For fox sake

you answer the door in your little black dress, already ready to go out. you wanted to meet your mom and stepdad at the airport, but they—well, your mom, really—insisted that you stay put since they were renting a car anyway, and roy wasn’t about to put a young lady out.

you practically leap at your mom, hugging her tight, releasing her after probably five entire minutes (give or take) and then you hug roy too, and when you step back, he steps aside, and there’s gator. your breath catches.

you’d been avoiding him since your last visit out to the ranch at christmas—cold turkey, no texts—because he’d basically confessed how he really felt to you and you ghosted him, making yourself so busy for the rest of your trip and sticking to your mom like glue that he had no way of even getting near you to say jack shit about anything.

but now here he is, about to step into your living room.

you swallow nervously, but usher everyone inside. they’re not dressed for dinner yet, and your mom makes quick work of locating everyone’s dress clothes in the luggage. she’s the first one to go and change, taking to your bedroom to put on her own skirt and blouse, and then roy heads in. gator’s meandering around your living room, looking at the photos you’ve hung up (friends and family. he’s in three of them, but two are from the wedding), and the art pieces (that came with the furnished unit).

roy emerges in a flannel and dark jeans, which you suppose is the best you could hope for, and then gator takes his folded clothes and disappears into your bedroom. part of you is beside yourself with the fact that he’s in there, but at least you’re not also in there.

you make small talk with your mom and roy about work and whether you’re making friends out here (you are), when your bedroom door opens and gator emerges. he’s not wearing anything out of the ordinary—he actually looks remarkably similar to the night of the rehearsal dinner, a black, collared button-down shirt, but instead of jeans, this time he’s got on a pair of slacks, the shirt tucked in. no tie, thank god, because if he’d dressed so nicely just for your birthday, you wouldn’t have been able to handle it. and to make matters worse, his hair isn’t slicked back—it’s loose, falling over his forehead.

“everyone ready?” you chirp, and the trio nods. you lead everyone out of your place, locking the door behind you, and when you turn, you find that your mom and roy have already gone down to the car, while gator’s still there, scuffing his shoe against the concrete landing outside your place.

“nice place,” he says, keeping his eyes on your face, though you’re certain he was checking out your back, because this dress doesn’t have much of one.

“thanks,” you reply, putting your keys away in your shoulder bag and facing him fully now. “i didn’t expect you to be here.”

“yeah, i know. surprise,” he says, lifting one hand and shaking it a little, but in a way that’s got no fanfare at all.

“gator…” you begin, but he shakes his head.

“nah, sis, ‘m just here fer yer birthday.” he sounds so earnest you choose to believe him.

it’s not a far ride to the restaurant, and while it does take some convincing on gator and roy’s part, you are able to keep your reservation at the sushi place after promising there are items that are fully cooked on the menu too.

roy picks up the check, which was not your intention, and you all pile back into the car to go for frozen yogurt (again, your choice, and again, to the tillman men’s chagrin)—but they can’t very well argue when the response to all of their complaints is your mother’s smug little “it’s her birthday, boys.”

they drop you off at your apartment and decline coming in for coffee—roy’s fed up with being on the move since the plane landed, and your mother just wants to lie down and do her crossword puzzles, so you give them each a hug—only waving to gator—and then close the door and get changed into your pajamas before making some chamomile tea and settling onto the couch in front of the tv.

a good hour passes—the dregs of your tea growing cold in the mug, the netflix original you’d chosen not really holding your interest, when there’s a knock at your door and you frown. it’s almost 10pm.

you ignore it, but grab your phone just in case—when the knock comes again. you stand from the couch this time, looking over at the front door, until you hear his voice.

“it’s me,” gator says, just loud enough for you to hear him.

your heart—which was already beating out of your chest—starts going in triple time.

you make your way to the door and open it, looking up at him. he’s no longer in his dress clothes—he’s got on a t-shirt and a pair of baggy gym shorts, and you frown.

“gator, what the hell?” you ask, but before you can even reasonably expect an answer from him, his lips are on yours and for fuck’s sake, you’re kissing him back.

he steps in, almost scooping you up so that he has room to slam the door shut behind him, and you pull away from him, but not enough that you actually break free of his arms.

“what the hell?” you demand this time, and he just looks at you all sheepish and needy. you push him out of your way and lock the door, then turn to him.

“what, did you steal the rental car?”

“roy put my name on it too,” gator says. “i’m allowed t’drive it.”

“oh my god, gator,” you say, “this has to stop.”

“no,” he says, his voice harder than you think you’ve ever heard it. “i know this shit ain’t one-sided.”

“so now you’re telling me how i feel?”

“what’s good fer the goose is good fer the gander,” he says, and you frown, because ok, maybe he has you there. you weren’t very gentle about putting your own words into his mouth a few months ago at christmas.

“i just—” you begin. “nothing can come of this.”

“so that means we just hafta forget it?” he asks, and while you know the answer is yes, absolutely, you still feel the pull toward him.

you look up into his face, the way he’s looking at you like you’re everything he could want, could need, like you’re the only person he ever wants to look at again.

“yeah, we should,” you say, and all he does in response to that is step closer to you, lifting his hand to cup the side of your face.

“fuck should,” he says, and then his lips are on yours again, and for the second time in five minutes, you’re kissing him back.

&&

you end up in your bedroom, gator settled against your pillows, your thighs on either side of him as you kiss him lazily. you’d tried to leave this behind, tried to push it down and away and never unpack it, but being around him brings out everything fucking stupid about you. you’re basking in each other, the taste of his toothpaste and the smell of his cologne, the sound of his mouth on yours, the firm weight of his hands on your thighs. and the look he gives you, when you break apart and his eyes meet yours. like he’s seeing through you, every piece and part that you don’t want to show anyone but he manages to discover anyway.

“how’s yer birthday so far?” he asks, and you laugh because it feels like the biggest non sequitur you’ve ever heard.

“never had one like it,” you answer, and he smirks before he circles his arms around you, easing you off of his lap, turning you so you’re lying beside him, and then shifting himself so he’s on his knees next to you, just for a moment, because then he’s reaching down and pulling his t-shirt up and over his head, and you’re confronted with everything you wanted to forget. his broad shoulders, the thick stretch of hair that narrows into a thin line leading straight down the center of his torso, the mole next to his bellybutton, the mole that you can’t see yet but you know is there, right next to the root of his cock. you need to look away. you can’t look away.

“tell me you wanna stop,” gator says, daring you, even as he splays a hand out on your stomach, over your shirt.

“don’t,” you say, and even at that he doesn’t move his hand.

“don’t what?” he asks.

“don’t act like you think i don’t want this too,” you admit, voice low, shaky.

a beat passes, tense, the air thick between you. he presses his hand a little firmer against your front, then leans down so his face is right next to yours. you barely turn to look at him when he speaks.

“then start actin’ like you do.”

you look at him, and it’s like a bolt of electricity passes between you. you inhale, exhale. hold his gaze.

“dare,” you say, and gator feels his gut kick just a little.

“kiss me like you mean it,” he says.

it’s palpable now, the tension. the bubble you were in the very first time is back, poised to pop, existence measured and set for only so long. you do as he told you, reaching up to grab him with both arms wrapped around his shoulders, pulling him down against your already-parted lips, kissing him freely, with abandon, not bothering to feign indifference or disinterest anymore. you kiss him breathless, tongues moving together, his hand sliding down from your stomach to move right into your pajama bottoms, bypassing your underwear completely, and letting his fingertips move in between your folds like they’ve done it countless times before, like your body belongs to him just as much as it does to you.

and honest to god, at this point, it just fucking might.

“gator,” you sigh against his mouth, and he presses the pad of his middle finger against your slit. you lift your hips up into his hand and he moans into your mouth, because not only has he been waiting for this for months, but now you… you want it too. you want it again.

there’s more sloppy kisses and his finger curling into you before you’re mewling for him, writhing on the bed because you need more and all he does is pull back from you, pull away and you’re reaching for him because you don’t want him to go. maybe you can’t say it out loud, but maybe you don’t need to.

“relax,” gator says, smoothing his hands over your hips before he curls his fingers into your waistband, pulling your bottoms down, baring you for himself. his eyes settle on your mound, framed by your thighs, folds shiny, wet, and he eases your legs apart as he bends down between them, leaning forward to kiss you just below your bellybutton.

it’s like you realize what he’s about to do at the same moment he decides to do it, and you gasp as he ducks his head even lower, tongue poking out of his mouth to move through your folds, from your wet slit all the way up to your swollen little clit.

“oh my god,” you whine, and he does it again, this time flicking the tip of his tongue against your clit, making your hips rise up as he splays his hands out on your thighs, pushing your legs open a little wider.

“christ,” gator mumbles, so low you almost don’t hear him. “taste just like a fuckin’ dream, sis,” he says, and your cunt clenches down on nothing, because if he’s gonna start that again, you’re going to get way too turned on way too fast.

“t-truth or dare?” you ask, and he flicks his eyes up at you even as he closes his lips around your clit, tongue brushing over the hood.

he pulls off. “truth.”

“what are we doing?” you ask, and he doesn’t answer you right away, instead closing his eyes and focusing on what he’s doing for you, to you. your breath catches as he sucks your clit, then drags his tongue down to enter you, fucking you with it slowly before he pulls away, his cheek resting on your thigh.

“celebratin’ yer birthday,” he says, like that’s the answer you were looking for. knowing it isn’t. he leans in again and sucks at your folds greedily, drawing them into his mouth before he pulls off, licking your arousal off his upper lip. “truth or dare.”

“truth,” you answer.

“you love me?” he asks without missing a beat, and you swear to god your heart stops.

“what?” your voice cracks when you ask it, but he doesn’t back down, doesn’t change tack.

“i asked if you love me,” he says, and then as if to try to put you more at ease, he returns to fucking you with his tongue.

you feel insane, you feel like you are actively losing your mind as your step fucking brother eats your pussy, making you feel your goddamn heartbeat in your clit, your pussy spasming around his tongue.

“do—do you love me?” you reverse it back onto him, and he hums quietly, letting his tongue slip out of your slit, licking over you a few times, tasting you and swallowing down everything he can.

“nice counter question,” he muses.

“y-yeah,” you agree, because there’s not much else for you to say.

he shakes his head. “why are you askin’ me questions you already know the answer to?” he moves one of his hands from your thigh to rub at your loose slit with his finger.

“i’m—” you start, but he cuts you off.

“i fuckin’ told you i meant it,” he says, “at christmas. i know you remember.”

“i thought you meant—”

“meant what? that i like fuckin’ ya? that ya got the sweetest little tang i ever laid eyes on ‘nd that’s it?” you flinch a little at his word choice, but you also understand that he only said it to get a rise out of you, one you won’t give him. “ya gonna make me say it first?” he asks, and then instead of continuing, he just buries his face against you again, making you cry out, because he’s no longer being sweet and taking his time—he’s sucking and licking at you like he’s determined to prove something, and you know exactly what. he takes you in, sliding his finger inside of you, curling it upward as he mouths at your clit, flicking it with his tongue, pulling at it with his lips, riding each wave of your body as you lift up against him, unconsciously, desire for him, for this, taking you over.

you’re close. trembling and wet and one arm extended over your front as you card your fingers through his hair to push it back off his face so you can see his eyes as he goes down on you, and when he glances up at you, mouth full of you, he pulls back off.

“gonna make me say it, huh?” he says, but it’s softer this time.

you nod.

his upper lip twitches, just enough that you catch it.

“love you,” he says, voice low and even, the words laced with sincerity, truth, and maybe just a touch of embarrassment at the prospect that you’ll leave him hanging. again. more the fool him.

“gator,” you whisper, and he just smirks,unamused, like he expected that. but then he’s lowering his gaze again, and he just presses his mouth back to you, tonguing your clit because he’s not going to leave you wanting. you curl your fingers tighter into his hair and open your mouth, but all that comes out is a faint whine as he adds a second finger inside of you, easing them in and out, coaxing your orgasm from you in increments, bit by bit, until you’re sobbing above him, strung out, your hips quivering and your hand holding him in place by the hair.

he pulls away from you once you relax back down against the bed, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, and as he’s readying himself to move away, you speak, voice wavering.

“i do,” you say, and he stops for a second, then looks over at you, almost nonchalant. but he’s shaking a little too; you can feel it against your thigh.

“truth?” gator asks, and you nod.

“i love you too,” you say, and sit up, wanting to be close to him again.

&&

“Tell me,” you whisper. It’s not that you expect rhapsodizing. But everyone likes pretty words now and then.

“Like a fuckin’一fuckin’一” Gator stammers.

Well. Worth a shot.

“So fuckin’ soft ‘nd wet, ‘nd fuck, squeezin’ me so good,” he manages. His voice is tight, so you know he means it, know he’s close.

It’s filthy talk, because it’s Gator Tillman, and he’ll never be a poet laureate. But he can talk you through it, you’d be willing to bet. So you return the favor.

“So big,” you say, and he untucks his face from your neck to look up at you, his hips faltering for a moment, but he regains the rhythm after a few sloppy thrusts. You shift your hips, angle yourself a little differently, and you both moan when he reaches new places inside you, when you clench up around him because of it. “So fuckin’ hot and god, don’t stop,” you groan.

“Ain’t gonna,” Gator says, lifting himself up a little, and his lips drag shyly over the underside of your jaw. Like he’s asking permission for something neither of you, especially him, knew he wanted.

“Please,” you say, hands roving over his shoulders, his arms, and you turn your face a little toward his. Your upper lip brushes his bottom lip, and he does freeze in place for a moment like a frightened deer.

And then, it’s like a deluge from him, his mouth covering yours, kissing you so, so goddamn slow and languid you don’t think he’ll ever pull away.

You hike your legs up, thighs pressing into his sides as he keeps drilling into you, but he’s kissing you like he’s never kissed anyone before一for all you know, he hasn’t一and never wants to stop kissing you, either.

Your hands are on his chest now, fingers running through the thick patch of hair, feeling his heart fluttering beneath your touch, feeling his tongue beg entrance and you let him in, but even still, it’s tentative. He’s learning you, how to do it, how you like it一and you’re showing him. Your body is taking him in in every way that you can, and when you feel his hips slap against yours one final time, feel the heat spread inside of your cunt as he comes deep within you, his mouth unmoving from yours as he kisses you, claims you一you feel yourself come too, untouched, overwhelmed with everything that just happened. To you, for you, from you.

You looked up at him, quirking an eyebrow. “Nobody looks like Kratos,” you said, rolling your eyes. You proceeded to try and undress him, then paused. “Wait. Do you think I want you to look like Kratos?”

“Or Thor,” he said, referencing your slight obsession with the god of thunder. “I mean, whichever.”

“Keys,” you said, frowning. “You’re joking.” You lifted one leg and slid yourself on top of him, resting just above his hips, the only thing separating you from him were your panties and his jeans, an old, ratty Evanescence t-shirt draped over your frame.

He only shrugged in response.

“My guy,” you said, and he just looked up at you, so maybe the trying-to-be-funny-casual route wasn’t the best one. “Keys… Walter,” you said, changing tack, because when you got serious一real serious, you used his actual name. “I don’t want you to look like anyone but you.” You ran your hands over his sides, up to the top of his chest and then back down, tracing his bellybutton with your index finger before leaning down and pushing his shirt up as far as it could go. You covered his chest with kisses, then his stomach, before sitting back一maybe letting your core rest right on top of his cock, which was just a little bit of serendipity一and picking up his right arm.

“No one could ever make me feel the way you do with these,” you murmured, lifting his hand to your mouth and kissing him right in the center of his palm before moving up to his pinky kissing the base of the finger, then the tip. You moved on slowly, to his ring finger, doing the same. Then his middle finger, his index, and finally his thumb, letting your lips linger on the pad of it before giggling a little and working your way down to his wrist, then his elbow.

“Ok, Gomez,” he said, and you laughed.

“So you’re Morticia?” You grinned down at him. Once you couldn’t reach anymore, you let his arm go and made your way across his shoulders, kissing him through his shirt because you didn’t want to stop your ministrations to push it off of him, and when you reached his left shoulder, you repeated all of the same actions, just backwards. Up to his elbow, then to his wrist, his palm, his thumb, all the way to his ring finger, where you stopped.

You blinked, then met his eyes, holding his hand in both of yours, letting your palms cradle his big hand in yours, while your thumbs kneaded his palm right under his fourth finger.

“I feel like Gomez sometimes,” you said, “loving you so much.”

Keys scoffed, but you could tell it wasn’t genuine, just self-deprecating. “You think I’m that much of a catch?”

“Fuck yeah,” you said, lifting his hand to your lips again, this time folding his fingers down into a fist and letting your lips worry his knuckle. “Maybe I’ll buy you a ring to show you just how much.”

The silence that filled the room was deafening一you’d never known what that oxymoron had meant before until that moment.

“What?” Keys asked, his voice breaking a little.

You glanced up at him, his hand still at your mouth. Playfully一because the intrusive thoughts win sometimes一you opened your mouth and gently bit his knuckle. He smirked, but you knew you had to answer.

“I said I should buy you a ring so everyone knows what a catch you are.”

Keys’ free hand moved up to your thigh, skimming upward beneath the hem of your oversized shirt. “Are you asking me to marry you?”

You uncurled his hand, kissing each of his fingers again in turn. “Depends. Are you gonna say yes?”

His fingers tightened on your thigh, nervous but insistent. “Yes.”

The first thing you notice is the light. It settles over everything in shades of amber and honey, turning the lake into a sheet of molten gold, the kind that feels warm even by just looking at it. The water ripples lazily beneath a warm summer breeze, carrying tiny flashes of sunlight toward the shoreline. Towering pines line the opposite bank, their reflections stretching long and dark across the smooth water’s surface until the wind breaks them apart.

The air smells like warm earth, sunscreen, and hint of gasoline. It should feel unfamiliar but it doesn’t. It feels like a place your body remembers even if you’ve never actually stood in it.

You’re sat on the hood of a blue pickup truck parked only a few yards from the lake’s shorefront. The metal beneath you is still warm from sitting in the sun all afternoon, and you absentmindedly swing your legs over the front bumper, heels tapping the bumper in a rhythm that isn’t quite a song.

Beside you sits someone you've never met, but even then, you actually do know him. Not in the same way that you might know your mother or your brother. And not because someone introduced you. You know him the way you know your own favorite color, you know him the same way you know how to breathe. It’s instinctual, a simple certainty that just exists in the world.

He's older than anyone you would usually spend time with, maybe twenty-something. His brown hair is messy from the breeze, falling into his eyes every few seconds until he pushes it back with an absent flick of his hand. A pair of sunglasses hang from the collar of his faded yellow shirt, and one slightly scuffed sneaker taps passively against the truck's bumper.

For a long while, neither of you says anything. The silence doesn’t feel like something that needs filling. It feels like you’ve already spent the afternoon talking and neither of you have anything left to say.

He tips his head toward the horizon, where the sun hangs low and orange just above the treeline. "You know, I think this is my favorite time of the day." 

You lean back on your palms, squinting at him. "Why?" 

He looks over at you, finally, and the light catches his eyes ina a way that makes them look almost lit from the inside. "'Cause everything just slows down." He nods toward the water, where the ripples had gone lazy and slow, catching the color of the sky. "It’s all calm. Nothing’s in a hurry to be anywhere else."

You consider that carefully. "I think I like mornings the best." 

His eyebrows go up. "Oh?"

"'Cause you still have the whole day left. Anything could still happen."

He laughs, soft and low, like it surprised him. "That's a pretty good reason." 

You smile at him. His smile widens to match it, like it’s contagious, like it’s the easiest thing in the world to catch.

The breeze picks up and tosses strands of hair across your face. Before you can lift a hand to fix it or brush them away, he reaches over and tucks it behind your ear without seeming to think about it at all, the kind of gesture that’s already been made a habit, worn smooth from being done a hundred times before. Neither of you comments on it, because it doesn’t feel like the moment needs anything else.

After a while, he speaks up again. "So," he says, and pauses just long enough that you return to look at him. "What do you think?"

"About what?" 

He spreads his arms out toward the lake, like he’s presenting it to you. "All of this." 

You glance around, playing along. "The trees?"

"The lake."

"The sunset?"

"Our life." 

You wrinkle your nose at him. "I don't know yet."

"No?"

"I'm still deciding." 

He laughs again, louder this time, tipping his head back like you’ve said something genuinely delightful. "Fair enough."

The quiet settles back over you, easy as a blanket. Somewhere behind you, birds call to each other in the trees. The lake keeps lapping softly against the shore in its slow, patient rhythm. You don't know why, but every few seconds you glance toward him just to make sure he's still there.

And every time, he is. 

Eventually he catches you doing it. "What?"

"I wasn't looking."

"You were."

"I wasn't."

"Were too."

"I wasn't!"

He narrows his eyes at you, mock-serious. "I think you're lying."

"I think you're wrong."

"Oh?"

He leans in, just slightly, like he’s letting you in on some valuable secret. "I never lose an argument."

"You definitely do."

"Nope, never. Not once in my life."

"I don't believe you."

"You should." He says it like it’s a simple fact. “I’m very convincing when I need to be.

"No you're not."

He places a hand over his heart as though you've wounded him. "That hurt."

"Good."

He gasps dramatically. "You're mean."

"I am not."

"You called me unconvincing."

"You are."

"I am delightful."

You reach over and shove at his shoulder, more fond than anything. "You are annoying."

He pretends to think. "...Those aren't mutually exclusive." 

You burst into laughter before you can stop yourself, and his whole face lights up at the sound. 

"There it is," he says.

"What?"

"I was waiting for you to laugh."

"Well, you made a stupid face. That’s why."

"It worked, didn’t it?"

"It did."

He seems strangely pleased with himself.

And then, something in the air changes. You feel it happen before he even moves. One of his eyebrows lifts. The corner of his mouth twitches, just barely, in a way you already recognize even though you shouldn’t. His eyes go bright with something you don;t have a name for yet, but your body does, because you’re scrambling backwards across the hood of the truck.  

You point at him immediately. "No."

"What?"

"I know that face."

"I don’t know what you’re talking about."

"You have a bad idea."

"I have an excellent idea."

"No."

He slides off the hood of the truck, unhurried, like he has all the time in the world. "I haven't even done anything."

"And you’re not going to."

"I really think I am."

"No, you’re not."

He takes one slow step toward you, hands loose at his sides, grin spreading wider with every inch. "So..." Another step. "...come here."

You shriek and bolt, jumping from the hood and hitting the ground running. Behind you, laughter erupts, loud and delighted. "Oh, you're fast!"

"I'm not talking to you!"

"You weren't talking to me before, either!"

You cut around the passenger side of the truck. He jogs after you, laughing loudly the whole time, not even really trying to catch you yet, like the chase itself is half of the fun. You dart around the back bumper just as he reaches the driver's side. For one triumphant second you think you've escaped. Then you round the corner, and he's already there, waiting for you with an elated smile gracing his face. 

"Oh."

He folds his arms. "Hey there." 

You immediately pivot to run in the opposite direction, but before you can make it two steps, strong arms wrap carefully around your waist, pulling you gently back against him. "Gotcha!"

"No fair!"

"It was entirely fair."

"You cheated!"

"I used strategy."

"I don't like strategy."

"I noticed."

You squirm and twist, already laughing helplessly despite the fact he hasn't done anything yet, you just know what’s coming, the way you already know most things about him. He looks down at you with exaggerated suspicion. "You're laughing awfully early for someone who hasn’t been tickled."

"'Cause I know what you're gonna do."

"Do you? Really?"

"You always—"

You stop yourself mid-sentence. Always? The word slips out before you even noticed reaching for it, and now it sits there in the air between you, too big for the moment. For just a heartbeat, something in his expression goes soft and almost sad, there and gone so fast you might’ve imagined it. 

Then the mischievous smile returns. "I always what?"

"...Nothing."

"I think you know."

"I don't."

"I think you definitely do."

His fingers find your sides before you can answer, and the laughter bursts out of you instantly uncontrollable. 

"No—!"

"That's not very convincing."

"Stop—"

"I haven't even started."

He wiggles his fingers against your ribs and your knees actually give out, both of you tumbling down into the grass beside the truck in a tangle of laughing and no, no, wait—

"Steve!" The name leaves your mouth effortlessly. Like you've said it hundreds of times. Neither of you questions it. He only laughs. "There she is."

"You cheat!"

"You said that already."

"I really mean it this time!"

He keeps at it until you’re both laughing too hard to do anything but lie there in the grass, chests heaving, faces turned up toward a sky gone soft with color. The sunset has deepened into streaks of pink and lavender, the gold from before gone quiet and blue around the edges. 

For several long moments neither of you speaks. You just lie there together, listening to the water. Hearing each other's laughter fade away into quiet smiles. The breeze tickles at your skin as it flows over your face. 

"I like finding you," Steve says, quiet now, all the teasing gone from his voice. 

You turn your head toward him. "What does that mean?" 

He doesn't answer right away. Instead he watches the sky as it changes colors, like the words are somewhere up there and he’s waiting for them to come down. "It means..." His voice trails off, and when it comes back it’s softer still.  "...I always know it's going to be a good dream. When it’s you."

Dream? You frown. "What dream?" 

He looks at you then, and something flickers behind his eyes, not quite sad, but close to it, close enough that you feel it in your own chest without understanding why. His smile doesn’t go anywhere, it just gets a little more careful. “You’ll understand someday.”

The wind turns warm, warmer than it should, and the lake starts to blur at the edges like watercolor left out in the rain. The sky bleeds white, and the world slips out from under you, soft as falling asleep inside a dream you didn;t know you were already having.

You wake up laughing. A real, full-bellied laughter, the kind that makes your stomach hurt and your cheeks ache.

Soft morning sunlight pours through the curtains, bright enough that you have to squint. Your quilt is tangled around your legs, and three of your stuffed animals have somehow ended up strewn across the floor, casualties of whatever you were dreaming of.

Your bedroom door creaks open, and your mother leans in, already smiling at the sound of you. "Well," she says, "sounds like someone woke up on the right side of the bed."

"I had a funny dream."

"Oh?"

"The funniest one ever."

She sits on the edge of your mattress, and you eagerly explain everything you can hold onto, tripping over the details in your hurry to get them out before they can fade.

"There was a lake."

"A lake?"

"And a truck."

"What color?"

"It was blue." She nods seriously, lips pursed, like this is an important piece of evidence. "That’s a very important detail."

"And there was a boy." 

Her eyebrow lifts. "A boy?"

"He chased me." 

Her voice climbs up, somewhere between amused and alarmed. "Oh?"

"But only ‘cause he wanted to make me laugh." 

That settles her and she smiles, brushing a strand of hair back from your face, the same gesture from the dream, though neither of you will ever know that. "And did he?" 

You grin so widely it pulls at your cheeks, nodding hard enough that your whole body seems to agree with you. "Yeah." 

She laughs. "Well. Sounds like a nice dream."

"It was." You pause, turning the words over before you let them out. "He was nice." 

And saying it out loud does something strange to your chest, a small, hollow ache, like homesickness for a place you’ve never been. You miss him. You don’t know how that’s even possible, missing someone you’ve never met, but you do, in the same uncomplicated way you knew his name before he ever told it to you.

Breakfast smells like butter and bacon and the specific warmth of a kitchen that’s been busy for a while already. Your father sits with the newspaper folded in one hand, and your older brother is loudly, dramatically, protesting the injustices of having to get dressed before nine in the morning. 

You climb into your chair and stir your cereal without really looking at it. "Dad?"

"Hm?"

"Can dreams belong to two people?"

The newspaper lowers just enough to reveal his eyes over the top of it. "What do you mean, Bug?"

You think of the right words, how to ask the question in a way that adults would understand. "Like..." You turn your spoon absentmindedly. "...if I dreamed about someone..." Your parents wait, looking at you expectantly. "...could they dream about me too?" 

Your brother snorts into his own cereal before replying. "You mean like magic?"

You shrug, suddenly feeling small about the whole thing. "I don't know." 

Your father chuckles, but not unkindly. "I don't think that's how dreams work, Bug." 

A frown slowly forms on your face before you speak again, unwilling to let the conversation end there. "But what if they did?" 

Your mother reaches over and squeezes your hand. "Dreams come from our imagination, sweetheart."

"But he felt real."

"Who did?"

"The boy."

"The one from your dream?"

You nod. "He had messy hair." you add, like this is important corroborating evidence.

Your brother groans and drops his forehead onto the table. "Oh no."

"What?"

"She's got a dream boyfriend."

"I do not!"

"You do." 

“James,” Your mom cuts in, admonishing your brother. “don’t make fun of your sister. You had a pretty wild imagination too, at her age.”

You scowl down at your cereal, starting to feel foolish for believing that your dream could be real. "I don't even know his name." 

James mutters something under his breath that sounds suspiciously like that's even worse, and your parents laugh, not really at you, just at the particular, ridiculous sincerity that only comes out of a five-year-old defending a dream.

Still, you don't laugh along with them, because you know how it felt. The warmth of the sun, the smell of the lake, the sound of his laugh. 

But most of all, you remember the certainty in his voice when he said, I like finding you. Like it wasn’t the first time he had said it, like it wouldn’t be the last time.

Somehow… You know that he meant it.

The first thing Steve notices is how loud the world is. 

Not exactly the dream itself, the dream is quiet in its own way, thrumming with a kind of anticipation that makes his skin prickle. It’s the sound around it that’s loud: wind moving through metal bleachers in long, rhythmic gusts, almost like breathing. The air smells like cut grass baked too long under the sun, and something sugary drifting over from a concession stand somewhere behind him. Lemonade, maybe. Or just close enough that his mind decides it must be. 

He’s sitting halfway up a set of old stadium steps, and he’s not alone. There are people surrounding him on all sides, but none of them matter to him at all, because none of them are you.

The track below stretches in a perfect oval, glowing under the afternoon light like it’s been polished. Red paint, white lane lines, heat rippling just above the surface. It looks almost unreal, like something pulled out of a magazine instead of a real place.

And then, there you are. 

You’re older than him. Not by much, but enough that it feels important, the way small differences do when you’re six. You’re standing at the starting line with your hands braced on your knees, taking deep, careful breaths. You look focused, not exactly nervous, just coiled tightly, like everything inside you is waiting for the right moment to explode out and into motion.

Steve doesn’t know your name. He doesn’t know how he knows you at all, has never once been able to explain it to himself in a way that makes sense.. But he does know you, and it feels like he’s known you for a long time, much longer than his own six years should allow for.

The announcer’s voice crackles through a speaker, distorted and bright. Something about the lanes. Something about timing. Something about you. Steve leans forward slightly without realizing it.

“Ready…” 

The word stretches out. The atmosphere around him tightens. Even the air feels like it’s holding its breath.

Then the gun goes off, and you’re moving. 

Not fast in a panicked way, fast with certainty, like you've done this a thousand times even though you haven't, like you've been practicing your whole life for this exact thirty seconds. Steve is on his feet before he realizes he's stood up. Somewhere between the first bend and the straightaway, you're already pulling ahead, arms pumping clean and sure, feet light but powerful, like you're not so much running as choosing where gravity gets to take you.

The crowd rises around him in a wave. The roar of it reaches him strangely, like its distant, muffled, like it’s happening one room over. Steve can only hear his own heartbeat, clearer than anything else. And you, but you don’t look back. Not once, because you don’t need to.

By the final stretch, there’s no question left in it. You break the finish line with a burst of motion so clean it feels like it should mean something bigger than just a race.

The stadium explodes. Cheering, clapping, feet stomping the metal bleachers hard enough that Steve feels it in his own chest. People surge forward around him. He doesn't move. He can't look away from you.

You slow down, laughing now, breathless and glowing with the kind of happiness that can’t be contained by your body. You turn toward the sideline, and standing there waiting for you, are your parents. He knows they are your parents before his mind can explain how.

Your mother reaches you first, arms wrapping around you so tightly you almost stumble backward. Your father is right behind her, laughing, hands on your shoulders like he’s checking that you’re real.

They’re so outwardly proud of you. Completely immersed in celebrating you, not quiet or polite with their adoration. It makes something shift in Steve’s chest. An ache in his chest so warm and sharp all at once, and he doesn’t have a name for the feeling yet.

You’re talking, but he can’t hear the words clearly over the noise. Still, it doesn’t matter. The meaning is obvious in the way your face keeps breaking into laughter between sentences, in the way your mother keeps brushing sweat off your forehead like it’s something precious to her.

Your father lifts you clean off the ground for half a second; just enough to spin you before setting you back down. You’re smiling so hard it almost looks like it must hurt. Steve doesn’t understand why that makes his throat tighten. He doesn’t know you, but he’s proud of you anyway. That doesn’t make sense, but nothing about this does.

And then, without warning, your head turns. 

Not toward your family. Not toward the crowd. 

Towards him. Directly. Like you know exactly where he is sitting. Steve freezes. 

The stadium noise dulls, fading like it’s being pulled underwater. You’re still smiling. Still breathing hard. Still glowing with victory.

And for just a second, it feels like you’re looking right at him. Like you’ve always known he was there. Steve’s heart kicks hard, once.

Then the dream breaks.

When he wakes up, it feels like he’s surfacing from deep underwater. The ceiling above him is wrong. Too low, too familiar, and too small for what he was just standing inside of. Sunlight presses through the thin curtains and paints pale lines across his bedroom floor. He blinks once, twice. His chest still feels tight, like he’d been the one running.

For a moment, he just lies there. Trying to hold onto something he can’t name. There was a race, and there was a girl. She won. He knows that it matters, that she matters, even though he can’t quite remember why.

Steve turns his head toward the window. Outside, the neighborhood is already awake, a dog barking in someone’s backyard, a car rolling past slowly, a lawn mower starting up down the street like its announcing the start of an ordinary routine. But Steve doesn’t feel ordinary. He feels like something just happened somewhere else, something important. 

He swings his legs out of bed. The floor is cold against his feet. Downstairs, the house is quieter than it should be. Not empty exactly. Just… distant. His mother is already moving somewhere in the kitchen; he can hear the faint clatter of dishes, the soft shuffle of someone trying not to make too much noise and disturb whatever silence has settled over the house. His father is somewhere else, probably in his office. He’s not present in the way Steve has already learned to recognize without being told. 

Steve eats breakfast without tasting much of it, still turning the dream over in his mind. He keeps thinking about the way you looked when you crossed the finish line, like you belonged there, like the world was cheering because it finally got something right.

Later that morning, Steve finds the older boy down at the end of the street, kicking a second bike upright at the curb. The one who rides his bike fast and doesn’t wait for anyone. 

“Okay,” the boy says. “You’re gonna pedal, and you’re not gonna panic.”

“I don’t panic,” Steve says automatically, a small pout on his face. 

The boy gives him a flat look. “You panic.” 

Steve climbs onto the bike anyway. It feels too big under him, the handlebars wobbling beneath his grip like they’re testing whether he deserves to be up there at all. “Don’t look down,” the boy tells him.

“I’m not looking down.”

“You’re looking down.”

“I’m not—”

“Just pedal.” 

Steve begins to pedal. The bike jerks forward immediately, unstable, like it’s laughing at him. “I’m gonna fall,” he says, voice already wobbling harder than the handlebars.

“You’re not gonna fall.”

“I’m definitely gonna fall.”

“You’re not.”

“I am.”

The bike swerves hard underneath him and the world tilts. And then, somehow, it steadies. For one brief, impossible second, Steve is moving forward on his own, no hand holding the seat, no voice behind him keeping him upright. The wind hits his face differently. Sharper. Freer. 

“I’m doing it!” he blurts.

“You’re doing it,” the older boy confirms, jogging along behind, grinning.

Steve laughs, really laughs, for no reason he could explain except that it feels like there should be one. And then the boy lets go. Steve doesn’t notice at first, it takes a full three seconds before he realizes the voice behind him has disappeared. 

“Oh no.” He crashes into a hedge. Leaves scattering around him like green confetti.

The older boy is laughing so hard he has to sit down, and Steve, flat on his back in someone’s shrubbery, laughs right along with him. His knee stings from where he scraped it, but he doesn’t care.

By the time he gets home, the day feels both too long and not long enough.

The house is still doing its usual, half-empty thing. His mother is on the phone again. The babysitter arrives earlier than expected, already smiling in the distracted way of someone thinking ahead to whatever she’ll be doing once this shift is over.Steve nods at her politely. He is good at that now, being polite, being easy. Being someone who doesn’t ask too many questions or speak without being spoken to. 

Upstairs, he sits on the edge of his bed for a long time without turning on the radio or picking up a book. His room is small in the particular way all rooms are when you're six, full of things he didn't choose. A poster some decorator thought he might like. A shelf of toys gathering dust in the corner, untouched in longer than he could tell you. A window that looks out on a street that never changes.

He keeps thinking about the girl from the dream. The way she ran. The way she won. The way she looked at the end, like she could see him. Steve lies back slowly. The ceiling is still wrong, but the memory isn’t.

And for the first time, he finds himself hoping something he doesn’t fully understand will happen again. He wants to see her. Even if he doesn’t know her, because somehow, it already feels like he does. The afternoon drags in a way Steve doesn’t have a word for yet. Not slow exactly, more like stretched, or dragging. Like time itself is trying to decide whether it wants to stay or go on.

The house is quieter now that the babysitter has taken over the space his mother was filling earlier. Steve can hear her moving around downstairs, the radio turned on low, footsteps careful, the occasional clink of something in the kitchen, but none of it feels like it belongs to him.

He sits on the edge of his bed with his shoes still half on. The dream won’t leave him. Not the race. Not the crowd. Not the way you looked when you turned, like you already knew something important about him. Steve frowns slightly, because he doesn’t know what that means. He just knows it makes his chest feel warm and strange at the same time.

Downstairs, the babysitter calls something out, probably his name, but it doesn’t fully register for him. He answers anyway, just loud enough that it counts. “Yeah?”

“Dinner in a bit!”

“Okay!”

Normal words, it was a normal day. But nothing about him feels normal right now.

Later, when the sky starts shifting toward late afternoon gold, Steve finds himself outside again. The older boy is there, leaning on his bike like it’s the only thing in the world that belongs to him, and only him. “You coming back out tomorrow?” the boy asks. 

Steve hesitates, not sure. Then nods. “Yeah.”

“Good,” the boy says. “You were almost not terrible today.” 

Steve narrows his eyes. “C’mon, I was pretty good.”

“You crashed into a bush.”

“After I rode.”

“Barely.”

Steve opens his mouth to argue, then stops himself, because arguing feels less important than it should. Instead, he glances down the street. At nothing in particular, also at everything. “I had a weird dream,” he says finally. 

The older boy shrugs. “Yeah, everyone does.”

Steve considers that. “I think it was important.” That makes the boy actually look at him. “Important how?” Steve opens his mouth, closes it again. He doesn’t have the words to describe it, not yet. So he just says, “I don’t know.” The boy accepts that easily, like it’s a normal answer. “Yeah,” he says, nodding down at Steve. “That happens sometimes.”

Dinner is whatever it usually is with his babysitters.

Steve sits at the table while the babysitter moves between rooms, looking for something to entertain herself. She asks him about his day without really waiting for answers.

His father isn’t there and Steve doesn’t ask where he is. He has learned that questions like that don’t go anywhere useful. Instead, he eats quietly and carefully, like being unnoticed is a skill he’s practicing.

Steve goes upstairs early. Earlier than he needs to. Earlier than anyone suggests.

He sits on his bed. And for a while, he just listens to the house. Listens in the quiet, to the faint, distant sound of a television downstairs.

And then, without even meaning to, he starts thinking about you again. The girl from the dream. The runner. The one who turned at the end like she knew he was there.

Steve swings his legs slightly. Back and forth, again and again. “I wonder who you are,” he says quietly. No one answers and he wasn’t expecting anyone to. Still, the silence feels heavier after he speaks, like he admitted something he should’ve kept a secret.

He lies down slowly. The ceiling above him is the same as it always is. But tonight, it feels different. Less solid. Like something else might be waiting just beyond it.

Steve closes his eyes. At first, nothing happens. Just darkness. Then the track returns. The sound of cheering. The warm sunlight.

He exhales without realizing he was holding his breath. And there you are again. Not just as his memory, not as something fading or passing by, but as something continuing. You’re sitting down somewhere this time. Not running, just talking to someone he can’t see. Laughing at something he can’t hear.

Steve sits down beside you in the dream without thinking about it. Like it’s the most natural thing in the world.

“Hey,” he says. 

You turn toward him and smile. It’s a small smile, simple. But it hits him in a way he doesn’t understand yet. 

“Hi,” you say. 

And just like that, the day makes sense again. Even if he doesn’t know why.

When Steve wakes up again, it’s darker outside. The house has shifted into its nighttime quiet, the kind that feels deeper than daytime silence, like everything and everyone’s agreed to stop.

He lies still for a long time, just staring up at the ceiling. Trying to decide what part of the dream was real enough to matter. He doesn’t have a name for what he feels. He just knows he wants it again. Not the race, not the crowd, not even the running, just you.

Downstairs, the babysitter has turned off the television, the house settling down. And somewhere a clock keeps time in the dark.

Steve turns onto his side, pulling the blanket up a little higher, and closes his eyes again. Not because he’s tired, but because sleep feels like the only place something important might still be waiting for him.

And he doesn’t want to miss it. 

He doesn’t want to miss you.

taglist:

it had snuck up on him somehow.

one day he was settling into the routine of being coach harrington, and the next he was wondering how he'd managed to blink and spend years there.

he loved his job. genuinely.

he loved the kids, even when they drove him up the wall. he loved watching the quiet ones come out of their shells, loved seeing the loud ones finally figure out who they wanted to be. he loved friday games, the stupid jokes in the locker room with the kids, the awkward health class questions that somehow always ended with half the room laughing and the other half wishing the floor would swallow them whole.

teaching sex ed had definitely never been what he'd pictured himself doing, but somewhere along the line he'd realised he was actually pretty good at it. if it meant some kid walked away feeling a little less embarrassed or a little more informed, then that was enough for him.

the rest of the staff were... alright. some were better than others, naturally, but they made decent company in the break room between classes. it was comfortable. familiar.

maybe that was the problem.

because lately, steve couldn't shake the feeling that he'd stopped moving.

everyone else seemed to be going somewhere. every year another class graduated and disappeared into the world. teachers he'd started alongside were retiring or transferring to bigger schools. robin had somehow found herself exactly where she belonged, and the rest of his friends had scattered across the country, building careers, relationships, lives.

they were all growing.

moving.

and steve...

steve was still unlocking the same gym every morning.

it was strange because, for the longest time, this had been enough. hell, he'd worked hard to get here. after everything that had happened in hawkins, after monsters and nightmares and fighting things no one should've ever had to believe existed, a normal life had sounded perfect.

and it had been.

for a while.

but now, every time someone called him "coach harrington," something in him hesitated.

it didn't feel wrong.

it just... didn't feel like forever.

which was ironic, really.

if you'd asked him ten years ago what kind of job old steve harrington would have, coaching would've probably been somewhere near the top of the list. in his mind it was a very old man kind of job. stable. predictable. something you settled into after you'd figured everything else out.

except the older he actually got, the less he felt settled.

he felt stuck.

he didn't know what "it" was, the thing he was apparently supposed to be searching for, but he knew, somehow, that this wasn't it.

so he did something incredibly irresponsible.

he handed in his two weeks' notice.

no backup plan, no new job lined up, no clue what came next. just a resignation letter and a stomach full of equal parts excitement and absolute terror.

looking back, maybe it was stupid.

or maybe he'd earned one impulsive decision.

he'd spent most of his teenage years, and what should've been his college years, fighting monsters from another dimension. he'd learned, over and over again, that life could end far sooner than anyone expected. that waiting for the "right time" wasn't always an option.

so...

why not?

it wasn't like he had a wife waiting at home. no kids depending on him. no mortgage tying him down. despite the fact he complained to himself about still being painfully single more often than he'd ever admit out loud, there wasn't anything stopping him from trying.

for once, he could choose something simply because he wanted to.

when the two weeks finally came to an end, steve packed the last box out of his office, handed over his keys, and walked out of the school with no destination in mind.

he wasn't entirely sure what he was looking for, honestly he still had no idea, but for the first time in a long while, he felt like he was moving again.

and somehow, that was enough to make him believe he'd find whatever it was along the way.

-

the first thing steve did was take a road trip.

it felt right.

if he was going to quit his job on a whim with absolutely no idea what came next, then he figured the only logical thing to do was get in his beloved beamer, throw a duffel bag in the back seat, and start driving.

"setting sail" he'd proudly announced to robin over the phone.

"steve, you're in a bmw."

"metaphorically setting sail."

she'd sighed so dramatically he could practically picture her pinching the bridge of her nose.

"just... don't die."

he'd laughed, promised he'd try not to, and hung up.

truthfully, he still didn't have a destination in mind. he was just following whichever roads looked the most interesting, windows down despite the wind tangling his hair into a complete mess, music playing loud enough to drown out the part of his brain asking what the hell he thought he was doing.

he kept telling himself something would fall into his lap eventually.

he just hadn't expected it to happen quite the way it did.

a few hours into the drive, with his fuel gauge sitting at a level that could only be described as concerning, he rolled into a small town resting against the shores of lake michigan.

he'd never heard of it before.

then again, steve had never exactly excelled at geography.

he pulled into the first gas station he saw, filled the tank, and wandered inside to pay.

the poor college kid behind the till looked half asleep.

steve, for reasons he couldn't explain, was in one of those annoyingly good moods that made him want to talk to everyone.

he complimented the guy's t-shirt, asked how his day was going, somehow ended up hearing about a statistics exam he'd failed that morning, wished him luck on the retake, and left with a bottle of water and enough enthusiasm to probably make the guy question his sanity.

after that he drove around until he found a motel.

it wasn't nice, it wasn't clean, but it was cheap, and at this point that felt like a more important quality.

he dumped his bag in the room, stared at the floral wallpaper that looked older than he was, decided he'd survived worse accommodations than this, and headed back outside.

he walked. and walked. and walked some more.

every shop he passed, he went into. every building with an open sign became another excuse to wander inside.

he wasn't looking for anything specific.

just... something.

whatever something was.

he ended up buying a book from a tiny bookstore despite the fact he didn't actually read books.

he wasn't entirely sure why he'd bought it. the owner had seemed nice, that was about as much reasoning as he'd managed.

after another hour or so of aimless wandering, he found himself standing outside a small local museum.

normally he would've kept walking.

museums weren't exactly his thing. they ranked somewhere between watching paint dry and listening to ted explain the rules of chess for fun.

but today was supposed to be about trying new things.

so he shrugged and stepped inside.

turns out...

it was pretty boring.

there were old photographs, faded maps, model boats, actual boat parts, and enough information about shipping routes to make his eyes glaze over.

he wasn't entirely sure what half of it even was.

he wandered around looking vaguely confused, reading little plaques without actually absorbing a single word, until a voice interrupted his increasingly lost expression.

"first time here?"

he looked up.

and then...

he forgot what he'd been looking at entirely.

you stood a few feet away, offering him an easy smile that somehow made the slightly dusty museum feel a little brighter.

you introduced yourself, explaining that you worked there.

"so..." steve said after another minute of pretending to inspect an ancient anchor. "don't take this the wrong way..."

"that's never a good start."

"...this place is kinda boring."

instead of looking offended, you laughed. an actual laugh.

"you're not wrong."

he blinked.

"...i'm not?"

"honestly?" you admitted, lowering your voice conspiratorially. "i still don't know half this boat stuff."

that made him laugh.

you explained that you'd only ended up in town yourself a while back, completely by chance. you'd become friends with the elderly curator after stopping by one afternoon, and somehow that friendship had turned into a job.

"he offered me decent pay," you said with a shrug. "the old people who visit are lovely, i get nice views every day, and i mostly just smile and point at boats."

"living the dream."

"exactly."

before either of you really realised it, you were walking through the museum together.

officially, you were supposed to be explaining the exhibits.

in reality, the exhibits became background decoration.

instead you talked.

about why he'd come to town. about why you'd stayed. about moving somewhere new because you couldn't shake the feeling there had to be more waiting for you somewhere else.

about jobs. about childhood. about favourite movies. about the terrifying concept of becoming an actual adult.

every now and then one of you would remember you were technically in a museum.

you'd point at something hanging on a wall.

"that's... a boat thing."

steve would nod seriously.

"very informative."

then you'd both laugh and carry on talking.

by the time you'd wandered through the outside exhibits overlooking the lake, he'd learned more about you than he'd expected to learn about anyone in a single afternoon.

you'd learned about him too.

not everything, but enough.

enough that conversation never felt forced. enough that silences weren't awkward. enough that, when you glanced at your watch and sighed quietly, steve's stomach sank.

"shift's over" you said.

"already?"

"afraid so."

he tried not to look quite as disappointed as he felt.

tried.

failed miserably.

"well..." he rubbed the back of his neck, suddenly forgetting every smooth thing he'd ever said to a woman in his entire life. "this is probably... weird."

"probably."

"but you're obviously an expert on..." he gestured vaguely behind him. "...boats."

you laughed. "a world-renowned expert."

"clearly."

he smiled, looking down at the ground for a second before forcing himself to meet your eyes again.

"would you maybe... wanna be my tour guide tomorrow?"

there was a beat of silence.

"for the town," he added quickly. "not just more boats."

you pretended to think about it. "hmm."

"i'm willing to pay."

"tempting."

"or buy lunch."

"more tempting."

you smiled. "alright."

his face lit up instantly. "really?"

"really."

"i promise i'm less awkward after the first day."

"i somehow doubt that."

"...that's fair."

you laughed again before giving him a time and place to meet you the following morning.

steve walked back to the motel with the biggest smile he'd worn in years.

the room was still awful. the wallpaper was still hideous. the mattress still squeaked every time he sat down.

he didn't care.

there was something waiting for him tomorrow.

he wasn't entirely sure why meeting you had sparked something inside him. hope, maybe. whatever it was, he hadn't felt it in a very long time.

and as he lay staring at the stained motel ceiling that night, he couldn't help wondering if he'd ended up in this tiny lakeside town for a reason.

he had a feeling he might be staying a little longer than he'd planned.

-

the next day with you was, in steve’s entirely biased opinion, one of the best days he’d had in years.

he woke up stupidly early in that motel room, heart already doing something embarrassingly cheerful in his chest before he’d even fully opened his eyes. for a few confused seconds, he forgot where he was. forgot about the peeling wallpaper, the lumpy bed, the thin curtains doing a terrible job of blocking out the morning light.

then the memory of meeting you hit him all at once and he smiled into the pillow like an idiot.

he spent an unreasonable amount of time getting ready for someone who was, technically, only a tour guide.

when he finally met you outside, you were already waiting with that same easy smile, and the second you looked at him like you were genuinely happy he’d shown up, something warm and bright settled in his chest and stayed there.

from there, it was all so simple that it somehow felt rare.

you wandered through the town together, your pace unhurried, your conversation wandering just as much as your feet. you pointed out little things he would have missed on his own, the sort of details that made the place feel less like a stopover and more like somewhere that had a pulse.

you bought sandwiches from a tiny deli you swore, very seriously, were the best in the country, and steve believed you immediately because you looked so passionate about it that he decided not to risk arguing. then you dragged him into a thrift shop where he tried to act annoyed about it and failed, mostly because he kept finding things he secretly liked.

that was how he ended up standing at the register with a hat in his hands while you grinned at him like you’d won something.

“absolutely not” he said, even as he tried it on.

you tilted your head, pretending to judge him. “it’s good.”

“it’s ridiculous.”

“it’s good and ridiculous.”

he caught his reflection in the little cracked mirror behind the counter and, annoyingly, had to admit you were right. it fit him better than he wanted to admit.

before he could talk himself out of it, you bought it.

he stared at you, flustered. “you did not have to do that.”

“welcome gift,” you said, shrugging like it was nothing. “and good luck on your journey.”

he laughed softly, still looking at the hat like he couldn’t quite believe it.

“you know,” he said, glancing at you, “you keep talking about my journey like i’m about to go find myself on a mountain somewhere.”

“aren’t you?”

“no.”

“pity. i had a whole speech prepared.”

he shook his head, smiling despite himself, and followed you out toward the lake after that, the hat tucked under his arm until you convinced him to wear it properly.

by the time you reached the water, the day had turned almost painfully beautiful.

the sun was warm but not harsh, the lake glittering in broad bright stretches, and the air had that soft, clean smell that only came from being near water.

there were people scattered along the shore and farther out, a handful of swimmers cutting through the surface, a few families lingering with towels and coolers and the kind of easy contentment that made steve feel oddly like he was peeking into a life he didn’t know he’d wanted.

you led him to a little rocky ledge tucked slightly away from the busiest part of the shore, where the stone dipped just enough to let you sit with your feet in the water.

he followed you carefully over the rocks, muttering under his breath when he nearly lost his balance, and you laughed so hard at his face that he had to pretend not to be offended.

“i’m just saying,” he said once you’d both settled, legs dangling over the edge, “this is a very unfair surface.”

“you’re being dramatic.”

“i’m being safe.”

“you nearly fell on your ass.”

“nearly is the key word.”

you snorted, and he leaned back on his hands, the sunlight turning the edges of your face soft and golden.

for a second, he just looked at you, and the thought that followed was so immediate and so sincere it almost startled him.

you were beautiful.

not in some loud, obvious way that demanded attention. just in the quiet, impossible way that made him want to keep looking. to memorise the exact shape of your smile. the way your eyes crinkled when you laughed. the way you talked with your hands when you were excited. the way you seemed fully, effortlessly alive.

he looked away before he made it obvious, clearing his throat.

“can i tell you something kind of pathetic?”

“that depends,” you said. “how pathetic are we talking?”

“pretty pathetic.”

“go on then.”

he stared out at the water for a second, watching the light flicker across the surface before he answered.

“i think i’m scared i still haven’t figured out what i’m supposed to do.”

the words came out smaller than he meant them to, but not weak. just honest.

you were quiet for a moment, not in the uncomfortable way, just in the way people got when they were actually listening.

then you looked at him and said, “steve, you got in your car and left because you knew you were stuck. most people don’t even get that far.”

he glanced at you.

you shrugged, feet swaying slightly in the water. “most people spend their whole lives feeling like something’s off and never do anything about it. they sit with it. they let it become normal. you didn’t.”

something in his chest shifted.

he let out a slow breath, watching the water lap against the rocks.

“still feels like i should know by now.”

“why?”

“because everyone else seems to.”

you smiled a little then, soft and almost sad in a way that made him want to lean closer.

“they don’t,” you said. “they just get better at pretending.”

he went quiet.

“besides,” you added, nudging his knee with yours, “being stuck doesn’t mean you’re failing. it just means you’re still in the middle of figuring it out.”

he turned that over in his head.

it was such a simple thing to say, but it landed like truth.

he thought about hawkins then, about all the times he’d been so sure everyone else had some invisible map and he’d somehow missed the part where they handed it out. he thought about how easy it was to assume other people had answers just because they looked less lost.

and then he looked at you.

you, who had also come here on a whim. you, who had apparently arrived in this town looking for something and still hadn’t quite found it. you, who sat beside him on a rock with your feet in the lake and somehow seemed more certain of yourself than half the people he’d known his whole life.

“yeah,” he said quietly. “i guess you’d know.”

you raised an eyebrow. “that sounds suspiciously like a compliment.”

“it is.”

“wow.”

he smiled. “you’re weirdly one of the best people i’ve ever met.”

that made you laugh, bright and surprised.

“you’ve known me for, what, a day?”

“still counts.”

“that’s absurd.”

“maybe,” he said, bumping his shoulder lightly against yours, “but i’m a man of deep and careful judgment.”

“you bought a book yesterday even though you don’t read.”

“that was one time.”

you laughed again, and he decided right then and there that your laugh was one of his favorite sounds in the world, which felt wildly unfair considering how short a time he’d known you.

after that, the two of you became nearly inseparable.

steve found a part time temp job at a corner store a few streets over, mostly to help cover the motel and buy himself a little more time in town. he expected it to be miserable. instead, it turned out to be tolerable in that strangely comforting way life sometimes was when he stopped trying to control every part of it.

the motel clerk, a woman with tired eyes and a permanently unimpressed expression, somehow became one of the first people in town to make him feel vaguely at home.

she offered him a questionable cigarette every time he walked by the front desk, and he always declined, and she always looked vaguely offended by his refusal.

somehow that turned into a routine, and somewhere between the deadpan exchanges and her occasional snide comments about the quality of the town’s plumbing, they developed a sort of friendship. or at least something adjacent to one.

and you.

he spent as much time with you as he possibly could.

on his breaks, on your breaks, after shifts, on weekends, in the gaps between whatever tiny obligations the town demanded of either of you. you showed him the local diner that had the best pie and the worst coffee. he showed you how he could win any game of stupid trivia if the questions were about obscure movies, bad pop music, or useless sports facts. you took him to places tourists probably never bothered with, and he took you on walks just because he liked hearing you talk while the two of you wandered aimlessly under the open sky.

the more time he spent with you, the less he thought about hawkins.

not completely. never completely.

he still called robin and dustin almost every day, and the others whenever they had time. he still got texts from his neighbor back home complaining about a package left outside his apartment door or some letter that needed to be collected, and those reminders were enough to keep the existence of his old life from dissolving entirely. it didn’t disappear.

it just stopped feeling like the center of everything.

at first, he told himself he would leave next week.

then next week turned into another week.

and then another.

every time the thought of going back started poking at him, he’d picture your face and feel something in his chest drag warm and heavy and reluctant in the direction of staying.

so he extended his trip.

then extended it again.

and somewhere along the way, the excuses got less convincing.

he wasn’t fooling himself.

he knew exactly why he was still there.

and when he finally found the nerve to make your outings official dates, he nearly talked himself out of it three separate times before he actually asked. but you’d looked at him like he was the only person in the room and smiled that little smile of yours, and suddenly the word date felt less terrifying and more like the beginning of something he’d been trying not to hope for.

the kiss happened a little later than he wanted it to, which felt very rude of the universe, but when it finally did, he was absolutely done for.

it happened one evening by the water after the town had gone quiet and everything about it felt too perfect to be real.

he’d been talking about nothing and everything at once, one hand in his pocket, the other brushing against yours as you stood shoulder to shoulder. then you looked at him in that way you did sometimes, like you were waiting without pressure, and his nerves finally gave way to instinct.

he kissed you.

you kissed him back.

and then, because apparently his life enjoyed making him feel like he was seventeen again and hopelessly undone, he realised he had no idea how he was supposed to act normal after that.

he tried.

he failed.

spectacularly.

after that, it was impossible not to see that he’d become attached to the town, but not really to the town itself.

to you.

to the way your smile made the whole day feel softer. to the way your hand fit in his like it had been meant to be there all along. to the way you listened. to the way you made him feel like every ridiculous, tender, hopeful part of him was allowed to exist without apology. to the way he wanted to know everything about you. to the way he wanted you to know everything about him.

he tried, once, to tell you the truth about hawkins.

not all of it at first. just enough.

the things under the ground, the things in the dark, the way all of it had changed him.

he expected disbelief. maybe awkward laughter. maybe concern so sharp it would make him wish he’d never said anything.

instead, you just listened.

really listened.

your expression shifted, sure, but not into mockery. not into pity. just into something thoughtful.

and that frightened him more than laughter would have.

because no one outside the group had ever looked at him like that and seemed to believe him.

he didn’t want you in that world.

he didn’t want those monsters anywhere near you, anywhere near the soft little life you seemed to be building for yourself here. so he cut the story short. gave you the one demogorgon encounter, flattened the edges, and lied that he’d been drunk that night, just to make it sound more impossible.

he didn’t know why he lied.

maybe because if he told you the whole truth, it would become real again in a way he didn’t want.

maybe because you’d looked so calm and so unafraid that he suddenly wanted to protect that in you, even if it meant hiding parts of himself.

whatever the reason, you didn’t push.

you didn’t ask again.

and after that, the subject never came up between you.

he talked about the rest though.

about robin and dustin. about nancy and jonathan and the weird, chaotic, impossible little family he’d ended up with.

about how he sometimes missed everyone so much it felt like an ache he kept under his ribs.

and once, while he was mid-rant about some ridiculous thing dustin had done, he suddenly realised he’d been talking for far too long.

he stopped, embarrassed, ready to apologise for rambling.

but when he looked at you, you were smiling.

not politely. genuinely.

and you nodded, encouraging him to continue.

so he did.

because no one had really done that before. no one had ever wanted to hear him talk about the stupid stuff. about the little details. about the people he loved. about all the mess and noise of his life back home.

you did.

and every time you listened like that, something in him settled deeper.

the days passed.

then weeks.

and eventually, steve ended up unofficially staying at your apartment.

the motel room sat mostly untouched by then, his things slowly migrating across town until there wasn’t much left to bring back each night. the apartment was cozier, lived-in in a way that made the motel feel like a place he had merely passed through. it became normal to leave his shoes by your door, to find his toothbrush next to yours, to fall asleep on your couch half-watching whatever movie was playing and wake up with you curled against him like it was the most natural thing in the world.

you both claimed it was practical.

you said it saved him money, he said it made more sense than the motel.

which was true, technically.

but both of you knew, quietly and without needing to say it, that there was more to it than that.

neither of you wanted to lose the time you had left.

because by then, steve had started to understand something that scared him just a little.

it wasn’t just that he was falling for you, he already had, it was that being with you made staying feel less like a pause and more like a life.

and for someone who had spent so long feeling as if he was waiting to begin, that meant everything.

he still didn’t know what “it” was. that elusive thing he’d been chasing when he first left hawkins behind. the thing that had felt missing for so long.

but now, with your hand in his and your laugh in his ears and your apartment becoming the place he returned to every night, he was starting to think maybe the answer wasn’t some grand revelation after all.

maybe it was this.

maybe it was a town on the coast of lake michigan. maybe it was a thrift store hat and a sandwich you swore was the best in the country. maybe it was a museum he’d thought was boring until you walked up and changed everything. maybe it was the way you made a life out of small, ordinary things. maybe it was the way you looked at him like he was worth staying for.

and maybe, just maybe, steve harrington had finally stumbled into the place where he was supposed to be, even if he’d found it by accident.

-

you and steve still weren’t official, not really, but by then it didn’t feel like it mattered much in the usual sense.

you had both settled into something quiet and comfortable and so constant that it was starting to look suspiciously like a relationship anyway.

it was in the way he came back to your place without thinking twice. in the way you left a space for him on the couch. in the way his toothbrush lived beside yours and his jacket ended up on your chair and neither of you ever seemed to question it. you weren’t seeing anyone else. he knew that, and he was pretty sure you knew that too. there was no point pretending otherwise. whatever this was, it had long since become more than a passing thing.

and then, eventually, the temp role at his job ran out.

the end of it had been sitting in the back of his mind for weeks, a little quiet dread he kept trying to ignore. but time, annoyingly, had a way of moving forward whether he was ready or not, and suddenly the inevitable was standing right in front of him.

it was time to go back home.

or it should have been, anyway.

the two of you spent days in bed after that, as if neither of you wanted to say the words out loud where they could become real.

you talked for hours with your legs tangled together and your voices soft from lack of sleep. you talked about how much you would miss each other, like saying it enough times might make it hurt less. you promised to keep in touch. to call. to text. to make it work. you made plans that felt flimsy and hopeful and impossible all at once.

and yet, even while he said all the right things, steve could feel something in him resisting.

the thought of leaving made his chest feel tight in a way that had nothing to do with nerves.

because the longer he lay there beside you, the more obvious it became that he didn’t want to go.

and more than that, he didn’t have to.

so when you were at work one afternoon, steve spent the first proper day to himself in a while. no company. no distractions. no easy excuses. just him and his thoughts and a whole lot of silence.

he ended up on a random bench somewhere near the water, staring out at nothing in particular while his mind spun in circles.

he had left hawkins because he was searching for something.

he’d come here on a whim, with no real plan, and somehow landed exactly where he was supposed to be. first try. no detours that mattered. no dead ends. just this town and this life and you.

surely that was too good to be true, right?

surely he wasn’t supposed to believe the universe handed him the answer that easily.

but maybe that was exactly what had happened.

maybe you weren’t too good to be true, maybe you were just good.

maybe that was all there was to it. maybe after everything he’d been through, the universe had finally decided to stop fighting him for five damn seconds. maybe the fact that both of you had spent so long feeling uncertain about who you were supposed to be had pulled you together in the first place, like two missing pieces of something neither of you could name until you fit.

he sat with that thought for a long time.

long enough for the afternoon to shift. long enough for the sky to change. long enough for the answer to settle into him with a kind of calm certainty he hadn’t felt in years.

he wasn’t going back.

or rather, he wasn’t going back now.

not because hawkins was wrong, exactly. not because he didn’t love the people there, or because he had nothing left behind him. but because for the first time, he had something in front of him that felt real enough to stay for.

and it was you.

so he stood up, brushed off his jeans, and headed straight to the museum.

he waited outside for all of five minutes before your shift ended, and when you stepped out and spotted him leaning against the wall with that familiar look on his face, you stopped short.

then your expression softened into a pleasantly surprised smile, and you made your way over to him like you’d been looking for him too.

“hi” you said, already smiling.

“hey.”

“you’re here.”

he shrugged a little, trying and failing to seem casual. “couldn’t wait to see you.”

that made you laugh, quiet and warm, and the sound eased something in his chest before either of you had even started walking.

the two of you got ice cream on the way home, because steve insisted it was necessary and because you humored him the way you always did when he got a little too earnest about something pointless. the walk back was slow and easy, your shoulders brushing now and then, the kind of ordinary moment that somehow felt enormous to him.

he looked at you beside him and felt it again, that strange and certain sense of rightness.

not because the town itself had become important. not because the museum or the shops or the lake had suddenly turned magical.

just because you were there.

and somehow that was enough to make him feel like he belonged.

that night, the two of you ended up on the couch together, as usual, the apartment quiet around you except for the low murmur of some movie neither of you was really watching. steve kept glancing at you out of the corner of his eye, his nerves building in that familiar frustrating way that always showed up when he had something important to say.

you noticed, of course. you always noticed.

eventually you turned your head and gave him a look. “what?”

he exhaled through his nose, almost laughing at himself. “can i ask you something?”

you arched a brow. “that sounds dramatic.”

“i’m being serious.”

“that’s worse.”

he groaned under his breath, then sat up a little straighter, suddenly aware of how fast his heart was beating.

“okay,” he said, “i know we’ve kind of... already been doing this.”

you smiled faintly, waiting.

“but i was wondering,” he continued, “if you’d maybe let me be yours. officially.”

you stared at him for a second.

then you gave him this skeptical look that made him immediately worry he’d misread everything for the last several weeks.

and then you smiled.

big and bright and impossible.

before he could even process it, you’d climbed straight into his lap, hands framing his face as you kissed him with the kind of certainty that made his whole body go warm and loose all at once.

when you finally pulled back, he was pretty sure he had forgotten how to breathe.

“yes” you said, voice soft and amused.

he blinked at you. “yes?”

“yes, steve.”

he laughed, half in relief and half in disbelief, his hands settling carefully at your waist like he was still trying to convince himself you were real.

“good” he muttered.

you smiled against his mouth again before kissing him once more, slower this time, and when you finally rested your forehead against his, he felt something in him settle so completely it almost hurt.

that was when he said it.

the truth, quietly, like it was the most important thing he’d ever admitted.

“i found what i was looking for here.”

you went still, just enough for him to feel it.

he swallowed once, then corrected himself with a small, helpless smile. “not here. just... with you.”

for a second, you didn’t say anything then you kissed him again, soft and sure, and when you pulled back this time your forehead stayed pressed to his.

“good” you whispered, and there was something almost shaking in the way you smiled. “because i was really hoping you were going to say that. otherwise i was about to pack up and follow you back to hawkins.”

he barked out a laugh, startled and delighted all at once. “you’d do that?”

“i’m being romantic.”

he laughed harder then, the sound breaking something open in both of you, and soon you were laughing too, your hands still on his face like you couldn’t quite let go.

then, slowly, the laughter faded into something softer.

something calmer.

you shifted against him and the two of you curled together on the couch, wrapped up in each other in that natural, inevitable way that made it feel like you had always belonged there.

the tv kept murmuring in the background.

the apartment stayed warm and quiet around you.

and for the first time since leaving hawkins, steve didn’t feel like he was waiting for his life to begin.

it was already happening.

you both fell asleep like that, tangled together and still smiling a little even in your sleep, with one thing settled between you without needing to be said again.

you would figure it out together.

it didn’t matter if he stayed here and got a permanent job at the store, or sold his apartment back in hawkins and made this place home, or went back someday and found something different there, or ended up somewhere entirely new.

none of that mattered as much as this did.

because with you by his side, steve felt sure he could handle whatever came next.

that was what he had been searching for all this time.

not some perfect answer. not a map. not a life already planned out.

just someone to manage it all with.

and somehow, impossibly, he had found that in you.

-

“Please,” you whined, and he resumed his motions, elbows digging into the bed on either side of you, his lips finding yours again as you met each of his hearty thrusts with your own, the smack of his heavy balls on your ass making you whimper at the feeling of it, of him. “Oh, god一” you half-cried, grasping at his back, fingernails digging half-moons into his skin, and again, he stopped.

“You ok?”

He wasn’t usually like this一it was sweet, that he kept checking on you, but you wondered what was so different about this time.

“Why do you keep asking?” you questioned, not angrily, just curious, and since he’d stopped moving anyway, you had a moment.

“You一just got back,” Steve said, referencing the three-week long business trip you’d needed to take, because your firm was acquiring another, smaller one, and as named partner you’d needed to be there for every step.

“Yes, and I missed my husband, so一?”

“I just thought一you might need to… get used to me again. After three weeks.”

Your face burned, because yes. You and Steve had a very healthy sex life. You couldn’t remember the last time you’d gone three weeks without fucking him. Probably before you’d met him.

“I don’t think I could ever forget,” you said, drawing him down to you with both hands on his cheeks, pulling his lips to yours. “Don’t you always say I feel like I was made for you?”

It was Steve’s turn to redden, the bashful smile flickering onto his lips and just as quickly disappearing. “You do,” Steve said, shifting his hips, burying his cock into you to the hilt, and then leaning against you even further. “You were.”

You bit at his lower lip, sucking it into your mouth as he kissed your upper lip, and you spread your legs as far as you could for him, giving him all the room he needed.

He met your eyes as you spoke. “Then prove it.”

There was a short, blink of a moment before he moved, and when he started up again, it was with abandon this time. He eased out of you before bullying his massive cock right back into you, feeling you stretch around him, feeling the give of your walls as he thrust in, over and over, hitting all of the right spots because he was so big he simply couldn’t not, and as the sound of skin on skin reached your ears, you moaned his name into his mouth, your hands clutching his arms as he rode you, drilling you down into the bed, your arousal leaking from your slit around his cock, staining your legs, his legs, the wet spot on your bed growing the longer he pounded into you. You could feel yourself dripping, hear the wet squelch of his cock entering you, then leaving you, then entering you, leaving, and at the moment your body gave a kick, so did his.

“Feel you,” Steve mumbled into your ear. “Feel me?” he asked.

“Feel you everywhere,” you mewled”, gasping out your next words. “You were made for一for me too一”

“Prove it,” he said again, and reached a hand down between your bodies, his fingertips spreading over your creamy skin, the ample slick coating your hot folds enough to have you bucking up into him, chasing your release.

“Steve一” you choked out, your body a tight coil, poised to snap, an electrified wire snapping this way and that, until一

“Prove it,” Steve nearly hissed at you, his voice low, thin, and you felt his cock twitch inside of you once, twice.

“God一Steve, I’m coming, I’m一please一”

His mouth found yours, taking your lips in a searing kiss as you felt yourself let go, felt your body crackle with lightning beneath him as he snapped too, his arousal unfurling against yours, bodies writhing together, twisting the sheets, your cunt spasming around his length as he filled you so copiously that you felt it forced out of you as Steve drove his cock shallowly into you a few more times.

Steve strolls over to the junky ladder and heaves it back onto its feet, it stays upright for all of two seconds before turning boneless and dropping dead with a clatter and a bounce. 

''Well,'' Steve purses his lips. Hands on his hips as he cranes his neck to look at you, his eyes are huge from this angle, soft and amused and he's trying very hard not to laugh. ''Guess you live in there now.''

This game happens to be one of your favourites, ''Can you toss me a pillow and my walkman, maybe you can head to the store and get me a mini fridge!''

''No, are you kidding? I'll cook and send your meals up on a pulley system.'' 

You chuckle, pressing a hand to your chest, ''Right, my bad, didn't mean to doubt your commitment.''

He tuts. Steve prowls the living room, looking for anything you can stand on to be freed. You hook your elbows over the attic frame and watch him, the show giving you some respite from the thought of the dirt clinging to your arms. His search comes up empty.

''I'd kiss you if I weren't being held prisoner by the house.''

You know without a shadow of a doubt he's gonna figure it out, you'll be down by dinner, but it wouldn't kill him to hurry it along, every spec of dust that moves near you has you in a slight panic that a spider is coming straight for its dinner.

The corner of his mouth lifts, ''I'm about to call 911 babe, forget you, I'm gonna die if I don't get my kiss.'' Steve says. He's started to notice the strewn around jack o lanterns and pieces of your favourite skeleton littering your living room. 

Steve bends and picks up a bony arm. 

''The hell is Dustin Jr doing out here?'' he asks. 

Dustin jr was the very first Halloween decoration you ever bought for your joint home. He earned his name after the real Dustin pissed you off at game night, to this day you know you did not deserve that negative 3 points, you still bubble with rage thinking about it now. You'd said he was dead meat, the next time he came to the house his skeleton counterpart stood outside with one of his shirts on and a cap that said 'I AM STUPID' in your rushed handwriting covering its head. 

''I'm decorating!'' you shout. 

Steve looks around, monster mash is playing from your tape deck on the kitchen counter top. ''It's July.''

''I'm in a Halloween mood, if I don't make this place look the part I might cry Steve.''

''Can't have that, can we,'' Steve says, putting Dustin jr back together, joint by joint. He mutters a curse under his breath when one of the legs doesn't feel like cooperating. 

''Here,'' you say, ''Come get this.''

You shuffle backwards further into the attic and reemerge with a slightly crushed cardboard box of decorations you weren't brave enough to catapult. 

Steve pushes onto the balls of his feet, reaching for the box. God, if you were on the floor right now you know you'd have a front row seat to his shirt coming just up enough to see a sliver of his tummy. You'll mourn the loss of that perfect view for the rest of your life. 

''You've gotta jump, honey.''

''What, to my death?''

Steve's laugh might truly be the best sound you've ever heard. It's hearty and sweet and it makes your cheeks feel warm and your stomach gets all fluttery with delight. You squirm at the sensation of it each time. 

''C'mon, it's not that far a drop. Besides I'm gonna catch you,'' he opens his arms up and wide, feet shoulders apart ready and willing. 

The prospect of leaping into Steve's arms is equal parts terrifying as it is dreamy. You look at Dustin jr, newly assembled on the carpet and count every bone you could break in your flight, you actually quite like having them all intact and solid, and even though it's October in your head, it is still blistering heat outside in Hawkins. A bulky cast won't look cute with your new bathing suit at all. The community pool lifeguards made you wait outside the fence for 45 minutes after you ate an ice pop once, there's a slim to none chance they'd even let you look at the pool with so much as a chipped toe nail. 

''We're over if you drop me.''

''You're gonna have so much lift you'll look like that girl from dirty dancing,'' he says.

''Baby,'' you tell him.

His face melts, ''Yes?''

''No, you loser, the girl from dirty dancing,'' you say, ''Her name is Baby.''

''It is? That's dumb.'' he pouts. 

You open your mouth to complain, unleash fury onto him, you cannot let him get away with slandering dirty dancing in any kind of way.

He cuts you off before you can even try, ''Complain down here. Jump.''

You swing a cautious leg over the lip of the entrance, ''You promise you're gonna catch me.''

''This may be shocking to you, but I really don't wanna watch my girlfriend break her neck. Yes, I'm gonna catch you.'' 

He extends his arms a little higher, you drag in a long breath for courage and drop straight into his arms. You land with a startled oof, but you're in no danger of splatting to the floor. You wrap your arms around Steve's neck, hanging onto him though you're back within a normal distance to the ground, ''My hero!'' his cheek flushes pink under your smooch. 

He spins you around in his hold and you squeal into his shoulder before he sets your socked feet onto the carpet, you pull him down by his belt loop to the cardboard box of fall treasures, you pull out even more pumpkins, shiny ones, light up ones, a glittery one that rolls and rolls and bumps into the sofa, it leaves its trail of sparkly orange in its wake, it'll still be lingering around come Christmas, ugh. You make Steve pull out the fake cobwebs you hate to touch, a plastic spider pounces from the wad and lands near your knee. You jerk back with a gasp.

Steve lifts a brow, ''Really?''

''Hey, you do not know what I went through up there.'' You say jabbing a finger in the direction of the attic.

You reach down into the depths of the box and find pure gold, ''Oh we have to go put this up!'' In your hands is a doorbell, it is unbelievably ugly, it has a goblin's face and when the little button under him is pushed he goes crazy eyed, snaps out a purple tongue and sings a decrepit rendition of thriller. Steve eyes it with burning caution, his face devoid of all color. He hates this thing more than an extra shift at work, which he might actually pick up just to be far away if the little monster finds its way onto your door. 

''No way, last time we had this out there, its tongue hit a kid in the eye and he cried!''

''That kid was mike.''

The memory makes it impossible to hold in the laugh it conjures. Mike stood on your porch, hand clamped over one eye, Lucas and Max losing their shit behind him. He'd demanded you give him the rest of your candy and a bag of frozen peas for his freshly forming black eye. You'd told him to suck it up, honestly teenagers these days.

You hold the doorbell up by your face. ''But look at him, he's so cute!'' you're a bald face liar. 

''If you think that's cute I'm worried about why you're with me,'' Steve says, trying to untangle a string of fairy lights shaped like ghosts, he squints down at them, his tongue pressed lightly to the corner of his mouth, he's actually making the knots worse but, you won't tell him. You crawl over to where he sits and plant yourself in his lap, back against his chest, this is your favourite place to be. He presses a kiss to the crook of your neck, your shoulder, ''I missed you today.''

''Long shift?''

''No, there was just no you there.'' You could honestly eat him whole, your heart bursts with butterflies every time he says anything. 

''I love you,'' you say, turning around to kiss him all over his face, no mole or freckle is safe from your love. He squirms and laughs and runs his hands across your waist, the small of your back, up your thighs, you very nearly almost forget Halloween exists altogether, maybe they should make October thirty first Steve Harrington day! Halloween seems desperate to be your top priority though, you pull back from him mid kiss, he whimpers from the loss of you on him. 

''Watermelons! We could carve watermelons instead of pumpkins.''

''Huh?''

''Because pumpkins aren't in season yet,'' you clarify. ''But watermelons are everywhere, we can make summer jack o lanterns!''

''Where do you come up with this stuff?'' Steve says. He gazes at you totally lovesick and twirls your hair between his fingers. 

''I'm a genius I thought you knew that by now.''

''Hm, debatable, what genius gets stuck in their own attic.''

You lean in, smiling against his mouth, ''Take me to buy watermelons?''

Steve groans, but he's already reaching his keys.

''I haven't even gotten to take my shoes off.''

''Perfect, that means you're ready to go!'' you exclaim.

You kiss him, quick and persuasive. He sighs through his nose, ''Fine. Only if that goblin doorbell goes back into the attic.''

You glance toward the hideous little thing lying maliciously in the decoration pile, waiting for its next victim, no doubt. ''Deal.''

He opens the front door for you, ''You're not gonna ask me to hang up the Christmas lights next week are you?'' He asks, cradling his back that's been perpetually sore for years. 

''No,'' you laugh and take his warm hand into yours, pulling him through the door. He's such a sap, you know he'd be more than happy to string those lights up if you ask anyway.

''Think they'll have a Hawaiian shirt for Dustin Jr?'' you ask.

“What’s got ya so一fixated on my gut, anyway?” he asked, answering your question with a question, which he only did when you knew he didn’t have a good enough answer to yours.

“It’s barely a gut,” you said, “but even if it was, I’d still love it.” You smiled, lips curling against the little pooch that bulbed over the top of the elastic waistband of his boxer briefs. His cock was still stuck in the cotton, neglected and straining, desperate.

“Yeah, doubt that. Gimme a few more years drinkin’ beer ‘nd I bet ya won’t be sayin’ the same.”

“I’d love it because it’s yours,” you said, letting your lips trail over his bellybutton. He flinched away, ticklish. One of your favorite things about your husband was that for as tough as he acted before, and still now after, was that he was also beholden to the laws of being ticklish. He couldn’t help it, no one could.

“Well can ya love me a little bit lower?” Gator asked, lowering his hand to your cheek, his thumb brushing over your eyelashes, touch soft and tentative.

“In a minute,” you said, giving him a spattering of five or ten or twenty kisses, all over the slight belly he had, a couple years of living in comfort with a woman who cared about him treating him just fucking fine. (Also, the beer.)

“I’mma start countin’,” Gator said. “Sixty…”

“Enough, Tillman,” you said, sucking a bruise, you hoped, against his ribs. Even though he couldn’t see, you loved marking him with lovebites. Maybe it was a little egotistical, but knowing he belonged to you drove you crazy.

“Enough yerself,” Gator said. “‘Nd yer a Tillman now too, so that last name shit don’t work no more. Down ta forty-three, Tillman.”

You pressed your face into his stomach, knowing he could feel you smiling, because you heard him huff a little laugh.

“You’re just going to be disappointed,” you said, resuming your work of kissing every square inch of Gator’s exposed abdomen. You sunk your fingers into his sides a little, letting them dig divots into the little roll, and he lifted his hips up into you, his rigid cock brushing against your chest where you laid on top of him.

“Twenty-four,” Gator said. “Remember ‘s how old I was when I met ya.”

You pause, looking up at him, because you wouldn’t have expected that piece of information to be filed away in his memory, but apparently it was.

His fingers were back in your hair, but he wasn’t guiding your face down or trying to. He was just holding you. You leaned your head into his hand, then ducked your head.

“Ten,” Gator said, and you laughed, the huff of your breath on his happy trail making his stomach tense up a little.

“You’re counting down for nothing,” you said, letting your lips trail over the hair beneath his bellybutton.

“Six,” he continued. “Five, four, three… two…two and a half…”

“Two and a half is more than two,” you said, letting your fingers curl into his briefs, tugging them down an inch, exposing the thick tuft of hair at the base of his cock.

“Two and three quarters,” Gator said, and you laughed, finally pulling his underwear off.

“Please,” you whined, and he resumed his motions, elbows digging into the bed on either side of you, his lips finding yours again as you met each of his hearty thrusts with your own, the smack of his heavy balls on your ass making you whimper at the feeling of it, of him. “Oh, god一” you half-cried, grasping at his back, fingernails digging half-moons into his skin, and again, he stopped.

“You ok?”

He wasn’t usually like this一it was sweet, that he kept checking on you, but you wondered what was so different about this time.

“Why do you keep asking?” you questioned, not angrily, just curious, and since he’d stopped moving anyway, you had a moment.

“You一just got back,” Steve said, referencing the three-week long business trip you’d needed to take, because your firm was acquiring another, smaller one, and as named partner you’d needed to be there for every step.

“Yes, and I missed my husband, so一?”

“I just thought一you might need to… get used to me again. After three weeks.”

Your face burned, because yes. You and Steve had a very healthy sex life. You couldn’t remember the last time you’d gone three weeks without fucking him. Probably before you’d met him.

“I don’t think I could ever forget,” you said, drawing him down to you with both hands on his cheeks, pulling his lips to yours. “Don’t you always say I feel like I was made for you?”

It was Steve’s turn to redden, the bashful smile flickering onto his lips and just as quickly disappearing. “You do,” Steve said, shifting his hips, burying his cock into you to the hilt, and then leaning against you even further. “You were.”

You bit at his lower lip, sucking it into your mouth as he kissed your upper lip, and you spread your legs as far as you could for him, giving him all the room he needed.

He met your eyes as you spoke. “Then prove it.”

There was a short, blink of a moment before he moved, and when he started up again, it was with abandon this time. He eased out of you before bullying his massive cock right back into you, feeling you stretch around him, feeling the give of your walls as he thrust in, over and over, hitting all of the right spots because he was so big he simply couldn’t not, and as the sound of skin on skin reached your ears, you moaned his name into his mouth, your hands clutching his arms as he rode you, drilling you down into the bed, your arousal leaking from your slit around his cock, staining your legs, his legs, the wet spot on your bed growing the longer he pounded into you. You could feel yourself dripping, hear the wet squelch of his cock entering you, then leaving you, then entering you, leaving, and at the moment your body gave a kick, so did his.

“Feel you,” Steve mumbled into your ear. “Feel me?” he asked.

“Feel you everywhere,” you mewled”, gasping out your next words. “You were made for一for me too一”

“Prove it,” he said again, and reached a hand down between your bodies, his fingertips spreading over your creamy skin, the ample slick coating your hot folds enough to have you bucking up into him, chasing your release.

“Steve一” you choked out, your body a tight coil, poised to snap, an electrified wire snapping this way and that, until一

“Prove it,” Steve nearly hissed at you, his voice low, thin, and you felt his cock twitch inside of you once, twice.

“God一Steve, I’m coming, I’m一please一”

His mouth found yours, taking your lips in a searing kiss as you felt yourself let go, felt your body crackle with lightning beneath him as he snapped too, his arousal unfurling against yours, bodies writhing together, twisting the sheets, your cunt spasming around his length as he filled you so copiously that you felt it forced out of you as Steve drove his cock shallowly into you a few more times.

“Yeah.” You nod as best you can, but all it really does is tip your lips against his, and he holds you tighter, one hand on your lower back, pulling you closer, your front against his as you feel the angle of his cock change inside you, feel the heat from where you’re connected affecting you even though you’ve both made it clear you’re not ready to finish yet, be finished with each other yet.

“Gettin’ all worked up,” Baron muses, and you shake your head, even though you can feel the warmth in your cheeks, the way your hands are twitching through the soft hair at the nape of his neck.

“Like you’re not,” you mumble, because he is, you can tell. The way he keeps starting to roll his hips but then stopping himself, the way his thighs tense every now and then, like he’s struggling to keep himself still.

“Can ya blame me?” he asks, kissing you again. You gather up his hair in one hand, feeling him smile a little against your mouth, because he always loves when you play with his hair. You tug gently at the bunch gathered in your hand, then lick into his mouth as you circle your hips, not to start anything, not to speed this along一just to feel him inside you, the way his shaft presses against your walls, the way his stomach kicks against you. He whispers against your lips, “So soft…”

“You’re not,” you quipped, and he laughed in response as you released his hair, running both hands through it. His hands rise from your back to tangle in your hair too, guiding your mouth to his as you kiss him again, and again, before you lift yourself up and move back down onto his cock, both of you taking a shuddering breath at the friction you’ve been craving but holding off from allowing yourselves to have.