For fox sake

summary: you’ve lived your entire life without depending on anybody. steve harrington walked into your life ready to change that.

warnings: mayfield!reader, angst, little bit of arguing, canon violence, blood and bit of gore, avoidant issues to the max, she’s so stubborn, and lowkey mean, crying kiss and makeup, cursing, the kids <3,

word count: 6.7k

Contains: fluffy smut, post-sex intimacy, gentle touching (fem receiving), sappiness

Little blurb I've been working on. I just think it's sweet :)

WC: 1.5k

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are you lonely just like me? | chapter one

summary: your first full shift at the goldfinch somehow turns into a meet cute and pseudo first date with the handsome stranger who’s drinking alone

cw: age gap (reader is 25, Steve is 30) all future chapters will be MDNI

a/n: it’s tiiiiiimeeee!!!! welcome to chapter one of my summer sleepover fic for @moonstoneandmoonlight and @graywrenhart’s event!! this series is inspired by Pretty Woman and will have several callbacks to the movie but the storyline is unique to itself! we will dive into a lotttt in the coming chapters but I hope you all enjoy their first meeting and learning more about the reader. this series takes place in the canon stranger things universe, after season five (in the 90s)

taglist: @snoopyharrington (comment or message me to be added!)

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Clinks of glasses getting re-racked and the occasional rush of a water tap spraying fill the locker room as you change into your uniform for your first shift at The Goldfinch. Black leggings, block heeled booties, a low-cut halter top with a gold pin on your chest that had your name in the center of a bird, and your server’s apron that you had to fold several times over to make it appear like a mini skirt across your thighs. You sigh as you fix your makeup in the mirror, tucking your note pad and several colors of gel pens into your pockets before shutting the locker door and walking out to the bar where your best friend, Becca, was waiting for you.

chapter two: twisted in bedsheets

pairing: steve harrington x female!reader wc- 6.1k

summary: an all consuming situationship between you & “king” steve harrington.

c/w: porn with a plot 18+, smut, oral f receiving, possessiveness, king steve persona, insecurity, dom!steve, shy!reader, dirty talk, miscommunication, toxic relationship, angst, steve’s mean, some fluff.

You breathed in the scent of him that lingered on the pillow, a hungry gasp to trap the essence of him in your lungs for as long as you could. You curled around the pillow as you laid in the now empty bed, and your body ached in the places he had touched and marked in only places you could see.

Even as the hurt took root in your brain, other parts of you were buzzing in anticipation. You could remember everything, and you remembered the way he spoke. The way his voice became vulnerable when he asked if you wanted him.

You tried to tell yourself it was a lie, a beautiful addicting lie, but you knew how desperate you were to hear it again.

The rest of the weekend passed by in a blur of quiet and empty hours, loneliness seeping into your veins as you talked about nothing while on the phone with your friends and read romance books about a love you don’t know that you’ll ever find.

School felt different now that you were back from the weekend, you were holding a secret from everyone, a secret that was eating at you and making every nerve feel alive. It felt like there was two versions of you. The girl who was on the debate team and rarely spoke unless spoken to, and the girl who let Steve Harrington climb in her bedroom window to fuck her senseless before leaving before the sun could rise.

Steve continued to look untouchable at school, like he had no cares in the world, let alone a secret relationship that involved you. You weren’t sure if you could even consider what was happening with Steve a “relationship”. You’d never actually been in one, and from what you’d read and heard, this sounded nothing like the fairytale people talk about.

He was so good at playing the golden boy, so good at being the king every girl wanted a taste of. Every time you saw him, you were reminded of how you fell into this situation. He was effortlessly charming, yet somehow made himself seem vulnerable all at the same time. Steve wasn’t vulnerable with his feelings, but his eyes made him look like he was. The way they widened and softened when he wanted something, it would make anyone melt, and it did. He used it to his advantage.

It was five days after Steve spent the night that you found the note in your locker after lunch. There was no signature, but you could recognize his handwriting anywhere.

Stop looking so sad. It’s making me want to pull you in a closet right now. Meet me on the corner of your street. 8pm.

It wasn’t a love letter, it wasn’t even close, but the way he worded it made a smile slip on your face. All you could pay attention to was that he wanted to pull you into a closet, because you looked sad. It made you wonder if he was starting to care for you.

You knew deep down that he didn’t.

But that didn’t stop your brain from convincing itself that he did.

The note felt like a tease. It was a reminder that even when he was ignoring you, he was watching. He knew he was living in your head, and the note was just his way of ensuring that he was still the only tenant.

The rest of the afternoon felt like torture. You were practically buzzing in anticipation for tonight, smiling to yourself as you remembered that by eight pm, you’d be with Steve again. You tried to do homework when you got home, but the words all swam together on the page. Every tick of the clock felt like a countdown.

At ten til eight you told your parents you were gonna take a walk, they didn’t question it, they never did. You were the kind of girl who could be trusted, the kind of girl who didn’t lie. At least you were. Now you’re lying to your parents, telling them you’re going for a walk when you know you’ll end up in the backseat of Steve’s BMW.

You waited. And waited. Checking your watch every ten seconds.

Around 8:15 you finally saw the headlights of his car cutting through the darkness down your street. He didn’t pull over, and he didn’t turn the car off either. He let his car come to a full stop in the middle of the street and rolled down the window to the passenger door.

“Get in.” Steve wasn’t looking at you as he said it. It was more of a command than it was a greeting, but you registered it like a sirens call.

He put the car back into drive as soon as you slid into the seat, glancing over at you a few times with his jaw tight.

“You tell anyone?” His voice was flat.

“No, no. Of course not. Why?” You shook your head immediately, with a sort of desperation for him to believe you.

Steve looked back over at you as he continued driving, taking turns a little too fast. “Good. Let’s keep it that way.”

Confusion was written all over your face, this was really the first time you and Steve had begun to discuss whatever was happening between the two of you. “But.. why?”

“Because it’s nobody’s business. You think I want people all in my shit? Asking questions?”

He said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world. Like if your connection was public knowledge, it would become a source of annoyance for him. You stayed silent for a long minute, processing his words and the tone he said it in.

“That’s the deal. Do you have a problem with that?” His voice became quieter, losing the harsh edge that usually occupied his voice.

“I.. I don’t know. I think I’m confused, on what this is.”

He drove for a few minutes in silence before his car pulled onto a dirt road near the overlook. Steve shifted in his seat to look over at you as soon as the car was in park.

“The deal is.. this. You don’t tell people. I show up. We…” He paused as he let out a long breath. “You know what we do.”

“You mean we have sex.” It was barely a whisper as it left your lips.

It was a blunt, simple term for the relationship between the two of you.

“Yeah. We have sex. Do you have a problem with that?”

He was offering close to nothing. Late nights, physical releases, and absolute secrecy. But something inside of you was certain you could change him. Maybe if you gave enough, if you got him to open up to you in ways that was unheard of, maybe then he’d be yours in the way you wanted him to be.

“No, Steve. I don’t have a problem with it.” You knew you were lying as you said it, but the alternative would be not having him at all, and you were already addicted to the taste of him on your tongue.

A smirk began to form on his lips, it looked like pure satisfaction. “Good.” His hand reached over the center console to brush his finger against your chin, tilting your face up to meet his. “Then stop looking so confused.” He murmured before bringing his lips to yours.

The kiss felt soft at first, his lips barely touching yours before his tongue began tracing the seam of your lips then sweeping into your mouth with pure possession.

“This… it’s simple. You and me. Nobody else needs to know.” His hand slid from your chin to the nape of your neck as his fingers threaded in your hair.

“You.. and me?” It was softer than you intended it to be, full of a hope you didn’t want to speak out loud. It implied a unit, something more than just an arrangement after dark.

“Yeah, baby. You and me.” His other hand came up to trace your jawline with his thumb. “When it’s just us, like this.”

Your eyes were locked on his, shivers going down your spine from his touch. He was so easy to believe, so easy to fall into.

“But out there…. It’s different. You know that, right?” You could see the shift in his eyes, how wide and soft they had gotten. It was hard to tell if it was calculated, or if he was letting his walls down for you.

Steve’s hand reached out to cup your cheek, his thumb gently stroking the skin in a way that felt too close to affection.

“It’s not because im ashamed or anything. You’re.. you’re gorgeous. You know that.” He tilted your downcast face upwards again, ensuring your eyes were locked onto his, soaking in every word he was saying.

“It’s because of them. Tommy.. Carol.. Ani.. that whole crowd. You know how they are. They’d be all over you, giving you shit and trying to get a rise out of me.”

You nodded, you understood that part at the very least. His friends weren’t generally considered the nicest people in school, and you were sure they would latch onto you if they knew Steve was involved with you.

“This way… it’s ours. It’s better this way. Don’t you think?” He smiled a little, but it was sad.

“You think it’s better this way?” You asked quietly, desperate for reassurance from him.

“Mhm. No one gets to ruin it. I’m trying to protect this, protect you.”

“Protect me?” You couldn’t help the smile that was forming on your face. Protect you. It’s the kind of thing a boyfriend would say. It suggested care, and a claim. His face got even gentler as he continued stroking your cheekbone.

“Yeah. You’re different. You’re not like them.” Steve leaned in again, kissing you in a way you hadn’t experienced from him yet. It was slow and searching, his lips moving against yours in a way that made your head spin. Soft noises were leaving his lips as you kissed back, bringing your hands up to thread in his hair.

“So we keep it quiet? For now.”

“For now. Okay.” Your head filled with possibilities at the two words. For now meant not forever, for now meant just now. Not tomorrow or next week or next month. You weren’t sure when it would end, but you wanted to stick it out. You wanted him to be yours, only yours. You wanted to claim him in public, you wanted him to take you on dates and hold your hand while you crossed the street. You wanted him always.

He smiled as you agreed, it looked genuine and goofy all at the same time, and it made your heart clench. The unguarded expression on his face felt like a reward.

“Good girl.”

The words went straight to your head, your body feeling warm. It felt like the highest praise coming from him. You nodded, unable to find the words or just unable to speak them. Your throat felt tight. All you could feel was the confusing combination of desire and submission.

He held your gaze for a long minute, his eyes soft as they searched yours before he opened his car door to get into the backseat.

You watched him move and settle in from the passenger front seat.

“Come here.” He reached over for your hand and practically pulled you into the back with him until you were straddling his lap. His hands were roaming your back and hips as he took his lower lip between his teeth. Your hands lightly sat on Steve’s shoulders, shaking slightly with nerves.

“Couldn’t stop thinking about you today.” He leaned forward to bury his face in the curve of your neck, and you could feel his mouth begin to trail up to your jaw, leaving shivers down your spine as you melted in his arms from the touch.

You sighed, closing your eyes as your hands gripped tighter onto his shoulders while he laid you down in the backseat, his hand moving to the button of your jeans.

“Relax, baby. Yeah?” Steve’s head lowered, trailing down the fabric of your shirt before pushing it up then kissing the exposed skin of your stomach while continuing to take off your jeans.

Everything was so overwhelming, the feeling of Steve’s lips all over your skin was confusing you as much as it was desiring you. You felt Steve’s fingers hook into the cotton of your panties as he pulled them down.

The first stroke of his tongue against your soaked folds had your back arching off the backseat and your lips parting as your breath hitched.

“St- Steve.. oh god. Oh god.” Your hands flew to grip at his hair, tightening every second to steady yourself as the feeling of his tongue against your pussy took over every nerve.

You’d never gotten head before, and you never imagined it happening like this. The boys you usually dated cared more about their pleasure, and you assumed Steve did too. There was something about the way Steve was relishing in your pussy, something that said he didn’t care about his pleasure at all in that moment. Every stroke of his tongue, movement of his hands and shift of his nose against your clit felt eager. Too eager.

Steve was completely lost in it, lost in the taste of you. His voice was desperate as he muttered against your pussy “Fuck, you taste good. Mmmm, god, can’t get enough.”

He groaned as his hands tightened their hold on your skin, pushing his face in harder as his tongue fucked deeper inside of you.

Steve’s eyes were open the entire time, forcing them to stay on your face as he drank in every single reaction your body was having due to his mouth.

You’d never felt the feeling that quickly filled your thoughts as you looked down at Steve drunk on your pussy. It felt like worship, it was the closest you’d come to feeling worshipped by someone.

But that never lasted for long. As soon as you came, legs trembling as they squeezed his head from where your thighs bracketed his shoulders, He was already maneuvering his body away from you, already wiping his mouth and catching his breath while leaving you breathless in the backseat of his car.

The sensation of his fingers trailing up your sensitive skin left chills down your spine as he pulled your pants and panties back up your legs, assisting you in moving on as fast as he was.

“Wait.. just.. hold on a second.” You said breathlessly, trying to catch up to the speed of his pace.

“Wait for what? It’s late. Gotta get you back.” He said it so obviously, like he never expected either of you to even request extra time together.

He pulled himself back up to the front seat, buckling up and fixing his hair as you followed swiftly, straightening your shirt as you clumsily fell into the passenger seat.

“Well.. can’t we just, I don’t know, talk?”

“What about? What’s there to talk about?” Steve was already putting the car back into drive, impatiently. “We had a good time. Don’t make it complicated.” He sighed in annoyance.

You felt yourself getting defensive, you couldn’t wrap your head around why you couldn’t just talk for a few minutes before immediately needing to go back home.

“It’s not complicated to want to talk! We don’t even have to talk about whatever this is. We could talk about life, or… something.” Your voice felt more uncertain as you rambled.

“Life? What about it. You go to school, work then home. I go to school, play basketball, then go home. Life isn’t all that interesting.”

If you weren’t listening so hard, you probably would’ve missed the slight insecurity in his tone. The way he talked so flatly about life, like there was nothing to look forward to. Like all life was, was high school. You began to wonder if that’s what he genuinely thought. You wanted to show him there was more, that he was more than just being Steve Harrington at Hawkins High.

The car was silent for a minute, both of you unsure how to proceed before you asked gently “What made you get into basketball?”

The question seemed to throw him off. It wasn’t about you, or what just happened. It was about him. It was about his interests.

“My old man.” He let out a soft huff, it seemed to bitter to be a laugh. “He was some hotshot player. Thinks his son has to be one too.”

Steve tapped his fingers against his steering wheel a bit. “Got my first ball when I was like six.”

“Six? I can imagine you, you know, running around with it.” You could feel yourself smiling, it felt so easy to smile around him. You tried to keep your eyes on the road, you didn’t want your smile to fall if you saw his face as flat as it usually is.

Steve kept his eyes on the road too, he was afraid to look over at you. Afraid to see the gentleness and care he knew was in your eyes. He didn’t know what he’d do if he made contact with them. He felt a smile start to form on his face as he heard your response. He shook his head and let out a laugh.

“Could barely dribble the damn thing. Drove my mom nuts. I thought I was so cool” He risked a glance over at you, and saw you also staring at the road like he had been doing. He watched your smile grow and eyes crinkle at the corners as he talked.

“You are cool, Steve.” You said quietly, twiddling with your fingers in your lap.

It felt so sincere to Steve. It didn’t seem like one of the performative comments the boys at school would chant as they pat him on the back, or girls would say as they batted their lashes. It just felt honest, like an observation.

“Yeah, well. It’s just something I’m good at. Not that deep.” He said it like he was trying to brush it off before clearing his throat, trying to mask whatever was going on in his head.

“You ever play? Like, as a kid?” Steve asked softly. You were surprised he asked, surprised he wanted to know things about you. You were fully prepared to let him just talk about himself all night long.

“No. I was more of a bookworm.” You didn’t want to look over at him, but the silence was killing you. Steve knew you weren’t in the popular crowd like he was, but maybe voicing it out loud finally made it sink in for him.

“Maybe you could teach me, if you wanted to.” The words rushed out before you could stop them.

“Yeah? You wanna learn how to shoot hoops?” Steve smirked, and it didn’t feel as forced as normal.

“Maybe. If you’re my teacher”

“Alright. Then I’ll be your teacher.” His hand moved from the wheel to your thigh. Squeezing gently before pulling his arm back. Your cheeks rushed with heat.

The car slowly pulled up to the block that Steve picked you up on just a few hours ago.

“I’ll uh, see you around. Okay?”

You nodded as you began to open the car door before glancing back once.

“Will you call me?”

Steve seemed to grow tense, the easily smile that was on his face was now completely gone.

“Maybe. If I can.” It wasn’t a yes, or a no. It felt like distance was already coming between the two of you forcing him further and further away from you.

“Go. Before someone sees.”

All you could do was nod as you got out of the car and stepped back onto the pavement and took the path back to your house. You could feel his eyes locked on you, it made you terrified to turn around.

The weeks that followed felt too secret to be real. You couldn’t tell if anyone was suspicious or not, all your friends acted normally. You tried to act normal around them, but it was hard. It was hard to be in a room with Steve and not stare at him the entire time. It was hard to pretend you didn’t want his lips on yours, and it was even harder to pretend that your body wasn’t having physical reactions to being near him.

The weekends were usually the same. He’d show up around midnight, maybe later, and tap on your window. He never looked doubtful, like he always knew you’d let him inside. It made you angry, but not angry enough to turn him away.

His eyes captivated you, and the way he pouted his full lips just slightly when you showed any sign of irritation made any negative thought about him vanish.

Sometimes Steve would call in the mornings, these calls made you more confused than anything. The first time it happened was on a Monday, you were getting ready for school when the line rang in your bedroom. It was Steve, and he said he wanted to “wish you a good day at school”. He also wanted to tell you what you should wear.

He seemed to enjoy that. Steve began cataloguing your closet, and telling you what you should wear sometimes. Not in a demanding or controlling way, just in a way that told you he liked how you looked in it, and he wanted to see you in it again.

Steve was the most vulnerable in your room late at night, mostly when he assumed you were sleeping. He’d lean his head down to leave soft kisses on your shoulder while his hand threaded through your hair gently. It was hard to fight back a smile. His head would tilt so he could inhale the scent of your hair and sigh into it. It made your heart clench.

But then you’d wake up, and he’d be gone. The bed would be cold and empty next to you, and it felt like the beginning all over again.

Tonight you were hopeful for some sort of change. Steve’s basketball game had ended just over an hour ago, which meant most students were on their way to a party or some sort. But Steve shouldn’t be. He’d written earlier, and left a note in your locker that he’d come over right after the game. That the party scene wasn’t his thing tonight.

You wanted to believe him, this was the first time he’d ever told you he was choosing you over a party. So you did. You sat, and waited on your bed in the silk pajamas that he always liked to see you in.

He arrived at 10:02, and he was still in his basketball jersey and gym shorts. His hair was still sweaty and his body was glistening. It was clear he didn’t shower.

You sat up immediately when you heard the window slide open “Hey. Um, good game tonight.”

“Hey. Thanks.” Steve said quietly while moving towards the bed.

You smiled a little. “You got here fast. Did you even shower? Did you miss me that much?”

The question was more direct than he would’ve liked. A low deflective laugh escaped him as he stepped closer and rested his hands on your hips to pull you closer. “Sure, baby. Whatever you say.” He murmured in a teasing tone while his lips found the skin of your neck.

His stubble rubbed against your skin enough to cause you to shiver as his thumb came up to press against your lower lip. It always felt as possessive as it did dismissive. You thought it was Steve’s way of ending the conversation, or maybe he was just really into you sucking his fingers. Both would make sense.

His thumb pushed its way into your mouth as you sucked on it, making desperate and performative sounds. “Missed this, though. Fuck. I missed this”

Steve’s teeth gently bit into the side of your neck as you gasped around his thumb and he began guiding your body to lay down on the bed, kissing you with a hunger that was barely being held back.

Your hands came up, pressing gently against his chest as his body was on top of yours. He pulled back an inch to ask breathlessly “What is it? What’s wrong?”

“I just wanted to talk for a minute. Tell me about the game.”

Steve slowly pushed himself up and let out a frustrated sigh. “Talk? It was just a game.”

He seemed uncomfortable with the stillness, with the intimacy of sitting together in silence.

“We won. I played alright. It’s over now.”

“Okay. Forget the game then, tell me about your day.” You asked a little frustrated, you didn’t understand why a simple conversation was such a foreign concept to him at times.

“My day? It was fine. Woke up late. Had practice. Then class.” Steve listed off the things he did like he was checking items off a list.

You didn’t know what to say after that. It wasn’t a response that required another response. You let the silence fill the room, unsure on where to go from there.

Steve sighed. “My dad called.” He said abruptly.

“Wanted to know how the talk with some college coach went. I told him it hadn’t happened yet, and he wasn’t very happy.”

Steve glanced up at you, and you could see the slight twinkle in his brown eyes. “Then Tommy wanted to go to the diner after school. But I.. I dunno. Didn’t feel like it. Went home and listened to some records instead.”

He sounded shy as he admitted it, like there was something wrong with staying home alone instead of going out with friends.

“What records did you listen to?” You asked quietly, your hand moving to trace lines up and down his forearm in the darkness of your room.

A smile crept on Steve’s face as he scooted even closer to you “The new Springsteen. Played one side, like, three times in a row.”

His hand came up to rest gently on your hand while you rubbed his forearm, following your rhythm. “What about you? What’d you do today? Besides watch me at the game.” He smirked.

“Homework. Nothing much, really. Just.. waited for this all day.” You tried to hide the giddiness in your tone. You couldn’t lie, all day you had just waited on when you could finally see him.

His voice took on a teasing tone. “Nothing much, hm? Seemed pretty into the game from where I was standing.”

He took ahold of your hand and laced his fingers through yours, holding on lightly. “I saw you. In the bleachers. Biting down on your lip every-time I had the ball. You looked.. nervous. For me.”

Your cheeks felt warm as he spoke, completely unable to play it cool. “You noticed that?”

Your shyness seemed to always please him.

“Mhm. I notice everything about you. It’s kinda hard to notice anything else when you’re in the room.”

You looked up to look him in the eyes, your eyes darting across his face nervously.

“Drives me crazy. In the halls, at the game, in class. I’ll be talking to someone and my eyes can’t help but look for you.”

He shook his head slowly with a frustrated sigh. It was the first time he’d ever admitted thinking about you so often, it was the first time he’d really let you into his thoughts.

“You don’t have it fight it, you know. If you don’t want to.” You said it as soft as possible, they were a challenge to the walls he has built.

“Don’t I? That’s the deal. That’s how it has to be.”

You could see him shutting down, retreating back into his shell as his hand began pulling away from yours.

“Steve, come on-“

“Come on what? We’ve been over this. You think I want it like this? Pretending I don’t see you?” Steve stood up, pacing back and forth as he talked with his hands. He was getting frustrated, the same way he always did when you brought up the secrecy of your relationship.

“I’m sorry, No, i didn’t mean it like that. I just meant-“ You were panicking now a little bit, so you stood up with him and grabbed onto his arm, kissing his bicep.

“Don’t. Don’t apologize. Just.. Stop talking.” Steve sighed, turning his head so his cheek brushed against your hair then shifted to stand in front of you, brushing his fingers over your lips again.

“Just.. be here. With me. Right now.”

You just nodded, running your hands down his arms and holding onto him. “Okay. I’m here. I’m here, Steve.”

His hands were everywhere, pulling your nightgown up over your hips and dipping his head to make out with the skin of your neck. It felt like showing any vulnerability made him hungry, it made him desperate to erase the softness with the roughness of his physical touch.

Steve walked your body backward until you were falling down onto the bed with him above you. His hands grabbed at your wrists, holding them up and above your head with one hand.

You were arching your body as much as you could, pressing up into him and making desperate whines and whimpers that were traveling straight to his dick.

His hand on your wrists was tightening as he watched you beg with your body.

Steve flipped you over so you were laying on your stomach, pulling you up onto your knees by your hips. He had you positioned exactly how he wanted. Your cheek pressed against the mattress as your knees dug into the edge of the bed, your wrists behind your back being held together by his hand, and your back arched up as far as you could push it.

Steve loved toying with you before fucking you, he loved teasing you just to see how much you would take before taking some sort of initiative.

“Fuck, look at you.” Was all he could manage as you heard him pull down his shorts and yank off his jersey.

Steve fucked you the same way everytime, each time it felt like he was trying to brand himself onto you. There was no softness or slowness. It was rough, and dominating. He wanted to overwhelm you, overstimulate you until you were a trembling mess under his fingers.

It was when you felt most his to him.

You laid down next to him afterwards, wrapping your legs around his to tangle them together while his arm found its way around your shoulders. Your hand was beginning to gently trace through the chest hair that went across his sternum.

You and Steve were both quiet, letting the silence of the earlier intimacy hang in the air as he ran his fingers down your spine. It felt like he was tracing shapes, or maybe writing letters.

Steve turned his head to kiss your temple then whisper on your skin the words that always came after. The words that always extinguished your hope. “I should probably go soon.”

You should’ve known they were coming, they always did, yet you were surprised every-time.

“Stay.” You said softly against his chest, your ear still pressed against where his heart is.

“You know I can’t.”

“Steve, just this once. Please” You were pleading at this point. His eyes were darting all across your face, and all he could see was the hopefulness that was shining in your eyes.

“What if someone sees my car? Tommy or someone could drive by…” It was a dumb excuse, but normally he didn’t make excuses. Normally he said no, and he left.

“Would that be so bad?” Your voice felt small, you felt vulnerable asking this from him while you were still naked, wrapped around him like he was a life raft.

“Yes. No. I don’t know.” Steve sighed “It’s complicated. You know it’s complicated.”

“Stay. Be here in the morning just this once. Everyone will be hungover from the party anyways”

Steve looked like he wanted to fight it, he looked like he wanted to create another excuse or find some other stupid reason as to why he had to leave. But Steve couldn’t stop looking at the way you were curled against him. He couldn’t bring himself to look away from your eyes that were full of a vulnerable hope that matched the feelings he wondered about sometimes in the darkness of his own room.

It wasn’t about staying the night, and it wasn’t about waking up alone. It was about having someone. It was about the safety of knowing they would be there when you woke up, because they wouldn’t have to hide it. Because it would be natural to love you. Steve felt like he wanted the same thing sometimes, deep down when he could allow himself to just be Steve, without the crown attached.

Steve wanted someone to love him, he wanted to be loved. He fantasized about finding someone who could love him enough to create a family with him.

He’d grown up with the idea that love wasn’t found in relationships or marriage, but in work and popularity. To run a family business, to be captain of the basketball team, and to be the most popular guy in school. To be the king.

Steve knew the type of love you were willing to give him was the type of love he craved, he just didn’t know how or if he could give that back to you.

But the thought of having it at all made his resistance crumble.

“Okay. Okay. Just this once” His body shifted, his arm pulling you in closer to his body as he nuzzled his head on top of yours.

You couldn’t help the excitement that was bubbling inside of you. You asked him to stay, and he said he would stay. This had to have meant something, right? It had to mean he was feeling deeper than he did originally, which meant maybe he would change his mind?

Your brain was full of hope and possibilities due to the fact that you’d wake up in the morning next to Steve. You’d wake up still wrapped around the length of his body. You’d get to hear his sleepy voice and see how perfect his hair is after a nights sleep. You began leaving soft playful kisses up his jawline, a soft giggle coming out of you.

The sound caused his body to stir and he looked down at you with a sleepy smile on his face.

“What’s so funny, mm?”

“I’m just.. I’m happy.” You said softly, running your fingers over his cheekbone.

“Yeah? Me too, princess.”

You laid awake for what felt like hours, just listening to him breathe steadily. You were afraid. You were afraid that you’d wake up and he’d be gone, and it would’ve been just another broken promise.

Eventually sleep claimed your body too, tucked in safely inside of Steve Harrington’s arms.

When you woke up, he was facing you. He looked perfect. His hair was a mess, falling over his forehead and into his eyes. He looked peaceful as he blinked his eyes open with a sleepy smile.

“Good morning, princess .” His voice was rough from sleep, and his arm tightened around your waist to pull you closer so there was no extra space between the two of you.

The way he was looking at you all sleepy and soft felt like a promise.

Summer was just a few weeks away. No more hallways, no more performing for an audience.

A fragile hope was forming in your chest, the belief that he might want you as more than a secret. More than someone to sleep with at nighttime.. All you wanted was for him to smile at you in the sunlight too.

-

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a/n: genuinely want to say im so sorry for the delay. life has been so hectic and i got hit with the worst mental health state and it really took all my joy out of writing, and it was really hard to find any motivation at all. i appreciate everyone that’s been patient and kind to me. it means so much. you are all so special to me. <3 so much love.

Chapter nine: Who’s crying now?

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

Description: He brings someone else to make her jealous. It works just not the way he planned. By the end of the night they’re screaming at each other in the yard, and somehow that turns into the most honest thing either of them has done in months. Some fights don’t end in a door slamming. This one ends fogging up a car window instead.

word count: 17.8k

Steve Harrington x fem!reader

Author’s note: sorry i left yall hanging with this one it’s a long one and took me a few tries to get it right. hope you like car scenes! PLEASE PLS PLS lmk what ya think and if you would like to be on the tag list lmk! (also gator fic potentially coming soon:))

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You woke up the next morning with Fluffy still tucked against your chest and a headache that had nothing to do with alcohol, replaying the previous night in slow, disjointed fragments while sunlight crept warm and unbothered through your curtains.

The Creel house. The photograph. The driveway, and Steve's flat, wounded jab, and your own sharp comeback that had felt so satisfying in the moment and left a faint, uncomfortable aftertaste this morning. And then Dean, unexpected and warm in your driveway, his hand at your back walking up the porch steps, the quiet conversation in the kitchen that still sat strange and unresolved in your chest.

You thought about what he'd said “I really did miss you” and about how you hadn't quite known what to do with it, standing there in your own kitchen while a house full of people who knew nothing about the real shape of your life. You'd told him, gently, honestly, that you didn't think you could give him what he was looking for, not right now, maybe not ever, and he'd taken it better than you expected, easy and gracious the way he always seemed to be about everything, and you'd hugged him goodbye at the door with something that felt, finally, like actual closure instead of another loose thread left dangling.

You hadn't kissed him. You'd thought about it, for one strange, suspended second, his hands warm at your waist, some tired, wistful part of you tempted by the sheer simplicity of it but you'd stepped back before it happened, gently, and told him the truth instead, and he'd nodded, understanding, and left not long after.

You didn't know, lying there now with morning light creeping across your bedspread, that Steve had walked past the kitchen at exactly the wrong moment, had seen exactly enough to draw exactly the wrong conclusion, and had spent the rest of the night convincing himself of something that had never actually happened at all.

You just knew that something about the whole evening had left you feeling strange and unsettled in a way you couldn't quite name not guilt, not regret, but some quieter, more complicated ache, the sense of having closed one door only to find yourself standing in front of another you still didn't know how to open.

You thought, distantly, of Steve's face in the driveway, tight and unreadable, and wondered, not for the first time, what exactly was going on behind it these days that you no longer had any way of actually knowing.

You lay there a while longer, staring at the ceiling, turning the whole night over in your mind, and found yourself circling back, again and again, to the specific, quiet certainty you'd felt telling Dean no. It hadn't been hard. That was the part that surprised you most, replaying it now you'd expected some pang of doubt, some flicker of “what if”, and instead there'd just been a clean, simple relief at finally closing a door you'd left ajar for months without meaning to.

You understood, lying there in the morning light, exactly why it had been so easy. There wasn't room in your chest for Dean, not really, not in any way that mattered, because the space that might have belonged to him was still stubbornly, infuriatingly occupied by somebody else entirely.

You didn't want to examine that thought too closely. You made yourself do it anyway, lying still, forcing yourself to actually sit with the shape of it instead of shoving it away the way you'd been doing for weeks. You thought about the almost-kiss , the ten seconds before you'd pulled the floor out from under both of you. You thought about the way he held you after your fall, his hand steady around yours through the stitches, his voice low and certain in the dark. You thought about the box in your closet, the photo album on his shelf, two matching, hidden collections of a love neither of you had ever fully managed to let go of no matter how hard you'd both tried.

You still hated him, some days. That much hadn't changed. But you understood, finally, lying there with morning light spilling warm across your bedspread, that hate and love had apparently never been mutually exclusive where he was concerned, no matter how many times you'd tried to convince yourself otherwise.

You didn't know what to do with that realization. You didn't have anywhere to put it, no clear next step, no idea whether the version of Steve you still wanted even existed anymore underneath all the damage the two of you had done to each other. But you let yourself sit with it a while longer anyway, quiet and unresolved, before finally forcing yourself up out of bed to face the rest of the day.

Across town, at almost the exact same hour, Steve sat at his kitchen table with the crumpled receipt smoothed flat in front of him, phone cord stretched taut in one hand, and dialed the number before he could talk himself out of it a second time.

It rang twice before a bright, unfamiliar voice picked up. "Hello?"

"Hey. Is this Carrie? This is Steve. Robin's friend, from the video store. Eddie gave me your number."

"Oh, hey! Yeah, he mentioned he might do that." She laughed, easy and warm. "I was starting to wonder if you'd actually call."

"Sorry, it's been a busy week." Steve kept his voice light, casual, working hard to sound like a person having a normal, uncomplicated conversation instead of someone sitting alone at his kitchen table with a folded receipt and a chest full of things he had no intention of examining too closely. "I was actually wondering if you'd want to come to a party this weekend. Tina's throwing this whole thing, it's gonna be a pretty big crowd, but a bunch of my friends are gonna be there too."

"Yeah, that sounds fun, actually." Carrie's voice brightened further. “i don’t think any of my other friends are going though”

"You'll know me." Steve managed something that might have passed for a smile, if she could have seen it. "And everybody else is pretty easy to get along with. I promise it won't be weird."

He said it with total confidence, and felt, even as the words left his mouth, the specific, hollow dishonesty of them settling low in his stomach, some part of him already knowing exactly how weird the whole thing was actually going to be.

"Okay, I'm in." Carrie's voice was cheerful, unsuspecting, utterly unaware she was being folded into something that had nothing at all to do with her. "What time should I be ready?"

Steve gave her the details, kept the conversation light and easy for another few minutes, and hung up feeling, if anything, worse than he had before he'd dialed some cold, hollow satisfaction curdling fast into something closer to shame the second the receiver clicked back into its cradle.

He sat there a long moment, staring at the phone, and thought, distantly, about you wherever you were right now, whatever you were doing, completely unaware that he'd just spent the last ten minutes arranging to bring a stranger to a party specifically because he couldn't stand the idea of you seeing him standing there alone one more time.

He told himself it would be worth it. He didn't quite believe himself, even as he thought it, but he told himself anyway, because the alternative was sitting with the actual reason he'd made the call at all was more than he had it in him to face head-on.

Lucy called that same afternoon, breathless with the particular, giddy energy she only got when there was actual gossip to deliver.

"Okay, so, Tina's throwing a huge thing this weekend," she said, the second you picked up the phone. "Like, actual party, not just the usual crowd sitting around somebody's basement. I heard half of Hawkins is gonna be there."

"That sounds like a lot."

"It's gonna be great, is what it sounds like." Lucy's voice was bright, insistent. "Come on, you've barely left the house except for group stuff in weeks. You deserve an actual night out. Real music, real dancing, just a normal party like normal people our age are supposed to be having."

You found yourself smiling despite everything still sitting unresolved in your chest, some of Lucy's enthusiasm proving contagious despite your best efforts to stay cautious. "I don't know, Luce."

"Come on. You've been weirdly better lately, actually, now that I think about it. Less doom and gloom. I want to catch that energy while it lasts." A pause, and then, gentler, more perceptive than her earlier bubbliness let on. "Also, not that I'm trying to influence your decision or anything, but I heard through the grapevine that Steve's friend group is gonna be there too."

Something in your chest lifted at that, quiet and unexpected, the memory of that morning's realization still sitting warm and unresolved somewhere beneath your ribs. Maybe this was exactly the kind of low-stakes, ordinary setting where something honest could actually happen between the two of you — not a crisis, not a fight born out of exhaustion and fear, just a real conversation, finally, in a room full of noise and normal, uncomplicated people.

"Okay," you said, something hopeful creeping into your voice despite every instinct telling you to stay guarded. "Okay, I'm in. What time?"

"That's my girl." Lucy's grin was audible even through the phone. "I'll come by around eight so we can get ready together. Wear something that makes you feel like the version of yourself who isn't currently dealing with an interdimensional monster problem."

"Deal." You could hear the smile in your own voice now too. "Wait, eight on Saturday, right? Not tonight?"

"Saturday, obviously, the party's Saturday." Lucy groaned, dramatic and put-upon. "Which means I have to survive an entire two more days of nothing before I get to see Eddie again. It's genuinely tragic, Y/N. I don't know how I'm supposed to function."

"It's Thursday, Lucy. You like just saw him."

"a few days is an eternity when you're trying to figure out if someone actually likes you or if you just imagined an entire vibe based on one really good Never Have I Ever game." Lucy sighed heavily. "I keep replaying our conversations trying to figure out if he was flirting or just being Eddie at everyone equally. It's exhausting. I need Saturday to get here immediately."

"I'm pretty sure it was flirting."

"You don't know that."

"I was there, Lucy. Everyone was there. It was extremely flirting."

"Well, I'd like a second, third, and fourth opinion before Saturday, please, because I refuse to get my hopes up prematurely." Lucy's voice brightened again despite the mock despair. "Anyway. Two more days. I'll survive somehow. See you Saturday at eight, don't forget."

You laughed, actually laughed, something light and genuine breaking through the heaviness that had settled over the last several weeks, and hung up the phone already turning over what to wear, already imagining, with a hope you hadn't let yourself feel in longer than you wanted to admit, the version of that night where things between you and Steve finally, quietly began to shift.

You had no idea, hanging up the phone with that same fragile hope humming warm in your chest, exactly what was actually waiting for you at that party.

Nancy was driving, Robin riding shotgun, Steve and Eddie crammed into the back seat, the four of them on their way to pick up supplies for the following day's group meeting when Steve, apparently deciding the topic couldn't wait any longer, cleared his throat.

"So, quick heads up. I'm bringing somebody to Tina's party Saturday."

Robin twisted around in her seat immediately, though her face made clear she already knew exactly what was coming.

"Who?" Nancy asked, eyes still on the road, voice carefully neutral.

"Carrie. From the record store." Steve kept his own voice light, deliberately casual. "Eddie's friend."

Nancy's grip on the wheel tightened, almost imperceptibly, and she didn't say anything for a long moment, clearly working to keep her voice level before she actually responded.

"You're bringing a date," she said slowly, "to the same party Y/N's gonna be at."

"It's a big party. Lots of people. It's not that deep."

"It's extremely that deep, and you know it." Nancy's voice had gone sharp now, all pretense of neutrality dropped. "Steve, this is a genuinely terrible idea. You know that, right? You're not actually interested in this girl, you're using her to make a point, and it is going to blow up in your face, and probably in hers too, which honestly is the part that bothers me more."

"I'm not using anybody."

"You called her three days after telling Robin you couldn't imagine wanting anyone else." Nancy shot him a look in the rearview mirror, unflinching. "Forgive me if I don't buy the innocent explanation."

"That's not fair."

"None of this is fair, Steve, that's kind of the whole problem." Nancy's voice stayed hard, though something more worried crept into it now, underneath the frustration. "I get that you're hurting. I do. But this isn't gonna fix anything. It's just gonna add more wreckage to a situation that's already got plenty of it, and I don't think you've actually thought through what happens after Saturday night, when the point's been made and Carrie's still a real person you've now dragged into something messy for no good reason."

Steve didn't answer right away, jaw tight, staring out the window instead of meeting anyone's eyes.

"I already invited her," he said finally, quiet. "I'm not un-inviting her now. That would be worse."

"Convenient timing on that logic," Eddie muttered, though there was no real bite in it, more resignation than anything.

Nancy sighed, some of the fight draining out of her voice, replaced by something more tired. "Fine. Do what you're gonna do. But when this goes badly, and it will, I hope you remember that plenty of people tried to tell you so beforehand."

Nobody said anything else for the rest of the drive, the tension sitting heavy and unresolved in the car, and Steve stared out the window the whole way, turning Nancy's words over and over, some small, unwelcome part of him already suspecting, uncomfortably, that she was right.

Friday passed in the kind of ordinary, unremarkable rhythm you'd almost forgotten was possible these days.

You helped your mother with laundry in the morning, half-listening to the radio while you folded towels, and spent the afternoon half-heartedly working through a stack of reading you'd been putting off for your eventual return to school, the material barely registering no matter how many times you reread the same paragraph. Parker roped you into a card game after dinner that he won decisively, gloating about it with a level of enthusiasm that made you laugh despite yourself, and you spent a while afterward on the phone with Becca and Tiffany, half-listening to campus gossip that felt like it belonged to a different life entirely.

You thought about the party more than once throughout the day, small flickers of anticipation surfacing at odd moments folding a shirt, staring blankly at your textbook though you didn't let yourself dwell on it too long each time, some old, careful instinct still cautious about hoping for too much. It was just a party. Nothing was guaranteed. You told yourself that firmly, more than once, and mostly believed it.

By the time you went to bed that night, the day had settled into nothing more than a quiet, ordinary blur, indistinguishable from a hundred other days before it, except for the small, persistent hum of anticipation still sitting warm in your chest as you drifted off to sleep.

Steve did not have an ordinary Friday.

He sat alone in his house that evening, the same folded receipt long since discarded, Carrie's number now safely transferred to the inside cover of his address book, and found himself, more than once, reaching for the phone before stopping himself, hand hovering uselessly over the receiver.

He could still cancel. The thought circled back again and again throughout the evening, insistent, unwelcome. He could call Carrie right now, make up some excuse, tell her something had come up, and avoid the entire mess Nancy had warned him about in the car. He could go to the party alone, or not go at all, and spare everyone Carrie, you, himself the specific, unnecessary damage he was apparently about to cause on purpose.

He picked up the phone twice. He set it back down both times.

He tried to examine, honestly, why he couldn't quite make himself do it, and kept circling back to the same uncomfortable answer no matter how many times he tried to talk himself into something more flattering. Some petty, wounded part of him wanted you to see it. Wanted you to feel, even for one night, some fraction of the specific, hollow ache of watching someone you loved look happy with somebody else. He hated that part of himself. He recognized, with a kind of grim, exhausted clarity, exactly how small and ugly it actually was.

He thought about calling Robin, asking her to talk him out of it one more time, hoping she might actually succeed where his own conscience clearly wasn't managing to. He didn't do that either.

He lay awake a long time that night, staring at his ceiling, the same restless, unresolved argument looping over and over in his head, and by the time exhaustion finally pulled him under, he still hadn't managed to convince himself, one way or the other, whether tomorrow night was going to be a mistake he could live with or one he was going to regret for a very long time.

You were sitting on your bed Saturday afternoon, half-heartedly flipping through a magazine while the day stretched on toward evening, when the realization hit you with a sudden, cold clarity that made your stomach drop.

The last time you'd actually seen Steve —really seen him, not just glimpsed him across a driveway trading barbed comments had been the night of the almost-kiss. The night you'd told him to get out, right against his own mouth, and watched something in his face crumble before you'd turned and walked away. You hadn't spoken since. Not really. Just that one clipped, wounded exchange in your own driveway after the Creel house, both of you too proud and too raw to manage anything close to an actual conversation.

You set the magazine aside, some of the warm, easy anticipation of the evening draining away all at once. What if tonight was just more of the same? What if you showed up hoping for something honest and got another version of that driveway instead, sharp and defensive and going nowhere?

You sat there a moment, chest tight, doubt creeping in fast and unwelcome.

Then, unbidden, you found yourself remembering something else entirely not the fight, not the anger, but the raw, unguarded confession that had come tumbling out of him in your bedroom that same terrible night, before any of the cruelty had started. “I miss it. Being the one who got to touch you. Kiss you. Make you feel good, make you laugh right after, all of it.” You remembered the way his voice had cracked on it, how completely unguarded he'd looked in that moment, how much it had cost him to say it out loud at all.

That version of him hadn't disappeared. You knew that now, with a certainty that settled warm and steady back into your chest, replacing some of the doubt from a moment ago. Whatever ugliness the two of you kept falling into, whatever exhausting, defensive patterns neither of you had fully learned how to break yet, that raw, real feeling underneath it all hadn't gone anywhere. You'd felt it in the hospital, in the way he'd carried you down that shoreline, in the quiet, aching honesty of that confession. It was still there. It had always still been there, buried under all the fighting.

You stood up, steadier now, and told yourself, firmly, that tonight didn't have to be another driveway. Tonight could be different, if you both let it.

You had no way of knowing, heading toward your closet to finally start getting ready, exactly how wrong that particular certainty was about to turn out to be.

Lucy showed up right on schedule, a bottle of vodka tucked under one arm and a bag slung over her shoulder, grinning the second you opened the door.

"Pregame," she announced, holding up the bottle like a trophy, "and reinforcements, in case your closet situation is still as tragic as it was last time I looked through it."

"My closet is not tragic."

"Your closet is aggressively neutral. We're fixing that tonight." She breezed past you into your room, kicking off her shoes and setting the vodka down on your dresser with the confident authority of someone who'd clearly done this exact routine a hundred times before. "Cups. Or mugs, whatever you've got. I'm not drinking straight from the bottle like an animal, we're civilized women tonight."

You grabbed two mugs from the kitchen, and by the time you got back, Lucy had already claimed the full length of your bed to lay out her bag's contents, the radio flipped on low, some song neither of you were really listening to filling the room while she poured generous, careless measures of vodka into both mugs, topping them off with a splash of orange juice from a carton she'd apparently smuggled in her purse.

"To surviving a genuinely unhinged month," she said, holding her mug up.

"To that," you agreed, clinking yours against it, and the first sip burned warm and sharp down your throat, chasing away the last, lingering nerves from earlier that afternoon.

Within twenty minutes your bed had disappeared entirely beneath a chaotic sprawl of discarded outfit options, two more empty mugs sitting on your dresser, the vodka doing its slow, warming work while the two of you argued happily over what you should actually wear.

"This one." Lucy held up a deep green dress, decisive, before you could protest, short and fitted with thin straps and a low, sweetheart neckline. "Trust me on this.”

"That's a lot of dress."

"That's the point, Y/N. Put it on."

"You just want me to look like I'm trying too hard."

"I want you to look like a woman who no longer cares whether she's trying too hard, which is a completely different energy, and honestly the whole point of tonight." Lucy shoved the dress into your arms, unmoved by the protest. "Go. Bathroom. Now. I'm not asking again."

You gave in, mostly because arguing with Lucy about clothing choices had never once ended in your favor, and disappeared into the bathroom to change, emerging a few minutes later to Lucy's immediate, delighted whistle.

The dress turned out shorter than you remembered it looking on the hanger, hitting well above mid-thigh, the fabric skimming close and showing off far more than your usual wardrobe allowed bare shoulders, a soft, deep neckline that dipped just far enough to catch the eye, the whole thing clinging in a way that made you feel, standing in front of the mirror, unexpectedly, thrillingly bold.

"Lucy."

"You look incredible, shut up. I have genuinely never been more right about anything." She was already smoothing one strap into place, circling you with the critical, satisfied eye of an artist assessing her own finished work, before disappearing into your bathroom herself to change into her own dress a deep red one, equally striking, cut close through the waist, that she emerged in a few minutes later with visible, well-earned confidence, doing a slow spin in your doorway. "Rate me. Honestly."

"A ten. Obviously."

"Correct answer." She grinned, refilling both your mugs before gesturing you back down onto the desk chair. "Sit, I'm doing your makeup next, and don't argue with me about the eyeliner, I know what I'm doing."

You sat, and let her work, the vodka humming warm and loose through your veins by the time she finished, dark, smoky eyeshadow blended with careful precision, a deep, bold lip that felt more daring than anything you'd worn in months. She hummed along to the radio while she worked, occasionally pausing to take another sip from her mug, occasionally pausing to squint critically at some detail only she seemed to notice, and by the time she finally leaned back to inspect her handiwork, you'd relaxed into the whole process completely, easy and warm in a way you hadn't felt in longer than you wanted to admit.

She finished your hair last, the curls you'd started earlier that afternoon now fully set, cascading loose and soft around your shoulders, catching the lamplight every time you turned your head, a few pieces pinned back from your face with small, delicate clips she produced seemingly out of nowhere.

"Okay," Lucy said finally, stepping back, hands on her hips, surveying the finished result with visible pride. "Turn around. Let me see the full effect."

You turned, slow, and caught your own reflection properly for the first time, something unfamiliar and a little thrilling settling into your chest at the sight staring back — bold, confident, nothing at all like the careful, guarded version of yourself you'd been wearing for weeks, curls falling loose around bare shoulders, the deep green dress catching the light every time you moved.

"Okay," you admitted, turning slightly to study the effect from another angle. "This is good. This is really good, actually."

"I know. I'm extremely talented." Lucy handed you your refreshed mug, grinning, some genuine warmth underneath the teasing now. "Now you look like a woman who's about to have a very good night."

"To surviving a genuinely unhinged month," you started, raising your mug again, before Lucy cut you off with a sly, knowing look.

"Wait, real question first." She set her own mug down, studying you with sudden, focused interest. " Steve is definitely gonna be there tonight right ?"

Something in your chest tightened instantly, a flush of nerves creeping up your neck that had nothing to do with the vodka. "I — yeah. I think so. Probably."

"You're doing the thing." Lucy pointed at you, delighted. "The face thing. You just went all weird and jittery the second I said his name."

"I did not."

"You absolutely did. Your whole face just did something." Lucy grinned, entirely too pleased with herself. "Okay, well, if that's the case, we're taking one more shot before we leave. For courage. And also because I refuse to watch you spiral about him sober."

"I'm not gonna spiral."

"You're already spiraling a little, I can see it happening in real time." She poured two more small measures, undeterred by your protest, and pressed one into your hand. "Come on. One more. Then we're leaving before you talk yourself out of wearing that dress or overthink whatever's about to happen tonight into oblivion."

You took the mug, some nervous, fluttering energy sitting alongside the warm vodka buzz already humming through you, and clinked it against hers despite the sudden knot in your stomach.

"To not spiraling," you said, only half-joking.

"To not spiraling," Lucy agreed, grinning, and you both drank, the vodka burning warm and fast down your throat, chasing away just enough of the nerves to leave something steadier and more reckless in its place.

"Okay." Lucy grabbed her purse, already heading for the door. "Now we're actually leaving. Let's go find out what kind of night this is gonna be."

Steve pulled up outside Carrie's house right on time, and sat there a moment in the driveway, hands still gripping the wheel, some fresh wave of doubt crashing over him before he made himself get out and knock.

Carrie answered the door already dressed, hair done, clearly excited in a way that made something uncomfortable twist in his chest immediately. She'd styled her hair into perfect, deliberate blonde waves, clearly the product of considerable time in front of a mirror, and she'd gone for a sleek, form-fitting dress in white that looked expensive, paired with heels that seemed slightly impractical for a house party. She looked polished and confident, and before Steve had even fully processed the greeting, she'd looped her arm through his, pulling herself close against his side.

"Hey, you." Her voice came out warm, a little too warm, already tucking herself in against him like they'd been doing this for months instead of minutes. "I've been looking forward to this all week, honestly. I haven't been to a real party in forever."

"Yeah, should be a good time." Steve managed something that passed for an easy smile, shifting slightly, though her arm stayed exactly where it was, snug through his own. "You look great, by the way."

"You're sweet." She squeezed his arm at that, leaning in slightly, close enough that he caught the sweet, heavy scent of her perfume. "I almost didn't recognize you without the video store apron. You clean up nice."

They walked toward the car like that, her arm still hooked through his, hip bumping his more than once on the uneven walkway, and by the time he opened the passenger door for her, she'd already found a reason to rest a hand briefly against his chest, steadying herself as she climbed in, lingering there a beat longer than balance actually required.

"Thanks," she said, smiling up at him from the seat, something bright and expectant in her expression that made him step back a little faster than was probably polite.

He rounded the car and got in, and the drive started with Carrie immediately shifting closer in her seat than the bench actually allowed for comfortably, one hand resting light against his forearm as she talked, easy and constant, about her week, about the record store, about a friend of Eddie's she was hoping would be at the party too. Every so often her hand would slide, absent and casual, along his arm, or she'd lean in to say something directly near his ear even when the radio wasn't loud enough to justify it, and Steve found himself gripping the wheel tighter with every mile, caught somewhere between polite discomfort and the growing, sinking awareness that he had absolutely no idea how to extract himself from any of it gracefully.

"You're quiet," she observed at a red light, hand still resting warm against his arm, thumb tracing an idle line along his sleeve. "I like that about you, actually. Mysterious." She tilted her head, studying him with open, unhurried interest. "Eddie said you just got out of something kind of intense. A breakup, or whatever. You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to. I just want you to know I'm a really good listener, if you ever do."

"I'm fine," Steve said, a little too fast, easing his arm subtly out from under her hand under the guise of adjusting the wheel. "Really. It's not a big deal."

"Okay." She didn't seem deterred, settling back slightly, though her hand found its way to his shoulder instead a moment later, light and lingering. "Well, I'm here if that changes."

The light turned green, and Steve drove on, jaw tight, entire body braced for an evening he still hadn't fully convinced himself was a good idea, painfully aware of the warm, persistent weight of her hand finding its way back to him every few minutes no matter how many small, careful ways he tried to create distance between them, his stomach twisting tighter with every mile that brought them closer to Tina's house, and to you.

You could hear the party from two houses down.

Tina's place sat at the end of a cul-de-sac usually quiet enough to hear crickets, but tonight the whole street had transformed, cars lining both curbs in a haphazard, overflowing sprawl that forced Lucy to park half a block away, bass thumping steady and insistent through the night air even from that distance, porch lights and windows glowing gold against the dark, every single room in the house visibly crowded with bodies.

"Okay, this is actually insane," Lucy said, laughing, as you climbed out of the car and started up the sidewalk, your heels clicking against the pavement. "I heard it was gonna be big, but this is like half the senior class from three different schools."

The front yard alone held a cluster of people you didn't recognize, red cups in hand, someone's radio blasting from an open car trunk parked haphazardly on the lawn, and by the time you reached the front door, already propped wide open, the noise hit you like a physical wall — music thumping deep and rhythmic from somewhere inside, a hundred overlapping conversations layered on top of it, glass clinking, someone laughing too loud near the stairs.

Inside was worse, in the best possible way. The living room had been cleared of most of its furniture, bodies packed shoulder to shoulder, dancing in a loose, chaotic crowd beneath strings of colored lights someone had clearly gone to real effort hanging. The kitchen, visible through a wide doorway, was even more crowded, a makeshift bar set up across the counter, red cups and bottles crowding every surface, people shouting to be heard over each other and the music both. The air smelled like spilled beer and someone's too-strong perfume and the faint, sweet edge of something burning slightly in the kitchen that nobody seemed concerned about.

"This is exactly what we needed." Lucy grabbed your hand, already pulling you deeper into the crowd, grinning back at you over her shoulder. "Come on. Let's find everyone."

You let her pull you along, weaving between clusters of people you half-recognized from school, the bass thrumming up through the floor and into your chest, the vodka from earlier still humming warm and loose through your veins, and for the first time in what felt like months, you let yourself simply exist in the noise and the chaos of it, no monsters, no secrets, no fear for Parker crowding your thoughts, just music and lights and the easy, uncomplicated pleasure of being somewhere loud and alive.

You spotted Robin near the kitchen doorway first, already deep in conversation with a group you didn't recognize, and further in, near the makeshift dance floor, Nancy's familiar profile caught the colored lights, drink in hand, laughing at something. The sight of familiar faces in the middle of all that chaos sent something warm and hopeful blooming in your chest.

"Oh my God, is that—" Lucy grabbed your arm, pointing toward a pair of girls near the drink table, both of them turning at almost the exact same moment, faces lighting up with recognition.

"No way!" Alice was already crossing the room toward you, Tammy right behind her, both of them looking exactly the same as you remembered from high school despite the months since you'd last seen either of them. "Y/N Y/L/N, as I live and breathe."

"I haven't seen you guys since graduation, basically." You found yourself laughing, genuinely delighted, pulled into a tight, enthusiastic hug from Alice while Tammy waited her turn, grinning. "How are you? What have you even been doing?"

"Community college, mostly. Very glamorous." Tammy rolled her eyes good-naturedly, hugging you next. "Tammy's been dating that guy from the garage, though, so at least one of us has interesting news."

"He's not just 'that guy from the garage,' Tammy, he has a name."

"I know his name, I just like watching you get defensive about it."

Lucy laughed, easily folding into the reunion, and the four of you fell into easy, overlapping conversation, catching up on months of scattered gossip who was dating who now, whose parents had finally sold their house, some drama involving a former classmate that apparently the entire senior class had opinions about. It felt easy in a way you hadn't realized you'd missed, this specific, uncomplicated kind of catching up that had nothing to do with monsters or secrets or anyone's little brother being in danger, just old friends and loud music and a party that felt, for the first time in longer than you wanted to admit, like something you were allowed to simply enjoy.

"You look really good, by the way," Alice said, eyeing your dress approvingly. "Like, really good. What's the occasion?"

"No occasion." You felt your cheeks warm slightly despite yourself. "Just felt like making an effort tonight."

"Uh huh." Alice exchanged a knowing look with Tammy, clearly not buying the explanation for a second, though she let it drop, grinning instead. "Well, it's working. Come on, let's get you guys a drink, we've got so much to catch up on."

Somewhere in that crowd, you knew, Steve was probably here too.

You just didn't know yet exactly how he'd arrived.

Steve found Robin, Nancy, and Eddie clustered near the kitchen doorway not long after he and Carrie made it through the front door, all three of them turning at his approach with expressions that ranged from carefully neutral to openly unimpressed.

"You actually did it," Robin said, eyeing Carrie's arm still looped through his with a look she didn't bother hiding.

"Robin." Steve's voice carried a low, warning edge.

"I'm just observing." Robin's smile went tight and polite as she turned it on Carrie instead. "Hi. carrie."

"hey yourself ." She offered a bright, easy smile, entirely unaware of the tension humming.

"Robin's eyes flicked briefly to Steve, something pointed in the look, before she softened it back toward Carrie. "Nice to see you, been a while ."

Nancy offered a polite, measured hello of her own, though her gaze lingered a beat longer on Steve than the greeting really required, some silent, unspoken judgment passing clearly between them, and Eddie, leaning against the doorway with a cup in hand, just raised his eyebrows slightly, saying nothing at all, which somehow felt louder than if he had.

"This place is packed," Carrie said, glancing around, entirely oblivious to the current running beneath the small talk. "I love it. Way better than the last party I went to."

"Yeah, Tina doesn't do anything halfway," Eddie offered, finally speaking, his voice carefully neutral. "You guys want drinks? I'm heading toward the kitchen."

"I'll come," Carrie said immediately, already tugging lightly at Steve's arm. "Come on, you can introduce me to people."

Steve let himself be pulled along, throwing one last glance back at Robin and Nancy, who exchanged a look of their own the second his back was turned — a silent, weighted conversation neither of them needed words for.

"This is going to be a disaster," Nancy said quietly, once he was out of earshot.

"Yep," Robin agreed, watching them disappear into the crowd. "Any idea where Y/N actually is right now?"

"No clue. Somewhere in this madhouse, probably having a good time, blissfully unaware." Nancy sighed, glancing toward the packed living room. "Let's just hope it stays that way a little longer."

They didn't have to wonder for much longer. Somewhere across the crowded room, unseen by either of them yet, the two halves of the evening were already drifting steadily, inevitably closer together.

Back near the kitchen, Alice had procured a full round of shots from somewhere, lining them up along the counter with the triumphant flourish of someone who'd fought hard for the privilege.

"Okay, catch-up round," she announced, passing them out. "To old friends and terrible decisions."

"To terrible decisions," Lucy agreed, already raising hers.

You threw yours back along with everyone else, the vodka from earlier joined now by whatever Alice had actually managed to procure, warm and sharp and loosening something pleasantly hazy behind your eyes. The party had blurred slightly at the edges in the best possible way, colors and music running together into something soft and easy, and you found yourself laughing more freely than you had in weeks, leaning into Lucy's shoulder at some joke you'd already half-forgotten the punchline of.

"Okay," Tammy said, setting her empty cup down with decisive energy. "I want to do a lap. See who's actually here, who got hot over the summer, who I need to avoid all night."

"A lap," Alice repeated, delighted. "Yes. Excellent plan. Let's go be nosy."

The four of you set off together, weaving arm in arm through the crowd, cataloging familiar faces as you passed, Tammy narrating a running commentary under her breath that had all of you dissolving into laughter more than once. The music thumped steady beneath your feet, the lights blurred warm and colorful overhead, and for a stretch of minutes that felt both endless and much too short, you let yourself simply exist inside the easy, uncomplicated pleasure of being surrounded by old friends at a loud, chaotic party.

"Hey," Tammy said, leaning in close as you rounded past the dance floor, voice pitched just for you, some careful curiosity threading through it. "Can I ask you something? You're not still hung up on Harrington, right?”

The question landed lighter than it might have a few weeks ago, and you found yourself laughing, easy and unbothered, the vodka smoothing out whatever old ache might have otherwise sat beneath it.

"No," you said, and mostly believed it, buoyed up on the warm, hopeful current of the whole night. "That's ancient history."

"Good." Tammy grinned, satisfied, looping her arm back through yours. "Because you deserve better than a guy who works at a video store, no offense to anyone currently employed there."

You laughed again, letting the comment roll past you, and the four of you kept moving through the crowd, arm in arm, entirely unaware of exactly how soon that particular claim was about to be tested.

"Oh my God, is that Lewis?" Alice's grip on your arm tightened, already steering the group toward a cluster of guys near the back hallway. "And David, and Carter's here too?"

The three of them turned at the sound of their names, faces breaking into matching grins of recognition, and within seconds you'd been folded into another loud, overlapping round of hugs and exclamations, all of you talking over each other trying to catch up on months of scattered news.

"I heard you went off to some fancy state school," David said, grinning at you, red cup in hand. "How's that treating you?"

"It's fine. I'm actually taking some time off right now, family stuff."

"Family stuff, very mysterious." Lewis raised an eyebrow, teasing. "You gonna elaborate, or is that classified?"

"Classified," you said, laughing, grateful for the easy out.

Carter, hovering at the edge of the group, had gone noticeably quiet during the initial reunion chaos, and once the conversation splintered into smaller side discussions Alice catching Lewis up on something, Tammy and David arguing good-naturedly about a mutual friend's questionable life choices — he drifted closer to you, red cup in hand, a slow, easy smile already in place.

"You look really good," he said, eyes tracking over you in a way that was almost, but not quite, subtle. "Like, really good. College clearly agrees with you."

"Thanks." You managed a polite smile, some old, familiar instinct kicking in automatically.

"You seeing anybody these days?" He leaned slightly closer, voice pitched just for you beneath the noise of the party, something confident and unhurried in his posture, like he'd asked this exact question successfully plenty of times before. "Because I always kind of regretted not asking you out senior year. Figured I'd finally get around to fixing that mistake."

You laughed, a little surprised, the vodka humming warm enough through your system to make the whole exchange feel more amusing than uncomfortable. "That's a bold opening move, Carter."

"I've had years to work on my confidence." He grinned, easy and unbothered by your teasing, taking a small step closer, close enough now that you caught the faint smell of cologne and beer. "So? Anybody I need to worry about?"

"It's complicated," you admitted, some of your earlier certainty from the conversation with Tammy wobbling slightly under the direct question.

"Complicated's not a no." Carter's grin widened, something pleased and persistent in it. "I can work with complicated."

You laughed again, shaking your head, though you didn't step back either, some easy, flattered warmth settling into your chest despite everything, the whole conversation feeling light and uncomplicated in a way that had nothing to do with monsters, or secrets, or anyone waiting for you across the crowded room that you still hadn't spotted yet.

"So what happened senior year?" you asked, genuinely curious now, some part of you enjoying the easy, low-stakes nature of the whole exchange. "Why didn't you ask me out then, if you'd apparently been thinking about it?"

"Honestly? You were dating somebody." Carter shrugged, easy about it, no real bitterness in the admission. "Some guy a grade above us. You guys seemed pretty serious, so I figured it wasn't worth the awkwardness."

Something in your chest gave a small, uncomfortable twist at that, some old memory surfacing before you pushed it back down, unwilling to let it intrude on the easy warmth of the moment.

"Anyway," Carter went on, apparently not noticing the flicker of hesitation, "that's done now, right? You said it yourself, complicated. Complicated's not the same as taken."

"No," you agreed slowly, "I guess it's not."

"Dance with me, then." He held out a hand, grinning, confident enough in the invitation that it didn't feel like a real question at all. "For old times' sake. We never even danced together at prom, if I remember right."

You glanced back toward the rest of the group, Alice and Tammy both deep in their own conversations, Lucy nowhere immediately visible in the crowd, and something reckless and warm the vodka, the music, the flattering, uncomplicated attention decided the question for you before you'd fully thought it through.

"One dance," you said, taking his hand.

Carter's grin widened, pleased, and he pulled you toward the makeshift dance floor, the crowd swallowing you both into its loose, colorful chaos, the bass thumping steady beneath your feet, and for a few easy, unbothered minutes, you let yourself simply enjoy it the attention, the music, the small, harmless thrill of being wanted by someone who came with absolutely no complicated history attached at all.

Steve, Carrie, Robin, Nancy, and Eddie had made it as far as the kitchen bar, Carrie's arm still looped firmly through Steve's the entire way, her free hand finding excuses to land on his chest or his shoulder every few minutes, punctuating whatever story she was currently telling with light, lingering touches that made Steve's jaw tighten a little more each time.

"Okay, three more shots," Robin announced, already lining up cups along the counter, her words coming out slightly looser than usual, cheeks flushed pink. "I've decided we're doing three more shots. This is a democratic decision. Everyone's opinion has been considered and overruled."

"Robin, you're already extremely drunk," Nancy said, though she was laughing, not exactly protesting either.

"I'm appropriately drunk for the occasion." Robin poured with theatrical, slightly unsteady precision, sliding cups toward everyone. "Eddie, back me up."

"I fully support this decision." Eddie, swaying slightly on his feet, raised his own cup with exaggerated solemnity. "To bad decisions, made worse by alcohol."

"That's oddly specific," Nancy said, eyeing him.

"I contain multitudes, Nancy, we've been over this."

Carrie laughed, delighted, clearly charmed by the chaos of the whole group despite understanding maybe half the context behind any of it, and pulled Steve a step closer to the bar, leaning in to say something directly against his ear over the noise, her hand sliding warm along his forearm as she did.

Steve managed a tight, polite smile, extracting his arm as subtly as he could manage under the guise of reaching for his own cup, and caught Robin watching the whole exchange over the rim of her drink with an expression that was somehow both drunk and pointedly, deliberately unimpressed at the exact same time.

"You good?" she mouthed at him, not bothering to hide the question at all.

Steve gave a short, tight nod that fooled absolutely no one, and downed his shot in one motion, the burn doing little to loosen the knot sitting tight in his chest, Carrie's hand already finding its way back to his arm before the glass had even fully left his lips.

"So how long have you guys all known each other?" Carrie asked, glancing around the group, genuinely curious, apparently oblivious to the layers of tension humming beneath the surface of every single exchange. "You all seem really close."

"Forever, basically," Eddie said, pouring himself another shot without waiting for anyone's permission. "This town has a way of trapping people together for life whether they want it or not."

"That's oddly ominous."

"Everything's oddly ominous around here, you get used to it." Eddie grinned, unbothered, and Nancy shot him a warning look he either didn't catch or chose to ignore.

"I work with Steve at the video store," Robin offered, filling the gap, her words still coming out slightly looser than usual. "Have for, what, a year now? Longer? Time's fake, honestly, I've stopped tracking it."

"That's so fun, working together." Carrie's grip on Steve's arm tightened slightly, proprietary. "I bet you guys have all kinds of stories."

"Oh, we've got stories." Robin's mouth twitched, something dry and knowing in it. "Steve's had a pretty eventful year, actually. Lots of drama. Very soap opera energy, if you ask me."

"Robin." Steve's voice carried a low, warning edge.

"What? I'm just saying, it's been a lot." Robin held up both hands, entirely unbothered by the look he was giving her. "I'm not naming names. I'm being extremely discreet."

"You're being extremely drunk."

"Those aren't mutually exclusive, and you know it." Robin grinned at him, unrepentant, and turned back to Carrie with exaggerated innocence. "Anyway. How'd you two meet?"

"Eddie set us up, actually." Carrie glanced fondly toward him. "Well — introduced us, at least. I don't know if 'set up' is the right word for how it actually happened."

"That's one way to describe it," Eddie muttered, mostly into his cup, and Nancy elbowed him hard enough that he nearly spilled it.

"What was that?" Carrie asked, missing the exchange entirely.

"Nothing. I said you two make a cute couple." Eddie's smile was thin and entirely unconvincing, though Carrie, several drinks in herself now, took it at face value, beaming.

"We should get a picture later," she said, already looking around the crowded kitchen like she might spot a camera somewhere. "First party together and everything."

Steve managed something that vaguely resembled a smile, though his eyes flicked instinctively toward the doorway leading back out into the packed living room, some restless, anxious energy still humming underneath every forced, polite word he'd managed to string together so far that night.

"There you are." Lucy appeared in the kitchen doorway, scanning the room until her eyes landed on Eddie, a slow, pleased grin spreading across her face as she made her way over. "I've been looking for you."

"Have you now." Eddie's whole posture shifted, some of the tension from a moment ago melting into easy, genuine delight. "I'm flattered. Or alarmed. Little bit of both.

"Don't let it go to your head." Lucy leaned against the counter beside him, though her grin gave away exactly how pleased she actually was. "This party's insane, by the way. I think I've hugged like fifteen people I haven't seen since graduation."

"Sounds exhausting."

"It's a lot, yeah." She laughed, easy and warm, and the two of them fell into comfortable, teasing conversation, Eddie leaning in slightly, clearly enjoying every second of the exchange despite the chaotic undercurrent still running through the rest of the group around them.

Nancy, several drinks deep by now, swayed slightly where she stood, focus drifting between conversations with the loose, unfocused attention of someone thoroughly enjoying being drunk at a party for once instead of managing a crisis. Her gaze landed on Lucy, something delayed and curious crossing her face.

"Wait." Nancy blinked, working through the thought with visible effort. "Where's Y/N? Isn't she supposed to be with you?"

The question landed in the middle of the group like a dropped glass, and Steve's whole body went instantly, completely still, every ounce of his forced casualness draining out at once.

"Oh, we got split up a while ago." Lucy waved a hand, entirely unbothered, still riding the easy high of finding Eddie. "She ran into some people from high school. I think she's fine, honestly, last I saw she looked like she was having a good time."

"Good time doing what?" The question came out of Steve before he could stop it, sharper than he intended, and every head in the small group turned toward him at once.

Lucy blinked at him, surprised by the sudden intensity. "I don't know, dancing, probably? Why?"

"No reason." Steve's voice had gone tight, controlled, though the sudden, sick lurch in his stomach gave away exactly how untrue that actually was. "Just wondering."

Robin and Nancy exchanged a fast, loaded look over the rim of their cups, and Carrie, oblivious as ever, just kept talking, entirely unaware that the ground beneath the whole conversation had just shifted completely.

"Wait." Carrie's brow furrowed slightly, something clicking into place behind her eyes. "Y/N. Y/N Y/L/N?"

The whole group went quiet again, several pairs of eyes flicking toward her.

"Sure," Robin said slowly, cautious. "You know her?"

"Oh my god, i had math with her." Carrie's face had shifted into something bright and animated, words coming out slightly slurred now, several drinks clearly having caught up with her. "Small world. We weren't exactly close, though."

"We've all gotten pretty close to her lately, actually," Robin said, voice carefully even, something almost protective creeping into it despite the drunken slur still softening her own words. "She's good people."

"Sure, if you say so." Carrie's mouth twisted slightly, swaying a little on her feet as she leaned closer to the group, voice dropping into something conspiratorial. "I mean, no offense to your friend, but she was, like, so stuck up in high school. Genuinely so annoying. Always acting like she was better than everybody else, walking around like her stuff didn't stink, you know?"

"That doesn't really sound like her," Eddie said carefully, glancing toward Steve, whose jaw had gone tight enough to ache.

"I'm just saying what I remember." Carrie waved a hand loosely, nearly sloshing her drink over the rim of her cup, entirely oblivious to the icy silence spreading through the rest of the group. "She had, like, this whole vibe. Very 'don't talk to me unless you're interesting enough.' Super annoying energy. I never got why everybody liked her so much."

"I really don't think that's fair," Steve said, voice low and tight, unable to hold his tongue any longer.

Carrie blinked at him, swaying slightly, some delayed, drunken curiosity crossing her face. "Wait, you know her too?"

"We've met," Steve said flatly, not elaborating further.

"Huh." Carrie squinted at him a moment, apparently too far gone to actually connect any dots, and shrugged instead, nearly losing her balance in the process. "Well, whatever. I'm sure she's, like, totally different now. People change. I'm just saying, that was my experience, so."

Nobody said anything for a long moment, the kitchen suddenly feeling much smaller and more airless than it had a few minutes ago, and Steve, jaw tight, hands curled into fists at his sides, found himself fighting the sudden, overwhelming urge to walk straight out of the kitchen and go find you himself, regardless of every complicated, tangled reason he'd told himself all night that he shouldn't.

"I think," Nancy said finally, voice deceptively pleasant despite the sharp edge underneath it, "we should probably talk about literally anything else."

"Okay, actually, I'm gonna push back on that." Lucy's voice cut in, sharp and immediate, some protective fire flashing behind her eyes despite the drinks she'd clearly had herself. "I've known Y/N since we were twelve. She is not stuck up. She's actually one of the most —"

She stopped mid-sentence, gaze catching on something over Eddie's shoulder, out through the kitchen doorway toward the crowded living room, her whole expression freezing.

"Holy shit."

"What?" Eddie turned, following her gaze, brow furrowed.

"Carter Thompson." Lucy's voice had gone flat with disbelief, one hand rising slowly to point through the doorway, out across the packed dance floor, where the colored lights caught two familiar figures moving close together, hips swaying in perfect, easy rhythm, your hands looped loosely around his neck, his settled comfortable at your waist, foreheads nearly touching as you laughed at something he'd said.

Journey's “Who's Crying Now” had just started drifting low and mournful from the speakers, the opening notes threading through the party's noise with almost comical, devastating timing, and Steve, following the direction of Lucy's pointing finger, felt every single word of that song land somewhere deep and immediate in his chest.

He didn't say anything. He didn't have to. Robin and Nancy both turned to look at him at the exact same moment, and whatever expression was currently sitting on his face made both of them go instantly, carefully quiet.

Carrie, oblivious as ever, followed everyone else's gaze toward the dance floor, squinting slightly to focus. Steve was already moving, weaving fast through the crowded kitchen doorway, and behind him, he heard Robin mutter something low and urgent to Nancy, though the words were lost beneath the music and his own pulse roaring loud in his ears.

He didn't have a plan. He didn't know what he was going to say, or do, or how he was possibly going to explain his own presence at all, standing there in a party he'd only come to in the first place to prove some petty, wounded point that suddenly felt smaller and more foolish than anything else in the entire world. He just knew he couldn't stand in that kitchen one more second, watching you laugh with somebody else's hands at your waist, not after everything, not after the whole miserable, complicated year that had led both of you to this exact, unbearable moment.

The music swelled, mournful and ironic and entirely too fitting, and Steve pushed his way toward the dance floor, toward you, with absolutely no idea what he was actually going to do once he got there.

He'd made it about halfway across the crowded living room when a hand caught his arm, tugging him back with surprising insistence.

"Hey, where are you running off to?" Carrie's voice, bright and slightly slurred, cut through the noise right behind him. She'd followed him out of the kitchen, weaving unsteadily through the crowd, and now stood there gripping his arm with both hands, swaying slightly, entirely unaware of what he'd been in the middle of doing. "You just disappeared on me. That's rude, Steve Harrington."

"I was just—" He glanced back toward the dance floor, toward you, still laughing, still oblivious, still wrapped up in a moment he had absolutely no right to interrupt in the first place. "I needed air."

"You can get air with me." She looped her arm properly through his now, pulling him gently but firmly back toward the kitchen, toward the rest of the group, entirely oblivious to the tension radiating off him. "Come on, Eddie was in the middle of telling this whole story about a customer who tried to return a VHS tape covered in barbecue sauce, I want you to hear the ending."

Steve let himself be pulled, some cold, sinking realization settling into his chest as the distance between himself and the dance floor stretched back out with every reluctant step. He glanced back once more, catching a last glimpse of you through the crowd, laughing, easy, entirely unaware he'd even been that close, and felt something in his chest crack open at the sight of it — relief and grief tangled together in equal, confusing measure, the moment slipping away from him as thoroughly as if he'd never tried to reach it at all.

"You okay?" Carrie asked, glancing up at him as they made their way back toward the kitchen, some genuine, if slightly delayed, concern breaking through her earlier obliviousness. "You've got a weird look on your face."

"I'm fine," Steve said, the lie coming out smoother than it had any right to, an old, familiar skill he apparently hadn't lost after all, and let her lead him back into the noise and the light and the rest of a night he no longer had any idea how to survive.

Back in the kitchen, the group had drifted into some new, looser conversation, Eddie mid-story about the barbecue sauce tape, Robin and Nancy laughing at the appropriate moments, and Steve stood at the edge of it, nodding along without absorbing a single word, Carrie's hand still resting warm against his arm.

It was another twenty minutes before she leaned in close, lips brushing near his ear to be heard over the music. "Come outside with me for a sec. It's too loud in here."

She was already tugging him toward the back door before he could think of a reason to say no, out onto the quiet porch, the party's noise muffling into something distant and manageable the second the door swung shut behind them. The cool night air hit him first, sharp and clean after the heat of the crowded kitchen, and Carrie turned to face him, closer than the conversation strictly required, something deliberate in the way she'd positioned herself against the porch railing.

"This is better," she said, voice softer now, all the earlier drunken looseness sharpening into something more focused. "I feel like I haven't actually gotten you alone all night."

"Yeah, it's been a lot of people." Steve kept his voice easy, though something in his chest had gone tight and wary, some instinct picking up on the shift in her energy a half-second before she closed the last bit of distance between them, one hand coming up to rest against his chest.

"You know," she said, tilting her head up toward him, voice dropping lower, "I had a really good time tonight. Even with all the weird tension back there. I like spending time with you."

"Carrie—"

"You're cute when you're nervous, you know that?" She was smiling now, easy and confident, and before Steve could fully register what was happening, she'd risen up onto her toes and kissed him.

It lasted only a few seconds some instinctive, reflexive part of him not pulling away fast enough before his brain caught up with what his body had already let happen, and when he finally did step back, it was too abrupt, too obvious, his whole face flushing with something between guilt and panic.

Carrie blinked up at him, surprised by the sudden retreat, her earlier confidence flickering into something more uncertain.

"I, uh—" Steve's mind went completely blank, every careful excuse he might have offered scattering the second he actually needed one. "I should probably grab a drink. It's — it's kind of warm out here, all of a sudden."

"It's literally fifty degrees," Carrie said slowly, watching him with a look that suggested she wasn't remotely fooled, though she pushed off the railing and followed him toward the door anyway, arms crossing loosely over her chest. "Fine. Let's go find a drink, then."

They stepped back inside together, the party's noise swallowing the awkward, unresolved silence between them almost instantly, and Carrie kept close beside him as they made their way back toward the kitchen, her earlier confidence cooling into something more guarded and watchful with every step.

"I need to find a bathroom," you said to Carter, breathless and laughing after the dance had wound down, the two of you weaving back through the crowd in search of one.

"There's probably one back by the kitchen," he offered, steering you gently through the packed living room, and you followed, still riding the warm, easy high of the last twenty minutes, cheeks flushed from dancing, entirely unbothered by anything in the world.

The hallway near the kitchen was quieter, lined with framed photos and a narrow strip of window set into the back door, and you caught it only for a fraction of a second as you passed a flash of the back porch through the glass, two figures standing close together in the porch light, heads bent together in a way that looked, for one brief, disorienting second, unmistakably like a kiss.

You didn't slow down. You didn't even fully register what you'd seen, some distant, unbothered corner of your mind filing it away as nothing, just two strangers at a party, gone from your thoughts almost as fast as it had crossed them, swallowed instantly by Carter's hand at your back guiding you onward and the general, happy chaos of the evening.

You found the bathroom a moment later, and by the time you emerged, Carter had spotted a familiar face across the kitchen.

"Isn't that lucy over there?"

You followed his gaze to find Lucy deep in conversation with Eddie near the counter, both of them laughing at something, Robin and Nancy nearby with drinks in hand, the whole group looking loose and easy in the way only a party several drinks in could manage.

"Lucy!" You waved, making your way over, Carter falling into step beside you.

"There you are!" Lucy's face lit up, pulling you into a quick, enthusiastic hug. "I lost track of you completely. Did you have fun? You look like you had fun."

"I had a lot of fun, actually." You glanced sideways at Carter, who grinned, unbothered by the attention. "remember carter from high school."

"Nice to see you again carter ." Lucy's eyes flicked briefly, curiously, between the two of you, something knowing tugging at the corner of her mouth, though she didn't comment further.

The group folded easily around you, introductions and easy small talk filling the next few minutes, and you were mid-conversation with Carter, laughing at something he'd said, when the back door swung open, cool night air sweeping briefly into the kitchen, and Steve stepped back inside, Carrie close behind him, jaw tight, something unreadable and heavy sitting behind his eyes.

Your back was to the door, facing Carter, mid-laugh at something he'd just said, and you didn't notice Steve's arrival at all.

Steve did notice. His whole body went rigid at the sight of you, the easy, oblivious curve of your shoulders, Carter's hand still resting lightly at your waist, and something raw and stricken crossed his face for just a second before he forced it back down.

Carrie caught it immediately.

She glanced between him and the back of your head, something calculating flickering behind her eyes, quick and sharp despite everything that had just happened between the two of them on the porch, and she didn't say a word about it not a single comment, not even a raised eyebrow just filed the reaction away, visibly, deliberately, and looped her arm back through his with sudden, renewed purpose.

"Come on," she said, voice bright again, all traces of her earlier coolness smoothed over instantly, steering him firmly toward the group. "Let's go say hi to everyone."

She kept close as they crossed the kitchen, pressing herself against his side more obviously than she had all night, one hand sliding up to rest deliberately against his chest as they reached the edge of the group, and when Robin glanced over, surprised at the sudden reversal in Carrie's demeanor, Carrie just smiled, wide and easy, tilting her face up toward Steve with exaggerated, performative warmth.

"There you two are," Robin said slowly, glancing between them with obvious confusion, clearly having expected something very different given how the last twenty minutes had apparently gone.

"We just needed a minute," Carrie said sweetly, squeezing Steve's arm, her voice carrying just slightly further than strictly necessary. "It's so nice out there. Very romantic."

Something about the pitch of an unfamiliar voice cut through your conversation with Carter, and you turned, still smiling, still riding the easy warmth of the evening, and felt the smile freeze halfway across your face.

Steve stood there, jaw tight, Carrie pressed close against his side, her hand splayed deliberately across his chest, and for one long, suspended second, you simply stared, your brain refusing to catch up with what you were actually looking at.

"Oh," Carrie said, glancing over at you with polite, cool disinterest, no recognition at all in her expression. "Hi. Sorry, were we interrupting something?"

"No," you managed, voice coming out flatter than you intended, Carter's hand still resting easy at your waist, suddenly, painfully aware of exactly how that must look from where Steve was standing.

"Good." Carrie's smile stayed bright, though something faintly dismissive slid beneath it as her eyes flicked briefly over you and Carter both, clearly cataloging and discarding you in the same glance. "I don't think we've met. I'm Carrie."

"Y/N," you said, voice tight.

"Right, of course." Something flickered across her face, quick and unreadable, before smoothing back into easy pleasantness. "Steve's mentioned you. Small town, I guess, everybody knows everybody."

Carter, oblivious to the sudden drop in temperature, tightened his arm slightly around your waist, leaning in to murmur something, and you nodded absently, barely hearing him, your eyes still locked on Steve, who hadn't said a single word since you'd turned around, his face carved out of the exact same unreadable stone it had been wearing the entire ride home from the Creel house.

"Well," Carrie said brightly, into the silence, tugging Steve's arm gently toward the rest of the group, "we should probably let you two get back to your evening. Nice meeting you, Y/N."

She said your name like it cost her nothing at all, acting like she didn’t remember you, easy and dismissive, though instead of actually leaving, she simply pulled Steve a few feet closer to Robin and Nancy, staying well within the same small, crowded pocket of kitchen, close enough that you could still hear every word if you strained to, close enough that avoiding the sight of them entirely would have meant physically turning your back.

You didn't turn your back. You stood there instead, Carter's arm still looped easy around your waist, and let your mind spiral through the wreckage of the last thirty seconds with a speed that left you almost breathless.

“He brought someone. He actually brought someone.” You turned the thought over and over, unable to make it sit still long enough to fully process. You thought about the magazine on your bed that afternoon, the quiet, hopeful certainty you'd let yourself feel remembering his voice cracking on “i miss it.” You thought about the almost-kiss weeks ago, his hands on your face, the way he'd said he still loved you even standing in the wreckage of everything. You thought about all of it, replaying against the image now burned into your mind Carrie's hand splayed against his chest, the porch light behind them, “very romantic” and felt something in your chest curdle fast and ugly, humiliation bleeding hot into your face.

You'd told Tammy you weren't hung up on him anymore. You'd almost believed it yourself, buoyed up on vodka and hope and a stupid, stubborn belief that tonight might actually be the night something shifted between you. And instead here you were, standing in a crowded kitchen with some other guy's arm around your waist, watching Steve Harrington stand three feet away with somebody else's hand on his chest, and you didn't know which fact humiliated you more that he'd moved on, or that some desperate, aching part of you still hadn't.

“You did this to yourself” you thought, bitter, furious, mostly at yourself. “You let yourself hope. You knew better. You always know better, and you do it anyway.”

Steve, meanwhile, stood there beside Carrie with his jaw locked so tight it ached, and felt every single one of his own careful justifications from the last three days collapsing at once, one after another, useless against the sight of you standing there with Carter's arm around you, laughing or you had been laughing, before you'd turned, before your face had gone tight and pale and utterly unreadable in a way that told him, with sick, immediate clarity, exactly how badly this had all gone.

“This was never supposed to actually happen. I never actually thought I'd see you see it.” He'd spent three days building the whole plan in the safe, theoretical distance of his own head, some petty, wounded fantasy about you noticing, about you finally understanding some fraction of what he'd been carrying and now, standing here in the actual, awful reality of it, watching your face do that specific, controlled thing it did when you were trying very hard not to fall apart in public, he understood, with a sick, sinking finality, exactly how badly he'd miscalculated.

“You have Carter's hand on your waist. I have Carrie's hand on my chest. We did this to each other. We're doing this to each other, right now, on purpose, in front of everyone we know.”

He thought about the kiss on the porch, brief and unwanted and entirely his own fault for putting himself in the position to receive it in the first place. He thought about you glimpsing something through that back door window, though he had no way of knowing that yet, no way of knowing that some small, awful piece of tonight's damage had already been done before you'd even turned around. He just knew, standing there, that whatever fragile, complicated thing had existed between the two of you a few weeks ago, whatever had been rebuilding slowly and painfully in the wreckage of everything else, was currently standing in a kitchen collapsing in real time, and he had absolutely no idea how to stop it.

Carrie, oblivious to the storm raging silently on both sides of her, kept one hand resting easy against Steve's chest, chattering to Robin about something inconsequential, and neither you nor Steve said a single word to each other, standing there in the same crowded room, close enough to reach out and touch, separated by exactly the kind of distance that felt, in that moment, entirely, permanently unbridgeable.

"So how do you guys all know each other?" Carter asked, glancing between the two groups, entirely oblivious to the tension thick enough to choke on, apparently just trying to be friendly. "Small town, everybody's connected somehow, right?"

"Something like that," Nancy said carefully, glancing between you and Steve with poorly concealed alarm.

"Steve and Y/N actually go way back," Robin offered, a little too brightly, some clumsy attempt at diffusing the tension that only seemed to thicken it further. "Since high school, right?"

"Right," you said, voice tight, forcing something that might have passed for a casual smile. "Ancient history."

"Ancient history," Carrie repeated, glancing between you and Steve with sudden, sharpened interest, something calculating flickering behind her eyes. "Funny. You didn't mention knowing her that well, Steve."

"It didn't come up," Steve said, voice clipped, jaw tight.

"Interesting." Carrie's smile stayed fixed in place, though something colder had crept into it now. "Small world, though, right? Running into an old flame at the same party I'm at."

"We're not—" you started, at the exact same moment Steve said, "She's not—"

Both of you stopped, the words colliding awkwardly in the space between you, and an uncomfortable silence settled over the whole cluster of people, Carter glancing between everyone with visible confusion, clearly having walked into something far more complicated than he'd bargained for.

"Anyway." Robin's voice cut through, too loud, too fast. "This is a great party, right? Really great music selection. Tina's outdone herself."

Nobody responded to that. Carrie's eyes stayed fixed on you a moment longer, something assessing and unkind in the look, before she turned her attention deliberately back to Steve, tilting her face up toward his with exaggerated warmth.

"You never really told me what you do for fun, Steve," she said, voice pitched loud enough to carry clearly across the small distance separating your two groups. "Besides working at the video store, I mean. I feel like I barely know anything real about you."

"There's not much to know," Steve said, voice flat, eyes still fixed somewhere just past her shoulder, on you.

"I doubt that." Carrie's hand slid slightly higher on his chest, deliberate, performative, and you felt your stomach twist hard at the sight of it, Carter's arm still resting warm and oblivious at your own waist, the whole scene suddenly feeling like some cruel, mirrored tableau neither of you had actually agreed to be part of.

"He's actually really sweet, once you get past the whole broody thing," Carrie went on, voice bright, eyes flicking pointedly toward you now as she spoke, clearly aiming the words somewhere far more specific than Steve himself. "We had this whole moment out on the porch earlier, actually. Very romantic. I don't usually go for the strong, silent type, but I'm starting to see the appeal."

"Carrie," Steve said, low, warning.

"What? I'm just making conversation." She smiled, sweet and sharp all at once, gaze still fixed on you, watching for a reaction with the patient, deliberate attention of someone who knew exactly what she was fishing for. "You two really never dated? You've got this whole loaded energy happening. I'd almost think you had history, if Steve hadn't told me there was nothing there."

"There isn't," you said, voice coming out tighter than you wanted, forcing your expression into something flat and unbothered even as your pulse hammered hard in your ears.

"Right. Of course." Carrie's smile widened slightly, something satisfied flickering behind it, as if your carefully controlled tone had told her everything she actually needed to know. "It's just funny, the way the whole room went quiet the second you were mentioned earlier. Guess that's just, what, small-town weirdness?"

"Something like that," you managed.

"Mm." Carrie's eyes stayed on you a beat too long, something knowing and faintly triumphant in the look, before she turned back to Steve, pressing herself in a little closer, deliberate and unmistakable. "Anyway. I was thinking we should dance later. If you're up for it."

Steve didn't answer, jaw tight, and Carrie, apparently satisfied with whatever reaction she'd managed to wring out of both of you, simply smiled wider, entirely pleased with herself.

Lucy, who'd been quietly seething through the entire exchange, finally snapped.

"Okay, actually, what’s your problem" she said, stepping forward, voice sharp enough to cut clean through the noise of the party around you. "You don't know anything about the two of them, so maybe don't stand there fishing for drama like it's entertainment."

"I'm not fishing for anything," Carrie said, though the satisfied glint in her eyes suggested otherwise. "I'm just making conversation."

"Sure you are." Lucy's arms crossed, something fierce and protective radiating off her. "You've said Y/N's name like four times now in a tone that suggests you're either extremely bored or extremely petty, and I genuinely can't tell which."

"Lucy," you said quietly, mortified, though some small, grateful part of you was glad someone had finally said it out loud.

"No, I'm serious." Lucy didn't back down, glancing between Carrie and Steve both now. "This whole thing feels like a setup, honestly. Like somebody wanted an audience for something."

The words landed like a struck match, and you watched, with a sick, sudden clarity, the way Steve's face went pale, the way his jaw worked like he wanted to argue and couldn't quite find the footing to do it.

"That's a pretty big accusation," Carrie said slowly, something shifting behind her own expression now, some flicker of real uncertainty breaking through the earlier confidence for the first time all night.

"Is it, though?" Lucy's eyes stayed locked on Steve, unflinching. "Because from where I'm standing, this looks a lot less like a coincidence and a lot more like a decision somebody made on purpose."

Carter, entirely lost now, glanced between everyone with visible bewilderment. "Okay, I feel like I'm missing some pretty major context here."

"You are," Robin muttered, mostly to herself, pinching the bridge of her nose.

The kitchen had gone quiet around the small cluster of you, a few nearby partygoers glancing over with curious, half-interested attention at the sudden tension crackling through the group, and you stood there, chest tight, humiliation and fury and something rawer and more devastating tangling together all at once, Carrie's earlier, calculated needling suddenly landing with an entirely different, much heavier weight now that Lucy had said the quiet part out loud.

Carrie's expression shifted fast, the earlier flicker of uncertainty hardening back into something sharper, more defensive.

"Wow, okay." She let out a short, humorless laugh, gaze sweeping over Lucy with open disdain. "I don't even know you, and you're already deciding what my whole night was about. That's cute." Her eyes flicked toward you next, something cold and cutting settling into her voice. "Honestly, this is kind of pathetic, isn't it? All this drama over a guy who works at a video store. Maybe if you weren't so obviously desperate for his attention, none of this would even be a conversation."

"Carrie," Steve said, sharp, a warning.

"What? I'm just saying what everyone's clearly thinking." Carrie crossed her arms, chin lifted, entirely unbothered by the stunned silence that followed. "This whole thing is embarrassing for her ."

Something in your chest cracked wide open at that, all the humiliation and hope of the entire night collapsing at once into something colder and more final, and you didn't trust yourself to say a single word back, some old, protective instinct telling you that anything you said right now would only make the humiliation worse.

"I need some air," you said instead, voice thin, already turning away from all of them.

"I'll come with you," Carter offered immediately, already moving.

"No." The word came out sharper than you intended, and you softened it fast, forcing something like a smile. "I just need a minute. I'll find you guys after."

Steve was already moving to follow you when Carrie's voice cut through the kitchen behind him, louder now, looser, the alcohol clearly working faster than her own good sense.

"Oh my God, is she seriously storming off?" Carrie laughed, sharp and humorless, glancing around the group like she expected agreement. "That's so dramatic. Honestly, no wonder you never mentioned her, Steve, if this is how she handles literally anything."

Steve stopped dead, spinning back around, something hot and immediate flooding through him.

"That's enough," he said, voice low and hard.

"What? I'm just saying." Carrie waved a hand loosely, swaying slightly where she stood, clearly past the point of reading the room at all. "She acts all sweet and then bolts the second something doesn't go her way. Kind of says a lot about someone, don't you think? Real mature."

"I said that's enough." His voice cracked up loud now, sharp enough that several nearby partygoers glanced over, and Robin and Nancy both went very still, watching. "You don't know her. you don't get to stand there making the night worse just because you're drunk and embarrassed that I didn't want to kiss you on that porch."

Carrie's face went slack with shock, some of the earlier bravado draining out of it fast.

"Excuse me?"

"You heard me." Steve's chest was heaving now, every ounce of guilt and fury from the entire night finally finding somewhere to land. "This was never fair to you, and I'm sorry for that, genuinely, but it is not okay for you to stand here and tear her apart because you're hurt. That's not her fault. None of this was ever her fault."

The kitchen had gone properly silent now, the whole cluster of people watching, and Carrie stood there, stunned, arms crossed defensively over her chest, some genuine hurt flickering behind the anger now.

"Wow," she said finally, voice tight. "Okay. Good to know where I actually stand."

Steve didn't answer her. He was already turning, already moving fast through the crowd toward the door you'd disappeared through, leaving Carrie standing there in the sudden, uncomfortable quiet with Robin, Nancy, and a kitchen full of strangers who'd all just witnessed exactly how badly the whole night had unraveled.

You'd found your way to the side yard, away from the worst of the crowd, where the noise of the party faded into something more distant and manageable, the bass reduced to a dull, muffled thump through the walls behind you. The night air had turned properly cold now, the kind of sharp, biting chill that cut through the thin fabric of your dress, and you stood there with your arms wrapped tight around yourself, breath fogging faintly in front of you, staring out at nothing in particular while the tears you'd been holding back all evening finally started to fall.

The side yard was mostly dark, lit only by the faint spill of light from a neighboring house's porch and the moon hanging low and indifferent overhead, a few stray cars parked along the curb, the grass damp and cold against your bare ankles. You'd found a spot near the fence line, half-hidden by an overgrown hedge, and you stood there shivering, furious at yourself for crying at all, furious at the whole miserable night, furious at every stupid, hopeful thought you'd let yourself have that afternoon.

You heard him before you saw him, the side gate creaking as it swung open, his footsteps quick and urgent across the grass.

"Y/N—"

"Was that you?" You spun around before he could say anything else, voice already cracking, all the careful composure you'd managed to hold together inside the house finally, completely collapsing. "On the porch. I saw two people through the window, kissing. Was that you and her?"

Steve stopped short, something guilty flashing across his face before he could smooth it away, and that alone was answer enough.

"It's not what you think—"

"Was it you?" Your voice cracked up louder, sharper. "Just answer the question, Steve. Yes or no."

"Yes." He said it fast, like ripping off a bandage. "But it wasn't what it looked like, she kissed me, I pulled away almost immediately—"

"Oh, of course. Of course you pulled away almost immediately." Your laugh came out sharp, humorless, disbelieving. "That's so convenient. Meanwhile you spent the last twenty minutes in there acting like the wounded party, like I'm the one who did something wrong tonight."

"I never said you did anything wrong!"

"You didn't have to say it! You brought her here, you kissed her, and then you have the audacity to come find me crying in a yard like you're somehow owed comfort for it!" Your voice was climbing fast now, all the fury of the entire night finally finding somewhere real to land. "At least I didn't kiss anyone tonight! At least I have that much dignity left!"

"You danced with Carter all night with his hands all over you!" Steve's voice cracked up loud too now, defensive and raw. "Don't stand there acting like some innocent bystander in all of this, Y/N, you weren't exactly keeping your distance either!"

"That's not the same thing and you know it!"

"Isn't it, though? Because from where I was standing, it looked pretty cozy!"

"We didn't kiss!" Your voice tore, raw and furious. "Carter and I danced, that's it, nothing happened, and you're standing here comparing that to actually kissing somebody? Like those are even remotely equivalent?"

"Dean's hands were on your waist in your own kitchen ! You think I didn’t see l that? You think that didn't destroy me, standing in that hallway watching some stranger touch you like it was nothing?"

"Dean and I never kissed that night either!" You were shouting now, chest heaving, humiliation and fury tangling together into something ugly and uncontrolled. "You've just been carrying around this whole fictional version of events in your head, deciding I'm just as guilty as you no matter what actually happened, because it's easier than admitting you're the only one who actually did something wrong tonight!"

"I'm not saying you're equally guilty, I'm saying—"

"You're saying exactly that! You brought a date here to make me jealous, and then you kissed her, and now you're standing here trying to make this about Carter and Dean like that somehow evens the score, and it doesn't, Steve, it doesn't even come close!" Tears were streaming down your face now, hot and furious, your whole body shaking with the force of it. "You want to know what the actual worst part is? I came here hoping something might finally be different. I actually let myself believe, for one single afternoon, that maybe we could figure this out. And instead I get to watch you kiss somebody else and then stand here arguing with me about whether it's fair for me to be upset about it!"

"I know it's not fair! I know that, I have known that every single second since it happened, and I hate myself for it, but you don't get to stand there acting like you're some perfect, blameless victim in all of this either, because you're not, Y/N, neither of us is, we are both so unbelievably bad at this that I don't even know why either of us keeps trying!"

"Maybe we should just stop trying, then!" The words tore out of you before you could stop them, raw and final. "Maybe this is exactly why it's never going to work, because every single time we get close to something real, one of us finds a way to blow it up completely!"

"Fine!" Steve's voice cracked, something desperate and wrecked bleeding through the anger now. "Fine, maybe you're right! Maybe we should just stop!"

"Fine!"

"Fine!"

Neither of you said anything else, both of you breathing hard, chests heaving, standing there in the cold, dark yard with an entire year of wreckage sitting raw and exposed between you, and for a long, terrible moment, it felt, for the first time in the whole exhausting, painful history between you, like there was genuinely nothing left to say.

You turned first, wiping roughly at your face, already moving back toward the gate, needing to be anywhere else, needing this night to simply be over.

"Don't." Steve's hand caught your wrist, firm but not rough, stopping you mid-step. "Don't walk away from me. Not again. Not like this."

"Let go of me." Your voice came out shaking, though you didn't pull free either, some old, stubborn part of you rooted exactly where you stood.

"I'm serious." His grip loosened slightly, though he didn't release you, some raw, desperate urgency bleeding into his voice. "Every single time things get hard, one of us walks away, and it never actually fixes anything, it just gives us more silence to fill with worse assumptions about each other. I am so tired of watching you walk away from me. I can't do it again tonight. I won't survive it again tonight."

You turned to face him properly, chest still heaving, tears still wet on your cheeks, and something in his expression wrecked, unguarded, stripped down to something rawer than you'd seen from him even at his most honest made the last of your resolve waver dangerously.

"I hate you," you said, voice breaking on it, though it came out more like a confession than an accusation.

"I know," he whispered back, and closed the last of the distance between you.

The kiss wasn't gentle. It came fast and desperate, both of you crashing into it with everything the fight had left unspent his hand sliding into your hair, yours fisting hard into the front of his shirt, pulling him closer instead of pushing him away, months of anger and longing and grief finally finding somewhere to go all at once. He kissed you like he was trying to prove something, and you kissed him back the exact same way, furious and desperate and utterly incapable of stopping, the cold night air forgotten entirely between the two of you.

When you finally broke apart, both of you breathing hard, foreheads resting together, neither of you said anything for a long moment, the fight still hanging unresolved in the air around you, tangled inseparably now with everything that had just happened instead.

"That didn't fix anything," you whispered, voice shaking.

"I know," Steve said again, quiet, his hand still cradling the back of your head. "I know it didn't. I don't care right now."

You didn't either. Not yet. Not for this one, stolen, terrible, perfect moment, standing in the cold with a whole year of damage still sitting unresolved between you, choosing, for once, to simply not think about any of it at all.

Neither of you pulled back further. His hand was still cradling the back of your head, fingers tangled loose in your hair, and when you finally lifted your eyes to meet his, something dark and unguarded burned behind them, all the careful restraint from the last several weeks finally, completely stripped away.

"Tell me again," he murmured, voice low and rough, his thumb tracing slowly along your jaw. "How much you hate me baby ."

Your breath caught, something hot and reckless coiling low in your chest at the way he said it, no fear in his voice at all, almost daring you.

"I hate you," you whispered again, though it came out ragged, breathless, nothing at all like the accusation it should have been.

"Say it like you mean it." His mouth ghosted just barely above yours, close enough that you felt every word against your lips instead of just hearing them. "I want to hear it."

"I hate you," you said once more, voice shaking, and this time it broke apart entirely into something else the second the words left your mouth.

"I hate you too, baby," he murmured back, voice wrecked and low, and closed the last inch of distance between you before you'd even finished speaking.

The vodka from earlier still hummed warm and loose through your veins, blurring the sharp edges of everything that had just been said, and when Steve kissed you this time, it was slower, deeper, deliberate in a way the first kiss hadn't been, his hand sliding from your jaw down to settle warm and firm at your waist, pulling you flush against him like the cold night air between you had become suddenly, entirely unacceptable. You met him with equal intensity, arms circling his neck fingers threading through the base of his hair , some reckless, consuming heat overtaking every rational thought you might have otherwise had, his mouth insistent and unhurried against yours, tasting faintly of whatever he'd been drinking, and you were sure you did too.

You lost track of how long you stood there, wrapped up in each other in the dark, quiet yard, the party's muffled noise the only reminder that the rest of the world still existed at all. When you finally broke apart again, both of you breathing unsteady, his forehead dropped to rest against yours, his fingers still clenched on your hips and for a long moment neither of you moved, neither of you spoke, the two of you simply standing there in the aftermath, tangled together in the cold, letting the vodka and the exhaustion and the sheer, overwhelming relief of finally touching each other again drown out every single complicated thing still waiting, unresolved, for the morning.

Then, before you could fully catch your breath, Steve bent, hooked an arm behind your knees, and hauled you up over his shoulder in one smooth, easy motion, a startled laugh tearing out of you despite everything.

"Steve—"

"Car," he said, voice rough, already crossing the yard toward the side street where he'd parked, one arm braced firm across the backs of your thighs to keep you steady, entirely unbothered by your muffled, half-hearted protests the whole way there.

He set you down against the passenger door hard enough to knock the breath from you, caging you in with both hands braced flat against the metal on either side of your head, and for a moment he just looked at you, something dark and hungry and furious all tangled together in his expression.

"You know what drives me insane?" he said, voice low, rough, leaning in close enough that you felt the words more than heard them. "You act like you can just walk away from this. From me. Like it's that easy. Like two years and everything since didn't happen at all."

"Steve—"

"You danced with him tonight like it meant nothing." His hand came up, tilting your chin toward him, thumb dragging slow along your bottom lip. "Let him put his hands on you like he had any right to. And the whole time, I could feel you looking for me. Don't lie to me and say you weren't."

Your breath caught, some old, reckless heat curling low in your chest at the accusation, true and infuriating in equal measure. "That doesn't mean anything."

"Doesn't it?" His mouth had drifted to your jaw now, unhurried, deliberate, and you felt your whole body arch instinctively toward him despite every ounce of anger still sitting raw beneath the surface. "I think it means everything. I think you've been looking for me every single time you walk into a room for over a year, whether you want to admit it or not."

"Shut up," you breathed, though it came out more plea than command.

"Make me," he murmured, and kissed you again before you could answer, harder this time, more consuming than either kiss before it, one hand fisting gently in your hair while the other braced against the car door beside your head, and you kissed him back with everything you had, every ounce of fury and longing and exhaustion pouring into it at once, the cold metal of the car at your back the only thing keeping either of you grounded at all.

When he finally pulled back, just far enough to look at you properly, his hand stayed tangled in your hair, something dark and possessive burning behind his eyes.

"You can hate me all you want," he said, voice low and rough, his thumb tracing slow along your cheekbone. "You can dance with every guy at this party, kiss whoever you want, tell me it's over as many times as you need to. Doesn't change the fact that you're mine. You've always been mine. Some things don't just stop being true because you're angry."

"That's not—" Your breath caught, something hot and indignant flaring even through the haze of everything else. "You don't get to say that. You don't get to decide that."

"I'm not deciding anything." His voice stayed low, certain, almost cold in its confidence. "I'm just saying what's true. You can be furious at me for the rest of your life if you want. we will still know exactly who you belong to, even if you're too stubborn to admit it out loud."

"That's incredibly arrogant."

"Maybe." He didn't sound remotely apologetic about it, leaning back in, mouth ghosting just above yours again. "Doesn't make it wrong, though."

You wanted to argue. Some old, defiant part of you wanted to push him off entirely, to tell him exactly how presumptuous and infuriating that whole declaration actually was and instead you found yourself gripping his shoulders tighter, pulling him back down before the protest had fully formed, some reckless, aching part of you unwilling, in this exact moment, to prove him wrong.

Steve reached behind you without breaking the kiss, fumbling for the door handle until it gave way, and eased you both backward into the dark, cramped space of the back seat, the door falling shut behind you and muffling the party's distant noise almost entirely. He settled over you between your legs carefully despite the urgency of everything else, one arm braced against the seat to keep his weight from crowding you too much, and for a moment you simply lay there tangled together in the dark, breathing hard, the windows already beginning to fog faintly at the edges.

"I hate you so much," he murmured against your jaw, trailing slow, unhurried kisses down the line of your throat, each word punctuated by the soft, deliberate press of his mouth against your skin. "I hate how much I still think about you. I hate that I can't go one single day without wondering what you're doing, who you're with, whether you're thinking about me at all."

"Steve." Your voice came out breathless, one hand sliding into his hair, the other gripping the back of his shirt like an anchor.

"I hate you," he said again, quieter now, more raw, lips still moving slow and deliberate against the curve of your neck. "I hate how easy it still is. I hate that no matter how badly we wreck each other, I can't make myself actually stop."

You didn't answer, couldn't answer, some overwhelming tangle of everything the whole night had cost you finally dissolving into something that had nothing to do with words at all, and the two of you stayed there a long while, tangled together in the dark, mouths fighting for dominance,fogged-up quiet of the back seat, the party and Carrie and Carter and the entire impossible mess of the evening fading, for a little while, into something that felt, for once, very far away.

Time blurred, the kisses growing slower and deeper, your hands fisting tighter into his shirt, some desperate, reckless part of you chasing the feeling of him, of finally being close to him again, further than either of you had let yourselves go in over a year.

"Please," you breathed against his mouth, voice wrecked, barely recognizable even to your own ears, some last, fragile scrap of pride dissolving completely. "Steve, please, I need—"

He went still for a moment, breath ragged against your skin, and then, instead of pulling away, he dipped his head lower, trailing slow, deliberate kisses down the side of your neck, his voice low and rough against your ear.

"Maybe this is how we finally get it out of our systems," he murmured, lips grazing your collarbone, one hand sliding warm along your side. "All of it. The fighting. The anger. Maybe this is the only language we actually know how to speak fluently anymore."

"Steve—"

"I'm serious." His mouth found the sensitive spot just below your ear, and you felt your whole body arch instinctively toward him, any protest dissolving instantly into something else entirely. "We've spent months screaming at each other, hurting each other, and none of it's fixed a single thing. Maybe this is different. Maybe this is the only honest thing either of us has managed to do in months."

You didn't have an answer for that, some reckless, aching part of you unwilling to argue with the logic of it even as some smaller, quieter voice in the back of your mind wondered whether it was actually logic at all, or just two people desperate enough to call anything honest if it meant not having to stop.

"Okay," you whispered finally, voice shaking, fingers tightening in his hair. "Okay."

"Take it out on me," he murmured against your skin, voice rough, almost daring. "All of it. Whatever anger you've been carrying around for months. I can take it."

Something in you snapped loose at that, some final, reckless thread of restraint giving way completely, and you pulled him back up to your mouth hard, kissing him rough and consuming, fingers fisting tight in his hair, dragging him closer with a force that startled a low, ragged sound out of him against your lips.

"Just like that," he breathed, voice wrecked, tilting his head slightly into the pull of your hand, clearly not minding the sting of it at all. "God, just like that."

You didn't ease up. Every ounce of fury and hurt and longing you'd been carrying since the note, since the driveway, since watching Carrie's hand on his chest not thirty minutes earlier, poured into the kiss instead of words, and he met every ounce of it with equal intensity, his own hands gripping tight at your waist, pulling you flush against him like there wasn't a single inch of space either of you could stand to leave between your bodies.

The two of you stayed there a long while, tangled together in the dark, fogged-up quiet of the back seat, the party and Carrie and Carter and the entire impossible mess of the evening fading, for a little while, into something that felt, for once, very far away — anger and want and exhaustion all blurring together into the same, single, undeniable current pulling you both under.

-

LMK what ya think!

TL!

property line

wc: 3.1k

MDNI NSWF

warnings: whew. gator munch tillman. foot fetish tillman. gator refers to her as a slut. tit worship. stripping. no touch play. outside. hot sexy sweaty sticky.

A day without Gator Tillman.

One where you weren’t pissed at him or one where he wasn’t away… in fact - he was less than 10 minutes from you. You knew it and you swear you could even feel it. As if your heart could connect to the bluetooth of his own, in range and playing a song only the two of you could hear. 

And you could still feel his hands on you. His lips traveling down your neck. Your fingertips graze over the slight pink skin that he gave you last night.

Said it was just another early birthday present…

Maybe that was because the fucked up week was closing, and as reluctant as your are about your birthday, you were kinda excited for tomorrow. Victoria was here, and you had a boyfriend - not just any fucking guy either… the guy. Your guy. Your Gator.

The summer sun beat down on the two of you, tanning with no shade in the dryness of North Dakota? It was nearly as good as…

“Im telling you, we need a beach trip!”, Victoria yelled over the Nelly Furtado that enhanced the tanning experience.

You squint over to your best friend, both of you bare naked because who the actual fuck cares? You’re in the middle of nowhere and its nothing you hadn’t seen before. 

“You know that I am trying to get clients back right?”

“Yes? What does that have to do with anything?”, Victoria scoffed, upset that you’re already dismissing her idea.

A smile squirmed its way out, “It means that I actually need to be here in order to fill my books…”

“I thought you filled them already?”

“Yeah… with men. And men don’t make appointments and the most I can get out of a cut here is like $35… maybe $40.”

“But they tip good, huh?”

You smirked, “Yeah… ‘specially when I get my acrylics into their hair for the scalp massage.”

“I'm surprised Gator lets you do that.”

“Gator doesn’t fucking let me do anything… this is my business-”

“Well he got you all the male clients…”

“Nope… he got me a couple. Charlie got me the rest.”

“And Charlie issssss?”

“Sid’s boyfriend- or… I don’t know if they’re official, but - her man.”

“Oh, okay… and the one you’re setting me up with is?”

“Wade”

“Okay okay… and I'm meeting him tonight?”

“I mean - maybe? I don’t know, I guess I could get Gator to send him to Ralphs tonight?”

You grabbed the strawberry lemonade between the two of you, taking a big gulp - ice long melted inside the plastic.

Victoria smiled, an evil plan formed in her green eyes, “I like that idea. Don’t plan on me coming home tonight because I need dick.”

The lemonade shot out of your nose and mouth as you laughed, “OH- MY GOD”

Victoria howled out a rumbling laugh, her plan worked. Too fucking easy. Bringing her sunglasses back down over her eyes, she mumbles “You good, babe?”

Sitting up, the lemonade ran down your body and dripped from your chin, “No! Thanks to you! This shit burnt my fucking nose-”. You pull the towel from behind your back and go to drape it across your body to clean the mess, you were laughing but already thinking about the sticky mess you were about to be.

“Girl-”

“What?”

“Send him a pic.”

You looked down at your sweaty, bronzing, lemonade dripping tits that glittered in the sunlight due to the tanning mist you used. Now, you knew you weren’t horrible to look at, but you were still learning exactly how to see yourself in Gator’s eyes. Right now? You see what he sees in you. And Victoria was right - this might just kill him.

“Wait - turn around… don’t look at me-”

“I have been laying next to you naked for thirty minutes and now you’re shy? I- I cant. Im going inside.”

“Wait! Really, V?”

“Girl, I am going to burn - I am too fair for this shit, but you go right ahead miss never fucking burns”, she shot out her tongue in defiance towards you, easing you.

“Your ass is hot!”, you whistle back to her. 

Victoria throws up her middle finger at you swaying her hips dramatically for emphasis, which caused you to laugh even more… but then you were alone again.

And then it came on.

Milkshake.

Kelis rang through the yard, and you couldn’t help but glance down - aroused by yourself.

And then you thought of him. 

You didn’t mean for your fingers to pass overtop of your hardened nipple. You didn’t mean to lick the tip of your finger that had the remnants of strawberry lemonade on it. And you definitely didn’t mean to begin pulsing around nothing. God… you needed something.

And then you don’t even allow yourself to overthink as you snatch your phone from underneath the lounger, keeping it shaded from the sun. You don’t think as you open up the camera, nor when you angle it down to your dripping tits, nor when you stick your tongue out wide and flat, nor when you press send.

The response? Well it was not surprising when an incoming FaceTime call rang through not even 30 seconds later - which you just as swiftly declined.

Wrong choice, sweetheart.

A few more minutes of the beating sun on your skin and your playlist ‘Cunt Cult Classics’ ringing through the backyard, and then you heard it. Tangled in with ‘Hot in Herre’, you heard the faint sound of an engine growling… coming from? The field behind your yard?

Oh. Oh no.

The field that makes up the country road perimeter of The Tillman Ranch.

Instinctively, you swipe the old ratty Harley tee-shirt of Gators that you were using as a hair shade off of your seat. It slips with a bit of struggle over your head and onto your sticky skin, falling over the curves of your hips.

The sound began ripping louder than the music.

Didn’t take long to see the source as Gator Tillman revs the engine, jolting the dirt bike into sight. Fuck. He was on the complete other side of the stretched out 2 acres yet you could see everything you needed to see - sweaty, shirtless, and clearly hot and bothered. 

He climbed off the bike, carelessly letting it fall to the ground - ripping off the helmet, his eyes fall directly on you. Stone cold staring.

You lift your back off the lounger and watch as he begins taking heavy steps in your direction - falling just short of the well maintained grass that he cut just last week. Right at the property line.

“What are you doing?”, you yell out to him from the grassy distance between you.

“You think you’re real funny, don’t ya?”

Your lips flick up in a curve, time to play, “I don’t know what you mean?”

“I was out shooting with some of the deputies. And you send me that.”

You slowly stand to your feet, grab your glass of strawberry lemonade and begin walking across the grass, the blades glide through your toes in your barefoot state. His shirt tickles your thighs. He hasn’t come into your yard.

“Why are you standing back there?”, nodding to the fact that he is standing at the property line.

“Its a ‘no Gator’ day.”, he hasn’t blinked.

“Exactly… boundaries are important, Gator bug.”

“Im respecting your boundary. Im on my property.” He tips his head down to a small row of rocks that create a boundary line, “Put these here years ago.”

“The rocks?”, you questioned with amused curiosity.

“Mhm. Dad told me I had to respect Miss Rosie’s yard.” He mumbled low.

You didn’t realize he knew your landlord like that, “You know her?”

“Shit… she’s known me since I was born. But were not talking about that.” Gator dismissed.

“Then what are we talking about?” You asked teasingly, knowing what is coming.

He pulls out his phone from his pocket, and swipes open to the picture.

“We, baby, are talking about this.”

You glanced down at the phone and quickly looked away, embarrassed but still so very needy. He took a step closer to the rock line.

“No, no. You’re not gonna get all shy now, you started this.”

He towered over you, you glanced up at him through your lashes. You ignored the fire burning inside of you, you were outside - Victoria could walk out any minute. And yet?

You sat down the lemonade.

Your hands slipped over the top of your hips, playing with the hem of the torn up t-shirt. His. Nails grazing your skin, digging in slightly. You took a step back - he leaned in, but stayed on his side. Gators breath began to grow deeper, heavier. His chest heaved, lungs filling itself with whatever intoxicating spell you placed on him.

Slowly, you lifted the shirt up and off your body - throwing it, he caught it without looking.

Your bare frame stood there, untouchable - a tease, always a fucking tease for a girl who’d only had sex twice.

“Holy fuck, baby -”, his eyes roamed your body, desperate for relief, “Fucking goddess.”

“You like?”

“Love. I fucking love. Adore. Worship.”

His head shook slowly, “Can’t believe my perfect girl has just been out here fucking naked, like a fucking slut. You know anyone could’ve seen you?” You could visibly see him struggling not to touch you. There weren’t many things Gator truly loved, but two of the things he did - he couldn’t have right now. You and control.

“What was it, hm? Fucking sweating out here in the heat? Or did ya have to hose yourself down?”

“Don't ya wish you could find out?” You reach down to grab the cup again, taking a messy swig - letting it dribble down in the same pattern as before. His eyes watched the liquid run, run, run right to your peaks and drop down to the tops of your toes.

Gators knees gave out entirely, “Oh fuck.”

His hands rested on your side of the yard. That simply wouldn’t do.

Your foot tucked under his chin, tilting his face up to look at you, “You passed the rocks.”

Before you could react, his hand clasped your ankle. His tongue instantly running across your toes, licking up the drops of strawberry lemonade. 

“Holy shit, Gate!”

“Your mamaws recipe. My favorite.”

He continued to lick the sticky substance from your toes, giving open mouthed kisses over the tips - finally giving in to his desire, he opened his mouth.

You didn’t even know how to respond, but you couldn’t even if you wanted to - Gator Tillman under your control? On his knees for you? Fucking worshipping you at your feet? On your feet?

The softness of his tongue ran on the underside of your big toe before he closed his mouth down around it, hallowing out his cheeks. The sight nearly undid you right there and then. 

“Fuck, Gator! What- Gator I am barefoot!”

“Yeah, for fucking once-”, he muffled out, too preoccupied, “always in those fucking heels, I fucking swear, woman. The things these feet do to me - finally gonna show you exactly what you put me through”

His teeth sunk down into the arch of your foot, making you gasp sharply and release a low moan, “Holy fuck - Baby! What the fuck are you doing to me… holy shit-”

“Feels good, Mama?”

“Like sin.”

His tongue ran across the length of your sole, teeth grazing at your little toes, eyes locked on how your body is reacting. He would have to be blind to miss the way your pussy was on full display with your foot propped in his hand. And Gator was mesmerized, your cunt shining from your slick. He hadn’t had you in a week, and after all the fighting, the sleepless nights, and the entirety of yesterday - God, he needed you in every single fucking way.

His mouth filled itself with your freshly pedicured toes, his hand finding your other - not wanting it to feel left out.

Your thighs began to tremble. You couldn’t tell if it was from standing on one foot for this long or if it was from the outright worship you were receiving. All you knew is that Gator knew. He shifted, sitting on his heels now - his large calloused hands grab at your ass, literally sweeping you off your feet and setting you down onto the grass bare naked.

He tapped your ankle and gave a flicking motion, commanding you to open your thighs for him. He needed an unobstructed view of his reward for being such a good obedient boy.

“You know I've stayed on my side…”

“What about it?”

“I’ve been good.”

“You still came over, when I explicitly told you I needed a day-”

“And yet, you were the one who walked up to me.”

He cocked his eyebrow up to you, cocky grin growing - he knew. He knew the truth. The truth was you needed him just as much as he needed you.

Slowly, you separated your legs - exposing yourself entirely to him. He squinted, eyes glued to your core.

“Holy shit, princess - you’re right, I am a fucking dog. Pickin’ up your scent from here.”

He lowered himself down, low to the earth and crawled on his knees and forearms across the rocks that marked your property line. The rocks scratched through his happy trail and brushed against his hard denim covered cock, an aggressive relief.

He was about to lose his mind.

Gator planted his elbows in between your thighs, locking them opened. 

You whined out as he hovered over your dripping cunt, “Baby, please-”

“Please what?”

“Please - please me”

His eyes shifted from your pussy to your eyes, smirk dropping, “Say my name when you beg like that. Let me hear exactly who you’re asking for.”

Your breath hitches, chest heaving up and down. 

“Gator, please fuck me-”, you body so pent up and needy, back arched and bottom lip trembling.

“No.”

Your eyes shot open to argue, but his mouth was on your cunt - causing the words to die on your tongue and replace it with a string of high pitch moans that filled the yard. Music to his ears. He let out a low vibrating groan against your core in response to your responsiveness. God, you wrecked him. He knew it and he was proud walking to the slaughter. 

“But I said please!”

He pulled himself up to your face, placing an elbow by your face, “And you put me through hell for a whole fucking week and I treat you like a motherfuckin’ queen despite it all, so I will decide when you’ve had enough. For now, you’re going to learn patience.”

Before you could protest, he slid his hand down right on top of your pussy - which unfortunately for you, made your hips buck up into him for more friction. His fingers pulled back and smacked your cunt in punishment, pulling a scream out of your lungs.

“What did I just say? Learn. Patience. I have been so fucking patient for you, for years, in fact. And now… its your turn.”

His face returned back to your cunt, sucking you in completely with hallowed cheeks, tongue flicking up to your clit and lapping at it. Your back arched up and your hands flew to his hair, which thankfully was loose and windblown. Your nails scratched at his scalp, tugging at the root - causing a growl to rumble out of his chest and vibrate against your skin. The feeling was over whelming. Your thighs clenched aground his head, and his arms wrapped underneath your thighs and he grasped ahold of each of his own forearms, locking you in place. One hand remained in his hair as the other traveled over all his exposed skin, biceps, forearms, back back back back fuck. Holy shit, his back. You could see the dips right above his waistband. You could see his shoulder blades, crafted by God.

You could feel the burn inside of you, he knew it too.

Hips bucking into his mouth, back not even touching the grass anymore - speaking of grass, you had ripped out all the blades within reach, just trying to fight the stimulation. Whines rolled out of your mouth, curses, cries, and mostly his name. 

“Gator! Baby! Fuck - baby, I’m gonna cum!”

He released you, mouth off your soaked core. He pulled himself back up, taking both of your tits in just one hand, squeezing them at the base causing them to swell in his face. 

“Time to taste what I came for-”, he reached next to you, you were so wrecked from your assassinated orgasm that you didn’t even notice him grabbing the strawberry lemonade.

The cold liquid poured out onto your tits, spilling all over your body - and his mouth reconnected. His lips secured themself around one of your nipples, moaning onto your skin as he tasted the tangy lemonade mixed with your sweaty skin. Absolute perfection.

Chilled from the lemonade, you were at the brink once again - so close to your orgasm. You couldn’t help it as your hand shifted down, circling overtop of your clit as Gator hooked your other nipple in his teeth, pulling slightly.

You weren’t being very patient, were you?

It came fast and hard. You pulled back your hand in hopes you weren’t caught bringing yourself to the selfish finish you craved, as your body shook in release. A string of whimpers chased from your tongue as Gator captured your mouth with his own, holding your face in place to lock the kiss. 

As soon as you were able to move, you shoved him up and back - ready to finally get the full relief you needed, and you knew he did too by the look of his pants.

But he swiftly stood, and stepped back over the rocks, “Enjoy your ‘no-gator’ day baby.” And with that, he turned and picked up his dirt bike. He winced as he climbed onto the bike, uncomfortable with his painfully hard cock remaining untouched. He watched you as he lowered the helmet on his head. You sat there in shock… awe, pain, disparity. The bike roared to life and he ripped through the dirt, and suddenly - out of sight.

Between the devilish orgasm and the strawberry lemonade poured all over your body, you really were a sticky mess.

____

a/n 💌 THIS WAS SO YUMMY TO WRITE

taglist:

@lcversvoid @kissalready @insomniacpen @nosugarallspice @frankenkyle19 @maevebloom @scaramou @rhaenyrasflame @djosfool @madisonbeersangel @s111ut @catwmah @neeverrgettinglaid @djob00bies @stoneyggirl2 @sadieshairbrush @soggycerealtbh @djopug007 @mojosodoppe @ch3rryshark @joekeerylice @buckysgrace @purplequeen64-stuff @cecesblogg @itsdjoverr @fantasyreader130 @exooojongdaeee @louisbelongstome28 @strangegirl26sff @bearwithegg @babygirldoll @jas-mines-things @leclercdream @torntaltos @pinkiepieshepardspie @djobug @eller41 @irllyluvcheezits @madaboutjoe @ilovecowboysyouknowthat @fapqueen @rubywillkins @delphinemix @michaelssassygirrrl @kristywidget97 @luminousdoomsellsword @rainsmilesstuff

Joe Keery x fem!reader. word count: 2k.

summary. You and Joe broke up a year ago. Now both of you are invited to James Corden’s show: Spill Your Guts, where you and Joe find out about some things you didn’t tell each other before.

warnings & tags. You and Joe are exes! inspired in Harry Styles and Kendall Jenner’s video. pet names. mention of reader with a gap tooth smile. fluff. english isn’t my first language.

a/n. hiii! i MIGHT make a part 2 of this, buuut im not so sure. however hope you love it and if feel like making a request you’re totally invited to!! also credits to the owners of the dividers!!

masterlist

Life had a way of twisting unexpectedly, surprising you more with each passing day. Now more than ever.

A long, wide table stretched before you, lined with dishes that faced the round table where you sat. You were on one side, wearing a confident smile. One that the man across from you knew better than anyone. It was a fake smile that tried to look secure.

You and Joe had started your relationship while filming the third season of Stranger Things. From that moment on, you became inseparable. Wherever you were, Joe was never far behind. While he performed onstage, singing his heart out, you were always in the audience with a genuine smile, watching him.

Your relationship became something people envied. Many fans —or even the opposite— loved seeing you together. The affection and love you shared were so strong that it showed in every interview and every photo.

It stayed that way for years. Until, at some point, the distance between you became impossible to ignore. It became impossible to see each other, or even find a few hours to talk.

The decision had been made. As painful as it was to admit, as much as tears fell from your eyes and sobs escaped your lips, the relationship couldn’t continue.

Still, you both agreed that breaking up didn’t mean disappearing from each other’s lives. And that’s how you ended up on The Late Late Show with James Corden, ready to ask each other uncomfortable questions or eat disgusting food to avoid answering.

“Long time no see,” Joe murmured to you with a crooked smile.

No one really knew why you had broken up. Neither of you said anything once the relationship ended, so countless unconfirmed theories spread across the internet.

“Let’s get this done, Joe,” you said softly, shaking your head at his words. “I can’t believe I actually agreed to this.”

Joe smiled at the audience, then back at you. “Don’t you think it would’ve been better to just go to a normal restaurant and talk?” he joked, resting his elbow on the table and covering his mouth with his hand.

The dishes on the table looked worse one after another. Just the smell reaching your nose was enough to make you grimace.

“Let’s take a look at the food we have on the table,” Joe said again, laughing softly at your expression. “First, we have Bug Trifle.” He looked at the audience, who reacted with disgust.

“Yeah. Ew,” you repeated, scrunching your nose.

Together, you and Joe began naming each dish resting on the table. The audience, meanwhile, noticed the tension-filled glances between you.

“Well, ladies first, don’t you think?” Joe tilted his head, smiling mischievously, though in truth, there was nothing but warmth behind it.

“Always so polite,” you raised your eyebrows, waiting for him to continue.

Joe began spinning the table, searching for the perfect dish for you. “I’ll take a card with one of the questions. The producers didn’t tell us what they’d be, so I take no responsibility for anything,” he said, directing the last part to the audience. “Oh, I have the perfect one. I’ll give you the 1000 year old eggnog.”

Your eyes widened in horror at the dish he’d chosen.

“Oh, no,” you whispered, tilting your head.

“I’m actually so sorry for this.” He let out a nasal laugh, his smile dropping into a guilty grimace.

You waited as Joe grabbed a card. The moment he opened it, he laughed. A laugh you knew perfectly well. It meant he found something interesting, something he knew would draw attention.

“Which cast member have you connected with the most, and which the least?” Joe read the card, then looked at you, hiding half his face behind the paper.

“Oh my god. What?” You lifted your head in surprise. There was no way you could answer that without ending up in trouble. “I—” You stopped, unsure what to do.

“Oh, come on. I think I could answer that question with all the information I have,” he teased, biting the inside of his cheek.

Of course he could. Joe knew every detail about you, just like you knew every detail about him. He knew exactly what answer was running through your mind.

“You know I can’t answer this even if I knew what to say,” you raised your eyebrows, frowning. You glanced at the audience, who were shouting that you should drink. “You guys are evil.”

Without thinking too much, you grabbed the glass filled with a thick, viscous liquid and took a sip of the green contents.

“Oh god. She did it!” Joe raised both arms as the audience erupted in cheers.

“Don’t smile too much. It’s your turn,” you said, watching his smirk grow even wider.

“All yours,” he gestured toward the table, though deep down, you suspected his words carried another meaning.

“I’m all yours, baby,” he had once said, caressing your cheek, his face inches from yours. “I’ll forever be, love.”

You remembered those words, his gaze locked on yours. Your skin prickled at the memory, and you forced yourself to ignore it as you spun the table, searching for the right dish.

“Okay, great. My turn. I’ll do the Cod Sperm,” you said, wrinkling your lips at the plate. You grabbed a card and laughed at the question. “Do you think Steve should’ve ended up with Natalia’s character or mine?”

“Oh, easy. I think it was perfect that he ended up with you. I mean, come on. They were just perfect for each other. I don’t think anyone could’ve been a better option,” he said, extending his hands to emphasize his point.

When he finished, he looked at you again with a soft smile. Your palms grew sweaty around the card. Those were the same words he’d told you while filming the final season of Stranger Things. Except back then, he’d added, “They’re perfect for each other… just like we are, baby.”

“Yeah…” you managed, smiling softly before laughing at the audience’s reaction.

They loved you both, and it was obvious they missed your relationship. Though not as much as you missed it yourselves, and perhaps that was what hurt the most.

“Alright. It’s my turn now,” Joe said, looking at the table like a mischievous child. “I’ll give you the Salmon Smoothie.”

“Oh god. I hate salmon,” you bit your lip, staring at the glass.

“Shit, that’s true. I totally forgot.” He began spinning the table again, not waiting for your input.

His eyes darted between dishes, searching for a better option. You smiled and placed your hands on the table’s edge to stop it. “It’s fine, Joe. I actually think that’s the best option out of all of this.”

He laughed, turning his gaze back to you. “You sure?” he asked, watching you with a hint of concern. When you nodded casually, he smiled again. “Okay, let’s do it.”

Joe grabbed another card. As soon as he read it, his eyebrows lifted with interest. A teasing smile appeared on his face as he held the card to his chest. “Who has been the best kisser out of all the projects you’ve worked on?” he asked, raising a brow.

The audience gasped with excitement, but your eyes stayed locked on his. You shook your head slightly, though a laugh escaped your lips.

He knew the answer. Of course he knew.

“I don’t think I want to try the Salmon Smoothie, so… fine, I’ll answer,” you said, earning applause from the audience. “It’s probably you, Joe Keery…” You crossed your arms and shrugged, trying to downplay it. But Joe saw right through you. Your lip bite, your fidgeting fingers, all the little habits you had when you were nervous.

“I’m so honored, honey. Thank you.” The nickname slipped out before he could stop it.

You tilted your head at his response but pretended not to notice. You spun the table again, searching for your next choice.

“This one looks so yummy,” you said playfully, sliding the dish in front of him. “The Bug Trifle.”

His expression twisted in disgust as he covered his nose. “I’m going to get revenge, I promise,” he warned, eyes fixed on the plate.

“It’s not that bad. You could just answer the question…” You grabbed the card, and your eyes widened. You covered your mouth to hide your laughter, failing miserably. “I really want to know the answer.”

“Oh god.”

“Which of your songs is completely about me?”

Joe opened his mouth, then closed it again, processing your words. He licked his lips, smiling as the audience reacted.

“You really wanna know, huh?” He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table and clasping his hands under his chin. He glanced at the plate, then back at you.

“I didn’t make the questions! This is what the people want to know,” you said, shrinking into your shoulders.

“Yeah!” “Totally!” the audience shouted.

When the room finally quieted, Joe sighed. “I actually don’t think this is that hard to guess.” He bit his lip, looking at you calmly. “It’s Gap Tooth Smile, kids.” He turned to the audience with a smile.

Seconds later, a portion of the song played through the speakers.

“I know that’s my future lookin’ right back at me

I see right through your skin

Yes, I know who you are

Frame up on my baby, she’s my superstar

Big heart, all smile

Come on pretty baby, let’s last a while”

You knew the song had come out a few months before your breakup. Joe had never directly told you it was about you, but you always danced to it together in the kitchen while cooking dinner, or in the car on the way to set. Deep down, you knew.

Joe smiled as he listened. “Yeah… that one.”

The audience applauded, cheered, and whistled. But Joe only smiled at you, squinting slightly, silently asking if you’d expected him to answer. You shrugged with a smile that matched his.

“Okay, let’s get this done. I’m gonna give you the Bull Penis, looks delicious,” he joked, sliding the dish toward you. Then he grabbed a card. “Who is the most surprising celeb to ever slide into your DMs?”

The audience reacted loudly. Joe glanced at them, then at you, waiting. He thought he knew the answer —you’d talked about it before— but maybe something new had happened in the past few months.

You covered your mouth, reacting to the crowd. “I have my answer, but I don’t think I should say it,” you admitted, feeling your cheeks burn.

“It’s okay, you don’t have to answer,” he said, waving it off. Then he pointed at the dish. “But you can’t run from that.”

You pinched your nose as the smell hit you, then quickly took a bite to get it over with.

“There you go!” Joe encouraged, clapping as the audience joined in.

You drank water, then looked back at him. You couldn’t help smiling at his reaction. Your heart raced every time he looked at you with that familiar smile.

Reluctantly, you tore your gaze away and returned to the table. “I think the Giant Water Scorpion is a good option,” you said, spinning the table.

“Looks delicious,” Joe replied sarcastically, raising his eyebrows.

“Oh, Joe…” you said with feeling as you read the question. You wondered why these questions had to be so intense, but you continued anyway. “Have you written any songs about me since we broke up?”

Joe stared at you without blinking as the room fell silent. Then, without warning, he grabbed the dish you’d chosen for him and took a bite.

You gasped in surprise, then burst into laughter at his reaction. “He did it!” you told the audience, laughing.

Both of you stood from your seats, moving to stand side by side as you waved at the crowd. Joe said a few final words, and you followed.

Once the farewell ended, you began walking toward the exit. You could feel Joe close behind you, his footsteps perfectly audible until you also felt his breath against your neck and ear.

“We should talk.”

Paring: Steve Harrington x AFAB reader

Word count: 6k+

CW/tags: best friends to lovers, hurt/comfort, angst, post s4, mentions of wounds/blood/etc., fluff, PiV unprotected sex, oral sex (m receiving), somno if you squint (tbh not really but just to be safe gonna add that one), light dirty talk. title is from liar - paramore. MDNI

a/n: request from this post (that was supposed to be a blurb and I am so sorry): 🩹  tending to each other's wounds, 🍯  friends to lovers, 🔥  slow burn, 🛏 only one bed. also combining this with a request I got back after s4 part 2 dropped (to that anon, I am REALLY sorry lmao) for post s4 comfort sex w/ Steve. anyway, hope y’all enjoy <3 (divider from @/strangergraphics)

“Do you get a new freckle every day?”

Steve’s brows crinkle together while he laughs wearily. “Huh?”

You’re cleaning the wound around his neck and can’t help noticing just how many freckles and moles he has across his body. Or, from what you can see, at least. He has his shirt off while you’re tending to his injuries from the Upside Down and Vecna’s destruction across Hawkins.

pairing: steve harrington x reader (w.c. 6.3k) summary: after months of chemistry with steve, the whole group suspects there's more between you two. specially nancy, who keeps pushing the truth. you deny it, claming you're just close. until she walks in and catches you together doing more than ''just friends'' things. warnings: porn with plot, +18 (minors do not interact), explicit nsfw, big dick steve, praise kink, fingering, unprotected sex, almost creampie, dirty talk, getting caught, secret situationship, mutual masturbation, p in v, riding, oral sex (f & m receiving), dryhumping, jealousy behavior. author's note: hii petition requested here :3 hope u like it n please be patient about the others one pls! love yall