything else about your entire dynamic." Robin shrugged, unbothered. "Does anyone else know? Lucy, did you know?"

"I did not know!" Lucy's voice climbed, somewhere between offended and thrilled. "I am her best friend and I did not know something like this was even a possibility tonight! Do you understand how out of the loop I feel right now?"

"There was nothing to know," you admitted finally, quiet, exhaustion catching up fast with the mortification. "It wasn't planned. We had this massive fight, and then somehow it turned into — this. We never even talked about it happening. It just did."

"Of course it did," Nancy said, not unkindly, though something knowing settled into her voice. "That tracks. Very on-brand for the two of you."

Steve, still saying almost nothing, shifted his weight, glancing toward you briefly before looking away again, some old, wary discomfort radiating off him at having the whole careful, unspoken arrangement suddenly dragged out into the open like this.

"Look," he said finally, voice rough, "it's complicated, and honestly, it's kind of nobody's business but ours."

"It became our business the second I walked up on you two going at it in a parked car outside a house party," Robin said, though her tone had softened slightly, something more serious creeping in underneath the teasing now. "I'm not trying to embarrass you. I just — I worry about both of you. And whatever tonight actually was, it doesn't exactly sound like a great sign for either of your mental health, if we're being honest, especially considering how the fight that led into it apparently went."

The teasing energy in the little group shifted, quieter now, and you wrapped your arms around yourself against the cold, suddenly feeling far more exposed than the mortification alone could account for.

"We know it wasn't exactly the healthiest way to end a fight," you admitted, voice small. "We just — got carried away. It won't happen again."

"I'm taking her home," Lucy said, already looping her arm through yours with firm, decisive energy, clearly not interested in leaving room for further discussion. "Come on. I think we've all had enough excitement for one night."

You let her steer you away from the group, legs still a little unsteady, and had barely made it two steps before Steve's voice cut through behind you.

"Y/N, wait."

You turned, and he was standing there by the open car door, something raw and apologetic written plainly across his face, the earlier heat between you already replaced by something more sober and uncertain.

"I'm sorry," he said, quiet, just for you, though the others were still close enough to hear every word. "For tonight. For all of it Carrie, the fight, this. I didn't mean for any of it to happen the way it did."

"I know," you said, and meant it, though you didn't have the energy left to say much more than that.

"This probably wasn't a good idea." He gestured vaguely between the two of you, something tired and honest in the admission. "Any of it. I don't want you to think I don't know that."

Something in you bristled, quiet and unexpected, at the phrase. “This probably wasn't a good idea.” Like the last several hours had been some careless miscalculation instead of the first thing that had actually felt real between the two of you in weeks. You didn't examine why it stung the way it did, only that it did, some small, wounded part of you hearing it and filing it away alongside everything else you weren't ready to look at too closely tonight.

"Right," you said, voice flatter than you meant it to be. "A bad idea. Got it."

"That's not — I didn't mean it like—"

"It's fine, Steve." You managed a small, tight smile that didn't quite reach your eyes. "Goodnight."

You let Lucy pull you the rest of the way toward her car, and didn't look back.

Lucy didn't say much until you were both walking away , and when she finally did speak, her voice had lost every trace of the earlier teasing, replaced by something sharper and more serious.

"I'm not gonna pretend I'm not worried about you," she said, eyes fixed on the road. "That whole thing back there, Y/N that wasn't cute. That wasn't some fun, messy hookup story we're gonna laugh about later. You guys apparently had a huge fight and twenty minutes later you're all over each other in a parked car. That's not healthy. That's not even close to healthy."

"I know it looked bad—"

"It didn't just look bad, it was bad." Lucy's voice climbed, frustration bleeding through now. "Steve is not good for you, Y/N. I've watched this happen over and over, this exact cycle, for months now. You fight, you scream, you say horrible things to each other, and then somehow you end up right back in each other's arms like none of it happened, and then it happens all over again a few weeks later. That's not love. That's just two people who can't stop hurting each other and calling it passion."

"That's not fair."

"Isn't it, though?" Lucy glanced over at you at a red light, something genuinely worried beneath the frustration now. "I love you. That's why I'm saying this. I watched you cry in a driveway a month ago because of that boy. I watched you spiral for weeks after he lied to you for a year. And now I'm watching you climb into his back seat the same night you told him it was never gonna work, and I don't know how to keep pretending that's not a pattern worth being scared of."

You didn't have an answer for that, staring out the window instead, exhaustion and shame and something more complicated tangling together in your chest, and Lucy, apparently deciding she'd said enough for one night, let the silence stretch on for the rest of the drive, though the weight of her words sat heavy in the car the entire way home.

Steve hadn't meant to hear it. He'd been standing close enough, still processing the sting of your flat, closed-off “goodnight”, when Lucy's voice had carried back to him across the yard, sharp and clear in the quiet night air.

“Steve is not good for you, Y/N.”

He hadn't caught the rest, the two of you already too far away by the time the words registered, but that single fragment lodged itself somewhere deep and immediate in his chest, and he stood there a long moment after your car had pulled away, staring at the empty street, feeling the truth of it settle over him like something cold and inescapable.

"You okay?" Robin asked quietly, coming to stand beside him, Nancy close behind her.

"Yeah." He wasn't. He didn't elaborate.

They stood there in silence for a while, the party's noise still humming faintly behind them, and Steve was still turning Lucy's words over and over in his head when Eddie came stumbling around the side of the house, visibly, spectacularly drunk, tripping slightly over the uneven lawn before catching himself on the fence.

"There you guys are!" Eddie's voice came out too loud, slurred and delighted, arms spread wide like he was greeting old friends after years apart instead of people he'd seen twenty minutes ago. "I've been looking everywhere! Did I miss something? I feel like I missed something. There's, like, a vibe. Very heavy vibe happening right now."

"You missed a lot, actually," Robin said dryly.

"Tell me everything." Eddie swayed slightly, draping an arm heavily over Steve's shoulder for balance, entirely unbothered by his own obvious lack of coordination. "Wait, where's Lucy? I was gonna ask Lucy something important. Very important question. I don't remember what it was, but I remember it was important."

"She just left. She's taking Y/N home," Nancy said, watching him with careful, amused patience.

"Oh." Eddie's face fell, genuine disappointment crossing his features despite the haze of alcohol. "Dang. Okay. Well. Tell her I said—" He paused, swaying again, clearly losing his own train of thought mid-sentence. "I don't remember. Tell her I said something nice, though. Something charming."

"I'll pass that along," Robin said, biting back a smile.

Eddie's attention drifted back to Steve, squinting at him with the particular, unfocused intensity of someone very drunk trying very hard to seem perceptive. "You look sad. Why do you look sad? Didn't you leave with Carrie? Where's Carrie?"

"Carrie left a while ago," Steve said flatly.

"Oh." Eddie considered this for a long moment, swaying gently. "Was that because of the thing? The Y/N thing?"

"Sure. The thing." Steve dragged a hand down his face, exhaustion finally catching up with him completely.

"Man." Eddie shook his head slowly, entirely too sincere for how drunk he clearly was. "You gotta figure your stuff out, buddy. I say that with love. Complete, total love. But you gotta figure it out, because this—" he gestured vaguely, nearly losing his balance again, "—this is not sustainable. This is, like, a genuinely unsustainable emotional situation you've got going on."

"Thank you, Eddie," Steve said, dry, though something in his chest ached at how accurate the drunken assessment actually was.

"I'm just saying." Eddie patted his shoulder heavily, nearly knocking him off balance in the process. "I love you, man. I love all of you. This has been a very emotional night for everyone, I think."

Robin caught Steve's eye over Eddie's shoulder, something wry and exhausted passing between them, and neither of them argued with that particular assessment at all.

"Okay, I think we should get you home," Nancy said, gently steering Eddie by the shoulders before he could topple sideways into the fence again. "Before you say something else devastatingly accurate that nobody's emotionally prepared for tonight."

"I contain multitudes," Eddie said solemnly, allowing himself to be steered, though he twisted back to look at Steve one more time before Nancy could fully redirect him. "Hey. Steve. Seriously though."

"Yeah?"

"You gotta actually talk to her. Like, real talking. Not the yelling kind, not the — whatever that was tonight." Eddie gestured vaguely toward the now-empty street where your car had disappeared. "The actual, sit-down, say-what-you-mean kind. I know it's scary. I get it. But you two keep doing the same loop over and over, and loops don't end unless somebody actually breaks them."

Steve didn't answer right away, something in his chest going tight and uncomfortable at how clearly, how simply Eddie had just laid out the exact thing he'd been avoiding for weeks.

"I hear you," he said finally, quiet.

"Good." Eddie nodded, satisfied, already letting Nancy lead him toward her car. "Love you, man. Very emotional night. Somebody get me a burger."

Robin watched them go, then turned back to Steve, arms crossed, her earlier teasing energy fully gone now, replaced by something more careful and searching.

"He's not wrong, you know," she said quietly. "Drunk, but not wrong."

"I know." Steve dragged both hands down his face, exhaustion finally catching up with him completely, the adrenaline of the entire night draining out all at once and leaving something hollow and heavy behind. "I don't know how to do the other thing, though. The talking. Every time I try, it turns into a fight, or it turns into — that." He gestured vaguely at the space where his car had been parked. "I don't know how to just say what I actually mean without it becoming a disaster."

"Maybe you start smaller." Robin's voice softened, some genuine care threading through the practical advice. "Not some big, dramatic conversation. Just one true thing. Next time you see her. One honest sentence that isn't an accusation or an apology dressed up as one."

Steve considered that, turning it over slowly, some old, tired resistance warring against the quiet, obvious sense of it.

"One true thing," he repeated.

"One true thing." Robin bumped his shoulder gently, some of her earlier warmth returning. "You can do that much, probably. Even you."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence."

"Anytime." She managed a small, tired smile, glancing toward her own car. "Come on. I'll drive you home. You look like you're about two minutes from falling asleep standing up."

Steve let her lead him toward the car, Eddie's words and Robin's quieter advice both settling somewhere deep in his chest, and for the first time in longer than he could easily remember, he found himself actually turning over what one true thing he might actually say, if he ever managed to work up the nerve to say anything honest at all.

You woke the next afternoon with a headache pounding steady behind your eyes and a mouth so dry it felt lined with sand, sunlight slicing bright and merciless through your curtains despite your best efforts to bury your face in the pillow and pretend the day simply wasn't happening yet.

The memories came back slow and disjointed, piece by unwelcome piece. The party. Carrie's cruelty. The yard, the screaming, the devastating, exposed honesty of that fight. And then, underneath all of it, the backseat, his hands, the desperate, reckless hour that had followed, and finally, worst of all, Lucy's voice in the car afterward, steady and serious in a way that had cut through the haze of everything else. “Steve is not good for you. That's not love. That's just two people who can't stop hurting each other and calling it passion.”

You lay there a long while, staring at your ceiling, letting the words settle properly now that the alcohol and adrenaline had fully worn off, and found, to your own quiet, uncomfortable surprise, that you couldn't actually argue with a single part of it.

You thought about the pattern Lucy had named so plainly the fighting, the reconciling, the fighting again, an endless, exhausting loop neither of you seemed capable of breaking no matter how many times you swore it was over. You thought about the note, the driveway, the gas station, the almost-kiss, the "get the fuck out of my house," and now this, one more entry on a list that had started to feel less like passion and more like some slow, repetitive injury you kept reopening on purpose.

You thought, too, about how it had felt in the moment desperate and consuming and, for a little while, blessedly uncomplicated, all the exhausting complexity of the actual relationship stripped away into something purely physical, purely present. You understood, lying there with your head throbbing, exactly why it had been so tempting. You also understood, with a clarity that felt almost cruel in the harsh, sober light of afternoon, that temptation and health had never once been the same thing, no matter how much you'd wanted them to be.

You didn't know what you were supposed to do with that understanding. You didn't know if knowing the pattern was destructive actually gave you the power to stop repeating it, or if you were simply someone who was going to keep making the same mistake with the same person, over and over, until one of you finally ran out of chances to try again.

You lay there a long while longer, hungover and exhausted and quietly, thoroughly unsettled, and didn't have a single good answer to offer yourself for any of it.

A year and a half earlier.

You'd been sitting on his bedroom floor, arms wrapped around your knees, watching him pace the length of the small room for the third time in as many minutes, his jacket still on, keys still in hand from wherever he'd disappeared to for the last four hours without a single word of explanation.

"You can't keep doing this," you'd said, voice already raw from the argument that had been building since he'd finally walked through the door. "You can't just vanish for an entire afternoon and come back expecting me to act like it's normal."

"I know. I'm sorry." He'd stopped pacing, dragging a hand through his hair, something exhausted and evasive in the gesture even then. "It's complicated."

"Everything's complicated with you lately." Your voice had cracked, hurt bleeding fast into anger. "I don't even know what that word means anymore, Steve, you use it for everything. I just want to know where you were."

"I can't tell you that."

"Why not?"

"I just can't, okay?" His voice had cracked up loud, frustration and something rawer tangled together underneath it. "I need you to just trust me on this."

"I don't know how to trust something I'm not allowed to understand!" You'd stood up then, chest heaving, tears burning hot and humiliating in your eyes. "You keep asking me for blind faith, over and over, and I keep giving it to you, and it's starting to feel like you're just taking advantage of the fact that I love you too much to actually walk away."

Something in his face had cracked at that, guilt and desperation warring visibly. "That's not what this is."

"Then what is it?"

He hadn't answered. He'd crossed the room instead, pulling you into his arms despite your initial, half-hearted resistance, and you'd let him, exhausted, some old, familiar relief flooding through you the second his arms closed around you, the fight dissolving almost instantly into something softer, more forgiving.

"I love you," he'd murmured into your hair, voice rough. "I know I'm not explaining any of this right. I know it's not fair to ask you to just accept it. But I promise, the second I can tell you anything, I will. I just need you to hold on a little longer."

"Okay," you'd whispered, and meant it, some part of you already deciding, right there in his arms, that this was simply what loving him looked like — fighting, and forgiving, and starting the whole cycle over again the second his arms found their way around you, no matter how little had actually been resolved.

You blinked back into the present, staring at your own ceiling, the memory dissolving as fast as it had come, and understood, with a fresh, unwelcome clarity, that the pattern Lucy had named last night hadn't started at that party at all. It had started here, in this exact shape, over a year and a half ago, the very first time you'd let an unresolved fight collapse into forgiveness without ever actually getting an answer.

You'd just gotten so good at repeating it that you'd stopped noticing you were doing it at all.

Steve found Robin at Family Video the next afternoon, restocking shelves with the same mechanical, distracted energy he recognized in his own hands lately, and pulled up a stool beside the counter without saying anything at first.

"You look like you didn't sleep," Robin said, not looking up from the tape in her hands.

"I didn't."

"Figured." She slid the tape into place and turned to face him properly, arms crossed, something patient and waiting in her expression. "You want to actually talk about it, or are we doing the thing where you sit there brooding until I have to drag it out of you?"

"I want to talk about it." Steve dragged a hand down his face, exhaustion evident in every line of him. "I just don't know where to start."

"Start with what actually happened. Not the version where you explain it away. The real version."

Steve was quiet for a moment, turning the request over. "I brought Carrie to hurt her. That's the real version. I dressed it up as a bunch of other things — proving I'd moved on, giving myself something to focus on besides missing her — but underneath all of it, I wanted Y/N to feel something. Anything."

"Okay." Robin nodded slowly, not flinching from the admission. "That's honest, at least. What do you think that says about you?"

"That I don't actually know how to want somebody to be happy without needing something back for myself." Steve's voice had gone rough. "That maybe I've never actually known how to do that. Not with her, not with anybody."

"That's a big realization for a Tuesday afternoon."

"Yeah, well. I've had a lot of time to think since Saturday." He rubbed at his eyes, tired. "I keep trying to figure out what it would actually look like. Being around her without it turning into a fight, or turning into — whatever happened after the fight. I don't actually know what healthy looks like with her, Robin. I don't think I've ever known."

Robin considered that for a moment, leaning back against the counter. "I think healthy probably starts with not needing anything from her every time you're in the same room. Not comfort, not jealousy, not a reaction, not forgiveness. Just — being there, saying something true, and letting her do whatever she wants with it. No strings."

"That sounds impossible."

"It's not impossible. It's just really hard, especially for you, because you've spent your whole life needing people to react to you a certain way to feel like you matter." Robin's voice stayed gentle despite the bluntness of it. "But it's not impossible. People learn how to do it. You could learn how to do it too, if you actually wanted to badly enough."

Steve sat with that, something in his chest going tight and uncomfortable at how accurately she'd named it. "What if I try, and it's still not enough? What if I finally get good at this whole honesty thing and she still doesn't want anything to do with me?"

"Then that's her choice to make, and you'll have to respect it." Robin's voice softened slightly. "But at least it'll be an honest ending instead of another loop. That has to be worth something, even if it's not the ending you want."

Steve didn't have an answer for that right away, staring down at his own hands, and Robin, apparently deciding he'd had enough to sit with for one afternoon, reached over and squeezed his shoulder gently.

"Small steps," she said. "You don't have to fix all of it today. Just don't do the Carrie thing again. That's step one."

"Step one," Steve repeated, managing something that might have almost been a smile. "Yeah. Okay. I can start there."

Parker ran into the kitchen later that night, practically vibrating with nervous energy.

"You have to come to Mike's Saturday," he said, without preamble, sliding onto one of the kitchen stools. "We rented that new movie, the one everybody's been talking about, the one Steve's been hyping up at the store for like two weeks straight. Everybody's gonna be there. You have to come.”

"Everybody like who?"

"Everybody everybody. Mike, Dustin, Lucas, Max" Parker's words tumbled out fast, barely pausing for breath. "Robin and Nancy are bringing snacks. Eddie's bringing his whole ranked list of horror movie opinions nobody asked for."

You felt your stomach tighten slightly at the obvious, unspoken name missing from the list. "Is Steve gonna be there?"

Parker paused, something careful crossing his face. "Probably. I mean, yeah. He's the one who got the tape in the first place."

You set your mug down, some old, familiar wariness creeping in. "Parker—"

"Please." His voice cracked slightly, more urgent now, and you registered, with a small pang of guilt, how much this actually seemed to matter to him. "I know things have been weird. I know you and Steve have been doing the thing where you're barely talking again. But this isn't about that. This is supposed to be, like, a good night. A normal night. I really want you there, Y/N. Please."

You studied his face, earnest and hopeful in a way that made it hard to hold onto your reservations, and felt something in you soften despite every careful boundary you'd been trying to build over the last week.

"Okay," you said finally, and Parker's whole face lit up. "I'll come."

"Really?"

"Really. I'm not promising I'll enjoy every second of it, but I'll come." You managed a small smile despite the anxious knot still sitting in your chest at the thought of an entire evening in the same space as Steve. "For you."

"You're the best." Parker was already sliding off the stool, some fresh burst of energy propelling him toward the door. "It's Saturday, don't forget! I already told everyone you were coming!”

"You already told everyone?" you called after him, though he was already gone, footsteps thundering up the stairs, leaving you standing alone in the kitchen with the lingering, complicated knowledge that in three days, you were going to be standing in the same room as Steve again, whether either of you were actually ready for it or not.

By Saturday afternoon, you'd changed your outfit four times, which felt, on some level, deeply embarrassing for what was ostensibly just a movie night at a fourteen-year-old's house.

You'd started with something deliberately plain, telling yourself firmly that the goal was low-key, unremarkable, a clear signal that you weren't trying to prove anything to anyone. Then you'd worried plain might look like you were trying too hard to look like you weren't trying, which made no sense even as you thought it, and you'd switched to something slightly nicer, only to immediately worry that nicer would look exactly like trying. You stood in front of your mirror now, on outfit number four, genuinely unable to remember what logic had gotten you there in the first place.

"This is insane," you said out loud, to your own reflection, and picked up the phone in your room to call Lucy before you could talk yourself into a fifth outfit change.

"I need you to talk me down from something," you said, the second she picked up.

"Ominous. Go."

"I've changed my outfit four times for a movie night at Mike Wheeler's house." You sat down hard on the edge of your bed, exhaustion and embarrassment tangling together. "Four times, Lucy. For a group of teenagers and my little brother's friends. This is not normal behavior."

"Okay, first of all, we both know this isn't about the teenagers." Lucy's voice carried the particular, patient amusement of someone who'd expected this call. "This is about Steve. Just say it. It'll feel better if you actually say it."

"Fine. It's about Steve." You dragged a hand down your face. "I don't know why I'm this nervous. It's not like anything's gonna happen. I told myself I wasn't gonna do the whole cycle thing again, and I meant it, and now I'm standing here agonizing over a shirt like it actually matters what I look like."

"It matters because you care what he thinks, even if you're trying really hard not to." Lucy's voice softened slightly. "That's not a character flaw, by the way. That's just being a person who still has feelings for somebody, even while trying to be smart about it."

"I don't want to have feelings for somebody I'm trying to be smart about."

"Yeah, well, feelings don't usually check in with the smart plan first." Lucy sighed, though not unkindly. "Look, do you actually want to go? Because if the anxiety's this bad already, you don't have to. Parker would probably survive one disappointing night."

You considered that for a moment, turning it over honestly instead of reflexively. "I want to go. I think I actually do. I just don't want to go and immediately fall back into old patterns the second I see him."

"Then don't." Lucy's voice was matter-of-fact, simple in a way that made the whole tangled knot in your chest ease slightly. "Go, be normal, watch the movie, talk to people who aren't him if it gets weird, and if you feel yourself sliding into old habits, just — notice it. That's it. You don't have to solve the whole thing tonight. You just have to notice when it's happening instead of getting swept up in it without realizing."

"That's annoyingly reasonable advice."

"I'm an annoyingly reasonable person, thank you for noticing." Lucy's grin was audible even through the phone. "Now go pick an outfit and stop overthinking it. Whatever you pick, you're gonna look fine. This isn't actually about the shirt, Y/N."

"I know." You managed a small, tired laugh, some of the tension finally easing out of your shoulders. "Thanks, Luce."

"Anytime. Call me after if you need to debrief. Or if something happens that requires immediate, detailed analysis."

"Nothing's gonna happen."

"Sure," Lucy said, entirely unconvinced, and you could practically hear her smiling. "We'll see."

Mike's basement was already loud and crowded by the time you arrived, the familiar chaos of the group filling the space with easy, overlapping noise Dustin and Lucas arguing about seating arrangements, Max sprawled across one end of the couch with a bowl of popcorn balanced on her knees, Eddie holding court near the TV with an already lengthy, unsolicited ranking of horror movies nobody had actually asked him to compile.

"Grab a spot," Mike said, catching your eye as you came down the stairs, already turning his attention back to the seating debate. "We're starting soon. Dustin's hogging the good blanket, just so you're aware."

"I am not hogging it, I am utilizing it correctly, there's a difference—"

"You're sitting on the entire thing, Dustin, nobody else can reach it—"

You found a spot on the floor near Max, who shifted over to make room without being asked, offering you a small, easy smile and a handful of popcorn from her bowl.

"Glad you came," she said. "It's been kind of a weird week. Feels good to have a normal night for once."

"Yeah." You settled in, some of the tension in your shoulders finally easing at the familiar, comfortable chaos surrounding you. "It really does."

Robin and Nancy arrived a few minutes later, arms full of snacks, immediately swarmed by Dustin and Lucas both making competing requests, and the whole basement dissolved into a warm, easy kind of noise, everyone talking over each other, Eddie's movie rankings continuing uninterrupted in the background, the tape already queued up and waiting in the VCR.

You hadn't seen Steve yet. You found yourself glancing toward the stairs more than once, some anxious, anticipatory energy sitting low in your stomach despite the warmth of everything around you, and told yourself, firmly, to just enjoy the moment you were actually in instead of bracing for the one that hadn't happened yet.

He arrived about ten minutes later, tape in hand, and the basement erupted into a chorus of greetings and demands the second he came down the stairs Dustin practically lunging for the tape, Eddie immediately launching into some passionate argument about whether it lived up to the hype, Max asking if he'd remembered to grab the good candy this time.

Steve handled it all with easy, practiced patience, handing the tape over to Dustin, deflecting Eddie's opinions with a tired but fond half-smile, tossing a bag of candy toward Max without breaking stride, and it was only once the initial wave of attention had settled that his eyes finally found yours across the room.

Something passed between you, brief and careful, neither hostile nor warm exactly, just a quiet, mutual acknowledgment that you were both here, both trying, both uncertain how tonight was actually going to go.

"Hey," he said, simple, no weight thrown behind it.

"Hey," you said back, matching the tone, and something in your chest loosened slightly at how manageable that single exchange had actually felt.

The room, meanwhile, had already begun the familiar chaos of settling into seats, blankets and pillows redistributed with the kind of ruthless efficiency only a group of teenagers could manage, and you found yourself, without quite meaning to, tracking exactly where Steve ended up as the scramble resolved the armchair near the far end of the couch, close enough that you'd be within easy sightline for the entire movie, far enough that it didn't feel deliberate or forced.

You told yourself it didn't mean anything. You told yourself that a dozen times over the next few minutes, watching him settle in, exchange some easy, quiet joke with Robin beside him, and mostly believed it, except for the small, persistent awareness humming under your skin every time your eyes drifted, unbidden, back toward that armchair throughout the opening credits.

Nobody commented on it. If anyone in the room noticed the careful, deliberate distance the two of you were both maintaining, or the way your gaze kept drifting toward him despite it, they were kind enough, or wise enough, not to say anything at all.

The movie had barely gotten through its opening scene when Dustin, apparently unable to let a silence sit for longer than five minutes, twisted around from his spot on the floor to grin at Steve.

"So who was that girl you brought to Tina's party?" he asked, entirely too loud, delighted with himself. "Carrie? You never bring dates to things, man, I almost didn't recognize you. Very smooth. Very suave."

You felt your whole body go rigid, eyes fixed hard on the TV screen, not daring to look anywhere near Steve's direction.

"We're not doing this right now, Dustin," Steve said, voice carefully even, though you could hear the strain underneath it.

"I'm just saying, it's kind of a big deal! Steve Harrington, showing up with an actual date, in public, where people could see." Dustin, entirely oblivious to the sudden, careful tension humming through the room, kept going, clearly enjoying himself far too much to stop. "Did you guys have a good time? Are you gonna bring her again sometime? I feel like this is a whole new era for you."

"Dustin." Robin's voice cut in sharply from across the room, a clear, unmistakable warning.

"What? I'm just teasing him. It's a compliment, technically." Dustin glanced around, genuinely confused by the sudden wall of tension he'd apparently walked directly into. "What, am I not allowed to make fun of Steve for having a date now? That feels like a core part of our friendship."

"Just drop it," nancy said, not unkindly, reaching over to flick him lightly on the arm.

"Fine, fine." Dustin held up both hands, though he was clearly still pleased with himself, and turned back to the movie with obvious reluctance, muttering something about how Steve "used to be able to take a joke" under his breath.

You still hadn't looked at Steve. You could feel the weight of the whole exchange sitting heavy in the room regardless, the easy, comfortable atmosphere from a few minutes ago suddenly feeling considerably more fragile, and it took a genuine, deliberate effort to make yourself focus back on the movie instead of the careful, charged silence radiating from the armchair a few feet away.

You didn't manage it for long. The movie played on in front of you, dialogue and music filling the room, and you found your mind drifting anyway, snagging over and over on Dustin's careless, cheerful words “you never bring dates to things, man, very smooth, very suave” until the memory of that whole night came crashing back in, sharp and unwelcome.

You remembered it clearly now, the way you hadn't quite let yourself sit with it in the days since. Steve hadn't brought Carrie because he liked her. He'd told you that himself, in the yard, voice cracking with the admission — he'd brought her specifically, deliberately, to hurt you. To make you feel something, anything, even if it was pain. You'd been so wrapped up in the fight itself, and everything that had happened after it, that you'd let the actual cruelty of the choice slide past you somehow, softened by his own devastating honesty in the moment.

Sitting here now, listening to Dustin's oblivious, cheerful teasing, the reality of it hit you fresh and cold all over again. He had planned it. He had thought about it, made a phone call, picked an outfit-appropriate excuse, and set the entire thing in motion with the specific, calculated goal of watching you hurt. And you'd kissed him anyway, hours later, in the back of his car, like that kind of cruelty was something you could just skip past on the way to something softer.

Your jaw tightened, some old, familiar fury rising hot and fast in your chest, and you kept your eyes fixed hard on the television screen, refusing to let a single flicker of it show on your face. You weren't going to make a scene. Not here, not in front of Parker, not in front of a room full of kids who had no idea what any of this actually meant.

You just sat there instead, arms crossed, jaw tight, watching a movie you'd completely lost track of, furious in a way that had nowhere left to go except quietly, privately inward, and didn't dare glance toward the armchair even once for the rest of the scene.

Steve noticed anyway.

He couldn't have said exactly what tipped him off nothing dramatic, no obvious shift in your posture that anyone else in the room would have caught but something about the careful, deliberate stillness of you had changed sometime in the last ten minutes, some easy warmth that had been there earlier now replaced by a rigid, controlled quality he recognized immediately, having spent enough time around your anger over the years to know exactly what it looked like even when you were working hard to hide it.

He ran through the last several minutes in his head, trying to place the exact moment it had happened, and landed, with a sinking, uncomfortable certainty, on Dustin's teasing. He hadn't thought much of it in the moment, mostly just embarrassed, eager for the topic to die so he could stop feeling the weight of everyone's attention. He hadn't considered, until just now, watching you sit there with your jaw locked and your eyes fixed hard on the screen, that the joke might have landed somewhere far more painful for you than it had for him.

He spent the rest of the movie only half paying attention, some anxious, uncertain energy building steadily in his chest, and when the credits finally started rolling and the group dissolved into its usual post-movie chaos Dustin already loudly relitigating the ending, Max and Lucas arguing about whether the twist had actually made sense Steve found himself gravitating toward the kitchen upstairs under the flimsy excuse of needing water, some instinct telling him you'd probably end up there too, needing space from the noise.

He was right. You were standing at the counter when he came in, pouring yourself a glass of water with movements that were just slightly too sharp, too controlled, and you didn't look up when he entered, though your shoulders went visibly tighter at the sound of the door.

"Hey," he said carefully, keeping his distance, hovering near the doorway instead of coming further in. "You okay?"

"I'm fine." Your voice came out clipped, flat, nothing at all like the easy tone from earlier in the evening.

"You don't seem fine."

"Well, I am." You set the glass down harder than necessary, water sloshing slightly over the rim, and finally looked at him, something cold and controlled burning behind your eyes that made his stomach drop immediately. "I'm great, actually. Just watching a movie. Having a totally normal night."

"Y/N—"

"Dustin's really funny, isn't he." Your voice stayed even, though the words came out sharp enough to cut.

Steve's whole body went still, understanding landing hard and immediate. "That's not—"

"I remembered it while I was sitting there," you continued, voice low now, careful, clearly working hard to keep it contained. "I don't know why it took me this long, honestly. You told me yourself, in that yard, that you brought her on purpose. To make me feel something. And I was so wrapped up in the fight, and everything that happened after it, that I somehow let that part just — slide past me. Like it didn't matter. Like the fact that you planned it, actually sat down and made a phone call and picked her specifically to hurt me, wasn't actually the whole point of the entire night."

"I know I did that. I've apologized for it—"

"You apologized in the yard, sure. And then twenty minutes later I was kissing you in the back of your car, so forgive me if the apology didn't exactly stick the way it probably should have." Your voice cracked slightly, some of the careful control finally slipping. "I keep doing this. I keep letting the big, dramatic moments overshadow the actual, specific cruelty underneath them, and then a twelve-year-old makes an innocent joke about your date and I remember, all over again, exactly how calculated it actually was."

Steve stood there, stricken, guilt crashing over him in a fresh, immediate wave. "I don't have a good excuse for it. I know that. I've known that since the second I saw your face at that party."

"I don't want an excuse." Your voice had gone quiet now, exhausted rather than sharp. "I just needed you to know that I remembered. That it's still sitting there, underneath everything else, even when I'm trying really hard to have a normal night with people who don't know any of this happened."

"I'm sorry." His voice came out rough, genuine. "I mean it. I know sorry doesn't undo it, but I am."

You didn't answer right away, staring down at the water glass in your hands, some of the fight draining out of you all at once, replaced by something heavier and more tired.

"I know you are," you said finally, quiet. "That doesn't really change how it felt, though."

Neither of you said anything else for a long moment, the muffled sound of the group's chaos still drifting up from the basement below, and you picked your glass back up, brushing past him toward the doorway without quite meeting his eyes.

"I need to get back downstairs," you said. "Parker's probably wondering where I went."

You left him standing there alone in the kitchen, the weight of everything you'd just said settling heavy over him, and it was a long moment before he trusted himself to follow you back down.

You'd barely settled back into your spot on the floor, forcing your expression into something resembling normal, when Eddie, still deep in his running commentary about the movie's third act, glanced over at Steve with a grin

"Anyway, speaking of dramatic backseat confrontations," he said, gesturing vaguely at the screen, "reminds me of somebody's little car situation a couple days back. Very similar energy, honestly. Very 'this escalated way faster than anyone expected.'"

The room went quiet in exactly the wrong way.

"What car situation?" Dustin asked, immediately, predictably interested, twisting around to look between Eddie and Steve.

Eddie blinked, some slow, dawning realization crossing his face a beat too late. "Oh. Oh, wait. You guys didn't—"

"Eddie." Robin's voice cut in sharp, urgent, but the damage was already thoroughly, completely done.

"What car situation?" Dustin repeated, louder now, delighted at the obvious existence of information he didn't have yet. "Steve, what is he talking about?"

"Nothing," Steve said, too fast, jaw tight.

"It's clearly not nothing, Robin just used her scary voice." Max sat up straighter, grinning now too, sensing genuine gossip within reach. "Come on, what happened?"

"I didn't mean to—" Eddie winced, glancing apologetically toward you, toward Steve, clearly recognizing the scale of what he'd just done even through the fog of trying to backtrack. "I thought this was, like, established information. I didn't realize it was still a secret."

"It's not a secret, it's just not—" You stopped, humiliation flooding hot and immediate through your chest, every pair of eyes in the room now fixed squarely on you. "It's not something we need to discuss right now. Or ever, actually."

"Discuss what, though?" Lucas asked, entirely too curious for his own good.

"Steve and Y/N made out in his car after the party," Eddie said finally, apparently deciding the cat was sufficiently out of the bag that half-answers were only making things worse. "That's that's the whole thing. That's all I meant. I'm sorry, I really did think everyone already knew."

The basement erupted into a chorus of stunned, delighted reactions —Dustin's mouth dropping open, Max letting out a short, disbelieving laugh, Lucas immediately turning to stare at Mike like he needed independent confirmation this was actually real.

"Wait, seriously?" Dustin's voice climbed several octaves. "You guys made out? After everything? After the whole — the whole thing where you weren't even talking?"

You pressed both hands over your face, wishing, fervently, for the basement floor to simply open up and swallow you whole.

"This is not something we're doing right now," you said, voice muffled behind your hands.

"This is extremely something we're doing right now," Dustin said, delighted. "This is the best thing that's happened all week."

"It really wasn't a big deal," Steve said, voice tight, clearly working hard to sound casual and missing the mark entirely.

"Oh, it wasn't a big deal?" You lowered your hands, something sharp cutting through the humiliation now. "Funny."

"I wasn't the one who initiated it."

"You absolutely were."

"I really don't think I was, actually." Steve crossed his arms, something defensive creeping into his voice despite the audience. "If we're doing a full recap, you're the one who—"

"Do not finish that sentence in front of a child."

"I'm not a child," Dustin corrected, utterly delighted by the entire exchange, clearly not planning to intervene in any way that might end it sooner.

"It's not relevant either way," you said, ignoring him entirely, glaring at Steve now. "The point is, it happened, it was a mistake, and it is not going to happen again, so can we please move on from this."

"Sure. Fine. Great." Steve's voice had gone clipped, something wounded flickering underneath the forced casualness. "Glad we've got that established. Again. For, what, the third time now?"

"Don't do that."

"Do what?"

"That thing where you make it sound like I'm the one who keeps changing my mind, when you're literally the one who—" You stopped yourself, aware, suddenly, of six pairs of wide, fascinated eyes tracking the exchange like it was the season finale of a soap opera. "You know what, this is exactly why we shouldn't discuss this here."

"You're the one who brought up the recap."

"I did not bring up a recap, Eddie brought up the entire topic—"

"In my defense," Eddie said, holding up both hands, "I really did think this was established information."

"It wasn't," you and Steve said, simultaneously, in the exact same clipped, irritated tone, and the perfect, unintentional unison of it seemed to delight the kids even further, Max actually clapping once, gleefully, at the timing.

"Okay, you guys are, like, actually perfect for each other," Max said, grinning. "In a completely unhinged way, but still."

"We are not discussing this anymore," you said, voice final, dropping back down onto your spot on the floor and crossing your arms hard, refusing to look at Steve, at Eddie, at any of them.

"Agreed," Steve said, equally clipped, sinking back into the armchair with the exact same posture, and the two of you sat there in matching, furious silence while the rest of the group exchanged delighted, disbelieving glances, clearly having no intention of letting either of you forget this particular evening anytime soon.

It took Dustin exactly four minutes to ruin the silence entirely.

"Okay, but hear me out," he said, twisting around again, notebook already appearing from somewhere in his backpack like he'd been planning this the entire movie. "I think we should start a pool."

"A pool," Lucas repeated, already grinning, clearly onboard before he even knew the details.

"A pool for what?" Max asked, though her tone suggested she already had a fairly good guess.

"For whether they actually get back together." Dustin gestured between you and Steve with his pen, entirely too pleased with himself. "I'm thinking a dollar buy-in, winner takes the pot, based on whoever guesses closest to the actual date it happens. If it happens. Which, based on tonight's evidence, feels statistically likely."

"Absolutely not," you said, at the exact same moment Steve said, "We are not doing that."

"You don't get a vote, you're the subject of the pool, that would be a massive conflict of interest." Dustin was already writing, entirely undeterred. "Okay, I'm putting myself down for three weeks. Optimistic, but I believe in you guys."

"I'll take six weeks," Lucas said immediately, grinning.

"Two weeks," Max said. "Based on tonight's chemistry alone."

"This is insane," you said, though nobody was listening to you at all, the whole group now leaning in eagerly to add their own predictions to Dustin's growing list.

"I'm staying out of this one," Robin said, though she was clearly fighting a laugh, glancing sideways at Nancy. "Purely professional distance."

"I'll take never," Nancy offered, deadpan, and the whole group groaned in unison.

"That's not a real bet, Nancy, that's just being difficult."

"It's a completely valid prediction based on observed historical patterns."

"Okay, we're not actually doing this," Steve said, voice tight, though the protest carried considerably less conviction than it had a minute ago, some old, tired resignation creeping into his expression as Dustin continued scribbling names and numbers into his notebook with cheerful, unstoppable enthusiasm.

"Too late, it's already happening," Dustin said. "Steve, you want in on your own pool? Ironic bet."

"No, Dustin, I do not want in on my own pool."

"Suit yourself. More money for the rest of us." Dustin closed the notebook with a satisfied flourish, still scribbling one more name into the margin. "Okay, last call, anybody else? Steve, you sure you don't want to bet on yourself? Feels like a safe investment."

"I said no." Something in Steve's voice had shifted, gone harder and flatter than the tired, resigned tone from a moment ago. "Because it's not gonna happen. There's no pool to bet on. This whole thing is stupid."

The room quieted slightly, the easy, chaotic energy faltering at the sudden edge in his voice.

"Whoa, okay." Dustin blinked, clearly not expecting the shift. "It was just a joke, man."

"Yeah, well, it's not funny." Steve's jaw was tight, something raw and defensive burning behind his eyes now. "You're all sitting here taking bets like this is some kind of inevitable happy ending, and it's not. It's not gonna happen. I would never get back together with her. Not after everything. So maybe collect your dollar bills for something else."

The words landed hard, and you felt them like a physical blow, humiliation and hurt crashing in fast where amusement had been sitting only seconds before. The room had gone properly silent now, everyone's earlier delight curdling into something far more uncomfortable, Dustin's pen frozen mid-scribble, Max's grin fading entirely.

"Okay," you said, voice tight, standing up fast, chest already aching with the specific, humiliating sting of hearing that said out loud, in front of everyone, after everything. "Great. Good to know exactly where I stand. Thanks for clarifying that so clearly."

"Y/N, that's not—" Steve's voice cracked, some of the anger already draining out of it, replaced by immediate, visible regret. "I didn't mean it like that."

"You said it pretty clearly, actually." Your voice shook, though you kept it low, aware of every single set of eyes on you now.

"I just meant the pool was stupid, I wasn't trying to—"

"I don't really care what you meant." You grabbed your jacket off the back of the couch, hands unsteady. "Parker, I'm gonna wait in the car, okay? Take your time."

"Actually," Parker said, small and hesitant, glancing between you and the rest of the room like he wasn't sure this was the right moment to bring it up. "I was kind of planning to sleep over tonight. Mom and Dad are out of town, remember? Mike already said it was fine."

You blinked at him, some of the fury momentarily interrupted by the logistical wrinkle. "Since when?"

"Since, like, this afternoon. I told you about it." Parker shrank slightly under the weight of your expression, clearly sensing this was a worse time than usual to be having this conversation. "I thought you knew."

You hadn't checked your messages all day. You stood there a moment, torn between the fresh, humiliating ache still sitting hot in your chest and the sudden, deflating realization that your dramatic exit line had nowhere left to actually go.

"Fine," you said finally, voice tight. "That's fine. I'll just—" You gestured vaguely, at nothing, at everything, humiliation compounding on itself now that your grand departure had been rendered slightly ridiculous. "I'll head home, then. Have a good time."

You didn't wait for a response, pushing past the stunned, silent group and up the stairs, humiliation and hurt burning hot behind your eyes the entire way, and behind you, the basement stayed dead quiet, nobody quite knowing what to say into the wreckage Steve's words had just left behind.

Steve sat there a long moment after the front door clicked shut somewhere above them, staring at nothing, the weight of what he'd just done settling in slow and undeniable.

"That was really messed up, man," Dustin said finally, quiet, none of his earlier gleeful energy left in his voice at all.

"Yeah. I know." Steve rubbed a hand over the back of his neck, tired more than anything else. "That wasn't a great moment."

"Why would you say that in front of everyone?" Max asked, genuinely confused, none of the earlier delight remaining.

"Wanted the pool talk to stop. It just came out wrong." Steve shrugged, some flat, worn-down honesty in the admission, though nothing about it sounded particularly dramatic. "Not my finest work."

Robin sat down heavily beside him, arms crossed. "You should probably fix that at some point."

"Yeah. I know." He stood up, grabbing his jacket off the back of the couch. "I'll figure it out."

"For what it's worth," Eddie said, from the armchair, still nursing whatever was left in his cup, "you two are honestly perfect for each other. In, like, the most chaotic, exhausting, doomed-romance way possible. This is basically a soap opera at this point. I'm genuinely invested."

"Thanks, Eddie. Very helpful."

"I'm just saying, most couples don't generate this much content." Eddie gestured vaguely with his cup. "You should be flattered, honestly. Not everybody's love life supports an entire betting pool."

"I'm going home," Steve said, though something in his voice had eased slightly, some of the tension from a moment ago loosening at the sheer, familiar absurdity of Eddie's commentary. "I'll deal with it tomorrow."

"Drive safe," Nancy said.

He climbed the stairs, and behind him, the basement settled back into something resembling normal within a few minutes, Dustin already flipping the movie back on, the earlier tension fading into the background the way things tended to with a room full of teenagers, though Parker stayed quiet a while longer than the rest of them, watching the stairs Steve had just disappeared up with a small, troubled frown.

Steve drove for a while without any real destination in mind, jaw tight, hands gripping the wheel harder than the empty roads actually required, replaying the whole disastrous night on a furious, unrelenting loop.

He was angry at himself, mostly, though the anger kept finding other places to land too at Dustin's stupid pool, at Eddie's careless slip, at the whole absurd, humiliating spectacle the entire evening had turned into. He drove past his own street twice without turning, some restless, unresolved energy refusing to let him just go home and lie awake staring at his ceiling the way he usually did after nights like this.

“I would never get back together with her.” The words kept looping back, uglier every time, and he thought about your face when you'd said it back to him — flat, wounded, the specific kind of hurt that came from having something true and something cruel land in the exact same sentence.

He thought about Parker mentioning, almost as an afterthought, that their parents were out of town.

That meant you'd gone home to an empty house. Alone. After everything.

"Fuck it," he said out loud, to nobody, and turned the car around.

He told himself, driving toward your street, that this was a terrible idea, that showing up unannounced after everything he'd just said was probably going to make things worse, not better, that Robin would absolutely have opinions about this if she knew what he was doing right now. He told himself all of that, and kept driving anyway, some old, stubborn certainty pushing him past every single reasonable objection his own brain kept raising.

Your porch light was on when he pulled into the driveway, the rest of the house dark and quiet behind it, and Steve sat there a moment, engine off, staring at the front door, trying to figure out what he was even going to say once he actually knocked on it.

He didn't have an answer. He got out of the car anyway.

He didn't go to the front door. Some old, half-forgotten instinct carried him instead toward the side of the house, toward the trellis he hadn't climbed in over two years, and he found himself scaling it with considerably less grace than he remembered managing back in high school, muttering under his breath the entire way up about being too old for this kind of thing.

Your window was cracked open slightly, and through the gap he could hear you before he could see you, your voice sharp and furious, muttering to yourself as something thudded against a dresser drawer.

"—never get back together with her, sure, great, very clear, very helpful," you were saying, dragging what sounded like an entire box out from your closet with far more force than the task required. "Don't know why I'm even surprised, honestly, should've expected exactly that, should've known better than to think for one single second that—"

Steve pushed the window the rest of the way open and climbed through, landing less smoothly than he'd have liked on your bedroom floor, and you spun around so fast you nearly dropped the box in your hands entirely.

"What the hell are you doing?" Your voice cracked up loud, equal parts shock and fury, the box now clutched defensively against your chest like a shield. "You can't just climb through my window!"

"I used to do it all the time."

"That was two years ago! You don't get to just show up and climb through my window because you feel like it!" You set the box down hard on your bed, chest heaving, still visibly furious, though something underneath the anger flickered surprise, maybe, or something closer to disbelief that he'd actually come at all.

Steve stood there awkwardly in the middle of your room, hands shoved into his jacket pockets, suddenly unsure what to do with himself now that he'd actually made it inside. "I couldn't just go home after what I said. I needed to fix it."

"You needed to fix it." Your laugh came out short, disbelieving, and you turned back to your closet, yanking out another handful of clothes and shoving them haphazardly into the open box on your bed with sharp, angry movements. "Great. Wonderful. You know what would've fixed it, Steve? Not saying it in the first place."

"I know."

"In front of everyone." You kept moving, restless and furious, unable to stay still, pulling books off your shelf now and stacking them with more force than necessary. "In front of Parker, in front of the entire group, like it was nothing, like humiliating me publicly was just a normal, casual thing to do on a Tuesday."

"I know," he said again, quieter this time, watching you move around the room with a kind of helpless, guilty focus. "I'm sorry."

"And then Eddie starts a whole conversation about it, in front of Dustin, in front of Max, like it's just casual gossip, and everyone's laughing, and then Dustin starts an actual betting pool, an actual pool, Steve, like my entire love life is some kind of spectator sport, and I just sat there letting it happen because what else was I supposed to do—" You kept moving, yanking a sweater off a hanger with unnecessary force, voice climbing higher with every sentence. "And then you, on top of everything, decide the appropriate response is to announce, out loud, to an entire room, that you'd never get back together with me, like that's somehow a normal, reasonable thing to say in the middle of a joke about a betting pool—"

Steve leaned back against your desk, arms crossed loosely, and something in his expression shifted as he watched you pace, some of the guilt easing into a softer, more helpless kind of fondness despite the chaos currently unfolding in front of him.

"You're really cute when you're mad, you know that?"

You stopped dead, spinning to face him, disbelief written plainly across your face. "Excuse me?"

"I'm serious." He shrugged, entirely unbothered by the murderous look you were now giving him. "You get this whole thing going, the pacing, the throwing clothes around, the very specific, very detailed recap of everything that happened. It's kind of impressive, honestly."

"Are you actually complimenting my anger right now? While I'm still in the middle of being angry at you?"

"I'm just making an observation."

"Well, don't." Your voice climbed even louder, some fresh, indignant fury flaring up at the sheer audacity of it. "You do not get to stand there looking pleased with yourself and call me cute in the middle of me listing every single humiliating thing that happened tonight because of you! That is not how this works!"

"Noted." Though he didn't look remotely chastened, some small, stubborn smile still tugging at the corner of his mouth, watching you with an expression that made you want to throw something directly at his head.

"I hate that you do that." You threw the sweater onto the growing pile on your bed, chest heaving. "I hate that you can just stand there, completely calm, making comments about how cute I am, while I'm genuinely trying to have a real conversation about how badly you hurt my feelings tonight."

"I hear you. I do." Steve straightened up slightly, some of the teasing fading, though the softness in his expression stayed. "I just also think it's true. Both things can be true at once. You can be furious at me, and also be the most beautiful furious person I've ever seen in my entire life."

"Oh my God." You pressed both hands over your face, torn somewhere between wanting to scream and wanting to laugh, the whole absurd, exhausting night finally catching up with you all at once. "You are impossible."

"Yeah," Steve agreed, quiet, watching you with something warm and unguarded in his eyes despite everything. "I know."

"Stop that." You dropped your hands from your face, pointing at him accusingly, though the effect was somewhat undercut by the way your voice had gone slightly less furious and more exasperated. "Stop doing the thing where you say something sweet and it distracts me from being mad at you. I'm trying to stay focused here."

"I'm not trying to distract you.’

"You are absolutely trying to distract me." You crossed your arms, though you'd stopped moving around the room entirely now, some of the frantic energy draining out of your posture despite yourself. "Every time I get going, you say something like that, and it works, and it's infuriating, because I want to stay mad at you, I have every right to stay mad at you, and you keep making it harder."

"Okay. Sorry." Steve held up both hands, though the small, stubborn smile hadn't fully disappeared. "I really am sorry, by the way. For tonight. For all of it. That wasn't fair to you, any of it, and you deserved better than getting humiliated in front of a room full of people who love you."

"Thank you." You said it stiffly, still trying to hold onto the last threads of your fury. "That's a real apology. Good job. Keep doing that instead of the other thing."

"I will." He paused, studying you for a moment, something soft crossing his face again. "You do look really pretty tonight, though. I don't think I said that earlier."

"Steve."

"What? That's not even a distraction thing, that's just a fact. I noticed it the second i walked into Mike's basement." He shrugged, entirely unrepentant. "I'm allowed to notice facts while also being sorry."

"You are actively doing the thing again." Your voice climbed, though it came out closer to a laugh now than genuine anger, some helpless, exhausted amusement finally breaking through despite your best efforts to hold onto the fury. "I specifically told you to stop doing the thing, and you're doing it immediately, on purpose, while apologizing in the same breath."

"I contain multitudes."

"That's Eddie's line."

"I'm borrowing it. It felt relevant." Steve pushed off the desk, taking a slow, careful step closer, watching your face for any sign he should stop. "For what it's worth, I really am trying to actually fix this. Not just distract you out of being mad. I know I keep doing both at the same time, and I know that's probably not helping my case."

"It's really not." Though you didn't step back, some old, familiar pull keeping your feet rooted exactly where they were, the anger from a few minutes ago tangled now with something far more complicated and far less easy to hold onto.

He took another step closer, close enough now that you had to tilt your head up to hold his gaze, and something dark and familiar flickered behind his eyes.

"Take it out on me," he said, low, voice rough. "If you're still mad. I'd rather you actually let it out than stand there swallowing it because I keep interrupting with compliments."

"Go away," you said, though it came out weaker than you meant it to, some traitorous part of your voice already betraying you.

"Say it again." His voice dropped lower, closer now, close enough that you felt the words more than heard them. "Like you actually mean it this time."

You opened your mouth, some old, stubborn defiance rising up automatically, and found the words wouldn't come, your resolve cracking under the weight of his gaze, the proximity, the whole exhausting, familiar pull of him standing there waiting for you to either push him away or not.

"I can't," you admitted finally, voice barely above a whisper, some of the fight draining out of you all at once. "I don't actually want you to go. That's the whole problem."

Something in his expression shifted at that, relief and want tangled together, and he reached up slowly, giving you every chance to stop him, tucking a strand of hair back behind your ear with a gentleness that felt almost unbearable after everything.

"I know," he said quietly. "That's my whole problem too."

"We're so bad for each other." Your voice came out soft, almost a laugh, though there was nothing funny about the ache sitting underneath it. "Everyone keeps telling me that. Lucy, Robin, my own brain at three in the morning. And they're right, they're completely right, and I still don't want you to climb back out that window."

"Maybe we are bad for each other." Steve's hand stayed cradling your jaw, thumb tracing slow along your cheekbone. "Or maybe we're just two people who've never actually been taught how to do this right, and we're figuring it out badly, over and over, because nobody ever showed either of us a better way."

"That's a very generous interpretation."

"I'm trying it out. See if it sticks." A small, tired smile pulled at the corner of his mouth. "Either way. Bad for each other, or just bad at this. I don't really care which one it is right now."

"That's not a good enough reason to do this again."

"No," he agreed, quiet, his forehead dropping to rest against yours. "It's probably not."

Neither of you moved. The space between you had gone thin and charged, every rational argument you'd been holding onto for the past hour dissolving slowly under the weight of his hand still cupped gentle against your face, and when he finally closed the last inch of distance between you, it wasn't fast or desperate the way it had been in the car just slow, and certain, and achingly soft, like he had all the time in the world to prove something he didn't need words for anymore.

You kissed him back the same way, unhurried, some old, exhausted resignation settling into the shape of it, both of you fully aware, even as it happened, that you were doing the exact thing you'd both just agreed was probably a mistake, and choosing, anyway, in this one quiet, unguarded moment, to let it happen regardless.

You pulled back first, breathless, both hands still resting against his chest, and stared up at him with something raw and searching in your expression.

"Why are we like this?"

Steve blinked, caught off guard by the sudden shift. "What do you mean?"

"I mean this." You gestured vaguely between the two of you, voice cracking slightly. "This exact thing. You say something cruel, and then something tender, and then we fight, and then we end up right back here anyway, every single time, like we're incapable of doing anything differently no matter how many times we swear we're gonna try. Why do we keep doing this?"

Steve didn't answer right away, something helpless and lost crossing his face, and the silence stretched out long enough that you weren't sure he was going to answer at all.

"I don't know," he said finally, quiet, and it wasn't a comfort, wasn't the start of anything resolved — just an honest, exhausted admission that hung there in the space between you, unresolved, the question still sitting heavy and unanswered in the quiet of your bedroom.

You stepped back, putting real distance between you for the first time since he'd climbed through the window, and neither of you said anything else at all.

"Don't go yet." Steve's voice came out low, rough, before you'd even fully processed moving toward the door. "I know I don't have an answer. I know I can't fix it tonight, or probably for a while, maybe not ever. I'm not asking you to believe it's gonna be different. I just don't want to be alone right now, and I don't think you do either."

You stood there, chest still heaving, some old, exhausted ache settling deep in your bones at the sheer, unguarded honesty of it no promises, no easy resolution, just a plain, simple admission of wanting to not be alone.

"That's not the same as fixing anything," you said quietly.

"I know it's not." He didn't move closer, didn't reach for you again, just stood there, hands loose at his sides, letting the choice sit entirely with you. "I'm not pretending it is. I just don't want tonight to end with both of us alone in separate houses, replaying this exact conversation by ourselves. That's all. Nothing more than that."

You didn't have an answer for that. You stood there a long moment, torn between every rational instinct telling you to send him back out the window and something quieter, more tired, that simply didn't want to be alone tonight either.

"Okay," you said finally, voice barely above a whisper, and crossed back toward him, not for another kiss this time, just close enough to rest your forehead against his chest, his arms coming up slowly to circle around you.

"I hate this," you murmured, muffled against his shirt. "I hate that I can't just stay away from you. I know it's hurting me. I know it's hurting both of us. And I still can't do it."

"I hate it too." His arms tightened around you slightly, voice rough above your head. "I keep telling myself I'm gonna give you actual space, real space, and then I end up climbing through your window at midnight anyway. I don't know how to stop wanting to be near you even when I know it's not good for either of us."

"Maybe that's the whole problem." You closed your eyes, exhaustion settling deep into your bones. "Maybe we're just gonna keep doing this to each other until one of us actually finds a way to stop."

"Maybe." Steve's voice was quiet, honest, no reassurance offered, no promise that things would be different. "I don't have an answer for that either. I just know I couldn't stay away tonight, and some part of me isn't even sorry about it, even though I probably should be."

He was quiet for a moment, his chin resting against the top of your head, and when he spoke again his voice had gone rougher, more exposed than anything else he'd said all night.

"I hate that I still love you," he said, barely above a whisper. "I've tried not to. I've tried so hard not to, for months now, and it hasn't worked once."

You went very still against him, the words landing heavy and quiet in your chest, and didn't say anything back.

The silence stretched out, and Steve didn't push it, didn't ask, just held you a little tighter instead, some old, familiar ache settling into the space where your answer should have been.

"You're my undoing, you know that?" he said quietly, into your hair. "Have been for years. And I've thought about it, more times than I probably should, whether it would just be easier to let you go completely. Stop doing this to both of us. But I'd rather have you like this — messy, unresolved, hurting both of us half the time — than not have you at all."

"That's not a healthy thing to say to somebody," you murmured, though there was no real fight left in the words.

"I know it's not." His voice stayed rough, low. "You ruined easy for me a long time ago. I don't really know how to talk about you with any actual sense left."

You didn't answer that either, some tight, aching knot forming in your throat at the sheer, devastating honesty of it, and after a long moment, Steve finally loosened his arms, stepping back slightly, something resigned settling over his expression.

"I should go," he said quietly. "It's late. And I don't think either of us actually knows what to do with any of this tonight."

He turned toward the window, one hand already reaching for the sill, and you stood there watching him go, some old, exhausted ache rising up fast in your chest at the sight of his back to you.

"Stay."

The word came out small, barely more than a breath, and Steve turned back around slowly, and it was only then, in the quiet, unguarded stillness of you standing there alone in the middle of your room, that he really saw you arms wrapped tight around yourself, shoulders curled slightly inward, something small and defeated in the whole shape of you that hadn't been there a moment ago, like the effort of watching him leave had cost you more than either of you had accounted for.

"Okay," he said, quiet, and didn't move toward the window again.

"I'm gonna regret this in the morning," you said, voice thick, wrapping your arms tighter around yourself. "I already know I am. I'll wake up and think about everything we just said, and everything that's still not fixed, and I'm gonna hate myself a little for asking you to stay."

"Probably," Steve admitted, not arguing with you, not trying to talk you out of the feeling. "I might regret it too, honestly. Doesn't change what I want right now."

"I just don't want to be alone tonight." Your voice cracked slightly, some of the exhaustion of the entire evening finally catching up all at once. "That's the whole reason. Not because it fixes anything. Just because I don't think I can be by myself in this house right now."

"That's a good enough reason." He crossed the room slowly, closing the distance between you again, careful and unhurried. "You don't have to justify it beyond that."

You let him pull you back into his arms, resting your head against his chest, and closed your eyes.

"Can we just pretend, for tonight?" you murmured, voice muffled against his shirt. "Just for a few hours. Pretend none of it happened —the party, the fight in the yard, tonight. Pretend we're just happy. I don't want to think about any of it right now. I just want one night where we're not doing this to each other."

Steve went very still above you, and when he finally spoke, his voice had gone thick, unsteady in a way you hadn't heard from him all night.

"Yeah," he said, rough, and you felt him press a kiss to the top of your head, felt the faint, telltale catch in his breath that gave him away before he could hide it. "Yeah, we can do that."

You pulled back slightly, glancing up at him, and found his eyes shining, one hand coming up fast to wipe roughly at his face before you could fully register what you were seeing.

"Are you crying?"

"No." His voice cracked slightly on the denial, betraying him completely, and he let out a short, watery laugh at how obviously unconvincing it was. "Maybe. A little. I don't know. It's just that sounds really nice, actually. Pretending. I don't think I realized how much I wanted that until you said it out loud."

You reached up, brushing your thumb gently beneath his eye, and he let you, some old, aching tenderness passing quietly between you that had nothing left to do with anger, or blame, or anything except two exhausted people wanting, for one night, to simply not hurt.

"Okay," you whispered. "Let's pretend."

"Do you want to lay down?" you asked, quiet, gesturing toward your bed still half-covered in the scattered clothes and books from your earlier, furious cleaning spree.

"Yeah." His voice was still thick, eyes still bright, though he managed a small, watery smile. "Yeah, I'd like that."

You turned away instinctively, reaching for the hem of your shirt out of old habit, and Steve's voice stopped you before you'd gotten very far.

"You don't have to hide from me," he said, quiet, no weight or expectation behind it, just simple honesty.

You hesitated a moment, then let the old habit go, pulling your shirt off in front of him without turning away, left standing there in just your bra and underwear while you crossed toward your dresser for something more comfortable to sleep in. Steve didn't say anything, though you felt his eyes on you the entire way, something reverent and quietly amazed in his gaze, like he was committing the sight of you to memory all over again every detail achingly familiar and somehow, after everything, still capable of stealing the breath clean out of his chest.

You pulled an old, soft T-shirt from the bottom drawer without really looking at it, tugging it over your head, and it was only once you'd turned back around that you registered, distantly, the faded logo across the front and the specific, worn-in softness of the fabric his shirt, one he must have left behind at some point months ago, folded away and forgotten in the bottom of your drawer without you ever quite deciding to get rid of it.

You didn't say anything about it. Neither did he, though something flickered across his face when he noticed too, some quiet, aching tenderness he didn't try to hide.

He reached for the hem of his own shirt then, pulling it off in one smooth motion, and you found yourself watching despite everything, some old, familiar warmth curling low in your chest at the sight of him —the same broad shoulders, the same faint scar along one side you remembered tracing once, years ago, in a very different kind of quiet. You realized, watching him fold the shirt absently over the back of your desk chair, that you hadn't actually seen him like this in a very long time, not since long before any of the lying, the fighting, the year of wreckage that had piled up between you since. Something in your chest ached at the realization, sharp and unexpected, the sheer, ordinary intimacy of it landing harder than anything more dramatic could have.

Steve caught you looking, and neither of you looked away right away, some quiet, unspoken understanding passing between you before he finally crossed toward the bed, pulling back the blanket and waiting for you to join him.

You climbed in beside him, both of you stiff and awkward at first, careful not to touch, lying there on your backs staring up at the ceiling with several inches of space still sitting stubbornly between you, neither of you quite sure how to bridge the strange, careful distance despite everything that had already happened that night.

It was you who moved first, shifting slightly closer, and Steve met you halfway, his arm sliding beneath you, pulling you in against his chest until you were properly tangled together, your head resting over the steady, familiar rhythm of his heartbeat, his other arm wrapping loosely around your back like he was afraid you might disappear if he didn't hold on tightly enough.

You felt it before you heard it a slight, telltale shudder in his chest, his breath catching unevenly above you and when you tilted your head up to look at him, you found tears slipping silently down his face, quiet and unguarded in a way that undid something in your own chest completely.

"Steve—"

"I hate that I can't have you," he said, voice breaking apart on the words, thick and raw. "Not really. Not the actual way I want to. I get this—" his arms tightened around you slightly, "—these stolen, temporary nights where we pretend everything's fine, and then morning comes and it all falls apart again, and I don't know how to stop wanting the real thing even though I know, every single time, that it's not what I'm actually gonna get."

You didn't have an answer for that, some matching ache rising up in your own throat, and you reached up instead, brushing the tears gently from his cheek the way he'd let you do earlier, saying nothing, because there was nothing left to say that either of you hadn't already said tonight.

He pressed a soft, lingering kiss to the top of your head, and you settled back against his chest, listening to his heartbeat slowly even out beneath your ear, both of you lying there in the dark, holding onto something neither of you could name or fix, choosing, for just this one night, to hold onto it anyway.

Let me know what ya think!!

TL!

@b4omyz @miahslt91 @scaramou @nancywalkemdownwheeler @arayajasmynee @cuddlyeren @kurtsw7rld96 @johnnysactualgf @scoopsahoydjo @ilikereadinghardcoresmut @offbrandhandymanny @oliviaharrington @crunkprincess @belle101200 @kiwiiscar @jennwonwoo @andrewgarfieldsupremecy @casualladycupcake @inlovewfictionalmen826 @pe4ch14 @regzzneverleft @luckilysleekmiracle @meridaporter @keerygirlie98

gardenias-on-the-tile

so I left my man in the middle of the highway...

gator tillman x fem!reader, SMUT! mdni

content warnings: angst with fluff, bittersweet ending, no y/n, use of nicknames (bunny, baby, darling), unwanted touch of another man, accusations of cheating, fighting, gator is a mean, insecure and jealous bitch, oral (f and m receiving), nipple play, p in v sex, creampie, switch!gator and reader, love confessions, gator becomes soft.

ethel cain – mondays

When you and Gator decided to go to the club together, you didn't think it'd end up with him throwing a tantrum—embarrassing you in front of everyone and making you feel like shit.

dailaafterdark

Save a horse, ride a cowboy •*¨*•.¸¸𓃝*

description: after a double date to the rodeo, steve wants to see your riding skills…𓃗✧*✧･ﾟ゜゜・

tw! MDNI, smut, cowgirl position, unprotected piv, aftercare.

Robin had invited you and Steve to go see a bull show where everyone would be in proper cowboy clothing.

So when the day arrived, you put on your best cowgirl looking outfit, brown cowboy boots with bootcut dark wash jeans and a thick buckle belt topped off with a plaid brown shirt.

You walked out of the bathroom feeling as confident as you could be before stopping in your tracks and laying your eyes on Steve.

Dark wash bootcut jeans with a matching jean button-up and a white shirt under, topped off with a brown retro jacket and with the final accessory a cowboy hat that matched his leather boots.

Steve had turned to look at you, taking in your outfit.

his hazel eyes widening just a fraction as they dragged slowly down your body, taking in the way your dark wash jeans hugged your hips, the thick buckle belt cinching your waist, the plaid shirt tucked in just right, and those brown cowboy boots that made your legs look endless. The corner of his mouth twitched upward into that signature cocky Harrington smirk, but there was something warmer underneath it tonight.

“Well, damn,” he drawled in a thick country accent, voice low and a little rougher than usual, like the sight of you had knocked the usual smooth talk right out of him for a second.

He adjusted the brim of his cowboy hat with two fingers, the retro brown jacket pulling across his broad shoulders. The white shirt underneath was unbuttoned at the top, giving you a teasing glimpse of tanned skin and the edge of that infamous chest hair. “Look at you, cowgirl. Trying to kill me before we even get to the bull rodeo?”

He took a step closer, boots thudding softly on the floor, until you could smell the faint mix of his cologne and the leather from his boots. His gaze flicked back up to your face, playful but heated.

“Robin’s gonna lose her mind when she sees us,” he said, chuckling. “But right now? I’m having a real hard time remembering why we’re leaving the house at all.”

“now don’t get ahold of yourself, there Harrington, we promised we would go on the double date with robin and vickie” you say patting steve’s chest before grabbing your leather purse and leaving the bedroom leaving steve alone in the room dumbfounded.

After arriving at the rodeo, the four of you found good seats and settled in to watch the show. The arena lights glowed against the night sky as bull riders took their turns, the crowd cheering wildly with every buck and spin. Robin and Vickie were practically glued to each other, laughing and sharing a giant bucket of popcorn, while you and Steve sat close enough that his thigh pressed against yours.

The energy was electric, dust kicking up under the floodlights, the smell of fried food and leather in the air. Steve kept stealing glances at you the whole time, his arm draped casually behind your shoulders. Every time a rider got thrown, he’d lean in closer, lips brushing your ear.

“Still thinking we should’ve stayed home?” he murmured during a break, voice low and playful, that cowboy hat tilted just enough to look unfairly good on him.

You all grabbed food from the stands, corn dogs, funnel cake, and cold beers, and found a spot near the fence to eat while the next event started. Robin was midstory about some chaotic customer at work when Steve’s hand found your waist, pulling you gently back against his chest.

“Having fun, cowgirl?” he asked, his breath warm against your neck. His fingers gave a light squeeze through your plaid shirt, eyes sparkling with that signature Harrington charm. “Because I’m having a real hard time focusing when you’re standing here looking like that.”

He gave you a slow, flirty smile, clearly still thinking about that moment back in the bedroom. The rest of the rodeo flew by in a blur of cheering crowds, bucking bulls, and stolen touches. By the time the final event wrapped up and the lights started to dim, the tension between you and Steve had only grown thicker. Robin and Vickie said their goodbyes in the parking lot, both of them grinning knowingly as Steve practically rushed you toward the car.

The drive home was quiet but charged with sexual tension. Steve’s hand stayed firmly on your thigh the whole way, occasionally rubbing his thumb in a circle against your jean covered thigh or drifting higher, his eyes flicking to you every chance he got. You could feel the heat radiating off him.

As soon as the front door clicked shut behind you, Steve was on you.

He pulled you against him hard, mouth crashing into yours in a hungry as he walked you backward toward the bedroom, hands roaming over your hips and ass.

“Been thinking about this since you walked out in that outfit,” he growled against your lips Once you reached the bedroom, clothes hit the floor in a frantic pile. Steve stripped completely, you took your shirt and bra off quickly but when you bent to take off your brown cowboy boots, he caught your wrist.

“Leave ‘em on,” he said, voice husky with want.

you quickly peaked his lips “ let me take my jeans off first and i’ll put them back on baby.” you mumbled before taking your boots off then later your jeans.

You stood there completely naked except for the boots. Steve sat on the edge of the bed, then reached for his cowboy hat. With a small smirk, he placed it on your head, adjusting it just right.

“Fuck, that’s perfect,” he groaned, eyes raking over your bare body. “Now get up here, cowgirl.”

You climbed onto his lap, knees sinking into the mattress on either side of his hips, the boots still on. Steve’s cock was hard and flushed, pressing against your inner thigh. He gripped your waist, guiding you as you lined him up and slowly sank down, taking every inch of him. The stretch was delicious, pulling a deep moan from your throat as he filled you completely.

“Shi- shit, so tight,” Steve hissed, head falling back for a moment. His hands slid up your bare torso, cupping your breasts and rolling your nipples between his fingers as you started to move.

You rolled your hips in slow, deep circles at first, savoring the way he dragged against your walls with every motion. The cowboy hat tilted slightly as you rode him, and Steve couldn’t stop staring.

his gaze locked on where your bodies joined, then up to your breasts bouncing softly, then to your face under his hat.

“That’s it, baby… ride me just like that,” he encouraged, voice rough. One hand stayed on your hip, guiding your pace, while the other slipped between your legs, rubbing firm circles over your clit with his thumb.

The pleasure built steadily. You picked up speed, bouncing on his cock harder, the sound of skin slapping skin filling the room along with your moans and Steve’s low curses. He thrust up to meet you, hitting that perfect spot inside you every time. Sweat started to slick your skin, your boots planted firmly as leverage while you rode him.

Steve sat up straighter, wrapping one arm around your back and pulling you closer so your breasts pressed against his chest. He kissed you messily, tongues sliding together as you kept grinding down on him, the new angle making you whimper into his mouth.

“You feel so fucking good,” he panted against your lips. “Look so goddamn hot wearing nothing but my hat and those boots.”

He leaned down to suck one of your nipples into his mouth, tongue flicking over the sensitive bud as you rode him faster. The tension coiled tighter in your belly. Steve’s thumb never stopped working your clit, pushing you closer and closer, making the rope in your lower belly tighten.

When your orgasm finally hit, it crashed over you hard, your walls clenching rhythmically around his cock, thighs shaking in the boots as you cried out his name. Steve groaned loudly, gripping your hips tight and thrusting up into you, guiding you through your orgasm, and chasing his own release. A few more deep, desperate strokes and he came hard, spilling inside you with a broken moan, burying his face in your neck.

You both stayed locked together, breathing heavily. Steve gently lifted the cowboy hat off your head and tossed it aside, then pulled you down with him as he collapsed back onto the pillows.

Steve wrapped his arms around you tightly, one hand stroking soothingly up and down your bare back while the other cradled your head against his chest. He was still buried inside you, softening slowly as you both came down.

“You okay, sweetheart?” he whispered, pressing soft kisses to your temple, your cheek, and finally your lips. His voice was gentle now, all the heat replaced with warmth. “Did I wear you out too much?”

You shook your head with a tired smile. Steve chuckled softly, carefully helping you lift off him and sitting you on the edge of the bed.

He disappeared for a moment, returning with a warm, damp cloth. He cleaned you up tenderly, when steve was finished, he took the boots off, massaging your feet for a moment before placing soft kisses on each foot then crawling back into bed, tucking you against his side and pulling the covers over both of you,

He kept one arm around you, fingers tracing lazy patterns on your skin. Every few seconds he’d press another kiss to your forehead or the top of your head, his heartbeat steady under your cheek.

“God, I love you like this,” he murmured, voice sleepy and full of affection. “All soft and cuddly after you just rode me like a damn cowgirl .” He grinned, squeezing you closer. “We’re keeping those boots right by the bed from now on. And the hat.”

You laughed quietly, snuggling deeper into his chest. Steve pulled the blanket higher around your shoulders and nuzzled into your hair.

“Best night ever,” you whispered against his chest. steve whispered against your hair “Double dates with you are dangerous, in the best way. I’m keeping you hostage, cowgirl, like a damsel in distress.”

He held you close until you both drifted off, warm, satisfied, and wrapped up in each other.

i saw a pic of joe wearing a cow boy hat and that really had my mind going😵‍💫😵‍💫

day 3 of my trip and i already miss my bed💔

-defnotdailaaa out!ヽ(≧∀≦)ﾉ

•18+ Adults Only

Watch Anya Live on Cam

Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.

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thecruxchronicles

✧Potion- Chapter 13✧

Joe Keery x Reader

Summary: You’ve been friends with Javi for years,the kind of years that turns someone into family. He’s the one who pulled you into his inner circle, which just so happens to include Joe Keery. You’ve liked Joe for forever, and somehow the only person who hasn’t figured that out is Joe himself. So what happens when you finally decide to tell him?

Previous Chapter

hexyissy

⋆˚࿔ the girl next door (is not a grandma) drabble 𝜗𝜚˚⋆

you lost your engagement ring

thoroughlymimi

Under The Skin : Part Nine - Keratolysis

Gator Tillman x Reader

18+ | minors do not interact

Word Count: 18500

Summary: A perfect birthday unfolds in paradise, powerful alliances quietly take shape, and beneath the warmth of celebration, Maggie's trap begins to close around Marshall Beaumont

Note: Spot the chapter Mimi wrote whilst ovulating.... Also, this chapter reveals that I know fuck all about playing the piano lol. Anyway, enjoy my horny ovulating mind... Mimi <3

Masterlist

Keratolysis

Translation: The Peeling of Skin

From lysis, meaning ‘a loosening, dissolution or breaking apart’. The shedding or peeling of the outer epidermal layers.

ali-gators

expectations

Steve Harrington x reader

summary: You and Steve bickered like a married couple in highschool, but when you rediscover the romantic tension between you after a night with the kids, matured Steve exceeds your expectations.

warnings: bullying and late night confessions <3

note: So… I started writing this when I was bored one day and god incredibly carried away. Pretty sure this is the longest oneshot I’ve written! I am very proud of this, I hope you enjoy!! c:

ssweetleaf

Steve likes having his nipples played with

😵‍💫 <3

‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾ ‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾ ‧͙⁺˚*･༓☾

•18+ Adults Only

Watch Anya Live on Cam

Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.

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Free to watch • No registration required • HD streaming

keer-y

thinking lots.. gator or steve making you cum just from slapping his dick on your clit

man can you imagine

MDNI//SMUT—[unsafe] vaginal sex, teasing, pussy slapping, spit kink, oral sex (f receiving)

steve first, then gator ••• under the cut

moonstoneandmoonlight

a sweet treat | steve harrington

fluff, firefighter!steve, baker!reader, meet cute, female reader, no use of y/n, she/her pronouns for reader | request by @violatedvibrators (greatest username of all time)

wc: 1.1k

Steve Harrington had been kicking himself for almost a whole week for not asking for your number when he had the chance. In his defence, he had been working at the time and since he was making sure that your building didn't burn down after a baking recipe gone wrong, asking for your number hadn’t been too high on his priority list.

But man, he really regretted not asking for it anyway.

Because he knew there had been something between the two of you that night—that it wasn’t just gratitude for putting out the fire you had accidentally started in your eyes.

He wanted nothing more than to go back to your apartment and ask you out but he knew how insane and deeply inappropriate that was and so, Steve had decided to leave it in the hands of fate. He told himself—if it was meant to be, you’d find each other again.

And fate intervened one rainy Saturday morning just before his shift.

tinfoileddd

jasmine.......

unclejeezysblog

A Cinderella Story ⋆.˚

Fic for @moonstoneandmoonlight and @graywrenhart ‘s The Steve Harrington Summer Sleepover 🤍

Summary:

You’re a hardworking high school student and recently lost your father. You in love with the school’s most popular boy, Steve Harrington, through anonymous online messages. After overcoming misunderstandings and standing up for herself, you have one of the greatest love stories with Steve Harrington

Content Warning:

Greif, crying, venting, arguing, cussing, two idiots falling in love, flirting, overthinking, kissing….

Author’s note

This story will be similar to the movie “A cinderella story” but will not be exactly the same. I decided to remove her evil step mother and step sisters (because they annoy me too much). There will be changes. I hope you enjoy this as much as I enjoyed writing it🤍

Your life was always simple, living happily with your father. He owns a small diner, that is not too popular but always filled with regular customers.

Your mother left you when you were 5 years old. You don’t remember much, but that doesn’t hurt you at all. Your dad provided everything you could’ve asked for.

Your relationship with your father was really close. You always communicated with him about your future, and always got assured that if you work hard, your dreams would come true. And you always believed that.

Tragically, shortly after, your father passes away in an earthquake leaving you devastated. You’d lost your only family member. While you were capable of taking care of yourself, the reality of being alone weighed heavily on you.

Your life felt like it had crumbled and your dreams were slipping away. Your father had promised to help with the finances at Princeton University, wanting his daughter to receive the best education. However, it seemed that dream would never come true.

On the other side, a friend of your father took over the diner. All you could do is continue working as a waitress in the diner.

You continued living your life, grieving for your father and your dream.

At your school, you always kept a low profile, embarrassed of being poor and working at a diner. You were far away from those popular girls who wore designer bags and heels to school.

Most of your school days are spent together with your best friend, Robin Buckley, an actor who performs dramatic speeches.

“Why don’t you try acting?” Robin asked you, placing her books into her locker while you leaned on the other one behind her.

“Me? acting? You’re funny” you chuckled

“What? You’re already beautiful you just need some practice” she locked her locker.

“Robin no, I already have a lot on my plate”

“Never too late to change your mind” she bumped your shoulder.

While Robin was talking about her upcoming performance, you accidentally made eye contact with Steve Harrington.

The most popular boy in your school, the one with the perfect life. Handsome and ridiculously rich, and the captain on the football team who was admired by everyone in the school. Everyone is talking about the football star he will become.

While you were at work, a group of high school students walked in, and sat in the booths. You felt like you could die on the spot. You hated serving people that were at your age.

When you approached the table, roller skating with your skates (you hated them but they were a part of the uniform) Nancy said “Well if it isn’t the diner girl?”

You could feel anger rising, but kept a calm face.

“What can I get you guys” you asked

“What can I get here that has no sugar, no carbs and it’s fat-free? Nancy asked.

“Water” you nodded

“Was that supposed to be a joke?” Nancy asked

“It was funny” Steve said

“Steve!” she smacked his arm, it looked like she was mad at him the whole entire time they were there.

Today was a sunny Saturday, of course you had work at the diner.

You spent your weekends working until lunch, and then studying at night.

Although two nights something happened. You got an email from somebody called “Hairspray”

You began chatting with him, neither knows the other’s real identity.

You used the username “Princeton”. You spent the night talking about school, and found out that you’re in the same grade.

Later when you arrived at home from work, you got an email.

Hairspray

Hey you’re at work?

Princeton

Just got back home, what about you?

Hairspray

I was helping my dad around the house, what are you up to?

Princeton

First rest and then i’ll study:’)

Hairspray

So you were serious about Princeton?

Princeton

Yes, is it weird?

Hairspray

No not at all

Actually I’ve been thinking about something

Princeton

about what?

Hairspray

about Princeton

Ever since I was a kid i wanted to be a writer but my dad pressured me with football and I never got to do what I actually want

Princeton

It’s not late to start focusing on writing

Hairspray

You think so?

Princeton

I do.

Hairspray

Thank you for understanding

Princeton

It’s alright

I do have this huge fear of not making it to Princeton though

Hairspray

But why you’re smart and all

Princeton

but it also costs a leg

Hairspray

Can’t you get a scholarship or something?

Princeton

Im trying for that now, If i don’t get it I won’t have a chance.

Hairspray

I think you’ll get it, you’ve been studying your ass off

Princeton

You think so?

Hairspray

Im sure 100%

Princeton

Too confident, no?

Hairspray

Hmm no

Princeton

If you say so

Hairspray

So you go to the same school as me

Princeton

Well if you didn’t lie about your school then yes

Hairspray

Please i’ve been more honest to you than my parents

Princeton

Oh i feel special

Hairspray

You should ;)

Princeton

Why is your username “hairspray?”

Hairspray

Because I use a lot of it

Princeton

But you’re a guy aren’t you?

Hairspray

Yes I am

Can’t guys use hairspray too?

Princeton

You can of course it’s just weird not many use it

Hairspray

Well i do

Princeton

Hmm so i should look out for a guy that uses hairspray at school huh?

Hairspray

Careful there’s lots of them

Princeton

No there’s not you just made that up

Hairspray

Okay yes i did

Princeton

Are you by any chance Mr. Williams

Hairspray

What our chemistry teacher? NO

Princeton

Okay thank god

Hairspray

Is it safe to say that I hate him

Princeton

I hate him too.

Hairspray

Now i like you even more

Princeton

You like me?

Hairspray

As a friend:)

Princeton

A friend you don’t know the name of and how she looks

Hairspray

well you’re my special anonymous friend

Princeton

How many anonymous friends do you have?

Hairspray

One.

(What you didn’t know is that “Hairspray” was actually Steve Harrington).

You couldn’t help it but blush a little. He made you feel seen and understood just like your dad used to. You could be walking past this person at school every day and not know who he is.

Over the last 2 weeks, “Hairspray” and “Princeton” grew closer and closer. You two got to know so much about each other. Cracking jokes at 1am, venting, and talking about their future. Throughout the talking, feeling were developed for each other, but both of you were still unaware.

Eventually they decide to meet. They agreed on meeting at the school’s Halloween Homecoming dance. Making it more romantic, they will recognise each other by clues. You said that you will be wearing a white dress with a matching white mask. Hairspray agreed to meet you exactly at midnight.

However, an unexpected problem arose first. The manager of the diner was not letting you attend the dance. However, Rhonda one of the other waitresses, covered for you and let you go to the dance.

You curled your blonde hair, and wore a beautiful white dress that made you look straight out of a movie. While the white eye mask made your blue eyes stand out.

You found out who “Hairspray” was. It was Steve Harrington. Of course it’s him, he’s the only guy in the school with hair that holds a ridiculous amount of hairspray.

Not going to lie, he looked really handsome tonight. He wore a black tailored tuxedo that fit his body like a glove, making him look formal and match the fairytale atmosphere.

At the dance, Steve finally found the mysterious girl he has fallen in love with.

You spent the night chatting and walking around the beautiful garden outside. The music from the inside could be heard perfectly, so Steve asked you for a dance outside, where you two were completely alone.

He knew how to dance really good, his arms around your waist felt way too warm. You could feel your stomach do a flip from his touch.

“Now will you tell me your name, Princeton girl?” he smirked

“Hmm maybe try guessing”

“I love a challenge” he replied

“Of course you do”

For a moment he stared at your eyes, unsure if he should say it or not but he did anyway.

“You have beautiful eyes”

“Thank you” you could feel blush creep up on your cheeks.

For the first time you felt truly happy. And Steve realised that you’re everything he has been searching for.

Eventually Steve discovers that you are the mystery girl after you removed your mask.

“How come I didn’t thought about you?”

“Hm I don’t know”

“You- wait you work at the diner right?” He started connecting the dots

“I- yeah” you sighed, embarrassment creeping up on you

“Why didn’t you mention anything about it?”

“Because I’m embarrassed by my lifestyle Steve!”

He lifted your chin up with his pointer finger, looking into yours eyes.

“Don’t be embarrassed, not from me”

“But what about the others? They’ll say that-“

“Shh hey who cares what the others think” he looked at you with a confused look

“Steve Harrington seen with this unpopular girl that works at a diner and people barely know her name?”

“So? they will learn it” he smiled

“No Steve you don’t understand” you shook your head

“What tell me, what’s there to understand?”

“You’re a good looking guy with a great reputation, and im just me”

“Yeah you with the smartest brain ever and the prettiest blue eyes” he tucked a hair strand behind your ear.

“I don’t think we can do this, sorry” you squeezed his palm once and turned around to leave.

“Wait no what do you mean?”

“Im sorry Steve” you sobbed, running away.

You couldn’t get to do this, you managed to keep your low profile for so long, you didn’t want to ruin that.

Especially you didn’t want to become the new centre of attention.

When you came home you saw the wall clock tick 00:00, then you realised you have lost your phone. Things felt so hard you couldn’t help it but sob.

The next day at school you managed to ignore Steve as much as possible. Today the school class presidents hosted an event, giving awards to the best students.

You were in the crowd, sitting next to Robin. Then you heard Nancy say “Best athlete of the year - Steve Harrington!”

Funny how his ex girlfriend was presenting the award to him.

The crowd immediately stood up and began cheering and applauding.

Steve stepped out on the stage “I want to thank my coach, my family, teammate’s and my closest friends for always supporting me” his eyes found you in the crowd, and they never left yours.

As Steve was about to leave the stage, Nancy said “Not only our he’s our best athlete, he makes sure to get the best princesses at homecoming!”

Your heart stopped. People started whispering and mumbling, you could hear a few “Oohh’s” in the crowd.

Steve’s face turned pale. He saw you trying to run away from everyone, but decided to follow you.

While you were in the hallway of the school, leaving, he called out

“Hey no wait!” he started running “You can’t just walk away from me every time” he stood in front of you, blocking your way out

“Let me go-“

“No you’re not leaving”

You finally looked at him, his face had a worried expression “From what are you so afraid? Tell me” his voice cracked

“From everything Steve, everything! I don’t want to become famous in the whole school and have every girl gossip about me! I’m already going through a lot, and you know it”

“I- nobody will gossip” he tried to confront you

“They will!”

“Maybe they will but that will be just the beginning! Then everyone will forget!” he cupped your cheeks

“You’re used to being alone, and that’s why you don’t want more people to know you”

He was right. You were afraid of letting people in your life, scared that they are going to leave you again.

“I want to be with you! I want to- want to take you out on dates, I want to buy your favourite snacks and watch stupid rom coms with you” He said.

Your heart was pounding so hard, It almost left your chest.

“Can I?” he asked

“Can you?”

“Just- do you trust me?”

“Yes”

His face was coming closer to yours, then suddenly he kissed you. He kissed you so fiercely that he was terrified you’d flee him again. For the first time, you stopped pushing him away and simply followed your heart, diving into the kiss.

Wrapping your arms around his neck, you pulled him closer. You could smell his cologne , and god he smelled like heaven.

“Holy shit” he broke the kiss, panting for air.

You looked at him with your doe blue eyes, Steve swore he could happily die on the spot.

“Gosh you’re so sweet” he kissed you again, not being able to get enough of you.

Normally right now in this moment, you’d try to run away, but you didn’t, you stayed.

His words made you blush.

“Be mine” he whispered close to your lips.

“I think I already am, Hairspray” you chuckled

“Then I’m one lucky guy, Princeton” he said, kissing you again.

“Oh and you forgot this, Cinderella” Steve pulled our your phone from his pocket.

“Oh my how did you find it?” you took it from his hand

“You forgot it at the garden, or left it on purpose just so you could talk to me again” he winked and wiggled his eyebrows.

You smacked his chest “Yes oh my god I’ve been dying to talk to you” you said sarcastically then you went closer up to his ear and whispered “And to kiss you” you whispered.

“You’re going to be the end of me, my Princeton Cinderella”

Taglist @hexyissy @yailology @oohlillie @jas-mines-things @sweatydjoshoes @us3r4682

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Joe Keery x Manager reader (secret relationship)

Liked by: djotime, b.i.g.s.h.r.i.m.p, stinkyjavi and 52, 368 others

Reader_ : Life recently managing (babysitting) these amazing guys! so proud of them and can't wait to see whatever happens next

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djotime: Best manager ever 🤍liked by author

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Authors Note: hey everyone sorry this is kind of shit it's my first time doing a smau sooooo let me know what we think. Life is hectic right now, but I hope to be posting more soon. <3 (also these are not my pictures I found them on pinterest)

Thank you so much for reading <3

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